[DM-MUG] Fwd: [MacLaw] Mark Morford's review of iSight

[Victoria L. Herring]

here is a high energy review....
>
>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2005/10/07/notes100705.DTL&type=printable
>
>
>The Best Gizmo You Don't Have
>   See parents. Check on pets. Stare into a lover's eyes. Or up her
>dress. Buy one now
>
>   - By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
>   Friday, October 7, 2005
>
>
>This much we know: There are only a finite number of breaths left in
>your life. There are only a finite number of times you will have sex
>in an elevator and a finite number of times you will drink $200
>bottles of wine and a finite number of times you will scream your
>orgasmic joys and endure horrible Texas presidents and eat raw
>oysters and buy $250 designer jeans and suck down too much Halloween
>candy and howl at the moon. And so on.
>
>   And there are, if you've been around more than a few decades and
>your parents are still living and if they happen to live in an
>entirely different city, there are only a finite number of times you
>will get to see your parents before they depart this earthly plane
>for the next one. It's true.
>
>   I know, it's a cheerless and unpleasant truism most of us do not --
>unless your parents are nightmare demon spawn and you won't be all
>that despondent when they're no longer around to give you reason to
>go to therapy -- want to think much about it. But it's true. It's the
>way it is. Death races toward us like a black Aston Martin Vanquish,
>smooth and devious and inevitable.
>
>   But there are, of course, ways to adapt. To mollify. There are now,
>thanks to modern technology, methods by which we can make the notion
>that your older family members will soon be joining the feathered
>choir just a little bit easier to swallow. Check it:
>
>   I have recently purchased my parents a gift. It is the best gift I
>have ever given them, ever, and that includes the egg cooker and the
>"Avengers" DVD collection and the scale-model sailboat. After
>converting my entire family over to Apple gear years ago, and since I
>myself use Apple's instant messenger client, iChat, well, one day it
>finally hit me like a long overdue brick to the skull of obviousness.
>Oh my God. They need an iSight, Apple's insanely simple, beautifully
>designed, plug-and-play Web camera. I'll get one too, I thought, and
>we'll be able to see each other whenever we want and it will be
>heartwarming and touching and fun, and man oh man what a good and
>thoughtful kid I am.
>
>   Oh my God, how right I was. What a difference this thing makes. The
>parents are thrilled. Amazed. I couldn't have bought them a better
>gift had it been front-row tickets to see Neil Diamond on the moon.
>They are now within visual range, whenever they feel like it and
>whenever I feel like it and they are right there, on screen, waving
>hello, making eye contact, laughing and looking cute. Screw the
>telephone. This is how it should be.
>
>   I can show them my girlfriend's parrot. They can joke about how I
>haven't shaved in a week. I can aim the camera through my window and
>show them my new car and then turn the camera just to the right and
>show them the thick tongue of San Francisco fog rolling in from the
>ocean. I can see my sisters when they visit the folks (they all live
>in Seattle). They can introduce me to casual dinner-party guests. I
>can see my mom's new haircut. Etc.
>
>   I can, in short, defy time, flout the cold distance between us. And
>no, they don't nag me to log on all the time. But I'm more than happy
>to do it, whenever they want. What price family? What price way-cool
>gizmo to encourage same? Technology's progress may be eating us
>alive, but at least some of it seems to do the exact opposite.
>
>   I do not know why this is not touted more highly. I do not know why
>the world is not screaming for these gorgeous little appliances as
>the savior of a million relationships and a godsend for phone sex and
>a blessing on all families worldwide, not to mention small-business
>owners who can hold meetings with clients calling from anywhere in
>the nation. Do millions of people use these things already and I just
>don't know about it? Maybe. But it sure isn't part of the mainstream
>culture.
>
>   My S.O. and I met this fabulous gay couple in Cabo San Lucas last
>year, two middle-aged men who had adopted a beautiful, happy little
>girl named Maeve. The three of them lived in New York. The
>grandmother lived in Las Vegas. None of them had a ton of money. This
>trip to Cabo was the first time the grandmother had ever met
>three-year-old Maeve in person. But they both had iSight cameras. The
>girl knew her grandmother's voice, her face, her personality. They
>already had a connection. "The best 140 bucks we ever spent," the
>guys told me, talking about how the cameras had changed their lives.
>The grandmother was ecstatic.
>
>   There has not been a ton of fanfare around the iSight. No massive
>product rollout like the iPod or iPod nano or even the Mac Mini.
>Hell, you can't even easily find the iSight on Apple's online store
>(maybe they're redesigning the thing?). I know, it's not racy and
>sexy and culturally hip. It's not a TiVo and it's not a Prius and
>it's not a Blackberry and it's not a RAZR, and it's not any of the
>thousand other gadgets right now despoiling the planet and
>titillating the skulls of techheads on Engadget.com. To which I say:
>Whatever.
>
>   I know, furthermore, that basic video-conferencing gear has been
>around for years. I know cheapy webcams have been churning out grainy
>cheeseball dorm-room soft-core porn since the mid '90s. But that
>jittery, inferior, one-way crap doesn't really count. This is
>something different. This is, of course, the finest and easiest and
>best-designed consumer webcam on the market. You gotta have a fast
>Mac and a fast Net connection and you gotta run iChat or AOL's
>Instant Messenger to use it, but aside from that, it's all
>plug-and-play genius. No manual, no setup, no techie jargon. Plug it
>in straight out of the box and boom, it's on. It's got a built-in
>microphone. Best of all, it's not a long-distance phone call. You
>don't pay a dime for the time you're connected.
>
>   I shall get one for my sisters and my girlfriend and the perfect dog
>I haven't found yet. I shall encourage old friends to connect,
>reacquaint. After all, what price human connection? What price eye
>contact, laughter, checking your mom's haircut? What price flouting
>of death? Right now, only about 140 bucks. Bargain.
>

-- 
Victoria L. Herring, Attorney, Civil Rights, Discrimination & 
Employment Law, <http://www.HerringLaw.com>;  Travel research and 
planning, <http://www.JourneyZing.com>;  Des Moines, Iowa, 
515-255-4475.  Photographs at the Brooks Gallery: 
http://victoriajz.smugmug.com/gallery/760431