In other news, I’ve been IMing stangers with webcams. I like IMing strangers. It gives me a chance to practice my Esperanto. But the webcam thing, I do not get. First, let’s talk angles and lighting. If the webcam is top of the monitor, you are facing it. This is a good angle. But nobody wants their light source coming from there, as it would cause glare and make it hard to read the screen. So the picture is backlit and weird looking. Or you can put the webcam on the side, but then the angle is odd as far as the Sci-fi idea of visual communication goes. Also, looking at people typing on their computer is not the most exciting image in the world. Unless they were naked or something. But there seems to be a sort of greenish pall that would hinder that. And most people I encounter, online or off, I don’t want to see naked. Maybe if I kept being IMed by 18-34 year old lesbians, but so far I think it’s all guys. There is something strangely fascinating about it though. It’s voyeristic, sort of, especially since I don’t have a webcam myself. It’s like watching somebody broadcasting live from their living room. People jokes this is what the TV show Big Brother was all about. People were getting so voyeristic they just wanted to watch each other living life on TV. At least with a webcam, there’s some back and forth chatting.