Saturday Thoughts

Photo Source

Presently, there are a number of topics I'd like to blog about: 

The fact that, with the help of Vodafone and Orange/France Telecom, the (now resigned) Egyptian government shut down the country's Internet and cut the phone lines. [Access Now has a petition for you to sign!]

The ongoing debate amongst German bloggers whether it is OK to accept money for links from SEO companies - by guaranteeing discretion to their contractors and without labelling those links as sponsored. [Please find a long and informative German article on the subject here.]

Proxy servers and proxy clouds. I have only a very vague understanding of how they work, which is pretty much based on a Wikipedia article [in German or English] on the topic and the image shown above. (Of all people, by the way, it was my mother who inquired with me about this!)

A photo series by photographer Gabriela Herman that portrays bloggers from New York City - after all both female and male - in settings that are, well, unrealistic to say the least. While Gabriela's photos might be atmospheric, I can hardly imagine people blogging standing up in front of their open fridges or naked on the sofa. It bothers me, really, that series like these still portray bloggers as people who are, in spite of their respective expertise and voluntary, unpaid night-shifts, nothing more than convenient hobbyists.

BUT I have other things on my list for this afternoon and will have to see how I get ahead with them before immersing in any of the above mentioned topics. Hope my little summary was better than nothing, though.