Back to blogging

Fifteen days without a post is something that my regular readers are not used to. The explanation is simple: One week ski vacation (without the laptop) that ended up with an accident and a knee injury followed by an operation the same day return to Holland in an ambulance flight after 3 days. This unhappy end of the vacation had also a little bright side namely that I was in a place where rescuers, the local hospital and doctors work with a high degree of professionalism when dealing with this kind of injuries since such situations are their daily bread and butter. I have only good words for the rescue team that took me from the mountain and the doctors and personnel of the Bludenz hospital for their help and quality of work.
At home now for at least the next two weeks, a very tight physiotherapy program and a deadline for finishing a paper on 31 of March among the immediate priorities. After spending the first two days of my sickness leave working on the backlog of the week vacation I will try to get back to a more normal rhythm of life where the blog will get again the attention it deserves.

Is there a life without the Web?

This blog is not meant for posting personal stuff but for once I will deviate from this rule in order to apologize for the irregularity of recent postings. The reason is simple; I am on vacation somewhere in South Greece.The place we stay is a beautiful sea-side village: I have no TV in the house (let alone cable TV), only a dial-up line for occasionally checking my email and updating my blog in 40 kbps. This is one of the few places where my notebook does not detect any wireless networks. I get the news talking with people on the beach, listening to the radio or reading the newspaper. Pretty much like years ago when the Internet was not yet part of our everyday life.
Some German tourist I met told me that they found this place after a documentary about this area of Greece on the German TV last winter; unlike Austrian, Italian or German towns and villages who have mostly beautiful web pages for attracting tourists this village (pop 600) does not need a web page to be found by visitors.
Reading the latest statistics bringing my native country as one of the last in Internet usage in the European Union I wonder sometimes if the people in this village miss a lot not having access to the web. I think not. And if we believe the bleak picture painted by Andrew Keen in his book “The Cult of the Amateur, how today’s Internet is killing our culture” these people must be rather happy for missing the whole digital revolution altogether.
My best wishes for nice vacations to all friends, colleagues and readers of the blog