Skype

Mr. and Mrs. Buce now have Skype installed on their homebase computers, some 30 feet away from each other, across a patio and visible through glass doors. As a general phone, we're not impressed; we can do better with stuff already at hand. As a "picture phone"--well, we are old and ugly enough that we can live without visuals, even absent the inevitable webcam distortion (I know; we can blame it on the distortion).

But we have discovered one unanticipated advantage: it's an intercom. We're just too far apart for yelling (except when we are really mad). And we never have masterred semaphore. But Skype fills the bill. Now, if I can just be sure to turn off that @#$%! webcam!