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The shiny raven picked through fallen gum-tree branches outside my window, and held them down to break them in two, while I loaded up ZipMessage. The ravens here are typically referred to as 'crows'. Apparently, they are not crows. South Australians are 'crow-eaters', however, in domestic slang, so I beg to differ. In any case, the glossy corvid outside my window walked past several great specimens. It picked over a number of them before finding the (longest) thin branch. Hauling it up to the nearest boulder, it then spread one foot over the wood and proceeded to bash its beak on the wood to break it. That's kind of what real-time video calls are like nowadays. While the software has gotten increasingly sophisticated, and you are spoiled for choice, using it is a little bit like bashing your face on your computer screen: You smile much bigger than usual, to compensate for the presence of...