With 2007 coming to an end I thought it would be a good time for a little reflection on the year that saw me spend almost 1/3 of it abroad in foreign lands and when Skype went down RandomWire went up. The year has flown past at incredible speed so goodness knows what 2008 will hold but fingers crossed there will be more adventures abound in my 6th year of blogging (I can’t quite believe its been that long since this all began!).
Here are the top 10 statistically most popular posts of 2007:
I had a stab at redesigning the blog earlier in the year but everything I tried ended up looking worse than what was there before so I’ve abandoned that idea for now. My feeling is that more minimalist is the way to go, all these widgets popping up all over the place are generally annoying fuzz in my opinion. Seeing as an increasing number of people are choosing to consume information through RSS the actual design is, in some respects, becoming less important as most people will never see it anyway. As ever content is king and this is something I hope to focus more on in 2008 (time permitting) with more in-depth posts on various topics interesting to me. Check back Jan 1st for the beginning of this
I love this. Although it’s rather US centric there’s some great info-viz with some fairly thought provoking questions in there. The way in which the world has changed over my short lifetime is staggering already, it’s even more amazing to imagine where it will go and be the ones to take it there…
I arrived back in London on Tuesday evening after spending a very cold, but enjoyable, three days in Amsterdam - the capital of the Netherlands (amongst other things). Highlights included the Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank House & a boat trip on the canals, some tasty pancakes as well as many chilly walks!
Whilst I would have loved to have taken more photos it was simply to cold to hold the camera for long without gloves so I only took a few snaps, highlights below:
I’m back at my parents house now for Christmas which means lots of delicious home cooked food and a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep! Apologies anyone who might try to call me - there is no reception here, drop me an email and I’ll send you the landline number.
I’ve noticed on recent trips outside London that being a “Londoner” tends to make you a bit of a snob towards the rest of the UK. A few weeks ago I visited a mid-sized town approximately 1.5 hours north of London. Upon arrival at the tiny railway station there could be seen a group of around 10 middle-aged men all looking rather dishevelled and bored. OK, I thought, they must be waiting for the next train out of this middle-of-nowhere hole. Two hours later when I returned to take the train back to London I was surprised to see that they were still there - upon closer inspection I noticed they were all carrying small notepads and some had cameras - this could only mean one thing: Trainspotters, otherwise known as Anoraks (persons with unimaginative/dull hobbies). What brings people to spend their free time watching trains and record useless trivia about them I will never know but unfortunately this sort of activity only reinforces the idea that there isn’t much life outside the capital (even though this isn’t really true… with a few exceptions)!
In Japan they have a word for similar sorts of behaviour: Otaku - a term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly in anime and manga, but can also refer to any fan of, or specialisation in any particular theme, topic, or hobby. The author William Gibson defined Otaku as “pathological-techno-fetishist-with-social-deficit” which is an interesting take on the way people collect data as opposed to objects in the information age. There are of course different extremes to which this can be taken and I guess we all are collectors to an extent…
I’m off to Amsterdam tomorrow but will be back later next week and will hopefully have a bit more time over the festive season to post more frequently
Yakuza, Ninjas, Sushi, Chainsaws, Flying Guillotines… it has it all! Where else in the world would you find a movie about a school girl seeking revenge on her brothers killers and the loss of her own arm (conveniently replaced with a gun)?!
I’m not saying the film will be any good but it might just be crazy enough to become a cult classic. [via]
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