The places I've been

This is pointless really, but I enjoyed doing it, so I suppose somebody might enjoy looking at it:

1. Venice, Italy


2. Paris, France


3. Antwerp, Belgium


4. Vienna, Austria


5. Bolzano, Italy


6. Dubrovnik, Croatia


7. Prague, Czech Republic


8. Menton, France


9. Berlin, Germany


10. Munich, Germany


11. Cambridge, UK


12. Amsterdam, The Netherlands


13. Cologne, Germany


14. London, UK


15. Boston, MA, USA


16. Brussels, Belgium


17. New Orleans, LA, USA


18. Ely, UK


19. Wells-next-the-Sea, UK


20. Edinburgh, UK


21. Hemingford Grey, UK


22. Rye, UK


23. Talgarth, UK


24. Chadds Ford, PA, USA


25. St Neots, UK


26. Capitola, CA, USA


27. Rockport, MA, USA


28. Cambridge, MA, USA


29. San Francisco, CA, USA


30. Sonoma, CA, USA

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Garbage collecting

I've discovered something that might be important.

If you write a few words on a Post-it note and stick it to the windowsill next to your desk, the ink will eventually fade and it will become totally illegible. At this point the only sensible course of action will be to throw it away. But you will be unable to bring yourself to do so. Just in case its mute presence might still assist you in reconstructing the memory of whatever was once significant enough to have been written on it.

This is what happens when you don’t get round to things. I guess everybody else knew that already.

The last 36 years have just been a diversion

Contemplating, as one must at my age, the menopause (I shall be fifty this year, so it is something of a hot topic—pun intended), I happened upon a new angle from which to consider this transition: as the end of a temporary state, during which one’s true personality has been submerged. An article on the Guardian women’s page (where else?) quotes one Jane Polden, a psychotherapist: “She’s felt overwhelmed, controlled almost, by this hormonal surge ... and now it’s draining away, and she can work out who she is, and who she wants to be.” The fertile years have been a distraction. It’s an attractive idea.

Joining the dots

Now I have set things up so that posting to this blog generates a tweet automatically. And, whenever I twitter, my Facebook status updates. Is this a good idea? Or will it just result in a lot of things getting mixed up that ought to have been kept separate?

I’m not sure what I think about all this web 2.0 stuff. It makes life harder in some ways. It is certainly harder to say “Sorry, I was too busy” when the fact that you have just spent several hours having unproductive fun is a matter of public record.

And how do prolific twitterers manage when travelling? How can I say “I’m in Venice” without saying “My house is unoccupied and ripe for burglary”—especially when my professional site, which is linked from my personal one, tells the world that I have access to an impressive array of computing and photographic equipment?

Perhaps my tweets need to be a bit more elliptical.

Flood

The river’s up again this morning. Higher than it’s ever been since we’ve had the boat, though nowhere near what it was in 2001.

More photos on flickr.

FOSDEM photos online

I finally got round to posting my 2007 FOSDEM photos (actually Andrew took some of them). And I’ve put up some from this year, too, and a few drawings I did last year.

The whole lot are on flickr now. If anyone who is in them doesn’t want to be seen, please let me know ASAP.

If there is a photo of you that you like, do ask me for a higher-resolution version of it.

PS (11 Feb): I have now finished this job, so look again now if you want to see the ones that were missing before.

Having fun with word clouds

Just discovered www.wordle.net. Such fun!
I made this one using my own Delicious tags, which I suppose tells you something about what I'm interested in: