I’ve missed the New Year celebrations on the 31st December for about fifteen years now so it’s getting beyond the point where you could consider it an accident. Indeed, the cold and the crowds both in Trafalgar Square and afterwards on the Tube don’t exactly encourage me to make an effort. Luckily Chinese New Year is at a more civilised time, is less busy and slightly warmer.

Still, it’s the first time I’ve ever made it!

• Who Can Do Something About Those Blue Boxes? – “Used to be you could argue that Flash, whatever its merits, delivered content to the entire audience you cared about. That’s no longer true, and Adobe’s Flash penetration is shrinking with each iPhone OS device Apple sells.”
• Penguins, Peaks and Penny-Farthings: Nat Geo Covers 1959-2000 – “The National Geographic Society celebrates its 122nd anniversary on Jan. 27 … Though the early issues had rather drab academic looking covers, by 1959 they were consistently adorned with eye-cathing art and photos.”
• Verified by Visa bitchslapped by Cambridge researchers – “Secondary credit card security systems for online transactions such as Verified by Visa are all about shifting blame rather then curtailing fraud, Cambridge University security researchers argue.” Or put another way: those annoying screens you get when you buy something online are not for your benefit.

I saw this car a few weeks ago and thought that the crumpled headlight was interesting. I went back a day or so later and took a few pictures. I thought this might make a good entry for this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Damaged.”

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Slowly.” I’m entry number 181.

• Priori Acute – What if M.C. Escher had been a typographer?
• What “Nothing to Hide” is Hiding – Why “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” is a bad argument in favour of increased surveillance.

I got a lot done and with the ninety minutes I saved by not commuting I went to the gym, but there are problems with working from home…

• exactly – “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?” Looks like we’re not going to find out because of a few hold-outs…
• A Typeface for the Underground – Design and typography on the London Underground. Fascinating stuff.
• Britain to Levy a One-Time Tax on Banker Bonuses – “To a large extent the levy underpins a quite broad understanding here — even among those generally sympathetic to the industry — that bank profits this year were largely subsidized by the government due to historically low interest rates.” The best discussion I’ve seen of today’s pre-Budget speech is, bizarrely, in a US paper.

I always associate snow with “Winter“, this weeks PhotoFriday theme, so the above was an obvious candidate for my entry. It was taken not far from home in some of the worst weather we’ve had in the UK for a good few years.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Homemade.” I’m entry number 158.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Homemade” and I went to quite some effort to get this image of a homemade tiramisu.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “From My Past.” I’m entry number 166.

I confess that I was very tempted to roll out one of my old favourite autumnal pictures but in the end I actually went out with my camera and took the above image. This was literally taken just outside my flat. The golden light and the yellowing leaves say “Autumn 2009” to me. Obviously for the true British Autumn we’d also need some rain.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “…Is In The Details.” I’m entry number 175.

• A Sense of Entitlement: Tweetie 2 – I think Apple needs to do more here — to allow for paid upgrades — but I also congratulate the author of Tweetie for having the nerve to charge for a significant update. He’ll come across a lot of resistance but it’s absolutely the right thing to do and it, potentially, paves the way for smaller developers to do the same thing.
• Peep Show ‘won’t change’ for anyone – Looking forward to this. Slightly worried that it might overstay its welcome — how can you top eating a family pet in terms of gross out? — but then I thought that for the last couple of series too…
• Fail Yet Succeed? – Nice discussion of the kind of things that all software projects go through. Really this is about half of my job!