• BT Content Connect service faces ‘two-tier net’ claims – “BT supports the concept of net neutrality, but believes that service providers should also be free to strike commercial deals, should content owners want a higher quality or assured service delivery.” I’m not sure I can parse this. BT both supports net neutrality… and also doesn’t?
• Demolition of the Paris Metro – Great images of the Paris Metro.

I first saw this on Seth Godin’s blog and thought it was a good idea in principle:

This might be a useful exercise. Doesn’t matter whether it was a hit or not, it just matters that you shipped it. Shipping something that scares you (and a lot of what follows did) is the entire point.

It is, however, quite hard for people who don’t live life in public in the same way that Seth does. I’ve spent a lot of the year doing pre-sales work either with clients that don’t like being named or for deals that we lost (and therefore not something a lot of people would want publicised). And now, in my new job, one reading of my contract means that I can’t even send out press releases.

How to interpret the PhotoFriday theme this week, “Best of 2010“? Something that signifies 2010 in some way? “Just” the best image of 2010? If so, by what definition of “best”? This is hard.

But in the end I went for the above shot, which was taken in the Tokyo International Forum.

Why? It’s no great shakes technically — the glare in the top left is even a little distracting — but there’s something about the muted colours, the neatness. And it says something about Japan that this guy, clearly not homeless, not a drunk, had no qualms just lying down and sleeping in a public place.

I didn’t think that I had blogged very much this year, but now that I look back over it seems that I’ve done quite well. There have only been a few PhotoFriday challenges that I’ve missed and I’ve managed a fair few travel and even the odd technical blog.

None of this years blogs have done especially well in terms of page impressions but here are a few that I liked for various reasons.

• 10 cheap and cheerful city breaks – Some ideas for next years November trip…
• Schneier on WikiLeaks – “Just as the music and movie industries are going to have to change their business models for the Internet era, governments are going to have to change their secrecy models. I don’t know what those new models will be, but they will be different.”
• Publishers take note: the iPad is altering the very concept of a ‘book’ – The future of publishing?
• eclipse of 2010 – Great images of the recent eclipse.

I’m starting to think that they should call it PhotoSunday… but here is my entry for this weeks PhotoFriday, “Tranquil.” It was taken in Kyoto and is of a sand garden.

If you’re quick, you might also be able to vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Chill.” I’m entry number 182.

• This case must not obscure what WikiLeaks has told us – Another good piece about WikiLeaks. The news about Assange is starting to obscure the real news.
• Live with the WikiLeakable world or shut down the net. It’s your choice. – “What WikiLeaks is really exposing is the extent to which the western democratic system has been hollowed out. In the last decade its political elites have been shown to be incompetent; corrupt; or recklessly militaristic. And yet nowhere have they been called to account in any effective way. Instead they have obfuscated, lied or blustered their way through. And when, finally, the veil of secrecy is lifted, their reflex reaction is to kill the messenger.”

Given the sub-zero temperatures that we’re experiencing in the UK, this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Chill,” is very appropriate. I can’t, however, really use one of the pictures I took earlier this week¹ so instead this one was taken in January this year in our first snows of 2010.

I didn’t post an entry to last weeks challenge so there’s no need to feel bad for not voting for me(!).

• It’s not an arsenic-based life form – Apparently ET is not visiting any time soon but it’s still pretty cool.
• Julian Assange, defending our democracies (despite their owners’ wishes) – Nice piece about WikiLeaks and why, despite what some politicians will tell you, it’s a good thing.

It seems that the weather is not without a sense of irony¹. In the year that is the hottest on record, in the UK we’re having a very early cold snap, complete with snow.

I did think that it was all archive footage, since the papers were full of coverage yet there was no snow at all in London. And then this morning the pavements were covered. When I went out for a bite to eat at lunchtime I took my camera with me…