There is a well-established hierarchy on the road: truck drivers hate cars, car drivers hate cyclists and cyclists hate pedestrians. It works the other way along the chain too. Where does this stem from? Sheer embittered experience.

Within 50 meters of leaving the flat, two pedestrians started to cross the road – against the suggestion from the signal – and walked right in front of me. I gave them a good shout and they thankfully managed to jump back before I ploughed into them. Further along my way on up to the canal a woman behind the wheel of a BMW blithely ignored the protocol of giving way to your right at a roundabout and pulled straight out. Thankfully my brakes were up to the task asked of them.

It has been quite a while since I last rode along the Union canal towpath and in the meantime some helpful soul has erected signs asking cyclists to slow down to a near walking pace. These signs have now been officially replaced by British Waterways. Apparently I’m one of the few cyclists who sound their bell when approaching pedestrians. Of course, this makes absolutely no bloody difference if those walking in front of me are listening to their iPods at full volume¹.

Everyone, for the love of Pete, please, please bloody well pay attention to those around you and obey the rules – no matter what your mode of transportation.

¹ I’m thinking of strapping one of these to my top tube to replace my bell.

The main example of this mantra at the moment is the flawed argument that HTML5 will kill flash. Nonsense. There is a situation for either one.

Replacing the single-use (albeit massively entrenched) scenario of video does not sound the death knell for Flash.

That said, I have entered the “summer Nev” phase and shaved off my beard.

I think that the beard had served its purpose over the winter months and I was in distinct danger of becoming almost fashionable.

Besides, most of my time-pieces change themselves now which leads me to wander around looking confused for a few hours until I see independent verification of the actual time.

“He who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, still dead.”
- Riposte to the No Fear T-shirts of the mid-90s

After four years of student life and nigh on a decade living as a bachelor, I’ve just taken a huge step and moved into a new flat with my girlfriend. To say that I’m excited would be an understatement!

Neither of us have moved in with the other. Reasons of space aside, neutral territory just makes better sense in terms of nullifying any perceived views of encroachment.

I’m finding it sort of depressing having seen my worldly possessions reduced to a stack of cardboard boxes. That said, you can’t pack the ethereal. There is a smidgen of guilt that I didn’t save more money during the time I was living for a lot less. I keep having to remind myself that in that time I not only paid off my overdraft and student loans but I was also fortunate enough to manage an awesome three months on a worldwide trip of a lifetime.

From time-to-time I (and I guess everybody else) does ponder the “what ifs” of life. What if I hadn’t gone to university? What if I hadn’t gone on that trip? What if I hadn’t talked to that person in that bar? Obviously none of us will ever know but this I do know: I am fantastically happy having taken the path I have through life so far – be it through active choice, fate or happy coincidence.

To paraphrase Calvin, following the traditional British route of saving hard for a deposit, taking out a hefty mortgage and obsessing about being a homeowner may be “the done thing” by this stage in my life but I certainly wouldn’t be the person I am with the experiences that I now have had I gone down that path.

Sidney Perkowitz suggests that every film should be allowed to ask us to suspend our disbelief on one occasion only. Currently, movies fly seemingly permanently in the face of what would actually happen in reality. Misguided attempts to recreate or re-enact what we’ve seen on screen notwithstanding, what’s the harm in letting the special effects department use it’s collective imagination to entertain us for 90 minutes? Have we become so entranced and convinced by Hollywood cataclysmic disaster movies that NASA is forced to assure us that the world won’t end in 2012?

It would appear so.

The reason that we have science-fiction and not science-fact is simply one of entertainment: one is and the other one usually isn’t. Watching a hacker craft a buffer overflow exploit – while more realistic and non-offending to computer professionals – isn’t exactly going to make for edge-of-the-seat thrills.

One of my old flatmates used to scoff at virtually every movie at least once, using phrases like “Pfft! As if!” or “Well that’d never happen” to the point where I stopped going to the cinema with him.

‘Realistic’ exists already: it’s called a documentary.

If you’re not drinking from the firehose then perhaps it isn’t unsurprising that some things will pass you by. I am by no means attempting to claim that I see everything worth seeing on the Internet every single day. To do so would be impossible – even the professionals miss a lot of things first time around.

However, that’s not to say that my friends who largely live offline aren’t interested in some of the wonderful stuff that’s out there. Most won’t “get” XKCD but when I received an email last week pointing me toward the epic Two Gentlemen of Lebowski that I first saw at the start of the year, I realised that it’s my responsibility to bring these things to the fore in my role as “the geeky one” of the group.

To this end, I plan on using my Tumblr account to share interesting clips and articles that I encounter and keep this here blog for longer pieces and the occasional rant.

Despite being an avid user, personally I find the Foursquare tweets hugely annoying. I also only accept friend requests on the service from people I actually know – mind you, I do exactly the same on Facebook: Amber MacArthur notwithstanding, I’ve had a beer with every single one of the people in my friend list.

I did dally with geotagging my tweets for a while. This allowed me (or anyone else for that matter) to paste my Twitter RSS feed into a Google maps search in order to see where I was tweeting from – just out of sheer curiosity you understand. The results were pretty much as I expected: various pubs, the office and home. I’ve since stopped geotagging and have deleted all of the data – which, to their credit, Twitter make extremely easy to do.

I do wonder though: exactly how much more likely are you to be a victim of burglary if you broadcast your location? How many criminals are sat just watching Twitter on their (invariably stolen) iPhone, just waiting for someone nearby to announce via Foursquare that they’ve left their house? Isn’t it far likelier that an opportunistic thief will see you leave home and jimmy your back door open or smash a window?

That phrase is what I think must go through every bag-snatchers stupid little mind when they see people – and I’m talking almost exclusively about women – carrying their bags with the handles in the crook of their arm, their forearm conveniently positioned horizontally to allow the bag to be slipped off with great ease as the thief runs past.

Aren’t people advised to not make it easy for criminals any more?

Twitters recent acquisition of Mixer Labs indicates the way things are heading: location-based services will be this years real-time web. Google’s attempted courting of Yelp provides further evidence for this. I’m still mocked among my non-tech friends for using Twitter so I’m expecting more of the same when Foursquare becomes more prominent. Augmented reality will also be a large part of this location-aware shift.

A faster, more widely available, always-on connection will obviously be an important factor for location-based applications but for the renewed attempt at tablet computing and a thin client model running Google’s Chrome OS, connectivity will be more important still. Cities in Norway and Sweden recently gained a 4G network which is up to ten times quicker than 3G.

Now that HDTV has been sold to the masses, it’s time for the electronics companies to tell us once again that we out-of-date and we need a new television set. What has been the big thing in the cinema of late will now be pushed at the consumer level. Sony has signed a deal that will see up to 25 matches at the 2010 World Cup be broadcast in 3D – but only at special events. If the biggest sporting spectacle in the world can’t drive demand then there could be trouble ahead for 3D in the home.

Another thing set to take off next year that will become huge is making and taking payments with mobile phones. While the Japanese have been doing this with the handset itself for a good while now this has only been used like the contactless cards we’re starting to use here (i.e. paying for things). Square and possibly the iPod Touch system used by Apple will allow anyone to take payment for goods and services.

Copenhagen has shown us that the politicians can’t be relied upon to stand up to big business and their own interests. Responsibility now lies with the citizen to do something – at the polling station and in our personal lives.

We know what we’re supposed to do: change our lightbulbs, turn the TV off at the wall, turn the thermostat down and so on. We know we’re supposed to keep our air and food miles down. We should be doing the same for sea miles as well.

Half of all journeys made in the EU are less than 5km. Start walking or using a bike for the shorter journeys you make. Take the bus, train or car-share when possible.

Stop wasting food. It’s not a hard thing to do. Start by planning your meals and writing a list before you go shopping. Don’t religiously adhere to “Best Before” dates.

Know what’s involved in the production of what you consume: 140 litres of water for that cup of coffee you enjoy so much for example. And for crying out loud, stop drinking bottled water.

Don’t just recycle: reuse. One of my friends favourite ripostes to the recycling brigade was that it’s not clear if recycling uses any less energy than making something from new. He missed the point entirely. As The Story of Stuff makes clear, we only have a finite amount of resources on the planet.

Patent reform

“As we benefit from the inventions of others, we should be glad to share our own … freely and gladly.”
- Benjamin Franklin

I was hoping for a degree of patent reform but it looks like I’ll have to wait a little bit longer. Microsoft are pushing for a single, global patent system. Unfortunately, they want to implement the system used in the USA which reached new levels of ridiculousness when Google were apparently awarded a patent for displaying patents and another patent for the Google home page. Microsoft managed to patent sudo and storing word documents in XML. To the credit of the USPTO, they did put out a Request for Comments on ways to improve their processes.

Patent, copyright and libel laws all need changing to be bought up-to-date with new technologies and advances. The old system has been buckling under the strain of a world for which it was never intended for far too long now.

Twitter
I thought that Twitter would have to start making money at some point but couldn’t see where it would come from. Despite what Bruce Wagner thinks, Twitter were not making a profit – which isn’t good for any company. This year some confidential documents were bought to light after a hack attack and it turned out that ambitions to make a profit were decidedly modest at best. Twitter first managed to get another round of investment funding and then signed deals with Bing and Google totaling $25m to integrate Tweets into real-time search results. The idea of Twitter micropayments was revisited once again and once again was met with apathy and ridicule. The new native Retweet functionality, Contributors and Formats all look set to move the service on to the next level.

Mobile services
Surprisingly it hasn’t been travel embracing the new mobile device era with eticketing but supermarkets and banks. Well some of them at least. My bank still uses Monilink which is a three year old solution charging 25p for a mini-statement and just 20p for balance inquiries. I have no interest in this whatsoever – especially when other banks like NatWest and RBS now have dedicated free iPhone apps that allow you do to so much more.

LED lights
I think that I can count this one as a hit. LED lights are now widely available but they are still a little bit expensive for the initial outlay. This obstacle looks to have been overcome thanks to LED research at the University of Cambridge. Always having to be one step ahead of everywhere else, remote controlled LED light bulbs went on sale in Japan this year.

F1 Racing
Things were nothing if not controversial this year. Renault came very close to following Honda and quitting Formula 1 completely. BMW did just that. Other teams – both new and returning – have taken up the slack and Michael Schumacher also made a comeback. A drivers strike over license fees, race fixing and revolt at attempts to introduce a budget cap all made for far more entertaining spectacle than most of the races once again.

The decade 2000-2009 in review has started to be covered by various outlets as the month progresses, started off very well by Newsweek and, closer to home, by The List. Not to be outdone, Wikipedia is also getting in on the act with an extremely comprehensive review of all manner of things from the past ten years. Expect to see more and more of this kind of thing the closer we get to January 1st 2010.

¹ Not to be confused with the oh-NEE-ders.

A few months ago the Edinburgh Evening News asked if Princes Street was heading down to the road to ruin due to the tram works driving people away.

Personally I don’t think that the tram works are solely to blame (although they haven’t exactly helped). Legions of charity muggers, gouranga monks, aggressive big issue sellers, beggars and cheap tourist tat shops blaring out intolerable bagpipe noise have done more to make Princes Street an unpleasant place to visit than the never-ending fences, noise, dust and reek of tar caused by the relocation of utility pipes and laying of tracks.

The Stendhal in Milan, you can consider this free advice:

• Don’t offer complimentary welcome drinks and then charge for them
• Don’t offer to upgrade to a “nicer” bottle of wine for the same price as the one we asked for and then charge the difference
• Don’t try and cover up these indiscretions by not giving us a receipt

Now I bet that you’re wondering where your tip went. Funnily enough, it was about the same as the extras you piled onto our bill.

Take some time today to notice the smiles around you. Here’s one to get you off to a good start: take a look at number two in the Buzzfeed list of the coolest flags ever, the flag of the North Caucasian Emirate.

There was no such thing as JavaScript when I first set foot on the Internet and it was a few months thereafter until you could achieve such things as centered text on a webpage. A decade ago web design and development was still in its infancy – as can be witnessed when you look at how some popular pages used to look.

I was quite late to the PHP 5 party but I’m glad of this in a way. It’s only as of February this year and the release of version 5.2.9 that a lot of major bugs were squashed and things settled down in my opinion.

There have always been loads of guides and how-to’s available online of varying levels of quality, from the tips of the accomplished expert to the outdated views of the novice. For the next month or so, I’ll be throwing my hat into the ring and sharing some techniques and code samples that I’ve developed over the years.

I’m not alone in thinking like this. Judy Lowe rejects this reasoning out of hand but – and this may be a coincidence – New England did have a pretty harsh time of it last winter with ice storms and the like leaving one million people without power. It was also colder than average for us at this side of the Atlantic with everything pretty much grinding to a halt after the first significant snowfall in years.

My thinking like this probably stems from growing up around farms in the Pennines and picking up natural weather forecasting indicators like cows laying down in fields, spiders at the edges of their web and rings around the moon.

Although having said this, after the BBQ summer failed to materialise maybe I should take a break from the weather forecasting lark.

“My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.”
- Charles F. Kettering

I was delighted to learn at the start of the week that episodes of the seminal technology show Tomorrow’s World were being released from the vast BBC archive for viewing online.

Judith Hann, Maggie Philbin and Howard Stableford nurtured my nascent interest in all things gadget. I still remember fondly the first (and possibly last) time I saw a Laserdisc, an international ATM in operation and the electronic word processor with cut-and-paste abilities.

The past 30 years have seen some truly amazing inventions and the developments don’t appear to be stopping any time soon. Personally, I think that it’s a fantastically exciting time to be alive and I take some degree of comfort in the hope that these brilliant minds can continue to innovate in order to help the human race overcome the terrible future scenarios that we appear intent on bequeathing our children.

There is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing
- Sir Rannulph Fiennes

It was late again before I left the office this evening – partly due to waiting for the rain to stop. I got about three minutes along the road before the first rain drop of a fresh deluge hit my chest and I was surprised by just how heavy it felt. I looked up and the sky was very dark; this was going to be some downpour and there was I without my umbrella or anything vaguely approaching waterproof in terms of clothing. Sure enough, I was forced to shelter in a doorway for the next ten minutes while stair-rods bounced down.

Today is the first day of September which, for me, indicates the end of summer. The Edinburgh Festival is over and done with for another year bar the fireworks, a new football season is underway and the evenings are darkening earlier.

I had a good feeling about this summer and while the weather may not have lived up to my expectations, in many other ways I couldn’t have hoped for better.