rambling blog entry

It strikes me that it has been a while since I did a rambling blog entry, in fact my blogging has become decidedly sporadic of late. I suspect that blogging is currently going out of fashion, to be replaced by tweeting or somesuch. [What a fashion victim I must be.]

As ever with a rambling blog entry nothing much to report on. I am continuing to post reviews to Amazon, now having got to around 2400 in the new reviewer Amazon rankings. However the higher you ascend the tougher the competition. As far as I can tell your ranking is based on recent activity and favourable votes, but I have passed the stage where simply posting additional reviews will raise me in the rankings, it is now more of a numbers game, the more reviews I have out there, the more likely they are to attract favourable votes.

Initially I had hoped to get into the top thousand, as you then get a wee badge next to your reviews announcing that you are a top one thousand reviewer, but getting to that level currently seems ridiculously unobtainable. I suspect that my tastes are probably too obscure, or by the time I get round to reviewing anything popular, it has already been reviewed by millions of people.

In any event, an interesting diversion.

Otherwise, I am taking advantage of the release of the new iPad 2, to get a refurbished iPad 1. I have gone for the mid-range 32 gig wifi version, as that seemed the best mix for price and capacity. I am not a huge fan of touch screen interfaces, but I really don't want to use a laptop with a hard-drive when commuting, and the SSD air laptop is absurdly expensive, so an iPad seems a logical alternative. The iPad should arrive next week, so I am looking forward to setting it up and configuring it. I don't have any iOS devices myself, I am still on a clickwheel iPod, so it will be interesting. There is a whole world of iOS applications that it will be interesting to dive into. Early thoughts are to explore the Brian Eno music apps, the Phaidon design book, voodoopad, and I suppose you cannot really have an iPad without installing Angry Birds. I think that is actually the law.

At work they are currently running a book on hideously insensitive things that I say, though they seem to know me well enough to know that they are not meant unkindly. I am wondering whether some of these might be turned into humorous greetings cards. Another vague idea to add to my vast mountain of potentially interesting ideas that I never get round to actually doing anything about.

Otherwise at work, which I realise I really don't blog about, I am currently analysing a consultation exercise. I am now at the slog stage of pulling stuff together, or rather just transcribing it all onto spreadsheets or tables and then figuring out what all was said about any particular topic, then figuring out what to do about it. I have also been out interviewing people, which is actually a lot more fun, and probably a lot more useful. It does make the sort of evidence gathering carried out by our elected masters look decidedly sketchy. They just basically wait for folk to come to them with their opinions or maybe ask the odd person, and then think they know something about the topic. To call this sort of self selected sample limited is putting it kindly. It does mean that small and active stakeholder groups can wield a disportionate weight if the silent majority is not putting forward balancing arguments. The small and active groups are not only non representative, but they tend to be congregated at a particular end of most debates.

Otherwise, feeling constantly guilty at not being out in the garden, but it is actually a bit cold and miserable out and I am feeling too lazy.

Also swithering buying a load of Eames dinner chairs to make our house into the complete design victim pad. Lime green is so in. For some reason lime green always catches my eye and seems a lively happy colour.

Currently reading Cousin Basilio, S,M,L,XL by Rem Koolhaas and Zeno by Italo Svavo, though I am tending to cut down my reading as my eyes are tiring more easily these days.