This blog in review, 2009

It's been one of my lightest years for blogging, with an average of around four posts per month. A lot of my short-form output has gone instead to Twitter and my longer-form comments have generally been on Hacker News. However, there were a few things I'd call out as being worth a second glance if you missed them:

  • Web developers don't build websites; they develop the web
  • I asserted that journalism is dead, not just newspapers. I'm not sticking to this 100%: far-away, high-risk, expensive professional journalism still has value, and people will pay for it. However, the vast majority of people who currently call themselves "journalists" are going to find themselves out of work as the cost of the equipment necessary for real-time observation continues to fall. Opinion columnists and critics are out of luck.
  • I explained, in minute detail, why it takes me so long to have a shower.
  • I listed ten things that Twitter is not and said that if anything, it is "what's going on". Five months later Twitter changed their opening question from "what are you doing?" to "what's happening?" which is sufficiently close that I feel vindicated.
  • I wrote a short story in 8 parts called Pilots. It started off well but the ending was sloppy. However, it's one of my better efforts to date.
  • Immigration is good for you. And here's why.
  • Apple's App Store needs to be fixed and it will require a fundamental change to the iPhone platform if carriers are going to allow arbitrary software to run on their networks.
  • I defended the UK Labour party but conceded that they will lose the next election anyway. Hopefully the conservatives will stay in for only one term.
  • Avatar completely blew me away.