This one might fly...

I'm not what you'd call a "techno-geek." I love technology, I'm frequently in awe when I talk to people like web developers and people like my friend John who designs online fruit machines (he does the software that makes the fruit signs whizz round) and highly skilled engineers who design things that actually save people's lives, and not just enhance them. Look at the iPod for example. I have over 5000 CDs so a rough estimate is that I own over 50,000 songs (for every 23-minute Godspeed You Black Emperor song I have, there's a Ramones album that crams 33 songs into 75 minutes) and I'm sure it won't be long before I can squeeze all of them onto one iPod. Ten years ago that idea would have been completely ridiculous to a layman like me as I'm quite pleased with myself when I've managed to buy a movie from FilmFlex.

So, imagine the amazement and bewilderment that came over me when I saw this:
http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2009/12/start/the-world%27s-smallest-specs.aspx

Before you click on it with trepidation, fear not. It is, though, worthy of an explanation. What you are about to see is a real photograph, not a composite or a bit of Photoshop magic. Look at it, work out what it is, and you'll be right. Utterly pointless but nonetheless absolutely astonishing.

Have a good weekend.

That's a relief...

Firstly, there's now a Thinking Highways Twitter page. We resisted for long enough but now you can find (to date) five tweets from yours truly and I'm already bored of it. Go to twitter.com/thinkinghwys (thinkinghighways was too long) if you want to see how I got progressively(and rapidly) annoyed with it. I can't really say too much in 140 characters.

Anyhoo - a couple of years ago (actually getting on for three) I was waiting for an article from one of my US contributors, Jim Joseph. He was never late with copy but he has two weeks past the deadline so I started calling and emailing every day. Only when I rang his son did I discover that Jim had died three weeks ago. You can imagine then, what I'd been feeling in the last few months of not being able to contact my good friend, former ITS America staffer and current TH columnist Paul Najarian. We've talked regularly over the last 10 or so years and email each other pretty much every week. I'd not heard from him since May, his work phone rang and rang, his mobile was seemingly switched off and his home phone was on voicemail. I was hoping he'd either moved, fled the country or 'gone underground' but I couldn't help thinking the worst...

And yesterday, I get an email from him. "Hey, I'm a diplomat now and I work for Mrs Hillary Clinton." That was a relief. And to brighten my day even further, that nice Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has said that Paul can continue writing for Thinking Highways. This will also hopefully mean that she'll register for her own copy. Which is nice.

Also nice to have Harold Worrall back after his enforced absence. His Bright Ideas column will re-energise in the December issue. It's great to have them both back.