I was all ready to give a glowing valedictory to 2006, until I read Skeletor’s summation of the year that was over at The Spin Starts Here. For those of you not inclined to click on the link, here are a couple of highlights:
The acquisition of YouTube by Google and News Ltd’s belated discovery of the internet made for the sort of heady days for the Nasdaq not seen since before the Techwreck. The real action, however, was the development of Web 2.0, the new form of highly interactive, personalised media and communications platform. But the Netiscenti were already discussing Web 3.0 and Web 4.0, with some speculating beyond that to Web 5.0 and higher; the whole thing reached an absurd climax in September when a Silicon Valley blogger posted his ideas on Web infinity.0, earning the criticisms “dickcheese”, “innumerate tard” and “this blog totally blows” from his regular commenters….
In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin committed his country to spend 1% of its GDP on outlandish assassination methods for dissidents and opponents of his increasingly authoritarian regime. ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe West will not outdo our great nation in impractical and absurdly complicated ways of silencing enemies,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù Putin vowed. ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThey will all feel the sting of slow radioactive poisoning, the stench of the poison gas cell phone, the fury of the satellite-guided robot probe, the torture of the carefully-staged gardening accident.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù Russian sources say that officials will be consulting the collected works of Ian Fleming, the CIA?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s plots against Fidel Castro and old episodes of The Avengers for guidance….
Australians in the eastern half of the continent pulled out the winter woollies as temperatures plunged in four states in July. The Australian hailed the falling temperatures as clear proof that climate change was an enviro-nazi myth. Japanese diners, meanwhile, continued to conduct their in-depth scientific research into whales, focussing on the key issue of which sauces best accompanied whale meat, and the development of a new strain of “wagyu whale”.
Credit of course to The Spin Starts Here. Maybe this year we will unmask Caz 😉
