Flickr represents a good step-up evolution in the ASN stakes since it incorporates a chat capability thus doing away with the need to find, install, learn etc. external IRC apps in order to be able to communicate live with your buddies. This is a major usability plus. Whether it replaces IRC in total remains to be seen but...

Mailblocks, the spam-proof email service I've been using for a couple of months is fantastic at stopping spam emails from getting to me but the challenge/response method it uses to achieve this results in at least one extra email for every item of spam it processes. Whilst this works very well, it effectively doubles the amount of email traffic on the Web where, if everyone eventually moved to this method of controlling spam, we'd double or triple the amount of spam related traffic going about. Not sure that's a good thing. A bit like placing barbed wire and mines around the perimeter of your home, a highly effective method of controlled entry but one which also f**ks up your neighbourhood.

I have a cold virus, slept for 3 hours over lunch, feeling like shit. This is not good, I'm spending two nights in London this week whilst at a software trade show where I need to be sharp. And awake. Yes, awake would be a plus.

I probably won't drive to Vienna after all. Shame.

Speaking of which, I get a new car on Tuesday, my outgoing car has Satnav and for the last couple of years I've added many business addresses to it's programmable database. Effectively, whomever gets the car after me has a customer database on wheels if I don't remember to purge it beforehand. So, no longer do you have to infiltrate iron clad networks to hack into sensitive company information, just empty the car park. This is quite a profound and unexpected consequence of our quest for digital lifestyle perfection and the fundamental data/meta pervasiveness it demands.