Of peguins and the end of the year

Peter and Roman commented on my Penguin Design post, and I got a number of other comments/questions from other channels too. A number of people asked what I meant to say, and I had to answer honestly: I'm not sure. It just seems like such a natural connection to make, and I think there's a number of associations you can draw from it. Let's see... on my bookshelf there are two books with penguins on the front cover: Segaran's Collective Intelligence and Chamley's Rational Herds. Over the holiday break I think I'll look more at these to see if I can clear up my thinking about Penguin Design :-)

Speaking of holiday breaks, I've always enjoyed the end-of-year pause, since it gives me time to decompress a bit and take stock of the past year. One point is already becoming clear though: while I'm used to a fair amount of chaos, generally I've been able to point to unifying theme or purpose in the flow. But, looking back at this year, I'm not sure I can do that. Yes, it was hectic and chaotic, but probably not more than usual. Yet, I'm having a hard time identifying the how it all "hangs together." I'll need to fix this next year...