Not too long ago I used to run linux as my desktop, despite using apple hardware. Mainly I was underimpressed by OSX early on, it seemed sluggish and bloated and linux desktop was by comparison everything I needed, almost.
The stumbling block was multimedia support, in particular flash for browsers. There were some solutions but the the answer was always a little unsatisfactory. And then i bought a MacBook, which runs linux almost perfectly by the way. The MacBook is Intel based and frankly it has completely changed my desktop use. OSX runs very nicely, the software options are great, I have a unix style X windows environment, which I need occasionally and the day to day tasks I require of a computer are very smoothly handled, thankyou very much. I confess to a lingering attraction to linux on the desktop, if I only had pc hardware to deal with there would be no question what OS I would run, but using apple’s hardware changes the equation.
So I guess all of this makes me a statistic.
Another year, ho hum. At least the signs are promising, little johnny is confined to a golf course (too good for the likes of him but it is a democracy) and we have at last had some rain here on the east of Oz. George W still sits in Washington so the good is tempered by the bad and Putin was Time “person” of the year!
The western world is probably a tad nervous about Pakistan and the rest of the Middle East looks like remaining a basket case, Kenya’s got issues….and so it goes on. Nothing new really. This pointless little post is my list of the top 5 unlikely events to unfold this year.
1. Unified World action on Climate Change - goes without saying that this one has a snowball’s chance in hell
2. World armament sales to be replaced by measures to alleviate poverty and disease in the world - yeah right!
3. Consumerism denounced as a totally unsustainable economic and environmental model - this starts in the US of course 
4. The tiny .01% of the world’s people who own almost all the wealth of the world decide to redistribute their ill-gotten gains - no, not envious just observing that such a huge imbalance is not conducive to a fairer and more just world.
5. Everyone wakes up one day and truly realises that there is only one world and they have only one life to live, we better make the most of it - given all the other ideas forced onto us about how to behave and what to think, not to mention the tyranny of circumstances that rule the lives of many, this one is pretty much a lost cause as well.
So those are my top 5 predictions, none of which belong in the “real world” but then the power of ideas can never be underestimated. I still have hope.