random walks

I was shocked to find out from the paper featured on the cover of Nature this week that we (humans) don't just walk around randomly. Analysis of the movements of 100,000 mobile phone users revealed that there is some order in their movement. Presumably they go to work in the morning and come home in the evening, if I may have an educated guess.

They should have restricted the analysis to people who don't have a regular job (like e.g. home-based freelancers like myself, or the unemployed, homeless,pensioners, etc.) I'd reckon that those of us who live life off the commuter's treadmill are closer to a random walk model than the research suggest. And I, for one, really do walk randomly when I get the chance to explore an unfamiliar city ...