UK rail (and many other) tickets include a magnetic strip.

Magnetic strips can contain 3 data tracks containing respectively 210, 75 and 210 bits per inch (either due to technical reasons or the needs of competitive comittees) (1)

UK rail tickets are 3 3/8 inches wide. Let's assume the edges are dodgy so they have 3 inches of usable data strip.  In that case each ticket could hold

    3 * (210 + 75 + 210)

= 1485 bits or just over 185 8-bit bytes (2)

A Ticket is slightly chattier than a Tweet.

In 2010-11 757 million non-season ticket rail journeys were purchased (3).  Let's assume that these were mostly return journeys which are printed on 2 separate tickets so our nominal journey carries 371 bytes.  Let's omit obligatory reservations which are issued on the same stock so have magnetic strips of their own, this being a calculation on the less glamorous side of the envelope.

So last year railways in the UK issued

    757 * 371 million

=  280847 million bytes

or 262Gb or thereabouts per year in the UK.  Data moving from place to place in the collective travelling pockets of the UK.

That's small by the standards of your favoured, modern and loquatious online community but it is still a large and mobile body unbothered by the niceties of modern telecommunications. Not bad for a technology of the early 1960s.

These magnetic strips occupy a space somewhere between the short online message and the postcard - mobile packets of data in need of re-use once they had done their first travelling duty.

 

With apologies for the dubious sums.

 

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stripe_card

2) The standards appear to show 7- and 5- bit units but let's allow for parity bits and the like http://www.gae.ucm.es/~padilla/extrawork/tracks.html

3) Passenger journeys by ticket type - table Great Britain 2002-03 Q1 to 2011-12 Q2 (millions) http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/2cab3179-cd25-44e9-b03...

The 23rd had an odd feel about it.  It started with marauding hordes of teenage cattle.

As the day went on it became clear that things were getting out of hand.

It seemed a good time to stay away from towns and to do some harvesting instead, a good time to watch the sun set behing the hill as the evening settled.

Summer solstice, eh? Must have caused an extra curve in the space-time continuum.

Dug out this fine example of a REAL computer and thought back to the days where you seldom had to type out whole words and did so in regal splendour on the carpet in front of the television.

Also sitting on the desk was this recently arrived reel of film.  The small print says 'from the past - Ideally suited for a run through "The Balmoral"'.

Just across the way your correspondent's eye caught this fine example of the craft of Robert Smail's printworks. This can mean only one thing -

a wedding reception in the walled garden - mighty fine and not under Festival weather as predicted.

As the evening went on things became progressively more swirly. Must have been the space-time continuum righting itself.

Summer solstice, eh? All in a good cause.

This stretch of road links the A90 North of the Forth Road Bridge to Dunfermline.  At a mile long it's well suited to (and better documented on)  Pathetic Motorways.

Intended to be part of a more substantial East-West route along the North Bank of the Forth it's superpower is that when traveling East it can send you half way through Fife if you're not in the correct lane.

Here's a 1-minute tour of the Westward journey.  Don't blink - you'll miss it.

Here is your correspondent's contribution to the skilful and erudite Rantz's Fotiez project in which collaborators are given a free hand in re-interpreting his photography.

 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops.  May I commend it to your attention.

A day of travel.

Not sure what to make of it so I asked the experts.

Mr and Mrs Goose said the day was looking up and down simultaneously.

Very quantum of them. Even the trainee drains couldn't give a clear view.

 

Best take a wider view of the situation.

Reflect on matters.

December 21st.  Shortest day. No rest for the restaurant.

Even the UFOs had a sharp start.

The tups were queuing.  They don't like to be left waiting.

Got to keep moving in these conditions.

Ice floes wait for no-one.

Odd things happen.

Best to get indoors before dark.

Seasonal felicitations.

Were it not for the mighty sprout your festive meal would be incomplete.  Nuggets of green gold, lightly sauteed in butter and brown sugar.  Which other vegetable could survive past winter and still be full of zest and vitamins? Nothing else on your celebratory plate, that's for sure.

Last weekend your correspondent was fortunate to attend Interesting North in Sheffield.

Salutations, gratitude and congratulations to all involved - instigators, organisers, the Hall, speakers, illustrators, photographers and audience.  Thank you all it was truly brilliant and very much hope that it will happen again.

I am late in providing an account of the day so will be restricted to three key points.

1) Try not to blow up the future. It means well.

2) Measure twice, bake once.

3) Receipts can be useful.

Much more can be found over here: http://lanyrd.com/2010/interesting-north/coverage/

A Game For All The Family

This popular game of skill and judgement requires a car, a driver and at least one passenger.  Passengers take turns to ask the driver the time honoured questions and comments along the lines of

Are we nearly there yet?

I'm bored.

She bit me.

What's that smell?

 

The winner is either the driver, having successfully arrived at the intended destination  or the first passenger to be ordered out of the car to complete the journey by walking along the hard shoulder.

 

Arguably there is very little in passenger's game play that is not cheating.  They are expected to use the full barrage of subtrefuge and casual violence available to them.

Conversely the driver has to remain within the bounds of civilised behaviour so far as is possible though nowhere in the rules is barefaced lying about the intended destination prohibited.  This may vary from the traditional "just over the next hill" to the more interesting passport related possibilities of the International Game.

Recent developments in tactics include the Charnock Richard Manoever in which the driver gains an often unassailable advantage by driving off whilst one or more passengers is engaged in the purchase of boiled sweets.  Seasoned passengers have been known to counter this with the deft application of wheel clamps though the Game's Authorities actively frown upon the removal of vital vehicle components such as axles.

Update

A new variation has emerged - in driver - navigator scenarios on journeys into unknown territory it is possible for the driver to adopt the passenger role.  Who wins in a Reverse Forton Situation (navigator bails out at the Services, runs across the connecting bridge and procees to hitchhike in the opposite direction) has yet to be ratified by the Authorities.