Where's the fun in perfection?  Even the most squeaky clean image or top 10 single is covered in the small chisel marks of production, reeking of the way they were produced.

Much splendour can be heard from recordings at Abbey Road or Sparrow Wars but these are all the better for the echo of the rooms, the corners of the wire, the valves and transistors that were crossed.

Even the small, dustless rooms of Hasselblads whisper new stories to passing spots of light. Happy accidents and the things that aren't supposed to be noticed are often much more interesting than the official versions.

Look both sides of the curtain and snigger like a proper villain if you find the unexpected and like it.

This week I would like to introduce you to my Nephews in Text @markovsavage and @eeeeee_cummings.  They are two very different characters but both have been dilligent in researching their namesakes.  I commend them to your attention and salute their Parent.

All well and good but they arrive in the landscape at a stage when humans find computed conversation unconvincing and automated conversationalists find humans unengaging. 

Alan Turing, as umpire, would avoid decisions.

The interesting part of the field is where haphazard, pixilated programs talk carelessly to highly optimised robot officials with unexpected success.

Was very privileged today to be at an event conducted by the Humanist Society.

It proceeded with kindness and did what was necessary without territorial claims.

 

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.