Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 7 June 2002, 6:15 PM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Tuesday 4/6/2002
The train from Edinburgh is only 40 minutes late getting into London, which is some sort of record: GNER regulars can usually count on getting one ticket free on the back of the compensation payments for every four or five trips taken. Not being in the 'quiet carriage' set aside for those without a love of electronic devices, I take the opportunity to stroll through Coach B and surreptitiously tot up what's on display.
Around 80 people in the coach conspicuously possess between them five laptops, 30 walkmans, 50 mobile phones, ten PDAs and five Game Boy Advances. I dare say there are more laptops hiding in bags -- you can't really use them in most of the seats -- but it's not a bad haul. It's a shame that they can't all easily talk to each other: it'd be nice to challenge random fellow travellers to a quick game of Pong -- loser gets the gins in from the trolley.
My personal contribution? Palm M100, Gateway laptop, Sony shortwave radio, HP digital camera, Icom R2 VHF scanner, Sendo moby... travel light, that's what I say, especially when you've got a weekend off.
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