Trainblogging (Hamburg)

The day got off to a bad start: I missed the train. My own damned fault, pure overconfidence: I thought that I knew when it started, but I'd misremembered the booking. And the worst part is that I thought while brushing my teeth that I should confirm the time, but said "nah, I know when it leaves." Pride goeth before a fall, to coin a phrase.

So, an hour later I'm sitting in an unreconstructed first-generation ICE, radio via headphones but no power for the laptop. To make matters even more annoying, the carriage is full of schoolkids returning from a trip, and they are full of beans and correspondingly noisy. If I overheard correctly, they will be changing trains in Hannover, so there is hope that the final hour may be more or less peaceful. What was that about "small mercies?"

Anyway.

Spring is turning into early summer, the rapeseed fields are already half yellow. (Mind you, that particular yellow field was in fact a fine crop of dandelions.)

Oh, I know where we are (roughly): I saw this reservoir on the way to Berlin some months ago. Looks very different now, of course. There are many more tunnels on this route than I remember from the first time.

Thinking about my complaint in that post, that the names of rivers are not signposted, it occurs to me that there is (at least for the computerati) a possible better alternative. G and U have bought themselves a new toy, an in-car navigation system, which G and I set up and played with on Friday afternoon while U worked on (boys will be boys). It's a very cute little machine, the version they bought knows the names of every street and automotive-commercial feature in eastern Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and one other that I can't remember), and can position any house-number to within fifteen metres along that street, and also highway and principal road connections to every town and village in all of continental Europe and Scandinavia. All this info is stored on a single chip the size of the first phalanx of your thumb, the thickness of a stick of chewing gum. The machine has a GPS receiver and compass, so it knows where you are and which direction you are facing. It cost 350 Euros = 445 US$ = one-and-a-half round trips to Hamburg. Amazing.

Now, if one were to build that into a laptop and copy the chip onto its hard disk, you'd have a very spiffy "where are we and what's that?" system. It'll be standard equipment in three years, but right now I can only wish. I suppose I could go online via cellphone and attempt to follow the railroad on satellite photos, but that would be (a) inaccurate, (b) hard work, (c) ruinously expensive and (d) it still wouldn't know the names of the things that really interest me. Actually points A and B need not be true: the laptop's GPS system could select satellite photos that display where it currently is.

We are simultaneously close to and far from William Gibson's vision of the intelligent eyeglasses that know where you are and follow your focus of vision to inform you about what you are looking at. G's navigator can handle the first part already and the US air force is experimenting with eyeball-following systems for hands-free weapon guidance, so the hardware is possible. What's missing is of course the data: some poor sod has to spend a few lifetimes entering all that information. A wiki could be used to spread the burden and also to give that essential human touch, the moments of whimsey and poetry: not just street names, but "a pair of falcons is nesting in that chestnut tree" or "watch for white-water kayaks on this river." I'd sign up for that.

Listening to Die Zauberflöte on the train radio, a live recording of a new production in Baden-Baden last year, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra directed by Claudio Abbado. The reviews are mixed, heady praise and a few complaints; I found it quite good. Zauberflöte is a nice piece, very glittery and cheerful, a treat for musical magpies.

Microclimate is a funny thing, that rapeseed field was already full in bloom although only about 8% of the first field that I noticed (near Heidelberg) was blooming. I wonder what makes the difference? I remember my farming uncles talking about their land, how two fields a few miles apart would consistently get vastly different amounts of rainfall - and that was on the Prairie where there aren't even hills to cast a rain-shadow. It's odd that the rapeseed fields are on average getting steadily riper, the further northeast we go. Very peculiar, other vegetation is generally less advanced as one proceeds northwards. I shall have to look into this sometime or other. Or not.

Here too I have been before: I remember this wide, shallow valley and the double row of birch trees along that road. Last time, it was snowy, now it's a sea of dandelions.

Hannover, and the kids are getting out. Peace and quiet at last. Actually, they weren't that bad, I shouldn't complain; they made less noise and caused less trouble than some drunks I've seen. The carriage is now as good as empty; there are only four of us left, sitting around two adjacent tables. But it would be rude to move apart, so we remain together in the middle of an otherwise empty car.

A field of blackbirds (ripening nicely - or where did you think they came from?) reminds me of a system I invented for calculating ballpark figures for such groups, back when I rode the train an hour to work every day. Look over the group, and divide the space they cover into a number of equal squares, visualising the grid lines as clearly as you can. Take one of those squares and count carefully the birds or animals in it, and multipy by the number of squares. Now look over the group again, and determine how evenly spread they are, and add or subtract five to ten percent if the square you chose was under- or overpopulated. That's your figure. (There were 36 blackbirds in the field.)

Harpier cries; 'tis time, 'tis time.

[Homeward bound, six hours later.] Always read the fine print. I'm sitting bolt upright (the dog trainer's classic "sit up and beg") in a Regional Express train, crawling home slightly faster than a Nordic Walker would manage it. REs really are the pits: noisy, bumpy, drafty, fixed-position benches (not seats), no tables (not even airline-style foldouts), no radio, no electricity and obviously no Bistro. Memo to self: the 20 Euros this saves are not worth the discomfort, or the wasted time.

Other than that, it's been a fine day.