Beep!

Don't we just love it when a machine goes beep? It signals that something happened, something was achieved: a payment was made, a door was opened, an entry was accepted; in some cases, we just got a little poorer. The world audibly moved for us, a little bit.

We carry the means to make things go beep around in our pockets, in fairly large numbers too. Some work by magnetic strips, some by bar or QRcodes, some by RF (Radio Frequency) tags. The last ones are the fanciest, because they control the beep at a distance (albeit a small one), for instance from within your wallet, though this works only as long as you just have one of them - two RF tags will typically interfere.

I counted nine new beep controllers that I acquired just for my stay in York. (Well, I cheated a little bit: one is a very old-fashioned mechanical key for a bicycle lock: in that case the beep is a click.) The credit card format is favourite, of course, but the Sport Village has a wristband - quite handy! (Pun intended.) All this does make for a fat wallet, certainly considering that the English coins arent't particularly small. Of course you can try leaving some of these cards at home, but you do this knowing that there will be a moment when you want the particular beep that only this card controls, and then you will have forgotten to take it with you.

The University of York certainly also love their beeps. To get into Richard's office I have to pass nine distinct doors: the first two open themselves for everyone, then there is a sequence of five fire doors which should be closed at all times (this being England), the fifth requiring a card (beep!) after 18:00, and finally two doors that beep at all times. I feel utterly safe when I have finally arrived.

Talking about my bike: the topic is probably starting to be boring, but I do want to report that today Halfords redeemed themselves. I went this morning to report the lack of a first gear, as well as a very small give in the left crank, and they not only repaired this on the spot, but also changed the pedals for a set of better ones when it turned out that they were the cause of the problem I thought was in the crank. Well done!