The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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8:49am on Saturday, 28th June, 2025:
Anecdote
When I was at aged 16-18, we visited a power plant on a school trip. This was notable for three things:
1) Only after we entered a room with immense electro-magnets in it did the person who was showing us around remember to ask if any of us had a pacemaker, because if so we'd be dead.
2) I encountered my sixth first computer scientist , the first one who wasn't called Tony. Her name was Roz.
3) I was given a punched card.
I kept the card, because it says Nuclear Data File Card on it. When I was at university, I had the idea of using it for one of my assignments to confuse the punched-card operator, but I never did; they probably wouldn't have noticed it.
It's amazing to think that Essex University used to go through a million punched cards a week back in the late 1970s.
We weren't allowed to take the chad and throw it around. Being card, it was biodegradeable, but apparently it was deadly if inhaled. We could understand that, so only threw it at weddings instead of confetti.
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Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).