Week 183: deep purple

Sunday 18 September 2022

• Sometimes in GTFS feeds there are service_ids mentioned in trips.txt and calendar_dates.txt but not in calendar.txt. I always just sighed, assumed it was an error, ignored it, but turns out it’s perfectly valid and everything makes sense now. Who knew? (Anyone who read the documentation knew.) It’s quite good that I never bothered reporting the what I thought was an error, avoided some slight embarrassment there.

• Out to a big room to see Penguin Cafe, who I suppose you could say are the continuity Penguin Cafe Orchestra, everyone’s favourite minimalist instrumental folk, slightly pretentious, soundtrack to a thousand documentaries. In imagining what the audience would be like, I thought polo-necked architects, but really it’s all about zip-up garments made from technical fabrics these days. It was a nice evening.

• The “deep purple” iPhone 14 Pro. If the Foxconn factory is actually a giant who poos out iPhones, then the giant must have been eating beetroot. I slightly regret the colour choice but it’s growing on me. It’s a clear improvement on the three-year-old old phone, and a lot of spendthrift nerds replace their phones more often than that. Oh the flat sides feel so nice in the hands.

• Queen still dead is she?

  • Impressed by how much bus timetable data has been updated for the StateFuneralOfQueenElizabeth bank holiday, well done everyone. There’ll be more buses running but fewer places open than on Boxing Day, so … a lot of empty seats?

  • Shops (Morrisons) supposedly muting their self-checkout machines out of respect … I must confess, for a while I’ve sometimes turned town the volume myself (there’s a widget in the corner of the screen) when the loud robot voice has been too much, but maybe this makes me an awful shit because most people find the sounds helpful for telling when a barcode’s been scanned successfully. And some people enjoy how coquettishly the Sainsbury’s machines ask “would you like your receipt?”

  • Don’t know why I uploaded the picture of the mat-based tribute last week, but the next time I passed by it had gone, replaced by a union flag with an unflattering oval portrait of the ex-monarch at its centre, repurposed from the jubilee.

  • The live stream of increasingly tired people shuffling past the coffin was slightly compelling. I hope someone’s taped it so they can win the Turner Prize.