Quite a while ago I posted some photos of my London cycle commute (link). You might get a different perspective on cycling in London from the video linked below. Please note, the movie file is 70mb, and it's accompanied by a heavy metal soundtrack. So turn down the volume if you don't want to ROCK!!!

London Calling (From digave.com, Lucas Brunelle Productions).

My own commute is somewhat less aggressive, and may have a different soundtrack. It also doesn't involve any parking garages.

I consider myself to have quite a decent array of Web searching skills. I'm quite up to speed on the various options Google provides, and tend to use them in complex combinations in order to try and get useful information with a minimum of chaff. I also have a tendency to do searches in parallel, popping up multiple tabs/windows at the same time to allow quicker cycling through the possibilities (something that infuriates Mrs. Dunce to no end when she's shoulder-surfing). Anyway, I tend to be pretty successful at finding what I'm looking for.

Or at least, when it comes to text. Or information that can be found using text, such as identifying a song from a snippet of lyrics (even when they're almost entirely in an unknown language, like this catchy number (link to lyrics). But when it comes to non-text searches, let me just say "Ouch".

For example, Mrs. Dunce is a big fan of a certain plant that grows well near us. It's a flowering tree with some lovely bluish-purple flowers. As pictured here (with Mrs. Dunce wondering about its name).


I've certainly tried text-based searching to find this sort of thing (text-based search tricks work just fine in Google Images, as long as you know the right sort of terminology), but it just isn't happening. Searching for things like "purplish-blue flowers" gets you similar plants but they just don't look quite right. And I get really tired of lavender, lavender, lavender, lilac, lilac, lilac which don't look right either. I've managed to find a nice online flower identifier but its questions assume a level of knowledge/attention well beyond my own (in addition to referring only to northeastern and north central US and adjoining bits of Canada). And there's no way I'm going to admit my ignorance by going into a flower shop and asking questions that reveal my ignorance, or posting the picture on a plant identification forum where no doubt it would be instantly identified.

Of course, by creating this post, I'm revealing my ignorance after all. But it's related to the more general question of how one might go about using text-based search techniques to find out information about an image you are having trouble identifying. This does not just apply to plants or flowers. Say for instance you see an image like this one. The man in the blue shirt is very famous, but who is he? You might get some hints from the name of the website, and the people standing next to him, but then what? Or maybe you see this picture and want to figure out what kind of bus it is (there is a very precise answer to this one which can be found using a different set of simple search tricks).

Anyway, it would probably be much easier to ask someone. But that would take the challenge out of it.

Impossible?! Never. But sadly, this time it's true.

Some time ago, I decided to try and find a legal cycling route between home and work which allowed me to avoid every single traffic light on my way. The original post where I set out the challenge is here and here is a follow-up post where I successfully reduced the total to five (or six, but then it hardly matters if it's not zero).

In the past few days I've been working tirelessly to solve one particular vexing problem: the iron curtain around my workplace. You might get an idea of the situation by peering at this Google Map. My workplace lies in the center of the map, and home is north by northeast. The blue place markers indicate intersections that are controlled by traffic signals.

Unfortunately, a careful survey of all the possible (legal) crossings seems to show that my challenge is impossible. It appears that a rectangle bounded by the A501, A420, A401, and A400 is a nearly inescapable trap, at least for any cyclist hoping to avoid all traffic signals and still ride legally (one apparent possibility is actually pedestrian-only). Today I tested my last hope, a circuitous route heading southwest (indicated by the blue line in the above-linked Google Map). I did manage to get across the A400, but only just. It takes me to the massively nasty traffic system around New Oxford Street, High Holborn and so on, the last place a traffic signal avoider wants to be.

So this is a challenge that must remain unsolved, at least until some of the traffic signals are removed.

A gazillion days ago I mentioned the Glasgow Necropolis, and that I'd write about it soon. I just have to stop making statements like that. Although I've been busy, I could have dashed off an entry or two about something other than necropolises (or necropoleis for those people afraid of sullying the language by using English regular plurals on Wörter borrowed from other Sprachen). Anyway, today I bring you a few words (and fewer pictures) about the Glasgow Necropolis.

The term "necropolis" really just means "cemetery" (preferably large, fancy and ancient). The Victorian craze for impressive burial monuments led to an enthusiastic adoption of the concept, and wealthy Glasgow was no exception. In 1831, land near Glasgow cathedral was converted into a cemetery, modeled upon Père Lachaise in Paris. Some 50,000 are now buried there; I believe 100% of them are dead. At the top of the hill stands a monument to John Knox, hero of the Reformation in Scotland. Built 253 years after his death, it features a brief summary of his anti-Popery heroism. Broken floodlights around the monument are a not-so-subtle reminder that not all residents of Glasgow are pleased with this substantial monument to anti-Popery.

On our first day in Glasgow, we were too late to visit the Necropolis; large iron gates prevented us from crossing the Bridge of Sighs to the Necropolis itself. But we were very eager to get there... here's a picture I already posted, featuring Mrs. Dunce's enthusiasm for the Necropolis. The Knox monument is at the top of the photo.


But once Sunday morning came, we had time to visit the Necropolis. We had it mostly to ourselves, at least if you only consider the living. On our rambling way up the hill, the less serious of our group felt compelled to pose before a particularly impressive monument:

There was quite a view from the very top:

 

As we were looking around the Knox monument, we were further reminded of Glasgow's sectarian heritage: the sounds of a drum and fife band began playing somewhere off in the distance, probably warming up for the Rangers match later that day. No, we weren't planning to be anywhere near the Rangers match, but were instead using our few remaining hours to see the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (I'll try and convinve Mrs. Dunce into writing a guest post on that topic. I think she probably has more to say than I do).

I took a bunch of pictures at the Necropolis too (all the above are from Mrs. Dunce) but have somehow misplaced them. Par for the course, really. Fortunately others have succeeded where I have failed; for example, there are some very nice black&white photos here. And a very good (brief) article by Glasgow Necropolis expert Ronnie Scott here. Or there's always his book. Or even his very recently unveiled theory that the Necropolis itself is a giant Masonic emblem, symbols within symbols within symbols (article link)