timlukins

I can’t sympathise enough with the author (Ms. Ellmann's) description of my home city - where she also lives - as a destination.

"Edinburgh, where I live, used to be a fine old mirthless town. Twenty-first century marketers have turned it into a fairground. Half the year the city’s few green spaces get trashed by Ferris Wheels, vomit, German Christmas markets, vomit, outdoor exhibitions and exhibitionists, vomit, coffee bars, beer tents, and ice-skating rinks.“

She captures the sentiment I’ve been mulling on recently: the city-as-theme-park. Once you take out the industry, possibly the finance (see Brexit) and nascent tech - what have you got left, apart from public sector? Is this a modern trend for our time? How many other cities around the world are increasingly dependent solely on travel and hospitality?

Some tother related historic broadcasts can be accessed here http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~dm/dm.html at the home page of the late Donald Michie (who worked alongside Turing). Sadly the presentation he gave back in 2007 at Informatics in Edinburgh, which I was very lucky to attend, is missing.

Lovely idea - but I’m not sure height of the building data is accurate enough.

For example, here in Edinburgh one of the best (indeed rare) beer gardens is the Pear Tree:

http://pintsinthesun.co.uk/#55.94434710372921/-3.18554684848...

Which is notorious for the dreaded shadow of nearby Appleton Tower (8 stories, immediately to the west) curtailing an evenings imbibing..

So true - 100% electricity generation != 100% energy sufficiency.

What opened my eyes to this was David MacKay's wonderful (free) book:

http://www.withouthotair.com

Exactly my own visualisation of Weathertop when growing up in the area!

Personally, I think vitrification was a product of accident/attack rather than direct intent...

Interestingly, other early monuments in the locality - such as Rothiemay recumbent stone circle - have been supposed to align with astronomical events and, consequently, evidence of early horology.

http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/details/1114898/

http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/17820/digital_images/ro...

This is a later monument, but to my mind still an indication of "pre-historic science" - and just how advanced it could be.

As an aside, I was always pleasingly intrigued by the fact that Rothiemay was furthermore the birthplace of James Ferguson...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ferguson_(1710–1776)