Drew's View

Buying Train Tickets via Mobile Phone

Deutsche Bahn, the train system in Germany, has an innovative new way for commuters to purchase tickets on the go. You can even reserve a seat on the sometimes crowded trains.

After registering with the service, the traveler can visit a mobile site from their cell phone. After specifying the ticket and seat they desire, they receive an MMS (picture message) with a barcode and confirmation of their ticket.

Once on the train, the traveler can show their phone to the conductor, who simply scans the barcode on the screen to verify the ticket.

Besides the convenience, the system reduces lines at ticket booths and eliminates the need for paper tickets and the associated litter problems.

Cool stuff, and another reason to add to The Case for MMS on the iPhone.

A Different Kind of Vacation Message

Danah Boyd is going on vacation for a month, and rather than the usual "I'm on vacation" email auto-responder, she has trained her email inbox to reject all email while she is away.

"I believe that email eradicates any benefits gained from taking a vacation by collecting mold and spitting it back out at you the moment you return. As such, I've trained my beloved INBOX to reject all email during vacation. The effect is very simple. You cannot put anything in my queue while I'm away (however lovingly you intend it) and I come home to a clean INBOX. Don't worry... if you forget, you'll get a nice note from my INBOX telling you to shove off, respect danah's deeply needed vacation time, and try again after January 19."

I'm not sure I could do this. I can't even go without checking my email.

(via Merlin Mann)

A Fascinating Tale of Amnesia

A fascinating article in the New Yorker from the always-interesting Dr. Oliver Sacks. This one is about Clive Wearing, an accomplished musician who was struck with a brain infection and "cannot retain any memory of passing events or experience and, in addition, has lost most of the memories of events and experiences preceding his encephalitis."

This striking and severe case of amnesia rendered him in a state where he always thought he had just awoken. Over time, he developed some coping skills and can manage simple routines. He also can still perform and conduct music, although can not describe how, nor remember doing it afterward.

Most remarkably, his affection for his wife endures. He is unable to describe her without looking at her, but it is clear he has not forgotten their emotional bond, even after enduring twenty years of his disability.

"Yet somehow he always recognized Deborah as his wife, when she visited, and felt moored by her presence, lost without her. He would rush to the door when he heard her voice, and embrace her with passionate, desperate fervor. Having no idea how long she had been away—since anything not in his immediate field of perception and attention would be lost, forgotten, within seconds—he seemed to feel that she, too, had been lost in the abyss of time, and so her “return” from the abyss seemed nothing short of miraculous."

A Neurologist’s Notebook: The Abyss: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker.