Muir's Law

Sunset over the Tyne Estuary at John Muir Country Park, East Lothian. Snow was falling as I left the house and the heavy clouds created an intense glow. A beautiful sight as the sun blazed behind Traprain Law - hence "Muir's Law".

The large chunk missing from the face of Traprain, visible as a dark curve in this picture, is caused by 20th Century mining for road building, so I doubt John Muir's view in the 19th Century would have been exactly the same. However destructive the mining was, it revealed some fascinating finds which are described in a 1935 paper here: Rock Sculpturings on Traprain Law. The paper describes carvings found during the mining works which seem to be very ancient and "used for purposes of magic." Unfortunately, the rocks were smashed up for road metal anyway and the paper was written from examination of plaster casts of the rocks!

One of the best things about keeping a Blip journal is that it reminds me to do something deliberately good with the day. Today though, Blip was both the good and bad influence - I started programming against the Blip API just to see what's possible, and the day slipped away - You can play with my Blip widget here: BlipView. I had intended to get 20 or so miles under the bike wheels, but it didn't happen. So, I got out on this local ride over John Muir Country Park and along the beach.

The children are away this week so I have tomorrow to myself before back to work on Wednesday. I must get out tomorrow...

Working with internet programming today reminds me of "Moore's Law" - the rule of thumb that available processing power doubles every 2 years. This has been broadly true for "over half a century" to the extent now that we assume that everything we can access will return more or less instantly with our results. The Blip API is certainly fast!

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