In a study at Stanford in the early 90's a psychology PhD student got a bunch of people to tap out well known tunes, such as Happy Birthday, whilst a group of listeners attempted to guess the tune. On average, the Tappers expected people to guess the correct tune one time in two. In fact, the Listeners managed to identify the correct tune only one time in forty. This phenomenon is widely applicable to many types of communication: To the Tapper, the tune in their head is so blindingly obvious that they can't believe the Listener won't get it. But to the Listener, the seemingly random noise is indecipherable. This has been reinforced in the last few weeks as I've tapped out responses to dozens of emails from journalists only to get follow-up questions that have left me nonplussed. But I think it also applies in a more general sense (perhaps the PMB minutes are total opaque?) and with journalists, of course, I suppose it's true they don't even know the tune I'm trying to tap. Anyway the oddest and most interesting contact from the fall out from the Sunday Times article was a request for GridPP to get involved with a bid for the Athletes Village for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. The CEO of the company understandably had this idea that the Grid was something that would deliver the next generation of Audio- Visual service to Athletes and should be included in the bid. Of course, GridPP would very much like to be associated and it was seriously discussed at the PMB - perhaps the first item in the 301st PMB minutes (http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/pmb/minutes/080428.txt) might make a little more sense now! If you have any clever ideas, then drop me an email. Of course, by 2014 we'd be in GridPP5 and somebody else would be in charge so don't hold back...
