Think Pad

got me thinking - and chatting with Matt

Colt Seavers.ps: how does the air smell there?

Colt Seavers.ps: (sorry if that seems random - just a thought that pops into my head alot, thinking about moving to countryside etc

Boylee .ps: no worries, not random at all

Boylee .ps: you know I might have been able to tell you in the first week but what with becoming aclimatised and smoking filthy straights I honestly can’t say now

Colt Seavers.ps: lol

Boylee .ps: it smells alot dryer if that makes any sense

Colt Seavers.ps: ah

Colt Seavers.ps: thats what i was wondering

Boylee .ps: umm also earthier but less iron-like

Boylee .ps: :S

Colt Seavers.ps: i was imagining humidity and less industrial concentration cos of sixe

Boylee .ps: i’m crap with smell

Colt Seavers.ps: size

Colt Seavers.ps: but I suppose that;s Thailand memories

Boylee .ps: yeah it is less industrial where I am, but the towns are quite condensed, so they smell quite city like anyway

Colt Seavers.ps: in my head, every time i imagine life in a year, in the country, I can smell freshly fallen rain, peat and coal smoke :P

Colt Seavers.ps: some of my favourite smells :P

Boylee .ps: yeah that’s english countryside

Boylee .ps: ooh ooh ooh

Boylee .ps: and bonfires and beech and oak

Boylee .ps: mmmmmmm

Colt Seavers.ps: aye - soon! starting to smell fireworky here at the moment

Boylee .ps: man smells do take you back don’t they

Colt Seavers.ps: totally

Boylee .ps: just thinking about them even

Colt Seavers.ps: i find it easier to think of places by them for some reason

Boylee .ps: I’m playing out in the fields in Rotherfield at the moment at the end of a long summer

Boylee .ps: feels good man

Colt Seavers.ps: awesome! like, think of a favourite holiday in the sun….then keep thinking into moments, and the smells start to come back. it’s amazing.

Boylee .ps: apparently smell is the strongest evoker of memory out of all the senses

Colt Seavers.ps: i can even get as far into the detail as the smell of the type of suncream we wore, or I can remember what meal we ate, from the smells

Colt Seavers.ps: i imagine if we could packet scents from around the world effectively, we would be very rich

Boylee .ps: Yeah me too, but my memory is so patchy that all I get are snippets, like photos that have fallen out of their albums into the bottom of a box in the attic

Colt Seavers.ps: I know what you mean

Boylee .ps: smoked too much weed as a teenager :’(

Boylee .ps: it’s funny you say that it’s being worked on

Colt Seavers.ps: but i quite like the chaotic way smell memories can shift your thoughts right throught your life - jumping from age 7 to 24 and then 15 etc…

Boylee .ps: yeah defo

Colt Seavers.ps: ‘Tab Houses’ :P http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8329163.stm

Boylee .ps: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-06/ns-rna062806.php

Boylee .ps: “smell recorder”

Colt Seavers.ps: OMG!!!!!!!

Boylee .ps: I honestly can’t believe this is in the article: “Tobacco smuggling is thought to cost the UK economy about £3bn a year in lost tax revenue.”

Boylee .ps: like that’s the issue

Colt Seavers.ps: i know

Colt Seavers.ps: its such an odd article.

Colt Seavers.ps: makes me feel times really have changed

Colt Seavers.ps: not in whats happenning

Colt Seavers.ps: but in how the news talks it up

Colt Seavers.ps: imagine an iphone app that recorded smells with an adapter; full gps. would be awesome

Boylee .ps: yeah, the world’s changing, communications’ changing, technology is changing ,but wierdly, in the centre of this maelstrom humans seem to stay exactly the same

Boylee .ps: that would be amazing

Colt Seavers.ps: in fact - it’s given me an idea for an audioboo mashup project

Colt Seavers.ps: get people to describe the smells around them in 30 seconds audioboo - upload with gps. map it

Boylee .ps: good idea :)

Colt Seavers.ps: then i’ll be ready for the propper tech when it arrives :D

Colt Seavers.ps: and people can compare descriptions with the real thing :o