h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today my eldest brother is seventy-three. From November to February he is ten years older than I am, which is how I have always thought of him.

My first memories of him are of someone in long trousers who could do everything. In particular he could make working machines out of Meccano. He liked making cranes, but I was more impressed by a robot that walked. This was in the 1950s, the time of wind-up motors.

He wanted to be an engineer, but our father persuaded him to study maths instead, saying that there would be few jobs for engineers in Ireland. This was true in the sixties, but I suspect he really just wanted my brother to join him in business, which he did. He qualified as an actuary and joined the financial firm, but though he loved the actuarial training he hated being in business.

A relief came in the seventies, when computers came into the business world. My brother had himself put in charge of buying and running the office computer. At that time you didn't just buy hardware and software off the shelf, you had to specify what you wanted your machine to do, then the computer firm would build you a fearsome monster and write you a program. My brother read up about computers (he is a great fan of Alan Turing) and sent in such a well-drafted specification that it was copied shortly after by one of the major Irish banks. Not only that, the computer was delivered on time and within budget--something unheard of in those early days.

His main job then was to get the secretaries and clerks in the company to change their methods: things no longer needed to be written down in three separate books, just sent once to the computer room (a whole climate-controlled floor). He extracted a promise from the other directors that nobody would be fired on the excuse that the computer made them redundant; business expanded and the same manpower was always needed.

Some years later, when the other directors broke their promise, my brother retired from business, at the age of forty-five. He had by this time designed and built (in his garden) a forty-foot catamaran, which he has since sailed around the world.

His love of computers remained, and when the human genome was published he wrote a program to search through it for recurring patterns. His son-in-law, a genetics professor, made use of it and urged him to present it at a conference. He wouldn't do this. He shuns publicity like disease, and not many people know his name, but to me he is the most famous of men. Happy birthday.

I hope someone will say things half as nice about me when I'm any age.

That is a very impressive series of accomplishments! Many happy returns to the man.

TRiG.

(Silent admiration)

Yours is a remarkable family. Remarkable families should be treasured by everyone.

I am particularly impressed by the catamaran. I assume sailing was a hobby? We always sailed Mirrors.

But how cool to be in at the sharp end of the computer age. What does he think of smart phones and the like?

Hates phones.

Likes writing his own programs; at one stage he had a Sinclair QL that he set searching through enormous numbers for the scattering of primes. It would chug away all night and print out its findings in the morning.

I just found out today, my brother is the same age as the googol. How appropriate!

All I was thinking having read this was wow, what a brother to have. The sort of man that hearing about leaves you feeling more optimistic about homo sapiens.
Thank you,
Waz (calling in from NaJoPoMo)

Thank you, Waz!

Solnushka -- yes, he began racing Fireflies (12-foot dinghies) in college, and continued with various shared catamarans till he built his own. A catamaran is the best thing when you have a young family, or at any time, really. The floating equivalent of a recumbent bike, I'd call it, with the same major advantages: comfort, safety and speed. A901036

He also made a two-man canoe, and when I was sixteen he borrowed another from a friend who made one at the same time, and we made a three-week descent of the Loire together with his wife and two-year old daughter. We brought a tent and no cooking equipment, living on bread, cheese, paté, salads and wine. The Loire is the perfect river for that: slow, shallow and sandy.

Another thing he had made, when he was about eighteen, was a plywood guitar, from plans in Hobbies Weekly. He gave up trying to play it when he found me, aged nine, doing better on it than he could. I had a similar experience when my son was ten and I showed him how to do the Rubik cube: he promptly halved my record time.

My brother died this morning at 4am, well cared for and surrounded by his daughters. It's never an easy business, but it seems he faded out as smoothly as could be.

My sympathies, Recumbentman.

TRiG.

Thanks, TRiG.

Oh I am sorry for your loss, Recumbentman. Your brother sounded like a wonderful interesting man.

Thank you both.

My brother Michael actually joined hootoo at one point, calling himself SemiRecumbent; like me he rode a recumbent bike, or to be accurate a semi-recumbent. True recumbents are racing machines. He joined simply to post a comment on my Berkeley Entry, at http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/F1982513?thread=583299&skip=7

Did the recumbents run in the family, or did one of you evangelise the other?

TRiG.

I was the first. I read about recumbents in a bicycle magazine around 1980 and said "I'm going to get one of those some day". They were over £2,000 then, so I waited for them to get either cheaper or common enough to get a second-hand one. In 2000 a friend got me a second-hand PDQ in London and that's what I've been riding ever since.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1OpKJBezL0 (Chap looks rather like me. I never can tell people with beards apart.)

On my first long trip (France north to south) with Michael I was on my bent and he was on an upright. As the weeks passed his saddle bit him more and more and mine didn't. On our next trip (France to Sweden) we were both on bents, and remained so from then on.

There is just no contest.

When I get a new job, and can afford one of these things, I'll definitely look into it.

TRiG.