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HERB KIM: So it's become an annual, um, experience
for us

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We close Thinking Digital with a talk from
Tom Scott

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and every year he manages to find an even
crazier

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and wackier way to surprise us and delight
us

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and this year he is actually going to be joining
us

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via a live link.

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Tom?

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Can you hear me?

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TOM SCOTT: Yes!

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I'm here!

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Hello!

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Hello Thinking Digital!

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Okay, either my earpiece has stopped working,
or you guys are really quiet.

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AUDIENCE: Hello!

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TOM: Right.

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I've had to step outside to do this talk today,
I do hope you don't mind, it's just that the

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Sage's health and safety team, quite understandably,
wouldn't let me do this talk inside.

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I'll get to why that is in a couple of minutes,
but first a little bit of background.

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I don't like having stuff.

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I don't like accumulating physical things.

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Stuff builds up.

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Stuff is something you have to deal with,
to tidy, to dust, to lug around with you when

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you have to move.

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Ideally, I'd be able to fit my life into a
suitcase.

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On the other hand, I hoard data.

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My email archive goes back to 1999, that being
the year when I learned how important backups

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are.

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I have a copy of nearly everything digital
I've ever made.

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But then digital data is a lot easier to preserve.

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It takes up no great amount of space.

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I can create backup copies in seconds.

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All my data is safe in multiple places, and
as an absolute last-resort backup, there's

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a 60GB file sitting on Amazon Glacier, in
case someone hits London with an electromagnetic

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pulse weapon.

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This, meanwhile, is my hoodie.

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It is a Jerzees ActiveWear Super Sweats hoodie,
code 4997M, Large, in a colour called Oxford

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Grey.

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It is incredibly comfortable, but that's because
I've owned it and worn it for more than ten

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years.

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It was given to me on the 21st October, 2002.

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The word on the front, NORDICS, refers to
North Dickinson County School, in Felch, Michigan.

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That's not a joke, Felch is actually the name
of the town.

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When I was 17, I spent six months touring
around small-town America, and I spent a day

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at North Dickinson County School, where - among
other things - a much gawkier version of me

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-- could we cue the photo in, Nathan?

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-- did an "Ask a British Guy" session.

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Afterwards, the person who was showing me
around took presented me with the NORDICS

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hoodie.

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I never realised how much sentimental value
I was attaching to it.

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But this NORDICS hoodie has followed me for
ten years.

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It's become associated with who I am, to the
extent that I somehow look a bit

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wrong in pictures where I'm wearing some other
jacket.

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If you were at this conference in past years,
you'll have seen me in it.

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It was with me when I went round Australia,
all through university,

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onto a submarine in San Francisco,
It was duct-taped to a shipping container

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along with me to see if I could walk like
Spiderman.

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Er, I couldn't.

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It was with me when I toured Bletchley Park,
catching beads at Mardi Gras in New Orleans,

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and standing on the gunwhales of a canal boat
in Llangollen with nothing between me and

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a 200-foot drop.

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It was with me when I moved to London,
when I took a trip to abandoned sea forts,

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and throughout all the time I was filming
a TV show last year.

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What you saw there was the last ten years
of my life summed up in a few photos.

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This hoodie is the only physical thing I have
that connects me to that gawky 17-year-old.

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Sure, there are a few things in storage at
my parents' house, I could probably find that

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godawful shirt if I went looking for it, but
they're not been continuously with me.

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Nothing has.

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Nothing at all.

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There is no other thing I own that links me
to the kid from ten years ago.

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They don't make these hoodies any more, incidentally
- they haven't done for years.

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There's a reasonable chance that my NORDICS
hoodie may actually be the last remaining

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one in existence.

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The trouble is, it's too tattered and worn
to wear any more.

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It was probably too tattered and worn years
ago, but I held out for as long as I could.

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And it's beyond reasonable repair.

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It's been patched up lots of times but now
every single bit of stitching is coming apart.

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The letters have worn and faded so much that
it basically says "NOROICS" now.

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The lining is so thin after ten years of wearing
and washing that I usually have to wear a

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second layer underneath in order to keep me
warm enough.

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I can't throw it away.

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I realised that.

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It's got too much sentimental value attached
to it; it can't meet a half-arsed end in a

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bin somewhere.

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It's too tattered to be donated, and while
technically it could be shredded, and converted

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into wiping cloths by a textile recycling
company, that doesn't really sit right with

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me either.

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The name of this conference is Thinking Digital.

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And I realised that I really do think that
way.

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If this was digital data, I could compress
it, archive it, and look back every now and

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then, when the mood took me.

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But it isn't: there's no TRON-style digitisation
ray that means I can keep it without also

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having to store it.

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And storing it... isn't an option for me either.

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So this talk is my digitisation ray.

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The story I've told here, the pictures I've
shown, the emotion behind it, is being backed

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up as well as I possibly can on this camera.

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I'll put this online.

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And it won't matter if anyone watches it because:
the story's been told.

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I can look back, remember why this was important
to me, without having to keep a busted and

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broken physical object around just because
I'm sentimental.

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This [take off hoodie] will become hoodie.mp4,
and it'll keep exactly as it is, bit-for-bit,

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as long as I keep my backups up to date.

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So one question remains: now I've uploaded
my hoodie, what do I do with the body?

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This isn't a destructive upload, I didn't
have to slice it apart to index it, and now

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I've transferred it to digital, there's still
this apparently-precious physical object hanging

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around.

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Now, I know what you're thinking.

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You're thinking that this is actually water,
or that there's some clever camera trickery

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going on here.

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It isn't, and there isn't.

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But this is very much a test for me, because
until I got to this place, until I had a can

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of paraffin in my hand, I didn't know whether
I'd actually go through with this.

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If I really could believe that I could upload
my hoodie to a video file and then the original

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wouldn't matter any more.

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The stories we tell, the things we do, and
the memories we have - either in our heads

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or in our backups - are more important than
any physical object.

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This is why I'm here.

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This is why this hoodie will be a ball of
ashes shortly.

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And that is why this conference is called
Thinking Digital.

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Thank you very much.

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I've been Tom Scott.

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Goodnight.