It looks like the history books may have to be rewritten as PIGEONS ARE FIGHTING BACK!
No longer the SCUM OF THE PARK pigeons are PROVING THEIR WORTH something Ram, Angus and I have always known as the founders of the RSPP (Royal Society For The Protection of Pigeons, see earlier blog). Pigeons have once again proved that when the CHIPS ARE DOWN, computer chips that is … they can SAVE THE DAY!
This week a homing pigeon called “WINSTON” has MADE HISTORY. Challenged to take on NEW MEDIA he raced against a “file transfer” AND WON. Office workers in South Africa were so frustrated by the length of time it was taking to transfer 4 gigabytes between two offices, fifty miles apart, that they strapped the data card to Winston’s legs and OFF HE FLEW! In total, it took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds for Winston to leave Howick to fly to Hillcrest, and to upload the data from the card onto the call centre system.
“It was a little slower than what we were hoping for but it was overcast and rainy, with a lot of mist, that made travel conditions difficult for the little fellow,”
said Mr Rolfe who works at the firm.
Winston – who has over 300 followers on Twitter – tweeted several times en route; his comments including,
“FLYING WEATHER CLOUDY AND COOL, FEELING GOOD, NO MAJOR PROBLEMS TO REPORT.”
Then, the news that everyone, especially fans on his Facebook site “WINSTON THE PIGEON” were waiting for, ITWEB reported at 11.15 … “WINSTON HAS LANDED” … with the shock news that the transmission of the same data size , by computer, was only about FOUR PERCENT COMPLETE.
As is so often the case with ELITE ATHLETIC PERFORMANCES there have been jealous rumours from RIVAL PIGEON FANCIERS that Winston may have eaten PERFORMANCE BOOSTING BIRDSEED. Thankfuly these have now been discounted. The RSPP is now calling on everyone to TO PUT DOWN THE MOUSE (computer mouse AND PICK UP THE PIGEON for, after all, that old fable about the HARE AND THE TORTOISE can now be revised and updated … to be replaced by “THE COMPUTER AND THE PIGEON”.