These seem to redundantly code what could otherwise be done with one-liner calls to `np.fromstring(fid.read())` calls, which would be more consistent with how `tag.py` treats data. There are some good reasons the reads are coded this way in `tag.py`, including seamlessly supporting `.gz` files, for example. Is it possible to change over to that method? Are there considerations with these read functions that would make `np.fromstring()` (or similar) not appropriate? It might not be worth the overhead now that everything is coded in any case, but it's worth considering.