another cycling forum

  => Freewheeling => Topic started by: sam on January 08, 2010

Title: browsing
Post by: sam on January 08, 2010
Slate Star Codex (http://slatestarcodex.com/)
Best blogroll taxonomy ever

Wikileaks (http://wikileaks.org/)
Uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_published_by_WikiLeaks)

Cockeyed (http://www.cockeyed.com/)
Always bring your camera

Secondat (http://secondat.blogspot.com/)
You have to study a great deal to know a little

Techdirt (http://www.techdirt.com/)
Uses a proven economic framework to analyze and offer insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies ability to innovate and grow. Or so they say

I Blame the Patriarchy (http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/)
A platform from which to practice writing run-on sentences

Maxine Udall (http://www.maxineudall.com/)
Girl economist

James Wolcott (http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/)
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity

Slacktivist (http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/)
'Cause I'm a sucker for portmanteaus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism)

The Inverse Square Blog (http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/)
He blinded me with science

Schneier on Security (http://www.schneier.com/)
Is it safe?

The Panda's Thumb (http://pandasthumb.org/)
The picayune to the pedantic

Diamond Geezer (http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/)
Life viewed from London E3

Artchive (http://www.artchive.com/)
More than just wallpaper

Photoshop Disasters (http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/)
Worth it just for the captions

The Straight Dope (http://www.straightdope.com/)
He had me at The story of Schroedinger's cat (an epic poem) (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/113/the-story-of-schroedingers-cat-an-epic-poem)

Fafblog (http://fafblog.blogspot.com/)
Wisdom from the Medium Lobster et al

Hyperbole and a Half (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/)
She loves ham
Dog owners click here (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/11/dogs-dont-understand-basic-concepts.html)

Ruthless Reviews (http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/) and Film Freak Central (http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/)
Reviews with bite

Stuff White People Like (http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/)
Bikes made the list (http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/10/61-bicycles/)

Easily Distracted (http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/)
Culture, politics, academia and other shiny objects

spEak You're bRanes (http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/about/)
ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougo livethere
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on January 09, 2010
YouTube doing what it does best: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on January 30, 2010
I don't have an opinion about aerospokes one way or the other, but this thread (http://www.lfgss.com/thread2530.html) over at the London Fixed-gear and Single-speed forum made me laugh. It's a pity that some of the pictures have disappeared.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/aeroclubs.jpg)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on February 03, 2010
Eric Spitznagel, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (http://vonnegutsasshole.blogspot.com/2008/11/everything-was-beautiful-and-nothing_17.html):

I have very distinct memories of who my grandfather was. He was a man who adored leftist politics, and wrote angry letters to The Nation and The New Republic whenever he felt they were leaning too far to the middle. He was a man who'd gone bald at 30, at roughly the same age he started believing his waistline began just under his nipples. He was a man whose 70th birthday present to himself was personally reshingling his house — not to prove that he was still self-sufficient, but because roofers were "crooks" who wanted to rob him blind. He was a man who wrote all of his correspondence (and even his "to-do" lists) on an antique Smith-Corona typewriter, which was missing an L key that he never found it necessary to replace. He was a man who began every conversation by explaining exactly why you were wrong. And above all (at least for me), he was a man who loved his grandkids but couldn't help but look at them with an expression that said: "If you want a hug, I'm gonna need a blood test."

But I never thought of my grandfather as a man who had sex. I know he must've done it at some point (my mother and her siblings were living proof), but I just assumed he had sex like a cheetah — fast and unemotional and without any eye contact. I certainly never thought of him as somebody who had sex for pleasure or would, if given the opportunity, dress up like a "soiled and morally indecent farmer" and ravage his girlfriend in the nearest abandoned barn.

"I want you to be inside of me," one of the letters from a woman named Betty confessed. "I want to smell your manly musk as you hold me down and have your way with me, making me feel afraid and so terribly excited at the same time!"

Wow. Just... wow.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on February 22, 2010
In his dreams, his voice has never left. In his dreams, he can get out everything he didn't get out during his waking hours: the thoughts that get trapped in paperless corners, the jokes he wanted to tell, the nuanced stories he can't quite relate. In his dreams, he yells and chatters and whispers and exclaims. In his dreams, he's never had cancer. In his dreams, he is whole. (http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310)

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/rogerebert.jpg)
photo by Ethan Hill

...In fact, because he's missing sections of his jaw, and because he's lost some of the engineering behind his face, [Roger] Ebert can't really do anything but smile. It really does take more muscles to frown, and he doesn't have those muscles anymore. His eyes will water and his face will go red — but if he opens his mouth, his bottom lip will sink most deeply in the middle, pulled down by the weight of his empty chin, and the corners of his upper lip will stay raised, frozen in place. Even when he's really angry, his open smile mutes it: The top half of his face won't match the bottom half, but his smile is what most people will see first, and by instinct they will smile back. The only way Ebert can show someone he's mad is by writing in all caps on a Post-it note or turning up the volume on his speakers. Anger isn't as easy for him as it used to be. Now his anger rarely lasts long enough for him to write it down.

Esquire article spotted at Alas! A Blog (http://www.amptoons.com/blog/)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on February 25, 2010
(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/headlesssfatties.jpg)

Charlotte Cooper writes: (http://www.charlottecooper.net/docs/fat/headless_fatties.htm) I started to notice the Headless Fatty phenomenon a couple of years ago, when the current wave of the War on Obesity (also known in the press as the Global Obesity Epidemic, the Obesity Crisis, etc) began to get coverage. Every hand-wringing article about the financial cost of obesity, and every speechifying press release about the ticking time bomb of obesity seemed to be accompanied by a photograph of a fat person, seemingly photographed unawares, with their head neatly cropped out of the picture.

Since then, the Headless Fatty has become a staple of news journalism. It's quite bizarre, fat people are in the news all the time, almost constantly; "Obesity" returns more than twice as many Google News hits as "Madonna." But we are presented as objects, as symbols, as a collective problem, as something to be talked about. Unless we play the game and parrot oppressive, self-hating, medicalised views about fat, fat people's own voices, feelings, thoughts and opinions about what it is to be fat are entirely absent from the discourse.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on February 26, 2010
These come by way of shorpy.com (https://www.shorpy.com), an archive of vintage photos mostly sourced from the Library of Congress. Click on pics for enlargements.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/oldpics/courier.jpg) (https://www.shorpy.com/node/990?size=_original)
Western Union courier, 1911

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/oldpics/bikeshop.jpg) (https://www.shorpy.com/node/6963?size=_original)
Bike shop, 1919

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/oldpics/bikecontest.jpg) (https://www.shorpy.com/node/7565?size=_original)
Winners of Times bicycle contest, 1921

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/oldpics/tricks.jpg) (https://www.shorpy.com/node/6380?size=_original)
Trick cyclist, 1921.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/oldpics/pennyfarthing.jpg) (https://www.shorpy.com/node/6488?size=_original)
Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1890

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/oldpics/onstreet.jpg) (https://www.shorpy.com/node/1558?size=_original)
Club Messenger Service, 1913

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/oldpics/race.jpg) (https://www.shorpy.com/node/5569?size=_original)
R.J. O'Connor, inter-city championship bicycle races, 1925

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/oldpics/withcat.jpg) (https://www.shorpy.com/node/932?size=_original)
On the farm, 1939
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on February 28, 2010
Julian Emre Sayarer, This is not for charity: (http://www.thisisnotforcharity.com)

This will not grin for the adverts and grimace for the film crew, this will not be narrated by a monotone harbinger of doom. This will not be the slice of human spirit to be purchased by Lloyds TSB, Profit Hunters or Bright Orange Futures, in order that they can claim to have the human concerns their businesses work actively against. This will not claim to be Everyone; this will reject the claims that a Telephone Company creates Everyone, because I know drug addicts and asylum seekers and shit hole towns that no Telephone Company has ever cared about or cared to even mention the existence of. This will not be the media and marketing carnival that encourages everyone to smile. This will state that society is not just not right but that it is wholesale wrong. That it is wrong for inept bankers to take multi-million pound, taxpayer-paid pensions, whilst forty-year old taxpayers work fifty-hour weeks at minimum wage to save their mortgages. Wrong that Tesco can trumpet 10,000 new jobs without mention of the 2,000 small businesses and livelihoods they help close down each year... Wrong that halfwits and hooligans can join our police force with the misunderstanding that they are to be masters rather than servants of the public. Wrong that MP's can between them claim £93,000,000 in expenses, plus a £63,200 basic salary, for presiding over a society so destitute that 280,000 people choose to leave it for crack-cocaine or heroin addictions anyway.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on March 04, 2010
Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job? (http://www.debunking911.com/questions.htm)
We’ve all heard the “official conspiracy theory” of the Death Star attack. We all know about Luke Skywalker and his ragtag bunch of rebels, how they mounted a foolhardy attack on the most powerful, well-defended battle station ever built. And we’ve all seen the video over, and over, and over, of the one-in-a-million shot that resulted in a massive chain reaction that not just damaged, but completely obliterated that massive technological wonder.

Like many, I was fed this story when I was growing up. But as I watched the video, I began to realize that all was not as it seemed. And the more I questioned the official story, the deeper into the rabbit hole I went...


(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/deathstar.jpg)
"Compelling evidence that we all may be the victims of a fraud of immense proportions"
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on March 06, 2010
(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/magcovers/lampoon.jpg)
A classic

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/magcovers/texasmonthly.jpg)
A suitable homage

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/magcovers/time.jpg)
As dead as mainstream media

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/magcovers/newyorker.jpg)
Not many subscribers in the flyover states

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/magcovers/rollingstone.jpg)
What, no barenaked lady? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5YIJ1pZEBc)

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/magcovers/mad.jpg)
Or won't
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on March 07, 2010
If you were born before the 1950s, you may have eaten two bananas in your life. (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/1/799132/-Big-Mike-and-the-Paper-Hanger) If you're younger, chances are you've eaten only one.  Of course, you may be fond of plantains, or be lucky enough to live in an area where your grocery provides more variety, but for most of America and Europe "banana" actually means "Vietnamese cavendish banana." That's the banana that's sold in these markets today. 

Before the Cavendish, the bananas sold in most markets went by the name of Gros Michael -- the Big Mike. Big Mike was carefully selected for a whole set of properties that made it a terrific banana for the market.  It had a bright, attractive, relatively unblemished skin. It wasn't just pretty, it was also tough. The yellow skin peeled easily, but was thicker than that on other bananas and Big Mike lasted for a longer period without becoming overripe. That made it easier to ship the bananas without refrigeration. Many people who ate them in their childhood still have the memory of bananas being better back then -- and they are right.  It's not just nostalgia. The Gros Michael had a smooth texture, along with a taste that was sweeter than today's Cavendish. 

Breeding for market appeal isn't new and it isn't unique to bananas....


(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/budhabanana.jpg)
image from The Church of the Banana (https://www.churchofthebanana.com/)

The Daily Kos (https://www.dailykos.com/) is better known as a political site, but it ranges far and wide and interests people like me with stories like this. Kos is also known as the Orange Satan by some progressives. I'm put off by the anti-Naderism and the need for constant validation-by-rec in the comments, but sheer volume ensures enough quality to make visiting worthwhile.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on March 14, 2010
Mother's Day was of course invented by the porn industry as part of a many-pronged marketing campaign to generate interest in a new moneyshotmaking genre. Only later was it co-opted by florists, themselves compromised by association with pistils and stamens and Georgia O'Keefe. Mumsnet (https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/916664-to-think-39-MILF-39-is-not-a-compliment) uncovers another revenue stream:

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/MILFcreeper.jpg)
Infant creeper (https://www.cafepress.com/+im_with_the_milf_infant_creeper,45942379) available from Cafe Press. Here's one for watersports. (https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/index.php?topic=50787.msg726738#msg726738) Is there no escape?

"The country's most popular meeting point for parents" (The Times), who by definition have had sex, has much to offer in the way of advice and reviews. Unfortunately you may have to watch your back on the discussion boards, reportedly (https://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article7026100.ece) prowled by bullies and a "cabal of sanctimonious bossy-boots... who consider it their duty to comb messages for evidence of heterodoxy."

Try the baby name finder:

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/babynamefinder.gif) (https://www.mumsnet.com/baby-name-finder)

Garabaldis feed growing Alexanders or Mabels. Only the cynical will suggest it's random; I prefer to think that painstaking research has been conducted.

Lunchbox Dos and Don'ts (https://www.mumsnet.com/microsites/lunchbox.html)
Don’t forget that what you pack is open to scrutiny - not just by other kids but by other mums. So if your child's going to a friend's house after school, make sure that's not the day you give in to Fruit Shoots and Greggs sausage rolls. Stick a few stray aduki beans/arugula leaves/ seaweed sachets in the lunchbox. Your child might be a tad confused but your position as Alpha Mother will be assured for ever more!

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/arugula.jpg)
Where Alpha Mothers roam and their day is in May

Although on the internet anybody can be a mum, mumsnet gives dads (https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/dadsnet) a shed, presumably to assemble that first bike. Budding weight weenies (https://weightweenies.starbike.com/) may be interested in the Isla Rothan (https://www.mumsnet.com/Reviews/FirstBikes/1-isla-bikes-rothan/) and avoid Raleigh's Chuckles the Monkey (https://www.mumsnet.com/Reviews/FirstBikes/16-raleigh-chuckles-the-monkey).

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/mumsnet.jpg)

Sounds familiar. (https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/by_cyclists_for_cyclists.jpg)


HTH (https://www.mumsnet.com/info/acronyms)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on March 18, 2010
Speaking of mothers: (http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/3130)
"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People who really want help may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway."
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on March 18, 2010
What would be even more awesome is if you pulled on a certain book, the whole thing would swing around and reveal a secret building.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/kansaslibrary.jpg)

Images you won't believe aren't Photoshopped. (https://www.cracked.com/article_18444_17-more-images-you-wont-believe-arent-photoshopped_p1.html)



From the same site, this fascinating article by David Wong (https://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html):

If you've ever been addicted to a game or known someone who was, this article is really freaking disturbing. (https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3085/behavioral_game_design.php?page=1) It's written by a games researcher at Microsoft on how to make video games that hook players, whether they like it or not. He has a doctorate in behavioral and brain sciences. Quote:

"Each contingency is an arrangement of time, activity, and reward, and there are an infinite number of ways these elements can be combined to produce the pattern of activity you want from your players."

Notice his article does not contain the words "fun" or "enjoyment." That's not his field. Instead it's "the pattern of activity you want."

[...]

The terrible truth is that a whole lot of us begged for a Skinner Box we could crawl into, because the real world's system of rewards is so much more slow and cruel than we expected it to be. In that, gaming is no different from other forms of mental escape, from sports fandom to moonshine.

The danger lies in the fact that these games have become so incredibly efficient at delivering the sense of accomplishment that people used to get from their education or career. We're not saying gaming will ruin the world, or that gaming addiction will be a scourge on youth the way crack ruined the inner cities in the 90s. But we may wind up with a generation of dudes working at Starbucks when they had the brains and talent for so much more. They're dissatisfied with their lives because they wasted their 20s playing video games, and will escape their dissatisfaction by playing more video games. Rinse, repeat.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on March 19, 2010
It's Not A Race (http://www.itsnotarace.org/)
We all know ‘The Game’.

We may never have dared to speak of it or confess its power over us, but we’ve all heard its seductive voice whispering in our ears, daring us to chase that shaven-legged (like a girl) roadie though our lungs threaten to burst out of our chest. We’ve all been stung by its bitter laughter when the skinny kid on the slicked-up mountain bike dropped us when we weren’t really paying attention (though in our hearts, we know that was no excuse), but we’d be damned if we were going to let him get away with it.

Oh yes, we all know The Game.

Now The Game has a name and that name is ‘Silly Commuter Racing’, itself a hollow denial of the seriousness with which The Game is played. Mock if you will, but eventually you will come to realise that we do not play The Game, no
The Game plays us. (http://notanothercyclingforum.net/bikereader/solo/challenge.html)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on March 21, 2010
If you're not a cat person, hearing them play atonal music isn't likely to change your mind. Personally I like them well enough, but we don't tend to travel in the same circles.

Cory Arcangel: (http://www.coryarcangel.com/things-i-made/DreiKlavierstucke) Recently I took a few months of my free time and decided to recreate Arnold Schoenberg's 1909 op. 11 Drei Klavierstücke (aka Three Piano Pieces) by editing together videos of cats playing pianos downloaded from Youtube. Schoenberg's Op11 is often considered the first piece of "atonal" music, or music to completely break from traditional western harmony which means it's not written in a "key". Below you will find the three videos (one for each piano piece), a technical description & the score.

I. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF6IBWTDgnI)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF6IBWTDgnI

II (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ay0nOIWSo4) & III (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHrMlgKrons)

See also his collection of video links, including every Sopranos profanity (http://vimeo.com/2998698). (Speaking of which (http://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/index.php?topic=50744.0).)

Found on entschwindet und vergeht (http://youyouidiot.blogspot.com/).

PS. Oh my dog. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Caa-QEY-FA)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on March 28, 2010
Critics never had much patience for Styx. (https://www.salon.com/life/excerpt/2010/03/27/rock_and_roll_will_save_your_life) They were the apotheosis of late 70s prog-pop mediocrity, and so forth. Nor has history been kind. Styx has become the mullet of bands. The band's real crime is not that they were too eager to please -- though they were certainly that -- but that they were too effective at pleasing. They got people to sing along. We all have a Styx in our closet,* at least one. (Supertramp, anyone? Hootie & the Blowfish?) They're reminders of who we used to be, as surely as the feathered hair and Lycra bodysuits that haunt our old photo albums.

But my larger point is that there's no angle in hating on a particular song or band or genre. Our species is adaptable. That's our evolutionary trump card. If the human ear is given a chance, not cowed into snobbery, it can find rewards in almost any form of music... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5MAg_yWsq8)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5MAg_yWsq8

* raises hand (https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/index.php?topic=1752.0)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on April 10, 2010
I have also come to see that my body is not really mine. Its atoms existed before me and will continue to exist long after I am gone. My body belongs not only to me but also to those I love. It is merely on loan to me, temporarily assembled, and if it becomes ill, the people who rely on it, who rely on me, suffer, too. In this sense, we are all bridges to one another, stretched out tip to toe, sometimes colliding but undoubtedly joined, each one of us a possible point of communion, in happiness, in sadness, in sickness and, hopefully, in health.

from Rather be fat and happy or thin and sad? (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36202611/ns/today-today_health//), browsed upon via shakesville (http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/04/fun-with-contemptible-dichotomies.html) via Fat Fu (http://fatfu.wordpress.com/)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on April 13, 2010
It's OK for vegans to eat oysters (http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/)
Eating ethically is not a purity pissing contest, and the more vegans or vegetarians pretend that it is, the more their diets start to resemble mere fashion—and thus risk being dismissed as such. Emerson wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." A foolish consistency: If you resolve to give up foods that begin with the letter B, and if you stick to that for the rest of your life, you'll be mighty consistent.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/shellbike2.jpg)
You can ride us, too
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on April 13, 2010
(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/tomtomorrow.gif)

from here (https://www.salon.com/entertainment/comics/this_modern_world/2010/04/12/this_modern_world/index.html)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on April 13, 2010
Is this what everyone was so afraid of? (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/7/854825/-Is-this-what-everyone-was-so-afraid-of)
What I love about being married isn't the idea of it being special or different. It's the idea of it being just ordinary.

And honestly, I think this is what scares opponents of same-sex marriage more than anything else. They want to call it "special" rights. They want to call it an attack on traditional marriage. But the fact of it is that it's just what it is: two people who made a choice for themselves. In our case, it was two people who made a choice for themselves, had a nice quiet ceremony and had a surprisingly uneventfully pleasant party.

So let me just say this: pretty much everyone I know, even people I know who are really conservative, seem genuinely happy for us.

I think this is where the people who oppose same-sex marriage will, in the long run, fail: not because they're wrong (which they are) but because when ordinary people know same sex couples who are married, they can see exactly what is there: people who care for one another in the quiet, dull, and ordinary ways everyone else does.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on May 16, 2010
The Boston Molasses Disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster)
A huge molasses tank 50 ft tall, 90 ft in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed, there was a loud rumbling sound, like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by.

The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft high, moving at 35 mph, and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft². The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and lift a train off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet.


(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/molassesdisaster.jpg)

The dangers of starting down the road of googling the nutritional qualities of molasses.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on May 16, 2010
(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/sombrero.jpg)

They reckon it is between 29 and 35 million light years away (https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=143002&view=findpost&p=2521890) - Sombrero Galaxy. Staggeringly beautiful.

I wonder how many great civilisations have come and gone there before we even existed here?


(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/omegaman.jpg)

If I'm honest, (https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=143002&view=findpost&p=2521911) I think something even more miraculous is occuring - we are first and we are 'it' so to speak.

That's because I think we will reach a technological singularity, likely within the next century, at which point (assuming that hints of FTL effects in physics can be technologically utilised to allow instantaneous travel) we will probably turn the entire Universe into some sort of superintelligent machine, reaching an Omega point - whatever the Universe is actually for.

(It explains the Fermi paradox as well. We have to be first or we would have already been consumed in another world's Universe-spanning singularity.)


(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/omegachart.jpg)

I still amuses me (https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=143002&view=findpost&p=2522176) that Douglas Adams thought of that and had already taken the piss out of it before Kurzweil did with Deep Thought rumbling that he was the second most greatest machine in the universe...and he was going to design the greatest. Then again, maybe it will be like that old Issac Asimov story where the character arrives at the monastery where they are finishing stating all the names of God. "Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on May 16, 2010
.do fat bottomed girls make the world go round? (https://www.citycycling.co.uk/issue58/raven3.html)
jeremy, luton

The Earth spins as a result of asymmetry of gravitational accretion during the formation of the solar system and the planets. The presence or absence of women generously endowed in the saddlebag department makes no difference to a planet's angular momentum. If this were not the case then ours would be the only planet in the solar system to spin, as I doubt that there is a significant population of larger ladies on any of the others.

That being said, if you are someone who enjoys the company of a curvaceous companion I have no doubt that a fat-bottomed girl most certainly could make your world go round.


(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/stuntdouble.jpg)

From the penultimate issue of .citycycling, an online mag coming to a full stop after five years. I sympathize with the editor's unconsummated desire to move from pixels to a "real-life genuine 'buy at the newsagent' magazine", having sacrificed a few trees myself (https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/index.php?topic=11413.0) in pursuit of that dream.

Whilst sourcing an image of Queen Victoria for this post (I could've just used the one accompanying the Q&A, but where's the fun in that?), I came across this little-known history of the Victorian Triathalon (https://plablognox.blogspot.com/2008/06/plabnox-history-lesson-victorian.html):

...After the dip, the athletes would undergo an extensive costume change into their running outfits. Gear for the run consisted of a bustle, which was available in numerous forms and sizes, a floor-length skirt, puffed taffeta sleeves for lift, and a parasol (indispensable for the stretches where the runner was exposed to direct sunlight; when closed, the parasol could be used to trip, stab, or poke other competitors).

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/bustle1.gif)

Below: An array of bustle varieties. Each discrete breed performed a unique function, much like the modern running shoe in its many styles.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/bustle2.jpg)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on May 18, 2010
An interest in the tallest buildings in the world (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/5/6/864269/-Tallest-Buildings-in-The-World:-A-Tribute-to-Human-Aspiration-(wPics)) led me to google the shortest building in the world, which led to crazy escalators (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/the-insanity-of-escalators.php), which reminded me of an old family joke about getting stuck on the escalator...
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on May 18, 2010
Public Strategist (https://publicstrategist.com/2010/05/the-maps-of-changing-whitehall/), working to make government work better

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/Whitehall-future.gif)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on May 31, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAQrsA3m8Bg.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on June 10, 2010
(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/brainsex.jpg)

From the Language Log: (https://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003668.html)
Well, I wasn't going to blog this, because it's got nothing directly to do with speech and language. But it does have to do with rhetoric, and with the use of authoritative-sounding assertions backed up by empty references to scientific studies, a topic that we've been featuring recently. And several readers have asked me about it, based on my earlier posts about the "emerging science of sex differences". So here goes.

On page 91 of
The Female Brain, Dr. Louann Brizendine writes (emphasis added):

Males have double the brain space and processing power devoted to sex as females. Just as women have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion while men have a small country road, men have O'Hare Airport as a hub of processing thoughts about sex whereas women have the airfield nearby that lands small and private planes. That probably explains why 85 percent of twenty- to thirty-year-old males think about sex every fifty-two seconds and women think about it once a day -- or up to three or four times on their most fertile days.

This striking different in rates of sexual thoughts is also one of the bullet points on the book's jacket blurb -- but there, female sex-thought frequency is downgraded from "once a day" to "once every couple of days":



Whatever the exact numbers, it's an impressive-sounding difference -- scientific validation for a widespread opinion about what men and women are like. And this is interesting stuff, right at the center of social and personal life, so you're probably wondering about the details of the studies that produced these estimates....
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on June 10, 2010
Production companies use prop newspapers instead of real ones (http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2010/06/07/the-story-behind-the-recycled-newspaper-prop.aspx) because getting clearance from an actual publication is usually more work than it's worth in potential fees and bureaucracy. (There are exceptions. When Tony Soprano picked up his paper each morning, it was always the Newark Star Ledger.) Rather than battle the legal department at the New York Times for that perfunctory breakfast shot, prop masters buy a stack of Earl Hays fake papers, which cost just $15 each. Sometimes if they have some left over they'll recycle them for another job.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/star-ledger.jpg)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on June 29, 2010
(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/folderlove.jpg) (https://www.bustedcarbon.com/2010/06/pinarello-prince.html)

One of the pinups at Busted Carbon (https://www.bustedcarbon.com)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on September 01, 2010
This is the title of a typical incendiary blog post (http://faultline.org/index.php/site/item/incendiary/)
This sentence contains a provocative statement that attracts the readers’ attention, but really only has very little to do with the topic of the blog post. This sentence claims to follow logically from the first sentence, though the connection is actually rather tenuous. This sentence claims that very few people are willing to admit the obvious inference of the last two sentences, with an implication that the reader is not one of those very few people. This sentence expresses the unwillingness of the writer to be silenced despite going against the popular wisdom. This sentence is a sort of drum roll, preparing the reader for the shocking truth to be contained in the next sentence...

See also This is a news website article about a scientific paper (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/sep/24/1)

and Doonesbury (http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1977/05/29/) of yore

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/doonesbury.gif) (http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1977/05/29/)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on September 02, 2010
(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/intelligentlife.jpg)

This ACF not doing it for you? Here are some others

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/luckybutton.gif)

Australian Cat Federation (https://www.acf.asn.au/). A World Cat Congress is all very well, but can they play poker like dogs can? Lolcats don't count.

Amands Charles Films (https://www.acfforum.com/). Welcome to the casting couch.

Army Cadet Force (https://www.armycadets.com/home/). Sir Yes Sir.

American Checker Federation (https://www.usacheckers.com/). Beats 11 Dimensional Chess.

Austrian Cultural Forum (https://www.acflondon.org/). Events, 10-25 September 2010 - The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra performs music solely on instruments made of vegetables. Using carrot flutes, pumpkin basses, leek violins, leek-zucchini-vibrators, cucumberophones and celery bongos, the orchestra creates its own extraordinary vegetable sound universe. The ensemble overcomes preserved and marinated sound conceptions and puts its focus on expanding the variety of vegetable instruments, developing novel musical ideas and exploring fresh vegetable sound gardens.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/veggieorchestra.jpg)

Automobile Club de France (https://www.automobileclubdefrance.fr/). My french is rusty, but I'm guessing that's an automobile club.

Aberdeen Cycling Forum (https://www.aberdeencycleforum.org.uk/). Busman's holiday.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on December 28, 2010
The Daily Patdown (https://thedailypatdown.com/)

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/TSA/TSA1.jpg)

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/TSA/TSA2.jpg) (https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/TSA/TSA3.jpg)

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/TSA/TSA4.jpg)

#Invalid YouTube Link#
Youtube link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVOShwCtMP8)

And the winner of the headline competition:
Woman claims breasts led to airport pat-down (https://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2010/11/25/16309971.html)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on January 06, 2011
Snapped: candid view of upstairs downstairs life on the Underground (https://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23911478-snapped-candid-view-of-upstairs-downstairs-life-on-the-underground.do)

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/escalatorpeople700.jpg)

The pedestrian version of Laura Domela's Fietsen. (https://www.domela.com/index.php#mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=0&p=6&a=0&at=0)

My wife got snapped, second row from the left, first full pic from the bottom.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on January 12, 2011
Story about us? Give it a happy ending, or the panda gets it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CreEuaS8QY&has_verified=1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CreEuaS8QY

Spotted on Boing Boing. (http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/11/el-guincho-nsfw.html) "Bookmarked in case I ever drop acid again."

Coupla bikes in there if that means anything.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on January 12, 2011
(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/typographicbike.gif)

No Words are Necessary (http://www.velodramatic.com/archives/6300)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on January 12, 2011
Can sitting too much kill you? (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=can-sitting-too-much-kill-you-2011-01-06)
Sedentary time is closely associated with health risk regardless of how much physical activity you perform on a daily basis. Further, it is entirely possible to meet current physical activity guidelines while still being incredibly sedentary. Thus, to quote researcher Marc Hamilton, sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WId0WS48JgM
Youtube link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WId0WS48JgM)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on February 14, 2011
Everything You Wanted to Know About Dinosaur Sex (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Everything-You-Wanted-to-Know-About-Dinosaur-Sex.html)
Dinosaurs must have mated, but just how they did so has puzzled paleontologists for more than 100 years. Lacking much hard evidence, scientists have come up with all kinds of speculations: In his 1906 paper describing Tyrannosaurus rex, for instance, paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn proposed that male tyrant dinosaurs used their minuscule arms for “grasping during copulation.”

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/Trexdance.jpg)

They also had difficulty figuring out who leads.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on April 24, 2011
˙buıʌıb uo sdǝǝʞ ʇɐɥʇ ʇɟıb ǝɥʇ :ʇǝuɹǝʇuı ǝɥʇ (http://www.fliptext.org/)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on May 03, 2011
Yesterday I was on this instrument of torture (http://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/index.php?topic=36452.0) when my wife handed me a slip of paper saying that ObL was dead again. {She's my news ticker.} Later, I gravitated over to Glenn Greenwald (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/05/02/bin_laden/index.html), to find that the ghost of the star of Fox News had taken over Salon.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/salonObL.jpg)

from the comments (http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2011/05/02/bin_laden/permalink/e998f50441dfbdb6369ed056b09ef7d1.html) on Greenwald's article:
We have endured so much emotional manipulation in the ten years since 9/11. I'm surprised that anyone can gather enough energy to say anything other than, "big deal."

See also. (http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2011/05/03/propaganda_bin_laden/permalink/540b075faf795969bcd8586f17d4b0c5.html)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on May 04, 2011
Think of a number between 1 and 20. (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/01/30/the-power-of-17/)

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/evelbike.jpg)
Evel ponders how many taxis to jump over
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on May 16, 2011
Mike Huckabee launches (http://barefootandprogressive.blogspot.com/2011/05/mike-huckabee-launches-greatest.html) the greatest educational videos in human history:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5RbQYEX1-U
Kids, travel back to a time when danger lurked around every corner! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5RbQYEX1-U)

In case there are any doubts, I should emphasize that this is, in fact, real. (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_05/beyond_parody029571.php) It’s not a parody and it’s not satire. Huckabee is selling these videos — for, you know, actual money — in order to “correct the ‘blame America first’ attitude prevalent in today’s teaching.”

Worst use of bikes ever.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on June 16, 2011
Better than Mr Holland's Opus, not as good as Jaws: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu0lqUlHEko)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu0lqUlHEko

via Techdirt (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110509/02553714208/how-did-itunes-terms-service-become-cultural-phenomenon-all-its-own.shtml)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on July 07, 2011
I began to wonder, how would holding my tongue -- or at least changing what came off it -- alter my relationships? Would I be forced into becoming a pushover or would I find more direct ways to deal with disagreement? Would I be less interesting? Would I still feel like myself, even? And in a bigger, moral way: Is it actually better?

There was one way to find out. I began my month-long campaign of kind with the following rules:

I cannot say or write anything that could be construed as not nice.

I do not have to school other people on being kind.

I am allowed to tease in a good-natured way.


My month of no snark (http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/03/28/my_month_of_no_snark)
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on October 08, 2011
Spiegel gallery: Pedestrian Signals Around the World (https://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-73655.html)

With their distinctly round and simple design, the legendary figures on East German traffic lights were designed in 1961 by a man named Karl Peglau and his secretary. Eight years later, Peglau’s creation would finally get its big break, alerting pedestrians across the German Democratic Republic when to cross the street. In addition to the figures’ trademark hats, the East German lights differed from their counterparts in the West with their corpulence. Rather than having slim arms and legs, they enjoyed an almost plump appearance, something Peglau hoped would give the men a “brighter” look.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/signals600b.jpg)

In Majorca, which happens to be a favorite vacation destination among Germans, pedestrian signals also wear hats.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/signals600c.jpg)

In Austria, the signals include bikes.

(https://www.notanothercyclingforum.net/acf/pics/signals600a.jpg)

Title: browsing
Post by: sam on November 17, 2011
Online cycle specialist Wiggle picks UBS to explore flotation next year (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/online-cycle-specialist-wiggle-picks-ubs-to-explore-flotation-next-year-6263305.html)
The owners of Wiggle, the online bicycle specialist, have appointed the investment bank UBS as book runner for a potential flotation next year.

Wiggle, which grew sales by 55 per cent to £86m over the year to January, has benefited from the growing trend of Mamils (middle-aged man in lycra) taking to the roads at the weekend.


The UBS 'Rogue Trader' Scandal: Just Who Is Kweku Adoboli? (http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/09/15/the-ubs-rogue-trader-scandal-just-who-is-kweku-adoboli/)
By all accounts Kweku Adoboli was a quiet, affable guy. An amateur photographer who loved music and cycling, friends in his artsy circle hardly knew he was a banker, let alone one who'd be accused of losing UBS $2 billion in rogue trades.


Unrelated... or are they? My theory is that Adoboli bought way too much stuff from them and began recklessly trading in a frantic effort to increase his bonus; the bigger the risks, the bigger the rewards.
Title: browsing
Post by: sam on November 29, 2011
The primary social purpose of a blog is to save people from having to listen to you. (http://hillfarmhouse.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/hello-world/) If every time someone played a round of golf, for example, they had to write about it instead of telling you every detail to your face the world might be improved. It’s like being on the radio: not so much for the celebrity of it but because there’s an Off button and a choice of channels, and no-one has to feign interest or even attention. Now it happens that I actually quite like to hear, stroke by tortured stroke, about how well you were keeping your round together until your ball plugged in the fairway on the swampy 13th, but the point stands.

So the reason for setting up this blog is to be able to go on at as much length as I want to about bikes, bike gear and bike rides without boring anyone who, in honesty, doesn’t care.