Trial to destruction

Think Danny MacAskill's pretty good? Check this out (lovers of vintage ladies' bicycles should probably not watch)...

Stringbike

This looks interesting - Stringbike - a completely new design for a bicycle drive system, low complexity, low maintenance. The gear shifting mechanism looks particularly elegant.

WIRED has a review here.

Three videos

ACHSM Blog has a post featuring three videos on how to do bicycle infrastructure. Well worth watching if you want to see the positive effect that well-planned paths can have on a city.

'via Blog this'

Science, Reason and Critical Thinking: The Crudity of Early Home Computing

I'm pretty sure Sir Clive didn't put anything cruder than "POKE" on the Spectrum, but if he had, I think he would have at least checked his spelling first.

Radiation

Randall Munroe, who writes and draws the excellent webcomic xkcd has created this chart showing radiation doses experienced by real people doing real things. Great way to get some perspective.

Coot-tha Challenge

Last Sunday I rode in Bicycle Queensland's "BDO Coot-tha Challenge". This year the 80km route featured the new Clem7 tunnel, but of course the highlight was the timed climb of Mt Coot-tha. I didn't do too badly - I passed lots of people who were walking up! But then there were lots of exhausted people resting at the summit, and I kept riding. They'd obviously put a lot more effort in for a good time - maybe I should try harder next year!

There are photos here, password is 'qtri', search on my surname for pictures of me. There's also a slide show of images from the ride.

Snake

Riding home from work the other day, I nearly ran over this little guy, sunning itself on the side of the road. I don't know the species, it was less than a metre long, and no more than 25mm across. It was dark brown with darker stripes.

It didn't move while I took photos, so it was either dead or playing possum. It was definitely dead the next day though - the side of a busy road is not the best place to sunbathe.