tingilinde

would you hire this guy?

Leonardo's resume 

(thanks for the link George)

lots of biking/walking data

The Alliance for Biking & Walking has released a report on Biking and Walking in the US funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lots of data on the subject .. infrastructure, funding, activity levels, disease and injury levels ..  great stuff and recommended.

Many studies focus on just biking - an activity that is nearly absent in from US commuting - but this adds walking, which also has benefits and requires attention to infrastructure.

sweet discovery

Amateurs still make a difference in several areas of science ... astronomy is one.

A piece from Sky and Telescope.

snake oil!

Bjarne notes a lecture by James Randi on homeopathy... It is difficult to believe that people fall for such lunacy.

highly recommended!

finding a bike that fits

Bike Shop Girl focuses mostly on women who ride bikes, but there is a lot of good general information - I follow it and forward links to the half dozen women riders I know.

She comments on "women's bikes"  and who they might be appropriate for.

The bottom line is no matter what your sex and size, it makes sense to have a competent bike shop fit you.  If you are near her shop and are looking for a new bike, you could probably would do well to schedule a visit - she lives and breathes this stuff.   These are the folks you should seek out for advice if you are serious about taking your bike beyond the toy phase.

A few people are special cases.  I know one guy who had a custom frame made by Seven largely because he wanted a "perfect" bike and could afford it.  Jheri has very long legs and is tall. She is a serious enough commuter that she had a custom frame made too - spendy, but she doesn't own a car.  And nothing fits Colleen off the rack (bike on the bottom of the page). 

But these are special cases.  Almost everyone can probably be fit well with some help from an expert.  On the other hand almost no one is going to find something that works in a big box store.

dealing with really big storms

Last week's storm that struck California was nearly historic in size...  Such storms are likely to become more frequent with climate change and people are studying how to deal with them.  ARkStorm looked as some scenarios that made last week's storms look small - one scenario involved a series of storms over 23 days.

yikes!

oh -  it is amusing to note that ARkStorm meetings at Caltech last week had to be cancelled for the weather.

the ipad

What it is and what it isn't was more clearly defined.  

It is an audio and video playback machine, but not one for two way communication - presumably you have a phone for audio and a pc for video conferencing.  Leaving them out defines the unit more crisply.  

Multitasking wasn't mentioned.  It exists in the OS, but will it be too burdensome?  Is it really necessary on this class of machine?

This is Flash-less web browsing.  Flash has been problematic on OS X with Apple and others moving more towards html5 and h.264.  This will take a few years, but I suspect a lot of web designers got the message when Jobs visited a flash site and the no plugin icon came up.  A big message to mobile developers is that Flash may be the wrong path.  

I want to play with one, but the $500 base price is certainly attractive.  Based on my AT&T experience I don't think I'd be tempted by their wireless plans, but that is unlocked and perhaps other providers will offer better value.  It would be nice to have a machine for writing under the trees in nice weather.

I'm curious to see how it will interact with iPhones.  The both have blue tooth.  It would be neat to be able to have my iPhone in my pocket and deal with sms messages on the iPad - or perhaps edit photos or video shot with the iPhone.  There is a lot of potential.

I suspect next year's model will be vastly improved, but will we buy one this year?  hmmm  

Apps will be interesting.  I've had a couple of emails from developers I know who have neat project ideas that don't make sense on a Touch/iPhone or a PC, but might be perfect on this.  I'm going to guess there will be at least 10,000 iPad specific apps (not modified iPhone apps), within a year.  There are also going to be a number of drawing/art apps.  The screen size and mobility opens up interesting areas.

The price was a big surprise. 

I would hate to be involved with an eBook manufacturer at this point.  

become ira glass with your iphone

Blue makes good microphones.    They now have a model for the iPhone  and Touch which may turn these devices into good recording platforms for field recordings and oral histories.  

It will be interesting to test reports, but there is no reason why this shouldn't work and it will be much less expensive than dedicated digital recorders.

Of course you will want to turn off the phone when you record:-)

Getting to the Ira Glass level will take a bit of work.

why is haiti so poor?

The disaster in Haiti has been greatly amplified by extreme poverty.  Why is Haiti so poor?

Last week KQED talked to Jarad Diamond on the subject.  Find it in iTunes or listen here.

what teachers make

Somewhat old. but going around and worth watching - Taylor Mali