Octopodial Chrome

Apparently back in ’91 there was a fad for eating dishes made with tobacco. Naturally, this highly annoyed certain nattering nabobs of negativism. Interestingly, a Danish restaurant just had a tobacco dinner. I’d always figured that tobacco was too poisonous to eat, but I suppose it’s true that it’s the dose which makes the poison. I’ll have to try a very small pinch of ground baccy as a seasoning in my next soup or something—or maybe add a slight bit to some steak marinade.

According to a BBC article on cycling, there are 42 cycling deaths per billion kilometres. A British billion is 1,000,000,000,000; my daily commute is 4.7 miles; that means my chance of death is 3.1768451e-10 each day—or 1 in 3,147,777,100. I’m willing to take a 1 in 3 (American) billion chance. Granted, that’s 13½ times as likely as were I in a car. But I’m not too worried.

Have you ever had a cyclist claim that a helmet saved his life? Of course, that’s not necessarily the case: yes, he was wearing a helmet, and yes he hit his head—but did the helmet make a difference? Would he have crashed without a helmet (there’s evidence that helmet wearers take more risks)? Would he have hit his head without the helmet (there’s evidence that helmet-wearers are 7 times more likely to hit their heads)? Would he have died if he had hit his head (doubtful, since helmets provide such little protection).

I’ve fallen a few times, and as the link predicts, every one of my falls damaged my arms and hands, but never my head.

It appears that Cadillac are making bicycles now. Are bikes the next SUV?

Unfortunately these are massively over-priced and under-delivering, from what I can tell.