jack | (no subject)

I was browsing the newspapers in the kitchen at work.

Cyclists

I happened upon the original opinion piece I recently heard a minor furore over, where a Times columnist proposed stringing piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists.

Or maybe it wasn't coincidence, maybe someone else had looked it up and left that issue out. It doesn't matter. Nor does it matter how scientifically accurate it was[1].

The hyperbole didn't seem particularly unusual; plenty of provocative humorous columns propose physical violence, and I think it's clear without actually advocating it.

Setting aside the generalisations, it seems that a majority of cyclists he sees are acting carelessly, and that's basically what he means by "cyclists". Add people with the exactly reverse experience and terminology, and you have an instant flamewar, given that the way everyone hears each others statements becomes more and more provocative given the difference in terminology.

However, there does seem to be a genuine underlying conflict, in that if sane people A and person B choose to cycle and drive respectively along the same road, their decisions impose a trade-off in inconvenience on each other. Naturally one wants to find a fair balance, but the magnitudes are extremely subjective, so everyone thinks everyone else is being unreasonable, even if they're not being deliberately so.

Most people naturally see their own experience, and that they see, as representative, and even if not, may not have the knowledge to see and generalise other people's situations.

And then it's like the small annoyances of sharing a house with someone -- you recognise your differences on the big issues, but the apparently unimportant ones where the other party is being apparently irrationally intransigent niggle more and more until they flare up into national flamewars.

Comedies

A review of "Balls of Fury" said it was a parody of sports movies like "Dodgeball" and "Blades of Fury". Wait, "Dodgeball" wasn't a parody? Or it's a parody of parodies?

Is there an objective divide between funny films, comedies and parodies? I think there's a spectrum between funny and comedy, though you can generally pigeon-hole it when you see it. And I can see a division between comedy and parody -- Wimbledon is undeniably a comedy, and a romance, but also a sports film, but it does try to depict a genuine tennis tournament. But I can't think of a line that doesn't make Dodgeball a parody as well as a comedy.

Is there a middle ground? Perhaps; even parodies can have tension, but I can't think of any (even theoretical) good examples.

[1] Though if anyone wants to link to any figures vis-a-vis:

* Carbon footprint of recreational cyclist fuelled entirely by imported energy drinks, vs. a car
* Environmental/aesthetic/road-hazard detriment of plastic drinks bottles vs. bleeding cyclist
* Proportion of cyclists vs of motorists who litter thoughtlessly

I'd be curious. I'll provisionally assume he's correct that where he is, whether or not in the country generally, the most litter came from cyclists, as that's what he says he's observed personally.

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From:

nakedtoes.livejournal.com

FWIW, Matthew Parris apologised in his next column, stating that he was trying to be humorous but felt he'd missed the mark, judging from people's responses

cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com

Oh, thanks. *googles*

I didn't really have a problem with the article itself -- it was over the top, but that's fairly normal, and might have been quite funny if it was aimed at a group I shared the prejudices about. But afaict he really had a genuine beef with many cyclists, whereas many of my friends cycle, and are also scrupulously conscientious, and I wonder about the underlying clash.

I know. I read the apology before the original article so I found it hard to judge, but it did seem a bit odd.

It seemed reasonably measured. Of course, it's impossible to say for sure if it's supposed to be "Sorry, I was spinning a joke that may or may not have worked, I didn't know the piano-wire thing was real, that would obviously have been wrong to say. And since opinions are so extreme, maybe I need to think a bit more about my opinions," or "Well, now my insensitivity has done its job in making the paper interesting, I'll apologise to the smallest weasily extent possible to try to make everyone else look like whiny crybabies". I'd naturally assume something near the first, but you never know.

It ties into the trolling issue, where people exaggerate their real opinions for inflammatory purposes, it's hard to see where they're really coming from or how much they mean it.

pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)

the times seems to be packed with inflammatory material. After happening across that one I think cyclists got off lightly.

m, whose openid is now working and who wouldn't have just cycled home in the rain without lights*, now would she.

(*) blasted dynamos that don't work when they get wet!
(hurrah for empty back routes)

Ah! Someone else linked to that, it made my jaw drop. I think many articles *are* written to be inflammatory. I suppose I do it myself, but I generally point out I'm being a devil's advocate.

I'm always too caught up in an individual example to judge if the Times disproportionately writes provocatively, especially as how much it thrusts itself in my face depends how much I'd like to agree with it.

Someone else linked to that

Well I read it on a post of

livredor (about the geekflirt) so you probably did too.

captain-aj.livejournal.com

I don't see anything wrong with that article. It only offends unattractive people!

Thought you gave up on dynamos after the wires kept breaking from folding?

gave up on batteries after the batteries kept going flat. I know a man with a soldering iron now...

:-) (although you also know many men with battery chargers, probably)

I still entertain vague ideas of using a dynamo at some point in the future - do you perceive them as being that much harder to pedal with, or is it barely noticeable? Do yours stay glowing for a while when stopped?

I read 12% extra effort somewhere but I expect the precise figures depend on the dynamo. If I leave it on by mistake in the daytime I usually notice quite quickly, but sometimes I just think the bike feels a bit sluggish and wonder if the tyres need pumping up.

I got one with a standlight (ie, a capacitor) (only on the rear) but something has gone wrong with its circuits (me and a friend had a prod with a multimeter and it seems the electronics have buggered up, not the cable. being only lowly computer scientists we aren't sure what to do next but I know a man who used to be a physics lecturer and now fixes bikes, so maybe he's the next person to ask). The one on the other bike doesn't have one.

sillytrippy.livejournal.com

I'm not sure if you're aware that the wire incidents have happened (nobody decapitated though). While I realise it was meant to be humorous, and would otherwise have found it mildly funny in an amusingly-excessive-anger kind of way, knowing destroyed it for me. To be fair I imagine Parris didn't realise though.

:O Ah, that does make a difference. Hopefully not in response to the article. Then it falls in that awkward of gap of humorous exaggeration to most people, incitement to murder to a small group of homicides.

What boggled me about that article was the idea that anybody on a bike would throw their drinks bottle away - do people actually do that?

Oh yeah, and echoing an earlier comment - generic threat of violent consequence would have been amusing, but the fact that people have used that exact same method for attempted murder in the past did sour the article quite a bit. Sort of like suggesting that we ought to deal with excessively deviant people by setting off nail bombs in their favourite London hangouts.

do people actually do that?

I'm boggled any people do that, but some people do.

It was more that whatever I've drunk while cycling tends to get stored in bottles that cost a non-trivial amount of money. Also, bikes tend to come fitted with convenient receptacles for bottle-shaped objects, making littering a pointless excess.

Oh yes, I see what you mean. I was surprised too, but supposed that some cyclists (either one-off or professional) really do have a supply of drinks that come bottled, rather than filling their own bottle. Or maybe he was wrong about the source of the bottles. Neither seems very pleasing, but lamentably possible.

do people actually do that?

i have occasionally been cycling with a bottle filled with water strapped to the rear rack that has escaped, and decided it was too much effort to chase after it.

I remember warnings about people putting a string across the road on the path from the cl to Huntingdon Road, but I don't remember the details.

zebbiejohnson.livejournal.com

I've heard the piano wire one in the context of disabling mounted foxhunters - put thin, strong twine high enough between trees and it will miss the horse, but take the rider off its back.
However, the context I heard this in is very much '*our* hunt saboteurs don't do *that*, which other , less scrupulous groups might do' - so it may well be an urban myth.

ceb.livejournal.com

IME cyclists are powered by malt loaf, which comes all the way from Manchester.

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