jack

The tyres on my bike seem to be 35c and 38c width, if I read them right. Would a thinner tyre be better for cycling round Cambridge? I mostly go short distances 1 mile to 4 mile, but it would be nice if there wasn't unnecessary effort, and nice if it was possible to cycle to Shelford occasionally, which right now is possible but a bit too much of a trek to ever want to do it. Or should I be looking at a better bike instead?

I tried popping the battery a dozen times. Each time the light was on beforehand, it was on when the battery went back in. Each time it was off beforehand, it was off when the battery went back in, but came on when I pressed the button.

I tried leaving the batteries out for half an hour once in each state and it still resumed "on" or "off" as appropriate.

Now, that was very informal, so it's quite likely that I biased the test by seeing what I expected to see at some point. But it seems that it's deliberate, not (a) it defaults to always-on if the connection is interrupted (b) there's a residual signal without being deliberately designed that way (c) it's random, etc.

I agree that it makes sense that it's designed that a brief interruption in power doesn't turn the light off (or on) so if it's jolted you're not cycling in the dark. But I'm surprised that it can remember.

What's most likely? Is it plausible there's a capacitor acting as a single bit of persistent memory? Or powering a flip-flop (for 8 hours?). Or is something else a simpler implementation of one bit of non-volatile memory?

I was recently examining my back bikelight. It has four modes: on, off, flashing simultaneously and flashing sequentially.

What seems to happen is that if I take the battery out and put it back, it remembers whether it was on or off, but flashing modes just all become "on". I'm not sure if I'm imagining that, since it seems strange that the mode would be remembered in a non-volatile way, but it's what seems to happen.

Does anyone know what's going on inside?

Gone for a short cycle ride ✓

I originally planned to do more than this this weekend, but even for an hour along the guided busway it was still nice. I'm sure for what they spent, if they didn't have the buses, we could have had a cycleway hundreds of times nicer, but it's still one of the nicest cycleways in Cambridge.

However, I temporarily can't find my bike pump. It's two foot tall, where on earth could anyone have put it it's not obvious?

Ordered a lot of books on Amazon ✓

There were a few series (Anthony Price, Stephen Brust) that I'm reading my way through steadily, but if I didn't order the next one as soon as I read the previous, it slipped off my "to buy" pile. And several sequels, random recs, and randomly interesting books off the top of my "see if I want to buy this book later".

I hadn't realised, but buying almost all books on amazon or in e-book form has the advantage that most of the time I can search my email notifications as a quick way to check which books in a series I've read or not.

I'm slightly embarrassed to get a steady stream of small parcels to work, but it seems better than gambling they'll fit through the letter box.

The last post asked if it was reasonable to cycle in a particular right-turn lane (where there would be room for two cars and a cycle abreast in the road, but definitely not a car and a cycle abreast in the right lane).

I think the problem was I'd not yet decided whether delaying N other people's jounrey by 30s was worth delaying mine by 2min. If it wasn't, I wouldn't do it, and if it was, I would. If the only option were to walk or cycle dangerously I would walk. If the only option is to cycle in the lane I would cycle in the middle of it.

However, because I'd not decided, I made the bad compromise of cycling in the middle of the lane but feeling guilty about it. So I really should decide one way or the other.

I'd decided cycling was a good transport choice for myself. And that it would be more convenient in Cambridge if more people cycled rather than drove, because congestion is less. However, right or not, I feel bad imposing that opinion on other people.

I may think it's more convenient for them overall in terms of less waiting at lights and looking for parking if I cycle. However, they may disagree, and if I force someone to wait behind me I feel like I'm saying "my life is more important than yours" to their face, and I hate saying that. (I also hate people saying that to me.) Obviously, in a car, they'd equally well have to wait, but because I've obviously no choice they can pretend to themselves I had a good reason for being there, but if I choose to cycle, I always could get off or pull over to let them pass.

In summary, it looks like I should either stop cycling altogether, or admit that I have a right to cycle in that lane, and if so, I should choose the latter and not apologise for it.

This morning, my bike pedals stopped going backward. They went forward fine, but when the wheel went forward, so did the pedals, and when the pedals went backward, so did the chain (for a fraction of a revolution, then it caught up with itself).

I deduced something wrong with the ratcheting mechanism, but didn't know enough to investigate further, other than poking at things. I wasn't sure if it would make sense to ride it, but as it seemed to go forward ok, I tried riding it carefully; and by the time I'd got to work the problem had mysteriously cleared up. So I probably won't do anything about it. But what was likely to have gone wrong? I thought maybe something frozen, but it was inside. Or from when the bike was mangled, but it seemed strange it had happened suddenly.

I also think I fixed by bike light, which had been nagging me for ages. I don't know that I'm ahead on things I should have done, but it's always good to make steady progress.

Thanks to alex for the best suggestion, of using tinfoil. But in the end, when I actually examined the innards in detail, I discovered the problem was not, as I supposed, that the batteries slipped sideways off the contacts. Rather than they are held in place at one end by a conducting plate, and the other, by a conducting springy tongue, and when you cycle over a bump, the battery moves laterally, temporarily compressing the insufficiently springy tongue, and momentarily losing contact with the plate.

As I'd thought, it would actually have worked better if there was a physical on-off switch, rather than an electronic one. The electronic solution is conveniently extensible, if you want to let the same button cycle through flashing modes, etc. However, the physical on-off switch would have had the advantage of remembering its state after a temporary power outage. Which shouldn't matter, but made the whole system just a little more fragile.

Fortuitously, having identified the problem, it was eminently susceptible to the most trivial of solutions. I inserted a little bit of folded paper behind each tongue, and lo, it had much less give, and the battery has no tendency to move in it's slot. It stayed on even when I tapped it, but I didn't feel confident calling it fixed until I'd ridden it an it kept working, which it now has.

ETA: Although come to think of it, that can't be the whole story, because it didn't used to just turn off: when it was tapped, it would sometimes cycle between "bright" and "faded" and "off". Anyway, the same solution seems to have cleared that up too.

It's always disconcerting when a bike tyre punctures "bang" when you're riding it. But it's disconcerting in an entirely different way when it does so when you're asleep[1]

Me: zzzzzzzzz[2]
Something: BANG!
Me: Wuh? Fztl? WTF!
Me: I don't know. Was it [in rough order]:

* a gunshot [fairly unlikely]
* a car backfiring [not very likely, but what "gunshot" made me think of]
* someone teleporting in [I read scifi]
* someone teleporting out [I read scifi but not enough physics. Also this way is marginally less worrisome but more frustrating. In fact, the previous was closer.]
* something eventually falling over, after several hours of gradual decline
* an explosive water pressure failure type failure event
* something obvious that I haven't thought of [maybe this should be top of the list]
* a dream?
* something interesting to blog about?

Bike tyre: is flat
Me: Hm, it wasn't like that before.
Me: I have a theory.

And the day *before* the gear cable snapped. *shrug* It's going to the bike man for the gear cable and having its tube replaced and I hope they're unrelated.

[1] And not riding it.
[2] Or maybe not, I don't know. The key point being I was asnooze. I was probably dreaming about mechacarrots or theology or something, I don't remember.

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.

I'm used to backing off from learner drivers and avoiding intimidating them. I wasn't used to doing it on a bike; the many road humps were slightly too much for it.

Later I saw a discarded red 'L' lying in another road. I inferred very good or very bad news :)