Invisible bike helmet in a scarf

Bike helmets discourage cycling. Do they make you safer or unsafer? See extensive blog post with links, written by Howie Chong, below (4).

How about an invisible biking helmet? Or one that you can wear as a scarf, a neckie?
Enter Hövding from Sweden.

(1): Hövding: cycling helmet in a scarf | Hunter Skipworth, 14 Oct 2013
The latest innovation in bike gear? A nifty collar that inflates to become an airbag at the first sign of trauma. And you're safe from helmet hair, too.

(2): video: Invisible Bike Helmet Saves Your Hair and Your Life: link (yT).

(3): NY Times: Who needs a cycling helmet, when you’ve got an airbag? | Murad Ahmed Technology Reporter, November 13 2013. Link here.

And how to drive in tricky situations? See (5), Cycling Savvy.

"Bike helmets discourage cycling. An Australian study on mandatory helmet laws concluded that laws that required cyclists to wear head protection actually decreased the number of cyclists on the road. The implication of this study? The fewer cyclists on the road, the less likely drivers will be accustomed to sharing road space with cyclists, ultimately increasing the hazards faced by cyclists and further dissuading people from hopping on their bikes." (From: (4))

(4): "Children and toddlers on foot are far more likely to receive traumatic brain injuries than cyclists, yet parents who place protective headwear on their walking toddlers are openly ridiculed."
:: link here.

(4.2): Got it (4) via Florian Friedrich, on FB.

(5): Cool animations and explanations. Could work well for kids, learning to share the road. Here.

(6): The startup company, Hövding: http://www.hovding.com/

Got the image from: here.

Retarded tweet - and the response

Just wow. The response from John Franklin Stephens, I mean.

After Ann Coulter referred to President Obama as a retard in a tweet during a 2012 presidential debate, Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens wrote this open letter:

Dear Ann Coulter,

Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren't dumb and you aren't shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult? ...

I'm a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public's perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.

I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special Olympians have.

Then I wondered if you meant to describe him as someone who has to struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says, as everyone else races from one snarkey sound bite to the next.

Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.

Because, Ms. Coulter, that is who we are – and much, much more.

After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.

I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.

Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.

No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.

Come join us someday at Special Olympics. See if you can walk away with your heart unchanged.

A friend you haven't made yet,
John Franklin Stephens
Global Messenger & Special Olympics Virginia

 

 Got the text from "Sue Fitzmaurice, Author", here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=694488930572050&set=a.509153389105606.112928.508972909123654&type=1.

There is some sense in what she is saying in a response - that some words enter the language and start to mean something similar as the original ... though it seems to me this is still a very, very touchy subject.

  Plus, words have power. Power to change. (This is the first thing motivational/self-development guru's will tell you.) If we refer to specific sub-culture or minority or group of people in a particular way, we label them. Put them in box. Nobody wants to be labelled, ladies and gents. Nobody wants to be in a box. Because it's hard to get out of it again. And - as an extreme example - a lot of killing was justified by labelling.

  That's the oldest trick in the book, for turtle's sake! First, you make a group "invalid", un-normal, thereby dehumanising them to some extent. Then you trample some more of their rights. Then you go for other groups who oppose you or who people could hate (and thereby support your action against them). Yes? No? I mean, it's all there in the history books, if they haven't changed them yet.

I posted another entry on the matter of able-ism (a word I've never heard prior to that), here.

If Men Had To Do It, It Wouldn't Be Done

Disgusting. And people actually have the guts to ask me why I am so passionate about #gender portrayal in #media? What I'm talking about is this video.

Got that video from a blog post titled "if men had to do it…it wouldn’t be being done".

On the bright side, there was this video, made by College Humor (US), which points to rather skewed ratio of boobs (and female nudity in general) VS sausages (err.. male nudity). Titled: Think Seeing A Little Male Nudity On TV Is Too Explicit? Then ... It's Time To Hear The Hard Truth.

Which is quite related to: If Men posed like motorcycle babes:: quite funny, see it here.

See also Representation Project, which is all about promoting gender equality in the media, as creating a public response when a particularly "juicy" content is brought to their attention.

BTW, if you use Twitter, use hastag #NotBuyingIt and tweet about such things. ESPECIALLY when there are big sports events up and about, like SuperBowl (see: here).

We're all here to play. Even the girls.

From a nice article, titled Pass the disc, hold the sexism:

Over the years I’ve noticed a trend: when I join a new group of primarily male players, I will be largely excluded from the game until I make no fewer than three spectacular plays. After that happens, everyone gets all impressed and people begin passing to me. But I have to prove myself first. /.../

After each game, think about how many women there are on the team and how often you passed to them versus the other players. If you didn’t pass to a woman at all, then why? Were they open? Were they doing a good job of clearing out of the cutting lane? Could they break their defender? If the answer yes to these questions then consider adjusting your behavior. If the answer is no to some of these questions, offer them some constructive feedback, and pass to them anyway. After all, we’re all here to play. Even the girls.

Link: https://disruptingdinnerparties.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/pass-the-disc-hold-the-sexism/

Ultimate 1 - kako bi ga opisal?

How would you describe Ultimate to someone who does not know it?

Ultimate is a combination of three sports: 1) American Football - the field set up is similar, with end zones at either end, and the object is to advance the disc into one of those while preventing the opposing team from advancing it into the other. 2) Basketball - the person catching the disc can not run after gaining possession, instead they must establish a pivot foot at one spot on the field while they look for a teammate to throw to next. 3) Soccer (or proper football! :) – lots of sprinting, changing direction, and moving without the disc to create spaces on the field which your team can attack.

From the interview with Greg Conelly, a.k.a. Scoops, found on Ultimate Slovenia's web page: http://www.ultimateslo.si/novice/scoopscamp2011intervjuzultimategurujem

Nicotine - nikotin

Nicotine, alkaloid obtained from the tobacco plant Nicotiana tabacum is TOXIC to many animals, because it mimicks the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACH) at NEURO-MUSCULAR junctions (motorične ploščice na stiku živca in skeletnih mišic). (//Eckert animal physiology)

Ni čudn, da si mal počasen, če kadiš.
Še sreča, da se nanaša na živali, kar pa ljudje itak nismo, anede.

Lol, tole pa piše na wikipediji, pod njegovo toksičnost.

The LD50 of nicotine is 50 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for mice. 40–60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans.[55][56] Nicotine therefore has a high toxicity in comparison to many other alkaloids such as cocaine, which has an LD50 of 95.1 mg/kg when administered to mice.

No, pa da bom fer: "It is unlikely that a person would overdose on nicotine through smoking alone, although overdose can occur through combined use of nicotine patches or nicotine gum and cigarettes at the same time.[57] Spilling a high concentration of nicotine onto the skin can cause intoxication or even death, since nicotine readily passes into the bloodstream following dermal contact."
in še:

Though the teratogenic properties of nicotine may or may not yet have been adequately researched, women who use nicotine gum and patches during the early stages of pregnancy face an increased risk of having babies with birth defects, according to a study of around 77,000 pregnant women in Denmark.
    The study found that women who use nicotine-replacement therapy in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy have a 60 percent greater risk of having babies with birth defects, compared to women who are non-smokers, the Daily Mail reported. The findings were published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

I surf because ...

Fußball (also spelled Fussball or Fooseball*

*, if the ß-ligature is not available or unwanted) has two meanings: ...
vir: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fussball

Kaj dobiš, ko zastaviš vprašanje glede nogometa očetu, ki je prišel čisto preveč prepozno domov, glede na to, da naj bi bil prišel iz službe? Na vprašanje:
"Ugani, kdo je zmagal med Mehiko in Francijo?"
-"Dubaj??"
-"...?!"

Pač eni niso za fuzbal. Eni pa ga sam gledajo. Eni pa niti ne vedo, kdo je igral TA trenutek. Spet tretji sploh ne poslušajo, ko jih vprašaš enostavno vprašanje s tremi možnimi odgovori ... Aaaah, sej ga mam rad.
Odpusti mu .. erm ... Oče, saj ne ve, kaj odgovarja.

Free running a.k.a. parkour

Parkour, who hasn't heard about it?
Well, here you can get "home-blog" from one of the people who started it all, David Belle.
Description: (WIKI)

Free running is a physical art, in which participants (freerunners) attempt to pass all obstacles in their path in a smooth and fluid way. Free runners interact with their environment using movements such as vaulting, jumping, somersaults and other acrobatic movements, creating an athletic and aesthetically pleasing way of moving. It is commonly practised at skate parks.

Now practised world-wide, even in Slovenia, it has become quite a hit in last decade; coming from urban areas, subcultural style of running freely, without limits, without any thought to what the people would think and how silly landing like a mokey this may look (although it usually looks awesome, mind yeh), has struck, so to say, the cord with modern youth.
To be brief (lol), here's the photograph, with which Free running became a the talk:

Sebastien Foucan - The London jump;)

Will talk about it again, now just a link to one of the reasons a modern man should do this extra-agile extra-curricular activity; David Belle, BBC Rushhour commercial.