Switchbike

Back in May I wrote about the superiority of the recumbent bicycle as well as my experience with it:

https://beforewisdom.com/blog/?p=104

Now there is this cool “switchbike”, video courtesy of Dag:

The switchbike was shown at the Holland Innovation show, although it’s not currently in production. By flipping a switch on the handle, it converts quickly from a regular city bike into a recumbent bicycle. Ron de Jong, the designer is still looking for a company to take his bike into production. Wow.

Swedish Cowboys & Indians

stockholm4x4deflating

If you think Americans are the only people buying ridiculous vehicles while the world approaches peak oil and irreversible global climate change, think again. According to this article on ecostreet.com the Swedes are doing it to.

A group calling themselves the “Swedish Indians” is going around deflating tires on SUVs. Another group has formed to fight them, calling themselves the “Swedish Cowboys”. Here is a copy of the letter that the Swedish Indians leave on each SUV that they deflate the tires on:

Your SUV kills!

We have deflated one or several tyres of your SUV. Don’t take it personal. It’s your car we don’t like. You are certainly aware of the large amount of fuel it consumes, so we don’t have to enlighten you about that. But either you are ignorant of, or you don’t care about the fact that all the gas you consume by driving around in your SUV in the streets of the city has devastating consequences for others. Scientists are entirely sure that we are very close to pushing climate change over a threshold, into a phase where it will be totally out of control.

There are real, social contradictions in the field of climate change between those who emit carbon relentlessly and those who suffer the heaviest losses, and bringing these to light is crucial for any progress. Not everyone will fight climate change. Not everyone will give up their lethal privileges voluntarily.
— The Indians of the Concrete Jungle

Applied Math

I was reading a nutrition forum where I found a post by a guy who figured out an easy way to tell if a packaged food is high fat or low fat. This method is so easy, you can do the math in your head.

A food is considered “high fat” if more than 20% of its calories come from fat.

A food is considered “low fat” if less than 20% of its calories come from fat.

So, here is this cool, do-the-math-in-your-head method for figuring out if a food is high or low fat:

1. Multiply the calories from fat by 5
2. Compare the result from to the Total Calories.

If the result from is more than the Total Calories, the food is high fat.

If the result from is less than the Total Calories, you have a low fat food.