Flevo bike green machine

Happened on this youtube video of the Flevo Green Machine.  It's an interesting concept.

The drivetrain is enclosed.  That's a positive.  They use 20" wheels so the seat height is good.  Gearing is via a 14 speed internal rear hub.  The bike also has full suspension.  Here are the gear ratios:

I think it might be possible to duplicate this design in carbon over foam with derailleur gearing using a free hub as the rear suspension pivot and a conventional 7 speed rear cluster.  The rear chair assembly would be exposed but otherwise things should be similar.

Related articles

• Electronicaly switchable chainless drivetrain developed for Alpha Bike concept (gizmag.com)
• Green Machine Bike Is A Big Wheel For Grownups (wired.com)

Helping MM move into their new house

BB and I went down to RI to help MM move into their new house.  The changes they made look great and they seem very excited about it all.  There's still a LOT of work to do on the house and they will now to have to live in a construction zone but another few months should see it done.

Had a good visit and great time.

Plan for tomorrow is to clean up the house, particularly the Mike zone down stairs, and go for a bike ride.

Rapture report: world didn't end but Iceland has issues

Rapture day came and went and my plan worked perfectly.  Excellent wine.  Excellent wife.  Good time had by all during a rather nice rehearsal.

Of course Mr Camping must be a bit put off.  Interestingly, their web site is still up and showing 0,0.  What does one do under such circumstances?  Just say "my bad" and let it go or what.  Still things worked well for BB and I.

In related news, well sort of related, one of those pesky Iceland Volcanoes, you know the most active one on planet, is acting up again and there was a rather small earthquake along that always troublesome San Andreas fault where several thousand earthquakes occur each year.  I'm fairly sure it's not the rapture thing running a bit late but I'm going to keep track just in case.  Fortunately I've another very nice bottle of red wine on hand so we're ready on the off chance that Camping missed by a day.

In completely unrelated news it's gone cool again.  I want a "do over" on spring after all the cold rain and generally unpleasant weather we've had for the last couple of months.  It's a bit whiny I know but common now it's been going on for months!

BBs off with Mike today installing him at URI for the summer session so we are now officially sans children in the house.  I don't think things will change much since Mike's not here much anyway with school, work, etc.  Still it's a milestone of sorts.

Related articles

• Iceland's Most Active Volcano Begins Erupting (foxnews.com)
• 3.6 magnitude earthquake hits near Oakland (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• Prophecy of Rapture and doom fizzles, and life in Boston goes on (boston.com)

Bike ride to library

BB and I went for a bike ride to the library.  Used a new camera mount.  Works better.  Shot at 1 frame every 30 seconds.  Much to long.  Every 10 seconds is better.

Be prepared

The Rapture: judgment day imminent … if US engineer has calculated right | World news | The Guardian: "The Rapture: judgment day imminent … if US engineer has calculated right
Thousands say goodbye to family and friends ahead of 6pm Saturday deadline, after which 'saved' will rise up"

Image via WikipediaI was a boy scout when I was young. You know the whole "be prepared" thing.  Of course, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.  Then, too, the whole end of the world judgement day thing is a bit difficult to prepare for.  Do you say goodbye to loved ones then stick your head between your legs ... well you know the rest.  Or what?  So what to do?

Been thinking about it.  Not much but hey, it's Friday and rainy outside. Got to do something now that I'm retired.  So here's my plan.

First, open that very nice bottle of red wine BB and I have been saving for that special time.  What could be more special than the 'rapture' after all.

Second, take a couple of glasses and go back into the master bedroom.  

Third, get naked.  I can't imagine that one should dress for the rapture in anything other than the suite god gave you.

Fourth, get into bed under the covers.  It's warm and comfortable and generally rather nice.

Fifth, enjoy the wine.  If I remember my new testament reasonably, Christ was OK with wine even going so far as turning water to wine.  If it's good enough for C it's good enough for me.

Sixth, while naked and just slightly tight enjoy the great gift god gave men and women to share together.  That's in the bible as well, if memory serves, something about multiplying and the earth.  

Now there are two possible outcomes here.  One is that the 'rapture' is real in which case I'm reasonably OK with preparations since I'm dressed as god made me and engaged ... well you know.  The other is that this wacko is wrong again as he was back in '92 or '94 or both.  In this rather more likely outcome I've shared a nice bottle of wine with someone I love.  No harm, no foul, and we can all go on with life reassured that we've  rehearsed a well conceived plan for the end of days or whatever other terminal disaster might occur. 

One final thought.  Could we get this guy to schedule the rapture a bit more often then declare it a special floating holiday?  Sort of like a combined April Fools, Christmas, and New Years all together during the spring or summer.  Sounds like a fair idea to me.

Related articles

• Atheists offer to care for Christians' pets after rapture (rt.com)
• Judgment Day: Atheists plan 'rapture' party - BBC News (news.google.com)

Good coffee news!

Image via Wikipedia

Could coffee lower men's risk for prostate cancer?

I like coffee!  I really really like coffee!  Some while back there were some news items linking coffee consumption and an increased risk of prostate cancer.  Bummer, big time.  Imagine my elation with the latest news!  It's good for you!  Oh happy days, happy happy days!

Now if I could just find a health justification for wine, scotch, bourbon, sex, and general debauchery life would be truly good.

Related articles

• Coffee may reduce risk of lethal prostate cancer in men (medicalxpress.com)
• More Cups of Java a Day Keeps Deadly Cancers Away? (abcnews.go.com)
• Link Between Obesity And Higher Risk Of Prostate Cancer Progression (medicalnewstoday.com)

Google Map Maker adventure

Google Map Maker
GPS Visualizer

I've been playing with Google Map Maker fixing some map errors I've encountered while hiking/biking. It's interesting that Google goes to its base as a way to verify ground truth. I've corrected a couple of roads that are now only open to bikes or walking.

Interestingly the Google reviewers quickly responded to my changes and some are already approved.  Here's my first contribution currently available from Google Maps.

My first contribution to Google Maps The green line is a new bike route courtesy of RJB

From 2011-05-17 Google Maps

One of the things I did was to offer a new bike trail that runs along the Assabett river.  I'd tried to get the the Rails to Trails folks to include it in their maps without luck.  A bit strange that as it is in their planned routes!  At any event I offered it to Google Maps and quickly got some feedback that part of the route is in the river.  Since you can't effectively ride a bike in a river clearly something is bogus.  Fortunately I have a saved GPS track of the trail so there is some sort of ground truth there.  I was able to lay this on Google Maps with GPS Visualizer.  Here's what it looks like:

GPS Visualizer GPS track overlay on Google Maps

You can also get an elevation profile that looks something like this:

GPS Visualizer elevation profile

I remember the 105.9m hill VERY well.

At any event the tool is interesting and useful.

I've sent a note to the Google reviewer offering the GPS track.  Haven't heard back yet though.

Cape Cod trip 2011 05 - Repost

Blogger ate the original post during their recent problems.  Repost!

BB and I went to the cape to do a bit of biking.  Sadly, large offshore storm brought heavy rain, 40+ MPH winds, and temps in the 40s.  We did a bit of touring then decided to punt and try again in a few weeks.  Here's a bit of video of the affair.

Raspberry Pi Foundation - Very Cool

Raspberry Pi Foundation

Coolest computer I've seen recently.  Hard to imagine that the first computer I worked on was the size of a large room, didn't have even close to this much storage, didn't have a disk, and had only teletype output!

Cape Cod trip 2011 05

BB and I went down to the Cape for a bit of bike riding.  Timing is sometimes everything and ours was very poor.  Big offshore storm brought 40mph wind, heavy rain, and temps in the 40s.  We did a bit of touring but decided to punt and returned home.  We'll try again later.

Short bike ride today with BB

Went for a short bike ride with BB around the neighborhood.  Here's the route:

And here's the video.  Video is better I think.  The mount is almost secure with a bit of foam to keep it from loosening.  Need to work on camera stabilization and vertical.  Shot at 1 frame every 10 seconds.  Seems about right.

Getting from google maps to a gps file for Delorme

Google maps is really handy for finding bike routes.  But, how do you get from the Google Maps display to your GPS device?  For reasons that escape me, Google Maps do not export a GPS/GPX file.  But, you can do it with a bit of effort.  To do so use the handy app at elsewhere.org.

The directions are good and work for me.  I use the full version of the output since it gives a much better track to follow.  With my Delorme PN-40 I bring up Topo USA then import the GPS file as a draw object.  From there it's easy to export to the PN-40 and then follow the track as wanted.

1. First make your route.  This was done with bike routes set on.
   
   
   
   
2. Then GMAPtoGPX it.  You'll get a display that looks like this after you select Full. 
   
3. Copy the code to the clipboard and paste into notepad or some other application that allows you to save the file as a GPS file.
   
   
4. Then within Topo import the saved file as a draw object.
   
   
   
5. Now you'll have a draw object within Topo that you can save to your Delorme device.

That's all there is to it.

Cape Bike Rides

BB and I are planning a trip to the Cape to do a bit of biking along the Cape Cod Rail Trail

One route goes out to the park at Ocean View Dr.  About 5.4 miles one way.

It's actually possible to go all the way to P Town.  That's about 30 miles.  A bit far for BB and I.  There's a shorter route just down the Rail Trail.

There are also some options going south.

We'll work out the details when we're there.

Introducing Poolball, America’s Next Great Barroom Sport | Playbook

Introducing Poolball, America’s Next Great Barroom Sport | Playbook

Where can I play?

Bike ride to library

We're having a great spring day so BB & I decided to bike over to the library and drop some books off.  Here's the route and a video slide show of the trip.

As you can tell, I'm still getting the hang of using the time lapse feature on the camera.  This video was done from photos taken every 2 seconds then made into a slide show with goggle picasa.  It is a bit better than my first effort I think but still needs some work.

I'm still having some issues with the camera mount.  The shoe is coming unscrewed!  I've put a bit of rubber material between the plastic shoe and camera.  Hopefully that will create enough friction that it will stay screwed in properly.  I also need to do something about the mount since it is steering sensitive.  Finally, I went through a fresh set of AA batteries doing this!  Some sort of external power supply is clearly wanted.

John and Marie over for dinner

Our neighbors and good friends John and Marie were over for dinner last night.  We'd hoped to eat out on the deck but not withstanding a couple of days of teasingly nice weather it's gone a bit cool again.  Still, I cleaned up the grill and grilled leg of lamb, and eggplant.  Rather than grill the leg of lamb whole I went ahead and butterflied it.  We also tried an interesting noodle salad and a wonderful sweet kale dish.  Great meal!