Statrix Redux

I’ll be completely honest, I like “free.” I like free software (and I do understand the difference between free software and free beer). I used to like free beer, though lately I prefer the idea of free beer to actual free beer. And I like free books…
Now don’t get me wrong here, I think authors should receive fair compensation for their work and I buy a lot of books. But getting something legal for nothing works for me too.
As an aside, I’m listening to Fresh Air’s interview with Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor who is involved with the Creative Commons licensing model. The interview is titled, “Laurence Lessig’s ‘Remix’ For The Hybrid Economy.”
It was a bit of a coincidence then when I logged into Amazon’s Kindle store to check on a book and discovered some free ones – hard boiled fiction even.
Now keep in mind that these books are actually a bit pricier if you don’t own a Kindle as you’ll have to purchase one – and they are currently out of stock. But if you own a Kindle, you are good to go.
There are, at the moment, ten books available for free….

1. Private by Kate Brian
2. Six Bad Things: A Novel by Charlie Huston
3. A Dangerous Man: A Novel by Charlie Huston
4. The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro
5. Murder List by Julie Garwood
6. Prague: A Novel by Arthur Phillips
7. Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston
8. The Whiskey Rebels: A Novel by David Liss
9. Made to Stick (Introduction and Index): Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Dan Heath
10. The Foreign Correspondent: A Novel by Alan Furst
11. Free-Range Chickens by Simon Rich

I can’t speak to the quality of any of the books, though David Liss is one of my favorite writers so I expect good things there.
I ordered all of the books except “Private” which appears to a novel for the juvenile females among us. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not my cup of tea.
And finally, there’s no guarantee these books will stay free so this post may be outdated before it even scrolls off the page, but if you’re quick….
Aloha!

Sigh…
Last night, after a meeting about 3 miles from my house my moped decided not to start. I ended up pushing it home. I don’t think much is wrong with it – spark plug maybe – but it was a pain.
Luckily the shop I use said they’d pick up my bike tomorrow if I dropped off my keys. I did. When I got home I cleaned and lubed my bicycle and then went to check on my moped. It had disappeared already and I’m going to assume they picked it up early. I’d hate to think it had been stolen.
Now that I’ve thought of it…I am worried. 🙂
In better news…I was listening to an NPR podcast (Science Friday) today and they had Tim O’Reilly on. He mentioned that he’s on Twitter. I actually already follow Mr. O’Reilly there but that’s not really my point. My real point is that he mentioned using ‘twhirl‘, an Adobe Air app for Twitter.
Of course I immediately installed it and it is a good one. Here’s a shot…

Give it a try Robin!
Aloha!

So here I am feeling sorry for myself because of my cold when I get a reminder that really perked me up. A while back I signed up to be on the Mississippi River Trail mailing list.
You see I have a plan to bike down the river someday. And no, I don’t mean down the middle of the river. That seems to be everyone’s favorite joke. Unless it rains, I don’t plan on getting wet outside of the shower. 🙂
In any case, if you have any interest, take a look!
Aloha!

No, it’s not cold here in Honolulu, but I certainly seem to have come down with one. Thankfully it’s a week before Christmas so I should be fine by next week, but boy is it ever unpleasant right now.
I’m not a big fan of over the counter medications, but in the past I’ve taken them to get through the day. But I will admit I have a fondness for Mr. Mucus, the spokes-snot for Mucinex…

I’d even thought to buy some today, but the line is just too long over at the local box store.
Aloha!

I ended up getting the best tail light on the planet. How, you ask, do I know this? Simple. It says so on the manufacturer’s website…it’s on the web, so it has to be true, eh?
In truth it is a pretty bright light, though the batteries it came with had already run down. Luckily I…actually luck had nothing to do with it…had batteries.
What light is it? The Planet Bike “Blinky Super Flash“.

I even got to try it out tonight and didn’t get hit from behind, though I’ll admit I did something stupid and did give it my best shot.
Anyway I’m home safe and sound and it’s time for bed.
Aloha!

I just replaced my helmet and now…yep…I’ve got to replace at least my taillight. Unfortunately it turned up broken this morning. Actually the light itself is fine, the place clip on the back broke which means that about all it can do is light up the inside of my rack trunk. I guess I could drop it into an open grocey pannier and ride around at night with a blinking red glow coming from the bag. I suspect that would attract motorists though, not warn them off.
I’ve got a Blackburn Mars 3.0 which has worked great…

…I know it works great because none, absolutely zero, of my bike mishaps have been related to being tailended by a car that didn’t see me. Nope, I can fall off my bike all by myself thank you – and damn it, I want to keep it that way!
As you can see in the image, the back of the light clips into the holder. It’s those clips that have broken off. I’ve actually rigged up a fix that’ll hold for a day or two, but it may be time to get something a little better. I’m thinking an actual spotlight, like they use for car lot sales. The idea is that it would be so bright, so overpowering, that it would simply drive cars off the road behind me. The drawback is those things weight hundreds of pounds and require generators putting out more than a dynamic hub can do on a bike.
I just hate shopping for lights though as they always seem so expensive during the day while I’m in the bike shop. If I could shop for them out on the road, at night, they’d probably seem a lot cheaper – even at the same price – or more.
The systems I would actually like cost more than my bike and while I’m convinced they are decent, I’m just not quite at that point yet. That’s silly, of course, because while they may cost more than my bike, they don’t cost more than any hospital or funeral bills I could generate, but there you are.
I guess we’ll see. [Or more importantly, I hope the guys behind me can see.]
Aloha!

I saw this on Gizmodo and just had to pass it along. If you are going to listen to Xmas music, this is the way to do it. :-0

I finally got around to replacing my bike helmet. I really should have done it a couple of weeks ago after a slight knock, but one thing led to another and there you go…
The accident was just barely an accident which is one reason I wasn’t thinking much about. I was on a back street in the McCully area of town. I approached a stop sign where I planned on making a left hand turn. The car in front of me stopped and I slowed as I approached. The car in front of me didn’t move, even though there was no traffic on the cross street. I slowed more. The car didn’t move. I slowed more. The car didn’t move.
You can probably see where this is going. 🙂
I ended up more or less motionless balanced on my pedals when the car finally moved through the intersection and I pushed down on the pedal to get moving myself only to hear a scraping sound as my chain slipped the chainwheel. My foot, now meeting no resistance, went straight down pulling my weight to the right and…over I tipped. My head banged the pavement, but it didn’t seem particularly hard. I was more concerned about my wrist as it seemed I’d used my hand to try to break my fall (unsucessfully I might add). Luckily I didn’t break my wrist, nor, because I was wearing riding gloves, did I drive gravel into my palm. Whew!
So off I rode, embarrassed, especially as I’d been seen. But if you knew me you’d know I’ve been embarrassed before – far more than this – and survived. 🙂
In any case, I knew I should replace the helmet but I conveniently put it out of my mind until yesterday when I noticed that there was a crack running across the width of the helmet. It wasn’t noticable on the outside because of the plastic coating, but it was certainly visible on the inside.
My first step was to do a search on helmet reviews and the first place that came up turned out to be the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute. They have a lot of information on helmets, what constitutes a good one, the laws concerning them, and information on more helmet manufacturers than I knew existed. It seems to be a good starting place.
The also recommend checking Consumer Reports. One has to be a member to get the information on that link. They seem to think the only reason to buy a helmet is to protect your child, an excellent idea for sure, but they do rate adult helmets as well. The last ratings were done in summer 2007 so the latest and greatest helmets probably aren’t here, but things don’t seemed to have changed that much.
As it turns out Bell helmets are highly recommended, especially ones that are mostly rounded like the Citi. A rounded helmet is important because any protrusions can catch on the ground or something else in an accident and cause some real problems. A very rounded helmet, with no protrusions will be much safer.
After much reading I realized that my old helmet, a Giro Atlas II, was, in fact, a Bell. It’s a bit oversized for swelled heads like mine – able to cushion blows to both head and ego I suppose.
I decided I’d try the local box store as it was across the street from my work and while they had some helmets, Bell’s even, they didn’t have any that fit. So…
Off I went to McCully Bike where I’d gotten the Giro. They didn’t have any Giro’s, now all their helmets were Bells. Since they are really the same company these days it wasn’t a problem. I ended up with a Bell Triton which seems to be more or less an Atlas II with slight different fastenings.

So that’s my helmet and my story and I’m sticking to it.
Aloha!
Wear a helmet Robin!

Today was wet. For that matter, tonight is wet as well.
This morning I got to sleep in a bit because the first bus in my area is actually about an hour after my normal departure. This is what it looked like out there this morning…

It did clear up for an hour or two when I went home from work so I actually got a bit of sunshine while I waited for the bus to go home, but that didn’t last long.
Currently I can hear rain outside while I wait for a ride from a friend. The radar confirms that it is indeed raining outside.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. I do hope it clears up because I’d like to ride my bike…one day off and I miss it.
Aloha!

I just upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.7 as suggested on the control panel. So far so good. Of course I’ll still have to do this again on the site I support, and that uses K2, so who knows. But it’s looking good!
Aloha!