Mustknow Morestuff

...on bikes, bicycles and bike racing...

...on sustainability, business, gadgets and more...

...on images...

...and on why we are here...

Labels: bikes, blogging, business, gadgets, images, mythology, sustainability

Labels: Stephanie Dosen

If you think that our cities and civilisations are going to be around forever you should check out what we've lost...

Labels: archaeology, Lost cities

Along the lines of searchable video databases there is also Metacafe.

Labels: metacafe, video search

Blinkx promotes itself as the most advanced video search engine on the Web. So does it work? Yep, seems to. Also has a cool Pico-bar that monitors what you are doing and feeds you suggestions... hmmm. I think I'll leave that option alone for a while.

Labels: blinkx, pico, video search

I just dug this out of the "This Week in SCIENCE" emails from AAAS, from May 12 2006, 312 (5775). The AAAS says: "Not So Fast...The strength of the Earth's magnetic field has decayed since accurate measurements began in 1840, and these changes have led to speculation that the field will disappear or reverse within this millennium."

Which would be pretty scary. We'd either have no north/south poles or our north would become south and vice versa. You can imagine how confusing and dangerous that alone would be... but whjat of electronic gizmos in general and the potential for not just pole reversals but concomitant electromagnetic field disturbance?

Anyway (this was back in May, 2006 remember)they (the researchers, Gubbins et al) have devised a method to use paleointensity measurements in conjunction
with directional information to extend the record of the Earth's magnetic
field back to 1590. Contrary to the recent steep decline, they find that
the dipole moment fell hardly at all until around 1800. So there. It may not be moving so fast after all. Still, it's something to watch.

Labels: dipole decline, environment, magnetic poles

Here's an excellent resource - the BBC Languages site...

Labels: BBC, languages, links, web

It's a map of the Internet, folks. Now that's gotta be useful...

Labels: internet, map

Can't help myself... some sites worth reading that relate to Pete Townshend and the Who...

1. Pete's partner... Rachel Fuller on Wikipedia
2. Rachel's excellent, audio-fied site on Myspace.com
3. In the Attic TV - videos of Rachel, her interviews and perhaps some Pete as well
4. A Frappr map of Rachel's fans
   
5. The Kids are Alright: lots to read here about the progeny of rock stars, but my interest was in Emma Townshend
6. A quote from the above link: 'Before signing to East West records, Emma studied for a masters and history of science PhD, and taught undergraduates at Cambridge for two years. She is shameless about her reasons for giving that up. 'I know this sounds terrible, but it's crap money,' she says. 'And if you've grown up like I grew up and gone on really nice holidays, when you're working and you can't afford to go anywhere, you think, "I can't live on the amount of money you get paid for teaching!" '
7. Cambridge? It seems Emma's teaching at Oxford now
8. Review of Emma's Winterland album here on TWAS
   
9. Longliverock.org
10. An interview (in text form) with Pete on Sirius radio.
    

Labels: Emma Townshend, Pete Townshend, Rachel Fuller, Roger Daltrey, the Who

Have you ever, like me, wondered why slouching in a chair - lying back well beyond the usually-suggested straight-back 90 degree angle - feels so good? Ever felt the back relax when in that position? Well guess what - the 'sit up straight' school of posture control is bad for you. Mind you, at the recommended 135degrees you do tend to slide forward and risk disappearing under the desk... but gee it's comfy! From the BBC...

Labels: chairs, posture, slouching

When I'm not writing about bikes, cars and business I'm either adding to the Sydney in the 70s Gallery or writing about mythical creatures. Well, you've got to have a hobby or 5, haven't you?

The 70's stuff comes about because I'm slowly scanning all of my old negatives. I'm over the 1,000 mark at this stage... it's a bit tedious but rewarding, revisiting one's distant past! And the mythical creatures? Well Roman and Greek mythology has interested me for 40 years or so, and now my kids are getting into it as well.. can't be bad, can it?

Wikipedia is getting to be invaluable. It's always shown promise but now it's almost unbelievably good. Want to know about bikes? Look at this. Cars? Check this out. Greenhouse gases? Business management? You name it, someone's thought of it. It almost makes me want to give up writing these blogs and just direct you all to read the Wiki instead. Almost.

Well, if they aren't must-knows they are things I find interesting anyway!

And the sponsors and bargains page is here, too.

1975 commercial - Braniff Airways - The Supersonic Future

Hilarious, if a little sad. Braniff don't exist anymore and supersonic airliners died in 2003... as for very little walking, that bit seems to have happened...