Autumn colours, view from my kitchen. ...

Via Instagram.

Church doorway, Surbiton. ...

Via Instagram.

Mount #Etna Erupting This Morning ...

Via my Instagram page.

Mmm. Rack of Lamb. Almost as good as bacon. #Food

A Quotation From Malcolm X ...

Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.

~ Malcolm X

The Greatest Speech Ever Made ...

Everything I've ever, ever wanted to say in one extremely moving, heart-stopping, video.

Please watch.

Speech - Charlie Chaplin, from 'The Great Dictator' (original here)

Music - Hans Zimmer, from 'Inception'.

Montage - Namaste on YouTube

Why We Ride ...

I go on about motorcycles and why I love riding.. Here's a bunch of people trying to explain it :-)

WHY WE RIDE - The Official Film Trailer on Vimeo.

This... Just About Right ...

From xkcd, of course...

Musings On #Cycling From @SonOfTheWinds - AkA TrafficDroid ...

Droid Helmet on full power ...

I love cycling, you all know that.

So does the Droid.

A couple of years ago on the road in London, I met up with a cyclist with a wonderfully tricked-out bike, who's moniker (I later found out - he gave me his card) to be @SonOfTheWinds aka TrafficDroid.

A very friendly fellow two-wheeler, we exchanged small talk and I mentioned a cycling event I was involved with, the famous London Naked Bike Ride, which was due to take place just a week or so after we'd bumped into each other.

He attended the event and make a great YouTube movie of the WNBR. Since then I've been a follower of his accounts on Twitter and YouTube.

@SonOfTheWinds - who on Twitter goes by the name of #TrafficDroid - rides London with various cameras on his bike and on his person, and uploads various videos to YouTube showing the reactions of road users to him, to each other, as well as highlighting the law-breaking and sheer arrogance of some car drivers.

He is a gentleman of the road, always polite despite harassment and verbal abuse. He always stops to help others when he sees a need. His videos speak for themselves.

Recently on Twitter he was poetically expressing his love for two wheels - and I thought his tweets should be repeated. Here, then, are the words of the Traffic Droid, one of the finest explanations of why two wheels are good, from one of the finest gentleman on those two wheels.

Cyclists are free to enrich future generations with less CO2 emissions & increase great society of responsibility.

Cycling made me more and more aware of the environment, expanded my friendships and interactions with people and society.

You only have to watch the movement and verve of a cyclist. It's beautiful. It's symphonic. Poetry in motion. The human scale.

I will never forget the day I received my first commuter bike over 5 years ago now. It was a Dahon Jack. I tasted true freedom.

I became free of public transport, use of taxis & subways. I was in an uncontrollable orgasm of emotional well being. Ecstatic!

Cycling is the antidote to financial bleeding, it puts more food on the table and reinforces the fabric of being a human being.

 And when I remarked on Twitter that he was being very poetic this evening, he described it as thus:

 The culmination of the salad of this weeks commute tossed in the olive oil of experience.

That's classy.

Oh, and yeah - if you see a big 6ft guy on a tricked-out cycle waving a red card at you on the road - that just means you've done something pretty dumb. Here's one of my favourites:

The Most Perfect, Romantic Video ...

Whatever your thoughts on gay marriage - and I have no issue with it at all - there is this video, which is just.. lovely.

Fair enough, the basic idea is stolen from the movie 'Love, Actually' ...

But it's still a beautiful thing... Here it is.

The Benefits Of Cycling ...

I've written before about the many benefits of cycling, here's a perfect graphic to say it all ...

Someone So Beautiful ...

You know when sometimes you meet someone,
So beautiful ...
And then you actually talk to them.
And five minutes later they're as dull as a brick.

But then there's other people ...
And you meet them and you think,
"They're okay".

And then you get to know them.
And their face just sort of becomes them,
Like their personality's written all over it.

And they just...

They just turn into something beautiful.

That.

What's The Greatest Software Ever Written ... ?

This superb piece from Charles Babcock, Editor at Information Week is a must-read for anyone who is interested in computing.

An IT veteran with an address book full of other experts, he has examined the history of software - right back to the beginnings of Colossus, and come up with a Top 12 list that's hard to argue with.

For each item, he highlights the flaws as well as the triumphs. In the week in which UNIX technically reaches the grand old age of 40, this article really should be compulsory reading for those under-25 who seem to think that there only *ever* was Windows and Apple OS.

The complete article is here and I have to say, read it in full. It will enlighten you. In the meantime, here's the top 12:

• 12. The Morris Worm (1988)
• 11. Google Search Rank System (1996)
• 10. NASA Apollo Guidance System (1969)
• 9. Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet (1985)
• 8. Macintosh Operating System (1984)
• 7. Sabre Global Distribution System (1960)
• 6. NCSA Mosaic Web Browser (1993)
• 5. Java Programming Language (1995)
• 4. IBM System 360 Operating System (1964)
• 3. Institute for Genomic Research Gene-Sequencing Software (2006)
• 2. IBM's System R (1974)
  
  And the greatest ever ?
  
• 1. Unix System III (1982) *or* BSD Unix 4.3 (1986)
  ..... read the article for clarification!