reinout

He probably loves itunes for what it accomplished. Remember the music industry before itunes? The way in which it made a lot of things possible and easier?

And the whole app store mechanism? Whether it is itunes or android's or whatever's?

That's what he loves it for. (And I'm assuming you're wondering why he loves a product that is so ugly/slow/complicated/whatever; I suspect that's not Steve Wozniak's point).

Helmets better than no helmets is not necessarily true, strangely. Perhaps on an individual right-now level, but not long term. The reason: the biggest protection you can have as a cyclist is lots of cyclists on the road. Helmets lower bike use, so in the end you'll be a lone, vulnerable road warrior...

Btw, would you also wear your cycling helmet while walking on the pavement as a pedestrian? At least in the Netherlands there are more head injuries for pedestrians that fall or hit something than cycling-related head injuries. :-)

The Dutch think-of-the-children 1970's campaign resulted in the great cycling infrastructure we have now.... A far cry from such a here's-some-body-armour-if-you-want-to-commit-suicide law.

My kids are 8 and 10 and cycle 1km to school each day without me or my wife riding along. And that's a mix of regular streets, cycle paths and residential areas. I feel pretty thankful to the ones campaigning in the 70s!

Big difference with motorbike helmets: those are integral helmets, protecting your entire head. Cycle helmets only help against direct hits on the top of your head. Crashing head-first into a car or tree (or getting a tree branch on your head).

German consumer organization tests showed that lots (60% or so) of the helmets for sale in Germany didn't even meet the head-on-collision tests as the testing isn't done by an official institute...

Wearing a cycling helmet makes sense when you've got a good chance of hitting something straight on. Like mountainbiking and hitting a tree or speed cycling at 50km/h, bend over your handlebars.

Kids? Regular cyclists? Mum with groceries? No way. Or at least: other things are more effective. Like wearing a cycling helmet as a pedestrian (who apparently hit things with their head more often!).

The number of people killed in traffic accidents in the Netherlands has dropped 80% since the 1972 high of 3000+/year. It is now at 640/year.

The main reason being given is seat belts for drivers and helmets for moped users. Info in Dutch from the official statistics bureau: http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/gezondheid-welzijn/publi...

Depend on the country, or more likely on the amount of cyclists. In the Netherlands, they consider the 1000kg steel cars to be the real dangerous threat, not the cyclists. It may sound like a play of words, but it isn't. Everyone cycles, so when you hit a junior cylist, you've pretty much potentially hit everyone's kid. People have been known to get a veritable witch hunt on their asses by local newspapers that way.

The car driver gets the blame, not the cyclist that forgot to wear a helmet.

So the key to safe biking is lots of bikes. Sadly, dressing up like for an execution ("I will get hit by a car door and the car owner can just say sorry and move on so I'll wear body armor") won't get society nowhere.

Note that it might very well be an individual's best choice in some countries, probably also in yours... But it is a sad best choice.

What do you do more often? Fall exactly on the top of your head or on your side? In the latter case, the helmet makes your head bigger and can cause your head to rotate. And swift rotation is worse for your brains than a head-on hit.

So only use a helmet when roadracing or mountainbiking, not for a simple city ride.

The benefit? You're not sending out the message that biking is dangerous. Would you send your kid out cycling if everyone is wearing helmets? When cyclists are called "road warriors"?

A helmet is necessary when road racing where there is a distinct risk of dropping over your handlebar: remember, a helmet only protects against hits directly on the top of your head.

Normal commuting? In the city? Biggest risk is getting hit in your soft side by a car or tipping over and hitting the road with your legs or hand or so. Where does the helmet help there?

Best protection: more cyclists on the road. Nobody in the Netherlands wears a helmet (apart from road racers) and you don't get 2000 killed cyclists per day :-)

Hi, I'm the Reinout that made the notes. Yes, it was a live summary and his slides went by very fast. I'm surprised how much I got written down. So I had to leave stuff out, for instance the >32GB comment (which I did as it seemed applicable only to few people).

Masklinn, thanks for doing this bit of checking! For many people (including myself :-) the summary will be enough, but checking the actual presentation is a good idea if you run into problems.

I made a summary of Kenneth's talk at http://reinout.vanrees.org/weblog/2012/06/06/flask-django-su..., for some this might be nicer to read/scan than slides. The slides are more complete, though :-)