Some other innovative bicycle lights have come across my computer screen. I haven’t tried any of them, but they are worth considering if you’re in the market for such a thing.

Magicshine bike taillight seems to be in a similar vein to the Dinotte light. It has a 3-watt LED, O-ring attachment and external battery pack much like the Dinottes. I haven’t seen one in person, but it seems like a less-expensive imported light that may be nearly as bright. The downside that I see is that it runs on 4 18650 batteries, which are a little obscure to find. I do believe they are available in rechargeables, though, so you could make it a one-time purchase.

This light isn’t strictly a tail light. But it adds spectacular visibility to a bike in a very unique way. They’re not cheap, but not outrageously expensive for what they offer. Give ‘em a couple years and Wal-Mart will carry them and get the price down to $10! They are a commercial product that is an outgrowth from a Make Magazine series of projects called Spoke POV (for persistence of vision) that draw an image in the air using the wheel’s rotation to move them.

Make Magazine Online describes one such project as such:

This project consists of three circuit boards with a row of 32 LEDs on each (actually 64 LEDs because they’re double sided). The circuit boards are mounted radially in the spokes of a bicycle wheel and batteries near the hub supply power to them. The LEDs are controlled by a microcontroller that measures the rotational speed of the wheel by way of a hall effect (magnetic) sensor. As the wheel rotates, the microcontroller turns the individual LEDs on and off in such a way that a static image appears to float inside the wheel.

Another similar product is available at Hokey Spokes. Kits are available for the DIY types at Adafruit Industries as well.

A new and promising tail light coming out soon is called Lucid Brake. This looks like a standard bike tail light at first, but with one important difference: it functions as a brake light. Some kind of sensor inside the unit (probably an accelerometer chip) detects when the rider applies the brakes and goes from the standard flashing mode to full-brightness solid red. And it does it without any external connection to the brakes. There are a couple other bike tail lights that function as a brake light, but they need a kludgy switch added to a brake to switch the brake light.

This light isn’t available yet, but looks like an instant hit when it does. The brightness looks good, still commanding some attention even in daylight and the brake light really stands out, as it should. They’re recruiting dealers now and promise to start selling it through home shopping channels first. Eventually, it should get to retail stores.

One thing these lights all show, one way or another, is that new technology is reaching into even everyday items. Whether it’s a super-bright LED instead of the old, anemic ones, to circuits powered by sophisticated microprossors (the Spoke POV lights are Arduino-based) and sensors, they show how cutting edge technology improves mundane products when applied in innovative ways. Even improved battery technology, like the Sanyo Eneloop makes these lights practical.

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A very short video of the two taillights on my trike. The one on the left is the Dinotte 140R and on the right is the Cateye LD-1100. Despite having six rear-facing LEDs, the Cateye is outshone by the Dinotte. The vertical streaks are artifacts from the lights overpowering the video camera. (It’s a good still camera, but a very mediocre video camera.)

But the artifacts are interesting in themselves. Notice the Dinotte’s streak turns into a dotted line while it is in it’s dimmer phase. This tells me that they are pulsing the LED on and off to reduce the brightness by lowering the amount of time it is on, or duty-cycle. This is a very good technique with LEDs that ensures consistent operation overall.

I have the utmost respect for the Native American culture and beliefs. Unfortunately, I don’t see where exploiting a situation where certain commodities prices have become high, in part due to taxes, should be exploited for the profit of a few Native Americans. That’s not what we should learn from their culture. Maybe it’s what they’ve learned from ours…

And just what is a “Native American” anymore, anyway? I was born here. My parents were too. So were my Grandparents. I don’t know how many generations I would have to go back to actually find an ancestor from Europe. Am I as much a “Native American” as some blonde-haired, blue-eyed person who has a Great-great-grandmother that was born on a reservation?

We all live together. Many of us work together. I worked with several card-carrying Native Americans where I was formerly employed and they were hard-working, honest, good people. But New York is in a jam, financially and needs to collect the taxes, rather than think up new ones.

Native Americans – at least around here, I can’t speak for the rest of the country – enjoy the same government services as everyone else, roads, schools, welfare, police protection, and on and on. Sure there are some Indian Schools on the reservation and Tribal Police, but they’re a small, token part of those services. Native Americans should contribute their share towards the cost of those services as being the right thing to do. I know they are a proud people and wouldn’t want it any other way.

And, the state isn’t even talking about the Indians paying taxes. It’s about collecting sales taxes on sales to non-Indians who go to the reservation to escape the sales taxes elsewhere. It’s hurting non-Indian businesses and creating an unfair advantage for businesses on the reservation.

I think it’s time to just say no to this fight and not do it at all. Let’s not fight over who gets to pay taxes and who has to collect them. They’re an inevitable part of life here. Let’s stop this us vs. them thing and become all one tribe. I’m not saying to dissolve the Indian Nations, or to assimilate them. Heck, maybe they should assimilate us. I think in many ways their values and teachings would be better than ours. They might do a better job than our politicians in Albany. Lets just say we’re all in the same boat and deal with it together.

Of course, they’re not perfect either. Some of the guys in Armani suits with bolo ties I’ve seen on the news with some of the casinos are probably just as shady as any politician. I guess money corrupts universally. But I still think rather than dividing us, we should be working out these issues together. Let’s stop this fight over taxes and do the right thing. We all benefit from the services the taxes provide, so let’s all pay our share, do our share to collect them and work on getting rid of the corruption in Albany so we can get the most for our tax dollar and maybe someday lower those taxes for all of us.

[I know I'm gonna get some hate mail for this post, but it's got to be said. This separate nation, treaty thing just isn't working anymore and we're headed towards some ugly conflicts because of it. The reality is, we are all living together, lets start acting like it.]

Today, I rode the usual Monday morning NFBC breakfast ride. This morning’s ride went to Lockport and stopped for breakfast at Panera Bread. Brad had his new ICE Adventure 1 trike, so I am no longer the only trike rider in the group! I thought it was cooler than it was and wore a long-sleeved shirt. By the time we finished the ride it was really hot. I think the news said it hit 90 degrees today, but it sure didn’t feel that hot. The humidity is much lower than the last couple weeks. It’s getting late in the summer and it cools down much more at night as the days get shorter. This drives some of the moisture out of the air overnight, I think. Today was another 25 mile ride.

Why do I post this? Mostly for my own record. Read if you want, or skip it!

I ended up riding to Middleport and stopped for lunch at a diner there next to the canal. I’d been there before, on one of the bike club centuries I rode a few years ago. It’s always a convenient place to stop.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to ride back on Route 31, aka Telegraph Road and see just how bad the Bike Route 5 was. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that bad. It was exactly as I expected, heavy traffic with cars and trucks pretty much constantly going by. But the wide shoulder was smooth and clear as can be expected. The riding was actually faster than taking the canal path and it’s crushed stone.

I kind of enjoyed the uphill ride. Most of it seemed to be gentle uphills folowed by gentle downhills. Not even enough to call rollers. The last hill up the escarpment was harder as you would expect, but an easier route then going up the hills on either Market Street or Clinton Street next to the canal.

When I got back to Lockport, I stopped by the Canal Street gazebo to see who might be playing there. It turned out to be Mike Petralgia, a friend who I knew from work. I hung out for an hour or so listening to him play.

From Fun on the Canal

The gazebo shows are a nice idea, but attendance always seems to be really low. In the not weather, there just is no shade and no one wants to stay there. Today, it was slightly more comfortable and a few people wandered by to watch. Some even took pictures at the Canawlers cut-out.

Ride mileage was about 29 miles.

Click on the photo to go to my Picasaweb album,

I’d be willing to bet a lot of people’s meanness comes from being treated rudely anyway, so it’s a way of getting to the root cause.

There is no one incident that spurs this posting. No one ticked me off and caused me to rant. It’s just a long-term observation that a lot of what ails our society comes from a lack of manners. From talking on cell phones while driving, talking loudly on cell phones while in public, just talking in public, to lack of respect, and violence towards one another, it all stems from a lack of basic manners.

I once sat in a busy hospital waiting room, crowded to the point where peple had to wait for a seat, while a lady held a long personal conversation on her cell phone in speaker-phone mode. The whole room heard both sides of the conversation clearly, a fact I’m sure the woman on the other end didn’t realize. The sign on the wall behind her? Please turn off all cell phones in the hospital, of course.

There are so many examples too. People talking or texting on their phones while driving has been a topic of many news stories and new laws passed. Yet, people keep on doing it as if they are above the law. Or the law of common sense, for that matter. It’s this false sense of entitlement that so many people seem to have these days. As if to say, “I’m more important than the person I’m endangering.”

You see it other places on the road too. The guy who turns left, taking off like a jack rabbit, when the light changes, cutting right in front of traffic that is going straight and has the right of way.

It’s not just on the road. I notice it more in the summer when windows and doors are open, but it’s become a year-round thing lately. People who take their personal conversations outside with them as they walk down the street, often the middle of the street. They talk and argue at the top of their lungs about anything, things that a Doctor, Lawyer, or shrink couldn’t repeat for fear of being sued under HIPPA laws… But they don’t care who hears them. And heaven help you if you look up, or show some sign that you’re listening. You get the evil eye, or worse told to mind your own business, for listening to them! As if you had a choice!

I haven’t got a problem with people walking along having a discreet conversation. But I don’t need to be included, especially when every other word is F-this and F-that.

Given time, I could come up with a hundred other examples of how we’ve lost any sense of propriety in our society. It seems like no one has any sense of empathy for their fellow man anymore. Whether you see the entitled rude driver and the trailer-trash manners of some people as different, even opposite, problems, I see them as the same: a breakdown in manners and common civility.