Trikki Beltran's bad concussion and his helmet



Dave Vandervies wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Bill Sornson <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Dave Vandervies wrote:

>
>>> HZ: All of 'em.

>>
>> Bzzt. Disqualified right there! (Has anyone EVER said that?!?)

>
> Probably not in so many words, but given the reactions that come up
> when somebody tries to point out that a helmet really isn't much more
> than
> a scratch protector


Bzzt! You're two-for-two!

:-D
 
The Wogster wrote:

> So, how about combining the two, a hub generator outputs power at all
> times,


The hub generator does NOT ouput power at all times. When there is no
load on a generator it is much easier to spin. A hub generator does have
a little resistance at all times, but not enough to worry about.

> so it would be charging the battery, ride all day, and your
> battery is fully charged, then you can ride all night, without being
> concerned with a battery that is going to go flat.


Okay, let's look at a medium size battery, 12V 4AH. This is 48WH. It
would take sixteen hours of riding, assuming no losses, to charge the
battery with a 3W dynamo. A small battery would be about 24WH, and it
would take only eight hours of riding to charge.

There are 6W dynamos available if a 3W headlamp is not sufficient for
your needs.
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

> So you say. And of course in ScharfWorld, denouncing them as
> "woefully inadequate" is of course completely different...
>
> http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.bicycles.misc/msg/0932eb63e019ed2d?dmode=source&hl=en


Very creative snipping.

Yes as a matter of fact, "woefully inadequate" is _not_ the same as
"unsafe."

First of all, they are woefully inadequate in the U.S., as I stated. But
this does not mean that they are unsafe. If the cyclist is riding fairly
slowly, on familiar roads, then a 3W light is safer than no light at
all, and better than most LED headlights.

You really are unable to respond without creating strawmen, or
misquoting. That speaks volumes about your positions on these issues.
You are becoming like Frank in terms of the lack of coherency of your
statements.
 
Bob the Cow wrote:
> "SMS" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:3wSMe.9652$p%[email protected]...
>
>>Very appropriate. The reason that some people, i.e. Frank and Guy, are so
>>unrelenting in their postings of what is known not to be true, is because
>>they want others to share their faith in what they know to be untrue.
>>Evangelists are always the most insecure people.

>
>
> That, and they have jobs which feature virtually limitless and unsupervised
> access to computers.


How can I get a job like that?

> Oh, yeah, that and no life at all.


Well if that's the trade-off then forget it!
 
Dave Vandervies wrote:

> Where risk compensation is a problem is when the perceived extra
> safety from something is greater than the actual extra safety,


Some people are just absolutely positive that everyone else in the world
believes that helmets are going to protect them in all types of
accidents. The fact that there are no people that actually believe this,
is a minor annoyance, because it is so easy to simply create strawmen
that believe it.
 
> Dave Vandervies wrote:
>> Where risk compensation is a problem is when the perceived extra
>> safety from something is greater than the actual extra safety,


> Some people are just absolutely positive that everyone else in the world
> believes that helmets are going to protect them in all types of
> accidents. The fact that there are no people that actually believe this,
> is a minor annoyance, because it is so easy to simply create strawmen
> that believe it.


Interesting, a two sentence post where the first sentence creates the
type of strawman that is derided in the second sentence.
 
[email protected] wrote:
>
> That phrase "seem to say" is as accurate as a third grader saying "The
> teacher seems to say three times four is fourteen." IOW, you must not
> have been paying attention.


Hope I'm not down-graded.

>
> What we're saying - well expressed by Dave - is that whether a "safety"
> measure is useful or not depends at least partly on whether the user
> has a realistic sense of its protective effect.


I don't disagree

>
> Risk compensation is real, and denying it is vacuous.



No one is denying it. I am denying that safety measures are fruitless.
I think it was Guy who suggested that road signs be removed in order
to make vehicular traffic safer.


It's far too
> easy to demonstrate. But that doesn't disprove the benefit of _any_
> safety item. To attach hypothetical numbers (for explanation only), if
> the person behaves 30% riskier and the protection is 40% greater, the
> person still comes out ahead.



Only if his assessment is accurate.
>
> I really do believe that if people knew and understood the incredibly
> low level of impact in the certification tests, helmet-induced risk
> compensation would largely vanish. Unfortunately, the helmet promotion
> hasn't started with "Helmets are 85% effective." It's started with
> "Cycling is incredibly dangerous." At this point, I think our phobic
> public would stop cycling entirely.



I would welcome your efforts to make cycling helmets more effective.

>


Steve

--
Cut the nonsense to reply
 
Dave Vandervies wrote:
>
> Slipperier than it should be, perhaps, but you're as much to blame as
> him for that (if not more).
>
> And it appears you still haven't read and understood what I wrote.
> Are you going to, or are you just going to tell us why you should be
> allowed to remain stupid because you can't be bothered to understand
> what we're trying to tell you?
>
>
> dave



Dearest David:

Ad hom noted. I hope you are willing to work on making helmets more
effective, rather than insulting the intelligence of survivors of head
injury fatalities.

Steve Bornfeld

>



--
Cut the nonsense to reply
 
Steven Bornfeld wrote:
>
>
> I would welcome your efforts to make cycling helmets more effective.


I won't make that effort. As I said in my previous post: To make them
more effective, make them much thicker. Do away with most of the
ventilation holes. Bring back the hard shells. Oh, and redesign the
ridiculously ineffective straps with something that will keep its shape
and adjustment - maybe solid plastic.

One more thing: If you take the recommendation of the Thompson &
Rivara team (originators of the "85%" ****), you should build rigid
chin bars into all bike helmets. You know - full face helmets for
ordinary riding. They actually have called for such things.

So it's simple. But the problems are these: You won't make them
_significantly_ more effective, and you will make them significantly
more unpleasant.

However, if a helmet of the above design sounds good to you, you can
buy one now. Go to a motorcycle shop.


One final point: I won't work on making helmets more effective,
because I do not believe ordinary cycling warrants a helmet. The risk
level does not justify such protective headgear. And strapping on ever
more protective gear just makes cycling look ever more dangerous.

- Frank Krygowski
 
[email protected] wrote:
> Steven Bornfeld wrote:
>
>>
>> I would welcome your efforts to make cycling helmets more effective.

>
>
> I won't make that effort.


I know you won't--that's my point.

As I said in my previous post: To make them
> more effective, make them much thicker. Do away with most of the
> ventilation holes. Bring back the hard shells. Oh, and redesign the
> ridiculously ineffective straps with something that will keep its shape
> and adjustment - maybe solid plastic.



You don't know (and CANNOT know) that that is the only way to do this.
 
I submit that on or about Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:12:24 -0400, the person
known to the court as The Wogster <[email protected]> made a
statement (<[email protected]> in Your
Honour's bundle) to the following effect:

>>>I doubt it would take much to feed the output of a hub generator into a
>>>trickle type charger that charges a small battery, then have the battery
>>>power the lamps, giving you the best of both worlds.


>> No need: modern dynamo lights are available with built-in standlights.


>But think about it for a second, the argument against dynamo lights is
>their low power (no matter how you look at it, 3Watts at 3V is pretty
>dim). The problem with battery systems is that the batteries, go flat.


I use dynamo lights on unlit roads at night; the problem is largely
illusory - 3W works fine, and a 6W (12V) series setup on a SON hub
works fine at speeds of up to around 30mph.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
I submit that on or about Fri, 19 Aug 2005 18:19:49 GMT, the person
known to the court as SMS <[email protected]> made a statement
(<9ppNe.9879$p%[email protected]> in Your Honour's bundle) to
the following effect:

>> So you say. And of course in ScharfWorld, denouncing them as
>> "woefully inadequate" is of course completely different...


>> http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.bicycles.misc/msg/0932eb63e019ed2d?dmode=source&hl=en


>Very creative snipping.


Nearly as creative as yours - once again you snipped the call for
evidence without actually providing any! I see a pattern emerging
here...

>First of all, they are woefully inadequate in the U.S., as I stated.


And your externally verifiable evidence for this claim is?...

>You really are unable to respond without creating strawmen, or
>misquoting.


Once again you accuse others of your own worst faults. Evidently you
believe your own PR!

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
In article <[email protected]>,
Bill Sornson <[email protected]> wrote:
>Dave Vandervies wrote:
>> In article <[email protected]>,
>> Bill Sornson <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Dave Vandervies wrote:

>>
>>>> HZ: All of 'em.
>>>
>>> Bzzt. Disqualified right there! (Has anyone EVER said that?!?)

>>
>> Probably not in so many words, but given the reactions that come up
>> when somebody tries to point out that a helmet really isn't much more
>> than
>> a scratch protector

>
>Bzzt! You're two-for-two!


You'd probably give it a more charitable interpretation than I did,
but your response when the idea that a helmet isn't much more than a
styrofoam scratch protector came up in the subthread that starts at
<[email protected]> seems to indicate that you're
not all that fond of the idea that helmets are useless for the vast
majority of cycling injuries that they're claimed to protect against.

If you really want to hold everybody who disagrees with you to standards
that are that much higher than your own, then replace "All of 'em"
with "Almost all of 'em", then reflect on how much of a difference that
actually made to my point.


dave

--
Dave Vandervies [email protected]
The only things I see wrong with this code are the algorithm and
the implementation.
--Billy Chambless in comp.lang.c
 
In article <[email protected]>,
Steven Bornfeld <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>Dave Vandervies wrote:
>>
>> Slipperier than it should be, perhaps, but you're as much to blame as
>> him for that (if not more).
>>
>> And it appears you still haven't read and understood what I wrote.
>> Are you going to, or are you just going to tell us why you should be
>> allowed to remain stupid because you can't be bothered to understand
>> what we're trying to tell you?
>>
>>
>> dave

>
>
>Dearest David:


I see no David here.


> Ad hom noted.


I see no ad hominem, either. I'm not calling you an idiot, I'm telling
you you're acting like one; if you don't like being told you're acting
like an idiot, stop acting like one.

Bs pbhefr, V'ir lrg gb zrrg nalobql jub pna haqrefgnaq gur qvfgvapgvba
lrg fgvyy arrqf gb unir vg cbvagrq bhg gb gurz, fb V'z cebonoyl jnfgvat
zl gvzr urer.

> I hope you are willing to work on making helmets more
>effective,


An easy way to make helmets more effective is to make sure people
understand what they actually protect against and what they don't.
If you're willing to actually look into that yourself, you're doing an
excellent job of hiding all the evidence of that willingness.

> rather than insulting the intelligence of survivors of head
>injury fatalities.


Can you point out a survivor of a head injury fatality whose intelligence
I've insulted? (Hint: Start by finding a survivor of a head injury
fatality, and then check whether I've insulted their intelligence.)

If a cyclist did something potentially dangerous, that they wouldn't've
done without the helmet, because they didn't know the helmet wasn't
sufficient protection, and received a head injury as a result (fatal
or not), then their ignorance was a contributing factor to the injury.
That ignorance may or may not have been because of stupidity, and it may
or may not have been the type of stupidity that causes them to refuse
to try to understand something just because they can't be bothered.
But it's still an injury caused (at least in part) by ignorance, and
pointing that out isn't insulting their intelligence (or knowledge).


dave
(almost time to put this thread in the killfile, I think)

--
Dave Vandervies [email protected]
The only things I see wrong with this code are the algorithm and
the implementation.
--Billy Chambless in comp.lang.c
 
Dave Vandervies wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Bill Sornson <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Dave Vandervies wrote:
>>> In article <[email protected]>,
>>> Bill Sornson <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> Dave Vandervies wrote:
>>>
>>>>> HZ: All of 'em.
>>>>
>>>> Bzzt. Disqualified right there! (Has anyone EVER said that?!?)
>>>
>>> Probably not in so many words, but given the reactions that come up
>>> when somebody tries to point out that a helmet really isn't much
>>> more than
>>> a scratch protector

>>
>> Bzzt! You're two-for-two!

>
> You'd probably give it a more charitable interpretation than I did,
> but your response when the idea that a helmet isn't much more than a
> styrofoam scratch protector came up in the subthread that starts at
> <[email protected]> seems to indicate that
> you're not all that fond of the idea that helmets are useless for the
> vast majority of cycling injuries that they're claimed to protect
> against.


I was merely commenting on your attributing words/arguments to others that
don't exist. Twice. (Granted, first case -- which you snipped -- was more
egregious.)
 
In article <[email protected]>,
Bill Sornson <[email protected]> wrote:

>I was merely commenting on your attributing words/arguments to others that
>don't exist. Twice. (Granted, first case -- which you snipped -- was more
>egregious.)


Hmm. That does appear to be what I was doing. (Though I still
think that replacing the first one with a valid representation of the
position I was attempting to represent doesn't affect the point I was
making/illustrating, and would carry the additional bonus of removing
the opportunity for the second. I just chose particularly bad examples
to support it.)

And then when I got called on it I responded in a way that I and many
others object to (quite legitimately) when people we disagree with try
to do it.

I really need to go on a long bike ride instead of arguing on usenet, but
the bike shop hasn't finished fixing my brakes yet, and the weather 'round
here sucks this weekend anyways. But I definitely need to find something
to do where being grumpy won't lead to embarassing myself in public.
If you[1] catch me posting again before the end of the weekend, beat me
over the head with a crushed helmet or some other suitable implement.


dave

[1] Generic `you', not just Bill.

--
Dave Vandervies [email protected]
Let's all just agree that I'm right and everyone else is wrong, and
move on from there.
--Keith Thompson in comp.lang.c
 
Dave Vandervies wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Bill Sornson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I was merely commenting on your attributing words/arguments to
>> others that don't exist. Twice. (Granted, first case -- which you
>> snipped -- was more egregious.)

>
> Hmm. That does appear to be what I was doing. (Though I still
> think that replacing the first one with a valid representation of the
> position I was attempting to represent doesn't affect the point I was
> making/illustrating, and would carry the additional bonus of removing
> the opportunity for the second. I just chose particularly bad
> examples to support it.)
>
> And then when I got called on it I responded in a way that I and many
> others object to (quite legitimately) when people we disagree with try
> to do it.
>
> I really need to go on a long bike ride instead of arguing on usenet,
> but the bike shop hasn't finished fixing my brakes yet, and the
> weather 'round here sucks this weekend anyways. But I definitely
> need to find something to do where being grumpy won't lead to
> embarassing myself in public.
> If you[1] catch me posting again before the end of the weekend, beat
> me over the head with a crushed helmet or some other suitable
> implement.


Just wear your helmet.

{pause}

:p
 
In article <[email protected]>,
"Bill Sornson"
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Michael Press wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> > Steven Bornfeld <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Context is everything. Anti-helmet folks using risk compensation
> >> seem

> >
> > There are no "anti-helmet folks." It is all in your mind.

>
> That's funny, I could have sworn it's been on my computer screen!


Then you can characterize a member by describing his
values, goals, methods, knowledge-base, tools, attitude,
and theses; and cite two or more writings that support
your thesis.

--
Michael Press
 
Steven Bornfeld wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
> > Steven Bornfeld wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I would welcome your efforts to make cycling helmets more effective.

> >
> >
> > I won't make that effort.

>
> I know you won't--that's my point.


Right. They're not needed. Making them "more effective" is a waste of
time. Surely that's simple enough to understand.

>
> As I said in my previous post: To make them
> > more effective, make them much thicker. Do away with most of the
> > ventilation holes. Bring back the hard shells. Oh, and redesign the
> > ridiculously ineffective straps with something that will keep its shape
> > and adjustment - maybe solid plastic. [And as I said, these would make helmets only marginally more protective, but significantly more unpleasant.]

>
>
> You don't know (and CANNOT know) that that is the only way to do this.


:) Oh, I'm sure a non-engineer can tell a licensed mechanical
engineer what he knows about mechanical design!

What did you say your background was? ISTR it was dentistry.

You'll note that I never debate dentists on tooth cleaning. There are
good reasons for that. Perhaps you should ponder them.

- Frank Krygowski
 

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