eg: In my own city (Brisbane) the clear winner for things killing cyclists is trick drivers 'side swiping' or lane-changing on top of them along major roads or intersections, in the CBD, not the suburbs. By a margin measured in ratios close to 3:1. Not cars. Not buses. Not other cyclists.

Basically, if you're cycling along a main road in plain view and full daylight, and a big-ass truck rolls up beside you in the next lane... Danger! Danger Will Robinson!

I'm sure the anecdotes are fascinating, but hard data is always more useful. Slightly over a year ago I did a quick analysis of the accident patterns regarding bikes in my own state, Queensland Australia, using the data that the Transport dept. released.

http://www.unorthodox.com.au/map/what_hits_bikes/

The data shows that there are particular 'hotspots' where bike accidents occur, usually were flows of heavy vehicles and multiple (complex) lanes meet. That suggests that we don't need bike lanes everywhere, but we do need clear bikeways through heavy traffic spots. Incidents are _not_ correlated with population density, but with heavy traffic density. There are also odd hotspots around places like public parks, though they seem to be of the more low-level parking-style incidents.

The original data included all road accidents, but was winnowed to just the bike events. The incident reports don't reveal individual details like which vehicle's driver was injured, but in the fatality incidents between, eg: a pushbike and a road-train, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the three-ton truck driver who came off worse for wear.

Thanks for noticing that... turns out the co-ordinates of that particular spot are 0,0 which do correspond to the lat and long provided for that GeoRSS feed entry. (ie: entirely missing)

The next interesting question is, should the code (a) remove the dot and advice entirely, (b) center the dot in WA, despite being no-where near the 'real' place, or (c) leave it at the 0,0 position where at least everyone can see it.

Thanks to you and everyone who looked at the map. The extensive slashdotting let me code some improvements :-)

Perhaps, but now even the trees have found a way to kill us. That's not progress!

This map combines near real-time information (hourly to daily updates) from multiple public agencies to give a composite view of fire incidents affecting Australia.
http://www.unorthodox.com.au/fire/

Really? With an install process that requires an advanced sysadmin and half a day? And a digital money system that's already having leakage troubles?

I wanted to like diaspora. It has great ideas. But to have any chance against Google+ and Checkout, Diaspora better have a 2-minute install process and close to a million user by tomorrow. I'm in the trial. Half my friends are now too. It's _nice_. I wrote a review:

http://unorthodox-engineers.blogspot.com/2011/07/googlepuss.html

Bitcoin's time window will last until Google Checkout is available to merchants world-wide, rather than just the US and UK. No idea how long that will take.

Funny thing is... I bet the main use of Facebook right now is spreading Google+ invitations around.

I think, within the thermodynamic boundary of Tahrir square, we can.

Besides, who cares if it's a troll. It's still an interesting intellectual challenge.

Not up to it? That's OK. Others will have a go.

Hmmm. They can't plant them directly... but they could bring in planter pots. Buckets of soil. Six guys to a tree.

We'd want to fill the square with as many as possible, using the least footprint. So, we need a locally available plant with a relatively small root ball, long stem, and large crown, with a high transpiration rate. This will cool the air and provide shade.

Botanists. We need botanists. They'll know.

Plus, the sudden greening of Tahrir square might be news-worthy by itself.

Well, I'm Australian. We have heat and deserts too, you know. Not everyone here is from Minnesota or Canada.

Yes, it's a long shot. Most of the solutions will be obvious repetitions, which alone can be reaffirming, but we live in hope that one person out there has solved this so thoroughly and elegantly that we will be amazed by their ingenious solution.

People have made excimer lasers from tinfoil and air. I know one guy who invented a nanopore water filter that removes 99.99% of contaminants and is made from mud, coffee grounds, and a cow turd.