A recent BBC report suggests that

Cyclists who wear protective helmets are more likely to be knocked down by passing vehicles.

This could cause me to rethink my previous statement. Now the question is, together with the ugliness of those helmets is the increased safety risk enough to make you not wear them? Personally, I think this is somewhat less relevant that the “But then I can’t see where I’m going” argument that motorcyclists use with their helmets.

Read the article, it’s funny. Particularly:

Dr. Ian Walker was struck by a bus and a lorry during the experiment.

I’m sorry – no, it’s not funny that he was struck.  Luckily he had a helmet on both times.

Since I started keeping my own blog I have been doing a lot of blog reading as well.  One particular brand of blog has me mystified.

I’m sure you have all seen these blogs.  The aren’t exactly rare.  The author simply quotes the first sentence or two of an article and then links to the original article.  No commentary at all, just a link.  No explanation of why he linked there, just the link.  I can understand a one-off post like this occasionally, as if “I don’t have time to type anything right now, but I thought my readers might be interested so here’s a link.”  But most of the blogs I’ve encountered that incorporate this style of blogging are filled with only this type of post.

Are these things helpful?  Do people use them?  I get frustrated when I come across one.  I read a blog to find out the author’s perspective.  If I simply wanted to find an article, I would use Google.  I use Technorati to find “commentary” – hopefully good commentary that sparks conversation.