The Backwards Brain Bicycle

I can remember when "intuitive" was an adjective used to describe someone who seemed to understand what other people felt--or just things in general--without conscious reasoning.  Perhaps you have a mother, friend, partner, spouse or someone else in your life who "gets" you in that way.  Or, perhaps, you can sense situations before they happen, as police officers who have spent a lot of time on the streets often can.

Somewhere along the way--in the '80's or '90's, I reckon--it became a marketing buzzword for "any idiot can use it."  Like most marketing buzzwords, it is misleading if not downright deceptive.  The "intuitive" product or system might have made perfect sense to whoever designed it, but that doesn't always mean it will make sense to someone who doesn't have a PhD.  (I have an M.F.A.)

To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, let me tell you about most product designers (and software developers, and IT people):  They are different from you and me.  I have come to the conclusion that they are more interested in the complexity (or mere complicatedness) or efficiency of the machines or systems they create than in how readily people can use them.  At least, I feel that way every time I try to use a current phone to, um, make or answer a call or a camera to, how can I explain this?, take a picture.

Maybe what they're trying to do is to get rubes like me to "think out of the box".  You know, to forget everything we've ever learned, no matter how empirically-based it may be, and follow the "logic" of whatever they've designed.  Perhaps the inventor of the QWERTY keyboard had that in mind.  I guess I should be thankful to that person, and to anyone who's ever created a system in which I have to enter my students' grades under "HR/Campus Solutions" rather than under anything having to do with students, courses, grades or students' records.

At least the folks who came up with the Backwards Brain Bicycle were joking--I think:






Turn your bars right to steer left.  And vice versa.  Going left to go right, and going right to go left.  Hmm...That sounds like the "reasoning" behind those people who say they would vote for Donald Trump (or any other Republican nominee) if the Democrats don't nominate Bernie Sanders as their presidential candidate.  As for how such logic works in bicycle steering systems--well, all you have to do is look at the video!

In Motion On International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day. 

As I've mentioned in other posts, early feminists saw the bicycle as a vehicle, if you will, of emancipation.  "Let me tell you what I think of bicycling," Susan B. Anthony intoned.  "I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world."  She explained, "It has given women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance."

She would especially appreciate the images of Women In Motion posted on World Bicycle Relief's site. 

World Bicycle Relief is, in its own words, "mobilizing people through the power of bicycles."  In doing so, according to the organization's website, "We envision a world where distance is no longer a barrier to education, healthcare and economic opportunity."

To that end, WBR manufactures its own bicycles under the "Buffalo" brand in Africa, and has them assembled by mechanics in the locales in which the bicycles are distributed.  WBR trains those mechanics, as well as others who are involved in the production and distribution of those bicycles.  Recently, their wholly owned subsidiary, Buffalo Bicycles Ltd., has begun to sell bikes to non-governmental organizations, corporations and individuals in need of affordable, sustainable transportation.

Universe (yes, that's her name) uses her bicycle to bring the vegetables she grows and the foods she bakes to a market where she sells them.

WBR has work-to-own and study-to-own programs for those who cannot purchase a bicycle outright.  As you might imagine, those programs benefit women and girls particularly because--especially in areas like rural Africa--they have little or no money and limited (or, again, no) access to the networks that would help them get credit to start businesses or other resources needed to get paid employment, go to school or simply to take better care of their families--or themselves.

Kesia is a health-care volunteer who works with victims of HIV, sexually-transmitted diseases and gender-based violence. Because of the long distances she must travel, she used to meet only four clients a day.  Now, with her bicycle, she can meet as many as 75.

That WBR manufactures, assembles and distributes locally--and trains people to do so, as well as mechanics--is also a major benefit to women, who often can't travel very far from their farms, villages or families to obtain an education or employment, let alone a bike.  It also, naturally, makes it easier for women and girls to obtain bicycles, which in turn gives them the mobility that affords them access to a greater range of educational, business and other opportunities.

Georgina, a 68-year-old widow, uses her bicycle to carry milk from her farm to a collection center 12 km away.

No less than Barron's financial magazine has lauded F.K. Day, WBR's founder and president, as one the most effective philanthropists.  While WBR doesn't bill itself as dedicated exclusively, or even primarily, to women and girls, it's hard not to notice the particular impact their programs have on women and girls, especially those in the most difficult circumstances.

I am sure that, were she alive today, Ms. Anthony would point to the organization and its programs as one of the prime examples of what she meant, especially what she said about self-reliance.

Morning Commutes Through The Gates of Hell

I am teaching early morning classes in my new gig.  That means, for now, that I am pedaling to work around dawn.  Someone remarked that I am "bringing the morning to the Bronx", where I am now working.

Should I bring the morning in a pair of panniers?  A bicycle briefcase?  Or some other kind of bike bag? 

While pedaling across the RFK/Triborough Bridge, I saw the morning arrive in another conveyance

through the Gates of Hell--all right, I mean through Hell Gate or under the Hell Gate Bridge.

Perhaps I wasn't bringing morning through the Gates of Hell.  But some of my students probably thought I was bringing them hell this morning through the campus gate!