Mindless Fluffiness

I have had the pleasure of coming to the Netherlands multiple times in the past few years and I have always had a really great time. Part of that fun has been the warm friendly people but it is also their social tolerant approach to legislation that allows people to make their own choices about what is safe for them. Lots of things are legal in the Netherlands that just aren’t legal where I live. I really liked this and decided to participate in one of the activities that’s not legal where I live to get a real feel about the safety implications and how I felt about them.

Note in all the following photos, no one is ever wearing any protection on their head. There is a huge demographic range and none of them use head protection.

There are men and women,

And ones where I’m not sure

Thin and Not so Thin

There are old people

There are young people

There black, white, other, and multicolor

But nobody seems to care about the usual drivel about not wearing headphones

Not to mention the use of mobile phones

Or perhaps a little texting while riding

Some idiot with a Canon 5D taking a photo of himself while riding. No doubt not a local.

PS – Corda, thanks for embarrassing me into finally updating my blog. I will try and post some family photos some time.

It certainly possible that David Iredale, a lost hiker, would be alive today if we actually bothered to deploy wireless location systems.

Lost teen’s emergency calls prove futile – Yahoo! News

Of course, you can dial 911 and also die in the cold. A similar story from roughly the far side of the world.

Williams Lake Tribune – RCMP release more Armstrong details

There has been plenty of coverage of the death of Elijah Luck in Calgary. The short version is that when the family dialed 911, but the address that Comwave who provided the VoIP phone service had on file was out of date as the family had moved. Comwave had an updated billing address but did not have an updated address for the location of the phone. Emergency response could not be routed in to Elijah in an acceptable time and Elijah later died.

Sure sucks that updating where to send the bill was a higher priority than keeping people alive.

Probe of tragedy raises further questions – The Globe and Mail

Canada’s 9-1-1 emergency – The Globe and Mail

Regulator blames Net phone provider in fatal 911 mix-up – The Globe and Mail

Internet phone company sounds 911 alarm – The Globe and Mail

911 tragedy in Calgary reveals perils of VoIP – The Globe and Mail