Is it safe to listen with headphones while cycling?

One of the hotly debated issues about cycling is whether or not it is safe to cycle while listening to something through headphones. I can certainly understand the view that it is important to be able to hear what is happening around you as you cycle. I personally like to use the time I spend on my bike to catch up on podcast episodes and/or music. However, I would like to do so safely.

I tried using the Around Sound application which is a cool application fro Android devices which measures the ambient sound and automatically pauses your music/podcast whenever the ambient noise exceeds a threshold. The intended use of this application is when you might be listening to music while working in a quiet office environment, but when your colleague comes up behind and asks you a question you would like your music player to temporarily pause to allow you to hear him/her. However, I found that I could not find a suitable volume threshold setting that worked well while cycling. Instead I use a low-tech solution of only attaching one of the earphones while leaving the other ear free for listening to traffic. In order to protect my ears from any potential long-term damage from earphone use I constantly switch ears.

Research shows that the biggest factor in determining the risk of using a mobile phone while driving is the content of the conversation. Apparently you are at much less risk of crashing while having an idle gossip with the phone held to your ear than if you were conducting a stressful interview through a hands free device. Using a similar logic I choose to make sure I am not overly concerned if I actually hear all of the items I listen to while cycling (e.g. I listen to a general chat about the news of the day rather than trying to take an on-line course which would require me to pay close attention - therefore if the traffic situation requires my close concentration, I am not worried about missing part of what is said on  the podcast.

Triathlon Report

Glynn-O'Donovan Triathlon Team 

As you may have noticed, I have been doing a lot of talking recently about my triathlon preparation. The big day finally arrived on Sunday and I was quite nervous when I got up, especially when I looked out over the lake and saw that there was a strong wind blowing and hence the lake was quite rough. My worries only increased when the rain started to fall shortly afterwards. However, I had committed myself to completing the triathlon in such a public way that I couldn't back out and so I proceeded to the start point.

Luckily the weather began to improve as the day went on and when I saw the under-age competitors (starting with the under 8 event) I began to gain in confidence. When the rest of the family team arrived along with a vocal group of supporters I even began to change my focus from competing the event towards achieving a good time. The wind also died down and the lake was quite calm.

When the swim started I hung back near the back of the group to avoid getting crowded. Unfortunately many of the swimmers at the back were doing breaststroke rather than crawl and hence were taking up more room and it seemed to be equally crowded. At one stage I decided to put my head down and swim hard, when I lifted my head to look around a canoe based marshal was shouting at me "turn right you are off course". Although this detour added to the distance I had to swim, it was probably a good move overall since I was then separated from the crowd and able to swim in peace from then on.

When I got out from the swim I got a big cheer from my extended family and so my spirits were lifted. I struggled getting out of my wet suit, but when I got on my bike I saw that it was only 24 minutes from the start so I was ahead of my schedule. I cycled steadily and I managed to complete the cycle leg in slightly over 40 minutes. I almost got a penalty as I  went through the second transition because I thought I was allowed unclip my helmet  immediately after dismounting - luckily the marshal knew that it was an honest mistake and so he let me off with a warning.

The began to fall towards the end of the cycle, but this didn't really interfere with my progress because it was only light and helped keep me cool. I struggled on the running phase, but just concentrated on keeping moving rather than trying to keep a fast pace. The full results are now available on-line and I have been credited with a time of one hour 35 minutes and 4 seconds which seems a respectable time for a beginner.

Overall I was delighted to have taken part and even began to discuss about possibly coming back again next year. My father told me that he ran his first marathon when he was about the same age as I am now. I think staying active has worked out well for him and I would be very happy if I am as healthy as him in the decades ahead.

Triathlon Plan

It is now just under 4 days to go to the triathlon, so I am taking the advice that I should stop training to ensure I am fully rested on the day. I have never done a triathlon before so it is hard for me to judge what would be a reasonable time goal, but I am going to aim for 1:50 minutes in total. I am allocating my time as follows:

• Swimming 750m in 30 minutes: In the gym I normally complete my 750 meter swim under 25 minutes (in fact often below 20 minutes), but I think that 30 minutes will be a challenging goal for swimming in a lake.
• Cycling 20 km in 50 minutes: Based upon my training times, I think that this should be quite achievable. In fact this is where I will try to get ahead of schedule if possible.
• Running 5km in 30 minutes: I normally aim to complete a 10km fun run slightly below the hour mark. In theory I should be capable of doing a faster pace over 5km, but the fact that this will be the last leg of the triathlon will mean that it will be quite tough to even reach this pace.

I used to think that when people spoke about their Triathlon nutrition plan they were wondering what they should eat before and after the Triathlon, but it seems that it is also important for me to plan what I should eat and drink during the race itself. My current plan is:

• I will have porridge for breakfast the morning of the Triathlon since the slow release of energy from the Oats tends to keep me going. I will also indulge myself with a few espressos to top up my caffeine level.
• I will have a bottle of plan water attached to my bike for consumption during the cycle. I also plan to have two power bars stored in the pocket of my cycling jersey so that I can consume as much of them as I feel able for during the cycle. During training I found that it was almost impossible to open the wrappers while cycling at pace, so I will have the wrappers partly removed before I start.
• I don't think that I will need to eat any more during the running plase, but I will store a bottle of GatorAde in the transition area to bring woith me for the run. I think I might needs a more sugary drink at that stage of the event, I had experimented with the idea of bringing along Lucozade tablets and adding them to my water bottle, but again this is messay when I am getting tired so the bottle of GatorAde is plrobably more feasible.
• After the race I think I will replenish my fluids with Guinness the national drink especially while watching Galway beat Kilkenny for the second time this year in the All Ireland Hurling championship.

P.S. I found out why I was accidentally posting supersonic swimming times to DailyMile. I use the Tracks2Miles application and I had set my default distance units to be Km because this makes sense for running and cycling. When I entered details about a practice swim I would enter 750 in the distance field and then click on the drop down selection box to change my distance units to meters. What I didn't realise was that the application was trying to be helpful by automatically converting the distance I entered into 750000 meters (I didn't notice this  because I wasn't paying full attention, but also because the application automatically advanced focus to the comments field and hence the distance field was no longer visible).

Triathlon Training Update

Some of the equipment I need to bring
when going for a swim in the Gym

I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of positive reaction I got when I announced that I was going to complete a triathlon to celebrate my passing the half century mark. Lots  of people have been giving be advice and encouragement. The triathlon I signed up for is now only a week away so I thought it might be nice to share an update on how my preparations are progressing.

I am amazed at how much equipment is needed to complete a triathlon. I know that not all of the equipment I purchased is absolutely essential, but I want to ensure that I don't fail due to lack of the proper gear. In any case it is part of the fun to get kitted out like a professional athlete. One of my main worries is that I will forget to bring along some of my new gear on the day of the event. I have been told that bringing along a bulging kit bag is a sure sign of a rookie - the experienced athletes will bring along just a few essential items.

• Initially I was most worried about the swimming. I still think this will be my weakest link of the 3 events, but I have now swam the distance several times and I am confident that I will be able to complete the swim even if my time is not too fast.
• Since cycling is my normal mode of commuting I am confident of my abilities on this event. Since I started triathlon preparation, I switched from my normal commuting bike to my racer so that I become comfortable with it. Unless I am running late for work, I typically divert through some of the back roads of county Meath on the way to work each morning so that I can get a real training cycle in. 
• The main area that I still need to work on is my running. I have been neglecting this a little since I thought 5km is not a very long distance, but I suspect that it will seem a lot tougher when I go straight from swimming and cycling into my run.

I didn't realize when I entered the race that it would be on the same day as Galway's first appearance in the All-Ireland Hurling final in 20 years. However, the organizers have kindly arranged a big screen at the event so that all athletes will be able to watch the match as soon as they complete their event. I suppose this will provide additional motivation not to do a slow time and miss seeing the match.

What should be free and what should I expect to pay for

One of the strange things about internet culture is the fact that people expect to pay for leisure materials such as music, movies and games - but they are very reluctant to pay for tools that they use to run their business.

The entertainment industry has been very vigilant in trying to ensure that people continue to expect to pay for their music. In Ireland the recording industry association managed to persuade artists to stop allowing their music be used on the free CDs distributed with Sunday newspapers. Although the newspapers were paying royalties, the association feared that the fact that the consumer was not explicitly paying for the music would create an expectation that music should be free.

In fact they were so successful in pushing the idea that music must be paid for, that many people are reluctant to download music from sites like the Free Music Archive because they fear that there must be  something dodgy about a site that allows free music downloads. Until recently there was a Russian company which undercut iTunes by offering tracks for 39 cents each rather than 99 cents - consumers who would never dream of pirating music were reassured by the fact that they had paid for the tracks, but it seems that the company was not passing on any royalties and simply pocketed all the money.

The market for office productivity tools is significantly different. You might expect that people would be willing to pay for these since they are typically used only in a business context, but the fact that some of the leading suites of productivity tools like Libre Office are available for free download leads consumers to expect that they don't need to pay for such products. I don't normally feel sorry for Microsoft, but it is very unlucky for them that not only do they loose market share to open source competitors, but the fact that these are available free of charge apparently makes people feel less guilty about pirating copies of Microsoft Office.

A sad day for sport

Like many other people all over the world I was shocked to hear that Lance Armstrong is admitting defeat in his battle to prove that he has not breached the rules in relation to the use of drugs in cycling. I am not totally naive and so I would not be shocked to read that someone had definite proof that Lance Armstrong was using drugs. However, one feature of Lance's life to date is that he has been determined to continue battling even when the odds seems to be stacked against him and so it surprising that he is giving up on  this battle.

In his life, Lance has faced a long series of battles:

• He was born to a teenage single-mother. Although he has great praise for the way his mother raised him, it can't have been a very easy life. His mother did have a few boyfriends and subsequently got married, but none of these proved to be a positive father figure for Lance.
• When Lance initially took up cycling it was not a very well known sport in his native Texas and very few people were even aware that the Tour de France was taking place. This also meant that English speakers were not so common on the tour at that time and apparently not particularly welcomed by the representatives of the more established cycling nations.
• Lance was struck with testicular cancer in his mid-20s. Initially the prognosis was not positive and the disease was expected to be fatal. However, he made a recovery and amazed everyone when eventually returned to the sport and performed even better than before.
• As Lance became the most successful competitor ever in the Tour de France it was not surprising that many other competitors regarded him as the one to beat. Lance relished adversity and continued battling when many other people would have retired gracefully and enjoyed the fruits of his success.

Lance has been hounded for many years by allegations of drug use, mainly because people are reluctant to believe that someone could perform so strongly without artificial aids. This is similar to the way the Irish swimmer Michelle Smith de Bruin was treated. The evidence of her drug use was eventually quite strong, but initially the suspicions were only based upon her results. It is becoming ridiculous if athletes can't perform too well for fear of facing accusations.

I think that the time has come to examine the fundamentals of the rules about drug use in sport. In many ways the debate on drug use in sport is similar to the debate on professionalism a few years ago. At that time amateur sportsmen seemed noble, but with the benefit of hindsight it looks like an elitist system that gave an unfair advantage to upper class athletes who could afford to take time off work to train.

I know that the analogy is not perfect, because drug use is dangerous. No athlete will die because he/she gets paid too much, but as we have sadly found out, it is entirely possible for athletes to kill themselves by over indulging in performance enhancing drugs. However, the rules should be adapted to focus on athlete safety rather than on the complete elimination of performance enhancing drugs.

Lance has plenty of experience of dealing with dangerous drugs. As he stated in his excellent autobiography many of the chemotherapy drugs used to fight his testicular cancer were a much more dangerous than EPO (he commented on the fact that the nurses injecting the drugs into his vein wore protective gear to ensure that none of the drugs accidentally spashed onto their skin).

I know it is a radical idea, but we would have a fair playing field if athletes were allowed to use safe doses of certain performance enhancing drugs under carefully controlled conditions.

Is Julian Assange a hero?

In recent times Julian Assange has been making headlines all over the world. Many people (including Julian) would like us to believe that we have a choice between supporting him and all of his actions or supporting the actions of the US secret service and their allies. However, the reality is a little bit more complex than that.

I feel sorry for Julian. But the reason I feel sorry for him is mostly because of his dysfunctional upbringing rather than because he has been unfortunate enough to become a target for reactionary forces within the US military and their allies.

First let me state clearly that I think it is a good thing that the wikileaks site has uncovered many unsavoury actions undertaken by the western powers during their so called war on terror. This is clearly a situation where the response to the alleged threat of terrorism was in many instances much worse than what it was supposed to be preventing.

However, the credit for making this information public must go to Bradley Manning, the brave soldier who made the information public and not to Julian Assange whose only role was to design the process which was supposed to assure Bradley and similar whistle-blowers of anonymity. In fact the process which Julian designed failed  badly in this case and a a result Bradley Manning is currently held in solitary confinement due to the failure to protect his identity and has no prospect of ever addressing the world's media though the window of the Ecuadorian embassy.

Julian is currently facing extradition from UK to Sweden to face charges that have nothing at all to do with his involvement with WikiLeaks. It is true that the laws on sexual assault in Sweden are much more favourable to the victim than in the UK, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. In any case, I am sure that he would get a fair trial in Sweden if he returned there. He claims that he fears that the Swedish government might turn him over to the Americans, but in fact that UK government would be much more likely to do that than the Swedes.

I think that part of Julian's problems are that he has an inflated view of his own importance. The current outpouring of sympathy for his position is only making this situation worse.

Update on SPAM Comments

I notice that the number of SPAM comments being left on my blog has reduced dramatically since I introduced the CAPTCHA test. However, the problem has not gone away completely which tends to confirm my suspicion that the attack is being launched by a semi-automated process. I think that a fully automated process would not be able to breach the CAPTCHA system, but a recent comment (which was automatically detected as SPAM) is a brilliant example of why it must be an automated system:

This blog is wonderful. You are clearly and expert in %PAGE_TITLE%. I have shared this post with all of  my colleagues ...

This could be a boost to my ego because I am proud to boast about my expertise in a wide range of subjects, but %PAGE_TITLE% is not one of the areas that I claim expertise.

Since the CAPTCHA is not being totally effective in blocking the SPAM, I will disable it. Instead I will force users to register for an account in order to leave a comment. In addition I have enabled a rule whereby comments have to be approved before becoming visible on old posts (most genuine comments are left fairly soon after the post is initially published).

Improving the accuracy of the GPS in Your phone

The GPS device in your phone is normally very accurate. However. like all computer devices when it messes up it can often do so in a spectacular way (e.g., I once went running around Galway at a moderate pace and then found out that my phone thought I had been swimming around the Irish Sea at a world record speed)

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is an amazingly complex piece of technology, so I suppose it should not be surprising that it occasionally fails. However, there are a few things that you can do to to increase the accuracy of your GPS readings:

1. The software that interprets the GPS and other signals required to determine your location is very complex. The technology involved is constantly being updated. Therefore, if you are experiencing poor performance it is a good idea to update the operating system software and/or buy a new phone.
2. The preferences on your phone should include "Use Wireless Networks" and "Use Sensor Aiding" - you should be sure to enable both of these options. On Android devices this will be under the "Settings\Location and Security" menu item, I am not sure where the equivalent setting is on an iPhone, but I assume it is named something similar. If you enable these it means that your phone can use several other clues to help decide where it is located even if there are not enough GPS satellites clearly visible in the sky.
3. Don't start running until you have a good GPS signal. It might take a minute or two for your phone to lock onto the GPS satellites properly, if you are moving around while this process is happening you make it more difficult for the phone to guess its position. The RunKeeper app even has a useful feature whereby it will warn you if you try to start tracking a run without having already locked onto the GPS system. If your favourite app doesn't have this feature then it is probably worth installing a specialised application such as GPS status to check.
4. Change your privacy settings to allow Google/Apple collect data from your phone. This is a clear case where you need to trade off privacy versus a benefit for yourself. The way that the "Use Wireless Networks" feature works is that hopefully Google or Apple has a record of the locations of the WiFi points that are currently visible to your phone and since the range of a WiFi network is not very large, it can quickly narrow down the possible locations where you might be. However, if nobody has shared this information for the area where you are running, the feature won't work. I personally don't think this information is very private because anyone walking past your front door can collect the same information, but I know many people feel differently. In any case, it is in your own interests to help map the location of  WiFi points in your neighbourhood especially if you are going to be regularly exercising in the same place. If you are really worried about privacy, then enable it for a few runs along your normal route before turning it off again.

I hope this information helps. If not, remember Google is your friend and a quick search of some of the forums related to your brand of phone will probably provide you with plenty of other useful tips.

Incidentally, I previously posted that I was switching back to using MyTracks instead of RunKeeper. However, I sometimes find that it is interesting to have both applications tracking my progress. Both applications have a tendency to occasionally crash for no reason, so having both applications recording your activity means you are fairly certain that you won't loose any data.

At the moment I have RunKeeper configured to announce periodic summary statistics in a female voice while MyTracks uses a male voice. The way I have them configured the two application normally announce at different times and because of the voice difference I know instantly which application I am hearing statistics from. Occasionally the two applications decide to announce statistics at exactly the same time which ends up sounding hilariously like a married couple arguing about whether or not the speed limit is being breached.

Update: 21-Aug
In the tips above I forgot to mention the obvious tip - try rebooting your phone. I sometimes find that my phone won't lock onto a GPS signal even if I can see the screen clearly and everything seems to be set up correctly. In these cases, turning the phone off and then back on again will often solve the problem.

Hacking becomes mainstream in IBM

In a large company like IBM, not many employees have a chance to meet and interact directly with the CEO. However, the CEO will act as a role model for all employees about how the should behave and all executive communications are regularly examined carefully for clues to what is considered good behaviors.

In the book "Who says Elephants Can't Dance", Lou Gerstner described about how he was advised to start using email when he took over at IBM because apparently his predecessors got secretaries to read email on their behalf and this did not project a very good image for a leader of a high tech company. In the early 1990s reading email was considered to be leading edge. When Lou was replaced by Sam Palmisano in 2000 nobody questioned whether or not he was using email, because by then it was assumed that everyone would be. However, when Sam was recently replaced by Ginni Rometty the pendulum had swung so far that people have now started boasting about how little email they need to use.

Ginni doesn't look like a typical Hacker,
but appearances can decieve

In the short time that she has been in charge, Ginni has proven her tech credentials by becoming a highly visible user of social media communication tools. All of he quarterly employee messages are delivered on an IBM internal blog and she also regularly uses many of the tools provided by the IBM Connections product.

In a recent update posted to her blog she even went a step further and announced that she was going to hold a "Social Business Hackday" in which she expected participation from all of IBM's 400k+ employees. The exact format of this Hackday is still being decided, but what is clear now is that during a designated day in early September all employees will be expected to come up with a plan for how they can make better use of social media tools in their work. In addition it is expected that they will make concrete steps to implement this plan during the Hackay.

I think this is very significant for a number of reasons:

1. The original Hackday events in IBM were launched without any formal management approval. I think the originators were afraid to ask for approval in case it might be refused. Over the years the reaction to any executive who found out about the events has been mostly positive. However, we have has some feedback that the word Hackday projects a negative image. I think that when the CEO publicly declares her support for the events we should not have any trouble convincing other IBM managers that they are a good idea.
2. In IBM we have always been careful to ensure that participation in Hackdays was as diverse as possible and not restricted to just developers. For example we had prizes for the best hacked business plan and we also even had a semi serious prize for the best hack that didn't involve either Sametime or Connections (because these products are extremely popular subjects for Hackday projects). I think that the Social Business Hackday will increase the participation level even further.

Officially this will be an IBM internal event so I am not sure how/if it will be publicised outside of IBM. However, due to the nature of the event I am not sure that it makes sense to keep it secret (even if we could).