Spaced-out showdown
Readers, like The Note, might have been misled into thinking the headline SolarWinds’ Galactic Throwdown Claims Its First Fallen highlighted the spectacular business failure of a renewable energy company.
When an operative forwarded an announcement with that heading, we were expecting to read about yet another solar business that had collapsed in the crunch that has affected the sector since massive state subsidies across the globe were withdrawn.
However, our research proved that we were wrong.
Instead, SolarWinds is an IT systems group with its own ‘community’ website called thwack (www.thwack. solarwinds.com).
On that site, readers can vote for the winners of a series of theoretical contests between various science fiction characters. The headline above represents the first round where, apparently, Stars Wars hero Han Solo beat Morpheus from the Matrix, and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’s Ford Prefect knocked off someone called YT from a novel called Snow Crash.
There are several rounds to go.
Anyway, The Note apologies for wasting the reader’s time with this tidbit: it was merely proof that there is an awful lot of inefficient use of the internet’s powers.
Personally we can’t wait for the NBN.
Damaging numbers
At least if you are planted in front of a computer you can get injured like you do cycling.
The Note was somewhat surprised to hear from the Sports Medicine Australia’s WA branch that cyclists account for 75 per cent of transport injuries. The majority of those are children.
We didn’t find this very encouraging news.
While the SMA did not elaborate on the nature of the injuries while it was using this bit of information to highlight its cycling symposium starting this week, we thought maybe it should, especially with the Hawaiian Ride for Youth, also on this week.
The annual Ride for Youth is a charity event held over five days in which the riders travel from Albany to Perth, covering over 700km to raise money for Youth Focus.
Last year, 93 riders raised $1.25 million. They were nearly $300,000 short of that goal when The Note went to print, so let’s hope they get there. More importantly, we are already aware of the odd nasty training accident, so I am sure their loved ones don’t need to hear nasty stats about cycling injuries this week in particular.