I don't know if it's common for people in this profession, but I'm something of an information addict.  Email is something of a lifeblood, whilst I subscribe to dozens of blogs and follow hundreds of people on Twitter.  Ordinarily I love this sense of connection, of feeling like my finger is on the pulse of what's going on. Alas...

Crash test dummies are widely used to show the impact of a crash on the driver of the car and their passenger.  They've even been used to show the impact of a car hitting a pedestrian.  As far as I know however, no such tests have been done to show the impact of a collision between motorist and cyclist.  Until now that is.

The following video does just that.  It was produced in Germany and sees crash tests involving electric bicycles hitting fellow cyclists, motorists and pedestrians.

Along with Radiohead, Arcade Fire are probably my favourite contemporary band.  The nice thing about both bands is that they're not just innovative with their music but innovative in the way they sell and promote their music.  Radiohead for instance sent shockwaves through the music industry when they split from their record label and went alone, offering up their In Rainbows album via their website.  What made the move even bolder was that they offered the album for whatever price people wanted to pay.  This was in the midst of the file sharing craze when many would have assumed everyone would freeload and download the record for free.  Instead the average price paid was £4 and the record sold in huge numbers.

Arcade Fire have used slightly more traditional distribution methods but they have been very creative in their use of videos to market and extend their songs.  They first tried out using video alongside their songs for the Neon Bible album.  They provided an interactive video for the Neon Bible song where you get to control the hands of lead singer Win Butler.  Their latest attempts have taken this a step further though.

For instance they created an interactive video mashup with Google Streetview for their song We Used to Wait where people could have the song playing as a character ran through a location of their choice.  It was one of the first videos to make extensive use of HTML 5 and won the band an army of new fans.

They've been at it again though this week with the launch of an interactive video for their record Sprawl II: Mountains Beyond Mountains.  The record is famous for being, unusually for the band, great to dance to, with co-band leader Regine strutting her stuff throughout the live version of the song.  The new interactive version lets you control the video by dancing along with the song.  It uses your webcam to capture how you move your hands.  The faster you move your hands, the faster the video plays.

All pretty cool and a great way to introduce people to their music in new and unique ways.  The one thing I feel they're missing a trick on is not letting people share their 'creations'.  With We Used to Wait it was wonderfully viral because you could easily share the video you'd 'created' with friends.  It isn't possible with the Sprawl version however.  Still kinda cool though.  Have a play now.

http://www.sprawl2.com/

Rightio loyal readers, this will be my final blog until Tuesday.  Jitka and I are off to the lovely village of Rodmell in Sussex for the weekend.

We're returning to Deep Thatch Cottage, a smashing place that we stayed in earlier in the year.

It's run by Carol and provides a really nice contrast to the hustle and bustle of London.  Carol takes care of everything so the place is nicely stocked with goodies when you arrive, so you can spend the weekend doing nothing but relax.

The weather forecast looks perfect so it should be a good weekend and a lovely way of celebrating Jitka's birthday.  I'm not planning on touching the web for 4 days (which will be bloody hard), so see you all on Tuesday.

Ordinarily I cycle to work.  Last Friday though the forecast was looking pretty bad so I wimped out and got the bus.  I figured I was in no great rush and could spend the hour on the bus catching up on some reading.  The journey is around about 12km long, and as the advertised journey time is 40 minutes an hour was safely conservative.  By the time I finally made it home, 2 hours had passed.  Suffice to say, not a nice experience and one I'll be repeating anytime soon.

So the latest in a sadly busy line of well duh research concludes that cycling (and indeed walking) to work leads to a less stressful individual.  The research was conducted by Lund University in Sweden.

They declared "Generally car and public transport users suffered more everyday stress, poorer sleep quality, exhaustion and, on a seven point scale, felt that they struggled with their health compared to the active commuters."

Apparently if you travel by public transport your stress levels increase in line with your journey time.  If you drive however, your stress levels are highest for journeys under an hour, which kinda suggests most stress is caused by inner city congestion.

So despite having to encounter the joys of Old Kent road each day on my ride to/from work, this is without doubt a case of better the devil you know.  What is nice to see of course is the ever increasing number of two wheeled brethren on my daily commute.  Even as the weather is getting worse the number of cyclists on the road is pretty impressive.  Long may it continue.