iBiCycle

Some may have missed the historical significance of the picture of [wikipop]Steve Jobs[/wikipop] (allegedly) on a bicycle with Apple wheels created by Mike Joos for his bike series.

In the early 1980s [wikipop]Macintosh[/wikipop] was just a code name for the then unreleased new computer from Apple. It was thought that Bicycle would make a good name for the computer. A contemporary Apple advertisement had explained how humans were not as fast runners as many other species, but a human on a bicycle beat them all. Personal computers were “bicycles for the mind.”

Fortunately the team developing the Mac did not like the Bicycle moniker and just kept calling it the Macintosh and so that is what it became.

See: Folklore / Bicycle by [wikipop]Andy Hertzfeld[/wikipop]

Banging on a bike

The iPad has created a whole range of new ways for music making from recreating traditional instruments:

to rethinking the way instruments work:

http://youtu.be/cad2iWNop9A

and Smule have a range of apps that cover both ends of the spectrum. The latest is the MadPad with which you record sound & video samples of any objects you happen upon. These are then laid out in a grid for you to drum on to create your masterpiece.

One of the default sets is a range of bicycle sounds. So following in the footsteps of a young [wikipop]Frank Zappa[/wikipop] on a 1963 edition of the [wikipop]Steve Allen Show[/wikipop]

and our very own Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra:

I banged away…

Chorlton to Dunham Massey

April’s 30 Days of Biking came and went without our active participation. Our biking is mostly a daily commute to work and occasional shopping trips. But coinciding time off and some sunshine inspired us to venture out last week. Being new to the area we are still exploring various routes and are grateful for knowledge and insights shared by local bike bloggers (Note to self: Remember to sponsor Lorenza.) From the map we reckoned we could get along the [wikipop]towpath[/wikipop] on the [wikipop]Bridgewater canal[/wikipop] to Dunham Massey. So we set off to explore:

The Cascade Bicycle Club in Seattle have produced a video that pretty much says it all in under three minutes: