The Life-Sized City Blog

Googleised Facebook bike in Dublin - courtesy of billyvandenende on Instagram The Social Media Wars are now using bicycles as a battlefield. Bear Bicycles is a small company in Dublin selling Dutch bikes to the Irish market. My friend Philip sent me the above photo of one of their bicycles. He explains: " For a cycling campaign, we have created a 'Facebook' bike - together with local cycling advocacy groups. The goal: to get people out of their cars and on their bikes, by showing how cycling is a social thing and how it positively impacts people's lives. " You can see the Facebook bike on Bear Bicycles... uh... Facebook page , as above. Dublin is home to both Google's and Facebook's European headquarters. Battlefield Internet, if you will. Yesterday, one of Philip's colleagues inadvertently parked the Facebook bike near a metro station close to the Google office. When he got back, the Facebook bike had been Googlised. The metaphor of the ...

Dublin. 1961. The frightening " Two-wheeled Taliban " terrorize the streets of the Irish capital. Like I always say, welcome to Bicycle Culture 2.0. We've been there before. We're there again in many cities. We're going there again in many, many others. Time to get used to it. Will Dublin be at the head of the pack or lagging behind? Hopefully I'll be visiting in June to check it all out.

It is a constant and eternal hope for citizens of any nation that their politicians are fair, well-researched, thorough and rational. By and large, Danish democracy is refreshingly transparent. You can always come in direct contact with most MPs and corruption is non-existent. Politicians are accessible and with most of them you get the sense that they could be your neighbour. I've always felt that the down-to-earth feeling is a main reason that Danes take democracy so seriously. In national elections, over 80% vote and you can strike up engaging discussions with most people about politics. On occasion, mistakes are made. We're all homo sapiens after all. I was quite suprised to read that a member of parliament for one of the larger parties, Socialistisk Folkeparti [Socialist People's Party] actually proposed a helmet law for under 15's at a recent town hall traffic meeting . The member of parliament for the Socialist People's Party in question was one Anne Baastru...