What the Web is For

I get an email today that looked at first like it might possibly be a scam, a French graduate student in Copenhagen is researching a project on bicycle rain gear and asks my opinion - since, according to the internet, I have a small expertise on bicycle rain gear. (My bike blog is Number 1 in Google for "bike rain cape", and Number 2 for "bike rain".)

The message seemed too long and detailed to be a ruse, so I googled the name and it turns out to be a French grad student at Copenhagen Business Sschool. Her question dealt with women bike commuters in Copenhagen - they tend to drive on rainy days, but if a solution to rain on the face/makeup could be found, perhaps congestion and pollution could be avoided on rainy days.

I went to her blog and remarkably the most recent entry has a photo of a Bakfiets (if I've got the model right).

I suggested they consider the bike visors I saw in Beijing as an option for keeping the face dry.

Here's her blog entry about being Googled by an American. I have learned that "MORT DE RIRE !!!" or MDR is the French for LOL.

This is what the internet is all about - a French student in Copenhagen asks a fairly narrow-niche question of a Pittsburgher. It all happens in one day, doesn't really cost anything. This is what Vannevar Bush had in mind when he described the Memex, the precursor to our internet.