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A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

blogs.microsoft.com

71–80 of 110 posts

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#71

Looks like nice work. I think. I couldn't find the details and didn't want to spend the full 15 minutes reading. This style of writing is very frustrating. 1. Introduction. We set up for something dramatic. In this case, a Parkinson's sufferer is about to see her life changed. In another recent story, a maternity nurse is about to birth her first child, and we were teased she would die after giving birth. Now we're a…

Surely you could have read the whole thing in the time it took for you to write this? Why even bother?

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#72

Looks like nice work. I think. I couldn't find the details and didn't want to spend the full 15 minutes reading. This style of writing is very frustrating. 1. Introduction. We set up for something dramatic. In this case, a Parkinson's sufferer is about to see her life changed. In another recent story, a maternity nurse is about to birth her first child, and we were teased she would die after giving birth. Now we're a…

Surely you could have read the whole thing in the time it took for you to write this? Why even bother?

[deleted]

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#73

Looks like nice work. I think. I couldn't find the details and didn't want to spend the full 15 minutes reading. This style of writing is very frustrating. 1. Introduction. We set up for something dramatic. In this case, a Parkinson's sufferer is about to see her life changed. In another recent story, a maternity nurse is about to birth her first child, and we were teased she would die after giving birth. Now we're a…

This is classic longform journalism writing, and it's the reason why I don't like longform journalism. I wish they'd give me an abstract -- not having article summaries is the reason I never found any "good" magazine worth the money. Imagine so

This is not a problem with "longform" writing, it's just a problem of poor writing.

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#74

Looks like nice work. I think. I couldn't find the details and didn't want to spend the full 15 minutes reading. This style of writing is very frustrating. 1. Introduction. We set up for something dramatic. In this case, a Parkinson's sufferer is about to see her life changed. In another recent story, a maternity nurse is about to birth her first child, and we were teased she would die after giving birth. Now we're a…

Surely you could have read the whole thing in the time it took for you to write this? Why even bother?

Feedback is a gift.

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#76
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people enjoy different things does not mean they are all as intellectually valuable. Children like stories with talking animals, but that doesn't mean all talking animals are appropriate for all venues. Likewise, we can reasonably (even if contentiously) make value judgements about some format that people really enjoy, like pulpy romance novels, clickbait teasers, or outrage porn. HN is supposed to be a…

Indeed, HN is a place for gratifying intellectual curiosity. If you feel a submission (or comment, for that matter) is inappropriate for HN, please flag or down-vote it and move on. We all play a role in curating HN. Writing excessively negative comments (or comments written in an excessively negative way) lead to a worsening of discussion.

"Excessively negative comments"? I don't know what you mean by that. Content-wise, criticism is just as valid as agreement. Tone-wise, yes everything should be civil and friendly, but khazhoux's tone was fine.

You can't downvote submissions, and the post wasn't flag worthy (i.e., spam or off-topic).

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#77

> As part of her work, Zhang researched the root cause of tremors. She spent six months, off and on, building prototypes. She sometimes worked in her London home, soldering wires to PC boards and tinkering with coin cell motors to create vibrations. She tested early versions with four other people with Parkinson’s, producing promising results for three, spurring the idea forward, she says. This paragraph reads like t…

I understand your frustration as I too was looking for what series of hypotheses her journey of discovery took her through. Alas, this was a (good) human interest piece so that was not the focus.

Assuming this device works, it is fun to think about why this might be. All I could extract from the article is that it sends vibrations and fails for some, requires randomness in others and works at a specific pattern for Lawton.

I am not an expert but what I do know is that Parkinson's can be viewed as a breakdown in the proper transmission of feedback from erroneous predictions. In planning movements, the brain is constantly making and correcting its predictions, sufficient damage to part of this circuit would result in improper gain modulation and ineffective dampening to prevent overshoots. Improper cost predictions might even affect motivation to perform a movement in the first place.

It's not clear how a pattern of vibration might lead to a reduction in symptoms. My best guess is that it's related to stochastic resonance. The noise or pattern from the vibrations, and that the population of neurons responding to the vibrations are different enough might be such that, whatever weak signal there is carrying the proper feedback is now more readily decoded. Whether or not this device works will likely be highly variable, dependent on the state of degradation and particulars of the erroneous feedback control.

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#79

Looks like nice work. I think. I couldn't find the details and didn't want to spend the full 15 minutes reading. This style of writing is very frustrating. 1. Introduction. We set up for something dramatic. In this case, a Parkinson's sufferer is about to see her life changed. In another recent story, a maternity nurse is about to birth her first child, and we were teased she would die after giving birth. Now we're a…

This is classic longform journalism writing, and it's the reason why I don't like longform journalism. I wish they'd give me an abstract -- not having article summaries is the reason I never found any "good" magazine worth the money. Imagine so

No. This is a bait-and-switch masquerading as good long form journalism. The bait in this case was the technology. The switch was the backstory. Proper long form journalism does not engage in this sort of dishonest writing. The story you came to read is introduced at the beginning and every paragraph afterward serves to build up what you want to know. Kinda like a novel!

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#80
It's great to see someone helping the symptoms and improving quality of life. It wasn't until a family member got Parkinson's that I realized it's not just shaking hands, it's a terminal illness with progressive neurodegeneration. Usually with dementia happening alongside the physical symptoms. It's about as scary as Alzheimer's.
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