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Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

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Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#91

Post by emodendroket »

tedunangst wrote: post #52
emodendroket wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But letting the snakes go is even easier. Use the example of people littering instead of using a trash can, or not flushing public toilets, if you need a demonstration of how people can't be bothered with even simple tasks.

Most people aren't worried their litter will literally come back to bite them. Were the snake breeders really unconcerned that dumping a bunch of snakes out the back window wouldn't have consequences?

Besides the other explanation you got, the effect of any one breeder loosing his snakes was probably pretty small compared to the cumulative effect.

Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#92

Post by stale2002 »

ransom1538 wrote: post #57
forgueam wrote: post #28

I did something similar in college. A company paid cash for installing software that displayed ads on the bottom of your monitor. It qualified your ad viewing activity based on mouse movement. At night I would open the software, wrap my mouse cord around an oscillating desk fan, then go to bed. Earned myself $50/month

Remember, you aren't ripping off the shady ad companies. Actually, you are doing what they want you to do. You are ripping off the merchants (people buying ads) who just don't know better.

Good. Those merchants are supporting these shady companies with their money.

If they get screwed, all the better.

Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#93

Post by bennettfeely »

forgueam wrote: post #28

I did something similar in college. A company paid cash for installing software that displayed ads on the bottom of your monitor. It qualified your ad viewing activity based on mouse movement. At night I would open the software, wrap my mouse cord around an oscillating desk fan, then go to bed. Earned myself $50/month

Do these companies still exist?

Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#94

Post by fabianhjr »

charleyma wrote: post #59

I've always found that anytime time a financial outcome is tied to some sort of behavior incentive, weird behaviors come out. This especially comes out in sales, where whether you like it or not, individuals will typically optimize for the best financial outcome, which is not always explicitly connected to what's best for the company.

There is also the Cobra effect as a subset of unexpected outcomes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#95

Post by fpgaminer »

8ytecoder wrote: post #54
liveoneggs wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you more likely to sustain an injury than someone who is mostly idle?

Do you have statistics to indicate biking is inherently more dangerous than other activities or are you just repeating a certain assumption you have?

Between walking, driving, and biking, biking is the _most_ dangerous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort#Travel

Given the same commute you can expect riding a bike to be 23 times more dangerous than driving a car.

Put another way, it looks like people get into car accidents roughly once every 18 years. If instead of driving your car for your commute you rode your bike, you can expect to get into an accident every single year (and then some).

Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#96

Post by warent »

stale2002 wrote: post #92
ransom1538 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember, you aren't ripping off the shady ad companies. Actually, you are doing what they want you to do. You are ripping off the merchants (people buying ads) who just don't know better.

Good. Those merchants are supporting these shady companies with their money. If they get screwed, all the better.

But this is a positive-sum world where it's actually better for us all the fewer people that get screwed. So although it may be better if they used alternative methods, it's actually a step backwards to turn this into a zero-sum game

Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#97

Post by stale2002 »

warent wrote: post #96
stale2002 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. Those merchants are supporting these shady companies with their money. If they get screwed, all the better.

But this is a positive-sum world where it's actually better for us all the fewer people that get screwed. So although it may be better if they used alternative methods, it's actually a step backwards to turn this into a zero-sum game

Ads are a negative sum game, IMO. The less money that ad companies make the better.

Or in other words, the ad companies deserve it.

Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#98

Post by pmichaud »

dragonwriter wrote: post #82
eli wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

That's only true to the extent that the chosen measure was only coincidentally something that looked like a good measure to start with; if you were actually measuring the true feature of merit, making it a target wouldn't make it a bad measure. Making a measure a target incentivizes discovery of its deficiencies, if any, as a measure.

I agree with you in the narrow sense, but I bet you can't think of a metric that should be hyper-focused on for any purpose. Even something like "Lives Saved" fails pretty hard if you do it hard enough.

Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#99

Post by xythian »

forgueam wrote: post #28

I did something similar in college. A company paid cash for installing software that displayed ads on the bottom of your monitor. It qualified your ad viewing activity based on mouse movement. At night I would open the software, wrap my mouse cord around an oscillating desk fan, then go to bed. Earned myself $50/month

That was my first ever exposure to programming. I installed as many of those crap ad bars as I could on a backup computer and wrote a macro that would open Internet Explorer, browse thru the same 10 sites in a loop, close IE, repeat.

This setup provided enough income to cover the costs of my dedicated phone line and ISP access.

Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts

#100

Post by jschwartzi »

Havoc wrote: post #72
Steltek wrote: post #12

I bike 15+ miles a day but my work's discount program doesn't "support" biking. If I was into vigilante justice, I'd consider a solution like this too. But as it is, I'm quite content biking for my own sake rather than some pittance of a benefit.

You should be able to game that somehow in a legitimate way like Johnny says. Most types of oscillating movements should do

With Fitbit you will even get steps for turning the steering wheel while driving, so this is definitely something you can(and should) game.
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