The Crisis in American Walking • Hacker News Board

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#111

Post by graeme » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 9:31 PM UTC

kilowatt wrote: post #82

danso wrote: post #10

In NYC, I think nothing of a 30min to 1-hour walk to get to dinner. In my hometown, where there are sidewalks connecting my house to the "downtown", I can barely walk 3 blocks without feeling weird. It's not just the practical distance, or how "safe" it is to conduct the walk... it's the strangeness of walking through something not as dense as NYC. I've done far less formal exercise these days than I ever have at any…

This is so true. Although I'm not sure it's entirely about density--I think part of it is just that you're so alone as a pedestrian. At least if you're walking around my hometown, you might be the only one on the sidewalks, barring neighborhood kids hopscotching around or whatever, for 2 miles, even though there are homes and businesses everywhere. The psychological effect of being such an outlier is really noticeab…

I feel exactly the same way in the Plateau area of Montreal. I'm in Society when I go walking around, at any hour of the day or night.

I was recently in Calgary, and felt alone amidst giant buildings. It was quite off-putting.

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#112

Post by minimax » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 9:36 PM UTC

In Houston, where I grew up, older people (retirees) used to drive to their nearest indoor mall just after it opened for the day and walk laps around the inside the mall. They wanted to walk but they didn't want to do it in the heat. Some of those old guys, my grandfather included, could really move. I'm curious to know if that's still common.

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#113

Post by moylan » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 9:37 PM UTC

cowpewter wrote: post #28

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #4

I live close to the downtown core of my city and my daily commute is a 6 km (3.7 mile) round trip by foot. People seem to think this is exotic if not downright subversive, whereas they think nothing about sitting in a car for an hour a day and stopping off at the gym for a workout. Note that I'm not in particularly good shape and a walk of this magnitude is not at all difficult. I arrive at work every day refreshed,…

I live close ( Sometimes I ride my bike, which feels safer, if for no other reason than those two blocks go by awfully fast and an assailant on foot could not easily catch up to me, but biking feels like a lot more work than walking. I have to gear up, and carry my bike down the stairs from my apartment, and bike three stories up the parking garage for our office once I get there (the building manager hates bicycles,…

perhaps a folding bike? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brompton_Bicycle

not cheap but easily transportable indoors and out. you can store it by your desk in a bag. i see them all over dublin as it's cheaper ultimately to keep your bike by your side than lock them in a public place. and also been brought on public transport.

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#114

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 9:51 PM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #2

Trying not to start a controversy or hijack this to an unrelated news story - but my first thought when the whole Trayvon Martin thing happened - the thing that alerts Neighborhood Watch types in bedroom communities isn't "walking while black," but just plain old "walking." It's suspicious.

ObBradbury, "The Pedestrian". Written 61 years ago.

http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by-bradbury-1...

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#115

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 9:58 PM UTC

backprojection wrote: post #109

yummyfajitas wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...the implication seems to be that Americans walking less somehow has a causative effect in skyrocketing obesity rates. This seems entirely wimpy and facile. The fact that exercise causes weight loss has been borne out by numerous controlled experiments. Something I found via a quick search: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.duke.car... Also, Taubes' insulin nonsense has been debunked. Lets move on…

> Are the yuppies with gym memberships and hipsters with their organic vegan raw paleo diets somehow immune? Well, yes. As a paleo dieter, I can tell you I can't be eating more sugar than someone from the 1850s. My guess is that anyone conscious enough to be on a raw-vegan diet, doesn't either. > This alleged environmental cause seems to primarily affect the lower income people. My understanding is that refined carbo…

Who was it that said that if you have $1.5 to spend on food, you're better off (calorically) buying potato chips than broccoli.

High fat/high sugar foods offer the most calories/dollar. So what? If you are fat you have no reason to maximize the number of calories you consume.

Similarly, if you wanted to maximize your salt intake, you can get the most salt per dollar by buying a canister of salt.

It's much better than the popular notion of calories-in/calories-out, though.

Cals in/cals out has been validated in many controlled experiments to be a good first approximation. Taubes' insulin theories have been debunked by experiments.

Incidentally, the standard picture doesn't blame sedentarity as the sole cause of obesity. It blames the combination of sedentarity and increased caloric consumption as the cause.

But the cause, whatever it is, is highly unlikely to be some sort of metabolic disorder. Fat people have a higher metabolic rate than thin people, not a lower one. Their bodies release fat more easily into the bloodstream, contra Taubes and others. They just eat a lot more.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC303803/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0954-6820.1969....

http://www.ajcn.org/content/8/5/740.full.pdf

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#116

Post by ultrasaurus » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 10:16 PM UTC

khuey wrote: post #77

_delirium wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the traditional "business district" style downtown, yeah, but afaict there's been a shift away from that in the past 15-20 years, and now many people commute to downtown in the evenings, because that's where all the restaurants/bars/clubs/theaters are. That's definitely the case in the Bay Area, where SF is much more lively after 5pm than most of the Valley is (Santa Clara is basically dead once office workers…

Parts of the SF financial district are still pretty deserted after around 5/6 PM.

SOMA too for the most part. Sadly the walk between workable parts (SOMA/FiDi) and livable parts has goes through areas that are less than ideal for walking (in terms of feeling safe).

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#117

Post by backprojection » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 10:21 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #115

backprojection wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are the yuppies with gym memberships and hipsters with their organic vegan raw paleo diets somehow immune? Well, yes. As a paleo dieter, I can tell you I can't be eating more sugar than someone from the 1850s. My guess is that anyone conscious enough to be on a raw-vegan diet, doesn't either. > This alleged environmental cause seems to primarily affect the lower income people. My understanding is that refined carbo…

Who was it that said that if you have $1.5 to spend on food, you're better off (calorically) buying potato chips than broccoli. High fat/high sugar foods offer the most calories/dollar. So what? If you are fat you have no reason to maximize the number of calories you consume. Similarly, if you wanted to maximize your salt intake, you can get the most salt per dollar by buying a canister of salt. It's much better than…

> High fat/high sugar foods offer the most calories/dollar. So what?

Well, the theory is that cheap vegetable oil and sugar causes these metabolic disorders which then causes obesity.

>Taubes' insulin theories have been debunked by experiments.

They're not his theories. He makes the point repeatedly in GCBC that they form part of modern, standard biochemistry. The only controversial points that he makes is that they should be applied to obesity research.

> Taubes' insulin theories have been debunked by experiments.

what are those experiments? My understanding is that carbohydrate-restricted diets generally fare better in terms of weight-loss, muscle-maintenance, and improvements in risk factors of chronic diseases:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/297/9/969.full http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo

Apparently they results are best for people who are insulin resistant, as you might expect.

"PLASMA FREE FATTY ACID TURNOVER RATE IN OBESITY"

I'm not sure exactly what that means, is this referring just to the rate at which FFAs cross fat-cell membranes, or the rate of esterification and lipolysis? Because it's the latter that Taubes argues is primarily important.

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#118

Post by cowpewter » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 10:34 PM UTC

InvisibleCities wrote: post #102

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this means it takes you ~39 mins to work each way I'm not sure about your speed calculations - average adult walking speed is generally understood to be around 5-6 km/h (3-3.75 mph). I'm a male in my late 30s and I generally walk at a relatively brisk 7-8 km/h (4.3-5 mph). As it happens, my walk home is about twice as long as my walk to work, since I pick up my son from school along the way. My walk to work takes a…

>...my daily commute is a 6 km (3.7 mile) round trip by foot...I'm a male in my late 30s and I generally walk at a relatively brisk 7-8 km/h (4.3-5 mph)...My walk to work takes about 20 minutes... Does not compute. A trip of 3.7 miles at a speed of 5 miles per hour would take ~45 minutes. If you can actually walk your 6 km commute in 20 minutes, you should quit your job and start competing in Olympic race walking, si…

He said roundtrip, so his 20 minute figure is for 3km, not 6. Still fast but not impossible. He might also be mentally rounding up the distance a little and down the minutes a little.

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#119

Post by minikomi » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 10:41 PM UTC

I am addicted to walking. Tokyo is so perfect for exploring on foot. I've thought about organizing a hike-n-hack - where a group of similar enthusiasts take their laptops and walk for an hour or two, stop to hack in a cafe for an hour or two, walk again .. Check out a gallery .. Hack again.. Walk again.. This is pretty much what I do on my days off anyway so if you're keen and in the area let me know!

Re: The Crisis in American Walking

#120

Post by noonespecial » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 10:54 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #96

noonespecial wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure if I'd simply explained that to him, everything would have worked out fine for me, yes?

It depends on your definition of fine, but probably, yes. If 'fine' means not hassled or delayed in any way, then it already didn't work out 'fine'. If you're willing to add on another hour or two waiting, perhaps the night, waiting at the police station as 'fine', then you're still good. I'm not sure if you're concerned that you would have been beaten or harmed? I'm sure it's not out of the question, it never is, bu…

Its free for them to find something to charge you with. It costs you a great deal to defend yourself, even if it comes out "fine" in the end.