Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The slow death of purposeless walking

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 188 posts

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#121

Post by wavefunction »

aw3c2 wrote: post #83
hrkristian wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking our dog always felt like a chore growing up. I'd attribute it to being young, but it's now many years later, they have a new dog (both dalmatians) and walking him when visiting is still a chore. He's either on a leash (by law) pulling relentlessly, or he's free, needing vigilant watch. It's perfectly doable having him walk next to you, but he's still stressing out at everything and it seeps into your bones. M…

That's a badly mannered/behaved dog though, many dogs don't act like that.

It's a dalmatian. One that hasn't been trained very well as you point out, but it's part of the breed. They run a lot.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#123

Post by detournement »

The situationist/psychogeographic approach to the walk is algorithmic and should be made into an mobile app by someone. One definition of psychogeography is: "a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities... just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape" . For example a walk through the city could be described as an algorithm or fixed pattern, such as "first right, second left, first left, repeat."

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#124

Post by gtremper »

modarts wrote: post #44
pwenzel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusing note from the NPR story: > Champagne was considered a stimulant. And a lot of trainers — these guys had trainers — advised their pedestrians to drink a lot of champagne during the race. They thought that this would give them some kind of advantage. The problem was a lot of these guys would drink it by the bottle. That definitely was not a stimulant to say the least.

And thus Bay to Breakers was born

I'll have to test the effects of champagne this year.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#125

Post by cowsandmilk »

Someone wrote: post #110
sramsay wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the cigarettes that used to be obligatory for cyclists in the Tour de France (opens the lungs . . .).

That's scientifically proven: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001541/ (Via http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149532 )

yeah, only if you develop COPD; and, as the article points out, "These changes are not universal in smoking, however. Even with lifetime smoking, there is only a 50% chance of developing COPD."

very amusing article.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#126

Post by tannerc »

Surprised to see nobody yet mention here Edward de Bono's concept of creative pause.

It's through activities such as purposeless walking — or showering, or doing the dishes — that we allow our consciousness to subside into a routine task while subconscious feedback is allowed to subtly rise. In theory this allows for more of a connection to the deeper going-ons in the brain.

More thoughts on the matter from designer Cameron Moll, dated six years ago: http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/2008/11/showering_and_th...

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#127

Post by philsnow »

themoonbus wrote: post #101
jader201 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it you live in a climate not subject to the extremes of seasons?

Moved to Southern California 4 months ago, but grew up and lived in New England before that. I'm an all seasons kind of guy. Sometimes you just gotta put more clothes on. And gloves and a hat. Also boots. Winter walks can be the best walks.

Agreed, not least of which because very few people go out for a walk when it's snowing or raining, which increases my enjoyment greatly. I love having a whole snowy street completely to myself.

Snow deadens sound quite a bit, and even rain adds white noise. Either is pleasant when you want to just walk and (not) think.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#128

Post by smorrow »

edw519 wrote: post #14

Reminds me of a friend's response when her doctor asked if she exercised. She said, "On purpose?" I understand her. As a busy person, nothing is more boring and time consuming than exercising "on purpose". I ride my bike everywhere, always use the stairs, do my own cleaning, laundry, groceries, and cooking, and constantly jump to conclusions. That oughta be enough.

And shagging.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#129

Post by saraid216 »

charlesthomas wrote: post #48
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you be bad at walking without a destination in mind? You just put one foot in front of another and every time you have to choose a new direction, pick whichever way looks more interesting (by whatever measure you classify interesting at that moment). Not meant to be hostile, genuinely curious.

Part of it is motivation. Why bother leaving, if I don't have a particular destination in mind? There are other things I could be doing that seem more important. The other part is that I fall into patterns really easily. If I don't have a set destination in mind when I leave my apartment, I often just end up at the subway stop I take to get to work.

As someone who also does this, my advice:

Pick a destination, but vary the route. Don't take the optimal route. It's easy on grid streets; just move laterally a block or two on the way. And give yourself permission to explore, by making sure you don't have anything planned: just stop and poke your nose into anything that sparks your interest.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#130

Post by mattjaynes »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #2

An odd bit of the history of walking I recently learned about: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/03/297327865/in-the-1870s-and-80s... > We may think of baseball as America's national pastime, but in the 1870s and 1880s there was another sports craze sweeping the nation: competitive walking. "Watching people walk was America's favorite spectator sport," Matthew Algeo says in his new book, Pedestrianism. http://en.wikipedia.o…

This reminds me a lot of 'Volksmarching' in Germany ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksmarching ). It's still a popular past-time there from what I can tell.

There's even an American organization for it, though I'd hadn't heard of it before today: http://www2.ava.org/

Post reply on HN