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The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#51

Post by austinjp »

brador wrote: post #12
jflatow wrote: post #2

I tend to bite my nails, especially when I'm programming or deep in thought. Last year I decided to start walking whenever I reach that point where I am fidgeting and can't sit still. It's totally changed the way I work for the better. I walk between 10-20 miles per day, and can get a lot of work done on those walks. Highly recommended, especially for people living in places with good weather and beautiful scenery.

I can see walking 10-20 miles a day being detrimental to your health long term. Knees, feet, hips, somethings gonna give. Good cushioned footwear and insoles is a must to limit the damage at that range.

While cumulative effects no doubt contribute to tissue changes, those changes aren't necessarily going to be for the worse. Leg bones and cartilage adapt positively to the light impact and weight-bearing of walking (for most people, most of the time, in most circumstances). In fact a lack of upright weight bearing in 20s and 30s may contribute to the development of osteoporosis and cartilage thinning.

Your mileage may vary (apologies for the pun) but if you can, walk.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#52

Post by aninhumer »

kleiba wrote: post #11

There were times in my life (thesis writing) where I'd go and sit in the library all day to work and come home in the early evening. The psychological stress on me during that time was tremendous. Every evening, after coming home, I'd have a small dinner and then go for a one-hour walk, always the same route. At that time, I lived in a small town, and my route would take me down a dead-end street, across another one,…

If someone gets out of their car in the middle of nowhere and starts walking, it's fairly possible that they've broken down or run out of fuel, in which case the police could help them out.

I don't know how the interaction in question went, but it's possible they were just interpreting an earnestly concerned police officer as suspicious because of a (justifiable) distrust of police.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#53

Post by austinjp »

amelius wrote: post #16

The problem with walking is that it does little to the body. Your heart rate stays normal, and thus it is not a cardiovascular exercise.

It does plenty. See my other comment here. Additionally, it maintains proprioception, it fosters a sense of well-being (for some), it helps lower blood glucose, it slightly elevates fat metabolism, it contributes hugely to veinous return from the legs, it may help gut motility... and probably much more besides.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#55

Post by dingaling »

amelius wrote: post #27
Xylakant wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it need to do something to your body? Wouldn't it be good enough if it does something beneficial to your mind? Apart from that, go for a stiff 2 hour walk and then come back and tell me that it didn't do anything to your body. It's certainly not extreme sports, but it's still exercise, at least for your legs and your whole motion apparatus.

> Why does it need to do something to your body? Wouldn't it be good enough if it does something beneficial to your mind? Well, why not ride a bicycle, and let both your mind AND your body benefit? > Apart from that, go for a stiff 2 hour walk and then come back and tell me that it didn't do anything to your body. I've tried this. I walked 1.5 hours a day, 5 times a week for about a year. Didn't lose a gram of body w…

> Well, why not ride a bicycle, and let both your mind AND your body benefit?

If your mind is not on the road when you're cycling in a city then you're doing it wrong, unfortunatley.

Doors of parked cars opening, buses pulling out without indicating, drivers egressing from side-roads without checking, truck drivers underestimating their position when passing... Taking your mind off reading the road ahead even for a minute is an invitation to an accident.

Whereas on an early morning run or walk on the pavement / sidewalk / trail one's mind can wander and explore.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#56

Post by brianwawok »

srdeveng wrote: post #15
jflatow wrote: post #2

I tend to bite my nails, especially when I'm programming or deep in thought. Last year I decided to start walking whenever I reach that point where I am fidgeting and can't sit still. It's totally changed the way I work for the better. I walk between 10-20 miles per day, and can get a lot of work done on those walks. Highly recommended, especially for people living in places with good weather and beautiful scenery.

I keep nail clippers in my desk exactly for this reason. I hate the feeling of rough bitten nails which became an unproductive distraction in itself. Now, I clip instead. My nail grooming has become on point.

Clipping in a cube farm is a capital offense.

If it's your home office or you have a door its okay :)

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#58

Post by fitzwatermellow »

tluyben2 wrote: post #13

I walk insane lengths as it clears the mind and fosters creativity. I talk into my phone during that; either to colleagues or to a recorder and then type it in at home (no, speech to text does not work; if someone wants to work with me to get that working, that would be great but for now, it does not even work a bit; only gibberish comes out; it seems to have something to do with my way of talking which I am trying t…

You have described my situation to a tee. It doesn't work in the city. It must be in nature, and I must be alone. Except rather than the nitty gritty implementation details, I limit my mental explorations during perambulations to the higher level abstractions of architectural matters. I even wrote a toy "mobile web dicta phone" that uses the media recording api because I wanted a single click, distraction free way to make "notes to self".

For any one in this situation, I think any "code while walking" solution should be voice activated, as it may be important to have eyes and hands free over the terrain. Straight voice-to-code would be cumbersome. Something like a voice-to-UML might be better. But I think what we really need is to first define a visual logic language itself that can be easily translated into high level code. Thanks for sharing, and keep exploring. There are definitely others who would be interested ;)

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#59

Post by VMG »

kleiba wrote: post #11

There were times in my life (thesis writing) where I'd go and sit in the library all day to work and come home in the early evening. The psychological stress on me during that time was tremendous. Every evening, after coming home, I'd have a small dinner and then go for a one-hour walk, always the same route. At that time, I lived in a small town, and my route would take me down a dead-end street, across another one,…

Reminds me of this story

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

> Eller writes that Bradbury's inspiration for the story came when he was walking down Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles with a friend sometime in late 1949. On their walk, a police cruiser pulled up and asked what they were doing. Bradbury answered, "Well, we're putting one foot in front of the other." The policemen didn't appreciate Ray's joke and became suspicious of Bradbury and his friend for walking in an area where there were no pedestrians. Using this experience as inspiration he wrote "The Pedestrian", which he sent to his New York agent Don Congdon in March 1950. According to Eller, "[the story's] composition in the early months of 1950 predates Bradbury's conception of 'The Fireman,'" the short novella that would later evolve into Fahrenheit 451.[2]

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#60

Post by 1782635782 »

mseebach wrote: post #9

> But are people losing their love of the purposeless walk? BBC Magazine strikes again. No, they're not losing it, it's not "slowly dying". Did "people" at large ever have that? Having the time and energy to go aimlessly wandering was a luxurious privilege until very recently. If anything, the existence of "[a] number of recent books [that] have lauded the connection between walking - just for its own sake - and thin…

> Having the time and energy to go aimlessly wandering was a luxurious privilege until very recently

You just made this up....

Firstly, you have never been around since the beginning of humans, and secondly, you haven't even read any history books if you think humans have always been extremely busy and that somehow they are not now.

The opposite is actually true. Humans have had a lot more free time in the past. It is easy to find this information out on the internet. Humans were estimated to only work about 3 hours per day in some time periods. In others they had months at a time off.

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