I read that article this morning. It inspired me to go for a walk. I caught a Mankey.
Just getting to and from work gets me to 4 miles of walking a day. On the other hand, I do spend a lot of time at my computer.
So...doomed or not?
Of course doomed. The question is doomed at Time = t or doomed at Time = t + 5.
If you spend enough time at the computer, you will hasten the singularity, which gets you t + ∞.
The Pokemon Go app thinks I'm driving despite the fact that I thought I was stationary. So apparently I'm moving more than I know.
Back on the veldt how much time did we spend sitting on our asses? I thought it was a lot.
6: Sitting was different and much less detrimental to our health before there were chairs.
People in chairless societies tend to squat unless they're old or sick.
I could see a fortune to be made in squatting desks. Paleo-chair (TM)!
On the veldt, everybody had knees like a catcher.
Maybe we sat on rocks, and developed ischial callosities, as does the baboon.
I got made fun of big time in rural China for my (lack of) squatting skills. White (wo)men can't squat!
People also spend a lot of time sitting on tiny stools that are less than a foot off the ground.
12.1: You could taunt them for not being able to digest lactose.
Has anyone considered that heart disease is a price worth paying for not fucking squatting all the time?
I hadn't. But I had noticed that my dad had a sedentary job from age 25 to 75 and hardly any of his male relatives with more active jobs made it to 75. They all smoked and/or lived before arthroscopy was a thing.
Fucking squatting is a different event.
11 Ischial Callosity is the name of my new band.
The most difficult position in the Kama Sutra is the Russian Squat/Kick Dancer.
a) Fidgeting and looking out the window help a fair amount, as do smoking breaks.
c) I have deep reservations about epidemiological studies like this. While there may well be something there, there is a generous tangle of confounding variables, including socioeconomic status (who watches 6 hours of tv daily?) and diet.
In an analysis of data from the EPIC (European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition) Norfolk study, Wijndaele et al111 demonstrated that each additional hour per day of TV viewing was associated with an increased risk for incident total (fatal and nonfatal) CVD (HR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.03-1.08), nonfatal CVD (HR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.03-1.09), and coronary heart disease (HR 1.08, 95% CI, 1.03-1.13) after adjustment for a number of covariates, including demographics, estimated total daily physical activity, CVD, and diabetes mellitus history. BMI only partially mediated the effects.
So the effect with enough exercise to maintain body weight is smaller. This weak of an effect could be real-- if there were real dose-response data, maybe I'd believe. But epidemiology doesn't have enough statistical power to untangle this. If the concern is office work, comparing white- and blue-collar cohorts would be a first step.
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2016/08/12/CIR.0000000000000440
I liked getting to the point of squatting comfortably in Japan, typically in subway stations, because it meant I was down with the sararīman. When I do it now, it just reminds me that I need to stretch more.
Fucking squatting is a different event.
Not to be confused with squat cobbler.
It really helps if you say that to the tune of "Rock Lobster."
Just like a salad doesn't undo a cigarette, and a donation to Goodwill doesn't undo replacing a friend's sunscreen with shampoo.
"Replacing a friend's sunscreen with shampoo"? Have I missed out on yet another cultural trend?
25. Sunscreen is a euphemism for lube in that sentence.
I caught a Mankey.
Oh man, I downloaded that Pokemon Go app right as I was starting two weeks vacation (which isn't really a vacation but is just staying home with the kids here before school starts back up), and I have been walking my ass off. I have probably walked more in the last week than in the past 6 months combined. Also not sleeping and driving around town to Pokestops in the middle of the night because you keep running out of balls. I got to talk to a very nice police officer the other night who explained that driving slowly through the cemetery beside cracktown in the middle of the night wasn't illegal, but was still probably a bad idea. The security guard at the Blue Cross corporate campus was also pleasant enough as he asked me to leave.
Has anyone considered that heart disease is a price worth paying for not fucking squatting all the time?
I'm with Ginger Yellow.
28 - I was driving in Detroit last week and saw 4 white 12-15 year old kids walking around in a (need I say this) area with abandoned buildings, sketchy-looking corners, etc. Obviously I assumed they were looking for drugs but then the phones came out and I thought "aha! Pokemon Go."
Apo, just go with the traditional hooker excuse when you get back home very late.
My takeaway from this article is that I should get up from my desk to get another brownie from the kitchen.
I ride the bus past so many Pokestops that I routinely throw away items. Otherwise you don't get eggs/nicer balls.
Seriously, there were so many stops in Paris that I dumped any potion lower than hyper. They do seem to make the locations themed- aquatic ones along the river, magnetic ones at the Eiffel tower. There was a Pikachu at Notre Dame, I'm not sure what that says about religion- god will strike you down with lightning?
According to Pokemon Go, I went and took a walk over lunch and covered less distance than I have while sitting a my desk for the past hour.
Does anyone want to borrow my toddler? She'll ensure that you're never sitting.
This is sort of off topic, but since this thread has already drifted...
How much is reasonable to pay for a 2 in 1 laptop? When I priced things out I was coming to around $1,000, but there are much cheaper ones available, so maybe I'm getting features I don't need. Does anyone else have one?
In fact, I'll claim that this comment is on topic, because it's easier to walk around with a hybrid tablet/laptop. I like to think of buying one as an investment in my health.
The Asian squat is a lot more comfortable than the American squat. I would definitely pick the former over heart disease.
37. Are you programming or doing anything heavy? I'm about to get a chromebook with touchscreen for possible chrome support of android apps. Local storage of documents and some media on a card.
37 Depends on how much money you have and how much you value a good screen (resolution, viewing angles, etc), storage space, etc. My old man bought a $1k HP laptop that flips around into a tablet that is quite nice. If you aren't gaming/modeling/etc you are just paying for luxury/nice, not features.
39,40:
Web surfing, preparing and giving powerpoint presentations, word processing, fairly basic data analysis (anything more complicated than simple curve fitting will happen on my office computer), python programing.
No gaming, but I might watch movies.
Supposedly crouton allows creating a login shell and more-than-rudimentary python on ChromeOS, but I have not tried it. IME python usually winds up meaning a bunch of modules that need to be installed, maybe compiled first, so ChromeOS may not work for you.
Looks like another one of those studies that saw noise and found something significant. I know the facts often contradict so-called common sense, but c'mon this is like the recent announcement that there is no benefit to flossing your teeth. Does anyone actually believe that?
I keep hoping but I'm afraid to stop flossing.
43: (that's me)
I should have said "looked at noise and mistook it for something significant"
I agree with 42. This really seems unbelievable. Also, one study directly linked to in the article explicitly contradicts that conclusion.
Specifically, "there was no increased risk of mortality during follow-up in those who sat for more than 8 h/day but who also reported >35·5 MET-h per week of activity" and "By contrast, those who sat the least (
35.5 MET-h a week is the equivalent of running 4 hours a week or walking 10 hours a week.
The second quote should read "By contrast, those who sat the least (less than 4 h/day) and were in the lowest activity quartile (less than 2·5 MET-h per week) had a significantly increased risk of dying during follow-up"
What are you all talking about? That study sounds rock solid.
Can't we just settle this once and for all by finding the University of Arkansas class of 1959 and seeing how dead they are?
48: Yeah, there doesn't actually seem to be any rigorous study cited in the article, just opinions expressed at some conference or something like that (I've forgotten what exactly was in the article, but am too lazy to reread it).
Anyway, if anyone is so inclined - go ahead and stop exercising and flossing. The rest of us will avoid your flabby bodies and rotten teeth for the rest of the short time that you still occupy this earth.
I've had a Surface Pro 3 for a couple years now. Its a good machine - about as capable as a full-on PC. I think my main problem with it is that it burns through keyboards. My third one is on its way out.
Also don't crack the screen. They can't really be repaired.
If the "W" key wears out first, you need to find a different way to play Minecraft.
49: I checked my Facebook and that had already shown up there.
53 was to your link in the other thread.
I figured. They're both good links though.
Well, we'll see if I manage to keep up my exercise habits while on vacation. I have for a few prior ones, but this one starts out with a week of beachtime.