Science – Page 13 – Fooyah

April 23 2017April 23 2017

Obsessive Pedometry

Since April 2013 I have tracked my daily movement. I started using the rather stylish but shit Up by Jawbone. I bought this while in Washington DC and I loved it. The problem was that they don’t last long. I had three within a year, all replaced by guarantee.

My general thoughts are that this was a new company and reasonably new tech. It seems necessary that their early models would be rubbish to force improvement in the product. The early iPhones were shockingly bad in terms of the technology involved but at least the product worked as advertised.

To see previous communications about the Up by Jawbone, click or touch here.

In October 2015 my final Up band died and I switched to a Garmin Vivofit. Eventually I stopped wearing a watch because the Garmin on my right arm had a clock which pretty much negated the need for a separate timepiece on my left wrist.

At the end of March 2017 I had to replace the batteries in the Vivofit. They had lasted over two years. I don’t recall replacing them before and probably would have written about it within these esteemed communications. The replacement procedure was easy. The device worked within acceptable parameters after syncing with my phone.

While I was in Cyprus I swam in the sea twice in two days. I didn’t take my Vivofit off. I failed to remember that the seal may not have created a seal post battery replacement. On the penultimate day of the trip the Vivofit slowly drowned. I took it off.

When I got back to Blighty I took the Vivofit apart and let it dry out properly for a few days. In the mean time I had started wearing a watch again. I’m not young enough to want to look at my phone for the time. I like my watch. It is a nice looking watch.

I also ordered a Garmin Vivomove as I wanted to track my steps. When this arrived the clock face was too large for my tastes. I didn’t like it. for what it was it seemed quite expensive too. If it had been a third of the price I probably would have kept it and used it occasionally. But the look/price ratio wasn’t the correct magnitude.

When I put the Vivofit back together it seems to work fine. There will be some salt ingestion and I pondered rinsing it out and drying it thoroughly again but I think I won’t. I’m trying to be brave, I’ve taken the batteries out and the Vivofit is currently in a drawer in the bedroom. So, I have decided to give up counting steps.

This unnerves me greatly. But the arguments are sound:

I haven’t increased my steps/movement over the last two years. I do try to walk around work a few times a day but that’s not changed for two years.
I know roughly how far I have moved because of the years of tracking.
I like wearing my watch.
Being aware of my steps hasn’t changed my behaviour for a long time.
I use different apps for measuring my running and calorific intake.

If I feel too unsettled I can always put the batteries back in the Vivofit and start wearing it again. But overall, I consider this a positive thing. I managed about forty years of my life without a fitness tracker and maybe I can manage some more now. It’s always worth challenging yourself, even if it’s the obsessive part of you.

March 26 2017March 26 2017

Splat!

Here’s another view of my VRS Splat:

March 25 2017October 19 2017

Carbon Footprint

I recently ordered a day-sack cover from a company using Amazon. It arrived and I was somewhat shocked.

The rest of the box had that paper-stuff in it to hold the rain cover in place. I have written about this before in this communication.

While this sort of packaging excess does seem a waste I’ve got some other ideas. Fuel use for transporting goods is largely dependent on the mass of the object. So although the box added something to the mass it was still reasonably light and so not a huge carbon drain. If the box is recycled then it doesn’t really matter about how much cardboard there was. There’s probably more carbon used in making the plastic wrapper of the item than in the box, as long as the box comes from a sustainable source.

So, upon reflection this excessive packaging may not be as bad a first thought.

I do think that eventually everything will be labelled with a “carbon factor” to make people aware of just how much carbon they emit and how well we are fucking the planet. Because we are. It is fucked. Utterly fucked. I am glad I will be dead in one hundred years. There are going to be wars over water, food and power. I am just very sorry that my children, or potential grandchildren, will be involved in that and the people to blame will all be dead. My parents’ generation and mine have screwed this planet over.

I could be calmed, I guess, by fluffy cat or dog pictures. But they don’t distract me from the bullshit. They reinforce our collective ability to ignore all that is going on.

March 17 2017March 17 2017

What A Dump

This is the output from my radar server. If you want a better view then you can ask me for the details.

Hmm, there are page formatting issues. Not sure I care enough to fix them.

March 15 2017

Irresponsible

I know they are the best we have but sometimes there needs to be some serious editorial control from the BBC because they publish utter rubbish like this:

This is the first article in the Health News section for today. Click on the story and you get this:

First up, a warning. The word CHIROPRACTIC already flags this up as a terrible article. The only responsible news item that mentions CHIROPRACTIC is one where there is a decent discussion of why it is rubbish and doesn’t work.

Rather than get enraged at the poor reporting lets look at the data and quotations included in the article.

First the BCA is quoted as saying that clothes can be bad for us. Then in the next paragraph:

However, the research has been rejected by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and other back experts.

They say we shouldn’t be afraid of our clothes.

Real doctors and scientists say this is bollocks. Then there follows plenty of gumpf from the BCA about what items can be damaging. While the BBC do “balance” this with more quotations from proper scientists they have already done the damage by publishing this shit.

In a section called “What’s the reality?” [it’s not reality, it’s written by the BCA] the BBC write:

The BCA’s poll of 1,062 people found 73% had suffered back pain and 33% were not aware that clothing could affect their back, neck or posture. They warn that any item of clothing that restricts movement, or that leads people to stand or walk unnaturally, can have a negative impact on the posture, back or neck.

There are major problems here. First they say a survey found that people have suffered back pain. So fucking what? I’ve suffered back pain. Most people have. Then, apparently, one third of people aren’t aware that clothing can affect your back, neck or posture. Well, given it’s not a thing they can’t know about it can they? This article relies on people being unable to understand a causation-correlation problem. Surveys are the worst of scientific evidence, but slightly better than anecdote.

At the base of the BBC article there is a quotation from the head of practice at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy who says that disseminating this false information could lead to real problems. The BBC need to get an editor who understands a load of bollocks when it is written and when to pull it. I am not going to look but I bet there are loads of news articles online and in print running this bollocks too.

Steve Tolan, head of practice at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, says “reading scare stories about skinny jeans is probably more harmful than actually wearing them.

“People should wear whatever is comfortable and they feel good in – skinny jeans and hoodies included. They certainly shouldn’t fear that their clothes are going to do them harm as there is no evidence for that.

“What is probably more relevant is whether a woman thinks that they are wearing something that is damaging their back, says Dr O’Keeffe.

“The beliefs about the jeans and bags may not only be incorrect, but detrimental if they cause worry about the spine being fragile and discourage women from moving normally and wearing what they want.

“Misconceptions regarding the causes and treatments of low back pain are widespread. This story about skinny jeans and heavy bags is just another myth in the long list of myths about back pain.

“It fits with the misconception that load and movement are bad and that the spine is a vulnerable structure that is easily damaged. Strong evidence shows that this is not true.”

I thought I ought to look at the BCA article or press release to see what it said. So I went to their website.

I clicked on the link, which I shall paste here:

https://chiropractic-uk.co.uk/womens-back-heal%E2%80%A6ing-sake-fashion/

I get the following page:

~~So, I can’t even read the actual article.~~

Scratch that. I found the proper link using their site search. I hope others don’t bother.

https://chiropractic-uk.co.uk/womens-back-health-suffering-sake-fashion/

The “research” was probably a telephone or internet based survey. The BCA don’t link to the actual results. There is so much wrong with this article it infuriates me. As my tweet earlier said:

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
Research from the BCA! Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

— Ian Parish (@iparish) March 15, 2017

This “news” article is an advert masquerading as serious science. It’s bullshit. It’s designed to make people think “oh, I feel like that”, then they visit the BCA website and try to find a local chiropractor. This will cause proper injuries as chiropractic DOESN’T work.

March 11 2017

Blocked

With reference to the previous communication I can update the main blockages on the ADS-B splat. I wrote about this before here.

The blocked area labelled 1 covers the North Downs. This natural boundary lurks to the NE of me and I can’t do a great deal about it.

The blockage labelled 2 is, I believe, down to the aerial being inside my loft and the terrace houses of my block extending in that direction. I wrote about that here. The only way to improve this range would be to get the aerial placed above the roof of my house, which is not a job I am going to undertake. I may, however, consider getting someone else to do it.

March 11 2017March 11 2017

Pre-Amp Filter

These communications contain many items concerning the virtual radar system that lives in my loft and you can see a selection here. A short while ago I decided to buy an pre-amp and filter for my system to improve the range and number of aircraft being received. So, this communication now requires a large number of pictures to give you an idea of what this means.

In the above picture you can see that there are around 20 aircraft and the black area [the range of the receiver] doesn’t quite reach Norwich, Portsmouth, Bristol or Calais. There is the NW-SE block as described before.

This coloured splat gives pretty much the same information but uses colours for the ranges of aircraft at different altitudes.

I bought a filter which only allows signals close to the 1090MHz requirement through to the USB stick I bought. It also acts as a pre-amp so there is an overall 14 dB gain.

Pre-Amp and Filter held securely in place

Here is the whole Virtual Radar system living in the loft:

Once this kit was turned on I looked at the DUMP1090 output from the Raspberry Pi and pretty much shat myself at the number of aricraft shown:

When this view is compared to the twenty or so aircraft that I had before you can see an immense improvement in the receivers ability.

Virtual Radar Server is a program I use on the RPi for a more detailed view, there are quite a few customisations you can create also. It is the software that will create the splat over time, keeping track of the aircraft and their position.

The distances have increased as has the overall coverage. I now track around 100 aircraft at a time. For a small sum of money the overall increase in detail has been terrific. I can now reach over northern France, over Wales and a lot of the channel to the SW.

A side by side comparison.

February 14 2017

Infrastructure Update

It’s about time I updated the home network diagram from this communication. The original communication was written in January 2014 so three years seems a reasonable length of time for an update. It shouldn’t really be a surprise that the network has grown. There are some notable additions:

Raspberry Pi
Wireless Printer

I don’t have any “smart” kitchen appliances or anything like that, I’m not sure I see the point of them! Click the picture for a pdf file.

February 12 2017December 21 2020

Don’t Patronise This

While waiting for my fish and chips to cook last night at the world’s most homo-erotic chip shop I saw a magazine with the following advert:

The Young Men’s Christian Association has a Wellness Centre which I guess promotes wellness.

WELLNESS is NOT a DEFINED MEDICAL TERM. Therefore it means fuck all in this context. It’s why promoters of bullshit use the term, because it DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING. Look, I used bold and block caps there! I must be annoyed.

Even the logo looks new-age and bollocks.

Of the services offered at the religious centre (which probably isn’t religious but the name is) some are utter bullshit before we’ve even had to look into them and some are possibly iffy by association. I have looked at their website and I will quote so in the following.

Osteopathy

I have rubbished this within these communications and so I can tell you now, it is bollocks. On the website there is information about osteopathy and babies. Just don’t.

They claim to be able to help with

migraines and headaches
asthma
sports injuries
disc problems
sciatica
trapped nerves
tennis elbow
arthritis (wear and tear)

I very much doubt this as there’s no good evidence to show that osteopathy works for anything. They even lost “lower back pain” recently. Have a look at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). God, this makes me so sad.

“Oh but it worked for me/my relation”

No, it probably didn’t. We humans are terrible at separating out what really happens and our experience.

Sports Massage

It feels nice. It massages you. It costs you money. They claim it helps you but these are all self-limiting problems and while a massage can do damage it might help you.

Acupuncture

Grade A bollocks. They claim it works:

Acupuncture is the insertion of fine needles into the skin at predetermined points to affect the internal levels of energy. It may be deficient, excessive or stagnant and therefore not flowing in the most efficient manner. When energy, called Qi, in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is not in balance then we see symptoms, at all levels. Some symptoms are obvious, such as those affecting the physical, others less so, such as those that affect the emotional and mental.

There is absolutely NO evidence for Qi. In fact different practitioners will use different locations on the body to cure the same thing. It doesn’t work.

Acupuncture and other traditional Chinese medicine was promoted during the Barefoot Doctor scheme the communist government of China so that Doctors, who were short on real medicine, could “do something” to keep people happy even though it clearly didn’t work.

Reflexology / Aromatherapy

See “massage”. This is all bollocks. Aromatherapy smells nice. Reflexology feels nice. It doesn’t do anything else. The Wellness Centre says:

Boosts the immune system, which is weakened by constant stress.
Can relieve stress as it calms and soothes.
Is a good preventative medicine.
Improves the circulation.
Can be very helpful at encouraging the body to heal itself and gives the recipient a feeling of well being, relaxing mind and body.
The Digestive system is encouraged to work to optimum efficiency.

Boosting the immune system means nothing. Is a good preventative medicine for what? Encourages the body to heal itself, now I’m laughing, such a wishy washy phrase.

Psychological Therapy

This is probably the most important here and possible the one that can the most effect but I would worry about the company that this service keeps and I would prefer to book myself into a proper clinic. Yep, having looked over the website this seems quite legit. It’s just a shame it’s in a house of crap.

Physiotherapy

This is another that is probably good. Physiotherapy is a protected term and so it should be the real stuff. The problem is it’s hard work and some people obviously want the quick fix of bullshit medicine (see above). The chap’s website looks pretty flash but overall this is the second worthwhile thing on here.

Nutritional Therapy

This is bollocks. If you want the proper stuff you go see a DIETITIAN, that is a legally protected term for someone who has qualifications in diet. ANYONE can call themselves a nutritionist because it’s not legally protected. She claims she is a Naturopathic Nutritional Therapist, this fills me with utter fear. Naturopathic is a nonsense term invented to sound great but mean nothing. According to her website she can help with the following:

Some of these things are diet related but I wouldn’t want a quack telling me what I’m allergic to. Proper allergy testing takes a long time. Oh, and notice that Cancer is mentioned in there. Fucking Cancer. from the website:

“There are numerous studies suggesting a link between some foods and certain types of cancer. However, it would be a broad statement to claim that diet can directly cause or treat cancer.”

I can correct her if you want. It would be ILLEGAL to claim to be able to cure cancer. It shows just how fucked up these people are when they make iffy claims.

Pilates

I know nothing about pilates but isn’t it posh yoga? Just helps you move.

There are more claims on the website of these people and I will cover a few of them here with my crude guide to efficacy.

Food Intolerance Tests – more than likely bullshit.

Hypnotherapy – I’m becoming convinced it’s bullshit.

Neuro Linguistic Programing – bullshit.

And, I’m done. There’s only so much I can take of this bollocks. Look, it says Wellness. It doesn’t mean anything. Don’t go there. It’s in a christian association building for fuck’s sake.

January 22 2017March 11 2017

Splaturday

I am aware that in some places on the internet caturday is a thing. I do not care for this. Nor do I care for cute dog picture stuff. It’s quite boring, especially when associated with a meme [a word now misused]. There is a smaller, some might say darker, part of the internet where comparing the range of an ADS-B receiver is a thing. These are called “splats” and so here is my Splaturday picture.

There are other communications cover this sort of thing here and here.