As mentioned: RSB on a diet

[RSB]

Minor Update: Just under a stone lost so far. May go up a bit tonight if I don’t do some exercise in the morning. ?

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[PlaneMan]

Fair play.

Keep it up.

[Ed P]

Some research suggests that evening exercise is better for the heart, but morning exercise burns off more weight as your body takes a long time to turn off the fat burner. The consensus is do it whenever it is convenient!

[Drezha]

TCBarrett wrote:

RSB wrote:

I am curious to what fellow forumites opinions are on these two questions. 1. How accurate are these pedometer apps for android. I installed one called pedometer step meter this morning and was just curious 2. This is an “How long is a piece of string question” what do you consider a daily healthy walking distance is?

Hi The pedometers are all inaccurate. However, they are consistent. Whatever your pedometer reports, use that as a baseline for improvement. Improvement is improvement ?

This. I read the DC Rainmaker blog and he reviews a lot of items like this. He states

“Next to last – the vast majority of activity trackers are roughly accurate. To that I meant that no activity tracker on the market is perfect. None. Instead, they are estimations – treat them as such. Each company tries to fine tune their algorithms for various use cases. Some might be better at guarding against false positives in the shower, but less so doing dishes. Others the inverse. What matters is that at the end of the day if your activity tracker said you only did 2,000 steps, and your goal was 10,000 steps – then you were…lazy. Meanwhile, if it says you did 9,782 steps and you think you really did 9,923 or 9,458 – just go walk around the block an extra time. It’s about tracking trends – not exacts.”

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Richard]

The BBC were recently pushing a phone application. I was amazed at the level of details the software wanted before it would activate so I abandoned the request. I was left wondering quite why it needed to be so intrusive.

Drezha’s last response was right on the money, all tracking methods are just that, tracking methods, though surely the only target that really matters is the end objective? The number of steps, distance travelled is only a sub-metric if your real objective is to reach a certain weight or BMI? I may do no more than 1 mile and lose half a pound or perhaps if I am lucky, more. Another day I may record 4 or 5 miles yet my weight goes up, not down. An early night with good sleep appears to do far more for the following day – and my weight management.

I had lost 2 stone over a number of months, but several family health upsets pre-Christmas and enforced post operative activity lay-offs before and over Christmas into the New Year saw about 7 pounds come back, depressing but not a disaster. Recently it has been hard to re-establish a trend, though today I was down a pound and a half from the recent maximum. At least my BMI has stayed well below the magic 30 barrier that had been an earlier barrier and target. Going for the distant shores of a BMI below 25 is a highly attractive, but far distant pipe dream for the moment. I would probably need years not months.

[Ed P]

“I was left wondering quite why it needed to be so intrusive.”

This is a well-known problem and often comes down to either laziness on the part of the app designer, or thoughts of monetizing the results. As Steve will point out the later versions of Android allow you to turn off many of these.

[Richard]

It was the manual sign up ‘application process’ which wanted all sorts of information that I found surprisingly intrusive. I dropped out before going to set up and use. I had not even reached the set up or use phases.

Being able to turn off phone access demands is valuable, no doubt that would have been a different can of worms had I got that far.

[The Duke]

Richard, you should have an online persona that is close to your own, so you don’t forget it, but doesn’t actually give out your details

If I don’t trust a service, I have my fake name, email, phone number etc . my 9-year-old girl already copies me. She, and I have her fake detail written down,  cos children apps are the worst for harvesting data. So I teach the kids to be careful.

Sometimes when I log into a service, ill get a user not recognised, so first ill check for typos (no easy for me), then ill put the details of my alternate me, and ill get in. Well, these days its mostly automated by the last pass, but before LP it could be a slight pain.

However these days I’ve lost the will to be private, its almost impossible, well it is impossible to be private and lead what is a normal life. Easier to not let it bother you no more. As whatever details I don’t give, I know a friend, family or college has already leaked that info not knowingly.

[Richard]

I have do that with throw away email addresses, fake birthdays and so on. When it is something vital I stick to the rules, but with optional stuff I slide into ‘why bother mode‘ and reject the process. I feel it is simpler to ignore the option of signing up if the rewards are not worth the effort of maintaining an alias. I guess one method would be to use a dead relative as the basis for a made up ID. That would be easier to remember and you can then keep a copy of the spoofed details.  Of course it would not stand up to cross checking if the system operator wanted to be that diligent.

[The Duke]

Your right, if some really want to know who is behind accounts you will be found out. You need to find a more secure way to go about tour business. This is for more not wanting to give out dob address phone numbers to app makers that are small, some are bedroom coders, that have no oversite.

Also for the site, i have got a longterm interest in and for sites i just don’t understand what they would need that info for.

I’d classify it as more spam management than privacy for me. But for young ones, i think they can’t be too young to start them being precautious. I don’t tell her about grooming, nonces, or stuff like that. But she understands target marketing and keeping yourself safe from internet robbers.

What i do find amazing about the net an is how young kids are that play online games. My 9year old plays a game called Roadblocks, its sort of Minecraft, you build levels and let another take part in the level, but is all online and social. My 9-year-old, has many online friends, so are relatives from back home, some are friends of them relatives she has never met, some friend from school, but as you get friends of friends of friends, you end up with Spanish, African etc.. Children all pre-teen play this game, typing to each other in chat. I often watch her chat, and its mostly actually cute, it had to look at my 16-year-old lad’s chats. Well, he speaks in earphones bit he too plays every day with a Spanish lad.

I don’t know what my point actually was, but i do find it interesting that kids don’t recognise today, or rather yesterdays leftover boundaries. A cool kid is just cool kids no matter their race, religion, location.

I’m of the age of probably the last racist generation, Alf Garnet was still on tv, and therms like nignog and Paki was accepted to ants uncles etc, and in the playground of my all white jr school we would tell these jokes.

Today with my kids especially the younger two, any type of pointing out someone’s colour i get shouted at. My best mates girlfriend is coloured, if i say “you know [name], you know [name] the coloured girl”, my 9-year-old will shout at me.

The point again not sure of, but stuff like this really interests me.

 

[Ed P]

Richard — I even ‘lie’ to my bank on their security questions. None of my answers are ‘real’, but as suggested by Steve they are enough memorable for me Accordingly my ‘real’ birthday is on News Year day 1995 (I wish!). I’d prefer to use the Millenium Day as that was a memorable social screwup due to the Millenium Bug non-event, but unfortunately that would make me too young in some cases.

[The Duke]

You really should lie on your bank logins if nowhere else. The “secret” questions security was dead the day social networking arrived.

Two minutes on Facebook and you can figure their mother maiden names, dob, pets, old pets names, favourite sports team the lot.

The system should have been retired years ago.

[Richard]

Steve and Ed, I agree that using a birthdate as a ‘secret answer’ to anything is stupid, perhaps insane. My original account was opened long before the internet and its issues came stomping along so the genuine the DOB was used. At the time one of the senior, (but going no further bank staff), bemoaned the passing of the quill pen it was that long ago!

We have avoided internet banking, partially because of the security issues and partially because we value paper records. I also harboured the concern that using two different DOB, the real DOB in the old location and a new ‘secure’ DOB elsewhere would likely cause a problem sooner or later. Certainly the original DOB is still used within their systems which do interface with such as HMRC, the Pension Fund, NI number and on a other forms and accounts. Any cross check could likely throw up ID worms with fangs and is something I would want to avoid. As an token for confirming the correct person’s account it is OK, as a ‘secret’ it is crap. I have used other secret answers, – that I have generally then forgotten. Who has a favourite colour for heavens sake, even mother’s name and the like are pretty insecure security tokens.

I have avoided ‘not so social networking’ mainly because I have no real use for it ,so why become involved? My wife has an account which she looks at once a week or so. Her sister phones up and demands to know why she has not responded to some post or another. It drives my wife potty.

 

[Bob Williams]

Anyone who remembers “MAD” magazine will recognise an alternate I have used: Alfred E. Neuman.

afredeneuman@hotmail.com    and alternative spellings/arrangements, etc. etc. etc.

Back to Topic: Due to the inactivity enforced by being at home caring for my Gert, I am not taking my long walks or walking shorter distances in soft sand at the beach. This last one is worth 3 normal long walks, because of the resistance involved in pushing through the deep, soft sand created on the beach I use by the Netherlands team ‘renourishing, our beaches, to provide better flood protection. Not taking my regular exercise is putting another inch on my waistline atm and I hate it.

The problem is exacerbated by my cooking: I have inherited a gene from my unsainted mother which makes me “add just a little bit more” of everything and anything. I have also found myself telling a certain person to “Get out of my kitchen!” and “!!!”””****”””!!! Leave me alone and I will clean it all my way!” I sincerely hope she gets well soon, then I can interefere with the way she does it all…

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

Richard by proxy your details and info are on FB via your sis in law. If not her, via someone, or some few that knows little about you. The like of FB can piece your dossier together.

You can be the most secure privacy oriented person, but your likely to have many tech illiterate friends that don’t understand they are giving their own data away nevermind that they are giving yours away on your behalf.

It’s not just FB either, lots of stupid apps ask to look over your contacts to see if you know anyone on that also uses their service. In the early days of smartphones, this “feature” was fully taken advantage of. Much cleaned up now. But none the less, unless you’re under 5, your details, names, phone house numbers, email address, anniversaries etc anything that people put in contact books, was taken many times over, and is probably available for purchase on many a darkweb site.

So all is lost for us all really ? something to ponder on though ???

[Bob Williams]

My Gert’s ‘cousin-in-law’ is the daftest, most insecure internet user I know. She has literally hundreds of contacts and cannot understand why none of us email her anymore. Unfortunately her OH died last year, and he was a great bloke, but when I tried to get him to change her email addy and passwords 3 years ago, she would not listen, “But everyone knows it! How will they contact me”   – “They are not going to contact you: your email has been hacked and they are getting loads of spam, they have all blocked your email address!”

It started 3 years ago I think. We received an email supposedly from them in Thailand, saying that they had been in an accident the day before the date of the email and begging for money via a bank transfer. As we had been down to see them in South Lincs just a couple of days previously, we knew it was wrong. I did a round robin email to all our contacts and several more had the same message. We all phoned and told her to change her email and passwords. 3 years later, she still refuses to change and we all refuse to email her. I could understand it if she was not so intelligent in other ways, but she is: ran a successful business on her own and organised her OH’s Classic Car business for him. I suppose it illustates the difference between intelligence and commonsense, which is really not as common as we believe.

But the one horrible incident that really angers me about these Black Hat Barstewards, is the one that keeps using the name and addy of my oldest mate, who died in Australia 3 Christmases ago. I could cheerfully kill the perpetrator of this evil krap. It still happens occasionally and I block it every time.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Author]

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