Social Technology
“Alas! How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise.” Louis Cyphre, Angel Heart
20th Jan – Days to go on 100 days dry: 82. Days until the Dartmoor Way: 115
Two new bits of kit to talk about. I have subscribed to an American app called ‘Cardiogram’ which does exactly what you would expect an app called that to do. It takes the data from my smart watch and plugs it into an algorithm that, (and I am quoting here,) “uses the data to analyse your similarity to users who have self diagnosed for chronic conditions. These signals are not medically comprehensive and should not be a substitute for clinical exams or your doctors recommendations. “
So far, so unreliable. ‘Self diagnose’? Is that a bit like ‘I’ve done my own research’? It sounds dangerously close to ‘self-medicate’.
It does go on to say “risk levels are generated by an AI algorithm, not a human. All data is used to anonymously generate similarity scores.”
Whatever, you had me at AI. Not that it is AI, it is a neat bit of code, not artificial intelligence, but that’s a debate for another time. It does look at my resting heart rate, heart rate whilst sleeping, activity, exercise time and workout heartrates, so, I when it told me that I had a ‘Health Score Report’ waiting for me, I took notice. I wont go into the frightening detail of the report, but it did say that my heart score was ‘fair’, and made some suggestions.
The good news is that the suggestions that it made were completely in line with the activities that I am currently committed to. More exercise, reduced caffeine, reduced alcohol, more potassium (bananas are your friend) and better sleep.
They key element here, and something that I appreciated was a little note that said, ‘Perfect isn’t the goal, progress is’. I like that.
The second piece of kit is a set of smart scales. Linked to my phone they have a dizzying list of some 13 stats that they feed into my Google Fit app. So, really, if change comes through measurement, I am set. I have to weigh myself, because I genuinely want to measure the progress. It is a big step for me, I am not looking forward to it.
Within the team we have talked about our various goals and expectations for 2022. I’ve never really gone in for this before, not a huge fan of New Year Resolutions. I’ve always believed that if you want to do something and you have the means to achieve it, you needn’t wait until the 1st January. (I say I’ve always believed that, but I’ve already said that one of my stock in trade excuses was that there was no point starting any sort of exercise before Christmas, because, well, Christmas. But in this instance I’m referring to… you know… ‘not exercise things’, things more like read a new book, or start a new hobby. Look, I’m going to need you to get waaaaay off of my back on this one.)
We’ve landed on a couple of things that we can do, ‘pound for pound’ is one suggestion, for every pound lost, put a pound in the company charity. The other is a pound per 10,000 steps. I am going for the first one.
And to wrap this up, the first of the social events I mentioned in a previous post is tonight, so the phrase, ‘I’m fine with a lime and soda, thanks’ gets it’s first road test later. It will be fine.
“Hard to like a man who doesn’t drink, but not impossible.” Randall Bragg, Appaloosa
