8 ms·

Your heart rate at gunpoint

187 points by sebg 11y ago

rdl 11y ago
I'm curious if anyone's done real studies on heartrate and other biosensors for trained vs. untrained people, and people who could do something vs. not. I've certainly felt vastly more calm (whether or not I actually did have a lower heart rate) when I had something to do.
- eob 11y ago
  I was mugged by a gang in Rio and, for a little over a minute, had a knife shoved against the front of my neck and a gun into my back. For me the experience was so bizarrely, intensely focused. The world didn't exist outside gazing into the eyes of the guy holding the knife. We just kept repeating back and forth to each other "não problemas, não problemas" until they left. I came away wondering if training would have allowed me to think _at all_. It sounds like such a low bar, but I seriously don't think a single thought went through my head the entire time. It was pure experience.
  - coderdude 11y ago
    You probably did the right thing. You're not Duke Nukem.
  - rdl 11y ago
    For me it was always things I had zero control over (indirect fire, usually at night, usually single rounds, although terrifyingly close and walking-onto-me a couple times), which scared me when I thought it was effective and totally didn't bother me when I thought it was ineffective. Except a few other times, where my remembered terror was highest in the incidents where I'd had no real response or control, and really just remember the action in cases where I did have some level of responsibility/control. But that might be a failure of memory.
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    Training is mostly about making things automatic. And not getting into bad situations in the first place. Avoidance is the best defence.
bobbles 11y ago
I'd actually like to know what the process was like after the assault. If you unlocked your phone and 'other accounts' what'd you have to go through to sort it out? Presumably that included a bank acc app on your phone, can you get that cash back, etc?
- gambiting 11y ago
  I've only had bank apps in the UK(Barclays, Lloyds and Santander) but the app on the phone only allows you to send money to known recipients, to send money to a new account you have to log in from a normal browser and use your RSA-signer(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Barclays_Pinsentry_5920.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Barclays...) to authenticate it, and no one I knows keeps theirs on them. So even if I was forced to open my bank app the worst thing they could do is see my account balance and send some money to my friends or my landlord.
ghshephard 11y ago
" They instructed me to unlock my phone and other personal accounts. " - That would suck. As one who has also been robbed at gunpoint (Redwood City, CA), I remember clearly thinking - "Thankfully, all you're getting is a locked phone." With touch ID, my password is a 24 character ridiculous combination of special characters, numbers, and letters (only typed on power up) - so If I ever get mugged again (highly unlikely now that I'm living in Singapore) - at the very least, they'll get the iPhone unlocked with my touch ID, and if they ask me to enter my password - zero chance of them memorizing it without taking a lot of detailed notes - which, honestly, muggers usually aren't into.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  > instructed me to unlock my phone and other personal accounts. Given that use this tactic will probably increase over time, phones and other portable computers should really support duress passwords. The device should look like it unlocked properly, but really put everything in a type of read-only mode where writes and certain network transactions return success but don't actually do anything. Obviously, if network access (any type) is available, some sort of silent alarm can be raised at the same time.
  - tempestn 11y ago
    I was thinking the same thing, but it would be very tricky to do right. If there's any tip-off, it could literally get someone killed. Plus, what if they just have you open your phone's browser to log into online banking? Not much the OS can do about that without making it obvious that the browser is locked down. You could claim to not use online banking, but would you be willing to risk your life? Or what about the email app? Making it read-only doesn't help much; giving a criminal read-only access to all your email would be a disaster. But again, it would be obvious something was up if the account was empty. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but it would be very difficult to do in a way that wouldn't be noticed, especially once it became common knowledge.
    - Bluestrike2 11y ago
googletron 11y ago
Very cool! Things like this is what we love at http://gyrosco.pe http://gyrosco.pe
- prebrov 11y ago
  That came out wrong.
- Archio 11y ago
  Is it really?
- Bluestrike2 11y ago
  Ah, yes. Every wearables-related startup loves unique sensor data. Muggings are apparently very unique and interesting. I bet murders would count, too. You can get a big spike and then a flat line.
  - imtringued 11y ago
    Hey, it's free data! Nobody can say no to free data! Or do you hate free data?!?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
randycupertino 11y ago
Glad to hear you were okay.
wimagguc 11y ago
What we can't see in the data is another period of slightly elevated heart rate, when you run away after the baddies are gone. Seriously: never handle robbery as a simple transaction -- many times the robbers do realise in their aftermath that they should in fact have killed you, and you don't want to be still around then. (I've tried to link a good post here, but it's pretty hard to Google this subject. I'm not an expert, so handle my comment with caution.)
- donkeyd 11y ago
  I think many realize that murder is a lot more serious than armed robbery. Not just the punishment, but also the work being done to find the perpetrators.
  - ktRolster 11y ago
    Not to mention a lot of people, even criminals, really don't want to kill someone. That's not something you do lightly.
- gnodar 11y ago
  > many times the robbers do realise in their aftermath that they should in fact have killed you Well I agree that you should get to as safe a location as possible immediately following a robbery, however I really would like to see the post you had in mind. Maybe I have a different percentage in mind when I read the word "many", but I'm highly skeptical that this is a common occurrence amongst robbers. Granted they tend not to be the best critical thinkers, but why would they risk adding homicide to the list of charges should they be caught?
  - Someone 11y ago
    Also, if they decided they want to, why would they only realize in their aftermath? If the late killing really often happens, which I (not based on any data or anecdata) doubt, I would think the more likely mechanism would be that they decide up front, hesitate at the moment of truth, then realize you could recognize them later, making them go to jail for a long time, and then do it anyways.
Etheryte 11y ago
Cool coverage, but the graph could be better. Cropping the bottom part of it makes it harder to put things into perspective relative to one another.
ryanmarsh 11y ago
Well, that's one way to cope with a traumatic experience...
source99 11y ago
This article seems fake to me. The story feels a bit made up and the end reads like a tag line: "If you want to find out why I had the wearables on me — check out emozia."
- thecatspaw 11y ago
  to be fair, most medium articles have some kind of plug like this at the end edit: what makes you think its fake?
  - source99 11y ago
    The heart rate numbers themselves don't seem to make sense to me. 164 at the peak seems low for the drama/gravity of the situation. I work for a very large wearable company so I have some knowledge of how heart rate sensors work How did he know the timing of the peak? If he had a log it most likely simply had a time stamp of seconds. How does he correlate a random time stamp to the specific moment days after the event. Same comment about his heart rate hitting 130 when he shoves the gun into his ribs. In general the story just feels fake. Edit: do thieves really ask you to unlock your phone and banking apps? What app lets you send money that can't easily be traced?
    - sndean 11y ago
      The timing of those events relative to his heart rates does seem like, at least, embellishment. > 164 at the peak seems low for the drama/gravity of the situation. Would you think it's more reasonable to reach ~190-200? (Assuming the writer of the Medium story is ~25.) My only perspective comes from running with my fitbit, where it's pretty easy to reach 170.
      - emerongi 11y ago
        I'd say 200 is reasonable. 140-160 is jogging/running, which is not that fast. When you're about to die and fight-or-flight reactions kick in (i.e. your whole entire body shifts to "OH SHIT" mode), I'd expect your HR to be through the roof.
cup 11y ago
Strange they went through the trouble of armed robbery but didn't bother checking for watches or jewellery..
- cup 11y ago
  Actually, now that I've noticed the article concludes with a link to emozia im suspicious of the whole incident.
brandonb 11y ago
I'm glad you're ok! Heart rate data is such a window into our emotional lives. There was the guy who recorded a breakup on his Fitbit: http://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemlee/a-mans-fitbit-captured-the-exact-moment-he-felt-heartbreak http://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemlee/a-mans-fitbit-captured... Even more traumatic, there's what Game of Thrones does to your heart rate: https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/13/what-game-of-thrones-does-to-your-heart-rate/ https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/13/what-game-of-thrones... And there are potentially life-saving applications of heart rate data, like the collaboration we're building with UCSF cardiology to detect abnormal heart rhythms: https://mRhythmStudy.org https://mRhythmStudy.org Even with "just" 11 million Apple Watches sold, that's about 2,400,000,000,000 heart rate measurements per year. I think that will lead to all sorts of downstream applications.
- walkingolof 11y ago
  Probably enormous for individuals and society, by detecting abnormal heart rate conditions we can medicate people to prevent a stroke, which is very very serious condition which requires allot of care. But you do not need a watch, you can detect this by yourself with simple means, today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_KZlOSOOTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_KZlOSOOTg I encourage you to see the above video, it may help you or someone you know.
  - Matt3o12_ 11y ago
    What is great about these watches ist that you don't need to worry about that and it just measures it for you. Even in situations where you can't do it yourself, or simply have other things on your mind. Could you imagine someone measuring their pulse while being robbed or watching game of thrones? A wearable measures your puls in situations where you can't do it and that is the helpful part. Your heart read in controlled environments or after physical activities is Rather uninteresting because it has already been explored in depth.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  My cardiac system is very sensitive to emotional loss. Grandmothers = tachycardia. Last break up nearly killed me. I wish I had a fitbit so my doctors wouldn't look at me like a sad puppy who cannot find a new woman and is making things up.
kzhahou 11y ago
Post the data!
rplnt 11y ago
This is out of another world for me. Couldn't imagine living in South America or whatever third world country this happens in. Oh, wait...
- lucb1e 11y ago
  I suppose you mean because there it's easy or even legal to have a gun, like in the USA?
  - rplnt 11y ago
    I don't think number of muggings in general has much to do with how easy is to obtain a gun. The root causes are probably unrelated. But how easy is to obtain a gun definitely correlates with relative increase in muggings with a gun. That being said, I don't think (il)legality would have a direct impact on how easy is to obtain a gun in certain parts of the world (say Brasil).
    - wtbob 11y ago
      > The root causes are probably unrelated. But how easy is to obtain a gun definitely correlates with relative increase in muggings with a gun. That's true. I also think that it's likely that a gun is a better defence against mugging than is, say, a knife or one's fists. A small woman can shoot a large attacker, when her fists aren't going to be much use and a knife wound may not stop him until after he's already killed her. Having a gun doesn't mean that one will be able to draw and use it, of course; indeed, one may just end up giving one's attackers another weapon. But I think the odds are better armed than unarmed.
- morgante 11y ago
  There's no country on earth without any muggings. It's not exactly common in the US though.
  - rplnt 11y ago
    There's a difference between mugging with a knife and with a pistol. Not because knife isn't deadly (it very much is), but because it's much harder (physically, psychologically and even time-wise) for the perpetrator to deliver the threat in case anything happens.
T2000 11y ago
This puts my fear of public speaking into perspective. My heart rate during a department meeting where I had to speak for 5 minutes: http://imgur.com/x25MDJf http://imgur.com/x25MDJf (familiar topic, familiar crowd)
- akp__ 11y ago
  Ugh, just looking at that graph makes me feel anxious.
peterwwillis 11y ago
Idea for a dystopian tech novel: A guy who is about to surprise his girlfriend with a wedding proposal gets arrested because the police, with its newfound data-sink into Apple's tech stack and wearables, made legal by enhanced fear over domestic terrorism combined with a lack of public interest in privacy rights, had an illegal-behavior-trigger set to a similar heart rate spike and circumstantial behavior pattern. Since he kept his wedding plans to himself, he has no way to prove his story, and he's imprisoned along with actual potential terrorists who the feds have entrapped into collecting bomb materials or spying on high value targets. The girlfriend gets hit in an actual mass shooting soon after (since they've incrementally risen in frequency to once every few weeks), and the boyfriend is implicated and later convicted with a death sentence. Twenty years later, on the eve of his execution, a new law is passed that exonerates anyone who was convicted based on circumstantial statistical correlations - but a last minute push to the prison's e-mail and news alert apps introduces a bug that delays updates for 24 hours. Now if only I were a writer...
- hga 11y ago
  Gordon Dickson is the first as far as I know to write this, in 1965: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue
adarsh_thampy 11y ago
I find the heart rate peak of 164 surprising for a near-death experience. I am 27 and while working out, I typically hit 170-180 at it's peak. American heart association website says 200 beats per minute is the average maximum for 20 -30 year old people. I'd assume the heart rate to reach that maximum during such intense situations. I'm a marketer. So yes, the plug at the end makes me really suspicious about the authenticity of the story.
throwaway76931 11y ago
I couldn't identify with this story at all. If this happened to me - and it has in the past - I wouldn't think about any of that stuff. I'd just want them to finish me off. I'm thirty years old, and I feel like if I was shot dead for some pointless reason like my ancient Moto G phone and whatever pittance of money I had on me, I'd not feel bad about it at all. I'm not currently working because I've had some health problems over the past year, getting back into work is an impossible maze of we'll-call-you-backs, send-us-your-CV-and-we'll-get-back-to-yous, we'll-keep-you-on-files, jobs with hundreds of applications, waiting for emails and calls that never come. I feel like I'm a person too far in this part of the world, like there are too many people for the resources available and all I'm doing is taking up space, a sack of meat using up resources and contributing nothing. My dreams are modest - a minimum wage job and a small, private place to live - and yet they seem unattainable. Getting myself killed wouldn't bring any regrets for me, I wouldn't regret that I never got to live out my dreams, because I don't really have any. Killing me would free up some space for someone more worthwhile to take my space in the world. I'm not actually anything - I don't have a role in the world, I'm just trying to survive and make enough money to live, and I don't even know why I want to stay alive. I honestly wish this would happen to me.
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  :( You talk of feeling valueless within the context of industrialised society. There is a rather huge amount of world beyond the horizon, and many different ways of living. As someone who has come face to face with their own mortality in a few ways (some slow and creeping, some "oh shit I'm about to die"), and has also shared a similar perspective to yours in the past - there's something about being faced with the actual prospect of imminent death beyond your control that adjusts your perspective more than you can fathom. Either way - chin up, there's a lot more life to work and being "a functioning member of the economy". If you feel you're at rock bottom, then remember it can only get better.
  - throwaway76931 11y ago
    I nearly died last year as a result of the health problems I was facing, and my immediate reaction was relief at the thought that I wouldn't have to face another day in the dead-end Linux sysadmin job I was doing at the time. My aim, long-term, was always to lead a simple and frugal life rather than to try and amass as much wealth as possible. A small home, a place to grow food, a modest income from various bits-and-bobs of work. But to do that, you need some money to start you out and that's where I'm failing. I'm out of the running for any professional jobs because of the break in employment and the competition for entry-level jobs is such that any slight gap in your employment history means you just get a "we'll call you back". Having had health issues and a gap in employment history seems to mean I am no longer a useful or valid member of society. I wish I had died last year, so I wouldn't be wasting everyone's time and space.
hauschi 11y ago
Crazy world. There is also a thread with a person breaking up with his GF which provides tons of data. The curve is kind of the same!
chrisdotcode 11y ago
I know Vuka (the article's author) in real life. I'll send him a FB message and see if he would be willing to answer some of the burning questions asked here. Will update if I hear back.
- chrisdotcode 11y ago
  He has replied here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11431777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11431777

187 points by sebg 11y ago

rdl 11y ago

I'm curious if anyone's done real studies on heartrate and other biosensors for trained vs. untrained people, and people who could do something vs. not. I've certainly felt vastly more calm (whether or not I actually did have a lower heart rate) when I had something to do.

eob 11y ago
I was mugged by a gang in Rio and, for a little over a minute, had a knife shoved against the front of my neck and a gun into my back. For me the experience was so bizarrely, intensely focused. The world didn't exist outside gazing into the eyes of the guy holding the knife. We just kept repeating back and forth to each other "não problemas, não problemas" until they left. I came away wondering if training would have allowed me to think _at all_. It sounds like such a low bar, but I seriously don't think a single thought went through my head the entire time. It was pure experience.
- coderdude 11y ago
  You probably did the right thing. You're not Duke Nukem.
- rdl 11y ago
  For me it was always things I had zero control over (indirect fire, usually at night, usually single rounds, although terrifyingly close and walking-onto-me a couple times), which scared me when I thought it was effective and totally didn't bother me when I thought it was ineffective. Except a few other times, where my remembered terror was highest in the incidents where I'd had no real response or control, and really just remember the action in cases where I did have some level of responsibility/control. But that might be a failure of memory.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  Training is mostly about making things automatic. And not getting into bad situations in the first place. Avoidance is the best defence.

bobbles 11y ago

I'd actually like to know what the process was like after the assault. If you unlocked your phone and 'other accounts' what'd you have to go through to sort it out? Presumably that included a bank acc app on your phone, can you get that cash back, etc?

gambiting 11y ago
I've only had bank apps in the UK(Barclays, Lloyds and Santander) but the app on the phone only allows you to send money to known recipients, to send money to a new account you have to log in from a normal browser and use your RSA-signer(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Barclays_Pinsentry_5920.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Barclays...) to authenticate it, and no one I knows keeps theirs on them. So even if I was forced to open my bank app the worst thing they could do is see my account balance and send some money to my friends or my landlord.

ghshephard 11y ago

" They instructed me to unlock my phone and other personal accounts. " - That would suck. As one who has also been robbed at gunpoint (Redwood City, CA), I remember clearly thinking - "Thankfully, all you're getting is a locked phone." With touch ID, my password is a 24 character ridiculous combination of special characters, numbers, and letters (only typed on power up) - so If I ever get mugged again (highly unlikely now that I'm living in Singapore) - at the very least, they'll get the iPhone unlocked with my touch ID, and if they ask me to enter my password - zero chance of them memorizing it without taking a lot of detailed notes - which, honestly, muggers usually aren't into.

pdkl95 11y ago
> instructed me to unlock my phone and other personal accounts. Given that use this tactic will probably increase over time, phones and other portable computers should really support duress passwords. The device should look like it unlocked properly, but really put everything in a type of read-only mode where writes and certain network transactions return success but don't actually do anything. Obviously, if network access (any type) is available, some sort of silent alarm can be raised at the same time.
- tempestn 11y ago
  I was thinking the same thing, but it would be very tricky to do right. If there's any tip-off, it could literally get someone killed. Plus, what if they just have you open your phone's browser to log into online banking? Not much the OS can do about that without making it obvious that the browser is locked down. You could claim to not use online banking, but would you be willing to risk your life? Or what about the email app? Making it read-only doesn't help much; giving a criminal read-only access to all your email would be a disaster. But again, it would be obvious something was up if the account was empty. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but it would be very difficult to do in a way that wouldn't be noticed, especially once it became common knowledge.
  - Bluestrike2 11y ago

googletron 11y ago

Very cool! Things like this is what we love at http://gyrosco.pe http://gyrosco.pe

prebrov 11y ago
That came out wrong.
Archio 11y ago
Is it really?
Bluestrike2 11y ago
Ah, yes. Every wearables-related startup loves unique sensor data. Muggings are apparently very unique and interesting. I bet murders would count, too. You can get a big spike and then a flat line.
- imtringued 11y ago
  Hey, it's free data! Nobody can say no to free data! Or do you hate free data?!?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

randycupertino 11y ago

Glad to hear you were okay.

wimagguc 11y ago

What we can't see in the data is another period of slightly elevated heart rate, when you run away after the baddies are gone. Seriously: never handle robbery as a simple transaction -- many times the robbers do realise in their aftermath that they should in fact have killed you, and you don't want to be still around then. (I've tried to link a good post here, but it's pretty hard to Google this subject. I'm not an expert, so handle my comment with caution.)

donkeyd 11y ago
I think many realize that murder is a lot more serious than armed robbery. Not just the punishment, but also the work being done to find the perpetrators.
- ktRolster 11y ago
  Not to mention a lot of people, even criminals, really don't want to kill someone. That's not something you do lightly.
gnodar 11y ago
> many times the robbers do realise in their aftermath that they should in fact have killed you Well I agree that you should get to as safe a location as possible immediately following a robbery, however I really would like to see the post you had in mind. Maybe I have a different percentage in mind when I read the word "many", but I'm highly skeptical that this is a common occurrence amongst robbers. Granted they tend not to be the best critical thinkers, but why would they risk adding homicide to the list of charges should they be caught?
- Someone 11y ago
  Also, if they decided they want to, why would they only realize in their aftermath? If the late killing really often happens, which I (not based on any data or anecdata) doubt, I would think the more likely mechanism would be that they decide up front, hesitate at the moment of truth, then realize you could recognize them later, making them go to jail for a long time, and then do it anyways.

Etheryte 11y ago

Cool coverage, but the graph could be better. Cropping the bottom part of it makes it harder to put things into perspective relative to one another.

ryanmarsh 11y ago

Well, that's one way to cope with a traumatic experience...

source99 11y ago

This article seems fake to me. The story feels a bit made up and the end reads like a tag line: "If you want to find out why I had the wearables on me — check out emozia."

thecatspaw 11y ago
to be fair, most medium articles have some kind of plug like this at the end edit: what makes you think its fake?
- source99 11y ago
  The heart rate numbers themselves don't seem to make sense to me. 164 at the peak seems low for the drama/gravity of the situation. I work for a very large wearable company so I have some knowledge of how heart rate sensors work How did he know the timing of the peak? If he had a log it most likely simply had a time stamp of seconds. How does he correlate a random time stamp to the specific moment days after the event. Same comment about his heart rate hitting 130 when he shoves the gun into his ribs. In general the story just feels fake. Edit: do thieves really ask you to unlock your phone and banking apps? What app lets you send money that can't easily be traced?
  - sndean 11y ago
    The timing of those events relative to his heart rates does seem like, at least, embellishment. > 164 at the peak seems low for the drama/gravity of the situation. Would you think it's more reasonable to reach ~190-200? (Assuming the writer of the Medium story is ~25.) My only perspective comes from running with my fitbit, where it's pretty easy to reach 170.
    - emerongi 11y ago
      I'd say 200 is reasonable. 140-160 is jogging/running, which is not that fast. When you're about to die and fight-or-flight reactions kick in (i.e. your whole entire body shifts to "OH SHIT" mode), I'd expect your HR to be through the roof.

cup 11y ago

Strange they went through the trouble of armed robbery but didn't bother checking for watches or jewellery..

cup 11y ago
Actually, now that I've noticed the article concludes with a link to emozia im suspicious of the whole incident.

brandonb 11y ago

I'm glad you're ok! Heart rate data is such a window into our emotional lives. There was the guy who recorded a breakup on his Fitbit: http://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemlee/a-mans-fitbit-captured-the-exact-moment-he-felt-heartbreak http://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemlee/a-mans-fitbit-captured... Even more traumatic, there's what Game of Thrones does to your heart rate: https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/13/what-game-of-thrones-does-to-your-heart-rate/ https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/13/what-game-of-thrones... And there are potentially life-saving applications of heart rate data, like the collaboration we're building with UCSF cardiology to detect abnormal heart rhythms: https://mRhythmStudy.org https://mRhythmStudy.org Even with "just" 11 million Apple Watches sold, that's about 2,400,000,000,000 heart rate measurements per year. I think that will lead to all sorts of downstream applications.

walkingolof 11y ago
Probably enormous for individuals and society, by detecting abnormal heart rate conditions we can medicate people to prevent a stroke, which is very very serious condition which requires allot of care. But you do not need a watch, you can detect this by yourself with simple means, today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_KZlOSOOTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_KZlOSOOTg I encourage you to see the above video, it may help you or someone you know.
- Matt3o12_ 11y ago
  What is great about these watches ist that you don't need to worry about that and it just measures it for you. Even in situations where you can't do it yourself, or simply have other things on your mind. Could you imagine someone measuring their pulse while being robbed or watching game of thrones? A wearable measures your puls in situations where you can't do it and that is the helpful part. Your heart read in controlled environments or after physical activities is Rather uninteresting because it has already been explored in depth.
agumonkey 11y ago
My cardiac system is very sensitive to emotional loss. Grandmothers = tachycardia. Last break up nearly killed me. I wish I had a fitbit so my doctors wouldn't look at me like a sad puppy who cannot find a new woman and is making things up.

kzhahou 11y ago

Post the data!

rplnt 11y ago

This is out of another world for me. Couldn't imagine living in South America or whatever third world country this happens in. Oh, wait...

lucb1e 11y ago
I suppose you mean because there it's easy or even legal to have a gun, like in the USA?
- rplnt 11y ago
  I don't think number of muggings in general has much to do with how easy is to obtain a gun. The root causes are probably unrelated. But how easy is to obtain a gun definitely correlates with relative increase in muggings with a gun. That being said, I don't think (il)legality would have a direct impact on how easy is to obtain a gun in certain parts of the world (say Brasil).
  - wtbob 11y ago
    > The root causes are probably unrelated. But how easy is to obtain a gun definitely correlates with relative increase in muggings with a gun. That's true. I also think that it's likely that a gun is a better defence against mugging than is, say, a knife or one's fists. A small woman can shoot a large attacker, when her fists aren't going to be much use and a knife wound may not stop him until after he's already killed her. Having a gun doesn't mean that one will be able to draw and use it, of course; indeed, one may just end up giving one's attackers another weapon. But I think the odds are better armed than unarmed.
morgante 11y ago
There's no country on earth without any muggings. It's not exactly common in the US though.
- rplnt 11y ago
  There's a difference between mugging with a knife and with a pistol. Not because knife isn't deadly (it very much is), but because it's much harder (physically, psychologically and even time-wise) for the perpetrator to deliver the threat in case anything happens.

T2000 11y ago

This puts my fear of public speaking into perspective. My heart rate during a department meeting where I had to speak for 5 minutes: http://imgur.com/x25MDJf http://imgur.com/x25MDJf (familiar topic, familiar crowd)

akp__ 11y ago
Ugh, just looking at that graph makes me feel anxious.

peterwwillis 11y ago

Idea for a dystopian tech novel: A guy who is about to surprise his girlfriend with a wedding proposal gets arrested because the police, with its newfound data-sink into Apple's tech stack and wearables, made legal by enhanced fear over domestic terrorism combined with a lack of public interest in privacy rights, had an illegal-behavior-trigger set to a similar heart rate spike and circumstantial behavior pattern. Since he kept his wedding plans to himself, he has no way to prove his story, and he's imprisoned along with actual potential terrorists who the feds have entrapped into collecting bomb materials or spying on high value targets. The girlfriend gets hit in an actual mass shooting soon after (since they've incrementally risen in frequency to once every few weeks), and the boyfriend is implicated and later convicted with a death sentence. Twenty years later, on the eve of his execution, a new law is passed that exonerates anyone who was convicted based on circumstantial statistical correlations - but a last minute push to the prison's e-mail and news alert apps introduces a bug that delays updates for 24 hours. Now if only I were a writer...

hga 11y ago
Gordon Dickson is the first as far as I know to write this, in 1965: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue

adarsh_thampy 11y ago

I find the heart rate peak of 164 surprising for a near-death experience. I am 27 and while working out, I typically hit 170-180 at it's peak. American heart association website says 200 beats per minute is the average maximum for 20 -30 year old people. I'd assume the heart rate to reach that maximum during such intense situations. I'm a marketer. So yes, the plug at the end makes me really suspicious about the authenticity of the story.

throwaway76931 11y ago

I couldn't identify with this story at all. If this happened to me - and it has in the past - I wouldn't think about any of that stuff. I'd just want them to finish me off. I'm thirty years old, and I feel like if I was shot dead for some pointless reason like my ancient Moto G phone and whatever pittance of money I had on me, I'd not feel bad about it at all. I'm not currently working because I've had some health problems over the past year, getting back into work is an impossible maze of we'll-call-you-backs, send-us-your-CV-and-we'll-get-back-to-yous, we'll-keep-you-on-files, jobs with hundreds of applications, waiting for emails and calls that never come. I feel like I'm a person too far in this part of the world, like there are too many people for the resources available and all I'm doing is taking up space, a sack of meat using up resources and contributing nothing. My dreams are modest - a minimum wage job and a small, private place to live - and yet they seem unattainable. Getting myself killed wouldn't bring any regrets for me, I wouldn't regret that I never got to live out my dreams, because I don't really have any. Killing me would free up some space for someone more worthwhile to take my space in the world. I'm not actually anything - I don't have a role in the world, I'm just trying to survive and make enough money to live, and I don't even know why I want to stay alive. I honestly wish this would happen to me.

madaxe_again 11y ago
:( You talk of feeling valueless within the context of industrialised society. There is a rather huge amount of world beyond the horizon, and many different ways of living. As someone who has come face to face with their own mortality in a few ways (some slow and creeping, some "oh shit I'm about to die"), and has also shared a similar perspective to yours in the past - there's something about being faced with the actual prospect of imminent death beyond your control that adjusts your perspective more than you can fathom. Either way - chin up, there's a lot more life to work and being "a functioning member of the economy". If you feel you're at rock bottom, then remember it can only get better.
- throwaway76931 11y ago
  I nearly died last year as a result of the health problems I was facing, and my immediate reaction was relief at the thought that I wouldn't have to face another day in the dead-end Linux sysadmin job I was doing at the time. My aim, long-term, was always to lead a simple and frugal life rather than to try and amass as much wealth as possible. A small home, a place to grow food, a modest income from various bits-and-bobs of work. But to do that, you need some money to start you out and that's where I'm failing. I'm out of the running for any professional jobs because of the break in employment and the competition for entry-level jobs is such that any slight gap in your employment history means you just get a "we'll call you back". Having had health issues and a gap in employment history seems to mean I am no longer a useful or valid member of society. I wish I had died last year, so I wouldn't be wasting everyone's time and space.

hauschi 11y ago

Crazy world. There is also a thread with a person breaking up with his GF which provides tons of data. The curve is kind of the same!

chrisdotcode 11y ago

I know Vuka (the article's author) in real life. I'll send him a FB message and see if he would be willing to answer some of the burning questions asked here. Will update if I hear back.

chrisdotcode 11y ago
He has replied here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11431777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11431777