5 ms·

Three Hundred Walks

79 points by djhaskin987 5y ago

kawsper 5y ago
I use CityStrides to map my runs, it makes an automatic lifemap from my running app I use on my phone (runkeeper): https://citystrides.com/ https://citystrides.com/ Even without colours Neds maps have some nice esthetic to it.
- darrenf 5y ago
  Happy CityStrides user here too, since June when I really started exploring the area in which I live (moved here in Feb) in earnest. I'm not trying specifically to pick off every single street as the CityStrides community intends, but I love seeing my map fill out as I find new footpaths, and expand as I get more ambitious or intrepid.
robertbalent 5y ago
That’s a lot of walks! Is there an app that will generate walking routes, so you visit different streets each time? If I wanted to develop something like this, where would I start?
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Don’t know about automatic, but a friend of mine wrote an iOS route planning app that has proven quite popular: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/easyroute/id605127860 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/easyroute/id605127860 He's probably got the chops to do it, but no idea if he'd think it was worth it.
- troydavis 5y ago
  It’s not exactly what you’re after, but this might be a place to start: https://trailrouter.com/ https://trailrouter.com/ How it works: https://trailrouter.com/blog/how-trail-router-works/ https://trailrouter.com/blog/how-trail-router-works/ You provide a start and end point and desired distance. It generates one-way or looped walking/running-oriented routes. I’m not the creator, I just use it occasionally.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    Looks really cool with interesting options ! I love the "prefer green areas" option.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I’m boring. I walk the same 2.18 miles every morning. Been doing it for years. Never thought of logging it.
- chubot 5y ago
  I also lean that way -- I biked the same 2 to 5 routes for about a decade. I choose the route mostly based on length and the number of hills. I find the familiarity lets me "zone out" and get some real thinking done!
cehrlich 5y ago
Is there any program/app that could automate this, not just for runs but constantly? It's all being tracked anyway, so I might as well at least get a map of which streets I've walked out of it.
- anotheryou 5y ago
  cobbled together to avoid any cloud: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28705136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28705136 otherwise dedicated apps for it exist or you use google location history and some online plotting tool.
lukebuehler 5y ago
I used to live very close to where all the walks start. I would say it’s one of the best places to start exploring Boston. That is, along the Emerald Necklace.
anotheryou 5y ago
Did the same, no cloud, plotting on top of open street maps, automated logging. Excerpt from the result (don't want to disclose where exactly I live): https://i.imgur.com/FPyRAkA.png https://i.imgur.com/FPyRAkA.png My setup for it: - andoid app tasker (checking if I loose wifi, in that case start GPSlogger) - android app GPSlogger does the logging, set to relatively coarse in hopes to save battery) - and visualize on my computer with this python script http://sethoscope.net/heatmap/ (with a custom gradient that has no transparency. I want to see where I've been just once too. You can also render it on android with GPX Viewer but loading takes a long time once you got a bunch of tracks. It's tough on your phones battery though. I think I pushed my aging one over the edge with it.
jermaustin1 5y ago
I'm a big fan of walking. I had to quit running because of my knees, so walking and hiking became my new exercise, when I lived in NYC, I would average 100 miles per week, when I moved up state, a lot less, but still 50-60 miles per week, and then I moved to back to Texas last week and now I feel like it will be closer to 20 miles a week if that. I live on a major road, there aren't many places to walk around me, so might end up in the Apartment gym on a treadmill staring at the wall for my morning, lunch, and dinner walks.
- a_conservative 5y ago
  This article and your comment are inspiring me to walk more. I do walk some, maybe 10 miles a week or so. I almost always feel better mentally and physically when I walk. It's such an ancient activity for humans. It's interesting to look at the Bible and see how often it records people walking, or to think about how much hunter-gatherers walked. Humans have been walking for many thousands of years. Walking also seems integral to the high heat dissipation and endurance that humans have compared to other animals. We can walk for insane distances. A cheetah might be able to out sprint us, but can it cover more distance at a slow and steady pace? I doubt it.
  - jermaustin1 5y ago
    I have a few "transcendental" books about walking. They are great, but it is basically that second paragraph. It is an ancient activity that basically transcends time, humans have been doing it since before humans. It is the "original activity".
  - twiddling 5y ago
    There are also good studies of the impact of walking on cognition.
  - genewitch 5y ago
    Re: cheetahs, I thought the consensus was that they can sprint long enough to wind a slower animal in a pack, but a human can track basically forever, so it doesn't matter how fast we go - we can sweat to shed heat from aerobic exertion, and so on. It's posited as the reason humans "took off" the unique physiology of infants and not being able to walk due to our cranial size at birth - because longer gestation to facilitate walking ability means our heads would not fit for natural childbirth - means that cunning and determination are what matters. To anthropomorphize a bit.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bognition 5y ago
Its interesting to see that Ned never walked through the esplanade. He's walked right up to the edge and always turns away. It's not that much further than some of his other walks. Overall it looks like he's avoiding the back bay area entirely. This is interesting b/c the esplanade is a pedestrian park with some beautiful water areas and bridges, its prime walking area.
- nedbat 5y ago
  I did walk on the Esplanade, depending on where along Storrow Drive you consider it to start. My walks are getting longer (6.5 miles each), which will let me get to more places, including further down the Esplanade.
  - nedbat 5y ago
    Here's the detail of Back Bay (including this morning's 302nd walk which took me to the corner of Beacon and Arlington): https://imgur.com/a/FqQmFNf https://imgur.com/a/FqQmFNf
iJohnDoe 5y ago
Very cool. Great inspiration to start walking more.

79 points by djhaskin987 5y ago

I use CityStrides to map my runs, it makes an automatic lifemap from my running app I use on my phone (runkeeper): https://citystrides.com/ https://citystrides.com/ Even without colours Neds maps have some nice esthetic to it.

darrenf 5y ago
Happy CityStrides user here too, since June when I really started exploring the area in which I live (moved here in Feb) in earnest. I'm not trying specifically to pick off every single street as the CityStrides community intends, but I love seeing my map fill out as I find new footpaths, and expand as I get more ambitious or intrepid.

robertbalent 5y ago

That’s a lot of walks! Is there an app that will generate walking routes, so you visit different streets each time? If I wanted to develop something like this, where would I start?

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Don’t know about automatic, but a friend of mine wrote an iOS route planning app that has proven quite popular: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/easyroute/id605127860 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/easyroute/id605127860 He's probably got the chops to do it, but no idea if he'd think it was worth it.
troydavis 5y ago
It’s not exactly what you’re after, but this might be a place to start: https://trailrouter.com/ https://trailrouter.com/ How it works: https://trailrouter.com/blog/how-trail-router-works/ https://trailrouter.com/blog/how-trail-router-works/ You provide a start and end point and desired distance. It generates one-way or looped walking/running-oriented routes. I’m not the creator, I just use it occasionally.
- pjerem 5y ago
  Looks really cool with interesting options ! I love the "prefer green areas" option.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

I’m boring. I walk the same 2.18 miles every morning. Been doing it for years. Never thought of logging it.

chubot 5y ago
I also lean that way -- I biked the same 2 to 5 routes for about a decade. I choose the route mostly based on length and the number of hills. I find the familiarity lets me "zone out" and get some real thinking done!

cehrlich 5y ago

Is there any program/app that could automate this, not just for runs but constantly? It's all being tracked anyway, so I might as well at least get a map of which streets I've walked out of it.

anotheryou 5y ago
cobbled together to avoid any cloud: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28705136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28705136 otherwise dedicated apps for it exist or you use google location history and some online plotting tool.

lukebuehler 5y ago

I used to live very close to where all the walks start. I would say it’s one of the best places to start exploring Boston. That is, along the Emerald Necklace.

anotheryou 5y ago

Did the same, no cloud, plotting on top of open street maps, automated logging. Excerpt from the result (don't want to disclose where exactly I live): https://i.imgur.com/FPyRAkA.png https://i.imgur.com/FPyRAkA.png My setup for it: - andoid app tasker (checking if I loose wifi, in that case start GPSlogger) - android app GPSlogger does the logging, set to relatively coarse in hopes to save battery) - and visualize on my computer with this python script http://sethoscope.net/heatmap/ (with a custom gradient that has no transparency. I want to see where I've been just once too. You can also render it on android with GPX Viewer but loading takes a long time once you got a bunch of tracks. It's tough on your phones battery though. I think I pushed my aging one over the edge with it.

jermaustin1 5y ago

I'm a big fan of walking. I had to quit running because of my knees, so walking and hiking became my new exercise, when I lived in NYC, I would average 100 miles per week, when I moved up state, a lot less, but still 50-60 miles per week, and then I moved to back to Texas last week and now I feel like it will be closer to 20 miles a week if that. I live on a major road, there aren't many places to walk around me, so might end up in the Apartment gym on a treadmill staring at the wall for my morning, lunch, and dinner walks.

a_conservative 5y ago
This article and your comment are inspiring me to walk more. I do walk some, maybe 10 miles a week or so. I almost always feel better mentally and physically when I walk. It's such an ancient activity for humans. It's interesting to look at the Bible and see how often it records people walking, or to think about how much hunter-gatherers walked. Humans have been walking for many thousands of years. Walking also seems integral to the high heat dissipation and endurance that humans have compared to other animals. We can walk for insane distances. A cheetah might be able to out sprint us, but can it cover more distance at a slow and steady pace? I doubt it.
- jermaustin1 5y ago
  I have a few "transcendental" books about walking. They are great, but it is basically that second paragraph. It is an ancient activity that basically transcends time, humans have been doing it since before humans. It is the "original activity".
- twiddling 5y ago
  There are also good studies of the impact of walking on cognition.
- genewitch 5y ago
  Re: cheetahs, I thought the consensus was that they can sprint long enough to wind a slower animal in a pack, but a human can track basically forever, so it doesn't matter how fast we go - we can sweat to shed heat from aerobic exertion, and so on. It's posited as the reason humans "took off" the unique physiology of infants and not being able to walk due to our cranial size at birth - because longer gestation to facilitate walking ability means our heads would not fit for natural childbirth - means that cunning and determination are what matters. To anthropomorphize a bit.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bognition 5y ago

Its interesting to see that Ned never walked through the esplanade. He's walked right up to the edge and always turns away. It's not that much further than some of his other walks. Overall it looks like he's avoiding the back bay area entirely. This is interesting b/c the esplanade is a pedestrian park with some beautiful water areas and bridges, its prime walking area.

nedbat 5y ago
I did walk on the Esplanade, depending on where along Storrow Drive you consider it to start. My walks are getting longer (6.5 miles each), which will let me get to more places, including further down the Esplanade.
- nedbat 5y ago
  Here's the detail of Back Bay (including this morning's 302nd walk which took me to the corner of Beacon and Arlington): https://imgur.com/a/FqQmFNf https://imgur.com/a/FqQmFNf

iJohnDoe 5y ago

Very cool. Great inspiration to start walking more.