4 ms·

The article says that he's now able to walk 6km without problems but doesn't seem to say what happens after that. Walking 6km is just his typical Sunday routine

The article says that he's now able to walk 6km without problems but doesn't seem to say what happens after that. Walking 6km is just his typical Sunday routine, so I assume he could walk further if he wanted to, but it's never made clear if that's true or if the batteries of his device typically die after a certain distance, or if the implant somehow becomes less effective after a large number of steps, or what. It's a strange emphases on a very specific number. I wouldn't say "I repaired my car's engine and it can now drive 20 miles" if what I meant was "I repaired my car's engine and it drives normally now"

interestica 3y ago
The thing that struck me was not mentioning the length of time he was walking for.
akoboldfrying 3y ago
>The article says that he's now able to walk 6km without problems but doesn't seem to say what happens after that. The device explodes. Seriously, "Can walk 6km" is an excellent way to concisely yet still quantitatively describe what the man can now do. (Imagine the response if it had instead merely said "He can go for long walks": "But how long is 'long'??!?")
michael_nielsen 3y ago
I imagine the journalist at some point said: "Just how far do you now walk", and he replied "Oh, I often go for a 6km walk on Sunday." It's a newspaper article, not a technical spec.
FFP999 3y ago
Maybe that's simply the longest distance he's tried, 6 km in one session is a solid walk.
dghughes 3y ago
To Europeans a 6km walk isn't much at all they'd walk 1km or 2km to a store but in the USA or Canada anything over 250m is a drive. So I'd say to people in the US and Canada 6km seems like a hike but to others it's just a very short walk.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  Walking 6 km takes about an hour if you are fast. So I don't think that qualifies as a very short walk. Also most europeans would rather drive that distance as well.
- nwienert 3y ago
  Wouldn’t be HN without a European superiority / American inferiority comment that barely makes sense contextually.
  - dghughes 3y ago
    I'm not European but I am American as in from the Americas not from the USA.
- defrost 3y ago
  For another point of context, to my father, an Australian born in 1935, 6 km | 3.7 miles is the distance he walks every morning after he gets up at 4 am or so.
  - atomlib 3y ago
    Tangent to this discussion, but has he ever tried Nordic walking?
    - defrost 3y ago
      Sounds a bit fancy for an Aussie farmboy, former shearer .. I looked it up and he more or less moves at that pace anyway - maybe due to being in the navy and having had to march (for a short stint, then five years in engine rooms) - but most likely because we've always walked a lot to get places and why waste the time going slow. He's still pretty active, he maintains sections of the Bibbulmun Track (1,000 km walking track here in the lower corner of the state) shovels the odd few tonnes of manure, splits wood by hand, etc.
- pushedx 3y ago
  Having grown up in a depressingly car-dependant suburb in the US, I moved to a walkable city specifically so that I could enjoy that aspect of my life. I reguarly walk more than 7 miles (11.3 km) per day. Although rare, there are walkable places in the US, and people who enjoy walking.
MattGaiser 3y ago
It speaks to what the implant has achieved. Going from barely walking in his own words to walking 6KM is a solid and easily relatable improvement (it is a news article). You might say that your car could now drive 20 miles if before it was known that it barely made it to the end of the road.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Good point, and I do think it was important context to have in the article. I think having the specific number of kilometers in the headline was what really threw me off.
ngcazz 3y ago
My father has stage 4 Parkinson's (same age as the patient from the article, diagnosed in 2015) and the odds of him being able to walk more than 50 meters without locking up are pretty hit-or-miss, so to me this distance sounds mind blowing
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

interestica 3y ago

The thing that struck me was not mentioning the length of time he was walking for.

akoboldfrying 3y ago

>The article says that he's now able to walk 6km without problems but doesn't seem to say what happens after that. The device explodes. Seriously, "Can walk 6km" is an excellent way to concisely yet still quantitatively describe what the man can now do. (Imagine the response if it had instead merely said "He can go for long walks": "But how long is 'long'??!?")

michael_nielsen 3y ago

I imagine the journalist at some point said: "Just how far do you now walk", and he replied "Oh, I often go for a 6km walk on Sunday." It's a newspaper article, not a technical spec.

FFP999 3y ago

Maybe that's simply the longest distance he's tried, 6 km in one session is a solid walk.

dghughes 3y ago

To Europeans a 6km walk isn't much at all they'd walk 1km or 2km to a store but in the USA or Canada anything over 250m is a drive. So I'd say to people in the US and Canada 6km seems like a hike but to others it's just a very short walk.

hutzlibu 3y ago
Walking 6 km takes about an hour if you are fast. So I don't think that qualifies as a very short walk. Also most europeans would rather drive that distance as well.
nwienert 3y ago
Wouldn’t be HN without a European superiority / American inferiority comment that barely makes sense contextually.
- dghughes 3y ago
  I'm not European but I am American as in from the Americas not from the USA.
defrost 3y ago
For another point of context, to my father, an Australian born in 1935, 6 km | 3.7 miles is the distance he walks every morning after he gets up at 4 am or so.
- atomlib 3y ago
  Tangent to this discussion, but has he ever tried Nordic walking?
  - defrost 3y ago
    Sounds a bit fancy for an Aussie farmboy, former shearer .. I looked it up and he more or less moves at that pace anyway - maybe due to being in the navy and having had to march (for a short stint, then five years in engine rooms) - but most likely because we've always walked a lot to get places and why waste the time going slow. He's still pretty active, he maintains sections of the Bibbulmun Track (1,000 km walking track here in the lower corner of the state) shovels the odd few tonnes of manure, splits wood by hand, etc.
pushedx 3y ago
Having grown up in a depressingly car-dependant suburb in the US, I moved to a walkable city specifically so that I could enjoy that aspect of my life. I reguarly walk more than 7 miles (11.3 km) per day. Although rare, there are walkable places in the US, and people who enjoy walking.

MattGaiser 3y ago

It speaks to what the implant has achieved. Going from barely walking in his own words to walking 6KM is a solid and easily relatable improvement (it is a news article). You might say that your car could now drive 20 miles if before it was known that it barely made it to the end of the road.

autoexec 3y ago
Good point, and I do think it was important context to have in the article. I think having the specific number of kilometers in the headline was what really threw me off.

ngcazz 3y ago

My father has stage 4 Parkinson's (same age as the patient from the article, diagnosed in 2015) and the odds of him being able to walk more than 50 meters without locking up are pretty hit-or-miss, so to me this distance sounds mind blowing

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]