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New Gamepad Designed To Build Muscles?
Robmonster writes "The BBC are reporting a story about a product designed to address both exercise and videogaming in one fell swoop. According to the piece: 'A new type of gamepad from a US fitness equipment company aims to turn the couch potato gamer stereotype on its head. The Kilowatt controller by Powergrid Fitness is designed to build up muscle while playing a PlayStation 2, Xbox or PC game." The article explains: "In a racing game like Gran Turismo, the harder you push on the joystick, the faster a car goes, while pulling back slows down the vehicle."
As Butt Head once put it so well, "If I wanted to read, I'd go to school."
And if I wanted to exercise, I'd go outdoors.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Nice FUD. The argument is over whether it is possible to be healthy and still eat foods high in sugar or fat. The US position is that diet is dependent on lifestyle and thus occasional splurging is fine for a healthy person if they exercise to burn it off. This is perfectly rational.
The WHO basically ignored factoring in lifestyle, saying instead that certain diets were optimal for everyone. The WHO isn't wrong, they are just being overly stringent with their guidlines. The US prefers to emphasize that a healthy lifestyle can also be an enjoyable lifestyle.
I don't see anything wrong with that. Calories are Calories, the only difference is quantity.
Never confuse volume with power.
[whispering] Tommy, I wouldn't mess with him ... he plays video games!
It's way older than that . . . the NES Power Pad showed up in the 80s. It may have encouraged a bit of exercise at first, but kids quickly discovered that if you pushed the pads with your fingers instead of your feet, you could easily make the character run at instant-heart-attack speeds.
Some friends of mine and I took turns trying this device out at CES running Gran Turismo. It looked like all games should work on it, because it has a full complement of PS controls and buttons on it, including dual shoulder buttons. The consensus among the group after using it for a few minutes each? BLECH! I found it unintuitive as to how to move the device to control the car in a specific direction. It sort of made sense, but required hitting one of the gamepad buttons to put the car into reverse or to perform any of the other actions that games require during play. So, that meants that during your "strenuous" workout driving the car around, you would have to jump out of the workout abruptly to get the car back onto the road if you got turned around, then start back up again. I suppose if a game were built specifically for the device, then a continuous workout could be achieved, otherwise I thought it required too much switching between working out and playing the game. Having used this thing and DDR dance pads I can say with certainty that DDR integrates working out with fun gameplay FAR better than this device. If I may quote the horse from classic Ren and Stimpy, "No sir, I don't like it!"
...called 'Gravity Warrior.' Instead of a joystick, it uses a metallic bar as the gaming device. You load a series of 'mass regulators' onto each end of the game controller. It creates a very dramatic simulation of gravity that is much more realistic than some force feedback joystick. I've played Gravity Warrior until my arms could no longer move! Its most safely played with two players. The post-game ritual includes a series of high-fives and mutual butt slapping irregardless of who actually won the game as show of good sportsmanship. Gravity Warrior gamers greet each other with the secret code words 'whatcha bench?' in sign of community brotherhood.
A very small minority of people that are obese actually have medical problems that caused them to gain weight. Some do have problems which make it very difficult to stay slim, but there are certain laws of the universe that govern the conservation of mass which imply that if they eat less, they weigh less.
Most people will just finish the portions they are served.
Stop being an apologist for all those poor fat people that have everything stacked against them. If they are 5'3" and 270lbs from eating at McDonald's every day, it's not the fault of McDonald's, it's the fault of the person that didn't figure it out when they were 200lbs, then 210, 230, 250, etc...
Hell, I'm overweight because I sit on my ass all day and eat too much. I finish all my fries even after I'm no longer hungry.
I read a study once that fat people don't remember what they've eaten as well as thin people.
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