The Skeptics Guide to the Universe Forum

Quote from: Desert Fox on September 25, 2023, 04:51:49 PM

Quote from: gcason on September 25, 2023, 04:32:53 PMJust some silly LED light circle around one of the fans. Totally pointless, like putting ground effects on a minivan.    I'm quite a bit more educated than the public at large, so I knew it wasn't any kind of gaming machine. But, for the price, it was good for what we needed.

I agree that some people could be tricked by the term "Gaming Machine." But, Farmville is a game, right?

I assume the i7 already had an SSD as the boot drive? If so, one cheap upgrade is to double its. If it has a single stick of 8 Gb, increasing to 16 GB also make it run in dual channel mode and simply 16 GB of ram helps a lot. A bit more expensive, assuming that it is a full height case, but you could put a GTX 1070 in there. Can get them on eBay for about $100. There are also power adapters that you can turn sata power into video card power output.

Yes. That would help get it closer to a gaming system. But, it's about 33% the footprint of a full tower and we bought it to use as a mini-van, so to speak, so it's good to go. I do have a for real gaming machine, albeit a middle of the road one we discussed in the Everyday Driver thread.

I agree with you that people get tricked into buying these low-end refurbs as gaming machines. They definitely are going to be a disappointment. 

Quote from: bachfiend on September 25, 2023, 04:48:35 PM

Quote from: jt512 on September 25, 2023, 07:22:28 AM

Quote from: bachfiend on September 24, 2023, 05:45:02 PMI'm currently trying to measure my daily energy expenditure.  The Apple Watch and the Polar chest strap heart rate monitor give very similar estimates of calories expended during exercise, so I'm running the Apple Watch for a full 24 hours.  So far, after almost 10 hours, I've expended 475 kcals.  I haven't yet done my daily exercise, which on a good day adds as much as 1100 kcals (yesterday it was 1085 kcals) and on a bad day 900 kcals.

How can you have missed the fact that that contradicts everything you claim to believe about the effect of exercise on total energy expenditure. ALSO: HELLO, CARBSHARK!

You've missed my latter comment, which reported my measured daily energy expenditure, which came in at 2152 kcals, after a 900 kcal session on a cross trainer in the gym, which was far less than the predicted 2700 kcals.

I didn't miss it. the 2152 kcal is implausible given the level of exercise you reported. 

QuoteExtreme cases don't disprove the hypothesis that sedentary and physically active humans have essentially the same daily energy expenditure.

They disprove the hypothesis that exercise doesn't increase total energy expenditure.

QuoteYour hypothesis is that you can lose weight, and keep it off, just by exercise, without changing your diet.  Prove it.  Show me the studies that have demonstrated that it works in being a solution to the obesity epidemic.

I haven't made any claims about solutions to the obesity epidemic.

QuoteYou seem to have accepted the propaganda of the junk food manufacturers and fast food restaurant chains that claim that if a person is overweight or obese, then it's their fault for being lazy and not getting off their butts, and not the fault of their aggressively advertised and marketed highly processed junk food.

You seem to be hallucinating.

Quote from: gcason on September 25, 2023, 04:32:53 PMJust some silly LED light circle around one of the fans. Totally pointless, like putting ground effects on a minivan.    I'm quite a bit more educated than the public at large, so I knew it wasn't any kind of gaming machine. But, for the price, it was good for what we needed.

I agree that some people could be tricked by the term "Gaming Machine." But, Farmville is a game, right?

I assume the i7 already had an SSD as the boot drive? If so, one cheap upgrade is to double its. If it has a single stick of 8 Gb, increasing to 16 GB also make it run in dual channel mode and simply 16 GB of ram helps a lot. A bit more expensive, assuming that it is a full height case, but you could put a GTX 1070 in there. Can get them on eBay for about $100. There are also power adapters that you can turn sata power into video card power output.

Quote from: daniel1948 on September 21, 2023, 08:52:10 PM

Quote from: arthwollipot on September 21, 2023, 08:16:04 PM

Quote from: daniel1948 on September 21, 2023, 10:07:46 AM

Quote from: bachfiend on September 20, 2023, 11:17:59 PM... Chess is not a sport.  It's a game, which many people take very seriously.

Agreed.

(But some folks here seem to think it's a "sport" because there's competition, and there are winners and losers.)

As I said before, I think it's both. It's a game when played casually between friends, but it is also an organised sport.

Here's another possible factor of demarcation: Professionals do not play games.

Sure they do. They play games for money. Professional football matches are called "football games." American fans of football will ask each other "Did you catch the game last night?"

Quote from: arthwollipot on September 21, 2023, 08:16:04 PM... If there are people playing it professionally, then when they're doing so, it's a sport.

Sports can be games. Games can be sports. But not all games are sports, and not all sports are games. All three of the activities called "football" are games which are sports, and can be professional, amateur, or casual. Bicycling is a sport, but not a game. It can be professional, amateur, or casual. Chess is a game, but not a sport. It can be professional, amateur, or casual. Sometimes the lines are not clear. I personally do not consider the game of ping-pong to be a sport, but I understand the view of people who feel that it is. It can be professional, amateur, or casual.

Once ESPN started showing poker tournaments, all the definitions when out the window! 

Quote from: jt512 on September 25, 2023, 07:22:28 AM

Quote from: bachfiend on September 24, 2023, 05:45:02 PMI'm currently trying to measure my daily energy expenditure.  The Apple Watch and the Polar chest strap heart rate monitor give very similar estimates of calories expended during exercise, so I'm running the Apple Watch for a full 24 hours.  So far, after almost 10 hours, I've expended 475 kcals.  I haven't yet done my daily exercise, which on a good day adds as much as 1100 kcals (yesterday it was 1085 kcals) and on a bad day 900 kcals.

How can you have missed the fact that that contradicts everything you claim to believe about the effect of exercise on total energy expenditure. ALSO: HELLO, CARBSHARK!

You've missed my latter comment, which reported my measured daily energy expenditure, which came in at 2152 kcals, after a 900 kcal session on a cross trainer in the gym, which was far less than the predicted 2700 kcals. 

So either the daily energy prediction was wrong, estimating energy expenditure using a heart rate monitor is inaccurate, or both.

The 2152 kcals seems to comprise the basal metabolic rate, which in me using the heart rate monitor, seemed to be less than 50 kcals per hour, gentle activity such as walking the dog at a slow pace (so she can stop regularly to check her pee-mails on trees and posts or cycling on an e-bike, which seemed to be around 100-150 kcals per hour, and strenuous activity in the gym at 450-550 kcals per hour.

Extreme cases don't disprove the hypothesis that sedentary and physically active humans have essentially the same daily energy expenditure.  Sedentary people, such as American couch potatoes, and active people, such as hunters in the Kalahari Desert, are either sedentary or active for years, decades, and even their entire lives.  Extreme athletes, such as your figure skaters expending 6000 kcals in training (which according to my calculations would have to be around 8 hours of continuous high intensity skating) don't do it for more than a few months at a time.

Your hypothesis is that you can lose weight, and keep it off, just by exercise, without changing your diet.  Prove it.  Show me the studies that have demonstrated that it works in being a solution to the obesity epidemic.

My hypothesis is that you exercise for fitness, and watch your diet to attain and maintain a healthy body weight.

You seem to have accepted the propaganda of the junk food manufacturers and fast food restaurant chains that claim that if a person is overweight or obese, then it's their fault for being lazy and not getting off their butts, and not the fault of their aggressively advertised and marketed highly processed junk food.

Quote from: Desert Fox on September 25, 2023, 02:03:43 PM

Quote from: gcason on September 25, 2023, 11:49:59 AMI bought one for my wife a couple of years ago, but I knew it wasn't a gaming machine. My wife does some casual games on her iPad, so the mini-desktop is for day-to-day internet use such as banking, shopping, videos sometimes, etc. It was about $350 or so for a lower-end i7 CPU, decent onboard GFX for her needs, and 8 gigs of RAM. Great for what we needed, but would have been very disappointed in it as a gaming system.

Did that one have the extra LED "Bling?"
I am not against selling older computers but just mislabeling them as gaming machines?

Just some silly LED light circle around one of the fans. Totally pointless, like putting ground effects on a minivan.    I'm quite a bit more educated than the public at large, so I knew it wasn't any kind of gaming machine. But, for the price, it was good for what we needed.

I agree that some people could be tricked by the term "Gaming Machine." But, Farmville is a game, right?

It doesn't matter how much there is of something else, it's the absolute amount of fossil fuel consumption that has to be reduced. As well as meat consumption and destroying carbon stores a.k.a. nature.

Quote from: Quetzalcoatl on September 25, 2023, 01:16:01 PM

Quote from: Harry Black on September 24, 2023, 07:44:07 PMJust to say that the malice/incompetence bit is not an actual logical rule.
It is a heuristic and one that becomes less useful every year as the malicious scumbags learn that they can hide behind it.
There is no inherent truth to it. It is just a handy way for people in power to avoid accountability.

It is a useful rule of thumb though.

If Bush had any direct influence or knowledge of things, why not blame it on Saddam Hussein immediately instead of spending two years trying to link al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein?

That's literally what Rumsfeld recommended in the days after 9/11.