Sports! .. and with an on-topic association.

[Tony Duell]

> 
> While one can distinguish between sports and athletics and exercise,  
> let's keep in mind Alan Turing's interest in running  (e.g.  
> http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Miscellaneous/Turing/ 
> Running.html).

Yes, he is the exception, a great mind who did do exercise...

> 
> I get lots of exercise through running and cycling, and have done so

I am reminded of Winston Churchill's statement : 'I get all the exercise 
I need acting as a pall bearer for my friends who run and do exercise' :-)
  
> consistently for the past 30+ years (while I have in the distant past  
> participated in competition and 'organised' events, they are not really  
> my thing). So I'm of the mind that both body and brain cells work best  
> when they get some exercise; and as Turing suggests, physical exercise  

I am sure this is a personal thing becuase I am of the opposite opinion. 
I am the sort of person who can run 100m in 10 minutes, and who thinks 
the best thing to do with a bicycle is to multiply it by 5*10^-7 [1]. A 
quick look at the picture of me on the recent HPCC conference page 
(linked from http://www.hpcc.org/ [2]) will, I think indicate that I am 
not the wort of person to go running...

But if it works for tyou, I am not going to comment further...

[1] Do I really have to explain that on _this_ list?

[2] Actually on-topic. The picture shows me surrounded by bits of an 
HP9836CU computer. It's not too clear from the photo, but I am holding 
the brightness control assmebly, at the time I was explainign how I'd 
dosmantled the pot to de-seize and then made a brass collar to fit the 
knob so it souldn't slip again (and yes, I did mill a flat on the spindle).

> can help keep the brain sane. Getting some exercise after sitting on 
> one's ass staring at a monitor for hours on end, or hunched over a  
> workbench of hardware, while working on a 'brain' problem - can be very  
> beneficial to the brain and solving those problems.

I find soloving some other problem works for me. If I am stuck on sorting 
out an electrronic fault, I will go and do some metal turning to fix 
another part of the machine (or another machine), or something like that.

> So while we're dissing the pointlessness of physical games, how about  
> the pointlessness of computer games .. (or is that likely to start a  
> flame war here)?

Well, FWIW...

I have no interest at all in arcade/action games, what we used to call 
'blast the b*st*rds' I playued Doom once on a friend's machine about 15 
years ago, I didn't enjoy it much. 

I do like some text adventures, becuase I like solving puzzles (just 
about all puzzles). But I've not played one for years. Probably still a 
waste of time, though. But then isn't fixing classic computers really a 
waste of time? Or for that matter isn't that lmost the defintion of a hobby?

No, the only computer 'game' I enjoy is called 'programming' :-)

-tony