{"id":46502,"date":"2019-02-06T16:28:07","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T20:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=46502"},"modified":"2020-08-10T16:28:23","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T20:28:23","slug":"some-black-mirror-shit-coming-to-life-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=46502","title":{"rendered":"Some Black Mirror shit coming to life here"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A little while ago, my gym brought in these three new stationary bikes.\u00a0 Expresso <\/em>bikes<\/a>.\u00a0 They do that every now and then; bring in some new cardio equipment, presumably to try and get people to actually work on their cardio instead of doing the age-old practice of bogarting elliptical machines for 30 minutes and calling it an adequate workout.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first glance, they don\u2019t look like anything special, they look like some fairly standard, nondescript exercise bicycles \u2013 except that they have a screen affixed to the front of them.\u00a0 Obviously, with the constantly advancing rise of the digital world we live in, it\u2019s no shocker to see screens ending up on bicycles, when there are already screens attached to various other bicycles, treadmills and elliptical machines; distraction is the key to long cardio sessions, and if screens can provide some distractions, then maybe some fat sweaty Atlantic City sweat hogs might actually lose some weight.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not television that these screens broadcast; users have the option on what they want to have broadcast between different settings of paths, some interactive studio training, or interactive games<\/a> that can be played while bicycling, utilizing your own cycling as the controller.<\/span><\/p>\n

Honestly, I\u2019m intrigued by these Expresso bikes, and if I weren\u2019t always in the mindset that running is really the only acceptable form of cardio, I\u2019d be willing to give these a try.\u00a0 Frankly, I\u2019m under the belief that gamification is an effective way of teaching and training, and if making an exercise bike more fun by adding games or creating competition is going to be what it takes for some people to get up and exercise, I think it\u2019s pretty cool.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s something about the Expresso bikes in particular that reminds me of that Black Mirror<\/em> episode, Fifteen Million Merits<\/em>.\u00a0 The one where it\u2019s the dystopian future where for no real given reason, all people are required to be cycling day all the time to power lord knows what.\u00a0 And in order to help placate them into their tireless and endless mundane fates, while they bike, they have all sorts of digital means to distract them, including games, television, as well as simple basic scenery to help numb their brains into continuing to pedal while not realizing it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost literally, the Expresso bikes have the same scenery function and game function that the, for lack of a better term, bike slaves from Fifteen Million Merits do.\u00a0 The only real difference is that riding an Expresso doesn\u2019t net riders any digital currency that they can use to buy superficial imaginary shit for an avatar, but the purpose of such modes are basically the same impetus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, this isn\u2019t to say that the existence of Expresso bikes means the world is headed towards a dystopian future, where all of humankind will be forced to pedal for their lives; frankly as far as Black Mirror plots are concerned, Fifteen Million Merits is kind of tame, and more ironic than anything else.\u00a0 But it\u2019s just funny the parallels between Fifteen Million Merits and Expresso bikes, and it just goes to further feed the narrative of how often Black Mirror plots tend to be eerily close to reality in some ways shapes or fashions.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little while ago, my gym brought in these three new stationary bikes.\u00a0 Expresso bikes.\u00a0 They do that every now and then; bring in some new cardio equipment, presumably to try and get people to actually work on their cardio instead of doing the age-old practice of bogarting elliptical machines for 30 minutes and calling … Continue reading Some Black Mirror shit coming to life here<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100,109,32,69,182],"class_list":["post-46502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-comparison","tag-gym","tag-running","tag-television","tag-tryharding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46504,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46502\/revisions\/46504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}