The history of entertainment is a long one. We have gone from banquet entertainment during Roman and Medieval times. We have had radio and television to entertain us. We have also had books, magazines and kindles. The idea of Virtual Reality and dinner is not that strange.
the impact of virtual reality is a natural fit for restaurants that want to create a complete experience around a meal, not just serve a plate of food.
In this article they discuss virtual reality as a way of enhancing your dining experience. To use a local example imagine that you are eating a fondue at the Valais or the Chateau D’If in Geneva. The restaurants are located at the side of busy roads. With the virtual reality set you could watch immersive videos of a peak of your choice. It could be live or pre-recorded. You would feel like you’re sitting at the Rocher De Naye or Aiguille Du Midi for example.
If you’re eating bison at home then you could have a live feed from Yosemite, the field with bison near Geneva or the Polish forests. If you’re eating certain types of fish you could watch a natural history document about the oceans and that specific type of fish. It could bring you closer to your meal and serve as an educational purpose.
There is one thing I am curious about, in relation to Virtual Reality meals. How do you see your food? What technological advances will allow you to be immersed in virtual reality and see your food and the person you are with? When that next step is taken Virtual Reality restaurants will be more enjoyable.
It’s Day Five of ORCA in Switzerland. Next time we discuss shaking hands we should stop, and go into self-isolation. We had all the signs that a pandemic was coming. We knew about China and we saw what was going on in Italy. We knew that a virus was infecting people at a rapid rate.
When I chose not to go to the Graduate Institute because I knew a Pandemic was coming I was right. It wasn’t worth the risk. If everyone had had the common sense, and forethought to start isolating we wouldn’t have seen such a rapid increase in the spread of the virus.
When I saw people discussing whether to shake hands I thought it was alarmist and stupid and to some degree, I wasn’t wrong. I was wrong to think we should shake hands but I was right to start avoiding large groups. The trick, to avoid pandemics is to follow international news, and see what is happening in other countries, and to see what actions they are taking. we should then take the same actions pre-emptively.
If everyone outside of Italy had taken those actions sooner the virus would have struggled to spread and society might have fewer affected people.
The lesson we should have learned is that when we see a pandemic is coming we should discuss whether to go into self-isolation, rather than whether to shake hands.
Plague inc is a game that is available on multiple platforms. These are pc, android, ios and windows phone. The version I played was on android. If you want to watch someone play the game you can watch this series:
I was at the first general Staff Meeting for the UNAIDS program a few years ago and more recently I was at the World Health organisation during the SARS crisis helping with Virtual Press conferences. During these two weeks I learned about the language used when discussing epidemics and how to mitigate the threat they posed.
During and after the Ebola crisis I was able to go to two or three conferences discussing how best to prepare future responses as well as to discuss what systematic weaknesses there were and how best to address them to deal properly with a future epidemic.
Plague inc is a real time decision based game. There are four tabs.
Overview provides you with an overview of air and sea transportTransmission: you can decide whether it is spread by air, water, blood, animals or birds. Symptons: You can decide how it affects people, whether through coughing, fever or other forms of discomfort. Abilities: You can develop, cold, heat, drug and bacterial resistance.
The game is an opportunity for people who do not live a 20 minute drive from the World Health Organisation and other UN organisations to learn more about the terminology of diseases as well as the factors that can make it more or less virulent and how best to counteract the threat.
In the game you may spend two or three years spreading a disease but in the real world diseases can spread over decades or even centuries. Look at Polio for example. Within the last two weeks we saw this headline Only complacency can stop Nigeria – and Africa – from finally conquering polio. For context UNICEF has a fact sheet about Polio eradication milestones. The Virus was first described by Michael Underwood in 1789, it was theorised as contagious in 1840 and in 1907 Dr Ivar Wickman categorised the different strains. It was first hypothesised that Polio was caused by a virus by Karl Lendensteiner in 1908. You can read more details in your own free time but the first vaccinations in Europe started in 1955 in Denmark. It is in 1988 that the World Health Assembly, the World Health Organisation yearly conference, adopted a resolution to eradicate Poliomyelitis by the year 2000. This goal was not reached due to various factors but finally in 2016 it looks as though the disease is ever closer to being eradicated.
The Global Certification Commission verified that the type 2 virus had been eradicated globally in September last year. This means Kenya is polio-free as the last case was reported in 2013.
Whilst games like Plague Inc. can introduce us to the terminology used in the game we can also benefit from reading about real world epidemics, pandemics, plagues and more. I remember watching a documentary a few months ago that showed that thanks to the Plague in the Middle Ages in Europe serfs benefited as they were less numerous. It meant that they could finally pressure land lords to provide them with better working conditions and more freedom. Games are interesting but with the complement of history we see that reality is even more interesting.
Today I participated in two Zwift events, a social ride and a race. The social ride was one hour of pedalling at a comfortable pace trying to keep to the same speed as the group. Rather than trying to be as fast as the group I was trying to pace myself to be within the peloton rather than riding off.
Social rides are amusing because you start on the peer and wait for the counter to get down to zero and when it does you go from being on a home trainer in the real world cycling on a home trainer in the virtual world to cycling on the roads of Watopia. Social rides are interesting because you have people from Australia, England, Denmark and many other countries, so long as they are in a timezone where it would be reasonable to cycle at such a time of day.
It’s the first time that I get out of bed, look at the schedule for Zwift events and feel excited about doing something virtual like riding a bike. Keep in mind that today I could have burned diesel by heading to St Triphon to climb with people I know. I felt no motivation to drive that far so I was happy to stay home.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that riding a bike on Zwift is riding an apartment bike because it isn’t. It’s similar to riding a bike in the real world, with real hills, virtual drafting, virtual fellow drivers, no cars and more. What is real is the conviviality, the desire to share a few phrases, the cheering and the desire to ride as a group.
During the ride we did sprint twice and on the first sprint I beat my personal record and on the second go I had less energy remaining. During the first sprint I put out up to 934 watts in theory. That’s enough energy for me to rest on the handle bars for a little bit before catching my breath and continuing.
When I ride in the real world it’s usually alone and I race against myself but when it’s on Zwift I have a choice between virtual social rides, virtual races, training, or just a “as the wind takes me” option. Of course there is no wind, I mean that you ride for the pleasure of riding.
A Race up a Volcano
The second ride of the morning, about 15 minutes after the first ride finished was a 15km race up the side of the volcano on the Watopia map. I thought that with my abilities I should select group D. I pedalled during the countdown to keep warm and a few seconds before the race started I pedalled at a higher cadence to compensate for the lag that I experience with my current setup. I started well but I tired more quickly than most. While I was trying to maintain 200 or more watts they were racing off into the distance. I found myself in 110th or lower positions but I continued pedalling. I tried to maintain between 180 watts and 220 watts. I kept looking at the riders beside me and most were category C riders.
Keeping up
I worked hard to keep the power up and at moments when I felt that I needed to rest I changed gear, changed my cadence, but tried to keep the cadence up. Usually my cadence is about 85 when I’m riding alone but in this race, as I tried to keep up it reached an average of 105 strokes per minute. Over the duration of the race I was generating about 2.61 watts per kilo.
I didn’t know what to expect from the other racers so my goal was simply not to be dropped into last position. After that and as I got closer to the end my goal was to be within the top one hundred so although my body wanted me to slow down I kept working at it. I was pushing at over 200 watts for 14:45 in this race.
I spent hours and days training on Zwift before I felt ready to try a race. I trained for multiple sessions and those sessions got me used to pushing beyond my comfort levels for minutes at a time and it paid off in this race. If I continue training I can aim for better positioning. Today I was in 6th place in D category out of over 40 riders and 99th out of 180+ riders. So half of the racers have trained more than me. I can continue training and see where I come up next time.
What I like about the race, that I don’t have except for sprints is information on how far it is to the end of the race. If I know for how many more kilometres I have to make an effort then psychologically I can push harder. This was just a short race at 15km and I would struggle on a longer race and I would struggle on the flat.
I want to participate in more races and I need to choose which training course to attempt next. It’s nice to race virtual cyclists rather than real cars, e-bikes or people on lighter bikes than the one I ride in the physical world. In the virtual world today I was riding a trek emonda. This might be geeky but it’s pushing me to be fitter so fewer people can object.
I have just three kilometres to go before I reach the Activity goal of walking 298.8 kilometres in a month. Reaching the goal in and of itself is relatively easy. What makes it a challenge is doing it during a pandemic when you need to keep a safe distance from everyone. Some days I got tired of avoiding people so I felt like giving up but I kept at it and now I know I will succeed.
298.8 kilometres is shorter than the distance you cover for the Via Alpina from Lichtenstein to Montreux on the Via Alpina. I didn’t have much vertical travel walking locally but I did get to know the local countryside better. I’ve explored even more variants than over the last two years.
I avoided the shops entirely today. I know they will be busy and that it will be impossible to avoid people. It’s not worth the frustration. During COVID-19 as a single person you have all of the pressures of society without any of the advantages.
It’s a fantastic time for couples. Imagine being with your loved one 24 hours a day, imagine not having to see each other’s friends. It’s like a couple’s retreat or a honeymoon but rather than lasting for a weekend, or a week it’s lasting for up to a few months. Such a rare and privileged position to be in. I’d have found it so good when I was in relationships not to have to go out and see their friends sometimes.
During my walk I saw this sign from a theatre along one of my routes. I also saw that the Barbecue and Flammenkuche place is still going. I’d like to think that rather than ordinary life being frozen as Chappate joked in one of his cartoons life has been reset and now it’s time to adapt to a new way of being.
If we’re lucky enough not to be trapped at home then this is the time when we invent new careers, new way of doing things. We can be early adopters and alpha testers of a new model. If I wanted I could eat Hamburgers and Flammenkuche and I could even have some flowers to go with the meal. Of course, I’d do it in solitude for now.
Solitude is not hard. It’s not having opportunities to have more that’s hard. A woman said “I’m feeling lonely on twitter, I lost six followers” and an army of men started following her and suddenly she had a crowd. By then I had unfollowed. I want to be a conversation, not a statistic.
I should prepare dinner now. The sun is setting and I’m terrible at eating at a reasonable time at the moment. The meal is quick to prepare anyway.
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