Nokia Sports Tracker

I remember when I was little and my mother wanted me to go get some eggs in the store or just have me run off some excess energy. First I would not be so enthusiastic, "why don't you do it", or "no I don't feel like it" I would say. But then my mother uttered the magical words which would, without exception, cause me to dart of in my maximum velocity. The words were "I will time you"! Perhaps this is a powerful argument against the concept of free will, or maybe it is just evidence that I was a very stupid little boy. In any case, it was extremely motivating to know that I was being timed, and it did not matter that my mother probably just made up some number when I came back.

Now I am older and new synapses have been formed in my brain. Telling me that I am being timed when going to the store doesn't do it for me anymore, in fact, until recently it was hard to get me running at all. Throwing me a soccer ball has always worked and it still does, but my jogging career was all but over until I discovered a little piece of software which you can download for free onto your Nokia phone: Nokia sports tracker. It has been working flawlessly with my Nokia N95 8Gb which I got in Christmas present. I should perhaps make clear that I am not a Nokia employee…

Nokia sports tracker records your GPS position while you are running, cycling, walking or skiing. It also calculated your speed, altitude, calorie expenditure, number of steps, and a lot of other interesting statistics. When I have finished my run I upload my workout to Nokia sports tracker online and then I can see my workout online on a map (see picture). I can also export the route to Google earth and see the route in this wonderful piece of software.

But the wonders do not end there. Next time I am going to run the same route, I open Nokia sports tracker and I tell the program that I want compare my new workout with my old workout. When I start running I see myself as a little blue dot, and I see my opponent (me two days ago) as a little red dot. When that little red dot on my screen gets ahead of the blue dot it is as if I am five years old again and my mother says "I'll time you", amazingly motivating. I almost ran myself to death the other day because I did not want to lose to my past (I did eventually lose, but I will correct that soon). It the dots are too close to distinguish, don't worry, the program continuously tells you how far behind or ahead you are in meters and in seconds (or minutes).

To sum up. Good work Nokia! Via this piece of software you have increased my predicted life span by a couple of years.

Ps: I will soon start writing about more pressing matters such as religion, brains and free will vs determinism again, so no worries there…