cooker

No, in fact quite the opposite - they allow you to be out in the sun and moderate your exposure to a healthy safe level.

Dahon.Steve

Interesting link.

In keeping with the carfree topic, does driving constitute "being outdoors" or is this simply an extension of the home? I think REI would consider a long motor commute time spent indoors. Something to think about.

noisebeam

Perhaps any type of shelter where one can get out of the elements and change the local environment is indoors. Building, tent, cave, enclosed vehicle.

But this would mean an open convertible top vehicle is outdoors.

Not sure about covered patios and ramadas.

tyrion

Of course not! If your car has a heater, and you can roll up the windows, you're not outdoors. You get inside the car, start it up, turn on the heater, shut the door, and you're indoors.

noisebeam

Outside:


Inside:

I-Like-To-Bike

Ya mean about 5% or so of our lives? No? Then what is that so-called healthy safe level of outdoor living that includes moderated exposure to the sun?

cooker

If you mostly stay indoors and then go out into blazing hot direct sunlight, it's unpleasant and hard on your exposed skin. If you go out into dappled shade from a tree or partial shade from an awning or trellis or patio umbrella, it's more pleasant and you can stay out longer and get your sunlight more gradually and safely.

noisebeam

Depending on the intensity of the sun it can feel up to 15F lower in the shade.

wipekitty

I took REI's little survey and they said that I spend a lot of time outdoors...whew! I was worried about what REI thought of me.

Not having a car (and previously, using one very little) certainly forces me to be outside if I want to go anywhere...and once I got used to that, going outside when I didn't have to be anywhere, even in bad weather, became much more likely.

I'm also very lucky to work from home several months out of the year. If the weather is decent, I'll spend several hours out in the yard with the laptop. It makes me very sad when I get stuck in an office for 8-10 hours at a time.

PdalPowr

Look at it this way.
Even if it is true it can slowly be rectified.
Every extra percentage spent in the outdoors is
also one less spent inside. One extra mile per day
spent on our bicycle per day doesn't sound like much but
we have to look at quality not just quantity.

Folks who cook outside tend to stay outside more.
Also nothing tastes better than a simple meal prepared outside.
Even if it takes the exact same time to cook it inside or
outside we come back to quality over quantity.

I plan to stay outside just one percentage point more than before.
It can be as simple as giving my dog Tracker one more walk or
making my backyard more presentable which again
will make me want to stay outside more.

tandempower

'Blazing hot direct sunlight' is a huge deterrent to spending extended periods of time outdoors. Just think about it: you could plan a whole day outside walking/hiking around an area and getting work done on a phone/computer if you could do so comfortably. You could, say, eat breakfast and take off for an hour or so of hiking/biking, then stop for a while to do some work on an tablet/phone, then continue and walk for a while more before stopping for lunch, and so forth the whole day.

However, if it is 11am and the sun is blazing and you're sweating with no convenient source of water to refill your bottle, and you're getting sunburned, you're not going to want to be out between 11 and 2, and if there's no shade, you're not going to want to walk around in hot afternoon heat either.

So people are basically hiding inside to avoid the sun/heat. They may not think of it that way, because they've never really thought about it enough to realize they are free to just go out walking/biking all day and stop in parks etc. with their media. They basically have cabin-fever being stuck inside, but the only way they know to resolve it is to drive somewhere, and if they only feel safe driving to commercial venues where they are going to shop or spend money, they'll either avoid leaving the house to save money or they'll surrender to cabin fever and go spend some money just to have something to do, something to distract them from the boredom and pent up energy that comes with being sedentary.

wphamilton

It seems reasonable. I spend perhaps 12 hours a week on my bike or running, and maybe an 2 or 3 hours outside otherwise. So that comes to 90-93% indoors. And most people don't commute by bike like I do.

tandempower

I still don't understand why Amazon/Kindle didn't expand it's e-ink platform to function as a full web-browser/tablet. You could sit outside and turn off the back-lighting and just look at natural light reflecting off the display.

I-Like-To-Bike

Because Kindle Readers are not meant or designed to be web browsers, they are meant and designed for reading books, period. They work just fine for reading books while outdoors. Kindle Readers also aren't designed to text or make telephone calls. Shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Amazon sells toasters and they also don't function as web browsers.

If you want a tablet, buy a tablet, or a Kindle Fire which does work as a web browser because it was designed to work that way. Cheap too, I bought a new one for $30 in December.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

cooker

Serious question - do they work in direct sunlight or do you need shade? I can't see my phone screen very well in bright sunlight.

wphamilton

I think that Motorola tried it with one phone, and there was one in Russia with both types of screens. I kind of wanted one. The disadvantages are probably too great: slow refresh rate, and ghosting if images moved across the screen. For someone like me, who never watches videos or plays games on his phone, I think it would be great. The other disadvantage is that it's simply fallen behind the alternatives as the standard.

Mobile 155

The paper white works good in direct sun. The fire is just OK. The Paper white is like a book page.

I-Like-To-Bike

Dunno, i don't read outside with 'em. Next time there is a sunny day, i'll check it out.

When I'm outside I usually don't spend my time sitting down looking at a screen.I listen to audio books on my mp3 player, works great for riding and walking.

cooker

Thanks!

indyfabz

Over the weekend I gave some thought to my earlier comment in this thread. When I started my cross country bike trip, aside from going into stores for things like groceries, and into a restaurant or two for a meal, I spent the first 9 days outside, sleeping 8 nights in a tent and one night in an Adirondack shelter. One of the more memorable moments of that stretch was eating cereal outside at the fairgrounds in Republic, WA, where were camping, when it started to snow. Also got snowed on crossing Sherman Pass that day. That motel room that evening felt oh so good.

tandempower

I don't know exactly who owns the rights to use the e-ink technology, but I'm just surprised whoever it is hasn't licensed out the display technology for use with web browsing and other applications. It's difficult to see/read a backlit display in outdoor light, so the e-ink technology solves that by working with reflected/ambient light.

E-ink is also a form of solar power, since it uses sunlight directly to illuminate the display.

tandempower

I didn't realize it couldn't handle video. I think it would be great for maps, since you're typically outdoors when using a map. It would also be good for reading and writing mail, etc. so you could get work done outside between legs of a long hike or bike ride.

wphamilton

BOOX Max2 Ereader,Android 6.0 is kind of pricey but it's supposed to handle web browsing pretty well, and any other Android apps.

Onyx Boox Max2 13.3 Inch e-Reader Review I'm not recommending it, because I don't know anything more about it than on those pages. I'd be surprised if it doesn't suffer the traditional lag and ghosting issues of e-ink displays. But, it does exist.

wphamilton

Yeah, and you don't have to worry about running out of battery either. At one time I had painstakingly converted some online maps to pdf's and loaded them onto my Kindle (an earlier version). I never wound up using them though, because the e-book interface really isn't very good for the maps. Too much trouble finding the page where the next section of the map is. With a dedicated app, tied into a GPS location, that would work.

prathmann

I have the original Kindle (no internal lighting) which works best in bright ambient light, incl. direct sunlight. It would work fine for web browsing that consists of static text and b&w pictures, but not for anything involving rapid changes like a video. Takes too long for the pixels to change state. I suspect that manufacturers feel consumers would not accept those limitations.

It's great for taking reading material along on bike tours due to the long battery life and light weight.