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Posted by jader201 14 hours ago

Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's(theconversation.com)
226 points | 168 commentspage 3
lambdaone 8 hours ago|
I wonder if the same is also true of other high-spatial-complexity activities like rock climbing and professional dancing? (Exercise level would of course be a counfounding varable to be eliminated in these cases.)
Perenti 3 hours ago||
How many elderly Taxi drivers die of traffic accident? Perhaps the job is culling the Alzheimer's sufferers before other symptoms and signs arise?
jaypatelani 6 hours ago||
Any studies on chess player and Alzheimer's?
fitsumbelay 10 hours ago||
First rule of attentioneering - If it bleeds, it ledes

Second rule - Got edge case? Got headline!

markhall 6 hours ago||
I love HN for articles like these.... hard to find intellectually interesting yet seemingly corner-case statistics like this elsewhere.
estetlinus 7 hours ago||
> London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as “The Knowledge” that takes three to four years.

What the hell. I passed all the test for driving cabs in Stockholm, Sweden. I had to memorize 20 regions in the city. I wonder if this requirement applies to all taxi drivers, including Uber.

petercooper 6 hours ago||
No, it’s a licensed black cab thing. London has had mini cabs as well for many decades who didn’t need to study anything and were not even licensed till about 20 years ago. However, their downside is they have to be prebooked and can not be hailed on the street. Apps count as booking and not hailing I guess.
philwelch 6 hours ago||
It seems common for taxi drivers to form a government-sanctioned cartel in order to limit the amount of competition. In the US this traditionally took the form of local taxi medallion systems, where there was a hard quota on how many taxis could be in the city. London's barrier to entry, unlike ours, at least guarantees a level of competence, even if it's excessive.

At least in the US, Uber and Lyft basically went around the taxi cartels. I'd assume that it wasn't easy for that to happen in Sweden though.

arielweisberg 13 hours ago||
Can video games provide similar benefits?
jerlam 4 hours ago||
Most modern open-world games have waypoint indicators and on-screen minimaps, if not teleportation, because memorizing and navigating and traversing through the video game map is not particularly fun.
Marsymars 4 hours ago||
Some years ago I participated in a study where I lied down in an MRI machine and had to navigate in a video game maze. (Custom Half-Life 2 level, IIRC.)

Every 60 seconds or so I'd be teleported to a fresh location in the maze and given an instruction like "find the green door". I have no idea how I did compared to the other participants, but I found the maze/task to be both difficult and not at all fun.

jader201 13 hours ago|||
I’m sure Crazy Taxi provides the same benefits! :)
moduspol 10 hours ago||
If you can survive the high blood pressure!
bloomca 13 hours ago|||
The thing about taxi drivers is that they have something at stake, while video games have no fail state effectively. You can be punished in-game, but overall it does not matter.

Also video games in general are pretty derivative, so playing the same genre probably won't help much after a certain point. But playing different ones can be very helpful, I imagine (same with other mediums).

wavemode 11 hours ago||
Yeah but, Taxi drivers usually don't hop around from place to place. They work in a specific metro area.
bloomca 11 hours ago||
I assume there is enough variation to be aware of -- seasons change, constructions, car crashes, so you need to alter the route a bit. Today you have the maps with navigation, but I assume you still need to be quite aware on where to park, where is the best entrance to some places, etc. So you basically need to keep some fresh info on top of your mind.
dragontamer 11 hours ago||
Maybe when played at a high level. But too many games are too casual without much mental effort.

I mean, they should be. Games are for fun, not for work.

tokai 13 hours ago||
Taxi driver also live shorter lives than average, which would fit with lower levels of alzheimers. But interesting link nonetheless.
kelnos 8 hours ago|
Age and life expectancy was controlled for in the study.
wyzer 7 hours ago|
before or after massive use of navigation apps?
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