I am not really interested whether scientifically this device works or not. Basically it takes a measurable figure and throws a bit of maths at it to come out with a calorie account.
How accurately? Who cares?
The real point here is that the crowd funded GoBe is yet another bit of tech that is jumping on the obesity bandwagon to make money out of the easily lead or sadly overweight, that would be me then.
However, there is a slight idiocy to the system that fails my logic test.
Remember that hand wash dispenser that spat soap at you without you having to touch it? The makers claimed it would reduce the spread of germs while ignoring the fact that it is a soap dispenser. And what is the first thing you do with your hands after you put soap on them? That's right, you wash them! So it doesn't matter whether you touched the dispenser or not.
It is this small matter of "order of events" that confuses me about this device. One of the big sells, it would seem is that people don't have to do all that annoying calorie counting. Except, when you are dieting, you don't count the calories AFTER you have eaten - that would be too late - you count them BEFORE! Which this device cannot do. And, if you do try this backwards approach and learn from your mistakes, well then you wont need the device any longer because you have learned from your mistakes!
So, one way or another, the only reason for using it in the first place is idle curiosity. As a dietary device, it is attempting to shut the stable door after the horse has eaten an entire bag of carrots, three Black Forest Gateauxs, drunk a keg of bitter and staggered out of the stable to throw up in the forest.
In the article, the BBC writes: "So when George Mikaberydze - the firm's co-founder - agreed to let the BBC test GoBe, we were slightly surprised."
Really? You were surprised when the promoter of the device took you up on your offer of giving him hundreds of thousands worth of publicity?
Sometimes you have to just sit back and get fat on the madness of it all.
