MetalSamurai

MetalSamurai, 9 months ago

This is something I'd like to know as well, but I doubt we'll ever get a very satisfactory answer as nearly everyone has some kind of agenda they want to promote rather than actual facts about this. You will see in the tech press every few months a headline warning Mac users that NOW is the time to install antivirus software as the tsunami of malware is coming, but every time it's because of a new press release based on some very dodgy "research" done by Sophos or some other antivirus retailer that desperately wants to sell licences of their software (which in most cases nobody wants as it slows your machine down, forces you to disable built in security and just causes random crashes and unwanted behaviour).

I think it's some kind of amalgamation of reasons to do with market share, history, OS design, development culture, ease of finding weaknesses, user education, potential for profit and probably some other things.

The market share argument sounds like a good reason. It used to be the case that Windows just dominated the desktop market, so obviously that's what you'd target. That sort of falls down when you look at the mobile market and see how much share iOS/iPadOS has (and that most of the people owning those devices are surely a higher target than Android users). But there just isn't any iOS malware in the wild (apart from occasional reports of state level actors targeting specific foreign targets with zero day exploits).

History plays a part. Malware authors mostly wrote Windows viruses, and have Windows computers, so they carry on doing what they know and improving things that they know already work.

OS design is definitely part of it. In the old days System 6/7, MacOS 8/9 had plenty of viruses, because it was so easy to write them. The OS supported multitasking with no memory protection and the filesystem had no concept of protected files or user accounts. Once OS X came out that all stopped as it was based on BSD UNIX (via NeXT). Is MacOS/iOS more secure than Windows? I don't think there's any particular reason why it should be, but historically Windows security has been pretty bad. iOS has always been pretty firmly locked down, with apps sandboxed from each other and only apps from the App Store allowed - the attack surface is really small. Recent versions of macOS have inherited some of that hardening, with App Store apps being sandboxed and the OS itself being locked through System Integrity Protection etc.

And that's partly down to the development culture behind the OS. Microsoft's historical culture with stack ranking and competing groups that never communicate seems guaranteed to produce an end product littered with security holes big enough to drive a bus through. You just need to use Windows for a few minutes to realise that nobody cares about it at all. It's a massive blob of separately engineered little bits held together with tape. Maybe that's changing, but every time I'm forced to use it I'm struck again by how disjointed and illogical everything feels. Unfortunately macOS seems to be going the same way now with random bits of IOS being forcibly layered onto it - the horrorshow of Ventura's System Settings being a prime example.

Based on the security patches being released for the different OSs, it doesn't look like it's any harder really to find weaknesses, but for Apple users you're not also looking for security patches from hundreds of hardware vendors for their drivers. The hardware is much more restricted. But that also means you'll get updates for fairly old supported hardware.

User education. Are Apple users smarter and better informed, so just less likely to fall for the sorts of social engineering tricks malware relies on to get itself installed? I'm sure you have an option on that.

The potential for profit one is the most baffling. Apple users surely have more money, so they should make by far the most enticing target for malware. But there just isn't really much. More frequently you'll find various kinds of iTunes/AppStore scams or fraud schemes.

Someone should survey the malware authors and find out from them directly what their thoughts are.

MetalSamurai, 10 months ago

I've spoken to loads of instructors and participants, and nobody likes the fast stuff as you have to compromise your form and reduce weight to keep up (If you watch the videos, you'll see most of the guys that used to present using 35kg+ bars for squats now all tend to use only 30kg or even 20kg). I fell like it started a while ago and has been getting gradually worse since BP109. BP109 was the first to start introducing stuff from Grit - high pulls in the back track, triceps ply pushups and fast squat/plate presses in the combo tracks. I think there was a deliberate attempt to raise heart rates to stop people from dropping out of Pump because their smart watch said they hadn't burned very many calories (which is dumb for way too many reasons). They kept adding more Grit stuff like mountain climbers and I joked with a few instructors that it wouldn't be long before they added burpees (at which most of them said they'd quit being Bodypump instructors). Then the squats got faster and more extreme starting with 111 (fast singles with triple extensions and plate presses), got ridiculous with BP114 (Pin the Grenade nearly broke me when I tried with my normal squat weight). It's silly as in a live class most people just can't keep up.
Frankly most people would do better to just concentrate on form and get their weights right, and that's just harder when you're feeling rushed.

Personally I don't like Grit. Every time I've tried it, it has made me want to throw up. Sprint, on the other hand, is amazing. I did Sprint 19 this morning.

And the music... Maybe I'm just old. The 80 and 90 releases all had songs I either already had in my music library, or had heard before. It meant I knew when the beat was going to drop, and the music would help me push through. The music is why I fell in love with Les Mills in the first place. I tried RPM (despite having severe doubts about how a stationary bike workout could be interesting), and immediately loved the way the music and the choreography worked together. A lot of the music they use now is just meh and completely forgettable.

MetalSamurai, 10 months ago

Ok. I can fill in the blanks now as I've just had a 45 minute class, so I've tried the two combo tracks as well.

Biceps/Triceps: Starts with standing overhead triceps extensions with a heavy plate. Then biceps curls (no preacher curls!) slow, 2:2, 3:1, singles and 12 fast mid range pulses to finish, then triceps pushups (triple pulses, then some singles with triple mountain climbers), the biceps section repeats and then the triceps pushups section repeats.

Lunges/shoulders: I remember joking around BP111 and the few releases afterwards that the lunge track was borrowing much too heavily from Bodystep. This one takes it further. Starting with two small/medium plates on the bench (drop it down first), squats with a front raise first and then step back lunges off the bench, then some with a side raise, then some with a side rotator raise (potato raise). That's the easy bit. Now switch to a medium/heavy plate in one hand, starting a stride length back from the bench. For each leg forward stepping lunges onto the bench, and simultaneous 90º forward raise of the plate, tap foot and then back. Gradually add in a knee raise whilst up on the bench and then a shoulder press as well. It doesn't sound as complicated as the combined lunge/arnold press in BP104, but it's definitely going to challenge a lot of participants.

I'm told the instructor's notes do make a point of saying that the forward stepping lunges (long ago removed from Bodypump choreo for safety reasons) are included now because stepping up onto the bench is safer (your knee is very unlikely to be way ahead of your ankle), however I'm sure some less coordinated people will be doing these tracks without the bench (especially if you're holding a plate as you can't see your feet), so I hope instructors are watching out for participants.

I remember nothing much about the music from these two other tracks. However I do know now that track 2 (squats) "Big City Life" is the same track used in #Bodycombat 95 track 5b (the standing section after the pushups).

MetalSamurai, 10 months ago

It'll be about 3 months. LM+ releases are one behind live classes (used to be two releases behind). The instructors pay a lot every quarter for their releases (and the gyms pay a lot for their licence) so they delay it.

I've done 125 for a couple of weeks now and it definitely feels a lot slower than most of the previous releases. Except for the combo in the back track.

MetalSamurai, 10 months ago

I don't. I've tried just using regular gym equipment or free weights a couple of times and I just can't do it without getting bored out of my mind. I need the music and the choreo to keep my attention (or maybe to help me zone out).
I do a mix of Pump (3 times a week), Combat, RPM, Sprint and Balance. I need to try and fit Core in again somewhere.

MetalSamurai, 10 months ago

Not an instructor, just a fanboi participant that's been doing LM classes and LM+ at home for 10 years, and pestering my instructors for extra information as well as watching as many public TAP team livestreams as I can.

AFAIK the way they do it now is that there's a back office team in charge of screening music, checking the licensing and creating lists of approved songs, the creative directors pick the music (enough songs for the release with appropriate BPM for each track, plus a couple of extras in case some don't work out), the program director works out the choreo for the tracks (and sometimes that means altering the song - you'll notice often that some sections are longer or repeated compared to the original), they trial it in live classes in New Zealand, then get the presenting team together for a few days, practice it and then film it for instructor training and later release to LM+.
I think in the old days it was much more ad hoc. I'm pretty sure Glen was picking the music himself for RPM and Bodypump, and worrying about clearing it for copyright licensing etc happened later (that's why a lot of the older releases are missing or incomplete on LM+). Now I think it's Diana and they have very different taste in music. There's also more marketing nonsense going on, I'm not sure what demographic they think they're aiming for (seems to be Gen Z/Millennial), but there are plenty of us Gen X and Boomers in the live classes I go to. I know I'm not alone in not recognising most of the songs any more.

MetalSamurai, 10 months ago

They used to use a lot of tracks I already had in my collection by bands like Muse, Fall Out Boy, Five Finger Death Punch, The Killers, Panic! at the Disco, Three Days Grace, 30 Seconds to Mars alongside massive hits like Come With Me Now or Uptown Funk. There have been a handful of older Pendulum tracks used in recent release, but for most of it it takes me a couple of goes before I learn the song and can feel when the changes are coming.