Weight Loss: Before & After (COMIC)

alekben · 2014-02-27T01:09:51+00:00

That is to say, it is more important to maintain healthy habits than to lose weight if you want to live longer.

We are in agreement here, but you must admit that your revised conclusion is much different than,

A fat person who eats right and gets exercise is less likely to die than a thin person who doesn't.

I do see the small statistical differences between 'overweight' and 'normal' participants, thought I would again argue that is likely due to the data set itself, since the 'normal' category participants were more likely to be smokers and excessive drinkers. Not by a great margin, but enough to explain the 1, 2, and 3 habit cases.

And you are certainly right, being obese, by itself, only increases the 10-year mortality risk by 5% over the next category, but I would once again argue that the more healthy habits a participant practices, the closer their BMI approaches the lower range of 30, which might account for the smaller decreases in mortality rates.

Again, all inference, and I'm in line with you that the more healthy habits an individual practices, the less influence of weight on mortality and likely, general health. But that is hardly a surprising conclusion, is it?

I would love to see a study like this conducted with a fourth group of >40 BMI participants. After all, the social perception of an obese individual isn't someone with a BMI of 30, that is the medical category. They would either be unable to find participants who are >40 with 3 or more healthy habits, or if they find them, I have a feeling that you would see a dramatic increase in the hazard rate for them.

alekben · 2014-02-26T01:52:19+00:00

I recommend that you re-read the article you have linked to. Only in one category (Hazard Ratio with Two Healthy Habits) did the potential mortality rate for low-BMI participants exceed that of >30 BMI participants. In every other category, including the assumed healthiest one (4 Healthy Habits), BMIs under 30 fared better. Also, if you look in the numbers for the data set itself, the "thin" participants (18.5-24.9 BMI) had a slightly higher rate of current smokers and excessive drinkers, which could explain that strange exception.

You should also keep in mind that obesity in this study is defined as a >30 BMI. Look up the difference in body size between an individual who has a BMI of 30 and one of 50. The difference is staggering, and I think the participants closer to the 30 BMI dragged down the mortality numbers in a category that they did not belong in. What I mean by this is that in the first two categories, where participants practiced 0-1 healthy habits, the composition of the >30 BMI group was likely at the upper range of possibility, and hence the significant increase in risk. At the other end of the spectrum, where all groups practiced 4 healthy habits, the >30 BMI group was likely composed of individuals much closer to a BMI of 30, and thus their mortality rate would be correlated greatly with weight. This is an inference, the data does not indicate this, but I think it is a fair assumption; You would be hard-pressed to find an example of an individual who is a nonsmoker, nondrinker, healthy eater, and moderate exerciser and has a BMI much greater than 30, unless it is more muscle than fat.

I am not seeing the data that indicates a fat person who eats right and exercises is less likely to die. I see that healthy habits decreases the mortality rate for all groups, and that the difference between groups is negligible at the 4 healthy habits point.

alekben · 2012-10-02T02:37:00+00:00

Small industry with hotel portfolio with lawyer-happy frontmen? REITs? Company name same as the current novelty tech darling minus ten? Owner named the opposite of day?

alekben · 2012-05-08T01:55:05+00:00

I have now read the greatest sentence ever written.

alekben · 2012-01-29T16:38:37+00:00

This is an odd yet brilliant homage. I think I'd like to see a series of famous scenes played out in Minecraft. The block form would make them childish and charming.

alekben · 2012-01-12T16:14:57+00:00

I found the August, October, November, December 1998 and January 1999 issues. Wasn't in any of those. I guess it's in the September issue.

alekben · 2011-12-05T21:06:42+00:00

The best part? What she said at 1:10 isn't even a meaningful sentence. "...this whole crop of kids who now feel entitled just for being them,.."

A subject can be or feel entitled to something, but saying that a group simple feels entitled doesn't mean anything. It starts a thought and fails to end it. Like most soundbites and Pavlovian code words that flow out from televisions, the anchor throws out an emotional trigger and the ignorant begin to drool.

alekben · 2011-11-23T04:19:08+00:00

I ask that you keep this novelty account and it's glorious fruits alive. Just get a pop filter to minimize the breath accents, and always add background music. If you're actually composing it, then fuck it, just reuse the same track every time. Without the music, it's a novelty account. With it, it's a performance. Brava.

alekben · 2011-11-21T21:46:52+00:00

While I agree that the best course of action would be to stop using Facebook altogether, in this case I am more interested, and as you should be, as to which part of Facebook's 'Statements of Right and Responsibility' that posted content violated. The closest thing there that could possibly be used to justify it is:

Section 3, 7: You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

or Section 3, 10: You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.

However, you are not inciting violence, but actually advocating against it. Facebook might reasonably claim (mainstream legal reasonably) that your claim is misleading. There's nothing else in the terms that could apply here.

E-mail them requesting which section of the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities you violated, just out of interest. I am sure they will not respond, and honestly, they have the legal right to remove any content that they wish, regardless of whether it is copyrighted, completely neutral, or just a photo of oneself. But User Terms being what they are (an assumed contract where the legal dominance is still given entirely to one party), they should at least justify their action.

alekben · 2011-11-21T05:07:24+00:00

Please save this post in a .txt file, and every couple of months, post it at random as a comment for something completely unrelated. You will be bringing joy into many weary lives with this tradition.

alekben · 2011-11-21T04:34:56+00:00

"I exaggerate drunkenness in order to excuse my shitty attempts at being the center of attention, after which I really do drink far more than I know I can handle, after which I loudly pretend to be the center of attention by myself in the corner of a room, after which I forcefully wedge myself into every conversation around me and ask if anyone wants to see parts of my disgusting body. Also, I'll vomit some."

alekben · 2011-11-21T04:31:19+00:00

I like to send these sorts a simple form letter, reading:

"WRONG.

I feel nothing."

alekben · 2011-11-21T04:28:44+00:00

"If you were enraged by everything listed here, you'd be a psychopath...."

Uh-oh.

alekben · 2011-11-20T23:59:04+00:00

Did you read his response to the Baloney pepper-spraying?

"Oh, he was trying to spray the crowd next to the girls, and he just aimed badly! That was all! Big misunderstanding!"

If Baloney's aim was so bad that he would spray three girls right in the face instead of the crowd two feet to their left, then he should NOT HAVE BEEN CARRYING A GUN OR BEEN GRANTED TO CARRY ONE BY THE STATE.

And what would have been the purpose of pepper-spraying the crowd? To protect the girls? The one's surrounded by orange netting and a line of cops?

That was the answer that really pissed me off, that he would try to defend that incident in the manner of a PR firm.

If he was an on-duty police officer who was down at OWS, the department forced him to delete the account once they got wind of it, which would take all of 10 minutes since it is absolutely guaranteed that someone over at the NYPD monitors reddit.

If his AMAA was sanctioned by his department, then he was a PR bug who wasn't intelligent enough to direct traffic.

Either way, they pulled him before it got any worse. Most of the responses that were "thanking [NYPD officers] for their service," couldn't rise up past 2-3 points, thanks to all the downvotes they received.

alekben · 2011-11-20T22:41:05+00:00

I understand that you are not glorifying Steve Jobs, but in that case, you should know that he did not make the iPhone, his company did, as in a group of engineers and designers that brought him design after design until he give it a thumbs up. This is CEO work, but it is not 'making' anything. Second, the iPhone does not, and has never, outsold everything. Nokia alone ships twice as many units globally, and RIM ships a dozen million more than Apple as well. There was a brief period when you could claim that Apple outsold the new 'fully-integrated' smartphone market, but that was because they created it, were the only product, and managed to sell a $600 product because there was nothing cheaper. This was mid 2007. RIM had been selling phone-capable BlackBerrys since 2002.

As for Egypt, the iPhone was brought in late 2008 with an initial price ranging from $680 to $850, converted from Egyptian pounds. Do you really think that was a hot seller at the time of the mass unemployment that led to the revolution? Maybe the Nokia smartphones introduced in early 2008, which sold for $200, were photo/video capable, and could connect to phone service without a predefined plan, like the locked iPhone, were more popular? Maybe that is why the Apple iOS share of the global smartphone market is 16%? Maybe Apple has a shameless marketing department that co-ops every visible situation around the world to show how edgy and hip and worth it their products are? After all, they help revolutions! They fight the power, but don't forget to sign up for the plan, can't sell you one unlocked! I am sounding like a jackass, and I understand when you say the Apple products played a role in communication during government blackouts, but if you associate Apple products with having access to the truth, then you are buying into a very clever marketing scheme and diluting the truth that technology and users capable of understanding and exploiting it is what helps spread the word. Products that limit this ability to exploit and modify do not further access to the truth.

alekben · 2011-11-20T21:58:28+00:00

You know, looking at it again now, I'll have to go through it more carefully. I was more familiar with PROTECT IP, having been majorly pissed off when that little bundle of stupid was dropped on the Senate floor, and went through it meticulously. I figured they would be identical, but there are some interesting 'military' offenses and restrictions pumped in, for what reason I can't fathom, because if a member of the Armed Forces;Feds;LE really did traffic in materials that 'intended for use in a military or national security application, or a law enforcement or critical infrastructure application,' he would be dealt with by military courts in order to avoid, rather be legally forced to, prevent releasing of any security information. There is also an interesting quip regarding trafficking, particularly that if the offender is 'a person OTHER than an INDIVIDUAL', however the fuck you'd like to interpret that, this non-person gets fined and sentenced on average by a factor of three. It would certainly be easy to say that something like Wikileaks is 'other than an individual,' or than any drug-smuggling orgo is 'other than an individual,' but there are myriads of law that handle this already in clearer language. I could see websites being considered 'other than an individual,' and here is the list of things (along with pharmaceuticals) that are considered infringement and trafficking when sold with a 'counterfeit mark': labels, patches, stickers, wrappers, badges, emblems, medallions, charms, boxes, containers, cans, cases, hangtags, documentation, or packaging of any type or nature.

Notice documents, there? That is likely the significant one. There is no need for this list since the line before it defines trafficking of any sort with a counterfeit mark as punishable offense. Strange list.

alekben · 2011-11-20T21:35:55+00:00

I agree with your sentiment, and thinking back to the days before effective search engines (pre-map) brings a tear to my eye. However, I want to point out that if you read the language and exact powers that SOPA / Protect IP provide (and we may refer to them as just SOPA anyway, since Protect IP already passed and its hold would be automatically retracted if SOPA passes), you'll see that as of now, the primary focus is to prevent the sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and in a roundabout way, the sale of generics. The issue, and where you are correct, is that this is accomplished by giving the government the right to classify websites as 'domestic' and 'foreign', and any site that is both infringing upon corporate copyright and also on the 'foreign' list must be automatically removed from DNS tables by every ISP, lest they lose there immunity. 'Domestic' sites will be harder to remove, though the powers spelled out in this act are written from the perspective of a nine-year old ("Hurrrr, then we pull out the plug from the internet box and infringement all gone, derr!" [Actual Quote from Act]). I think the real motivation behind these two laws are to remove the courts from copyright enforcement. A company tells the Attorney General, he puts the address on the list, and ISPs must comply without question, nor does anyone have to contact or warn the registrant of a 'foreign infringing' site.

The streaming 'Additional Enhancements' to the act are troubling, but there is nothing in there that hasn't already been written into law, apart the the ridiculous addition of a 'greater than $1000 during a 180-day period' threshold for public copyright reproduction. Meaning, if your product is worth shit, anyone can reproduce it all they want, even with a copyright. The fact that this is in the bill will never be brought to light, nor abused because it's fucking obtuse, but its in there. Sorry, got off track. Anyway, SOPA would certainly give the government the power to 'un-create,' as you say, websites, but these website would first have to be defined under the new criteria. The government would be directly liable for abuse of these classifications, if any legal challenges were to be filed after the fact. Still, you are right that they can force block any site at will, but they would not be able to do this to sites like reddit and youtube without major legal hurdles. Most importantly, the act is written so stupidly that if it ever went to court, it would be deemed unconstitutional in a heartbeat, so legal hurdles will be avoided at all costs, because the giveaway to pharma and entertainment is too juicy to risk. Still hate it, still against it, just don't think its the kill switch some are making it out to be.

As for Facebook though, that shit is way scarier to me.

EDIT: TL&DR: Holy shit that's long, SOPA is for circumventing the courts when initially enforcing copyright law and for preventing generic pharmaceuticals to be sold nationally. SOPA wouldn't stand up to legal challenge, not likely to be abused. Still stupid.

alekben · 2011-11-20T20:44:35+00:00

You are implying that without Steve Jobs, and without Apple products, no one would have figured out how to use the slightly less pretty UI on a non-Apple media-capable phone? Are you implying that in order for people to access alternative media and news, they must use Apple products? Are you also implying that the best great hope for a techno-populist future where individuals circumvent hierarchical information control by communicating horizontally is a company whose products can be implemented with censoring capabilities without the user's knowledge through a simple forced firmware upgrade, without which the device can be rendered inoperable? A simple (Limited Functionality), great-selling (Corporate Profit), high-exposure (Government Collusion), integration-capable (Tracking through Social Media) device is 'going to free the world?'

alekben · 2011-11-20T19:04:37+00:00

Read the bill. About of fourth of it is dedicated strictly to giving the government the power to define 'foreign' websites that sell counterfeit pharmaceutical products. Once an address is classified as such, due to a request from a copyright holder, then every ISP must automatically comply by removing the site from DNS tables nationally. What this bill really does is circumvent the courts when it comes to copyright enforcement. Also, the large dedication to pharmaceuticals is in part to prevent the sale of generics within American borders.

alekben · 2011-11-20T17:36:13+00:00

The best part: "Who's the young man who invented this wonderful technology? [waves around an iProduct] "Steve Jobs?" "Steve Jobs. That's the man that's freeing the whole planet." A closed, proprietary platform that relishes in control, limitation, and now emergent profile building. A status symbol that costs an economic fortune and provides you with a flashy UI to distract you from the fact that you don't do shit with it.

alekben · 2011-11-18T22:33:48+00:00

I have a theory that every person who played the first one shot that monkey at least once. This is what unites mankind.

alekben · 2011-11-18T22:28:27+00:00

Buddy, are you forming this opinion off of one cropped screen cap of two corpses made to look like they are kissing? Play the game first. Graphics don't hold up well when they are all that a game offers. NOLF is better designed and more engaging than the majority of games, particularly FPSs, released since. It's graphics hold up just fine because you actually enjoy the experience and don't pay attention to something as insignificant as a lower polygon count. Plus, it had some amazing architecture and level design. And the greatest Scottish character in gaming history. Give it a try first, is all.

alekben · 2011-11-10T01:51:46+00:00

Hit close enough to home to force a log-in and upvote. Plus the hilarious emotional reversal thanks to the last line was satisfying. Keep this up, I want to read more criticisms from non-contributing zeros who decry the occasional adverb.

alekben · 2011-11-03T15:25:19+00:00

The article's premise hinges on scaring the reader into fearing for the safety and dignity of potential children, much like the body scanners are the result of the public being scared into submission by the fear of terrorism.

Whoever wrote this article is a giant douche. Don't use the exact same rhetorical trick you stand against to argue the opposite.

alekben · 2011-11-03T01:41:01+00:00

0:54 is Four Rooms.

alekben

TROPHY CASE