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User: Paul+Jakma

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  1. Re:BMI is a lie! on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    You previously qualified your body fat percentage as being in the lean range for "your age". I'm not as convinced as you are that it is normal to put on 1 kg per annum with age - other than for a definition of "normal" that is tied in to the increase in excess-weight and obesity in the west. Though, I agree with you that it gets harder and harder with age to avoid putting on that weight, but in my case it's more down to increased time pressure making it harder to regularly do exercise, plus the fact that with age socialising revolves ever more around plentiful food. ;)

    Also, if you've been fat in the past, but lost most of the weight again, those fat cells are largely still there. They may be mostly empty, but they're sitting there waiting. Next time you eat too much, your body no longer has to go to the *expense* of making fat cells, the fat cells are there, ready to store the excess lipids. That makes it much easier to put on weight, and much more difficult not to.

    I'm very, very sceptical that you could be on the verge of "obese" yet be "lean" by any definition (other than ones normalised to a predominantly overweight and obese population). As others you'd have noted, you'd have to be *incredibly* muscled for this to be true. So... I still suspect there's a good chance there's an element of will-full self-delusion here. ;)

  2. Re:BMI is a lie! on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    Farah Fawcett looks a healthy weight to me, and again my memory is they were held up as athletic girls. Googling around suggests she was 1.69 metres and somewhere between 55 to 60 kg, which'd make her a BMI of between 19¼ and 21 - in the healthy range.

    I'm wondering if you're one of these of people who's in denial about being overweight? :)

  3. Re:BMI is a lie! on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    Err, 70s hulk.

  4. Re:BMI is a lie! on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    Well, none of the people in my old family photos were Hollywood pinups. So, I'm not sure how that's relevant. :)

    Further, are you saying all the people in those photos are dreadfully underweight, or just the first photo? If just the first photo, well the angels in Charlie's angels weren't at all overweight, granted, but neither were they malnourished waifs either. They were considered to be fairly athletic builds for young woman at the time as far as I remember. Indeed, it's in more recent times that the female ideal has shifted more to the 'malnourished' look, I think. That first photo - they all look like healthy, very normal weight young women to me!

    Given you also said "hunks", and linked to that series of photos: are you trying to say that Lee Majors (the guy in the suit with the 3 angels) is skinny and underweight? He was considered a beefy action man then!

    Actually, that's another thing, steroid abuse in sports has shifted the ideal male shape far from normality. I remember in the 80s rugby players and male action movie stars (e.g. Kirk Douglas, Lee Majors, etc) could be beefy but still were always within the bounds of normality (other than a few actors who came from the body building scene). Today, many rugby players and action stars look like they'd put the original 80s Incredible Hulk to shame. Steroid abuse however is not at all healthy!

    Anyway, all this is irrelevant. I'm not talking about the media. I'm talking about day to day photos of normal people and comparing those from decades past to today. Try it for yourself and I'm *sure* you'll notice the same thing - there is ample statistical evidence for population wide weight gain after all!

  5. Re:BMI is a lie! on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    I don't think my parents were going for that look. Also, this was in Europe. Also, they didn't look thinner than in the 50s / 60s.

  6. Re:BMI is a lie! on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    The first one is the pumpkin woman - I covered her already: Photo is distant, front on, fully clothed, wearing stripes so hard to judge her shape. However, she certainly doesn't look skinny.

    The 2nd photo looks like a professionally shot photo, very likely for a magazine. Indeed, you can see writing in the bottom left corner, as if from a catalogue. It's suspicious that this photo is in there. If this photo hasn't been retouched, well it's certainly been shot to show this woman in the best possible light. Further, again, she's wearing stripes and its front on - making it hard to tell.

    The 4th: He's got a slightly baggy shirt on, so hard to be sure, but from the way it goes in at his belt, he may well have a very slight paunch - which would be very consistent with 'overweight', no?

    The 5th: He's about my height, and he's definitely heavier set than I am - you can see some spare subcutaneous fat between his neck and jawline.

    I am right on the line between normal and overweight, FWIW. My face and neck and shoulders probably look like I'm not carrying much fat. However, I still have a slight spare tyre around my midriff. Further, under the skin is not the only place fat accumulates. It also accumulates around the organs. People can look relatively thin if judged just on the upper body or legs or skin, but still be overweight because of visceral fat.

    I think the problem perhaps is that people have become accustomed to overweight being "normal". However, it wasn't. If I look through old photos, from my grandparents times when my parents when kids, in the 50s and 60s, to when I was a young child in the 70s, it is *striking* to me how people then were generally much thinner than people today, particularly pre-middle-aged adults (e.g. my parents).

    Just because overweight has become "normal" in the sense that most western populations are now overweight, doesn't mean it is "normal" with respect to a healthy weight.

  7. Re:so far, USA is the only country i've seen this on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    You can see this in the UK too sometimes.

  8. Re:Sugar on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that's what I do too. When I'm at home I sometimes crave food, but I can control myself when shopping. So the trick is to buy only healthy and filling stuff. Unfortunately, my other half is the opposite - can't control herself in the shop, but has no problem not eating the junk once it's at home. ;)

  9. Re:Sugar on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, portions have increased. It's especially noticeable when you compare plate sizes. I did this last time I was at my mother's: We compared the old plates she still had from the 70s, to the more modern plates we use today. The modern ones are much bigger. The old dinner plates, you'd use them for lunch or cakes or appetisers today.

  10. Re:Sugar on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    I grew up in the 70s and early 80s in western europe. We had sweets and sugar, but there wasn't the abundance of sweets then as there is today - is my vague memory. Least, I remember getting sweets being special, and not getting many of them when I did.

  11. Re:BMI is a lie! on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    I went through the first 21 or so of those photos, and the BMI classification doesn't seem at all wrong to me. The most "contraversial" one might be the 3rd photo - woman in front of the pumpkin - but the photo doesn't really show you her shape, and the stripes also hide it. She doesn't look skinny though.

    That photoset basically affirms the utility of BMI as a heuristic diagnostic, for me. (I'm a hair under overweight, which I think is pretty fair).

  12. Re:Sugar on Gaining On the US: Most Europeans To Be Overweight By 2030 · · Score: 1

    How old are you? Specifically, are you still in your twenties? I'm late thirties, ~178 cm and 73 kg, which I maintain by cycling and limiting sugar and snacking. Cycling alone is not sufficient to control my weight. To really not have to watch what I eat, I'd have to be doing professional-cyclist levels of it (i.e. many hours each day, and >500 kilometres / week).

  13. Re:Here's hoping. on The GNOME Foundation Is Running Out of Money · · Score: 2

    Though, on the other hand, Cinnamon is built on top of the GNOME-Shell infrastructure, with much functionality built in JavaScripts, so it suffers the "continually leaking, ever expanding RSS" problems of GNOME-Shell.

  14. Re: Combined with the ringing phones ? on Engine Data Reveals That Flight 370 Flew On For Hours After It "Disappeared" · · Score: 1

    Mobile GSM phones are well capable of talking to towers on the ground at 35k feet. That's only about 10 kilometres. There will likely also be several towers within roughly equal distance with good line of sight. Indeed, one part of the reason mobile phones have been banned in aircraft for so long is because they would interfere with the *ground*. The fear being that having thousands of stations moving fast overhead, in range of potentially dozens of towers at the same time and roaming across them, would be too taxing for GSM to handle, causing service issues.

    I've had phone conversations with people in aircraft, at altitudes of around 20k to 25k feet (6.1 to 7.6 kilometres), with them ringing on their GSM phones and it worked fine.

  15. Re:READY OR NOT IS NOT THE ISSUE!!! on Slashdot Tries Something New; Audience Responds! · · Score: 1

    Not just 6 digit IDs.

    I've just had a look at the beta, and it's a bit bizarre. Pointless huge images. Lot more redundant white-space. No comment links. UIDs are not shown. The comment posting box is missing "Post anonymously". There doesn't seem to be any benefit to the redesign. It very much smacks of change merely for the sake of change, which is not good.

  16. Re:Secret meetings: on EU Secretly Plans To Put a Back Door In Every Car By 2020 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Note that this is taking place under the auspices of the Council of European Union, i.e. directly at the behest of the member state governments. The document mentions "Remote Stopping" just once:

    Remote Stopping Vehicles
    Cars on the run have proven to be dangerous for citizens. Criminal offenders (from robbery to a
    simple theft) will take risks to escape after a crime. In most cases the police are unable to chase
    the criminal due to the lack of efficient means to stop the vehicle safely. This project starts with the
    knowledge that insufficient technology tools are available to be used as part of a proportionate
    response. This project will work on a technological solution that can be a “build in standard” for all
    cars that enter the European market.

    So there's nothing agreed, there's nothing that is going to be imposed. The technology doesn't even exist. All they're doing is they're going to look to see what they could develop. Once they've done that, that doesn't mean it will be imposed. This working group doesn't have that power. If the public doesn't like it, the *member state* politicians (not EU politicians!) who make the decisions at the Council of the EU level would not put it forward. Even if these *state* politicians *did* want to impose this, they'd still need the agreement of the European Parliament (with its directly elected MEPs). The EP can delay and even block legislation (though, that requires a super-majority, ultimately).

    tl;dr: the Dailymail are, as usual, blowing out their arse and making shit up about what's happening at the EU.

  17. Re:if you know how a polygraph works... on Anti-Polygraph Instructor Who Was Targeted By Feds Goes Public · · Score: 1

    Polygraphs are unreliable generally in scientific tests, regardless of whether subjects know anything about how to circumvent them, for the simple reason that polygraphs are a load of bull.

    The only way they produce reliable information is where the subject volunteers it, out of fear the polygraph actually works, or desire to please the interrogator.

  18. Re:Total Obedience is Required ! on Anti-Polygraph Instructor Who Was Targeted By Feds Goes Public · · Score: 1

    FWIW, Chinese state TV is running news stories at the moment about the mass surveillance programmes that operate in the West. The Chinese state generally seems weaker in influence, than Western states like the US, UK, etc. Also, given that the US gaols a far greater number of its population than China, or pretty much any other country in the world, a random Chinese resident has a much better chance of being free than a US resident. To call the USA the land of the free smacks mildly of Orwellian double-think.

    (Note: There are a good number of things I admire about the US, and things I don't).

  19. Re:Total Obedience is Required ! on Anti-Polygraph Instructor Who Was Targeted By Feds Goes Public · · Score: 1

    This would be the China where a *lower* proportion of the population are in jail than the USA? I.e. you've a significantly better chance of being free in China than in the USA.

  20. Dailymail story on EU: Guaranteed to be wrong on EU Secretly Plans To Put a Back Door In Every Car By 2020 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dear Slashdot,

    You've posted a story from the Dailymail that has the form "EU wants to do outrageous thing!". The Dailymail has a long track record of:

    a) Hating the EU.

    b) Printing utter falsehoods about supposed plans "the EU" has, at least in their headlines and leading text.

    E.g., a previous instance, which I complained to the PCC about (who turn out to be toothless and/or cowards): http://paul.jakma.org/2011/11/... .

    Please do not feed the Dailymail troll.

  21. Re:The article makes this an intriguing issue on Anti-Polygraph Instructor Who Was Targeted By Feds Goes Public · · Score: 2

    The lie detector test is based on ignorance. Teaching people how to pass it amounts to telling them the scientific truth about the polygraph's efficacy: It has none, so don't worry about it, and don't volunteer information.

    If it's a crime to tell the truth about pseudo-scientific quackery, then we're fucked.

  22. Most popular vehicle? Wow... on Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's just staggering, that this is the most popular vehicle in the USA. It's about the same size/weight as a European 8-seater minibus! And this isn't at all the biggest Ford sell, is it? I've seen things on the motorway there that are almost bus sized.

  23. Re:In the SIMULATOR? on Airline Pilots Rely Too Much On Automation, Says Safety Panel · · Score: 1

    The maximum airspeed in coffin corner is because the plane doesn't have any more thrust to go faster - not a structural limit.

  24. Re:In the SIMULATOR? on Airline Pilots Rely Too Much On Automation, Says Safety Panel · · Score: 1

    It's coffin corner because it's relatively easy to stall there, not because the aircraft could go too fast and break up. There is little risk in immediately descending. Certainly, the risks of stalling are far magnitudes greater.

    My source: A retired jet pilot who had precisely the same thing happen to them as what happened to AF447 - iced up pitots and loss of airspeed indicators.

  25. Re:Why put the automation in if not to use it? on Airline Pilots Rely Too Much On Automation, Says Safety Panel · · Score: 1

    Bear in mind, the captain was responsible for some of the mistakes that led to them running out of fuel in mid-air in the first place.