BMI is a bad measure. All the fat acceptance nutters will tell you that.

And they’re right. The evidence indicates that it actually under-reports obesity.

A smaller scale study (1,691 persons) using DEXA scans (seen as a valid body fat measuring device) found that there was a 34.7% discrepancy between BMI and DEXA for women and 35.2% for men.^[7] However, BMI appeared to misclassify women as less fat as they were by DEXA; notable misclassifications include 20.3% of women being obese via BMI while DEXA showed 37.1%, 24.8% of men being obese via BMI compared with 38.4% of men being obese via DEXA. These results have been replicated in which persons in the normal BMI range were actually obese according to body fat percentage (20% of men, 9.2% of females) and more persons in the overweight BMI range were actually obese by body fat percentage (67.2% of men, 84.2% of females).^[8] High obesity rates in this study may be partially explained by socioeconomic issues, as it comprised Mexican persons (n=538) living in the southern USA. Finally, another study utilizing DEXA on a sample size of 1,393 persons found that 26% of persons were classified obese by BMI while 64% of persons were obese by DEXA; a misclassification rate (false negatives) of 25% for men and 48% for women was noted.^[2]

While I am certainly biased against the FA movement and all their ridiculousness and thus more likely to favor evidence that benefits “my” side, there is hardly any evidence in favor of their claims and loads of evidence against them.

Back where I grew up these people would have been called “powerful stupid.”

This is my new Helle Harding knife my lovely and talented partner got me for my birthday.

It’s like a vastly-improved version of the knife I carried nearly all the time as a kid growing up in the sticks of North Florida.

I really like it.

The Curse of Meh: Why Being Extraordinary Is Not a Matter of Being Universally Liked but of Being Polarizing.

Considering several times in my life people have sworn to kill me, and at least two have made an attempt at that, I’m pretty fucking polarizing.

Does that mean I’m the most attractive of them all? 😉

As this makes clear (and one of the commenters points out) the main reason people (including many feminists, I believe) don’t like the Supergirl trailer is that the hero is female.

BTW, there is just as much “bubbly nonsense” in male superhero shows but that gets a pass because it’s ok then.

Men won’t like the show because it’s got a female lead and because she’s not there to be eye candy.

Feminists will torch the show because it doesn’t hit every feminist talking point, and because it’s not dark and brooding, and because the character is realistically awkward and not some insta-badass.

A character that is sincere, thoughtful, femme, bubbly and not quite comfortable in her own skin? Yes, please. (I suspect a lot of feminists also dislike her because she is in fact very feminine. Internalized misogyny is pervasive.)

The show will last one season, I predict.

Who should be responsible when your robotic surgeon fucks up?

It should receive the robot death penalty: have Windows ME installed on it.

It’s crazy what executive assistants are asked to do these days, and the degrees they are expected to hold.

Also known as secretaries and/or administrative assistants.

The words don’t matter to me. The fact that I’ve seen job ads for secretarial positions that require a master’s degree is just blasting wonky.

From my own corporate experience and from reading this, it appears that companies are attempting to hire “assistants” to do the tasks that actual well-paid executives formerly would undertake, all for an “assistant” salary. Have seen this myself in the workaday world.

I had a full-time assistant (male, actually) at a job I worked for a year. It was great. I was so vastly more productive as anything that wasn’t my actual job I didn’t have to think about. It was just taken care of.

I got literally ten times as much done that actually helped the company in ways directly related to my role.

Productivity-wise, companies are shooting themselves in the foot by eliminating secretaries and executive assistants.

But it’s more difficult to measure than “firing someone on paper appears to save us $50,000 a year, so we’ll do that.”

Just watched the Supergirl trailer again. Melissa Benoist really fucking kills it. Even though I feel like I’ve seen all of the first episode, I don’t care. I’ll still watch it.

That transition from goofy awkwardness to increasing assuredness is really hard, and she manages it in a trailer. That’s impressive.

The show kind of reminds me of Tina Fey’s new show, if Kimmy Schmidt had superpowers. Hooray for the return of sincerity, and for women on TV.

I probably identify with stories like that more than most because that is in fact the story of my life. I was a really really awkward, gawky, weird misfit and I turned out pretty okay.

Still can’t fly, though. I’m working on that.

I’m surprised by the feminist hatred of the new Supergirl trailer.

I can’t quite explain it, though I’ve read a few analyses of it. They all seem to be utterly clueless about the mythos and devoid of any real critical understanding. Yes, the trailer deals in archetypes but the whole point and focus of the Superman and Supergirl mythos is archetypes.

I think part of it is also that nearly everything is expected to be dark and brooding these days. People react poorly when they don’t get that. The trailer was in a mode that hasn’t really been seen since the 1960s, which I believe throws people off.

Supergirl is supposed to be just finding her feet. She is not supposed to be sure of herself, or immediately ready to take on the world. That’s partially what the story is about; finding her confidence and own reasons for being exceptional. I find this “I’m a badass and always have been” utterly boring in male characters, so not sure why feminists are expecting it here in a woman right away where it’d also be utterly boring?

I actually watched the trailer twice because I quite enjoyed it. It was refreshing and complete alteration of the tenebrous bullshit that passes for depth these days.

Supergirl in the comics was dorky and goofy, especially at first. And Melissa Benoist pulled that off very, very well. I was impressed. I will probably watch it just for her. Here’s a good analysis about why there is so much dumbassery about the Supergirl trailer.

A lot of people it seems just search for reasons to be offended, on every side of the aisle.

Did I think it was perfect? No. But did I think it deserved to be trashed as some anti-feminist woman-hating work? No.

I’ll tell you what: real woman-hating is easy to find. It’s where they don’t put any women in anything at all.

This is why we can’t have nice things, people.

(BTW, if you liked the Supergirl trailer, you’ll almost certainly like the show iZombie. It has the same tone, is far better than I expected and Rose McIver is great in it.)

No, alas.

Also not a troll and not satire.

What a world we live in.