Cumulative effects and predictive value of common obesity-susceptibility variants identified by genome-wide association studies.

I know these specialist-aimed paper can be hard to read and understand especially for people not used to looking at such things, but the basic conclusion is that all of the risk alleles combined only account for ~1% of BMI/weight variance.

All SNPs combined explained 0.9% of BMI variation, with an AUC of 0.574 (95% CI: 0.559, 0.590) for prediction of obesity.

The rest is due to other factors.

Like eating too fucking much. (That part is not in the paper.)

So nope, your genetics ain’t makin’ you fat.

Security and accessibility are at odds. They always will be.

Here I don’t mean “accessibility” as it is typically used as separate capabilities or facilities for disabled people. No, I meant it in a general sense, the sense that by definition something that is easier to use is more accessible.

I should point out however that making something more accessible for disabled people also almost always makes it easier to use, better and more convenient for everyone.

That said, lately in computing there has been the tendency to make things ostensibly more secure in user-hostile ways, such as by sandboxing processes, disallowing users to run their own OSes on their own equipment or all the other myriad methods lately that are claimed to prevent security breaches or virus infections. Make sure you avail the best Azure security for your system’s data protection.

While I do agree there is a marginal increase in security, the trade-off is just too high and is not done sensibly. And of course the true reasons for the greater security aren’t the ones you’ve been told. It’s mostly not to protect you from viruses or malicious actors. It’s to protect companies and their profits from you. There is need for control and protection for OT networks in order to safeguard one’s data.

I don’t want to make this post too long (as I’ve noticed the longer a post, the fewer people read it in an almost linear relation), however if the concern were truly to protect you from malicious actors, all hard drives would come encrypted from OEMs and would have since the 1990s.

But back to accessibility. Windows 8 is a good example. It was a very difficult OS to use for blind and other disabled people due to the unpredictable mode changes it underwent, the inability of screen readers to deal with this, and its inherent non-standard and ever-changing interface.

Of course the security “features” of sandboxed processes also make it impossible to modify easily, so there is no remedy.

The more secure you make something, the more difficult it is to use. Just think of the sites that require two-factor authentication and 8+ character passwords with special characters. Easy to use? No one thinks so.

It’s even worse, though, as unlike the above most modern security capabilities are not aimed in any way at protecting you, but as with DRM and sandboxing are aimed at protecting large companies and their cash from you.

Electra Woman And Dyna Girl.

Non-sexualized costumes, great hair and zany fun? Yes, please.

Even nearly 10 years later, I cannot use Microsoft Office and its “ribbon” effectively.

That was really the first foray of any organization into user-hostile interface design and wow has it proved a real loser from a usability perspective.

I search for minutes for things back in Word 2003 I used to be able to find in 1-2 seconds.

American Entrepreneurship Is Actually Vanishing. Here’s Why.

Claims this article.

But it’s wrong, at least for the reasons.

The economy is now sink or swim. Obamacare did nothing to ameliorate that. Taking risks does not pay off; in fact, it harms you.

Employers don’t see having worked for or founded a start-up (outside of very small bastions like Silicon Valley) as a real job. You will have problems passing background checks and therefore problems getting hired if you found or work for a start-up.

I know — I was contracting for a start-up for over a year where I did a lot of difficult technical things on my own, without the usual assistance (other team members, official vendor support, etc.) and no company I later interviewed with saw it as a real job despite it being more difficult than most of my “real” jobs.

And also there are no societal safety nets now. Student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, therefore many people with them will not take the risk of crashing and burning and being unable to repay loans.

Health insurance is now mandatory, but not cheap, so yet another cost that dissuades entrepreneurship. (In the past, many would forgo health insurance and risk it. No longer an option.)

So the great risk shift in society has dissuaded entrepreneurship greatly.

That’s really what happened — another example of the Baby Boom generation accruing all the advantages, pulling up the ladder behind them and then blaming their kids and grandkids for failing.

Good example of hypocrisy here.

These women who say that men are not allowed to have standards when it comes to weight will also be the first to put in their profile, “Will not date anyone under 6’2″.” Happens all the time.

But I sort of agree with her, even with as stupid as she is. Perhaps things should be spelled out more clearly.

So nota bene: I will not date fat women.

And furthermore I will almost certainly not continue to be attracted to women if they get fat post relationship. This has never been any secret but fuck it, if now it makes me an evil person to make it explicit so be it.

Devil horns look good on me, anyway.

This is just like I won’t date anyone else I’m not attracted to.

Good enough?

I’m really glad this article specifically cites The Walking Dead as having great female characters because it now truly does.

The first two seasons, not so much. But oh how that has changed.

Carol (OMG Carol), Andrea, Maggie, Michonne, Beth, Sasha, Tara, Rosita, and others — all great. So extremely well-written.

They all feel like real people to me, like someone I could have known. They hold a shape in my mind that fictional characters usually do not.

And Carol is doubly unusual because she is in her late 40s and not in any way sexualized. Not that the other female characters are, either, but what Carol has become fits no archetype, no stereotype, no standard path. She is completely unpredictable in a direct and meta sense and therefore the most fun character I have ever watched on any television show that I’ve ever seen.

Senator calls for The Anarchist Cookbook to be “removed from the Internet.”

Ha. Good luck.

One of the first things I ever downloaded from a BBS was that book. I don’t know what year that was. Sometime in the mid-80s. Good luck removing it from the internet. It’s been out there — pre-mass-internet, even — for a long time.

Can someone please explain to these old people how the internet works?

I hope I’m not so clueless about the basics when I am beyond 60, even if I don’t really use the tech that much.

Unlike this article claims, men get chastised and told “one day you’ll change your mind” all the time for wanting to remain childless.

Oh, I am sure it happens to women more often. But it happens to men very frequently too. I get it at least once a month, I’d guess.

I’ve known I didn’t want kids since I was 10. Never have changed my mind and never will as that seems like such a punishment.

I remember what I was like, and it wasn’t pretty.

None of that, thank you.

I’m not surprised to see that Wal-Mart is rated the worst supermarket in the nation since it is in fact horrifying.

But this about Wegmans...yep.

At the opposite end of the spectrum was Wegmans, the only chain to score highest marks across the board in all categories.

The only reason I’d ever consider moving to New Jersey or New York (state) is Wegmans. It is the most wondrous, glorious and refulgently delightful supermarket I’ve ever seen. Ah, the cheese counter alone one could compose essays about. The glory and the beauty…but I digress.

It’s not that expensive but it’s the only store I’ve ever seen real truffles on sale out just in a case.

Wegmans, these others who have never exalted in thine pleasures know naught of what they miss, nor how impoverished are their insubstantial Wegmans-less barely-flickering quintessences.

One of the reasons I associate with no political movement — even ones that I naturally align with, like liberal/leftism — is that I can’t tolerate groupthink and “going along.”

One of the conventions and deeply-held beliefs of many liberals these days is that you can’t criticize anyone who is on “our side,” especially if they write a book.

While several bystanders have insisted that his judgement is “opinion not criticism,” it’s clear that the irritant isn’t so much what he said as how he said it: exasperated and dismissive, but formidably articulate. Merritt’s a bit scary, decidedly churlish, and not inclined to give the authors the benefit of the doubt. He doesn’t even pay these books the respect of hating them; his disdain is passionless. Guilfoile accuses Merritt of assuming he’s “smarter than the author,” and of being someone who lacks the “generous” mentality of a truly good reader.

Telling you what they truly thought of a book was what critics once did, their raison d’être, how they made their spendin’ cash. However on the left at least these days not liking something stamped by the Official Seal of Bleeding Heart Approval™ is tantamount to clubbing baby seals.

Like, you are literally oppressing me by not liking something. Literally.

I abandon something like 60% of books I start. Why? Most are crap. Life is too short to read bad, boring books even if written with the best of intentions. If I were a critic I’d diss about 60% of books I read, and everyone would hate me. Which is fine with me.

I’ve never read An Untamed State or that bullshit about the wind whatever, nor am I likely to do so in the near future.

But if I don’t like one or both of them, it shouldn’t have to be something I suppress as the price of being on the “right” side.

Real criticism and a real opinion is far more valuable — even to and for the left — than rubber-stamping the approved and inviolable ideology. Criticism even of the negative variety only strengthens the left and its arguments and should be valued.

Time to put on your Big Boy and Big Girl pants, people, and engage the old mean world on its actual terms.

Only way to win.