We could draw a bunch of conclusions that the data doesn’t point at, sure. Show me the fatality rate per crash by vehicle manufacture year and I’m betting we’d see a steady trend downward.

Here’s another graph that shows a change around 2010 that I could lay over the data that would correlate a rise in car sales with a rise in pedestrian deaths

And since the fatalities are in absolute numbers and not rate, the number of fatalities per car on the road might have been holding steady or going down. (Note that that graph has no sources, so you shouldn’t take it at face value anyway)

Not trying to defend cars, just trying to call out massaging data to fit what one has already decided is true.

I don’t think this is a useful comparison and I think it’s a dishonest to present it this way.

You’re trying to show that smartphones cause pedestrian deaths. This leaves out some very important info like figuring out if traffic accidents per mile driven have increased, if there are more pedestrians, the rates of death per accident and which kinds of vehicles are most associated with these deaths vs what people walk (or limp) away from.

From one of your sources, let’s look at what that red line looks like in a different scale. You’ve stretched that way out. Looks like the overall trend for non pedestrian deaths is going down over the long run. So pedestrian deaths are increasing while non pedestrian deaths are decreasing. No wait, this graph shows a huge increase in non pedestrian deaths!

Yeah, it’s still a bad way of presenting it.

With different scales like that, you could make any data fit that curve.

That scale though. You could stretch or squeeze any data to fit a curve like that.

In other words: reducing visceral fat is good for the brain

You (and the paper) are way too comfortable with claiming causation. The MED score was used specifically to reduce the possibility that there was another cause for both the lowered visceral fat and the cognitive measures and assumes the original interventions caused VAT reduction. If there is a known dietary intervention that works over 5 or 10 years to reduce weight, that alone would be a miracle since I’ve never seen any study of an intervention that can even guarantee a ten percent loss sustained over two years excepting gastric bypass. Self reported data about ones diet over five or ten years is practically worthless in my eyes. Can you tell me how many ounces of food your lunch was exactly one month ago? Neither could the participants. I bet their levels of physical activity may fluctuate year by year as well, especially at the age many of the participants were at. How many MET hours is also something typical people will not be able to accurately know or give a meaningful answer that covers 5 or 10 years.

Bad data does not lead to a strong conclusion.

Nonetheless, the prospective design, extended follow-up, and clear temporal sequence between MRI analyses support the plausibility of long-term associations. Dietary and lifestyle patterns at follow-up were systematically assessed, and the MED diet adherence score was included in all multivariable models to account for post-trial behaviors.

structured lifestyle questionnaires regarding diet, smoking habits, clinical data, and physical activity (PA) levels (quantified as metabolic equivalent of task (MET)-hours per week)41 were collected at baseline, end of intervention, and follow-up (5–16 years post-RCT), with dietary patterns additionally evaluated using the validated 14-item MED Diet Adherence Screener at follow-up.

From the cognitive health one:

This study has several limitations. The predominantly male, overweight-to-obese sample may limit generalizability to broader populations, including women and individuals with lower baseline adiposity. Although initial fat loss occurred under randomized conditions within the original trials, the 5–16-year follow-up did not involve random assignment to post-trial behavior patterns, limiting causal inference. Dietary and lifestyle patterns at follow-up were systematically assessed, and the MED diet adherence score was included in all multivariable models to account for post-trial behaviors. This adjustment also addresses the possibility that participants who responded well to the intervention were inherently more likely to maintain healthy dietary patterns over time, which may have independently supported brain health. … Additionally, while follow-up MRI scans were analyzed for participants across all four trials, baseline and end-of-intervention abdominal adipose tissue scans were available only from CENTRAL and DIRECT-PLUS trials, and brain MRI scans were available only from the DIRECT-PLUS trial. Consequently, long-term associations between adipose depots and brain outcomes were **limited to a 5- and 10-year follow-up for adipose depots and a 5-year follow-up for brain MRI. Importantly, cognitive function was not systematically measured at pre- or post-intervention time points, limiting the ability to assess individual-level cognitive changes over time. **A further limitation is the absence of quantitative MRI measures of ectopic fat in organs such as the liver and pancreas, which are recognized as relevant to cardiometabolic and brain health. … [Emphasis mine]

The MED score mentioned is 14 questions including how many tablespoons of oil you consume in a week. Self reported data about diet covering a month would barely be reliable let alone the 5 or ten years, but it’s brushed off as being good enough to lean towards causation rather than correlation.

Why aren’t those 47% all billionaires? Are they just saying they can’t be bothered to do so? The human mind is weird.

Guessing those are the soldering irons and were rotated through so there’s always one hot enough to melt the solder used to hold the pieces together.

Edit: if you mean the chair legs, two of them are actually human legs and the other three are a close one lit by the fire, a far one shadowed by the seat, and the middle distanced one which has questionable lighting at best.

They’re as unique as fingerprints, so it’s a pretty reasonable biometric. It’s also less prone to being copied in spy movies. Well, most spy movies.

I’d say not. This number for Japan includes groups that have been forcefully assimilated like the Ainu and Ryukuans. And then you see how more racially diverse places like the US are. So both homogeneous and diverse populations and nations can be pretty racist, both systemically and individually.

Not everybody can.

To appease Bugs Bunny’s desire to get rid of Mar a Lago

Makes me want to rewatch Blue Velvet. Context.

I want to go back to Germany. Visited there on a three week exchange in high school but haven’t been back since. Even with the various cultural homework things we had to do (learn what a Schultüte is, visit a graveyard, etc) I’m sure there’s so much more to do and see that young me couldn’t have even comprehended.

They can’t read English so they’ll never be the you that reads this map. I mean, they’re still not out of the woods, but…

Dagoth Ur is a linguist. TIL

Your freedom ends where mine begins.

You say those words but I don’t think you really understand them. It’s a declaration of negative rights, i.e. others aren’t allowed to do something to you. Freedom of speech is such a right in the US as it requires the government to not infringe upon it. This is in contrast to positive rights, e.g. the right to healthcare where somebody has to do something in order to provide the right to others. Read up at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights

What it absolutely doesn’t mean is: I am allowed to take away your rights by doing whatever I want. We’re talking about smoking, but it could just as easily be pandemic prevention measures (if you were antivax or antimask because muh freedoms, let me know and I won’t waste any more of my time), or shooting a gun into the air (others don’t have the right to not have bullets randomly raining down on them /s). My freedom to not get shot (i.e. life) doesn’t end where your freedom to shoot begins. That’s called murder (or manslaughter etc). I’m not saying it’s the same magnitude as smoking, just using an example to make the situation clearer.

Too much chuckle, there goes that disc again.