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Kurt Starnes › Comments
*Cindy Lou Who* Taylor Momsen All Growed Up. Do You Remember?
Jimminy Fuller liked this
I do. I remember Cindy Lou. Damn, if only I knew, what to say about this young Who.
- Jimminy Fuller
But you do, oh you do, remember what to say about his sultry young Who.
- Kurt Starnes
I do indeed. I would love to lift her upon my steed, and <SPOILER REDACTED>.
- Jimminy Fuller
FriendFeed should be faster again. We were had some network issues which caused a lot of slowness this past week, but I think it's fixed now. Let me know if you are still encountering any extreme slowness.
(1)Bebekvegebelik, Adriano, Jeremy (on vacation) and 121 other people liked this
Will this mean I'll be able to upload pictures again? EDIT This does not mean I can upload photos now.
- Admiral Anika
Thanks for the update Paul! ;)
- Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ
Mainly just had problems with email posting and the bookmarklet. The rest seemed fairly okay.
- Jason Huebel
I've been told that I'm extremely slow much of the time, but I don't think that's what you meant. Thanks for taking care of the issue, Paul.
- Jim Addz No Value
Does seem very zippy, thanks team!
- Stephen Mack
Time to time, it's slow. Overall fast (again), however.
- Ozkan Altuner
I think the issues were directly related to Cristo's 11 MB PDF upload.
- Louis Gray
Thank you, Paul!
- Holly Rae
it looks faster now. thanks
- Hakan İyice
I still see Twitter updates coming in here 10 -15 minutes later
- Jorge Escobar
Thanks Paul. Much better.
- Roberto Bonini
Im experiencing extreme slowness ,,,, but then again , Im 53
- johnpiercy
nice also to know your not Boarding up the Windows
- johnpiercy
It did seem a little faster this afternoon.
- John (a.k.a. dendroica)
The Twitter issue is a separate problem Jorge -- our realtime feed from them is gone, but we hope to get it restored soon.
- Paul Buchheit
The Twitter feed went entirely???? o_O
- Roberto Bonini
It would be great if you could speed up importing of Twitter feeds. The slowness has been an issue for me lately.
- John (a.k.a. dendroica)
Got it, Paul. Thanks!
- Jorge Escobar
Nice to know that there is indeed a problem with Twitter importing being slow, and I'm not just going crazy.
- Tyson Key
Awesome news!
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Sweet
- Josh Haley
Meanwhile, Dad's kids with his new wife get what kind of toys?
- Matthew DeVries
Matthew, FriendFeed users have no reason to complain about our toys. And even if we did, bitterness doesn't help.
- Bruce Lewis
FriendFeed is dying for me. In fact. it's just about gone. I use it as a control room and discussion space for my Twitter feed, and a searchable archive. Discussion threads are down about 80 percent. "Likes" are off about 90 percent. There's no real time feed in from Twitter any more. Sad.
- Jay Rosen
Agreed, Jay. My personal life is in a bit of an upheaval right now, which hasn't helped, but the FB acquisition took the wind out of the sails for me. It feels like there's no future, or worse, a future wired up to the "friending" criteria of my Facebook account. I use the services COMPLETELY differently, however. Inbound updates continue, since they're automatic, but this is the first comment I've posted in weeks. Sad, indeed.
- Ken Kennedy
+1 Jay
- Daniel J. Pritchett
I am using Twitter and FB more and more lately. On the plus side, it's strengthening some real world connections. I'm missing out on the cool new stuff but I think I had gone overboard on that front.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
I like FriendFeed, but I happen to find myself using Twitter and IRC more as of late. I guess I've probably just burnt myself and others out, given that I don't seem to have much in the way of compelling content and commentary these days, and that I just don't feel as motivated as I'd like to. :(
- Tyson Key
Thanks
- zizukabi
Thanks for the info and the update.
- giuseppe c. | markgreene
Still seems to be some slowness. The Innovation Management Room (er...Group) hasn't updated for several hours: http://friendfeed.com/innovat...
- Hutch Carpenter
Thanks for throwing some love over to FF :)
- Susan Beebe
Is there currently an issue with posting from FF to update Facebook -or is Facebook broken after the re-design ? i dont get anything posted to FB anymore which worked fine before yd
- Del_
Hi Paul, I know it has been a while since this post. But over the last 48 hours my Twitter updates have quit showing up in FF. I tried manually refreshing. Then I removed the account so I could just add it back in. When trying to do that I get the following message: "We could not find the given account" I haven't changed anything. Any thoughts on why this is happening? I haven't had any trouble until now. Thanks.
- Mary-Lynn
My Twitter feed is coming into FF much faster now - thanks! *Edit - Blog feed, too!
- Kurt Starnes
Ah, yes, search is much faster now. Thank you.
- April Russo (app103)
World's First Transistor Made From A Single Molecule | Revealed 62 years after first transistor demonstrated | Yale/EurekAlert! - http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_rel...
"New Haven, Conn.—A group of scientists has succeeded in creating the first transistor made from a single molecule. The team, which includes researchers from Yale University and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, published their findings in the December 24 issue of the journal Nature. The team, including Mark Reed, the Harold Hodgkinson Professor of Engineering & Applied Science at Yale, showed that a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts could behave just like a silicon transistor. The researchers were able to manipulate the molecule's different energy states depending on the voltage they applied to it through the contacts. By manipulating the energy states, they were able to control the current passing through the molecule."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
The realtime connection from Twitter to FriendFeed is back! (thanks to Twitter's "birddog" api)
Garin Kilpatrick, (1)Bebekvegebelik, Arunav S Banerjee and 150 other people liked this
Awesome news!
- Jorge Escobar
Very good!
- Kurt Starnes
Sweetness!
- Alex Scrivener
34 secs flat for my latest tweet. Thanks Paul and team for this!
- Jorge Escobar
wow, that makes actually want to use Twitter. I may just go tweet something.
- Mike Nencetti
It should be even faster than that Jorge, but our systems are getting near their limit. I hope to have it down to 1 sec sometime next month.
- Paul Buchheit
Thank god!
- Miguel Caetano
@Paul, believe me, 34 secs is a charm compared to what we had before!
- Jorge Escobar
Great news!
- Rasmus Lauridsen
Is the birddog api open to all developers, or is it only to you guys?
- Jorge Escobar
Jorge, everyone can access the streaming api, but you need an agreement to follow a large number of ids. See http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Streami...
- Paul Buchheit
Thanks Paul.
- Roberto Bonini
that cool. Thanks Paul
- Peter Dawson
Yay! That's fantastic! I was getting really bored of manually refreshing it every time I tweeted. Especially from my phone. :)
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
Does this mean that Scoble can get smarter on FriendFeed again?
- Crutis
NICE!
- Jason Huebel
Thanks Paul, nice work :)
- LANjackal
wow no posts on the majors yet - usually within mere moments of an announcement we'd have posts.
- Allen Stern
Thank God.
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
cool!
- barbarars
What was the problem?
- Ozkan Altuner
Now....if you could just get rid of the @ replies again. I would be very happy.
- Chris Nixon
relief ! :)
- asli subasi
You are still working on Frienfeed (: how nice !
- Murat Can Demir
whoa, it took less than a minute. i accdently tested it but it's great :) thnx
- asli subasi
awesome, keep it up guys, i knew you would not let us down
- Iggy Mwangi
Great news, love the efforts still put in to FF.I use Google Reader to share into FF (PubSubHubBub) then FF to Twitter (now Real-Time). The URL shortener is great (ff.im), and so FF is central to my social lifestream. I don't care what Scoble says, FF is technically better and feature-rich.
- Keith Rowland
P.S. Conversations are still better here than on GReader, and you just can't have one on Twitter.
- Keith Rowland
You didn't break the FF Facebook app while you were at it, did you? It hasn't worked since.
- Tim Tyler
Oh, awesome!!! 12 seconds :) I can finally go back to Twitter (...okay no I can't I've turned into a Friendfeed junkie..) but prior it took hours upon hours for me to see a feed. Dumb I am, I never suspected a problem LMAO.
- H0llywoodWh0re
Thank you!
- Micah Wittman
Awesome news :)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
eyvallah hacı
- Mücahit Yılmaz
Cool. Haven't tried it but yay!
- 'Like' robot (frɐnc)
Yippee! I love real time
- Sandra Large
Paul ?? Twitter updates facebook status and then facebook creates a new feed here on friendfeed. So we have same entries both from twitter and facebook on friendfeed. Could you guys please work on how we can avoid duplicate entries? Thank you. ( If there's already a way to avoid this, pls let me know)
- Murat Can Demir
Cool, thanks, Paul! :-) RT Twitter updates have been missed. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
And just as I say that, I see my tweets are not coming into FF in real-time. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
Kol. I just tweeted and it was here before I could get out of Tweetie and launch Safari... It's working :)
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
awesome.; thank you a lot..
- Jaap Willem
Nice! Thank U Paul :)
- zʍıɔ
:)
- ★ Soner Gönül
Oh, so nice to have that back again.
- Hutch Carpenter
Johnny, cool. Just me then. It's still slow. Maybe it's FriendFeed then?
- Kol Tregaskes
It truncates retweets, even in the middle of a link...
- Raphael, Raphael
seems that there are only 140chars allowed for a tweet (on FF) and the new twitter retweets are being translated on the way through to old RT @name style - thus are too long.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Dec. 23, 1947: Transistor Opens Door to Digital Future | This Day In Tech | Wired.com - http://www.wired.com/thisday...
"Bardeen and Brattain demonstrated the transistor device to Bell Lab officials Dec. 23, 1947. Shockley was reported to have called it “a magnificent Christmas present.” But Shockley himself was not present when it happened and was said to be bitter over losing out on that day."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
Drug and placebo: Study redefines placebo effect as part of effective treatment | Science Daily - http://www.sciencedaily.com/release...
"ScienceDaily (Dec. 22, 2009) — Researchers used the placebo effect to successfully treat psoriasis patients with one quarter to one half of their usual dose of a widely used steroid medication, according to an early study published online in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. Early results in human patients suggest that the new technique could improve treatment for several chronic diseases that involve mental state or the immune system, including asthma, multiple sclerosis and chronic pain."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
New Blog Post: The One Thing Not To Do On Facebook | starnes.com - http://starnes.com/2009...
"It should not be surprising that spending a lot of time with anyone in any setting can turn otherwise harmless and slight acts by one into a source of acute mental irritation for the other. If you are married or have ever been married you are intimately aware of this phenomenon. Remarkably, the person who initially turned you on in every conceivable way may become the one who sends you into a raging fit because they don’t close the cap on a shampoo bottle."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
Original Rainman Kim Peek Dies – Neatorama - http://www.neatorama.com/2009...
"An MRI later showed that his brain lacked a corpus callosum — the connecting tissue between the left and right hemispheres. Peek said his son’s brain lacked the normal filtering system for receiving information. The condition left him able to retain nearly 98 percent of everything he read, heard or watched on television. The average person only retains about 45 percent."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
That headline does not work so well with the name of the source. RIP Kim Peek.
- Kurt Starnes
Sarah Palin Makes it Too Easy - http://www.flickr.com/photos...
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Joe Silence, Itachi, Archangel ωαřмaiden and 2 other people liked this
Is she in 2nd grade? And ions? Seriously?
- Chrimmus Tad
This is obviously faked just to make her look bad. You libruls are gonna hate it when she's elected President in 2010.
- ha3rvey (Ho)^3
who said I'm a liberal? Besides, idiocy is bipartisan :)
- Brett Kelly
from IM
Holy crap, it's real. And the one before it is even stupider.
- Rob Haas
How long is an ion? :\
- Kurt Starnes
Brett, you're obviously a liberal because only a liberal elitist would be smart enough to notice what's wrong with that update. Or only a liberal would dare say anything against the hockey mom. Or something.
- Pierce Presley
I got called out as a heretic by my theology teacher when I was a junior in high school. My particular heresy was pantheism. Now that I think about it, I guess that was the beginning of my struggle with faith.
Alex Scoble, Andrew Terry, Jennifer Dittrich and 15 other people liked this
It's a good thing Catholics have stopped burning people at the stake.
- Victor Ganata
I think its a good thing that the devil has stopped burning people [ through those claiming to be Catholics] at the stake. I never trust the name unless the actions back it up. A person can call themselves anything.
- Melanie Reed
Wear your heretic badge with pride.
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
Saying it was the Devil lets those people off the hook. It was people. Individual people making the decision to burn people alive.
- Spidra Webster
Spidra, I agree. It takes two to do those things. There has to be cooperation and agreement. My statement does not endorse "the Devil made me do it". We are responsible for what we do. But by doing those things a person identifies him or herself as not having been of Christ in the first place but wearing a mask.
- Melanie Reed
YHWH can totally kick Thor's ass, so watch yourself.
- Christopher A Carr
Melanie: One can do terrible things by closely following the books you worship (no devil required). In fact, where Abrahamic religions have become less literal, they've become more innocuous.
- Christopher A Carr
Christopher: One can do terrible things mis-following any book read, including scientific ones.
- Melanie Reed
Science books don't generally tell you who needs to be stoned to death, and under what circumstances.
- Christopher A Carr
In fact, science books don't really tell you anything about ethics and morality at all.
- Victor Ganata
No, they can show you how to make bombs with the power to melt people's skin off and eye matter out of their eye sockets not to put too fine a point on our misuse of a wonderful gift of intelligence.
- Melanie Reed
Showing you how isn't the same thing as telling you to actually do it.
- Victor Ganata
What is your point about the stoning to death? It's horrible to be stoned to death. We all agree with that. But what we fail to see is that the pain and hurt and agony of (murder, incest, adultery and other causes) were perfectly all right for us to do to one another. Just so long as a moral Law giver did not tell us: "No".
- Melanie Reed
In fact, YHWH may have more strength points than The Hulk.
- Christopher A Carr
LMFAO - Are you apologizing for the edict that adulterers be stoned to death?
- Christopher A Carr
No, not apologizing at all. Have you seen the hatred and murder that have increased around the world, the broken homes and lost children and spouses who have been devastated because of it. It has gotten worse not better.
- Melanie Reed
I agree, killing these individual by stoning is the only sensible course of action.
- Christopher A Carr
*Windexes the windows of his glass house*
- Derrick
Has murder really increased around the world? These would be interesting statistics, but difficult to verify.
- Kurt Starnes
Christopher: you will get to see (and are now seeing) what will happen. The great "scientific experiment" if you will is under way. And we will see if the way the world wants things will work. It will be allowed to go to its logical conclusion.
- Melanie Reed
http://www.ted.com/talks... (Steven Pinker on the myth of violence) <-- Things have gotten better after the Enlightenment.
- Christopher A Carr
Regarding Victor's original statement regarding his struggle with faith, has a correlation between faith and "goodness" (less murder, rape, crime, divorce, etc.) ever been established? I don't think it has.
- Kurt Starnes
Thanks for that Christopher - as I expected.
- Kurt Starnes
The jump from Catholicism to pantheism is really more of a hop.
- Jeremy (on vacation)
Jeremy: Catholicism has certainly made more concessions to reality (condom thing notwithstanding) than have American literalist protestants.
- Christopher A Carr
Oh, that whole "God's not really the creator" stuff. Yeah, I head about that.
- Jeremy (on vacation)
Biological evolution, and so forth...
- Christopher A Carr
The theory of origin of species despite all the evidence to the contrary. It's understandable. I't's one more step toward humanism.
- Jeremy (on vacation)
Heh, my understanding is that his belief in pantheism was part of the basis for the numerous charges against Giordano Bruno.
- Victor Ganata
Christopher: yes, this is an idea against another idea. A reality against a perceived reality And one will prevail in the end. If you are right, then nothing I say will change that. So we'll find out. I for my part have made my choice. And as Jeremy introduces the word "humanism" , I will state that is the other idea: Man making himself "god" deciding what is real and not, what is true...
more...
- Melanie Reed
What pisses me off more is when humans try to make themselves The Invisible Pink Unicorn. I *HATE* that.
- Christopher A Carr
Did you view the Pinker TED talk, Melanie?
- Christopher A Carr
Interesting topic. Melanie, can you explain your last sentence? I think I'm missing something. "We have been asked to endure it even to our death if necessary." Also, science is not meant to advocate or claim ethics or morality. Science is a tool we use to understand ourselves and the world. We use science to understand facts which we apply our own morals and values to. Science might say that fish contain mercury, and religion might say not to eat fish. The point of each is different.
- Heather
Science can be employed to help us understand something about the biological underpinnings of human primate morality and ethics. It can also help us understand how ethical mores change over time via cultural (memetic) evolution.
- Christopher A Carr
Even in that case, science can only tell us how things are, and how things came to be. It may even predict what will be. It still doesn't tell us anything about how things should be.
- Victor Ganata
Victor: On that point, you might find this interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Christopher A Carr
I'm not willing to cede morality and ethics to religionists.
- Christopher A Carr
Jeremy: I would be interested in hearing about this evidence against biological evolution. It would aid in our battle against the vast conspiracy of satanic biologists, satanic molecular biologists, satanic zoologists, satanic geneticists, satanic computer scientists, satanic game theoreticians, satanic population geneticists, satanic paleontologists...
- Christopher A Carr
I don't think secular society is devoid of morality and ethics. While, yeah, you can optimize happiness and fairness by acting on data from the study of neuropsychiatry, I have a hard time seeing how the actual optimization would be considered science. Sure, you can have ethics and morality based on scientific principles, but is the ethics and morality actually science? Maybe I'm just arguing definitions, though.
- Victor Ganata
"I have a hard time seeing how the actual optimization would be considered science." <-- Perhaps "engineering" is a more apt description.
- Christopher A Carr
Victor, science doesn't tell us any type of "should" on purpose. That's a value judgment, which inherently varies between people. I don't think there is any system that can cleanly, effectively, and across the board tell us "should" and "shouldn't". Optimization is impossible because of the differences in people's opinions. Even people who use the same set of influences, like religion, can come to different conclusions about what is morally right or wrong.
- Heather
Heather: You might find that Youtube link interesting.
- Christopher A Carr
I'm sure you'll like this, Melanie: http://ff.im/d0q7K
- Christopher A Carr
Heather, Thank you for your question. Every discipline has a philosophy behind it. And I agree with you that Science is a tool, a very useful one. I have stated such before. I have also stated (on other threads) that I grew up "teething" on science as my father was a science teacher. I applied myself and won a number of science fairs and kept on my reading. My particular interest though...
more...
- Melanie Reed
Blogs And Babies: This One’s Growing Up - http://starnes.com/2009...
Stephen Mack liked this
A blog is a lot like a baby. You can’t really express to someone who doesn’t have one what it’s like and, despite all of the reference material about how to nurture one, you don’t really begin to figure it out until you’ve had one for a while.
- Kurt Starnes
I have Skype, but I never use it. Anyone on FF use Skype?
Kol Tregaskes, Kurt Starnes, A.T. and 5 other people liked this
I used it to talk with my wife, who was in Paris and Germany for Le Web / meetings last week. It was great a few times and frustratingly bad other times. Overall, I wouldn't rely on it. We're thinking of getting Vontage or a similar VOIP service and trying that overseas next time.
- Cristo
Thanks. I heard Skype mentioned in the FFundercats podcast. I completely forgot I had an account.
- Mike Nencetti
I adore it- mostly for cheaper long distant phone calls
- anna sauce
I use it regularly with my husband and son to call my parents in another state. The video component is the important piece for us, so Travis can see his grandparents and they can see him. In-person visits happen maybe twice per year.
- Sally: in Florida
Used in our podcast plus our family uses it to stay in touch and do video chats. Cheap to Guam, as in free.
- Josh Haley
I have Skype, but I never use it anymore. my wife wants us to set it up with a cam so we can talk with her family in Malaysia, so i need to get on that.
- Joe Silence
I haven't used it recently, but one of my main uses was playing D&D remotely using the video capabilities about 5-6 times in the past, sustained connections for 4+ hours. Occasionally, have had issues with it cutting out during regular conversations however.
- Jimminy Fuller
My wife has family in Trinidad. I think we are just too busy to realize we can use Skype to reconnect. (Castro/Cuba was in Trinidad, her family had to leave. long story...) Thanks for all the feedback :) It's not the safest place to visit.
- Mike Nencetti
Once in a long while. Mostly with family.
- Rodfather
I want to use it, but I don't seem to have any one else who wants to use it.
- Martha
There are better low-cost international calling services available, at least in terms of quality. If you're in the US, check out Tremcom.
- Cristo
I use skype for International calls. Plus, if you have US account, you can call anyone in US for usage limit of 10,000 minutes per user per month, with a maximum of 6 hours per day. Also, no more than 50 different numbers in total can be called per day at $2.95(per month) regardless of the geographic location.
- ashish
I don't like having people sound like aliens or completely not be able to communicate for minutes at a time. Others may have had better luck. Like I said, it was very inconsistent.
- Cristo
Had an account for years, but I rarely use it
- MiniMage TKDteacher of FF
I always use Skype. But the video conf. quality is not so good
- Ozkan Altuner
http://www.skype.com/intl... Asus Skype touch videophone no computer needed
- Robert Higgins
I use Gtalk. Although I keep on trying to avoid using Google.
- Ton Zijp
Set it up on my parents' PC so they could talk to relatives in the US and Ireland. Set it up on my computer to verify it all worked in a call to them. Saw what I looked like in the webcam view. Vowed never to use video chat ever again.
- Mark H
I use it sometimes to talk with the grand children in LA
- martha
many times. Works well.
- FF's Bubba of Arizona
Use it often and am generally happy with it. Even got a Skype To Go number. My young Daughter and her friends use it even more than I.
- Kurt Starnes
YouTube
- The Kinks - Destroyer (1979) - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Derek Coward, Kurt Starnes, martha and holly liked this
30 years ago!
- Christopher Harley
Yes, 30 years ago and I remember it well. I can't be that old.
- Kurt Starnes
LED traffic lights don't melt snow - http://www.boingboing.net/2009...
Mark H, Steve, Kurt Starnes and See-ming Lee 李思明 SML liked this
"Cities that installed LED traffic lights to save money are learning that the incandescent lights they got rid of had a useful purpose: their waste heat melted the snow that covered them in winter storms."
- Alex Scrivener
from Bookmarklet
The law of unintended consequences.
- Kurt Starnes
The Galaxy Song from Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life | YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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And here's an examination of the stated facts/figures in the song, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
i want chocolate.
अभिषेक(Abhishek) Das, Tyson Key and Adrian liked this
Seeketh!
- Kurt Starnes
house is long since emptied of supply. i am bereft!
- Joe Silence
To drive or not to drive ...?
- MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF
from iPhone
not possible, starting a car would wake the family up.
- Joe Silence
Deep in a mine shaft, hints of dark matter. - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...
Christopher Harley, Kurt Starnes and Eric Logan liked this
This continues to confound me - from the article: "A wide range of astrophysical and cosmological measurements have subsequently converged on an intimidating recipe for the cosmos of 4 percent atoms, 25 percent dark matter and 70 percent a mysterious energy that has been called dark energy . . . "
- Kurt Starnes
Discover Literary Oddities in the Weird Book Room on AbeBooks - http://www.abebooks.com/books...
Eivind, Sarah Slaven, holly and 3 other people liked this
"Welcome to AbeBooks' Weird Book Room - heralded by the New York Times, Canada's Globe and Mail, The Times of London, and The Guardian (UK) as the finest source of everything that's bizarre, odd and downright weird in books. We now have 101 crazy and strange titles about every oddball aspect of life you could possibly imagine and a few things you couldn't possibly imagine. We invite you to not only revel in our collection of literary oddities but to also send us your suggestions."
- Jason Wehmhoener
from Bookmarklet
Some of my favorites: 50 Ways to Use Feminine Hygiene Products in a Manly Manner, Dead Pet: Send Your Best Little Buddy Off in Style and The Beverly Hillbillies Bible Study.
- Kurt Starnes
Colliding Auroras Produce Explosions of Light | NASA - http://science.nasa.gov/headlin...
Joe Silence liked this
"December 17, 2009: A network of cameras deployed around the Arctic in support of NASA's THEMIS mission has made a startling discovery about the Northern Lights. Sometimes, vast curtains of aurora borealis collide, producing spectacular outbursts of light. Movies of the phenomenon were unveiled at the Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union today in San Francisco. "Our jaws dropped when we saw the movies for the first time," says space scientist Larry Lyons of UCLA, a leading member of the team that made the discovery. "These outbursts are telling us something very fundamental about the nature of auroras.""
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
The Known Universe by AMNH | YouTube | Found at kottke.org: http://kottke.org/09... - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Text from kottke.org link: "It's not a dramatization, it's a map; the positioning data was pulled from Hayden Planetarium's Digital Universe Atlas, which is available for free download."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
2011 Aston Martin Cygnet | Official Photos and Info - Auto Reviews | Car and Driver - http://www.caranddriver.com/news...
"Toyota will deliver iQs to the Aston Martin factory in Gaydon, where they will be completed. Likely to be priced in the equivalent of the $35,000 to $42,000 range, they have already been met with eager interest by current Aston Martin owners, the company claims. And you need to be one of those to qualify for buying the tiny Cygnet—at least for the time being. Not a bad marketing ploy."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
Testing share@friendfeed.com Posting Time (sent at 3:02PM CST)
拓 | wavesand, Kol Tregaskes, Iván Abrego and 15 other people liked this
Nearly instant posting now. NICE!
- Jason Huebel
Looks good
- Uncle CW™
Nice marmot.
- Jeremy (on vacation)
That's either a Pomeranian or a Red Panda. I can't tell which. It's just a random picture I downloaded a while back.
- Jason Huebel
woot!
- holly
Good eatin'.
- Kurt Starnes
Obscura CueLight Pool Table Is $200,000 Worth of Fancy Obscura cuelight - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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A really cool idea. Not sure how you can justify $200K for a pool table with a projector above it, but okay. If someone's willing to pay that, great.
- Jason Huebel
Seems like it would be a distraction.
- Kurt Starnes
Should I or shouldn't I? edit: I didn't. But I reserve the right to do so in the future. :-P
Desirade, Alex Scrivener, Carmen and 15 other people liked this
I'm pretty pissed about the Privacy changes after going through the little wizard to update my settings.
- Jason Huebel
Is it really that important to you weighed in the balance for what you're sold for? Or to anyone for that matter?
- sofarsoShawn
Well, I do have quite a few business contacts through Facebook. But the truth is, Facebook is only going to get worse. And that openness isn't what I joined Facebook for. First there were Apps, then Beacon. Now this.
- Jason Huebel
I hate FB. I hardly ever use it, but it *is* a great index or "phonebook" because let's face it: EVERYONE uses it. I wouldn't go so far as to delete it, but you're your own man Choose wisely.
- Derrick
Well, I /do/ have you as a friend on Facebook. So that's obviously a plus. ;-)
- Jason Huebel
So, Pros and Cons of deleting my account:
- Jason Huebel
I am pretty sure they are going to cave on this; I would wait.
- J. Abdul-Qahhar
Pros: I never have to ignore another Facebook App again. I don't have to worry about the apps my friends subscribe to stealing my personal data. I have one less social network to maintain.
- Jason Huebel
I've wanted to many times, but they have you by the genitals...
- Christopher A Carr
Cons: The Facebook integration with my Android contact list won't work anymore. My mom will have less than 10 friends on Facebook. I'll probably lose contact with quite a few people who only use Facebook or MySpace. I'll be on one less social network where people can find me.
- Jason Huebel
But you have other ways of keeping in touch? It might be the one less you need?
- sofarsoShawn
*sigh* I think I may be too weak to pull the trigger. Besides, I remember the pain I felt after I deleted my FriendFeed account earlier this year. I don't want to relive that.
- Jason Huebel
And you can always put as much or as little information as you want on there that you feel comfortable with
- sofarsoShawn
"BWAHAHA! That's what I thought, chump," murmurs evil FB exec reading this thread...
- Christopher A Carr
Pros: No app invites. Cons: *crickets*
- Mo Kargas
inactivity: the delete button for the ambivalent user
- Mike Chelen
If you're not on FB, you might as well not exist. Go ahead.
- LANjackal
What exactly is the problem with the new privacy settings?
- SuezanneC Baskerville
Sometimes, being non-existent can be nice. I'm not a "social media expert" or anything, so professionally it doesn't do anything for me.
- Jason Huebel
from IM
Nothing. People are freaking out over some pretty petty crap. You can lock your profile down just as much as before, except for fan pages and customizing who can see your friends list. I don't get what the big deal is about.
- LANjackal
@LANjackal, the point is that there are some things you can't keep private anymore whether you want to or not. When I joined Facebook ages ago, the most someone could see of your profile was your name, your avatar and maybe the city you currently live in.
- Jason Huebel
lanjackal: facebook seems to mishandle the user satisfaction and support leading to negative reactions for most any change
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Facebook is like a teratoma on the testes of the internet. I'm not so worried about the privacy issues, but I'm concerned for the internet if it continues to metastasize at its current rate.
- Christopher A Carr
LOL
- Jason Huebel
Isn't there an option to make most items visible "only to me"?
- SuezanneC Baskerville
suezanne: believe so, however it still involves a lot of clicking through advanced options
- Mike Chelen
from IM
*sigh* I don't want to hide my information from /everyone/. Apparently THAT point escapes you. I just don't want it to be public.
- Jason Huebel
from IM
Nope. There are things that can't be hidden anymore. That's the point. Nevermind all the Apps trampling over all your personal data.
- Jason Huebel
from IM
There's nothing advanced about the options, just select customize from the initial drop down list, then select "only to me" or whichever other option you want. It is a terribly inefficient way to do things, obviously. A page that displayed all the things you can set privacy levels for all at once, with the options repeated for each item, so that you could go "Click Click Click" from one to the other, and see them all at once on one page at one time, would be much nicer.
- SuezanneC Baskerville
What are the things that can't be hidden, other than the friends list and fan pages?
- SuezanneC Baskerville
Ok, you are the one who said it couldn't be. I didn't see a way when I checked just now but I'm maybe going faster than I can really go.
- SuezanneC Baskerville
i've been sorely tempted many times.
- Joe Silence
suezanne: that is for status updates, while pictures, profile info, groups, and others are available only through an options screen
- Mike Chelen
from IM
So where can you hide your friends list? (Not that I want to.)
- SuezanneC Baskerville
I'm still looking for it and have yet to see anywhere that you can hide your Friends list.
- Jason Huebel
from IM
Really, do you have to be an ass?
- Jason Huebel
To make it clear, I'm not freaked out at all. When the change happened I found out about the "Customize" option, went through, and set a bunch of stuff to "Only To Me", which made me have less info visible than before the change.
- SuezanneC Baskerville
Never said it's the worst thing ever. But it is a change that I perceive as a negative one based on how I've used Facebook in the past.
- Jason Huebel
I think the problem is really that people lead multiple lives, present distinct personas to different groups of people, in different settings, and they are finding that hard to do, using a service is based on a "one person, one account" system. People want one set of info for the conservative, oldfashioned part of their family, one for the cool, hip part of their family, one for friends, one for work, maybe one for church, etc.
- SuezanneC Baskerville
*sigh* My interests and a company's interests are two different things.
- Jason Huebel
from IM
Still haven't found this "pencil" you were talking about, though. I've gone to my Friends list, I've gone to my Settings… no pencil. If it's not obvious to me, then it's really not obvious to an average user.
- Jason Huebel
from IM
Lanjackal, you need to make a video tutorial.
- sofarsoShawn
There's also a place to set "Search Visibilty" off, which is probably something privacy oriented people would want to do, although that which is cached somewhere would stay there.
- SuezanneC Baskerville
Jason, delete the account. I never joined in the first place (first becaus of the stupid 'College Only' rule, and later because of 'You Are My Friend' and sheep-tossing, vampire biting, and other idiocy.
- Michael R. Bernstein
I've pretty much blocked every application on Facebook at this point, so apps aren't so much a problem now. Now that I've got most everything hidden from being public (thanks, LAN), I may be more comfortable with Facebook for now. One very important set of privacy settings I changed were the settings controlling what your /friend's/ apps can access in your profile.
- Jason Huebel
That said, I'm still not comfortable with the direction Facebook is heading privacy-wise...
- Jason Huebel
Yeah there's a pretty ominous sounding Application setting called "Facebook Prototypes" http://www.facebook.com/editapp... except they're not activated yet & they have never been explained, and avoid doing so, or even mentioned yet as to what these could be
- sofarsoShawn
lanjackal: confusion itself is an issue, which persists while interface updates have actually improved the capabilities
- Mike Chelen
That they refuse to explain what it is
- sofarsoShawn
SMH?
- Jason Huebel
Super manly hat
- Mo Kargas
Also, I see "Prototypes" as the equivalent of Google Labs, except for Facebook.
- Jason Huebel
allowing app access is within user discretion, if they can understand the risks
- Mike Chelen
Well, there are two sets of app privileges, actually. There are the apps you subscribe to. You explicitly give those apps access to certain parts of your profile when you subscribe. But there's also a set of permissions buried a couple of levels down in your privacy settings that determine what parts of your profile your friend's app (that you aren't subscribed to) can see.
- Jason Huebel
OMG Lanjackal you are an ASS, it's clearly yet another example of their misleading conduct how they refuse to explain what it is or even mention it, and have any regard for transparency or sensitivity to people's private information, seriously, take some time to think about it and therein it's clearly ominous.
- sofarsoShawn
Exactly. Look, earlier this week I read a quote by Cardinal Richelieu (sp) of France back in the 1600s: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." My point is, if you're determined to find some fatal OMG EVIL failing of any service (not just Facebook), it's possible to construe even regular operations as having untoward intent. That does not, however, render your conclusions correct
- LANjackal
from IM
Nice insult buddy. I consider myself level headed and not generally prone to freaking out over nothing, so coming from you I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks :)
- LANjackal
My point exactly, yes, your crude lack of understanding is a compliment, you're very welcome.
- sofarsoShawn
@LAN, there is a point though where a person may have to make a decision on if the policies of the company run counter to what privacy you're willing to give up, though. I draw the line when I'm no longer able to control what information is released to the public (or to apps I'm not subscribed to). At the moment, that line hasn't been crossed (again, thanks for pointing out the Friend list thing). But that's not to say that it won't at some point.
- Jason Huebel
Not "violated". I chose to sign up for the service. But if my privacy is broken through a policy change on that service, then I have to make a decision if I can live with that.
- Jason Huebel
At the moment, I can. Later? Maybe not.
- Jason Huebel
I still maintain that Facebook is heading in the wrong direction when it comes to user privacy control. It took me 45 minutes to hunt down all the privacy settings I needed to lock my account down. The settings are there, though. They're just not easy to find and aren't all in one place.
- Jason Huebel
LANjackal, I'm totally with you on this.
- Eph Zero
Jason: there used to be even more app permission options, which might allow greater flexibility, yet also increase confusion. needs to be simplified further still
- Mike Chelen
You freaked me out for a minute, I thought I had to go and RE-DO my privacy for the 6th time in the past two years. I keep on going in and putting more and more restrictions. I don't put much on FB for the plain reason that I don't want much known. By my FB friends and Family. If they want to know more then they can contact me in person or over the phone.
- Uncle CW™
I'm glad FB has opened up some, actually. It's a tasteless cluster-fuck though, and unpleasant. I don't want it to continue to eat into the internet in the same way I wouldn't want all of the United States to become Houston.
- Christopher A Carr
Hot, humid, and stiflingly conservative?
- Mistletoe Glen
/threadjack - LAN, you just cracked open for me from where Sugar Land the band must have gotten it's name. Whoa!
- Micah Wittman
Christopher: agreed, facebook connect and app apis are big advances, unfortunately it is still too complicated compared with platforms like twitter public or private
- Mike Chelen
Filled with chain restaurants and Texans....
- Christopher A Carr
I suppose it's going in the right direction, slowly. Now if we could only get it to stop growing until it gets there.
- Christopher A Carr
if facebook grows faster, that can mean more and more developers analyzing and improving the service
- Mike Chelen
If the trend hold, I now expect to wait 3-4 years to find out what ATL stands for :P
- Micah Wittman
Atlanta
- Jason Huebel
from IM
lanjackal: it showed a popup on login, and we know how everyone feels about popups :)
- Mike Chelen
from IM
twitter puts them inline, above the fold, that is still not perfect however. ideal might be in stream, including on friends' likes and comments
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Generally, I appreciate those new Facebook privacy settings. Did I miss something?
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
from email
One controls what information one's friends and the public sees by way of what content one adds to FB. While the privacy settings UI is poorly designed, the ability to control and protect most things is there. I'm w/ LANjackal on this one. Much ado about *almost* nothing.
- Kurt Starnes
Actually, they added _exactly_ what I wanted: privacy on a per-item basis. There are some things one's poor old auntie doesn't need to know about.
- Eph Zero
Okay.. a good blog post about pros and cons of the new Facebook privacy settings 'd be great. Anyone?
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
from email
So the best #quote of the day is "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu , via @LANjackal
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
from email
I have stood at that precipice a few times...
- T. Brent, technopeasant
Suezanne, agreed! That's why full control of what family members or business contacts can find on one's FB profile 'd be great.
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
from email
i still don't get what the big deal is about the privacy changes. there's a lot of mis-information going around about google indexing, but that's about all I've seen.
- Bill Kinney
To a large degree, it's manageable. There are some issues, but imo, Facebook has handled it well - in that your info isn't all over the web - yet of course, *they* themselves know a lot about you still.
- Itachi
@Thierry - FB Lists do a pretty good job of segregating profile info to different groups.
- Kurt Starnes
DO IT!
- Jeremy (on vacation)
I'm not too bothered by the new privacy settings. If I didn't want anyone to know or see stuff about me, then why would I put it on teh internets? That would be like sexting a pic of my boobs to some guy and then being shocked when he forwards it to everyone he knows. I still dislike the last news feed design "update," though. Still confusing, still arbitrary, still a stupid UI... that's why I've been trying to move over here more...
- Jenthemum
Great Read! -> The Ninth Annual Year in Ideas | NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/project...
"Once again, The Times Magazine looks back on the past year from our favored perch: ideas. Like a magpie building its nest, we have hunted eclectically, though not without discrimination, for noteworthy notions of 2009 — the twigs and sticks and shiny paper scraps of human ingenuity, which, when collected and woven together, form a sort of cognitive shelter, in which the curious mind can incubate, hatch and feather. Unlike birds, we can also alphabetize. And so we hereby present, from A to Z, the most clever, important, silly and just plain weird innovations we carried back from all corners of the thinking world."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
This by way of my friend, Harry Green. Thanks for sharing!
- Kurt Starnes
Hitachi’s $60,000 Desktop Electron Microscope – Soon Cheap Enough for Home Use? | Singularity Hub - http://singularityhub.com/2009...
"For those with the time and the money, there is a host of impressive professional-quality gadgets you can enjoy in your home: 3D Printers, telepresence robots, and now…an electron microscope. Priced around $60,000 (USD), Hitachi’s TM-1000 electron microscope may be out of range for most families, but it’s finding quite a niche for itself in schools, small research firms, industry, and museums. Most similarly capable products would costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sized to fit on a desktop and requiring almost none of the difficult prep normally associated with electron microscopy, the TM-1000 is easy enough for kids to use. In fact, Hitachi gave one to an elementary school in Miyagi Prefecture (Japan). Yet the device can still provide 10,000 X zoom. It’s no wonder the microscope has sold 1000 units since 2005 and could be on its way to getting smaller and cheaper."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
Reuters: Nexus One Available Directly Through Google Website January 5 | AndroidGuys - http://www.androidguys.com/2009...
If it's true, that is a very smart pricing point. I might drop my iPhone for that.
- Spencer
from Bookmarklet
If all of that is true, I will certainly buy one in addition to keeping my iPhone!
- Kurt Starnes
It would be a brilliant move on the part of Google.
- Spencer
LANjackal to LANjackal's feed, Android, All Things Google, GNU/Linux, TheNextWeb Forum, RWW: The Future of Tech, building43
TIME: Moto Droid #1 Gadget of 2009 - http://phandroid.com/2009...
Nispell, ‘-.-’ Tutivillus Grift, ★amin.m★ and 14 other people liked this
"According to Time , one of the most prestigious news magazines, Droid was the “Numero Uno” gadget of the year." - Don't forget to rub this in the face of all your iPhone friends this week. I'm dead serious. I just posted this on my FB: Congratulations on being stuck with a subpar device (3GS) on the worst network in the country"
- LANjackal
from Bookmarklet
So this Time honor for the Droid is supposed to humiliate iPhone users? Not so much. Droid is certainly worthy competition which will hopefully keep the Apple folks working hard and perhaps inspire them to drop the ATT exclusive, among other things.
- Kurt Starnes
Droid is good, ok, but not as fast as iPhone 3GS. As Kurt (well) said; competition is better, however.
- Ozkan Altuner
from iPhone
It's more than competition. It's an alternative lifestyle. Apple is no longer think different, especially when you consume the media and everyone speaks about how great the iphone is when their device has been upgraded, but as yet without a re-design.
- Richard A.
You know what's most amazing... you could live your whole file without ever buying an Apple product. I have.
- Adrian
I know, and at the moment pc makers are leading, with integrated 3g modems :-). Such a great little feature to have. :-).
- Richard A.
Richard: I still see it as competition - Droid and the coming Google Phone will be great for the market. For me these devices are just tools, not lifestyles. As a current iPhone user, I'm more interested in Google Phone than Droid, FWIW.
- Kurt Starnes
Google Phone is apparently made by HTC but running fully functional Android. From what I have read, Droid doesn't fully utilize Android - like multi-touch, for example.
- Kurt Starnes
Multitouch is essential to games. All iPhone OS shooters and most action games would have been impossible without it.
- Pavlo Zahozhenko
That makes perfect sense generally. Except for me, since I don't play games on my DROID.
- LANjackal
Pavlo: Actually, come to think of it ... IIRC while the DROID doesn't support multitouch out of the box, apps written for it can and do support the feature, which takes care of the games problem
- LANjackal
@LANjackal Android OS supports multitouch on capacitive touchscreens, so it is possible to develop multitouch-aware apps. However, the absence of multitouch in DROID is a legal issue, so multitouch apps might not be available in the U.S. Android Market due to the same reason. With such restriction developers may think twice before using multitouch in their apps... This legal stuff slows down the evolution of Android apps ecosystem.
- Pavlo Zahozhenko
Actually, multitouch-capable apps for the DROID *ARE* available in the US. The Dolphin Browser is an example thereof: http://blog.laptopmag.com/dolphin...
- LANjackal
from IM
Good :) I didn't know about it.
- Pavlo Zahozhenko
Speaking of Dolphin Browser... can someone with a DROID try it out and give their impressions of it compared to the stock Browser. It's features are great, but I get it crashing and freezing a lot on my G1.
- Adrian
The UI is kind of home brewed looking, but it has gesture support and all kinds of nifty "lab-like" things if you spend some time exploring it. The question is performance compared to the stock browser on some kick-ass hardware...
- Adrian
Good point thanks, it seems to perform admirably based on the video.
- Adrian
Hmmmm I revisited Dolphin while at sushi last night and discovered that it's gotten a LOT better in the few weeks since I last looked at it (Read: it's no longer an eyesore). Skins are available for free in the Marketplace, including a red one that goes very well with the DROID. It's also MUCH faster than the stock browser. I've made it my default
- LANjackal
James Randi Lecture @ Caltech - Homeopathy - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
 |
Kittyburgers, Eric Logan, mikepk and 9 other people liked this
I'm really amazed that we still sell homeopathic remedies at the local drugstore (e.g., Zicam is the best known)
- Mistletoe Glen
I'll remember that the next time I get exposed to commercial grade pesticides (thank you, modern day science for that wonderful "discovery" for compromising my immune system) vomiting up almost every day, hot diarrhea, wonderful boils over my skin that lasted for 3 years, broke and bled so much that I had to wear T-shirts to bed under my pajamas, lesions in my nose, an overgrowth and...
more...
- Melanie Reed
The placebo effect has been clinically proven under control circumstances, again and again and again. Having said that, I am all for whatever works to remedy the ailment(s).
- Kurt Starnes
Kurt, It was not placebo. This took a measurable edge off the pain. It also had to be administered at a particular time in the pain cycle or the pain simply was too overwhelming
- Melanie Reed
Melanie - I'm just happy to hear you are no longer suffering!
- Kurt Starnes
Thank you, Kurt! I am glad of the improvement as well. It stole a lot of my health and years of my life. But they were not wasted spiritually. Without God, I could not have endured something like that. The person inside gained strength even though the person outside suffered.
- Melanie Reed
Melanie, I'm sorry for your suffering, but there is and never has been one shred of evidence at any time in the past 220 years in a repeatable trial that showed any effect from homeopathic medicine beyond what is reasonably expected from a placebo. Diluting some material to a ratio of...
more...
- Mistletoe Glen
Thank you, Glenn. Have you used Homeopathy? Until the drug companies came in with their big business approach it and other methods from the east and native Indians were being used to treat many Chronic conditions successfully without doing harm. Now we have a singular approach many might liken to a "sledge hammer" approach that in all fairness does seem to help in traumatic and some...
more...
- Melanie Reed
Besides that, respected physician, Dr. Andrew Weil disagrees with this man on this point
- Melanie Reed
You sure know how to catch them, Christopher ;)
- Eivind
He has it down to an art.
- Kurt Starnes
Melanie: I'm curious; did you watch the video?
- Christopher A Carr
And that there are issues with the pharmaceutical industry has nothing whatsoever to do with homeopathy's (essentially, "magic" water's) efficacy or lack thereof in the treatment of disease.
- Christopher A Carr
By whom is Andrew Weil respected? His agent and publisher, I suppose. He advocates all manner of quackery, and isn't much better than that flimflamer and scoundrel, Deepak Chopra.
- Christopher A Carr
Placebos can have a measurable effect on pain and other symptoms. The placebo effect is well documented and quite real, though the benefits are unrelated to the particular substance administered.
- Kevin Fox
This is a pet peeve of mine, and it may be the issue at stake here. The word "homeopathy" is used to mean two different things, and the confusion might not be accidental. 1. herbal remedies, in sane concentrations, which probably can work to treat certain diseases; after all, many drugs used today (including aspirin and penicillin) are derived from the natural world. 2. substances...
more...
- Tudor Bosman
The two concepts are very different in the mind of a scientist, but the average Joe will see both kinds of products lumped under the same heading ("homeopathic remedies") in the grocery store or pharmacy.
- Tudor Bosman
And, aside: I like Randi, but I think we skeptics will only stand to gain when the person at the forefront of our movement is someone more charismatic and less of an asshole :)
- Tudor Bosman
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...: "Not all homeopaths advocate extremely high dilutions. Many of the early homeopaths were originally doctors and generally used lower dilutions such as "3X" or "6X", rarely going beyond "12X". The split between lower and higher dilutions followed ideological lines. Those favoring low dilutions stressed pathology and a strong link to...
more...
- Tudor Bosman
Tudor, yes, too many people do consider homeopathy only in your second sense and do not consider the first. And yes, I agree the confusion is not accidental.
- Melanie Reed
Tudor: Randi is a lovely fellow, and by no means an "asshole."
- Christopher A Carr
Tudor: You left off this part: "...Some products with such relatively lower dilutions continue to be sold, but like their counterparts, they have not been conclusively demonstrated to have any effect beyond the placebo effect.[71][72]"
- Christopher A Carr
And for the (what appears to be majority of) homeopathic practitioners who advocate high dilutions, what of this concern? : "Furthermore, since water will have been in contact with millions of different substances throughout its history, critics point out that water is therefore an extreme dilution of almost any conceivable substance. By drinking water one would, according to this interpretation, receive treatment for every imaginable condition.[99]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Christopher A Carr
And who funded those studies? I am very skeptical of studies. Why? Because of who funds them, how they are often conducted and who stands to benefit from their findings. The university level is not without agenda. Here's the point on which this turns: placebo has become an overused word and it certainly has never benefited the homeopathy I have used (and was initially skeptical of in...
more...
- Melanie Reed
"...placebo has become an overused word and it certainly has never benefited the homeopathy I have used..." How would you know the difference?
- Christopher A Carr
"And I daresay, Christopher, were you in the same sea, neither would you." I'm not the magical thinker that you are. So, yes, I would turn down snake oil for which their was neither any evidence of efficacy, nor any plausible proposed mechanism of activity.
- Christopher A Carr
To be clear, is it your position that extreme dilution is the invalid sort of homeopathy? Water, in fact, does not have "memory?"
- Christopher A Carr
And how would you know the difference, Christopher? Is the patient better? Are they cured? Then what does it matter that they are good health again, how it was accomplished, really. That is the bottom line, isn't it? They're better health now. I have met doctors and read accounts of doctors who openly admit they don't know how their patient recovered....but they did. So does it really matter how?
- Melanie Reed
What does it matter how it was accomplished? First of all, that one ingests some substance and subsequently improves, does not necessarily mean that the substance effected an improvement. The person may have gotten better anyway. Or, the person's expectations that they would be helped by the substance could have kicked in the placebo effect. In good studies, the placebo effect is...
more...
- Christopher A Carr
"Hope is a Placebo" Discuss.
- Kevin Fox
Does it ever occur that what works for one may not work for another, Christopher? As much as the idea of batch delivery appeals to the economies of scale for cure, one size really doesn't fit all. For example, they used to lose more women on the table than men during heart surgery. Why? The stent was made for men and thought to be purposeful for both. So does it occur, that harsh drugs...
more...
- Melanie Reed
Kevin, you remind me of a favorite and proved thought: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage...
- Melanie Reed
What constitutes "harshness" in a drug? What "gentler approach" are you referring to? Water?
- Christopher A Carr
"And yet, most women were telling them something was wrong and they wouldn't listen." <-- Does that make the proposed mechanism by which homeopathy works any more plausible? If so, how?
- Christopher A Carr
Melanie: One of your arguments seems to go something like "science-based medicine isn't perfect, therefor x & y non-science-based techniques are effective." That is illogical.
- Christopher A Carr
An example of harshness in a drug: prenatal nausea drugs that cause missing limb birth defects.
- Melanie Reed
Noted.
- Christopher A Carr
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal... From the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology: "ABSTRACT - Homeopathy remains one of the most controversial subjects in therapeutics. This article is an attempt to clarify its effectiveness based on recent systematic reviews. Electronic databases were searched for systematic reviews/meta-analysis on the...
more...
- Christopher A Carr
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed... - "Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy." : BACKGROUND: Homoeopathy is widely used, but specific effects of homoeopathic remedies seem implausible. Bias in the conduct and reporting of trials is a possible explanation for positive...
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- Christopher A Carr
Real Homeopathy includes using ginger root tea and Shoyu tea (macrobiotic-eastern medicine) for nausea. They are both considered very safe. That would have been a safer and gentler medicinal alternative to prenatal nausea drugs
- Melanie Reed
I can vouch for ginger & peppermint for nausea, though there is another herb vastly superior to both. (dunno if it's a good idea with pregnancy though!)
- Lo
Ginger's effects are rather weak. What do you mean by "shoyu tea?" Soy sauce in hot water? "Tea" is Camellia sinensis. It's not my understanding that the partaking of herbal or folk remedies (some of which have plausible mechanisms of activity) amounts to homeopathy.
- Christopher A Carr
Due to the absurdity in his explanation and the comedy approach in presentation, I can't help but feel there must be another side. For instance in speaking of the potency due to molecule quality, filtered water eliminates substance so the billions of years of accumulating molecules would be irrelevant. Unless I am missing something here.
- Lillie Oliver
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed... "Feeling validated versus being correct: a meta-analysis of selective exposure to information."
- Colby
I wonder if there is a strong correlation between believers in homeopathy and theism, as I see fills Melanie's feed.
- Colby
Colby, actually not. I didn't try homeopathy until western medicine didn't work. I wasn't raised on it. I resisted trying it for years. I didn't expect anything to work. I was properly conditioned not to believe in anything other than western medicine. I wasn't a good candidate for homeopathy if placebo was the basis of its success.
- Melanie Reed
Lillie: You *are* missing something. The molecules don't need to be there anymore, because water molecules "remember" having been in proximity to the solute molecules, and to other water molecules that were in proximity to the solute molecules. Yes; crazy.
- Christopher A Carr
And Melanie, eating some ginger is not homeopathy.
- Christopher A Carr
:) I'll tell my homeopathist and throw out all those books right away, Christopher. And I'll go back to waiting in pain in those doctor office's till they find what works and when I run out of money. I'll be sure to just keep up my faith that they will find help soon . lol
- Melanie Reed
Are you seeing a naturopathic practitioner who uses homeopathy on occasion?
- Christopher A Carr
Melanie: You should peruse the Wikipedia article. It's pretty thorough.
- Christopher A Carr
Melanie, Western medicine works in many cases, some diseases we obviously can treat better than others. Genetics and epigenetics make for varying individual responses for drugs, we know this. Pharmacogenomics is helping us improve this. Meanwhile, in controlled studies homeopathy always fails. A n=1 is never evidence that something works.
- Colby
Melanie: And while it might sound mean, your anecdotes are not really worth much of anything in this discussion.
- Christopher A Carr
Also, homeopathy is dangerous because it dissuades people such as yourself from seeking evidence based treatment from qualified physicians. People who practice and promote homeopathy are putting many people at risk if they don't seek appropriate treatments.
- Colby
...an important point.
- Christopher A Carr
Christopher, no offense is taken. I know what happened. I know what helped and so do many others.
- Melanie Reed
Colby and Christopher. My intent is not to replace Western medicine but to respect it for what it is and to stand firm on its limitations. What I would ask of you is to respect that you nor I have the complete answer for every case. I (yes every individual) has the right to choose their medical care. And western medicine needs to trust that I am capable of knowing what is best for me....
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- Melanie Reed
"I know what happened. I know what helped and so do many others." I'm sure you think that's true.
- Christopher A Carr
I don't think everyone has equal rights at all. People with no understanding of scientific literature should not have a choice of something of zero rationality. Again you are using poor logic that because Western medicine sometimes fails (sometimes it is simply an incompetent physician), homeopathy is something that can step in and fill the gap. But in objective trials, homeopathy always fails.
- Colby
Colby, an understanding of scientific literature does not ensure agreement with it. :) I said nothing of the kind. Homeopathy is not here to support Western medicine and neither is any other methodology outside of it. Tools work together. And they are nothing more than tools, hopefully applied well and with care.
- Melanie Reed
I still think you are talking about herbalism or something, not homeopathy.
- Christopher A Carr
I suppose preventing dehydration could improve some outcomes :p
- Colby
"Homeopathy" is not an antonym of "Western medicine." And it's not a catch-all term for every sort of non-standard medicine. "Homeopathy" is not a synonym of "alternative medicine."
- Christopher A Carr
I always assumed the "homeo-" part was a reference to the law of similars.
- Eivind
"Recently, homeopathy has come to mean pretty much anything in the way of alternative therapy, from aromatherapy and herbal remedies to pressure points and chiropractic techniques. But homeopathy itself is actually something very different. It doesn't mean that homeopathy doesn't often coincide with herbal remedies or aromatherapy, many homeopathic remedies are herbal in origin. But...
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- Eivind
Top futurist, Ray Kurzweil, predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020 | NY Daily News 12.13.2009 - http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion...
Alistair (alpinefolk), VAL D. Zone, RAPatton and martha liked this
"As we approach the end of the first decade of the new millennium, let’s consider what life will be like a decade hence. Changes in our lives from technology are moving faster and faster. The telephone took 50 years to reach a quarter of the U.S. population. Search engines, social networks and blogs have done that in just a few years time. Consider that Facebook started as a way for Harvard students to meet each other just six years ago; it now has 350 million users and counting."
- Kurt Starnes
from Bookmarklet
"By 2020 we’ll routinely have pop ups in our visual field of view that give us background about the people and places that we’re looking at. | In other words, your memory will be constantly, instantaneously aided by the information available on the Internet. The two will begin to become indistinguishable."
- Kurt Starnes
until the electricity starts getting shut down for hours at a time and the networks start choking and breaking, that is.
- Joe Silence
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