Before a couple of years ago, I'd heard of Homeopoathy, but I'd never really bothered to think about it. I ignored it with up with a lot of different 'alternative' medecines as just something I didn't need to know about. Then (after watching a slew of youtube videos about frauds or some such) I happened upon this video of the Amazing Randi discussing Homeopathy, which pretty well sums it up.
If you don't have time for the video at the moment, I'll give you a summary of the basics. Developed German physician (Hahnemann) in the late 18th and early 19th century, who believed in a lot of things that were genuinely beneficial (bedrest, fresh air, hygiene) that were contrary to the beliefs of his time. This, in part, may be part of the reason why his 'provings' were as successful as they were, simply because he applied some very sensible practices alongside the alternative 'remedies'. He also believed that chronic diseases were a manifestation of some kind of evil spirit or miasma.
Ok the Laws. Law of similars - Essentially to cure something, you have to be given a substance that induces the same kind of symptoms as the ailment your suffering. Sounds sensible, right. So, in order to treat insomnia...caffiene and other sleep preventing substances would be present in the 'remedy'. Sounds perfectly sensible right?
Law of infinitesimals. This basically says, the less of a substance (or even the less potential chance of a substance being present) there is, the more powerful it is. To give you an idea, for the solution to have even one molecule of the original material it it would require a container 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth (that's from the wiki article). A typical 12c remedy has about a 60% chance of having even a single molecule of the original substance in it. The rest is generally water, or glucose if it's in pill form (I believe). Makes perfect sense, right?
This basically is based up on the belief that the water contains 'vibrations' of the original substance. I should quickly point out that there is no mention of the vibrations of any of the garbage, fecal matter, heavy metals, etc, that the water has already touched prior to being introduced to the homeopathic substance.
Now, I'm not going to go on much further. Suffice it to say, Homeopathy has never been proven to have any effect (under clinical examination) than the placebo effect. This makes perfect sense with what my logical mind says. I don't discount that there might be things that I don't understand but this just sounds to me like snake oil. I suspect the companies producing the homeopathic remedies for money are laughing all the way to the bank. Do you really think it's a good idea to support this kind of predatory marketing?
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
A resurrection...of the non-biblical, non miracle kind.
Well, OK maybe it is a miracle. I think I'm going to resurrect this blog in hopes that it will become sort of a journal for me. A place to spew my thoughts, maybe occasionally some crappy prose, and if I'm really lucky, a genuine idea or two that isn't simply a re-hashing of the accumulated ideas. No promises there though.
Let's face it, this revival is just a tributary for ideas that will, hopefully, feed a greater body of ideas that will, hopefully, motivate me to write like I know I want to. If anyone wanders in I hope you enjoy my thoughts. No promises there either.
That said, I will likely take on the premise that I'm talking to someone else, or trying to convince them that I'm right about whatever it is I'm currently babbling about.
Let's face it, this revival is just a tributary for ideas that will, hopefully, feed a greater body of ideas that will, hopefully, motivate me to write like I know I want to. If anyone wanders in I hope you enjoy my thoughts. No promises there either.
That said, I will likely take on the premise that I'm talking to someone else, or trying to convince them that I'm right about whatever it is I'm currently babbling about.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Green. A lie for the next generation.
It's amazing that we can be so short sighted when it comes to the concept of energy consumption.I'm not referring simply to fossil fuel consumption, I'm talking about all of it.'Alternative' energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydro are all just illusions. They are all just methods of extracting stored energy or energy transferrence to a storage medium, for later extraction.
The reasons they won't work, is because of scale. We cannot possibly predict the effects of worldwide alternative gathering methods. We can't sufficiently predict what effect we would have on the environment if we were to begin transferring tidal energy or wind energy. Each of these methods also requires material and energy extraction for production and maintenance. How much tidal energy do you have to gather to offset what it cost to create the barrages? What effect would they have on the tides, the land, flora and fauna? What effects would we see in 20 years, or 50?
No currently placeable method is perfect. We are constantly looking for a silver bullet. The problem is there isn't one.
We are constantly finding new solutions that never play out like we hope. Hybrid is the solution de jour. Be green! Be energy efficient! It's all bull. Hybrid cars are a boondoggle. They don't save money or energy. They have a higher cost of ownership, and their *fabulous* MPGs generally aren't even close to accurate. Much of the efficiency gain can be applied to standard fuel only vehicles. Where does the battery go when it dies? Battery heaven I'll bet. No harm to the environment there. Want a humvee? No? Try our hybrid instead, so you can feel just a little less guilty about killing mother earth.
Ideally, if we could harvest solar energy without depleting the stored or earthbound solar energy THAT might be sustainable, but we'd have to find some way to gather and transfer that wasn't earth-centric.
Ethanol? Forget it. Read up on it. Find out about energy density and subsidies.
Hydrogen? It's essentially the same thing: we're consuming. Currently we can't do it efficently. Production, storage, distribution and use issues abound.
The truth is we're always going to be dissipating stored energy to heat, and hopefully gaining some use out of it. The best thing we can do is to try to make the methods we use more efficent. Drop the humvees for subcompacts. Come up with a more efficent engine. Walk instead of drive. I hate to say this too (cause I love steak sooo much), but minimize our consumption of agricultural meat. Eventually we'll run out no matter what, we just need to put that off for as long as possible.
The reasons they won't work, is because of scale. We cannot possibly predict the effects of worldwide alternative gathering methods. We can't sufficiently predict what effect we would have on the environment if we were to begin transferring tidal energy or wind energy. Each of these methods also requires material and energy extraction for production and maintenance. How much tidal energy do you have to gather to offset what it cost to create the barrages? What effect would they have on the tides, the land, flora and fauna? What effects would we see in 20 years, or 50?
No currently placeable method is perfect. We are constantly looking for a silver bullet. The problem is there isn't one.
We are constantly finding new solutions that never play out like we hope. Hybrid is the solution de jour. Be green! Be energy efficient! It's all bull. Hybrid cars are a boondoggle. They don't save money or energy. They have a higher cost of ownership, and their *fabulous* MPGs generally aren't even close to accurate. Much of the efficiency gain can be applied to standard fuel only vehicles. Where does the battery go when it dies? Battery heaven I'll bet. No harm to the environment there. Want a humvee? No? Try our hybrid instead, so you can feel just a little less guilty about killing mother earth.
Ideally, if we could harvest solar energy without depleting the stored or earthbound solar energy THAT might be sustainable, but we'd have to find some way to gather and transfer that wasn't earth-centric.
Ethanol? Forget it. Read up on it. Find out about energy density and subsidies.
Hydrogen? It's essentially the same thing: we're consuming. Currently we can't do it efficently. Production, storage, distribution and use issues abound.
The truth is we're always going to be dissipating stored energy to heat, and hopefully gaining some use out of it. The best thing we can do is to try to make the methods we use more efficent. Drop the humvees for subcompacts. Come up with a more efficent engine. Walk instead of drive. I hate to say this too (cause I love steak sooo much), but minimize our consumption of agricultural meat. Eventually we'll run out no matter what, we just need to put that off for as long as possible.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Puff puff search!
Rollyo (a contraction standing for Roll your own). Allows you to customize a search engine to fit your own specific needs.
While this concept may have merit with specific projects or jobs, I don't necessarily believe it's worth the effort. I am of course saying this without putting forth any effort to create one myself, this way I can speak about it from a soapbox made largely of ignorance and surface observations.
I can see use in it. Just not for me. I'll draw a parallel. I've got digital cable. It's cool and I actually like the fact that I can filter out a lot of the channels that I can't use yet (HD signals), I can't use effectively (in spanish), or just downright loathe (anything country or sports). The great part is, I don't have to sift through those things while I'm browsing. But there's a downside. When things change (like the channel lineup) I have to re-accomplish, or at the very least, re-examine, my filters. If you tailor a suit, it may fit you perfectly, but if you get fat, you've got to make changes again.
Rollyo seems to provide some very basic 'canned' customization, which, really, isn't customization since you're still getting broad strokes. I'm assuming there is more to it, if you so desire, I just don't care enough to dig deep into this effort. It's nice to know it exists, in case I ever come across a need for it, or have a user that might benefit from it.
While this concept may have merit with specific projects or jobs, I don't necessarily believe it's worth the effort. I am of course saying this without putting forth any effort to create one myself, this way I can speak about it from a soapbox made largely of ignorance and surface observations.
I can see use in it. Just not for me. I'll draw a parallel. I've got digital cable. It's cool and I actually like the fact that I can filter out a lot of the channels that I can't use yet (HD signals), I can't use effectively (in spanish), or just downright loathe (anything country or sports). The great part is, I don't have to sift through those things while I'm browsing. But there's a downside. When things change (like the channel lineup) I have to re-accomplish, or at the very least, re-examine, my filters. If you tailor a suit, it may fit you perfectly, but if you get fat, you've got to make changes again.
Rollyo seems to provide some very basic 'canned' customization, which, really, isn't customization since you're still getting broad strokes. I'm assuming there is more to it, if you so desire, I just don't care enough to dig deep into this effort. It's nice to know it exists, in case I ever come across a need for it, or have a user that might benefit from it.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Wikis, groupthink, and accumulated knowledge...
Probably one of the most fascinating aspects of online social efforts is inevitable accumulation of knowledge that occurs. When you've got MILLIONS of people contributing information, perspectives, and content you end up with an enormous wealth of data.
Now, it's not perfect. There are some interesting side effects. As you can well imagine, corporations have an interest in this knowledge, and Stephen Colbert did a great bit on Wikiality (I can't link to the video clip because viacom opposes posting their property on youtube since they want to protect profits by only allowing Daily Show, Colbert fans to view it from Comedy Central's site).
In a sense, resources like Wikipedia end up representing the accumulated knowledge of those with access to the internet. And while it certainly isn't a perfect, or even completely representative, mass of knowledge, it certainly is a start.
Anyone can start an article, and anyone can feel free to correct that information. Due to the nature of this particular beast, ignorant, malicious or ulteriorly motivated users can also plant wrong, fraudulent, or misleading information. Also due to the nature of the beast, this usually corrects itself because it's likely that eventually, someone in the community will see fit to correct it. Removal of information, though, is much more dangerous. In the first link in this post, there is a growing trend for organizations (government, corporate) to make modficiations to information placed in Wikis, particularly to remove information that is sensitive, negative, or particularly critical of their organization or efforts.
I'm curious to see where it ends up. My guess is, big business and government will probably win. They always seem to come out on top.
Now, it's not perfect. There are some interesting side effects. As you can well imagine, corporations have an interest in this knowledge, and Stephen Colbert did a great bit on Wikiality (I can't link to the video clip because viacom opposes posting their property on youtube since they want to protect profits by only allowing Daily Show, Colbert fans to view it from Comedy Central's site).
In a sense, resources like Wikipedia end up representing the accumulated knowledge of those with access to the internet. And while it certainly isn't a perfect, or even completely representative, mass of knowledge, it certainly is a start.
Anyone can start an article, and anyone can feel free to correct that information. Due to the nature of this particular beast, ignorant, malicious or ulteriorly motivated users can also plant wrong, fraudulent, or misleading information. Also due to the nature of the beast, this usually corrects itself because it's likely that eventually, someone in the community will see fit to correct it. Removal of information, though, is much more dangerous. In the first link in this post, there is a growing trend for organizations (government, corporate) to make modficiations to information placed in Wikis, particularly to remove information that is sensitive, negative, or particularly critical of their organization or efforts.
I'm curious to see where it ends up. My guess is, big business and government will probably win. They always seem to come out on top.
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