I don't think the organic food is snake oil, but the salesmanship of it has that taint. The writer of the article clearly isn't unbiased: he makes his money selling books of dubious merit touting inflated benefits of eating it. And I think the ARE good reasons for eating it as opposed to typical crops -- it has less pesticides on it and may be less likely to cause problems -- toxicity, long term risk of cancer, immune problems, etc. But SHOW ME don't just claim it's more nutritious.
The specific claim these authors are debunking regards only nutrient content and specific health benefits. The authors stated that their research doesn't address all possible questions about the possible harm that may come from eating non-organically grown foods -- only the ones they specifically investigated. They shouldn't even HAVE to say that. Everybody should already know that but they know they're speaking to a world of ignoramuses and hucksters.
As for the authors working "outside their area of expertise" they include 4 MDs, an expert in mathematical modeling of disease, various graduate researchers working under their direction and some various experts in statistical and health issues. I don't see how they could be more qualified to judge the health effects of anything.
And even if you DID have a group of scientists who were working outside their area of expertise, they'd at least be armed with the statistical tools to evaluate original research and make valid conclusions regarding it, based on sound methods.
You are right that nothing works better than a 1/4 wave monopole in the air, but a loop also works very well. (iPhone 4's use a loop that wraps around the phone body.) A patch can have decent gain but it's annoyingly directive and not suitable for a phone. A popular style is the inverted-F. It is omnidirectional, can be efficient and can be printed on the edge or corner of a circuit board that contains the radio circuitry. But you're also right that out to 1/4 wave, bigger is better. But with 2.2GHz phone, a quarter wave is 34 millimeters in air, so it can be effectively "in the air" but inside the phone body. Multi-band phones use antennas with multiple resonances corresponding to the centers of each of the bands they're designed to use.
You have no appreciation for the riots that would spread across Canada if someone suggested putting corn syrup on pancakes. Oh CRAP! I just suggested it. But ONLY IN JEST, PEOPLE! ONLY IN JEST!
A better receiver may or may not help with dropped calls but it's essential for improving function in weak signal conditions. It may help battery life because your phone dials back output power when it is getting a strong signal back to the cell. Unfortunately the original article doesn't explain what the component really is (not an antenna) or how or how much it's supposed to improve radio reception.
What the organic plant has less of is pesticides. That may be better for you. Stanford showed that they don't have more nutrients, on average -- unless pesticides are nutritious. In fact, I would have thought the extra bugs you'd be eating along with your organic produce would increase the protein content.
No, each generation of smart phones has shorter battery life because they put bigger brighter screens on them and are connecting to higher-speed networks that require faster processing or more hardware to encode and decode the data. Display power dominates most smartphones and is closely followed by general processing power when used as a web appliance rather than as a phone.
And as an RF engineer, I have this to say about their antenna claims:
If that picture in the article is any indication, it's much too small to be an efficient antenna in even the highest 4G bands. An antenna can't be made arbitrarily smaller than a half-wave resonator. Its job is to induce fields that will radiate in space. If it's much smaller than a half-wave, the fields will be too bound to the resonating structure. This means that much larger currents are required to induce the same field so the Q of the antenna has to go up, which means the bandwidth goes down. That makes it more vulnerable to detuning due to objects in the near field, i.e. within about a half-wave of the antenna. What they are showing is almost certainly a near-field coupling device that works by coupling RF to a much antenna.
"The universe could be a compact manifold, in which case it isn't expanding into anything. That would fit with the essential notion that it is space itself that is expanding."
Just as easy to say that it is expanding into nothing.
It's even easier to say the universe is self-contained, which bypasses the need to explain that the "nothing" you're using in your expression is not the same thing as empty space.
The US government paid to develop advanced weapons systems that give them a tactical advantage over everybody else -- at least that was their intent. So why shouldn't they get to keep that advantage as long ad they can?
Simple solution. Set up IE so it asks you the first time you use it after an update or setting reset "Do you want websites to track and sell your web usage data?" Put that way, most users will say no. Also put "Turn on Do Not Track" at the top of the IE settings menu.
Interesting. That's outside their declared scope: "PubMed comprises more than 22 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites."
Since PubMed was the source of the data, it really is only applicable to medical science. I'd like to see how the rates of misconduct compare between different kinds of scientific publications.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think the organic food is snake oil, but the salesmanship of it has that taint. The writer of the article clearly isn't unbiased: he makes his money selling books of dubious merit touting inflated benefits of eating it. And I think the ARE good reasons for eating it as opposed to typical crops -- it has less pesticides on it and may be less likely to cause problems -- toxicity, long term risk of cancer, immune problems, etc. But SHOW ME don't just claim it's more nutritious.
The specific claim these authors are debunking regards only nutrient content and specific health benefits. The authors stated that their research doesn't address all possible questions about the possible harm that may come from eating non-organically grown foods -- only the ones they specifically investigated. They shouldn't even HAVE to say that. Everybody should already know that but they know they're speaking to a world of ignoramuses and hucksters.
As for the authors working "outside their area of expertise" they include 4 MDs, an expert in mathematical modeling of disease, various graduate researchers working under their direction and some various experts in statistical and health issues. I don't see how they could be more qualified to judge the health effects of anything.
And even if you DID have a group of scientists who were working outside their area of expertise, they'd at least be armed with the statistical tools to evaluate original research and make valid conclusions regarding it, based on sound methods.
They're less efficient and annoyingly prone to picking up power in bands you don't want to receive.
From my RF classes, very long ago, I seem to remember that you can use tricks, with impedance, to have smaller antennas.
You can, but those antennas have disadvantages: narrower bandwidth, lower efficiency and more subject to detuning.
You are right that nothing works better than a 1/4 wave monopole in the air, but a loop also works very well. (iPhone 4's use a loop that wraps around the phone body.) A patch can have decent gain but it's annoyingly directive and not suitable for a phone. A popular style is the inverted-F. It is omnidirectional, can be efficient and can be printed on the edge or corner of a circuit board that contains the radio circuitry. But you're also right that out to 1/4 wave, bigger is better. But with 2.2GHz phone, a quarter wave is 34 millimeters in air, so it can be effectively "in the air" but inside the phone body. Multi-band phones use antennas with multiple resonances corresponding to the centers of each of the bands they're designed to use.
You have no appreciation for the riots that would spread across Canada if someone suggested putting corn syrup on pancakes. Oh CRAP! I just suggested it. But ONLY IN JEST, PEOPLE! ONLY IN JEST!
Hybrids get 25% or more better mileage than conventional cars of the same size so they're lower impact in the long run.
Transmit power comes off the antenna, smart boy.
A better receiver may or may not help with dropped calls but it's essential for improving function in weak signal conditions. It may help battery life because your phone dials back output power when it is getting a strong signal back to the cell. Unfortunately the original article doesn't explain what the component really is (not an antenna) or how or how much it's supposed to improve radio reception.
What the organic plant has less of is pesticides. That may be better for you. Stanford showed that they don't have more nutrients, on average -- unless pesticides are nutritious. In fact, I would have thought the extra bugs you'd be eating along with your organic produce would increase the protein content.
A well-researched Stanford study is refuted by an opinion columnist whose side job is selling books that tell you how to eat?
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Our snake oil is still good for you.
No, each generation of smart phones has shorter battery life because they put bigger brighter screens on them and are connecting to higher-speed networks that require faster processing or more hardware to encode and decode the data. Display power dominates most smartphones and is closely followed by general processing power when used as a web appliance rather than as a phone.
And as an RF engineer, I have this to say about their antenna claims:
If that picture in the article is any indication, it's much too small to be an efficient antenna in even the highest 4G bands. An antenna can't be made arbitrarily smaller than a half-wave resonator. Its job is to induce fields that will radiate in space. If it's much smaller than a half-wave, the fields will be too bound to the resonating structure. This means that much larger currents are required to induce the same field so the Q of the antenna has to go up, which means the bandwidth goes down. That makes it more vulnerable to detuning due to objects in the near field, i.e. within about a half-wave of the antenna. What they are showing is almost certainly a near-field coupling device that works by coupling RF to a much antenna.
If that were the case, we wouldn't see anything when we look up at night.
Milk. The universe is surrounded by milk.
Unlikely. Turtles don't have milk.
"The universe could be a compact manifold, in which case it isn't expanding into anything. That would fit with the essential notion that it is space itself that is expanding."
Just as easy to say that it is expanding into nothing.
It's even easier to say the universe is self-contained, which bypasses the need to explain that the "nothing" you're using in your expression is not the same thing as empty space.
Wrong question. The rate of expansion is the rate at which objects in the universe are moving away from each other, in a massively averaged way.
Which is why the Cylons should have been able to crush them in every encounter with a remotely comparable number of ships.
Sure but there are no police enforcing libel.
The US government paid to develop advanced weapons systems that give them a tactical advantage over everybody else -- at least that was their intent. So why shouldn't they get to keep that advantage as long ad they can?
Simple solution. Set up IE so it asks you the first time you use it after an update or setting reset "Do you want websites to track and sell your web usage data?" Put that way, most users will say no. Also put "Turn on Do Not Track" at the top of the IE settings menu.
buy a calling list.
Background checks take time. By the time they could dig out info about his prior lawsuit he was already on the jury.
Interesting. That's outside their declared scope: "PubMed comprises more than 22 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites."
Since PubMed was the source of the data, it really is only applicable to medical science. I'd like to see how the rates of misconduct compare between different kinds of scientific publications.
Read before you rant. The story is about fake registrations by a company employed by the GOP.
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-72591227/