The examples may seem obvious but imagine for a second that you didn't know anything about History. You just run the algorithm and get the trends for different periods, that's a useful thing. They just ran it on State of the Union addresses to test it, when they do it with more diverse texts, spanning the whole human history and different cultures, interesting results may emerge. And the point is, you get a summary, or a timeline, in a fraction of the time it would take to actually study the issues. It won't replace in-depth analysis, but it gives you some clues before you start.
Then there's the interesting possibility of following current trends in real time, using it on blogs, like they suggest, or on newspapers, letters, etc. Like you said in another comment, it doesn't "predict the future", it's not ESP, but having that kind of information (some of which will not be obvious by just glancing at data) in real time can be a great advantage.
I attended a conference last year, where they proposed a similar method to find trends in scientific fields, and more importantly, link them and predict future connections. For instance, when words from two unrelated fields start showing up associated in many papers, there is possibly a trend for those fields to meet and merge in the near future. Of course Informatics doesn't replace traditional methods, because it needs the input data, but it's a helpful tool.
And in regarding stealing as a form of political protest, please read Nelson Mandela's autobiography: you follow the law until this becomes an impossibility.
I've seen this point being made before, with Rosa Parks, the black woman who challenged racial discrimaination in the US by sitting in a bus, in a place she wasn't entitled to. I can't agree though. Here is a short biography of Nelson Mandela, I'll post some excerpts and highlight what I think is most important:
"Mandela was 24 when he joined the ANC, a group that sought to establish social and political rights for blacks in South Africa".
"The country Mandela and his Youth League comrades lived in was then, as it is now, populated primarily by blacks but governed completely by whites. Black citizens were legally discriminated against in housing, education, and economic opportunity; they could not vote, and they were subjected to numerous white-authored laws and restrictions."
"Unfortunately, the ANC protest rallies were often met by police brutality. (...) Mandela received a nine-month suspended jail sentence and was ordered to resign from the ANC leadership. Refusing, he moved into underground work because he was forbidden to attend public meetings."
"Meanwhile, the Treason Trial entered its final stages (...) Mandela and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1961, but their ANC had been declared illegal. Although he was free to go about his business, Mandela realized that he could no longer conduct his "business" without breaking the law."
"Forced underground, Mandela founded a new group, Umkonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation"), a guerrilla organization that directed sabotage actions against government installations and other symbols of apartheid."
"The mass protests continued in South Africa, and the Spear of the Nation claimed responsibility for more than 70 acts of sabotage. On August 4, 1962, Mandela was arrested by South African police and charged with organizing illegal demonstrations. (...) After yet another trial, he was sentenced to life in prison in June of 1964."
My point isn't even about the difference in the nature and dimension of the problems, but rather the sentences I highlighted. They didn't have the same rights in South Africa; they were oppressed, and even despite that, he went against the system and took responsibility for it, to the point of being arrested. The people who don't agree with the situation in the music industry can denounce it, they have the freedom to express their opinions. They can even boycott the media if they feel the system is unfair. There is a law of supply and demand, if the albums weren't sold at their current prices, they would have to go down. I don't agree that the people quietly downloading files, sitting at their computers, are fighting the system. Most of them just want something for nothing. If they were serious about a political protest they could go to record stores and openly steal CDs off the shelves, or find some other way of expressing their disagreement. Most people would find that ridiculous. Why? Copyrighted goods are hardly "necessary", they're not essential commodities like bread and water. There is a free market out there, and even a regular market outside the "industry cartel" (I remember for instance the case of Sepultura, who I think used to go with Roadrunner and refused or resigned a contract with Epic because it restricted their artistic freedom), but of course your work may not have the same visibility. I am obviously against illegal (and immoral, although those are not so easy to determine) acts from the big companies, but I also don't think that should be an excuse to condone piracy.
One gene-one trait is not the model we currently have. It works for some genes, and that's why Mendel was successful and a lot was discovered about how genetics work, but like you say it's usually more complex. I do agree with you that some people try to make things more simple than they are, I read about FOXP2 and I honestly don't know if there's reason to link it to creativity or if it's just speculation. Models are always simplified versions of reality, or they would be useless, but of course you have to find a balance.
To be fair, the article didn't say eating veggies increased the chances of heart attacks, just that supertasters had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease because they also don't like food with fatty acids.
Yeah, I had thought about getting the tickets back, it just seemed like it wasn't much of a gain if you had to send back a reply for every e-mail you got. Then I thought a little more and it would be easy to add addresses or domains to a automatic reply list, so that idea sounds good. My only doubt is the use of hotmail accounts for spam, I don't know if this would work for those.
Sure, the terrorists can do their own research, but that's not the same as also having access to all the research that is done about the most diverse topics. I am against censoring scientific papers on principle, but their concern is understandable. They are aware it could also slow down research and that's why they want a balance.
Yes, I agree that these services could be paid, maybe those were bad examples because I don't subscribe anything else. Actually, getting your reply by e-mail made me smile, slashdot also e-mails tons of people daily, and Amazon, Ebay, livejournal, any company that uses e-mail to warn customers/users of things. They would lose functionality if they had an e-mail limit, or if it cost them processor power, but I do agree spam requires measures.
Just a thought. Many companies send e-mails to a large list of users (I receive them from Nasa News and NY Times, for instance). If they were charged, either in in CPU cycles or real money, maybe they would have to stop those services, or making them paid. I don't mind paying for services if they are useful to me, but what about mailing lists and related services?
One doubt I have is whether this would affect the spammers who use randomly generated accounts in hotmail and other sites. The CPU cycles would be theirs or hotmail's? If there was a limit of e-mails an account could send, like someone suggested, couldn't they just generate more accounts and still send e-mails for free?
I'm not sure about recording dreams and images
on
Going Cyberpunk
·
· Score: 1
If I understood the article, it doesn't mention composition of images, as in creating an actual picture on the computer, but rather visualizing the electric impulses as colored images on the computer. In that case, translation between signals and the actual data would still be out of reach until more is known about how the brain functions.
About the crime detection through brain activity spikes, I would like to know how sure they are of the correspondence between those spikes and knowledge of something, and how likely it is to score false positives, of people who haven't committed the crime but react to the evidence, for instance because the objects may mean something to them, unrelated to the crime.
You have yet to admit that the *only* theory which receives any funding and credibility is the "HIV==AIDS" theory. Any differing or dissenting opinions are rapidly silenced.
They aren't rapidly silenced; they were repeatedly rebutted over the years. Alternative theories of causation. Furthermore, Peter Duesberg and others have extensively argued their case in high-impact scientific magazines (Nature, Science, PNAS...).
Is it possible that some of those conditions have nothing to do with HIV (for example, malnutrition and heavy drug usage)?
Yes, there are other conditions that cause the immune system to weaken. "What is unusual and new about AIDS, and requires that we classify it as a new syndrome, is the development of immune deficiency as the result of the loss of CD4 lymphocytes in people who would not normally be expected to develop immune deficiency"
if it doesn't follow pandemic patterns?
What are the pandemic patterns you refer to? Some background on your side would be useful too.
AIDS cases in the USA alone have not spread beyond the original target groups
HIV has been found in all the risk groups in which AIDS has appeared, but no other common factor is shared by all the risk groups, and no other factor has been shown to be associated with the distinctive depletion of CD4 lymphocytes in the same way. Some have argued that AIDS emerged in different risk groups at similar times because of different risk factors which deplete cellular immunity. According to this argument, it is a coincidence that HIV appeared at the same time in these different risk groups, and a coincidence that the presence or absence of HIV can be matched so closely with the development of AIDS in the different risk groups. However, those who accept the association between HIV and AIDS point out that HIV has failed to spread widely amongst heterosexuals in the developed world due to a lack of pathways for the virus.
why should a virus care what continent a person is on?
It doesn't care of course, but cultural differences will naturally cause differences in the epidemics.
What evidence do you have that the virus has been successfully isolated?
Recently developed sensitive testing methods, including the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and improved culture techniques, have enabled researchers to find HIV in patients with AIDS with few exceptions. HIV has been repeatedly isolated from the blood, semen and vaginal secretions of patients with AIDS, findings consistent with the epidemiologic data demonstrating AIDS transmission via sexual activity and contact with infected blood (Bartlett, 1999; Hammer et al. J Clin Microbiol 1993;31:2557; Jackson et al. J Clin Microbiol 1990;28:16).
HIV test does not test for HIV (only antibodies which scientists claim "must react" in the presence of a virus WHICH HAS NOT BEEN ISOLATED), and that the execution of this test is widely flawed.
Diagnosis of infection using antibody testing is one of the best-established concepts in medicine. HIV antibody tests exceed the performance of most other infectious disease tests in both sensitivity (the ability of the screening test to give a positive finding when the person tested truly has the disease) and specificity (the ability of the test to give a negative finding when the subjects tested are free of the disease under study). Current HIV antibody tests have sensitivity and specificity in excess of 98% and are therefore extremely reliable (WHO, 1998; Sloand et al. JAMA 1991;266:2861).
Progress in testing methodology has also enabled detection of viral genetic material, antigens and the virus itself in body fluids and cells. While not widely used for routine testing due to high cost and requirements in laboratory equipment, these direct testing techniques have confirmed the validity of the antibody tests (Jackson et al. J Clin Microbiol 1990;28:16; Busch et al. NEJM 1991;325:1; Silvester et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr Hum Retrovirol 1995;8:411; Urassa et al. J Clin Virol 1999;14:25; Nkengasong et al. AIDS 1999;13:109; Samdal et al. Clin Diagn Virol 1996;7:55.
Of course it's important. Research funding increases when the perceived threat is greater. My point is that AIDS is an industry, not a disease.
My point was that it's not important what you call it as long as you acknowledge that a high number of people are affected by this disease. In addition, other factors are important in evaluating the "perceived threat"; for instance, AIDS is a major cause of death among young people, whereas a disease like cancer predominantly affects older people.
What is the history? What are the side effects of AZT? I believe I'm having this discussion with you, not with the links you sent me.
The vast majority of people with AIDS never received antiretroviral drugs, including those in developed countries prior to the licensure of AZT in 1987, and people in developing countries today where very few individuals have access to these medications (UNAIDS, 2000).
As with medications for any serious diseases, antiretroviral drugs can have toxic side effects. However, there is no evidence that antiretroviral drugs cause the severe immunosuppression that typifies AIDS, and abundant evidence that antiretroviral therapy, when used according to established guidelines, can improve the length and quality of life of HIV-infected individuals (Guidelines for the Use of Antiretroviral Agents in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents, 2000).
In the 1980s, clinical trials enrolling patients with AIDS found that AZT given as single-drug therapy conferred a modest (and short-lived) survival advantage compared to placebo. Among HIV-infected patients who had not yet developed AIDS, placebo-controlled trials found that AZT given as single-drug therapy delayed, for a year or two, the onset of AIDS-related illnesses. Significantly, long-term follow-up of these trials did not show a prolonged benefit of AZT, but also never indicated that the drug increased disease progression or mortality. The lack of excess AIDS cases and death in the AZT arms of these placebo-controlled trials effectively counters the argument that AZT causes AIDS (NIAID, 1995).
Subsequent clinical trials found that patients receiving two-drug combinations had up to 50 percent increases in time to progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to people receiving single-drug therapy. In more recent years, three-drug combination therapies have produced another 50 percent to 80 percent improvements in progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to two-drug regimens in clinical trials (Deeks, Volberding, 1999). Use of potent anti-HIV combination therapies has contributed to dramatic reductions in the incidence of AIDS and AIDS-related deaths in populations where these drugs are widely available, an effect which clearly would not be seen if antiretroviral drugs caused AIDS (Figure 1; CDC. HIV AIDS Surveillance Report 1999;11[2]:1; Palella et al. NEJM 1998;338:853; Mocroft et al. Lancet 1998;352:1725; Mocroft et al. Lancet 2000;356:291; Vittinghoff et al. J Infect Dis 1999;179:717; Detels et al. JAMA 1998;280:1497; de Martino et al. JAMA 2000;284:190; CASCADE Collaboration. Lancet 2000;355:1158; Hogg et al. CMAJ 1999;160:659; Schwarcz et al. Am J Epidemiol 2000;152:178; Kaplan et al. Clin Infect Dis 2000;30:S5; McNaghten et al. AIDS 1999;13:1687).
KS only occurs in gay men (who use poppers).
Not true according to what I read, it occurs mostly in men.
Why should a virus care what the host's sexuality is?
It doesn't care.
The distribution of AIDS cases, whether in the United States or elsewhere in the world, invariably mirrors the prevalence of HIV in a population. In the United States, HIV first appeared in populations of homosexual men and injection-drug users, a majority of whom are male. Because HIV is spread primarily through sex or by the exchange of HIV-contaminated needles during injection-drug use, it is not surprising that a majority of U.S. AIDS cases have occurred in men (U.S. Census Bureau, 1999; UNAIDS, 2000).
Increasingly, however, women in the United States are becoming HIV-infected, usually through the exchange of HIV-contaminated needles or sex with an HIV-infected male. The CDC estimates that 30 percent of new HIV infections in the United States in 1998 were in women. As the number of HIV-infected women has risen, so too has the number of female AIDS patients in the United States. Approximately 23 percent of U.S. adult/adolescent AIDS cases reported to the CDC in 1998 were among women. In 1998, AIDS was the fifth leading cause of death among women aged 25 to 44 in the United States, and the third leading cause of death among African-American women in that age group (NIAID Fact Sheet: HIV/AIDS Statistics).
In Africa, HIV was first recognized in sexually active heterosexuals, and AIDS cases in Africa have occurred at least as frequently in women as in men. Overall, the worldwide distribution of HIV infection and AIDS between men and women is approximately 1 to 1 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1999; UNAIDS, 2000).
The problem with the list changing is that the list is an integral portion of the definition of the disease. If the list changes, the definition of AIDS changes. What additions and subtractions have been made to the list in recent years, and why?
The diseases associated with AIDS, such as PCP and Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), are not caused by HIV but rather result from the immunosuppression caused by HIV disease. As the immune system of an HIV-infected individual weakens, he or she becomes susceptible to the particular viral, fungal and bacterial infections common in the community. For example, HIV-infected people in certain midwestern and mid-Atlantic regions are much more likely than people in New York City to develop histoplasmosis, which is caused by a fungus. A person in Africa is exposed to different pathogens than is an individual in an American city. Children may be exposed to different infectious agents than adults (AIDS Knowledge Base, 1999a; 1999b).
Another point needs to be made: I didn't try to demonize you and I didn't treat you badly; you just like to play the victim. I found the "written by a bunch of crackpots and loons" bit particularly funny because you are the only one using those words. You also seem to believe you know what I think, as you state several times when that is obviously false. In the epitome of righteous indignation, you say "And I get a "people like you" comment". That was actually a compliment to your skeptic attitude. It would be nice if you would just take the time to read what it says rather than assuming you're being attacked. I'm looking forward to hear from you again, if you can drop the poor victim attitude and stick to the arguments.
I don't have much time to discuss it and I'm not a virologist, but I can suggest some reading.
The Barcelona report, the result of a conference last year. The link "The Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic" is particularly informative in showing it isn't just a "handful of sufferers". I suggest browsing around theUNAIDS home page too.
About the HIV/AIDS link, if you have some time and an open mind, I suggest this site's links, this one being particularly useful.
About your questions, I don't know what you mean by epidemic patterns (I'm not an expert) but I don't think that question is important, if it's just a matter of calling it epidemics or not - there are many people infected and dying, and I've seen it referred as epidemics in many places; AZT is covered thoroughly in the links I gave you; I read somewhere that, although not clinically proven, statistics say amyl nitrate increases the chances of HIV infected people developping Kaposi's syndrome, but I don't know what is your point; diseases that are associated with AIDS are opportunistic diseases that take advantage of the damage to the immune system, I don't see a problem with that list changing.
Of course, if you don't want to believe, it's pointless. You can come up with a huge conspiracy theory involving thousands of scientists all over the world, and think whatever you want. Those who are affected by the disease deserve treatment though, and everyone deserves information, because denial theories could prompt people to stop being careful about prevention and to be hopeless about treatment.
That said, science lives off people like you, who are skeptic and don't accept things blindly. Contrary to what you may think, or not, scientists are encouraged to question and go against the establishment, that's very important and science isn't static, but at the end of the day the theory that survives is the one that's supported by the facts. New evidence could come up, and there might be a report tomorrow, saying that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, but based on current evidence, most people strongly believe HIV causes AIDS.
I've always had 3GB/month. They claimed that whenever there are no limits, speed suffers. That's cable though, not ADSL. The big advantage here is that they made it from the beginning, obviously when people have rights it will be hard to take them away, regardless of the motives.
You are kidding, right? You don't really believe that site. President Mbeki's credibility suffered a huge blow after his statement that AIDS wasn't caused by HIV.
Moneo can be incorporated onto their existing credit cards -- something that has never been tried outside of France
I've had a debit card like that for years, in Portugal. I don't think it ever became a big thing, it's not a big deal when most shops and public phones allow payment with ATM cards, although the lack of a PIN makes it easier (and less safe) to use.
It's an interesting change in the equation involving security and freedom; prior to September 11th, measures like this and the concentration of intelligence in one big department, and even things like the patriotic acts, would have been much more impopular. I live in a country (Portugal, in Europe) where citizens get an ID card when they are around 12. That would probably be considered inadequate and an invasion of privacy in the United States, but partly driven by the fear brought by the terrorist attacks and maybe also as a window of opportunity that politicians have taken advantage of, it is happening. I wonder what the sentiments of the majority of the population are.
"Make something that even fools can use and only fools will want to use it."
"It's impossible to make something fool proof because fools are utterly ingenious."
It's not an intrinsic right to earn more money, just market rules. If people weren't expecting rewards from their actions, many would not bother. I don't know if that changed, even when humans lived in bands there would be leaders. Then there was progress, our society works better now in my opinion. It may be sad the way things work and it doesn't mean it can't change but it's not easy, I'm not so sure that's in human nature...
The problem is we live in a capitalist society and I'm not as optimist as you about the old world dying a slow death. I don't know if people can work just for the reward of making a better world, it doesn't seem to work well. Not saying that it couldn't work, I'm just skeptic.
About scientists in particular, they have to make a living. Not all of them have extremely high salaries and some are even working without getting paid, not because they want to but because they have to, when they can't find a job, to keep in touch with the scientific world. College is hard, Science is hard, salaries of scientists are high just like any expert's salary. Some scientists will do it for the money, some for the joy, some for both, good salaries just ensure that the most qualified people will want to do Science instead of something else that may be easier.
Slashdot Mirror
The examples may seem obvious but imagine for a second that you didn't know anything about History. You just run the algorithm and get the trends for different periods, that's a useful thing. They just ran it on State of the Union addresses to test it, when they do it with more diverse texts, spanning the whole human history and different cultures, interesting results may emerge. And the point is, you get a summary, or a timeline, in a fraction of the time it would take to actually study the issues. It won't replace in-depth analysis, but it gives you some clues before you start.
Then there's the interesting possibility of following current trends in real time, using it on blogs, like they suggest, or on newspapers, letters, etc. Like you said in another comment, it doesn't "predict the future", it's not ESP, but having that kind of information (some of which will not be obvious by just glancing at data) in real time can be a great advantage.
I attended a conference last year, where they proposed a similar method to find trends in scientific fields, and more importantly, link them and predict future connections. For instance, when words from two unrelated fields start showing up associated in many papers, there is possibly a trend for those fields to meet and merge in the near future. Of course Informatics doesn't replace traditional methods, because it needs the input data, but it's a helpful tool.
And in regarding stealing as a form of political protest, please read Nelson Mandela's autobiography: you follow the law until this becomes an impossibility.
I've seen this point being made before, with Rosa Parks, the black woman who challenged racial discrimaination in the US by sitting in a bus, in a place she wasn't entitled to. I can't agree though. Here is a short biography of Nelson Mandela, I'll post some excerpts and highlight what I think is most important:
"Mandela was 24 when he joined the ANC, a group that sought to establish social and political rights for blacks in South Africa".
"The country Mandela and his Youth League comrades lived in was then, as it is now, populated primarily by blacks but governed completely by whites. Black citizens were legally discriminated against in housing, education, and economic opportunity; they could not vote, and they were subjected to numerous white-authored laws and restrictions."
"Unfortunately, the ANC protest rallies were often met by police brutality. (...) Mandela received a nine-month suspended jail sentence and was ordered to resign from the ANC leadership. Refusing, he moved into underground work because he was forbidden to attend public meetings."
"Meanwhile, the Treason Trial entered its final stages (...) Mandela and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1961, but their ANC had been declared illegal. Although he was free to go about his business, Mandela realized that he could no longer conduct his "business" without breaking the law."
"Forced underground, Mandela founded a new group, Umkonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation"), a guerrilla organization that directed sabotage actions against government installations and other symbols of apartheid."
"The mass protests continued in South Africa, and the Spear of the Nation claimed responsibility for more than 70 acts of sabotage. On August 4, 1962, Mandela was arrested by South African police and charged with organizing illegal demonstrations. (...) After yet another trial, he was sentenced to life in prison in June of 1964."
My point isn't even about the difference in the nature and dimension of the problems, but rather the sentences I highlighted. They didn't have the same rights in South Africa; they were oppressed, and even despite that, he went against the system and took responsibility for it, to the point of being arrested. The people who don't agree with the situation in the music industry can denounce it, they have the freedom to express their opinions. They can even boycott the media if they feel the system is unfair. There is a law of supply and demand, if the albums weren't sold at their current prices, they would have to go down. I don't agree that the people quietly downloading files, sitting at their computers, are fighting the system. Most of them just want something for nothing. If they were serious about a political protest they could go to record stores and openly steal CDs off the shelves, or find some other way of expressing their disagreement. Most people would find that ridiculous. Why? Copyrighted goods are hardly "necessary", they're not essential commodities like bread and water. There is a free market out there, and even a regular market outside the "industry cartel" (I remember for instance the case of Sepultura, who I think used to go with Roadrunner and refused or resigned a contract with Epic because it restricted their artistic freedom), but of course your work may not have the same visibility. I am obviously against illegal (and immoral, although those are not so easy to determine) acts from the big companies, but I also don't think that should be an excuse to condone piracy.
It might as well be $1000. If you don't think the music is worth what they ask, no one's forcing you to get it.
One gene-one trait is not the model we currently have. It works for some genes, and that's why Mendel was successful and a lot was discovered about how genetics work, but like you say it's usually more complex. I do agree with you that some people try to make things more simple than they are, I read about FOXP2 and I honestly don't know if there's reason to link it to creativity or if it's just speculation. Models are always simplified versions of reality, or they would be useless, but of course you have to find a balance.
To be fair, the article didn't say eating veggies increased the chances of heart attacks, just that supertasters had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease because they also don't like food with fatty acids.
To post a link:
<a href="http://whatever.com">Link text</a>
Yeah, I had thought about getting the tickets back, it just seemed like it wasn't much of a gain if you had to send back a reply for every e-mail you got. Then I thought a little more and it would be easy to add addresses or domains to a automatic reply list, so that idea sounds good. My only doubt is the use of hotmail accounts for spam, I don't know if this would work for those.
Sure, the terrorists can do their own research, but that's not the same as also having access to all the research that is done about the most diverse topics. I am against censoring scientific papers on principle, but their concern is understandable. They are aware it could also slow down research and that's why they want a balance.
Yes, I agree that these services could be paid, maybe those were bad examples because I don't subscribe anything else. Actually, getting your reply by e-mail made me smile, slashdot also e-mails tons of people daily, and Amazon, Ebay, livejournal, any company that uses e-mail to warn customers/users of things. They would lose functionality if they had an e-mail limit, or if it cost them processor power, but I do agree spam requires measures.
Just a thought. Many companies send e-mails to a large list of users (I receive them from Nasa News and NY Times, for instance). If they were charged, either in in CPU cycles or real money, maybe they would have to stop those services, or making them paid. I don't mind paying for services if they are useful to me, but what about mailing lists and related services?
One doubt I have is whether this would affect the spammers who use randomly generated accounts in hotmail and other sites. The CPU cycles would be theirs or hotmail's? If there was a limit of e-mails an account could send, like someone suggested, couldn't they just generate more accounts and still send e-mails for free?
ranks only slightly lower than gouging my eyes out with a tree branch
Can be fun though.
If I understood the article, it doesn't mention composition of images, as in creating an actual picture on the computer, but rather visualizing the electric impulses as colored images on the computer. In that case, translation between signals and the actual data would still be out of reach until more is known about how the brain functions. About the crime detection through brain activity spikes, I would like to know how sure they are of the correspondence between those spikes and knowledge of something, and how likely it is to score false positives, of people who haven't committed the crime but react to the evidence, for instance because the objects may mean something to them, unrelated to the crime.
You have yet to admit that the *only* theory which receives any funding and credibility is the "HIV==AIDS" theory. Any differing or dissenting opinions are rapidly silenced.
They aren't rapidly silenced; they were repeatedly rebutted over the years. Alternative theories of causation. Furthermore, Peter Duesberg and others have extensively argued their case in high-impact scientific magazines (Nature, Science, PNAS...).
Is it possible that some of those conditions have nothing to do with HIV (for example, malnutrition and heavy drug usage)?
Yes, there are other conditions that cause the immune system to weaken. "What is unusual and new about AIDS, and requires that we classify it as a new syndrome, is the development of immune deficiency as the result of the loss of CD4 lymphocytes in people who would not normally be expected to develop immune deficiency"
if it doesn't follow pandemic patterns?
What are the pandemic patterns you refer to? Some background on your side would be useful too.
AIDS cases in the USA alone have not spread beyond the original target groups
HIV has been found in all the risk groups in which AIDS has appeared, but no other common factor is shared by all the risk groups, and no other factor has been shown to be associated with the distinctive depletion of CD4 lymphocytes in the same way. Some have argued that AIDS emerged in different risk groups at similar times because of different risk factors which deplete cellular immunity. According to this argument, it is a coincidence that HIV appeared at the same time in these different risk groups, and a coincidence that the presence or absence of HIV can be matched so closely with the development of AIDS in the different risk groups. However, those who accept the association between HIV and AIDS point out that HIV has failed to spread widely amongst heterosexuals in the developed world due to a lack of pathways for the virus.
why should a virus care what continent a person is on?
It doesn't care of course, but cultural differences will naturally cause differences in the epidemics.
What evidence do you have that the virus has been successfully isolated?
Recently developed sensitive testing methods, including the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and improved culture techniques, have enabled researchers to find HIV in patients with AIDS with few exceptions. HIV has been repeatedly isolated from the blood, semen and vaginal secretions of patients with AIDS, findings consistent with the epidemiologic data demonstrating AIDS transmission via sexual activity and contact with infected blood (Bartlett, 1999; Hammer et al. J Clin Microbiol 1993;31:2557; Jackson et al. J Clin Microbiol 1990;28:16).
HIV test does not test for HIV (only antibodies which scientists claim "must react" in the presence of a virus WHICH HAS NOT BEEN ISOLATED), and that the execution of this test is widely flawed.
Diagnosis of infection using antibody testing is one of the best-established concepts in medicine. HIV antibody tests exceed the performance of most other infectious disease tests in both sensitivity (the ability of the screening test to give a positive finding when the person tested truly has the disease) and specificity (the ability of the test to give a negative finding when the subjects tested are free of the disease under study). Current HIV antibody tests have sensitivity and specificity in excess of 98% and are therefore extremely reliable (WHO, 1998; Sloand et al. JAMA 1991;266:2861).
Progress in testing methodology has also enabled detection of viral genetic material, antigens and the virus itself in body fluids and cells. While not widely used for routine testing due to high cost and requirements in laboratory equipment, these direct testing techniques have confirmed the validity of the antibody tests (Jackson et al. J Clin Microbiol 1990;28:16; Busch et al. NEJM 1991;325:1; Silvester et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr Hum Retrovirol 1995;8:411; Urassa et al. J Clin Virol 1999;14:25; Nkengasong et al. AIDS 1999;13:109; Samdal et al. Clin Diagn Virol 1996;7:55.
Of course it's important. Research funding increases when the perceived threat is greater. My point is that AIDS is an industry, not a disease.
My point was that it's not important what you call it as long as you acknowledge that a high number of people are affected by this disease. In addition, other factors are important in evaluating the "perceived threat"; for instance, AIDS is a major cause of death among young people, whereas a disease like cancer predominantly affects older people.
What is the history? What are the side effects of AZT? I believe I'm having this discussion with you, not with the links you sent me.
The vast majority of people with AIDS never received antiretroviral drugs, including those in developed countries prior to the licensure of AZT in 1987, and people in developing countries today where very few individuals have access to these medications (UNAIDS, 2000).
As with medications for any serious diseases, antiretroviral drugs can have toxic side effects. However, there is no evidence that antiretroviral drugs cause the severe immunosuppression that typifies AIDS, and abundant evidence that antiretroviral therapy, when used according to established guidelines, can improve the length and quality of life of HIV-infected individuals (Guidelines for the Use of Antiretroviral Agents in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents, 2000).
In the 1980s, clinical trials enrolling patients with AIDS found that AZT given as single-drug therapy conferred a modest (and short-lived) survival advantage compared to placebo. Among HIV-infected patients who had not yet developed AIDS, placebo-controlled trials found that AZT given as single-drug therapy delayed, for a year or two, the onset of AIDS-related illnesses. Significantly, long-term follow-up of these trials did not show a prolonged benefit of AZT, but also never indicated that the drug increased disease progression or mortality. The lack of excess AIDS cases and death in the AZT arms of these placebo-controlled trials effectively counters the argument that AZT causes AIDS (NIAID, 1995).
Subsequent clinical trials found that patients receiving two-drug combinations had up to 50 percent increases in time to progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to people receiving single-drug therapy. In more recent years, three-drug combination therapies have produced another 50 percent to 80 percent improvements in progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to two-drug regimens in clinical trials (Deeks, Volberding, 1999). Use of potent anti-HIV combination therapies has contributed to dramatic reductions in the incidence of AIDS and AIDS-related deaths in populations where these drugs are widely available, an effect which clearly would not be seen if antiretroviral drugs caused AIDS (Figure 1; CDC. HIV AIDS Surveillance Report 1999;11[2]:1; Palella et al. NEJM 1998;338:853; Mocroft et al. Lancet 1998;352:1725; Mocroft et al. Lancet 2000;356:291; Vittinghoff et al. J Infect Dis 1999;179:717; Detels et al. JAMA 1998;280:1497; de Martino et al. JAMA 2000;284:190; CASCADE Collaboration. Lancet 2000;355:1158; Hogg et al. CMAJ 1999;160:659; Schwarcz et al. Am J Epidemiol 2000;152:178; Kaplan et al. Clin Infect Dis 2000;30:S5; McNaghten et al. AIDS 1999;13:1687).
KS only occurs in gay men (who use poppers).
Not true according to what I read, it occurs mostly in men.
Why should a virus care what the host's sexuality is?
It doesn't care.
The distribution of AIDS cases, whether in the United States or elsewhere in the world, invariably mirrors the prevalence of HIV in a population. In the United States, HIV first appeared in populations of homosexual men and injection-drug users, a majority of whom are male. Because HIV is spread primarily through sex or by the exchange of HIV-contaminated needles during injection-drug use, it is not surprising that a majority of U.S. AIDS cases have occurred in men (U.S. Census Bureau, 1999; UNAIDS, 2000).
Increasingly, however, women in the United States are becoming HIV-infected, usually through the exchange of HIV-contaminated needles or sex with an HIV-infected male. The CDC estimates that 30 percent of new HIV infections in the United States in 1998 were in women. As the number of HIV-infected women has risen, so too has the number of female AIDS patients in the United States. Approximately 23 percent of U.S. adult/adolescent AIDS cases reported to the CDC in 1998 were among women. In 1998, AIDS was the fifth leading cause of death among women aged 25 to 44 in the United States, and the third leading cause of death among African-American women in that age group (NIAID Fact Sheet: HIV/AIDS Statistics).
In Africa, HIV was first recognized in sexually active heterosexuals, and AIDS cases in Africa have occurred at least as frequently in women as in men. Overall, the worldwide distribution of HIV infection and AIDS between men and women is approximately 1 to 1 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1999; UNAIDS, 2000).
The problem with the list changing is that the list is an integral portion of the definition of the disease. If the list changes, the definition of AIDS changes. What additions and subtractions have been made to the list in recent years, and why?
The diseases associated with AIDS, such as PCP and Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), are not caused by HIV but rather result from the immunosuppression caused by HIV disease. As the immune system of an HIV-infected individual weakens, he or she becomes susceptible to the particular viral, fungal and bacterial infections common in the community. For example, HIV-infected people in certain midwestern and mid-Atlantic regions are much more likely than people in New York City to develop histoplasmosis, which is caused by a fungus. A person in Africa is exposed to different pathogens than is an individual in an American city. Children may be exposed to different infectious agents than adults (AIDS Knowledge Base, 1999a; 1999b).
Another point needs to be made: I didn't try to demonize you and I didn't treat you badly; you just like to play the victim. I found the "written by a bunch of crackpots and loons" bit particularly funny because you are the only one using those words. You also seem to believe you know what I think, as you state several times when that is obviously false. In the epitome of righteous indignation, you say "And I get a "people like you" comment". That was actually a compliment to your skeptic attitude. It would be nice if you would just take the time to read what it says rather than assuming you're being attacked. I'm looking forward to hear from you again, if you can drop the poor victim attitude and stick to the arguments.
Cheers
-nfk-
I don't have much time to discuss it and I'm not a virologist, but I can suggest some reading.
The Barcelona report, the result of a conference last year. The link "The Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic" is particularly informative in showing it isn't just a "handful of sufferers". I suggest browsing around theUNAIDS home page too.
About the HIV/AIDS link, if you have some time and an open mind, I suggest this site's links, this one being particularly useful.
About your questions, I don't know what you mean by epidemic patterns (I'm not an expert) but I don't think that question is important, if it's just a matter of calling it epidemics or not - there are many people infected and dying, and I've seen it referred as epidemics in many places; AZT is covered thoroughly in the links I gave you; I read somewhere that, although not clinically proven, statistics say amyl nitrate increases the chances of HIV infected people developping Kaposi's syndrome, but I don't know what is your point; diseases that are associated with AIDS are opportunistic diseases that take advantage of the damage to the immune system, I don't see a problem with that list changing.
Of course, if you don't want to believe, it's pointless. You can come up with a huge conspiracy theory involving thousands of scientists all over the world, and think whatever you want. Those who are affected by the disease deserve treatment though, and everyone deserves information, because denial theories could prompt people to stop being careful about prevention and to be hopeless about treatment.
That said, science lives off people like you, who are skeptic and don't accept things blindly. Contrary to what you may think, or not, scientists are encouraged to question and go against the establishment, that's very important and science isn't static, but at the end of the day the theory that survives is the one that's supported by the facts. New evidence could come up, and there might be a report tomorrow, saying that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, but based on current evidence, most people strongly believe HIV causes AIDS.
I've always had 3GB/month. They claimed that whenever there are no limits, speed suffers. That's cable though, not ADSL. The big advantage here is that they made it from the beginning, obviously when people have rights it will be hard to take them away, regardless of the motives.
I see. Nevermind, I have signatures in comments turned off so I didn't see his, which was what caused my confusion.
You are kidding, right? You don't really believe that site. President Mbeki's credibility suffered a huge blow after his statement that AIDS wasn't caused by HIV.
Moneo can be incorporated onto their existing credit cards -- something that has never been tried outside of France I've had a debit card like that for years, in Portugal. I don't think it ever became a big thing, it's not a big deal when most shops and public phones allow payment with ATM cards, although the lack of a PIN makes it easier (and less safe) to use.
It's an interesting change in the equation involving security and freedom; prior to September 11th, measures like this and the concentration of intelligence in one big department, and even things like the patriotic acts, would have been much more impopular. I live in a country (Portugal, in Europe) where citizens get an ID card when they are around 12. That would probably be considered inadequate and an invasion of privacy in the United States, but partly driven by the fear brought by the terrorist attacks and maybe also as a window of opportunity that politicians have taken advantage of, it is happening. I wonder what the sentiments of the majority of the population are.
Well, apparently it was secret when he signed it, months ago, later it became public.
"Make something that even fools can use and only fools will want to use it." "It's impossible to make something fool proof because fools are utterly ingenious."
It's not an intrinsic right to earn more money, just market rules. If people weren't expecting rewards from their actions, many would not bother. I don't know if that changed, even when humans lived in bands there would be leaders. Then there was progress, our society works better now in my opinion. It may be sad the way things work and it doesn't mean it can't change but it's not easy, I'm not so sure that's in human nature...
The problem is we live in a capitalist society and I'm not as optimist as you about the old world dying a slow death. I don't know if people can work just for the reward of making a better world, it doesn't seem to work well. Not saying that it couldn't work, I'm just skeptic.
About scientists in particular, they have to make a living. Not all of them have extremely high salaries and some are even working without getting paid, not because they want to but because they have to, when they can't find a job, to keep in touch with the scientific world. College is hard, Science is hard, salaries of scientists are high just like any expert's salary. Some scientists will do it for the money, some for the joy, some for both, good salaries just ensure that the most qualified people will want to do Science instead of something else that may be easier.
Profit is implied, how would patents promote the progress of science and useful arts otherwise?