If you care more about enjoying Internet than enjoying nature, wireless might be the way to go. However, a repeatedly confirmed Dutch study has shown that WiFi is bad for vegetation, drying it up. It's a crime to run WiFi in a park - wire up the location. It's also safer, as I'm sure you know.
I wrote about why and how and, like I said, I'd probably go with Netgear if I were to choose again. For adapters I'd recommend a Rosewill USB from Newegg: they're cheap (less than $20) and very powerful.
David Leigh of The Guardian may have sodomized Assange of Wikileaks. Assange said "no" but Leigh kept on pressing. Now Assange is suing for rape, but it all depends on the rape laws in UK.
There is no single and absolute "TRUTH", just competing versions and theories thereof. To think that you can hold someone "accountable" for their opinions is silly. It is similar to Italians who sentenced and jailed seismologists for not being able to predict the recent earthquake near Rome, or Romanians who almost convicted meteorologists for "lying about the weather". Forcing people to use their real names will cause more people to abandon wikipedia.
If you one wants to use his or her real name, nothing stops them.
Using real names is a bad idea. The whole point of wikipedia is that the collective wisdom of the many produces better results than the individual wisdom of few (as is the case with other encyclops. It is the best known bastion (and possibly the only one) in the fight against ipse-dixit-ism, a disease deeply embedded in human DNA. Requiring real names would not prevent editors from being dicks, but rather would make corruption easier and restrict dickishness solely to those who can produce credentials or create the illusion that they have them.
Also, why so many people think here that real names are the answer, while in comments on articles about Google Plus debacle they correctly identify that policy as flawed?!?
This is a quote from PZ Myers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U0MnBmSlhE "The kind of naive falsifyability that you hear from the philosophers of the Popper school.. is bogus. (..) This doesn't mean I'm close-minded." Religious people think the same way about Creationism. How can a debate be possible, if neither side allows for the possibility that they could be wrong?
Personally, I don't find the creationist argument persuasive so very early in my youth I chose to go down science path. Though back then I used to think it was a "reason" based decision, it is now clear to me that it was essentially driven by what I liked more.
If I was running **AA, I'd hire a PR firm to create the appearance that downloading takes place for profit. Planting such text files, though silly, might achieve just that. Even though it's easier to shut such sites down (but expensive), I stand to profit more from creating the appearance that "pirates" are not so innocent and allowing the sites to continue. Canadian RIAA has been claiming that Canadian laws are inadequate while dragging its feet before suing IsoHunt: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5636/135/
What I've never been able to understand is why wasn't Usenet / Dejanews database managed by a library consortium? I can no longer find my '90s messages in Google - managed index.
I can understand that they cannot possibly provide personal service to all their (non-paying) customers. Yet they make mistakes every now and then. There is no way for you to completely avoid being banned except to stop using their services altogether. They never respond to or interact with queries, not even to public queries in their own newsgroup. Their motto should be "we'll take good care of you, but if you want support, get a (wonder)bra".
The problem is not so much Google, but rather the fact that nobody comes even close to offering their services at the price they do, which means that there aren't real alternatives.
TOR is sometimes as fast as the real thing - those German relays are awesome, in particular. Setting up a relay also provides additional privacy for the user.
However, I strongly doubt that any speed-up you might have noticed is due to the Iran users. Even if they were to set up relays - and they aren't really in a position to do so, in their particular situation - the outgoing traffic in Iran is choked and deep-packet inspected, hence slow.
Every "revolution" in Eastern Europe took place with considerable (albeit covert) Western support. It wasn't open military intervention, but to claim the regime changes in Eastern Europe and especially Romania happened with no external help, as some might interpret your words, is shortsighted.
OTOH I don't think a military intervention is the way to go in countries like Iran. Any attempt to help, in the slightest manner, would be used against the West.Watch the MEMRI videos on YouTube - these guys claimed that Soros was working with Bush to destroy them (!!!).
The one smart PR move that renegade countries like Iran, Zimbabwe or North Korea don't ever make is hosting other renegades, from the other side of the pond (like tpb or tvb). They'd score a major coup by showing that there are excesses and abuses perpetrated by their critics as well, and rather than having to perform the filtering and censorship themselves, they'd be forcing the West to do it for them, allowing themselves to be painted as the good guys.
The opinion of the Harvard Prof who thinks that the huge damages awarded for copyright infringement are unconstitutional has been reported here. Is a law really necessary to sue a self-described copyright holder? Isn't there some sort of quid pro quo in effect?
For instance, if WMG gets my video banned on YouTube even though it's not using its IP, shouldn't I be able to receive the kind of damages they get if I were to download their music without paying for it? Rather than wait for the law to happen, shouldn't someone (like a moneyed individutal + EFF) take a big IP bully to court?
Vita-Mix.com, who have been making high-performance mixers with polycarbonate containers forever, deny any such adverse effects and encourage their customers to "mix" as long as it takes to make hot soups (that is, starting with a cold mixture, keep mixing until the liquid is hot). Rubbermaid, OTOH, has had on their website an interview with a Johns Hopkins University scientist who states that heated or boiling liquids will accelerate BPA extraction (quite obvious, if you think about it).
I think each national toilet could exert far more inspiration and productivity, depending on the national portrait hung above it. For instance, if the American one were to make use of Dick Cheney's winning smile, everybody would want to use it, causing an unequal distribution of resources. If, OTOH, Stalin were to preside over the Russian act of defecation, the weight might somehow get balanced, restoring a normal consumption of fuel.
I do not recall registering with this registry. However, I am 100% sure I started to get these phone calls ("hello, this is your captain speaking") ever since I registered with cruisemates.com
As far as I can tell, they are a front for collecting this kind of information.
You, Sir, make a fine debater, and even though I disagree with you, I generally like (with a few exceptions) the way you make your point:)
If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that
the sharks extremely high sensitivity is explainable with our current knowledge, while homeopathy is not, or it has been disproved.
the orders of magnitude are somehow relevant, and I don't get it b/c I'm probably not an engineer.
whether homeopathy is accepted in national health care schemes in many countries around the world is not a valid argument (orders of magnitude, perhaps.. [grin])
my mind is playing tricks on me:)
I will first deal with your last 3 points.
I don't think one's expertise is necessarily an argument in a debate. I did some debating at University level, and I've always been surprised how easily inexperienced judges fall for this crap ("I'm a computer scientist, therefore I'm right about electronic voting"). If you are an expert on the topic at hand, you should be better at convincing a layperson; if you can't, just don't disclose it. Whether I'm a karma[Tama]whore[i] or a janitor at MIT is not relevant.
I agree with you that inclusion in a national health care is not terribly relevant either. The reason I mentioned that is more for context. It's good to keep in mind that while not very popular in USA, homeopathy is widely embraced in Europe and elsewhere and in many of these countries homeopathy is practiced by MDs. I was also using a source you yourself quoted. I don't want to dwell too much on this point, however. I love your number 4 because although it is a little too personal, I prefer to think that it goes to the heart of this debate. We both take opposite viewpoints for subjective reasons, and we try to beef them up with "research" or "scientific data". We both believe that our data is better, therefore we should win the argument. There's nothing unusual about this, most debates start exactly the same way.
Before we get further apart, let's briefly consider a few points:
when I talk about homeopathy I only refer to classic homeopathy, as practiced and invented by Hahnemann. No vibration crap, and always full interviews.
homeopathic practitioners claim that remedies are proven to work in double blind studies and also on monkeys and babies, which significantly reduces the chances of placebo effect
classic homeopathy is essentially empirical; remedies are (supposedly) entered into the pharmacopoeia only after being tested on a statistically significant number of people and found to have worked.
the esoteric theories of vibrations and water memory are more or rather less successful attempts to explain scientifically something that works, much like the shark's sense of smell
homeopathy will never become mainstream b/c big pharma cannot patent its remedies and as such is not scalable; you will never see Superbowl commercials touting homeopathic remedies; big pharma has a vested interest in sponsoring research "proving" it does not work since it's disrupting its business model
research pro homeopathy does exist and I'm sure you can easily find it yourself; so does nonsensical research proving that sharks' sense of smell makes perfect sense (and I'm quite sure that 1ppm number vehiculated in literature is much higher in reality, but using larger numbers would sound more like SF)
If anything, this debate has reignited my desire to find a good homeopathic practitioner here in Toronto. Thank you!
I'd like to continue this debate with you off-line, so please feel free to email me if you so wish.
I'll leave you with a quote from Erwin Knoll: "Everything you read in the newspaper is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you have first-hand knowledge."
I tried to make a point without relying on numbers as I do not have any authoritative sources. Besides, the sharks smelling 1 molecule in 1 million molecules of water is mind boggling enough for me. Yet again and again, sharks detect that 1 "molecule" with precision. In my mind, the explanation offered by our current understanding of science is unconvincing. I think the only reason it is accepted is that it is empirically observed and to deny the obvious would make even the most fundamentalist scientist look silly.
Nonetheless, you seem to believe that our current understanding of science is sufficient to reject homeopathy; I don't.
Here's some further food for thought from that wikipedia article on homeopathy (emphasis is mine):
Hahnemann pioneered and always favored the centesimal or "C scale", diluting a substance 1 part in a 100 of diluent. Some homeopaths developed a decimal scale (D or X) diluting the substance 1 part in 10 of diluent. Hahnemann never used this scale but it was very popular throughout the 19th century and still is in Europe.
It should be noted however that not all homeopaths advocated extremely high potencies. Many of the early homeopaths were originally doctors and generally tended to use lower potencies such as "3x" or "6x", rarely going beyond "12x". A good example of this approach is that of Dr. Richard Hughes, who dismissed the extremely high potencies as unnecessary. This was the dominant pattern in Europe throughout the 1820s to 1930s, but in America many practitioners developed and preferred the higher dilutions. This trend became especially exemplified by James Tyler Kent and dominated US homeopathy from the 1850s until its demise in the 1940s. The split between lower and higher dilutions also followed ideological lines with the former stressing pathology and a strong link to conventional medicine, while the latter emphasized vital force, miasms and a spiritual take on sickness.[34][35]
Homeopathy has also been integrated into the national health care systems of numerous countries including India, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom. (...) Some homeopathic treatment is covered by the national insurance coverage of several European countries, including France, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Luxembourg. (...) Homeopathy is currently integrated into the national health care system of Mexico and in 1985, a presidential decree established the first homeopathic school as well as regulations specifiying training requirements for homeopathic doctors.[102] (...) Homeopathy has been regulated in other South American countries, such as Columbia, since the beginning of the 20th century. In Brazil, Homeopathy is included in the national health system and since 1991, physicians who want to practice homeopathy must complete 2,300 hours of education prior to receiving the proper licenses.
Now whether you believe the "water memory" thesis or not, you have to admit that homeopathy is not synonymous with those high dillutions, and most practitioners use dillutions lower than what we give sharks credit for. Furthermore, America is where the highest dillutions were used and also where homeopathy has had the least success. (It's also the country where the [A]M[edical]A[ssociation] had the most success in eliminating competition to conventional medicine, but that's a different story.)
Last but not least, a very often overlooked reason why homeopathy is so successful where it is allowed to flourish and where crooks are weeded out is the correctly applied interview, which provides a full picture of a patient's health and seeks to resolve most negative symptoms. Contrast this with the crook who tends to either rush through or dispense with the interview altogether and prescribe a highly dilluted remedy for the most troublesome symptom.
Water memory or not, I think there are valid reasons to consider at least the possibility that this science invented by Hahnemann through an accidental discovery may very well be true. Although I would not expect Ars Technica to readily accept it, I was surprised that the Guardian considers homeopathy one of the signs of the coming "endarkenment" apocalypse.
My main counterargument to the quackery thesis (and I have a few others) is the "sniffing sharks". We know that sharks are able to somehow "sniff" blood in sea water from miles away and they all congregate quickly around the prey. This is not a myth, it's been documented and it is readily accepted. For the sharks to be able to somehow sense that blood, they have to be able to perceive dillutions at least as high as those found in homeopathy. We also know that dogs and most animals are able to pick up scents with similar high dillutions. Then why can't we accept that homeopathy, when done right and by the [huge] book, can actually work, using the same principles?
I have tried once, when I was a kid, a homeopathic doctor, but that guy was a quack. His interview was just dumb (and the interview is a very important part of the classic homeopathy), and he ended up prescribing a remedy that's given usually without interview. I did not take it and haven't tried again.
Finally, we all know that since the 80s, there have been at least two high profile attempts to prove that water does have memory. In both cases, they resulted in ending the careers of those scientists when the experiments could not be replicated. What bothers me is why would respected scientists chose to go ahead and publish such revolutionary research, bound to be thoroughly examined by their peers, if they did not have the results to back it up? Is it not possible though that they were not quacks as well, but rather that they found something and yet failed to describe certain conditions that resulted in replications failure?
... I think that the news is not how fast it is, but that it manages to be the fastest while being so far ahead of the pack in terms of everthing else. Consider this:
Security: According to Secunia, Opera has 0 unpatched holes, compared to IE which has the most and Safari, second worst; unfortunately, Firefox has quite a few left as well.
Features: Integrated email, feed reader, widgets, notes, IRC & bittorrent client; back in the day, Netscape tried to do that with email, then gave up when the code became too heavy and impossible to manage, opting instead for "modularization"; IE followed by introducing menu items for OE and FP Express. Opera is the only one left standing and still the fastest with the smalled footprint.
The only browser that can read pages back to you (Windows->select text, right click, V)
Portability - opera-usb.com, comes with flashblocker button in case you don't know how to set it yourself
Mobile devices, where it's at - Opera rules that market
Someone complained about the find function - the window doesn't actually disappear if you click behind it, it stays on top but loses focus
Wishlist: better integration with Google modules and especially Google Reader, but part of that seems to be addressed with Synchronization
I used Opera since version 5. I would not use an OS unless there's an Opera made for it.
Lots of exciting visual images to be conjured with this next item. A crazed squirrel unleashed its wrath on the German town of Passau, biting three people in a frenzied attack that ended when the poor little critter got pummeled to death by an old man with a cane, Reuters reported. The rodent first jumped through a living room window and sank its teeth into the hand of a 70-year-old woman. She ran into the street in a panic the animal still hanging by its teeth from her hand and finally managed to shake the animal free. (I am imagining a lot of harried screaming and zigzagging, too, but the stories I found didnt address that). The squirrel then bit a construction worker and ran into a nearby garden, where it massively attacked a 72-year-old man on the arms, hands and thigh. After a lengthy struggle, the man was able to kill the squirrel with his cane. Experts said the attack may have been linked to the mating season or happened because the animal was ill. Hey, speaking of mating season
Slashdot Mirror
If you care more about enjoying Internet than enjoying nature, wireless might be the way to go. However, a repeatedly confirmed Dutch study has shown that WiFi is bad for vegetation, drying it up. It's a crime to run WiFi in a park - wire up the location. It's also safer, as I'm sure you know.
I concur. Though you have to admit: IP laws suck if you're an innovator, but they're money in the bank if you're an IP lawyer.
I wrote about why and how and, like I said, I'd probably go with Netgear if I were to choose again. For adapters I'd recommend a Rosewill USB from Newegg: they're cheap (less than $20) and very powerful.
David Leigh of The Guardian may have sodomized Assange of Wikileaks. Assange said "no" but Leigh kept on pressing. Now Assange is suing for rape, but it all depends on the rape laws in UK.
The only solution that makes sense. VOTE THIS ONE UP!
There is no single and absolute "TRUTH", just competing versions and theories thereof. To think that you can hold someone "accountable" for their opinions is silly. It is similar to Italians who sentenced and jailed seismologists for not being able to predict the recent earthquake near Rome, or Romanians who almost convicted meteorologists for "lying about the weather". Forcing people to use their real names will cause more people to abandon wikipedia.
If you one wants to use his or her real name, nothing stops them.
Using real names is a bad idea. The whole point of wikipedia is that the collective wisdom of the many produces better results than the individual wisdom of few (as is the case with other encyclops. It is the best known bastion (and possibly the only one) in the fight against ipse-dixit-ism, a disease deeply embedded in human DNA. Requiring real names would not prevent editors from being dicks, but rather would make corruption easier and restrict dickishness solely to those who can produce credentials or create the illusion that they have them.
Also, why so many people think here that real names are the answer, while in comments on articles about Google Plus debacle they correctly identify that policy as flawed?!?
This is a quote from PZ Myers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U0MnBmSlhE .. is bogus. (..) This doesn't mean I'm close-minded."
"The kind of naive falsifyability that you hear from the philosophers of the Popper school
Religious people think the same way about Creationism. How can a debate be possible, if neither side allows for the possibility that they could be wrong?
Personally, I don't find the creationist argument persuasive so very early in my youth I chose to go down science path. Though back then I used to think it was a "reason" based decision, it is now clear to me that it was essentially driven by what I liked more.
If I was running **AA, I'd hire a PR firm to create the appearance that downloading takes place for profit. Planting such text files, though silly, might achieve just that. Even though it's easier to shut such sites down (but expensive), I stand to profit more from creating the appearance that "pirates" are not so innocent and allowing the sites to continue.
Canadian RIAA has been claiming that Canadian laws are inadequate while dragging its feet before suing IsoHunt: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5636/135/
What the EFF should be claiming is that "government employees abuse the limits of their power".
--sarcasm-- Yes, that _would_ rally the people. --/sarcasm--
Ain't ze foist time y'all R wong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXg5pOF2PvY&fmt=18
What I've never been able to understand is why wasn't Usenet / Dejanews database managed by a library consortium? I can no longer find my '90s messages in Google - managed index.
..meaning, they are too big too boycott..
I can understand that they cannot possibly provide personal service to all their (non-paying) customers. Yet they make mistakes every now and then. There is no way for you to completely avoid being banned except to stop using their services altogether. They never respond to or interact with queries, not even to public queries in their own newsgroup. Their motto should be "we'll take good care of you, but if you want support, get a (wonder)bra".
The problem is not so much Google, but rather the fact that nobody comes even close to offering their services at the price they do, which means that there aren't real alternatives.
I wrote about my own experience in google wuoves me – NOT!.
TOR is sometimes as fast as the real thing - those German relays are awesome, in particular. Setting up a relay also provides additional privacy for the user.
However, I strongly doubt that any speed-up you might have noticed is due to the Iran users. Even if they were to set up relays - and they aren't really in a position to do so, in their particular situation - the outgoing traffic in Iran is choked and deep-packet inspected, hence slow.
Every "revolution" in Eastern Europe took place with considerable (albeit covert) Western support. It wasn't open military intervention, but to claim the regime changes in Eastern Europe and especially Romania happened with no external help, as some might interpret your words, is shortsighted.
OTOH I don't think a military intervention is the way to go in countries like Iran. Any attempt to help, in the slightest manner, would be used against the West.Watch the MEMRI videos on YouTube - these guys claimed that Soros was working with Bush to destroy them (!!!).
The one smart PR move that renegade countries like Iran, Zimbabwe or North Korea don't ever make is hosting other renegades, from the other side of the pond (like tpb or tvb). They'd score a major coup by showing that there are excesses and abuses perpetrated by their critics as well, and rather than having to perform the filtering and censorship themselves, they'd be forcing the West to do it for them, allowing themselves to be painted as the good guys.
The opinion of the Harvard Prof who thinks that the huge damages awarded for copyright infringement are unconstitutional has been reported here. Is a law really necessary to sue a self-described copyright holder? Isn't there some sort of quid pro quo in effect?
For instance, if WMG gets my video banned on YouTube even though it's not using its IP, shouldn't I be able to receive the kind of damages they get if I were to download their music without paying for it? Rather than wait for the law to happen, shouldn't someone (like a moneyed individutal + EFF) take a big IP bully to court?
Vita-Mix.com, who have been making high-performance mixers with polycarbonate containers forever, deny any such adverse effects and encourage their customers to "mix" as long as it takes to make hot soups (that is, starting with a cold mixture, keep mixing until the liquid is hot). Rubbermaid, OTOH, has had on their website an interview with a Johns Hopkins University scientist who states that heated or boiling liquids will accelerate BPA extraction (quite obvious, if you think about it).
I think each national toilet could exert far more inspiration and productivity, depending on the national portrait hung above it. For instance, if the American one were to make use of Dick Cheney's winning smile, everybody would want to use it, causing an unequal distribution of resources. If, OTOH, Stalin were to preside over the Russian act of defecation, the weight might somehow get balanced, restoring a normal consumption of fuel.
I do not recall registering with this registry. However, I am 100% sure I started to get these phone calls ("hello, this is your captain speaking") ever since I registered with cruisemates.com
As far as I can tell, they are a front for collecting this kind of information.
If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that
- the sharks extremely high sensitivity is explainable with our current knowledge, while homeopathy is not, or it has been disproved.
- the orders of magnitude are somehow relevant, and I don't get it b/c I'm probably not an engineer.
- whether homeopathy is accepted in national health care schemes in many countries around the world is not a valid argument (orders of magnitude, perhaps.. [grin])
- my mind is playing tricks on me
:)
I will first deal with your last 3 points.I don't think one's expertise is necessarily an argument in a debate. I did some debating at University level, and I've always been surprised how easily inexperienced judges fall for this crap ("I'm a computer scientist, therefore I'm right about electronic voting"). If you are an expert on the topic at hand, you should be better at convincing a layperson; if you can't, just don't disclose it. Whether I'm a karma [Tama]whore[i] or a janitor at MIT is not relevant.
I agree with you that inclusion in a national health care is not terribly relevant either. The reason I mentioned that is more for context. It's good to keep in mind that while not very popular in USA, homeopathy is widely embraced in Europe and elsewhere and in many of these countries homeopathy is practiced by MDs. I was also using a source you yourself quoted. I don't want to dwell too much on this point, however. I love your number 4 because although it is a little too personal, I prefer to think that it goes to the heart of this debate. We both take opposite viewpoints for subjective reasons, and we try to beef them up with "research" or "scientific data". We both believe that our data is better, therefore we should win the argument. There's nothing unusual about this, most debates start exactly the same way.
Before we get further apart, let's briefly consider a few points:
- when I talk about homeopathy I only refer to classic homeopathy, as practiced and invented by Hahnemann. No vibration crap, and always full interviews.
- homeopathic practitioners claim that remedies are proven to work in double blind studies and also on monkeys and babies, which significantly reduces the chances of placebo effect
- classic homeopathy is essentially empirical; remedies are (supposedly) entered into the pharmacopoeia only after being tested on a statistically significant number of people and found to have worked.
- the esoteric theories of vibrations and water memory are more or rather less successful attempts to explain scientifically something that works, much like the shark's sense of smell
- homeopathy will never become mainstream b/c big pharma cannot patent its remedies and as such is not scalable; you will never see Superbowl commercials touting homeopathic remedies; big pharma has a vested interest in sponsoring research "proving" it does not work since it's disrupting its business model
- research pro homeopathy does exist and I'm sure you can easily find it yourself; so does nonsensical research proving that sharks' sense of smell makes perfect sense (and I'm quite sure that 1ppm number vehiculated in literature is much higher in reality, but using larger numbers would sound more like SF)
If anything, this debate has reignited my desire to find a good homeopathic practitioner here in Toronto. Thank you!I'd like to continue this debate with you off-line, so please feel free to email me if you so wish.
I'll leave you with a quote from Erwin Knoll: "Everything you read in the newspaper is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you have first-hand knowledge."
Nonetheless, you seem to believe that our current understanding of science is sufficient to reject homeopathy; I don't.
Here's some further food for thought from that wikipedia article on homeopathy (emphasis is mine):
- Hahnemann pioneered and always favored the centesimal or "C scale", diluting a substance 1 part in a 100 of diluent. Some homeopaths developed a decimal scale (D or X) diluting the substance 1 part in 10 of diluent. Hahnemann never used this scale but it was very popular throughout the 19th century and still is in Europe.
- It should be noted however that not all homeopaths advocated extremely high potencies. Many of the early homeopaths were originally doctors and generally tended to use lower potencies such as "3x" or "6x", rarely going beyond "12x". A good example of this approach is that of Dr. Richard Hughes, who dismissed the extremely high potencies as unnecessary. This was the dominant pattern in Europe throughout the 1820s to 1930s, but in America many practitioners developed and preferred the higher dilutions. This trend became especially exemplified by James Tyler Kent and dominated US homeopathy from the 1850s until its demise in the 1940s. The split between lower and higher dilutions also followed ideological lines with the former stressing pathology and a strong link to conventional medicine, while the latter emphasized vital force, miasms and a spiritual take on sickness.[34][35]
- Homeopathy has also been integrated into the national health care systems of numerous countries including India, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom. (...) Some homeopathic treatment is covered by the national insurance coverage of several European countries, including France, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Luxembourg. (...) Homeopathy is currently integrated into the national health care system of Mexico and in 1985, a presidential decree established the first homeopathic school as well as regulations specifiying training requirements for homeopathic doctors.[102] (...) Homeopathy has been regulated in other South American countries, such as Columbia, since the beginning of the 20th century. In Brazil, Homeopathy is included in the national health system and since 1991, physicians who want to practice homeopathy must complete 2,300 hours of education prior to receiving the proper licenses.
Now whether you believe the "water memory" thesis or not, you have to admit that homeopathy is not synonymous with those high dillutions, and most practitioners use dillutions lower than what we give sharks credit for. Furthermore, America is where the highest dillutions were used and also where homeopathy has had the least success. (It's also the country where the [A]M[edical]A[ssociation] had the most success in eliminating competition to conventional medicine, but that's a different story.)Last but not least, a very often overlooked reason why homeopathy is so successful where it is allowed to flourish and where crooks are weeded out is the correctly applied interview, which provides a full picture of a patient's health and seeks to resolve most negative symptoms. Contrast this with the crook who tends to either rush through or dispense with the interview altogether and prescribe a highly dilluted remedy for the most troublesome symptom.
My main counterargument to the quackery thesis (and I have a few others) is the "sniffing sharks". We know that sharks are able to somehow "sniff" blood in sea water from miles away and they all congregate quickly around the prey. This is not a myth, it's been documented and it is readily accepted. For the sharks to be able to somehow sense that blood, they have to be able to perceive dillutions at least as high as those found in homeopathy. We also know that dogs and most animals are able to pick up scents with similar high dillutions. Then why can't we accept that homeopathy, when done right and by the [huge] book, can actually work, using the same principles?
I have tried once, when I was a kid, a homeopathic doctor, but that guy was a quack. His interview was just dumb (and the interview is a very important part of the classic homeopathy), and he ended up prescribing a remedy that's given usually without interview. I did not take it and haven't tried again.
Finally, we all know that since the 80s, there have been at least two high profile attempts to prove that water does have memory. In both cases, they resulted in ending the careers of those scientists when the experiments could not be replicated. What bothers me is why would respected scientists chose to go ahead and publish such revolutionary research, bound to be thoroughly examined by their peers, if they did not have the results to back it up? Is it not possible though that they were not quacks as well, but rather that they found something and yet failed to describe certain conditions that resulted in replications failure?
- Security: According to Secunia, Opera has 0 unpatched holes, compared to IE which has the most and Safari, second worst; unfortunately, Firefox has quite a few left as well.
- Features: Integrated email, feed reader, widgets, notes, IRC & bittorrent client; back in the day, Netscape tried to do that with email, then gave up when the code became too heavy and impossible to manage, opting instead for "modularization"; IE followed by introducing menu items for OE and FP Express. Opera is the only one left standing and still the fastest with the smalled footprint.
- The only browser that can read pages back to you (Windows->select text, right click, V)
- Portability - opera-usb.com, comes with flashblocker button in case you don't know how to set it yourself
- Mobile devices, where it's at - Opera rules that market
- Someone complained about the find function - the window doesn't actually disappear if you click behind it, it stays on top but loses focus
Wishlist: better integration with Google modules and especially Google Reader, but part of that seems to be addressed with Synchronization I used Opera since version 5. I would not use an OS unless there's an Opera made for it.From Modesto Bee (also covered on BBC):
Lots of exciting visual images to be conjured with this next item. A crazed squirrel unleashed its wrath on the German town of Passau, biting three people in a frenzied attack that ended when the poor little critter got pummeled to death by an old man with a cane, Reuters reported. The rodent first jumped through a living room window and sank its teeth into the hand of a 70-year-old woman. She ran into the street in a panic the animal still hanging by its teeth from her hand and finally managed to shake the animal free. (I am imagining a lot of harried screaming and zigzagging, too, but the stories I found didnt address that). The squirrel then bit a construction worker and ran into a nearby garden, where it massively attacked a 72-year-old man on the arms, hands and thigh. After a lengthy struggle, the man was able to kill the squirrel with his cane. Experts said the attack may have been linked to the mating season or happened because the animal was ill. Hey, speaking of mating season