I think it would be a much better replacement for freight trains and trucks. I'm guessing that may be their goal but they don't want to upset the train and trucker unions just yet. I'd say Amazon should get it on this as well to speed up their shipping times and hit their same-day delivery dream.
With the planned design, only one vehicle at a time can be in the tube because of the air being moved from the front of the vehicle to behind it. The vehicle needs a slight vacuum in front but for a second vehicle in the tube, it will have increased pressure in front caused by the operation of the leading vehicle.
Besides, just like with railroads, the hard part is stopping. A freight train in this tube is going to be difficult to slow down from 800mph. Current freight trains are a mile long and take up to two miles to stop using dynamic brakes on the engine and friction brakes on the wheels. You won't have either in the hyperloop.
So, because of the physics involved, it is unlikely that freight has anything to worry. Most likely neither does passenger rail. As soon as you start adding multiple stops/stations, you loose the ability to reach your maximum speed because of the acceleration/deceleration (I'm sure it can accelerate/decelerate instantly, but that would not be good for the people onboard).
So, ultimately, this will be a delivery system between two fixed points, much like airports are today. And that is probably who will be impacted, short and mid range flights. If the specs are met, this will be twice as fast as air travel for distances up to 1000 miles. The deciding factor as to whether or not it is successful is the final cost to the traveler. Faster is desirable, but it depends on the cost.
Your probably right. It's not like he put in a whole new privatized space program at a cost less than a nuclear submarine. With a launch charge cheaper than the cost of a ticket to ISS.
You do realize that his privatized space program got to reap the benefits of the public space program. It's a lot easier to do things the second time around. In addition, he only built one type of launch vehicle -- to take people to space. That's no small feat, but since NASA is forced to handle multiple missions with it's launch vehicles, comparing a single use vehicle with a multi-use vehicle is not a fair comparison.
Again, not to diminish what he has accomplished, but the launch charge to the ISS covers a lot more than the cost to get to the ISS. Think of it like the $10 they charge you for tylenol in the hospital. The extra cost pays for those other services that are necessary but inadequately funded. SpaceX doesn't have those other activities so they don't have to subsidize other operations through launch fees.
Well it depends on the cancer, I don't know about for Ovarian in particular, but for prostate you often find cancerous tissue, but it is so slow growing it wouldn't be a threat unless you lived to be over 100, and as such the side effects of treatment are much worse than the cancer would have been. These sorts of slow growing non-threatening cancers wouldn't ever produce symptoms, and so wouldn't be diagnosed without a screening programme.
That is true with prostate cancer, but not ovarian cancer. Besides in relation to the original post, finding cancer cells in one's prostate, even if slow growing would not be a false positive but an actual positive. But yes, if you are 80 and they find prostate cancer they may not do anything about it. If you are 60 and they find it, they aren't going to just let it go.
I only buy cow meat that I know is from happy grass fed cows and locally butchered. It costs more, but the extra cost is better than suffering from Western diseases.
Look, you can rely on a discredited paper all you want.
I get it now. You think I referenced that website to prove something. I didn't. I referenced that website to explain something.
It is self-evident that ignoring drop-outs from AA biases the results. That's it, you don't need a study understand that. You got a paper which shows that ignoring drop-outs does not bias the results, then we'll talk. Otherwise you've got nothing meaningful to say here.
Here's the deal you get the entire medical community to include dropouts in all of there studies then we'll talk, but until then, you would have to justify why in this one very particular study you should include dropouts when every other study and regiment excludes them. Since studies are designed to test the efficacy of a treatment regiment when followed to conclusion, including dropouts skew those results because by definition, dropouts are not following the regiment. Now, if you want to test for something other than the efficacy, then you are free to include what ever groups you want, but if your goal is test for how effective once course of action is versus another, then you have to test for those who actually follow that course of action.
What exactly are you trying to show, that 50% of the people who are not court mandated that start AA don't complete the program? Fine, but those numbers are readily available. They also correspond to the 50% that start private therapy and quit and also check into rehab and check themself out. All that tells us is that half of the people who start a treatment program, regardless of the program, unless court ordered, don't follow through. Big deal. The study that the slashdot article is about is the efficacy of AA and similar 12 step programs, not the dropout rate. And to study the efficacy of the treatment program you have to follow the participants who completed the program. Again, it doesn't matter if one is talking about AA, or private therapy or a rehab center.
The only way to test the efficacy of the treatment is to monitor those who actually complete the treatment. Dropouts don't figure in on the efficacy of the treatment. They may figure in on the efficiency; if the program is so severe that most drop out, even if the treatment is 100% successful on those that remain, it is not efficient. However, with substance abuse, the dropout rate is consistent among all types of treatment, so it is a non-factor.
You are mixing clinical efficiency with clinical effectiveness and the 40% figure given in the studies is about effectiveness.
It's a good thing they don't cover meat in sugar power. They don't do they ?!
No, but they do inject it with HFCS. If people knew everything they ate with HFCS, they'd be only buying food from the farmer's market and local butcher.
It never ceases to amaze me when people on slashdot find themself defending an undefendable position they always resort to character attacks.
It shouldn't amaze you at all, after all you did it yourself before anyone else in this thread -- "Obviously you have something against AA."
The studies you keep citing are irrelevant because they do not measure what I am talking about. Your insistence on irrelevancy has become a broken record - you don't bring anything helpful to the discussion so I won't be responding to you any further.
Look, you can rely on a discredited paper all you want. It doesn't matter. Nobody in the scientific community gives it any weight. But just like you can find all sorts of crap on the internet to support any position you want the orange paper supports yours. That is fine. There are also papers that show how the US never landed on the moon and that Elvis is still alive. Just because there a papers doesn't make them true.
The orange paper couldn't even get peer reviewed. That should tell you something. So yes, I am insisting on something evidently different than you. I am insisting on data that is verifiable, peer reviewed and repeatable. You know that whole scientific method thing that slashdot keeps upholding. But if you want to keep throwing paper with no scientific basis behind them then go right ahead, this subject is old and tired.
The only reason HCFS is so cheap is because of corn subsidies. Get rid of those and it's half the battle.
That's not true. US places tariffs on imported sugar to protect domestic sugar production. Because of this, actual sugar is overpriced in the US. HFCS is priced on the commodities market, like oil, so while the corn producers do receive a subsidy, the price is really determined by other factors. But, if the US removed the self imposed tariffs, then the price of sucrose would fall to normal like the rest of the world and the demand in the US for HFCS would decline.
Basically, we aren't subsidizing HFCS, we are making the regular sugar so expensive that there is no need to do so.
No, I don't. I have basically no interest in AA, they are just one of thousands of cases of misuse of statistics. But given your single-minded determination to defend bad math that favors them I have to think that YOU have internalized criticism of AA as criticism of yourself.
It never ceases to amaze me when people on slashdot find themself defending an undefendable position they always resort to character attacks. So be it. Unless you believe that the entire medical community is in on some giant conspiracy and the methodology of all medical research is flawed, here are the facts.
1) there are 8 independent studies, none of them commissioned or funded by AA that show the people who complete the 12 step program successfully manage their addition for a period of at least 5 years ranging from 40% to 46% depending on the study.
2) the studies were all conducted using the same methodology and reporting standards that ALL trials and studies are required to use and have been peer reviewed.
3) when asked about their success rate AA uses the lowest of these studies' numbers and states that for people who complete their 12 step program 40% are able to control their alcoholism for a period of at least 5 years.
4) Because AA is citing independent studies that show the program is effective for at least 40% of the people who complete the program, you seem to feel they are misusing statistics.
Eight peer reviewed, statistically valid, peer reviewed studies all show the same thing. Exactly how many more studies do you need to convince you? If eight is not enough, I doubt any number will suffice for you. My suggestion to you, then, would be to conduct your own statistically valid study, get it peer reviewed and then publish your results. But why you insist on denigrating AA and other groups like them, when the data clearly shows they are successful at what they do, is beyond rational thought.
Because if you have kids, buying soday by the can is pretty darn expensive.
If you have kids you should never be giving them soda under any circumstances.
That's fucking child abuse.
There are other beverages besides soda that have a high sugar content like apple juice, orange juice and grape juice. Soda isn't the only sugary drink that kids drink. Besides, at what age would you allow soda, not until they are 21? Kids run the gamut from birth until at least 18.
However, they do report the statistic in their information. They just didn't have anything to do with the research that produced it. You can't really fault them for that
Yes, you can 100% fault them for that. It is a way of telling a lie by pointing out a technical truth that does not apply in the context it is cited.
Obviously you have something against AA. That is fine, but when independent studies, not commissioned by AA and looking for something totally different point out that 40% of the people who go through AA AND complete all 12 steps are in control of their addiction, that isn't false and misleading. That is what the research shows. If they said 40% of the people who enter AA control their addiction then it would be false, but that is not what they say. They say 40% of the people who complete the program, just like 56% of the people who go through the full regime of private counselling. Obviously, private counselling has a higher success rate for those who follow through with the whole program, but that doesn't diminish the success rate of AA for those who follow through the whole program. Obviously, if somebody with an addiction isn't willing to work through the program, regardless of what program they are in, the likelihood of success is minimal. But for those who stick with the program 4 out of 10 can control their addiction. That is what the research shows, why shouldn't they tout that?
Again, if you don't like the way research is conducted, take it up with the whole medical community, but don't single out AA,
The research is fine, it just doesn't measure what we are talking about. It is kind of like using windspeed to measure the velocity of two different cars while ignoring the baseline windspeed of a stationary object.
The problem is that AA misapplies the research to make unsubstantiated claims. Any organization which does the same deserves the same criticism.
That might be true if they were the ones reporting the statistic, but it came from researches independent from AA. AA did not even commission the study. However, they do report the statistic in their information. They just didn't have anything to do with the research that produced it. You can't really fault them for that. The research was independently conducted, independently funded and independently verified by others. The research wasn't even specifically about them other than they were one of the methods included in the study. I just don't see where they have done anything to criticize, at least in this specific case.
For fuck's sake, "cloud" is not a technology, it's the latest marketing scam to get everyone relinquish control of their devices and data to the modern equivalent of the mainframe.
Well of course. How else do vendors expect to monetize your data if it is sitting on your local machine in your posession? Now that computers are a commodity and there isn't any money to be made from selling hardware and software, they need to find something to charge for. In the past they charged you to use their program to create your data. Now they want to charge you to actually store and access your data.
It has nothing to do with the technology it is all about the money. Well that and the marketing to convince everbody that this is somehow new and better.
Sugar gets more evil every day. I've heard that sugar causes or is linked to:
tooth decay
weight problems
diabetes
acne
dementia
And, I've heard that sugar is acidic, but how and what that means other than that it's somehow bad I don't know. Acidic foods cause faster aging, maybe? Wish I'd known about the link to acne back in high school.
Sugar causes none of those things. The consumption of sugar, however, may be a different story. As for high school acne, sex hormones are the most likely cause of that, particularly for males.
More ammo in the Bloomberg ammo depot to outlaw enormous sugary drinks and help lower the nation's health care costs by cutting down on seriously obese people.
The majority of most people's dietary glucose isn't from "sugar" however. This typically comes from plant amylopectin (followed by amylose). Thus it would actually make more sense to outlaw bread, pasta, potatoes, breakfast cereal, etc. before even considering anything which contains glucose, maltose, sucrose or lactose.
I drink about a can of soda a week. Usually Stevia sweetened cola or root beer. Why would I want a 2L bottle? It would either encourage me to drink more soda (before it goes flat) or go to waste.
A better solution would just be a sugary drink tax and that tax could go directly towards subsidizing fruits and vegetables:)
Because if you have kids, buying soday by the can is pretty darn expensive. The best solution is to first find out if there is a direct and strong correlation between surary drinks and obesity. Then, decide what to do about it. Chances are, a viable solution would not require a tax or a subsidy for fruits and vegetables, which are pretty high in sugar, too.
If the culprit really is the sugary drinks, then all one would need to do is look at other western societies where kids drink sugary drinks (Japan is one) and see if obesity is increasing there, too. It's not and the japanese consume even more HFCS than the US does. So, it is something else in the US diet along with the HFCS that is the problem. Most likely, it is plan and simple portion size. In the 1960s, what is a regular hamburger at McDonalds was (and still is) the normal serving. However, today, the menu is full of 1/4 lb and 1/3 lb burgers. The regular fries and drinks are double a normal serving.
If your goal is to combat obseity, the first place to start would be to have restaurants list not just calories but how many servings you are actually receiving. The reason a Big Mac is 700 calories is because it is actually two servings. It's not enough to say a single serving of Big Mac is 700 calories. It needs to say a Big Mac is two servings at 350 calories each for a total of 700 calories. For the record, I am not picking on McDonalds nor do I actually know the calorie or nutritional content of a Big Mac, I just use it for illustrative purposes.
Maybe when people find out that they are eating the equivalent of six or seven meals a day, their habits will change. But we will never know if restaraunts are required to report how many servings they are actually serving you.
Plus it isn't just in soft drinks. It's in just about every processed food out there. Why? It's dirt cheap compared to real sugar. So, if you eat peanut butter, you are eating HFCS. If you eat a hamburger at a fast food chain, you are eating HFCS if you think you will go the healthy route and have a salad, you better just have oil and vinegar for the dressing or once again you will have HFCS added to your diet. A little HFCS isn't bad for you, but like MSG, it is so prevalent in all of the foods we eat that it's hard to only get just a little bit.
Except by the FDA and nutritionists. Their advice is still low fat, lots of grains.
That is because the FDA food pyramid is based on the old USDA food pyramid which has since been found out that it's main purpose was to get people to consume specific agricultural products, not for their health benefit but to bolster a sagging farm economy. Even the new FDA myplate program is not about what is the best nutrion, but is designed to combat obesity. The two are not necessarily the same.
If you want medically based nutrion information, then you should use medical sources. Mayo Clinic, Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Medical and others all have nutrion recommendations, some even with pyramids, that are vastly lower in grains and carbohydrates than what the government food pyramids show. They might not be as extreme as Atkins or the Paleo diets, but they are definitely lower carb than most Americans would be used to (lower red meat, too).
So, if your nutrionist is still pushing out of date nutrion falsehoods, maybe it's time to find a different nutrionist or at least ask the question why their recommendations seem to differ from what the medical community recommends?
Yes, because in evaluating the efficacy of substance abuse programs the national standard when looking at recidivism is to look at those who have completed the program.
Which is meaningless when comparing program success rates to spontaneous remission rates. I would even go so far as to say it is a bias that enormously skews the comparisons in favor of "doing something."
Well, that is the established norm for pretty much all medical research, so either the medical community is all in on it or it is the best model they have. As for introducing bias in favour of doing something, well, that is not the case logically. At best it would introduce bias against doing nothing, which is not the same thing. To be fair, unless we know what the people did who dropped out of AA or private therapy or institutional therapy, we don't actually know their ultimate outcome. Likewise, for those who try and go it alone, we don't know their ultimate outcome, either, only those that self-report.
What we do know, however, are the rates of success, for those who do complete the programs, so this is the number that is used for the various substance abuse programs, whether based on 12 step or other methods.
Id sure like to know how you can drop out of the "quitting cold turkey program" and thusly not be counted in the study. then you might have a fair comparison of AA with the baseline of quitting cold turkey. And your analogy with a chemo study is disingenuous, it would be a fair comparison if all the people with really bad cancer self selected to drop out of the trial, inflating the chemo success rates over a control group baseline, just as all the people who went back to drinking self selected to not go through a humiliating and somewhat public admission of failure at a AA meeting and dropped out of the program instead, inflating the AA success rate over a control group baseline.
You know what, if you don't like the way medical research is conducted, then take it up with the medical community. But the whole purpose is to have a controlled group. Obviously, you cannot "drop out" of a cold turkey program. On the other hand, real studies are about the recidivism of those who complete the program, not of those who fail to complete the program. It doesn't matter whether it is AA, regular therapy, or even chemo. Success rates are reported based on those who complete the treatment.
Again, if you don't like the way research is conducted, take it up with the whole medical community, but don't single out AA, they and the researchers reporting on them are just following the established norms.
Do you mean this one? Where they didn't count the people who dropped out early on?
Yes, because in evaluating the efficacy of substance abuse programs the national standard when looking at recidivism is to look at those who have completed the program. Drop out rates are reported, but they don't impact the recidivism rate. That can only be measure once somebody completes the program. That is the same methodology used for private counselling related to substance abuse, too. So, when they say 40% for AA and 56% for private counselling, they are comparing apples with apples and only talking about those who completed therapy. The dropout rate for both is very high, which is why when court ordered, there is regular reporting back to the courts on attendance.
This isn't unique to substance abuse, most medical treatments follow this practice. If somebody starts chemo for cancer and drops out, it does not count against the effectiveness of that type of chemo for that type of cancer. It does get reported so that doctors are aware of what the dropout rate is so they can help the patient through it.
Put differently, when evaluating the effectiveness of any treatment, you need to look at patients who actually completed the treatment. It is important to know how many did not complete the treatment and why they didn't, but that doesn't change the effectiveness for those who do complete the treatment.
Actually, often part of a person's court sentence is to attend AA. Yes, I guess they instead accept jail time, but that seems like a false comparison. And yes, it is often mandated that it be AA, not alcohol treatment in general. People have actually tried to attend other, non-AA, non-religious treatments and been told no, you must attend AA.
In the cities I have worked with substance abuse, the courts always give an option. However, AA is the one most often chosen because of costs. But maybe other communities mandate it. I thought the ACLU had a case they won against mandating AA, but maybe it didn't cover the entire country.
AA's own internal figures show that only 5% of people who start AA are not drinking one year later. The spontaneous remission rate is also 5%.
So the ones who are stopping were going to stop anyway (and kudos to them).
But what about the 95% who don't stop? Other studies show that when groups of alcoholics were randomly assigned to court ordered AA, no treatment, or a therapy program, the AA group was FIVE TIMES as likely to engage in subsequent episodes of severe binge drinking as the no treatment group, and nine times more likely than the therapy group.
Why don't you sue the statistics from AA of those that complete the 12 step program? Many more start than finish, just like college. Success rates, independently verified for success rates for those who complete AA is 40%. That's not as high as going to a private therapist which is 55%, but then that number doesn't include all the people who start therapy and don't continue, either.
Your whole premise is based on the orange papers which even states that it is "One man's analysis." It is not a scientifically valid study. It is not accepted by those who work with substance abuse. It is what it is - one man's analysis, whether valid or not. But it sure gets a lot of traction on the internet. I know a handful of individuals who have succesfully went through AA and have been sober for as much as 20 years. does that mean I should put my analysis online and say it is 100% effectve? No, of course not. Because that isn't an analysis, but instead is ancedotal information.
The real studies that show the effectiveness of various treatments, have hundreds of particpants, if not more. They are statistically valid and peer reviewed. And those studies show very different results than the orange papers. People respond differently to different types of therapy, so it is easy to understand how a small, unscientific sample can lead to erroneous results. But valid samples show that the program when followed and completed is 80% as effective as dedicated counseling with a therapist. For those who can't afford a $200/hour therapist (and aren't an atheist), it could be a viable alternative.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it would be a much better replacement for freight trains and trucks. I'm guessing that may be their goal but they don't want to upset the train and trucker unions just yet. I'd say Amazon should get it on this as well to speed up their shipping times and hit their same-day delivery dream.
With the planned design, only one vehicle at a time can be in the tube because of the air being moved from the front of the vehicle to behind it. The vehicle needs a slight vacuum in front but for a second vehicle in the tube, it will have increased pressure in front caused by the operation of the leading vehicle.
Besides, just like with railroads, the hard part is stopping. A freight train in this tube is going to be difficult to slow down from 800mph. Current freight trains are a mile long and take up to two miles to stop using dynamic brakes on the engine and friction brakes on the wheels. You won't have either in the hyperloop.
So, because of the physics involved, it is unlikely that freight has anything to worry. Most likely neither does passenger rail. As soon as you start adding multiple stops/stations, you loose the ability to reach your maximum speed because of the acceleration/deceleration (I'm sure it can accelerate/decelerate instantly, but that would not be good for the people onboard).
So, ultimately, this will be a delivery system between two fixed points, much like airports are today. And that is probably who will be impacted, short and mid range flights. If the specs are met, this will be twice as fast as air travel for distances up to 1000 miles. The deciding factor as to whether or not it is successful is the final cost to the traveler. Faster is desirable, but it depends on the cost.
By his own admission this is just a concept of what might be, which would imply the engineers haven't fully vetted it yet.
Your probably right. It's not like he put in a whole new privatized space program at a cost less than a nuclear submarine. With a launch charge cheaper than the cost of a ticket to ISS.
You do realize that his privatized space program got to reap the benefits of the public space program. It's a lot easier to do things the second time around. In addition, he only built one type of launch vehicle -- to take people to space. That's no small feat, but since NASA is forced to handle multiple missions with it's launch vehicles, comparing a single use vehicle with a multi-use vehicle is not a fair comparison.
Again, not to diminish what he has accomplished, but the launch charge to the ISS covers a lot more than the cost to get to the ISS. Think of it like the $10 they charge you for tylenol in the hospital. The extra cost pays for those other services that are necessary but inadequately funded. SpaceX doesn't have those other activities so they don't have to subsidize other operations through launch fees.
Well it depends on the cancer, I don't know about for Ovarian in particular, but for prostate you often find cancerous tissue, but it is so slow growing it wouldn't be a threat unless you lived to be over 100, and as such the side effects of treatment are much worse than the cancer would have been. These sorts of slow growing non-threatening cancers wouldn't ever produce symptoms, and so wouldn't be diagnosed without a screening programme.
That is true with prostate cancer, but not ovarian cancer. Besides in relation to the original post, finding cancer cells in one's prostate, even if slow growing would not be a false positive but an actual positive. But yes, if you are 80 and they find prostate cancer they may not do anything about it. If you are 60 and they find it, they aren't going to just let it go.
I only buy cow meat that I know is from happy grass fed cows and locally butchered. It costs more, but the extra cost is better than suffering from Western diseases.
That would be a smart choice.
Look, you can rely on a discredited paper all you want.
I get it now. You think I referenced that website to prove something. I didn't. I referenced that website to explain something.
It is self-evident that ignoring drop-outs from AA biases the results. That's it, you don't need a study understand that. You got a paper which shows that ignoring drop-outs does not bias the results, then we'll talk. Otherwise you've got nothing meaningful to say here.
Here's the deal you get the entire medical community to include dropouts in all of there studies then we'll talk, but until then, you would have to justify why in this one very particular study you should include dropouts when every other study and regiment excludes them. Since studies are designed to test the efficacy of a treatment regiment when followed to conclusion, including dropouts skew those results because by definition, dropouts are not following the regiment. Now, if you want to test for something other than the efficacy, then you are free to include what ever groups you want, but if your goal is test for how effective once course of action is versus another, then you have to test for those who actually follow that course of action.
What exactly are you trying to show, that 50% of the people who are not court mandated that start AA don't complete the program? Fine, but those numbers are readily available. They also correspond to the 50% that start private therapy and quit and also check into rehab and check themself out. All that tells us is that half of the people who start a treatment program, regardless of the program, unless court ordered, don't follow through. Big deal. The study that the slashdot article is about is the efficacy of AA and similar 12 step programs, not the dropout rate. And to study the efficacy of the treatment program you have to follow the participants who completed the program. Again, it doesn't matter if one is talking about AA, or private therapy or a rehab center.
The only way to test the efficacy of the treatment is to monitor those who actually complete the treatment. Dropouts don't figure in on the efficacy of the treatment. They may figure in on the efficiency; if the program is so severe that most drop out, even if the treatment is 100% successful on those that remain, it is not efficient. However, with substance abuse, the dropout rate is consistent among all types of treatment, so it is a non-factor.
You are mixing clinical efficiency with clinical effectiveness and the 40% figure given in the studies is about effectiveness.
It's a good thing they don't cover meat in sugar power. They don't do they ?!
No, but they do inject it with HFCS. If people knew everything they ate with HFCS, they'd be only buying food from the farmer's market and local butcher.
It never ceases to amaze me when people on slashdot find themself defending an undefendable position they always resort to character attacks.
It shouldn't amaze you at all, after all you did it yourself before anyone else in this thread -- "Obviously you have something against AA."
The studies you keep citing are irrelevant because they do not measure what I am talking about. Your insistence on irrelevancy has become a broken record - you don't bring anything helpful to the discussion so I won't be responding to you any further.
Look, you can rely on a discredited paper all you want. It doesn't matter. Nobody in the scientific community gives it any weight. But just like you can find all sorts of crap on the internet to support any position you want the orange paper supports yours. That is fine. There are also papers that show how the US never landed on the moon and that Elvis is still alive. Just because there a papers doesn't make them true.
The orange paper couldn't even get peer reviewed. That should tell you something. So yes, I am insisting on something evidently different than you. I am insisting on data that is verifiable, peer reviewed and repeatable. You know that whole scientific method thing that slashdot keeps upholding. But if you want to keep throwing paper with no scientific basis behind them then go right ahead, this subject is old and tired.
The only reason HCFS is so cheap is because of corn subsidies. Get rid of those and it's half the battle.
That's not true. US places tariffs on imported sugar to protect domestic sugar production. Because of this, actual sugar is overpriced in the US. HFCS is priced on the commodities market, like oil, so while the corn producers do receive a subsidy, the price is really determined by other factors. But, if the US removed the self imposed tariffs, then the price of sucrose would fall to normal like the rest of the world and the demand in the US for HFCS would decline.
Basically, we aren't subsidizing HFCS, we are making the regular sugar so expensive that there is no need to do so.
Obviously you have something against AA.
No, I don't. I have basically no interest in AA, they are just one of thousands of cases of misuse of statistics. But given your single-minded determination to defend bad math that favors them I have to think that YOU have internalized criticism of AA as criticism of yourself.
It never ceases to amaze me when people on slashdot find themself defending an undefendable position they always resort to character attacks. So be it. Unless you believe that the entire medical community is in on some giant conspiracy and the methodology of all medical research is flawed, here are the facts.
1) there are 8 independent studies, none of them commissioned or funded by AA that show the people who complete the 12 step program successfully manage their addition for a period of at least 5 years ranging from 40% to 46% depending on the study.
2) the studies were all conducted using the same methodology and reporting standards that ALL trials and studies are required to use and have been peer reviewed.
3) when asked about their success rate AA uses the lowest of these studies' numbers and states that for people who complete their 12 step program 40% are able to control their alcoholism for a period of at least 5 years.
4) Because AA is citing independent studies that show the program is effective for at least 40% of the people who complete the program, you seem to feel they are misusing statistics.
Eight peer reviewed, statistically valid, peer reviewed studies all show the same thing. Exactly how many more studies do you need to convince you? If eight is not enough, I doubt any number will suffice for you. My suggestion to you, then, would be to conduct your own statistically valid study, get it peer reviewed and then publish your results. But why you insist on denigrating AA and other groups like them, when the data clearly shows they are successful at what they do, is beyond rational thought.
Because if you have kids, buying soday by the can is pretty darn expensive.
If you have kids you should never be giving them soda under any circumstances.
That's fucking child abuse.
There are other beverages besides soda that have a high sugar content like apple juice, orange juice and grape juice. Soda isn't the only sugary drink that kids drink. Besides, at what age would you allow soda, not until they are 21? Kids run the gamut from birth until at least 18.
However, they do report the statistic in their information. They just didn't have anything to do with the research that produced it. You can't really fault them for that
Yes, you can 100% fault them for that. It is a way of telling a lie by pointing out a technical truth that does not apply in the context it is cited.
Obviously you have something against AA. That is fine, but when independent studies, not commissioned by AA and looking for something totally different point out that 40% of the people who go through AA AND complete all 12 steps are in control of their addiction, that isn't false and misleading. That is what the research shows. If they said 40% of the people who enter AA control their addiction then it would be false, but that is not what they say. They say 40% of the people who complete the program, just like 56% of the people who go through the full regime of private counselling. Obviously, private counselling has a higher success rate for those who follow through with the whole program, but that doesn't diminish the success rate of AA for those who follow through the whole program. Obviously, if somebody with an addiction isn't willing to work through the program, regardless of what program they are in, the likelihood of success is minimal. But for those who stick with the program 4 out of 10 can control their addiction. That is what the research shows, why shouldn't they tout that?
Again, if you don't like the way research is conducted, take it up with the whole medical community, but don't single out AA,
The research is fine, it just doesn't measure what we are talking about. It is kind of like using windspeed to measure the velocity of two different cars while ignoring the baseline windspeed of a stationary object.
The problem is that AA misapplies the research to make unsubstantiated claims. Any organization which does the same deserves the same criticism.
That might be true if they were the ones reporting the statistic, but it came from researches independent from AA. AA did not even commission the study. However, they do report the statistic in their information. They just didn't have anything to do with the research that produced it. You can't really fault them for that. The research was independently conducted, independently funded and independently verified by others. The research wasn't even specifically about them other than they were one of the methods included in the study. I just don't see where they have done anything to criticize, at least in this specific case.
For fuck's sake, "cloud" is not a technology, it's the latest marketing scam to get everyone relinquish control of their devices and data to the modern equivalent of the mainframe.
Well of course. How else do vendors expect to monetize your data if it is sitting on your local machine in your posession? Now that computers are a commodity and there isn't any money to be made from selling hardware and software, they need to find something to charge for. In the past they charged you to use their program to create your data. Now they want to charge you to actually store and access your data.
It has nothing to do with the technology it is all about the money. Well that and the marketing to convince everbody that this is somehow new and better.
Sugar gets more evil every day. I've heard that sugar causes or is linked to:
And, I've heard that sugar is acidic, but how and what that means other than that it's somehow bad I don't know. Acidic foods cause faster aging, maybe? Wish I'd known about the link to acne back in high school.
Sugar causes none of those things. The consumption of sugar, however, may be a different story. As for high school acne, sex hormones are the most likely cause of that, particularly for males.
>Berries have a little bit of sucrose.
Argh. I meant fuctose.
There's no significant sucrose in berries.
Unless they are chocolate covered or powdered.
More ammo in the Bloomberg ammo depot to outlaw enormous sugary drinks and help lower the nation's health care costs by cutting down on seriously obese people.
The majority of most people's dietary glucose isn't from "sugar" however. This typically comes from plant amylopectin (followed by amylose).
Thus it would actually make more sense to outlaw bread, pasta, potatoes, breakfast cereal, etc. before even considering anything which contains glucose, maltose, sucrose or lactose.
Shhhhh! Don't cloud the argument with facts.
I drink about a can of soda a week. Usually Stevia sweetened cola or root beer. Why would I want a 2L bottle? It would either encourage me to drink more soda (before it goes flat) or go to waste.
A better solution would just be a sugary drink tax and that tax could go directly towards subsidizing fruits and vegetables :)
Because if you have kids, buying soday by the can is pretty darn expensive. The best solution is to first find out if there is a direct and strong correlation between surary drinks and obesity. Then, decide what to do about it. Chances are, a viable solution would not require a tax or a subsidy for fruits and vegetables, which are pretty high in sugar, too.
If the culprit really is the sugary drinks, then all one would need to do is look at other western societies where kids drink sugary drinks (Japan is one) and see if obesity is increasing there, too. It's not and the japanese consume even more HFCS than the US does. So, it is something else in the US diet along with the HFCS that is the problem. Most likely, it is plan and simple portion size. In the 1960s, what is a regular hamburger at McDonalds was (and still is) the normal serving. However, today, the menu is full of 1/4 lb and 1/3 lb burgers. The regular fries and drinks are double a normal serving.
If your goal is to combat obseity, the first place to start would be to have restaurants list not just calories but how many servings you are actually receiving. The reason a Big Mac is 700 calories is because it is actually two servings. It's not enough to say a single serving of Big Mac is 700 calories. It needs to say a Big Mac is two servings at 350 calories each for a total of 700 calories. For the record, I am not picking on McDonalds nor do I actually know the calorie or nutritional content of a Big Mac, I just use it for illustrative purposes.
Maybe when people find out that they are eating the equivalent of six or seven meals a day, their habits will change. But we will never know if restaraunts are required to report how many servings they are actually serving you.
Plus it isn't just in soft drinks. It's in just about every processed food out there. Why? It's dirt cheap compared to real sugar. So, if you eat peanut butter, you are eating HFCS. If you eat a hamburger at a fast food chain, you are eating HFCS if you think you will go the healthy route and have a salad, you better just have oil and vinegar for the dressing or once again you will have HFCS added to your diet. A little HFCS isn't bad for you, but like MSG, it is so prevalent in all of the foods we eat that it's hard to only get just a little bit.
Except by the FDA and nutritionists. Their advice is still low fat, lots of grains.
That is because the FDA food pyramid is based on the old USDA food pyramid which has since been found out that it's main purpose was to get people to consume specific agricultural products, not for their health benefit but to bolster a sagging farm economy. Even the new FDA myplate program is not about what is the best nutrion, but is designed to combat obesity. The two are not necessarily the same.
If you want medically based nutrion information, then you should use medical sources. Mayo Clinic, Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Medical and others all have nutrion recommendations, some even with pyramids, that are vastly lower in grains and carbohydrates than what the government food pyramids show. They might not be as extreme as Atkins or the Paleo diets, but they are definitely lower carb than most Americans would be used to (lower red meat, too).
So, if your nutrionist is still pushing out of date nutrion falsehoods, maybe it's time to find a different nutrionist or at least ask the question why their recommendations seem to differ from what the medical community recommends?
Yes, because in evaluating the efficacy of substance abuse programs the national standard when looking at recidivism is to look at those who have completed the program.
Which is meaningless when comparing program success rates to spontaneous remission rates. I would even go so far as to say it is a bias that enormously skews the comparisons in favor of "doing something."
Well, that is the established norm for pretty much all medical research, so either the medical community is all in on it or it is the best model they have. As for introducing bias in favour of doing something, well, that is not the case logically. At best it would introduce bias against doing nothing, which is not the same thing. To be fair, unless we know what the people did who dropped out of AA or private therapy or institutional therapy, we don't actually know their ultimate outcome. Likewise, for those who try and go it alone, we don't know their ultimate outcome, either, only those that self-report.
What we do know, however, are the rates of success, for those who do complete the programs, so this is the number that is used for the various substance abuse programs, whether based on 12 step or other methods.
Id sure like to know how you can drop out of the "quitting cold turkey program" and thusly not be counted in the study. then you might have a fair comparison of AA with the baseline of quitting cold turkey. And your analogy with a chemo study is disingenuous, it would be a fair comparison if all the people with really bad cancer self selected to drop out of the trial, inflating the chemo success rates over a control group baseline, just as all the people who went back to drinking self selected to not go through a humiliating and somewhat public admission of failure at a AA meeting and dropped out of the program instead, inflating the AA success rate over a control group baseline.
You know what, if you don't like the way medical research is conducted, then take it up with the medical community. But the whole purpose is to have a controlled group. Obviously, you cannot "drop out" of a cold turkey program. On the other hand, real studies are about the recidivism of those who complete the program, not of those who fail to complete the program. It doesn't matter whether it is AA, regular therapy, or even chemo. Success rates are reported based on those who complete the treatment.
Again, if you don't like the way research is conducted, take it up with the whole medical community, but don't single out AA, they and the researchers reporting on them are just following the established norms.
Do you mean this one? Where they didn't count the people who dropped out early on?
Yes, because in evaluating the efficacy of substance abuse programs the national standard when looking at recidivism is to look at those who have completed the program. Drop out rates are reported, but they don't impact the recidivism rate. That can only be measure once somebody completes the program. That is the same methodology used for private counselling related to substance abuse, too. So, when they say 40% for AA and 56% for private counselling, they are comparing apples with apples and only talking about those who completed therapy. The dropout rate for both is very high, which is why when court ordered, there is regular reporting back to the courts on attendance.
This isn't unique to substance abuse, most medical treatments follow this practice. If somebody starts chemo for cancer and drops out, it does not count against the effectiveness of that type of chemo for that type of cancer. It does get reported so that doctors are aware of what the dropout rate is so they can help the patient through it.
Put differently, when evaluating the effectiveness of any treatment, you need to look at patients who actually completed the treatment. It is important to know how many did not complete the treatment and why they didn't, but that doesn't change the effectiveness for those who do complete the treatment.
Actually, often part of a person's court sentence is to attend AA. Yes, I guess they instead accept jail time, but that seems like a false comparison. And yes, it is often mandated that it be AA, not alcohol treatment in general. People have actually tried to attend other, non-AA, non-religious treatments and been told no, you must attend AA.
In the cities I have worked with substance abuse, the courts always give an option. However, AA is the one most often chosen because of costs. But maybe other communities mandate it. I thought the ACLU had a case they won against mandating AA, but maybe it didn't cover the entire country.
AA's own internal figures show that only 5% of people who start AA are not drinking one year later.
The spontaneous remission rate is also 5%.
So the ones who are stopping were going to stop anyway (and kudos to them).
But what about the 95% who don't stop? Other studies show that when groups of alcoholics were randomly assigned to court ordered AA, no treatment, or a therapy program, the AA group was FIVE TIMES as likely to engage in subsequent episodes of severe binge drinking as the no treatment group, and nine times more likely than the therapy group.
Here's a sampler:
http://www.thefix.com/content/the-real-statistics-of-aa7301
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0DSEdLCAUg
Why don't you sue the statistics from AA of those that complete the 12 step program? Many more start than finish, just like college. Success rates, independently verified for success rates for those who complete AA is 40%. That's not as high as going to a private therapist which is 55%, but then that number doesn't include all the people who start therapy and don't continue, either.
Your whole premise is based on the orange papers which even states that it is "One man's analysis." It is not a scientifically valid study. It is not accepted by those who work with substance abuse. It is what it is - one man's analysis, whether valid or not. But it sure gets a lot of traction on the internet. I know a handful of individuals who have succesfully went through AA and have been sober for as much as 20 years. does that mean I should put my analysis online and say it is 100% effectve? No, of course not. Because that isn't an analysis, but instead is ancedotal information.
The real studies that show the effectiveness of various treatments, have hundreds of particpants, if not more. They are statistically valid and peer reviewed. And those studies show very different results than the orange papers. People respond differently to different types of therapy, so it is easy to understand how a small, unscientific sample can lead to erroneous results. But valid samples show that the program when followed and completed is 80% as effective as dedicated counseling with a therapist. For those who can't afford a $200/hour therapist (and aren't an atheist), it could be a viable alternative.