Comparing Tylenol against placebo is a start, but until it's compared against other pain relievers we won't know if the effects are specific to the drug or a generalized response to pain relievers in general.
One of the problems with the fight against pseudo-science is that some of the of the areas painted with that brush actually do have science to back them up, specifically, ESP and so called energy healing. The effects are small but have consistently ended up showing a larger than random effect since the original Rhine Institute (now the Rhine Research Center and no longer directly associated with Duke University) experiments back before WWII. The evidence is there and has been there for decades. Research protocols are often strict and well designed. Another research body, the Institute of Noetic Sciences on the west coast is conducting legitimate research that shows that at least some of the so-called pseudo-science has something behind it.
So we have the situation in which legitimate kooks make outlandish claims that are somewhat supported by real research. That obviously taints the real research by association. We also have the situation in which non-believers, so-called rationalists, make unsubstantiated claims of pseudo-science against legitimate research, which, in turn, makes the non-believers the pseudo-scientists.
What I'm not surprised about is that the news headlines ignore most of the report. What the Stanford study *actually* found was that organic food may or may not have more vitamins than non-organic. If that's how you define healthy, okay. However, the study did find that organic foods have 31 percent lower levels of pesticides, fewer food-borne pathogens and more phenols, substances believed to help fight cancer. That sounds healthy to me.
Absolutely, this was not a well conducted trial. The labeling on the bottle and the structure of the experiment both remove the blind portion. The placebo wasn't so much the pill as the structure of the study. Somebody had too narrow a definition of placebo.
No, homeopathy may be bogus, but the placebo effect is not just bullshit. Actually with the placebo effect people don't just feel better but get the same results they would have had they had the real medicine. It goes even further than that. There are well documented instances of cancer remission with placebo pills and relief from angina with sham operations.
I fail to see how this will blow up in Apple's face. Big tech companies sue each other all the time. It's just par for the course. Both companies are posturing and playing a public relations game. The market place will eventually show us the winner.
Even if Adobe could somehow win it would take years. By then either Apple bows to user or Android pressure and includes Flash or Flash become much less relevant.
Yes, and we're proud of it. Different interests and skill sets. Graphics people are about graphics. Linux people are about Linux. The overlap is very small. For most of us the Gimp is not viable. The command line is a total PITA and less than viable. Customizability? Absolutely. I've customized the hell out of Photoshop.
The thing about exercise is, until you get to the point where you are pushing yourself to the limits you wont see drastic results. Most of the obese people I see in my gym spend half their time sitting around, or cycling on the lowest level while reading a magazine.
The folks in this study were under close supervision, exercising fairly intensely. It's fun to trot out your favorite lines about exercise but that's not really applicable here.
Actually, no. Read the Times article. It found that the hunger produced by exercise could counteract the benefit. Another factor is the sense of entitlement that we get from exercise. Oh, I walked 3 miles today, I can have that muffin. Boom - weight loss benefit shot.
Getting 150 calories from a Twinkie certainly is less beneficial than 150 calories from oatmeal, for the exact reasons you describe, but they both give your body 150 calories to use (or store...).
Same calories as we count them in chemistry class but not the same effect in the body. Digestion is a complex process and a number of factors influence how the body burns/stores fat. Basically the more processed and soft a food is the more the tendency to produce body fat. Part of that is glycemic response. But it also seems that soft foods like that Twinkie will make you fat in a way that foods you actually have to chew won't. It isn't the few calories burned in the chewing, either. There are a lot more factors involved in food composition and digestion, but to simplify the explanation, Daengbo was spot on about whole foods. The 150 calories from the Twinkie will have a more detrimental effect on the metabolism than the same 150 calories from an apple.
all your points are valid. *AND* they are not easy concepts for the non-technical user to grasp. The article we're supposedly discussing compares ease of use of Wordpress and Joomla. I've built and trained people on 8 Joomla sites. Without exception I have many more support calls from Joomla users asking how do I do.... Many of them come from just the connection of an entry to the menu that I've outlined.
I've made step-by-step tutorials. I've created screencasts. I've spend hours upon hours in training. It's not my training style. I teach several computer related subjects through the local community college. I give classes through a MUG. I build and support sites in Wordpress. Joomla is the only system that I use and support that requires this level of repetition.
Create a new entry in Joomla. Where does it live? Does it even exist other than in the db table? Is it a page? No. Is it a blog entry? Maybe, if the system is set up that way. What kind of entry is it? Try explaining the difference to a non-technical user.
Choose the category you want. Oh, you need a new section. Forget about making a menu link to the entry and create a new section, then a new category. At this point it's actually easier to delete the original entry and post it again.
Now create a menu item. Which menu? If the site is complicated at all that's a legitimate question. Once you've created the menu item, then go back and find the created entry and attach it to the menu item. Okay, your new page is live. Whew.
The system is certainly flexible when it comes to creating a complex site, but for small sites and non-technical users it's both confusing and a lot of work.
Now you need to change something on one of the pages. Is it a component? Maybe it's a article. Oh, it's a module. No... Give up and call the IT guy.
Having spent years as a psychiatric social worker I agree that these all sound like the work of the mentally ill.
Knowing that makes a lot of the comments seem pretty mean spirited. But this section is for idiot submissions. It just turns out that those are coming from the commenters this week.
In the discussion of calories you might also consider what foods you are eating. Just over 30% of people have a glycemic responses that causes them to gain weight more quickly when eating foods high in sugar and simple carbohydrates. It's an insulin balance thing. The glycemic response is probably why the Atkins diet can be so successful for many people.
I have to watch my pasta, bread and rice along with some fruit like bananas. Alcohol and soft drinks are high glycemic index foods and need to be taken in moderation.
While I've built a half dozen sites in Joomla, I'm not a big fan of its administration. I find it non-intuitive and difficult to teach to end users but one place where Joomla really shines is in its template system. It is really quite easy to convert almost any web page into a Joomla template, and since its use of simple conditionals allows for numerous optional page sections, it offers extremely flexible layout potential. Add in the ability to easily assign different templates to different menu items and Joomla is extremely designer friendly. This flexibility makes assigning content to a page and menu with a separate template - and assigning optional sections - a pain, but that's a separate issue.
Anybody comfortable with HTML and CSS and just a small bit of PHP knowledge should be able to convert a well designed web page into a Joomla template reasonably quickly. Templating is one area where the online Joomla documentation is pretty good, and Barry North, the author of the book in review offers a free Joomla template guide in PDF that is quite straightforward and readable.
Give Joomla its due. It is very designer friendly.
And if you are building a large, complex site without first mapping it out, you're in for trouble, regardless which CMS you use. Tags are not a substitute for planning.
Think major power outage. Think multiple long-long days to get power back for some people. Happens almost every year in the Puget Sound area. Think massive fatigue. Think nasty weather with too much wind and rain. Think of fuzzy brains, cold bodies, too many hours on duty. Think of the possibility of error.
Don't trust procedures to protect linemen. Make sure your system is not feeding the grid.
Open your sidebar with your bookmarks or browsing history on a 1000 pixel wide design as many people do. We're used to scrolling down but every study I've seen says that most people don't like scrolling sideways.
How many people actually write code, or for that matter, any long documents? It mostly about media now days where the ability to watch a wide screen movie is a selling point. And, wider screens are a boon to people who use graphics applications like Photoshop where the extra width gets filled with palettes.
I've worked with a number of both pro graphic designers aand students. If they don't understand how web pages are built, then they will not create a modern and attractive web page. Period. Graphic designers don't understand how a web page is constructed anf so will either build a page that is very dumbed down or doesn't translate well to the web. I've worked collaboratively with some good print designers but have not found one who really understands web page design and I've worked with some real pros.
As for doing it yourself, the chances is that if you can't now you would need lots of study to learn how. Either hire a good *WEB* designer who's work you like and who can build accessible, compliant, etc. pages or use a CMS. Joomla, Wordpress and Drupal all have lots of good quality themes available that at worst can be bought for less than $100. There are a number of decent free ones.
So you have to play the game and forget the fact that it's open source. Open source alone does not improve a product.
Absolutely. Firefox use has grown rapidly because it is a better web browser than IE. It's easy to get people to consider it by saying that it's more secure (and BTW, look at this page with AdBlock Plus. Look Ma, no flashing ads to distract you.). "Almost as good as," doesn't cut it. Philosophical arguments don't cut it. In many cases free doesn't cut it. A quality, easy to use product does. FOSS software like Firefox or Adium will compete on quality, not philosophy.
I've kept some version of Linux running on an older computer since Red Hat 4, mostly as a development and file server. I love the philosophy of OSS. The idea is great. Unfortunately FOSS software implementation often is clunky, requiring either command line knowledge, or the use of a GUI that only a geek could love; all too much effort for the idea of open source. For day to day productivity, you'll see me at my Mac. Many Mac programmers strive for elegant software. Fewer OSS programmers see elegance from the user's perspective. Yes, beautiful code is a joy to read but it doesn't make software easier to use.
Now if it were only a choice between Linux and Windows, that's a different story. I consider workflow more or less equivalent in the two environments. But then there's the problem of lack of equivalent software for Linux, so I'd still keep a Windows box around.
WTF? Your statement makes abso-fucking-lutely no sense at all. In open source there is no such thing as a third party or second party, anyone and I mean absolutely anyone, be they part of the government, employed by a corporation company or private individual that contributes to open source software is a first rate party.
I beg to differ. In the never never land of theory you may be right. However, there is a huge practical consideration. Projects, especially the ones mentioned in the article all have a core development group that determines the project's direction. Others may be free to offer changes but if the core group or guiding individual doesn't want to use the changes, then the project doesn't incorporate it. Then you have the choice of simply doing your own modifications that don't get generally accepted or creating a fork.
Evaluating the security of a complex open source projects require an independent group with the resources to perform the audit, one that is influential enough to not be ignored and one that is not part of the the group culture of the project. For all practical purposes, that is a third party.
Slashdot can't require membership fees to read comments since they'd be charging for content they don't own.
Sure they could. I'm reading Slashdot comments in my living room and don't have to let you into my home to read them too. You don't have to own the content - just the doorway - to charge a fee.
Slashdot Mirror
Comparing Tylenol against placebo is a start, but until it's compared against other pain relievers we won't know if the effects are specific to the drug or a generalized response to pain relievers in general.
One of the problems with the fight against pseudo-science is that some of the of the areas painted with that brush actually do have science to back them up, specifically, ESP and so called energy healing. The effects are small but have consistently ended up showing a larger than random effect since the original Rhine Institute (now the Rhine Research Center and no longer directly associated with Duke University) experiments back before WWII. The evidence is there and has been there for decades. Research protocols are often strict and well designed. Another research body, the Institute of Noetic Sciences on the west coast is conducting legitimate research that shows that at least some of the so-called pseudo-science has something behind it.
So we have the situation in which legitimate kooks make outlandish claims that are somewhat supported by real research. That obviously taints the real research by association. We also have the situation in which non-believers, so-called rationalists, make unsubstantiated claims of pseudo-science against legitimate research, which, in turn, makes the non-believers the pseudo-scientists.
Is anyone actually surprised by this?
What I'm not surprised about is that the news headlines ignore most of the report. What the Stanford study *actually* found was that organic food may or may not have more vitamins than non-organic. If that's how you define healthy, okay. However, the study did find that organic foods have 31 percent lower levels of pesticides, fewer food-borne pathogens and more phenols, substances believed to help fight cancer. That sounds healthy to me.
Absolutely, this was not a well conducted trial. The labeling on the bottle and the structure of the experiment both remove the blind portion. The placebo wasn't so much the pill as the structure of the study. Somebody had too narrow a definition of placebo.
No, homeopathy may be bogus, but the placebo effect is not just bullshit. Actually with the placebo effect people don't just feel better but get the same results they would have had they had the real medicine. It goes even further than that. There are well documented instances of cancer remission with placebo pills and relief from angina with sham operations.
I fail to see how this will blow up in Apple's face. Big tech companies sue each other all the time. It's just par for the course. Both companies are posturing and playing a public relations game. The market place will eventually show us the winner.
Even if Adobe could somehow win it would take years. By then either Apple bows to user or Android pressure and includes Flash or Flash become much less relevant.
Yes, and we're proud of it. Different interests and skill sets. Graphics people are about graphics. Linux people are about Linux. The overlap is very small. For most of us the Gimp is not viable. The command line is a total PITA and less than viable. Customizability? Absolutely. I've customized the hell out of Photoshop.
The thing about exercise is, until you get to the point where you are pushing yourself to the limits you wont see drastic results. Most of the obese people I see in my gym spend half their time sitting around, or cycling on the lowest level while reading a magazine.
The folks in this study were under close supervision, exercising fairly intensely. It's fun to trot out your favorite lines about exercise but that's not really applicable here.
Actually, no. Read the Times article. It found that the hunger produced by exercise could counteract the benefit. Another factor is the sense of entitlement that we get from exercise. Oh, I walked 3 miles today, I can have that muffin. Boom - weight loss benefit shot.
Same calories as we count them in chemistry class but not the same effect in the body. Digestion is a complex process and a number of factors influence how the body burns/stores fat. Basically the more processed and soft a food is the more the tendency to produce body fat. Part of that is glycemic response. But it also seems that soft foods like that Twinkie will make you fat in a way that foods you actually have to chew won't. It isn't the few calories burned in the chewing, either. There are a lot more factors involved in food composition and digestion, but to simplify the explanation, Daengbo was spot on about whole foods. The 150 calories from the Twinkie will have a more detrimental effect on the metabolism than the same 150 calories from an apple.
Uh, Mozilla has been doing that for years. Goes all the way back to Netscape. Look at Seamonkey.
all your points are valid. *AND* they are not easy concepts for the non-technical user to grasp. The article we're supposedly discussing compares ease of use of Wordpress and Joomla. I've built and trained people on 8 Joomla sites. Without exception I have many more support calls from Joomla users asking how do I do.... Many of them come from just the connection of an entry to the menu that I've outlined.
I've made step-by-step tutorials. I've created screencasts. I've spend hours upon hours in training. It's not my training style. I teach several computer related subjects through the local community college. I give classes through a MUG. I build and support sites in Wordpress. Joomla is the only system that I use and support that requires this level of repetition.
Create a new entry in Joomla. Where does it live? Does it even exist other than in the db table? Is it a page? No. Is it a blog entry? Maybe, if the system is set up that way. What kind of entry is it? Try explaining the difference to a non-technical user.
Choose the category you want. Oh, you need a new section. Forget about making a menu link to the entry and create a new section, then a new category. At this point it's actually easier to delete the original entry and post it again.
Now create a menu item. Which menu? If the site is complicated at all that's a legitimate question. Once you've created the menu item, then go back and find the created entry and attach it to the menu item. Okay, your new page is live. Whew.
The system is certainly flexible when it comes to creating a complex site, but for small sites and non-technical users it's both confusing and a lot of work.
Now you need to change something on one of the pages. Is it a component? Maybe it's a article. Oh, it's a module. No... Give up and call the IT guy.
Having spent years as a psychiatric social worker I agree that these all sound like the work of the mentally ill.
Knowing that makes a lot of the comments seem pretty mean spirited. But this section is for idiot submissions. It just turns out that those are coming from the commenters this week.
In the discussion of calories you might also consider what foods you are eating. Just over 30% of people have a glycemic responses that causes them to gain weight more quickly when eating foods high in sugar and simple carbohydrates. It's an insulin balance thing. The glycemic response is probably why the Atkins diet can be so successful for many people.
I have to watch my pasta, bread and rice along with some fruit like bananas. Alcohol and soft drinks are high glycemic index foods and need to be taken in moderation.
While I've built a half dozen sites in Joomla, I'm not a big fan of its administration. I find it non-intuitive and difficult to teach to end users but one place where Joomla really shines is in its template system. It is really quite easy to convert almost any web page into a Joomla template, and since its use of simple conditionals allows for numerous optional page sections, it offers extremely flexible layout potential. Add in the ability to easily assign different templates to different menu items and Joomla is extremely designer friendly. This flexibility makes assigning content to a page and menu with a separate template - and assigning optional sections - a pain, but that's a separate issue.
Anybody comfortable with HTML and CSS and just a small bit of PHP knowledge should be able to convert a well designed web page into a Joomla template reasonably quickly. Templating is one area where the online Joomla documentation is pretty good, and Barry North, the author of the book in review offers a free Joomla template guide in PDF that is quite straightforward and readable.
Give Joomla its due. It is very designer friendly.
And if you are building a large, complex site without first mapping it out, you're in for trouble, regardless which CMS you use. Tags are not a substitute for planning.
Think major power outage. Think multiple long-long days to get power back for some people. Happens almost every year in the Puget Sound area. Think massive fatigue. Think nasty weather with too much wind and rain. Think of fuzzy brains, cold bodies, too many hours on duty. Think of the possibility of error. Don't trust procedures to protect linemen. Make sure your system is not feeding the grid.
How many people actually write code, or for that matter, any long documents? It mostly about media now days where the ability to watch a wide screen movie is a selling point. And, wider screens are a boon to people who use graphics applications like Photoshop where the extra width gets filled with palettes.
No. No. No. No. No.
I've worked with a number of both pro graphic designers aand students. If they don't understand how web pages are built, then they will not create a modern and attractive web page. Period. Graphic designers don't understand how a web page is constructed anf so will either build a page that is very dumbed down or doesn't translate well to the web. I've worked collaboratively with some good print designers but have not found one who really understands web page design and I've worked with some real pros.
As for doing it yourself, the chances is that if you can't now you would need lots of study to learn how. Either hire a good *WEB* designer who's work you like and who can build accessible, compliant, etc. pages or use a CMS. Joomla, Wordpress and Drupal all have lots of good quality themes available that at worst can be bought for less than $100. There are a number of decent free ones.
Yeah, it must be a really slow news day. Not only is the article from almost two years ago, it doesn't really say much.
Summary:
Is Microsoft trying to hide this announcement by releasing it on Steve Jobs' dog and pony show day? Or are they trying to steal some publicity?
Hey, that's just the fuel we'll need for a Bussard ramjet
Absolutely. Firefox use has grown rapidly because it is a better web browser than IE. It's easy to get people to consider it by saying that it's more secure (and BTW, look at this page with AdBlock Plus. Look Ma, no flashing ads to distract you.). "Almost as good as," doesn't cut it. Philosophical arguments don't cut it. In many cases free doesn't cut it. A quality, easy to use product does. FOSS software like Firefox or Adium will compete on quality, not philosophy.
I've kept some version of Linux running on an older computer since Red Hat 4, mostly as a development and file server. I love the philosophy of OSS. The idea is great. Unfortunately FOSS software implementation often is clunky, requiring either command line knowledge, or the use of a GUI that only a geek could love; all too much effort for the idea of open source. For day to day productivity, you'll see me at my Mac. Many Mac programmers strive for elegant software. Fewer OSS programmers see elegance from the user's perspective. Yes, beautiful code is a joy to read but it doesn't make software easier to use.
Now if it were only a choice between Linux and Windows, that's a different story. I consider workflow more or less equivalent in the two environments. But then there's the problem of lack of equivalent software for Linux, so I'd still keep a Windows box around.
I beg to differ. In the never never land of theory you may be right. However, there is a huge practical consideration. Projects, especially the ones mentioned in the article all have a core development group that determines the project's direction. Others may be free to offer changes but if the core group or guiding individual doesn't want to use the changes, then the project doesn't incorporate it. Then you have the choice of simply doing your own modifications that don't get generally accepted or creating a fork.
Evaluating the security of a complex open source projects require an independent group with the resources to perform the audit, one that is influential enough to not be ignored and one that is not part of the the group culture of the project. For all practical purposes, that is a third party.
Sure they could. I'm reading Slashdot comments in my living room and don't have to let you into my home to read them too. You don't have to own the content - just the doorway - to charge a fee.