Recent Posts

3851

Living Room / Re: Interesting article on homeopathy - from a medical perspective

« Last post by Darwin on November 27, 2007, 03:27 PM »

Lashiec - don't even get me started on the scientific method. One of the great trials of daily life is dealing with people who absolutely refuse to accept the differences between an hypothesis, a theory, and a law. How many times have you heard something dismissed as being "just" a theory?

Hey, Darwin, more reading for you

-Lashiec (November 27, 2007, 09:18 AM)

3852

General Software Discussion / Re: Google GDrive: Coming Soon

« Last post by Darwin on November 27, 2007, 02:04 PM »

Yeah, not to mention Yahoo going to unlimited online storage for its free mail accounts earlier this year...

3853

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you testing XP SP3 RC ??

« Last post by Darwin on November 27, 2007, 02:01 PM »

blarson is using it, as mentioned in this thread. There was some discussion of it after that, with the consensus (fodder and Ralf) being that it would be folly to intall a RC version of a service pack on your primary Workstation. I'd *like* to install this now and enjoy the performance boost myself (particularly as I suspect that by the time this rolls out next year the performance boost will have turned into a performance "hit") but there's no way I'm doing it until it's been tested. I simply can't afford the risk on my main computer (my other one expired and was Win2k anyway and the only other non-frontline use machine in the house is supplied by my wife's employer).

3854

Living Room / Re: Interesting article on homeopathy - from a medical perspective

« Last post by Darwin on November 27, 2007, 08:05 AM »

Well, my first observatin is: how the heck did I miss "Society of Homeopaths" in my first reading of the Goldacre article?! After that, I'm not sure what to make of the tone of the his piece - not being a homepath, or indeed ever having taken a homeopathic remedy, my initial reading of the article didn't flag any rudeness or patronising over/undertones. Having read through this thread, and having noted Tom's comments, I can see how it would be offensive to homeopathic patients. You can't call the practitioners of homeopathy morons without indirectly calling their patients the same or worse! The Jeanette Winterson article is not written in an aggressive style so its tone cannot be invoked to explain the tone of Ben Goldacre's response to it.

Reading the Goldacre piece again, I think that its tone can be attributed to a genuine sense of alarm on his part. Although I've not tried homeopathy, I have read articles - there is even a semi-regular series in one of the local papers - by homeopaths and have been quite alarmed by their tone and their calls to reject mainstream medicine. I believe that this is what Goldacre is responding to and I think his frustration shows through. Should he have written so bluntly? I don't know. I think that he called homeopaths "morons" in an attempt to get what he refers to as "Homeopathy fans" (presumably homeopathic patients) attention and in hopes that it would make them think.

3855

Living Room / Re: Interesting article on homeopathy - from a medical perspective

« Last post by Darwin on November 27, 2007, 07:19 AM »

Er... I guess I didn't look at all for the Jeanette Winterson article because I just found it very easily:

http://www.guardian....y/0,,2209998,00.html

Right, reading both now.

3856

Living Room / Re: Interesting article on homeopathy - from a medical perspective

« Last post by Darwin on November 27, 2007, 07:12 AM »

Tom - I dug (but not very hard) for the Guardian article that he was responding too, but couldn't find it. In light of your posts here, it would be interesting to see if the tone of that article might have influenced the tone of his, if you follow (so I really wish I could find it)... Anyway, I'm going to go back and re-read his piece, because I didn't actually find it patronising and offensive 

3857

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by Darwin on November 26, 2007, 05:33 PM »

Thanks Josh!

f0dder - both a good idea (splitting the thread) and an interesting point about testing... I'll be following this one with interest (not sure if I am ready to install the service pack RC yet or not... I wish there was a way to download an installer for it so that I can archive it for later installation, after doing some due diligence).

3858

General Software Discussion / Re: GoodSync free from RoboForm today (not)

« Last post by Darwin on November 26, 2007, 05:26 PM »

Okay, I'm off to find a beer.

-Ralf Maximus (November 26, 2007, 04:01 PM)

That'll be $10 please (oh and by the way it is only a license to use the beer - I may want it back if I can think of a reason).

-Carol Haynes (November 26, 2007, 04:06 PM)

They do say that you never buy beer - you just rent it (and not for very long at that...)!

3859

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by Darwin on November 26, 2007, 05:04 PM »

And here's a hack to get Sp-3 through Windows Update...

URL Fixed by Josh

3860

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by Darwin on November 26, 2007, 04:59 PM »

[off-topic alert]Here's a download link for XP Sp-3 RC1[/off-topic alert]

3861

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by Darwin on November 26, 2007, 04:57 PM »

Please forgive me for getting back to the original topic...

-alxwz (November 26, 2007, 04:33 PM)

Nope. Inexcuseable.

3862

Living Room / Re: Interesting article on homeopathy - from a medical perspective

« Last post by Darwin on November 26, 2007, 03:44 PM »

As nontroppo said earlier : "As someone who has very close friends who believe in homeopathy, I find it an incredibly delicate area to engage in."

Hear, hear... hence, my aside about being agnostic on the subject 

3863

General Software Discussion / Re: GoodSync free from RoboForm today (not)

« Last post by Darwin on November 26, 2007, 03:40 PM »

Yup. That's the one I saw for a few months, Jim. Definitely false advertising. As I recall, if you click on the link you are then informed that you are actually downloading a 30 day trial that will qualify you for upgrade pricing... Deceptive yes, lying, hard to say. I still trust Roboform the product but have reservations about the company now. I REALLY object to this sort of bait and switch tactic 

<sigh> At least with the Optimize offer they appear to have made the wording slightly less deceptive.

3864

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by Darwin on November 26, 2007, 03:30 PM »

Total threadjack, but here's some interesting news about XP SP3... apparently even the beta releases boost performance by as much as 10%:

http://www.computerw...8&taxonomyId=125

I bet the Vista SP1 development guys are just fuming.

-Ralf Maximus (November 26, 2007, 07:53 AM)

Wouldn't surprise me to see the performance gains lost by the time this ships... if I were Microsoft, I'd make sure that Vista Sp-1 is more attractive than XP Sp-3. Now, as an XP user myself, I sincerely hope that I am off my nut.

3865

General Software Discussion / Re: GoodSync free from RoboForm today (not)

« Last post by Darwin on November 25, 2007, 12:24 PM »

PS wonder if this is a good candidate for removal to the Company Complaints board?

3866

General Software Discussion / Re: GoodSync free from RoboForm today (not)

« Last post by Darwin on November 25, 2007, 12:23 PM »

Thanks for letting us know about this,  Carol  I've seen that splash screen two or three times during recent updates - I hadn't bothered downloading the "freebie" because I have so many other sync solutions. Had I done so, I would have been P.O.'d  as well! 

This is an increasingly prevalent marketing technique (I think it's more accurate to call it a scam) and is certainly not unique to Roboform. I think that Roboform's marketing department would do well to stop it at once because it is false advertising and P-I-S-S-E-S their existing user base off.

3867

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by Darwin on November 25, 2007, 10:10 AM »

True, Ralf, true. Still, I'm sure that even if MS had run a PC vs. Mac series of ads 18 months ago the howls of protest would have been epic... There is this ingrained perception that Apple can do no wrong and that MS is a lumbering behemoth that does nothing right (except screw over unsuspecting millions with shitty code and make a fortune vs. the true visionaries and geniuses at Apple who are only in this for the love of producing products that are unassailable in design and exectution).

3868

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by Darwin on November 25, 2007, 09:34 AM »

So when will MS make an ad about Leopard issues?

Guaranteed that if they did the shitstorm of outrage from Mac, Linux, and Windows users alike would be monumental. Not to mention negative publicity in the media...

3869

Living Room / Re: Sherlock Holmes and Texefex

« Last post by Darwin on November 23, 2007, 09:09 PM »

I happened across a full explanation of Curt's triangle puzzle here and thought I'd post it just 'cuz it's a lazy Friday night and it's a bit slow around here (or is it just me that's slow? Don't answer that one, Ralf):

3870

General Software Discussion / Re: SyncBackSE vs. SuperFlexible

« Last post by Darwin on November 23, 2007, 08:55 PM »

Yes - I've had that problem with Archivarius as well.

3871

Living Room / Re: Looking for Beta Testers for Satanic Music Detector :)

« Last post by Darwin on November 23, 2007, 06:27 PM »

James Blunt "You're Beautiful" sounds a bit like "I'm a fruity boy" ... so some things are logical in reverse land

-Carol Haynes (November 23, 2007, 04:09 PM)

I'm in too - this beats manually (Children! Wipe those smirks off your faces!) cranking (Stop laughing! Breathe!) my old turntable backwards and trying to find backwards messages that way.

Right, off to rip Revolution #9 and find out once and for all if John is saying "Paul is dead. Miss him, miss him, miss him". It really doesn't get any better than this on a Friday night 

3872

Living Room / Re: The deluge...

« Last post by Darwin on November 23, 2007, 11:47 AM »

Quit flooding the forums with your postings. Hopefully you can dig up something more interesting. I hope your postings evolve.

-tinjaw (November 21, 2007, 10:23 AM)

Somehow managed to miss this post when it first went up - 

3873

Living Room / Re: The deluge...

« Last post by Darwin on November 23, 2007, 07:07 AM »

Who knew lanux - thanks! It's true - the truth is always stranger than fiction  !

3874

Living Room / Re: Interesting article on homeopathy - from a medical perspective

« Last post by Darwin on November 23, 2007, 07:06 AM »

Ah... Thanks! That makes sense. 

3875

Living Room / Re: Interesting article on homeopathy - from a medical perspective

« Last post by Darwin on November 22, 2007, 07:35 PM »

Sorry, nontroppo, I'm dim - what does SoH stand for? All I could come up with was Secretary of Health, clearly this isn't what you mean 

Anyway, I had no idea that this would generate such as lively discussion - I'm following it with interest. Oh, and thanks, too, nontroppo, for the link to Ben's blog. I'll be adding it in to my daily reading