Announcement

A change is gonna come. Respectful Insolence is moving.

oracknows — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 22:01:17 +0000

A change is gonna come. Respectful Insolence is moving.

Well, QEDCon is over, and this box of blinky lights is on its way back across the pond to its home in the US, having had an excellent time imbibing skepticism from its (mostly) British and European partners in skepticism.

Before I left, I made a somewhat cryptic remark about "major changes" to this blog coming up. Well, the cat's out of the bag, so to speak. Basically, Scienceblogs is shutting down at the end of the month. I still remain grateful for the opportunity Scienceblogs offered me. I wouldn't be as prominent as I am now without it. However, unfortunately, Scienceblogs has barely existed as an entity for a few years now. Unfortunately, Scienceblogs isn't just shutting down, it's going away completely.

As a result, I'm now in a frantic race to transfer all the old material to a new host. Sadly, I expect a lot of problems, because I have nearly 12 years worth of material to transfer, over 5,000 posts and 360,000 comments. Indeed, I've already encountered them. Let's just say that WordPress' export/import tools are not as...robust...as they could be.

Transferring the blog is going to be a big task, because it's necessary to break up the transfer into many small chunks, and then each import frequently requires multiple tries to get everything transferred. As a result, I've decided that I can't do this properly and still produce my usual level of quality output. So I'm going to stop blogging for however long it takes to transfer everything over. I expect that it will take at least a week. There will be an announcement here and on Twitter when I christen the shiny new blog with its first bit of new Insolence.

In the meantime, please do me a favor. If you run across the new blog (which isn't indexed on search engines yet while I make the transfer but it's also not too difficult to figure out the address), please don't comment. Until the transfer is complete, if I see any new comments on the new blog before I finish transferring all the material, I will delete them. Also note that if you're commenting now on a post published September 30 or early there's a chance your comment might not make the transition to the new blog.

I hope you all will all join me at the new blog when the transfer is complete. There are a number of advantages. One is that the Scienceblogs site is so...2011. The theme and design literally have not been updated since...around 2011. The new theme is much more responsive to mobile devices, adjusting itself nicely for desktop and mobile devices and a lot cleaner. Those of you who are inappropriately in comment moderation purgatory will be released.

I think you'll like it, and I think I'll like it.

oracknows Mon, 10/16/2017 - 18:01

Tags

Announcements

Blog housekeeping

medicine

Announcement

Announcements

medicine

If there is any way that a simple lad such as myself can be of assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask.

I would ask that, please, do not allow fellow minions to post pics as comments. Links to pictures, sure, and I probably will myself. But I feel that 2 or 3 or 4 (and more) memes in a row will detract, rather than add, to the Respectful Insolence.

Sure, this interface is 2011, but it’s clean and readable. That’s a feature, not a bug. I’d hate to see that go away.

The new interface is also clean and readable. My only complaint about it is that the header text is too large. I'll eventually figure out how to fix that, but first things first.

I don't really see a problem with the look of the current interface either. One thing I REALLY like is the lack of multiple videos all trying to play at the same time. Meh. Be really careful about change for change's sake. Unless there is some clear improvement (like for mobile device readers), don't fall prey to "creeping featurism".

Thanks in advance for your efforts to retain the old comment threads.

Good luck with the move and I look forward to the new site.

P.S. another who likes the look of the present site.

Unfortunately the present site sucks on mobile. That's its biggest problem.

...header text is too large.

Yeah, font size is larger than I need without reading glasses. That is, way too big.

Good luck. I assume that even though you won't be posting on your new blog until you get things sorted, a certain friend of yours will continue to post over at "Science-Based Medicine"

Looking forward to read on your new blog. Good luck with moving everything.

Orac,

Need help for the migration?

I have ~20 years of experience with regard to computer and regularly build linux platforms from bottom to top (using recipes from http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/systemd/ and its BLFS counterpart).

Alain

And for those of us with no google-fu, I hope you will post a link here since I don't go on Twitter.

Of course I'll post a link. Why would I not? ?

This site is nearly unusable on my Tablet - has been for a while now.....good to see you're moving to a better platform.

Ooohh! I like the new design--especialy the sidebar not crimping the width and only appearing when you want it.

I knew something was up when the blog got a new favicon a few days ago.

Yes, please tell us where the new site is once it is operational.

I made a guess about your new site location, which appears to be incorrect. In the process, I found that your old Blogspot site (where you last posted in 2009) is still up.

Well the obvious URL to try worked. Looks good, fonts are a bit big on the desktop, but I often have to shrink down these things that are designed to also be read on phones.

Hope you didn't have to chase off any cybersquatters to get that URL

@KayMarie:

I generally like large fonts, because I like to run everything full-width and read at a comfortable distance from my screen--old eyes, y'know.

The problem with the header font size is that it's so large it forces the tags to intrude into the picture above them. But as Orac says, first things first.

Strangely I got a bit farsighted quite early, but so far it hasn't gotten significantly worse. So I'm not sure if they got old early, or are currently a bit young?

I was always farsighted, so I didn't need glasses until my lenses stopped accommodating, and then I could just buy reading glasses at the drug store until I needed more than +3.5. Unfortunately I'm almost up to 5 powers now, and sitting the regular distance from a computer is too close for the main lens and too far away for the bifocal part.

As the Teletubbies would say, uh oh.

I hope you do not enable https with an invalid certificate or a security protocol that is not supported by the Safari browser on the iBook (which is pretty much all of them). There are https sites I can browse, so it is not impossible to avoid this fate. But I have lost some of my favorite sites due to badly configured security "upgrades".

Hurricanes, wildfires, threats of nuclear annihilation, Donald unleashed and now THIS?

However, the recalibrating/ reprogramming may send a signal to various cranks and charlatans so we may be entertained whilst the process continues.

AND they'll probably alight here.

Right now all the usual suspects are spectacularly boring. Especially Jake, Kim and Mikey.

Best wishes, Orac.

It's really, really slow with Firefox 42 on OS X 10.6.8, with most of the final load seeming to be from widgets.wp.com. Maybe it'll improve after I block some of the cruft, such as pinterest. (RLY?)

5000 posts.
That is unreal.
Write a book with your greatest hits!

Every little box of blinky lights deserves to live in a stable home.

Yah, typical mobification. Visually dull on an actual machine. So it goes.

I'll admit it. I hate change.

But I'm sure I will love the new site and I'm relieved you're saving the old stuff. I have learned a lot here, and I often find your analysis of certain issues makes good grist for the grind when I'm discussing the issue elsewhere.

looking forward to the new digs.
hopefully the new place has a good 'reply to' feature to better pick up on the conversation in thread.

Having the <blockquote> text larger than the body text is also peculiar.

If I may be so bold (and even if I mayn't):

I suggest two "perpetual" comment threads not associated with specific posts:
In Other News for the obvious, which are fairly frequent
Outside as in "take it outside" for off-topic babble not constituting "news"

and maybe one called Rubber which is write-only and self emptying

Yah, typical mobification. Visually dull on an actual machine. So it goes.

As long as the new site does not end up as an example on the recently revived Web Pages That Suck (http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/). That would be a dubious honor to share with our friend MJD (http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/dailysucker/2011/11/13/mallard-adhesive…).

Seconding Herr Doktor B. This place is a treasure trove of knowledge and wit.

Thanks for putting the effort into migrating everything, Orac. I've done similar (thankfully years ago) at my place of work via self-written software so I know how daunting the task appears and how mind-numbingly tedious it is trying to get everything right.

Will we get the ability to edit comments, a la Disqus? (Please, please, pretty please!) That would totally allay any complaints I have about how the layout appears on a real computer.

I have to disagree with Johnny, though, about the ability to add graphics to a comment. Sometimes a photo or graph can be integral to the substance, as so with the OPs. You can't always expect readers to take the time to click through, and there might not be a usable direct link to the image. It's better, methinks, if commenters can take a quick screen grab, and then upload that small image within or at the bottom of the comment. I think minions are pretty responsible, and drive-by trolls won't make the effort, so I'm not too worried about some Attack of the Memes. Of course, if we get the option, and it gets abused, that would call for a change...

Yah, typical mobification.

For real.

Perhaps the particular element is not enabled yet -- no comment enumeration?

Web Pages That Suck

Now there's a blast from the past. I used to read that website regularly, back around the turn of the century when I was occasionally doing HTML coding. It was basically the equivalent of "Guidelines for Giving a Truly Terrible Talk" for Web page design. (In those days, "web" was spelled with a capital W.)

He's even saved the intentionally stupid design that was his front page back then. If you should stumble on that version of his home page, I dare you to click on the button that says, "Click Here". (Which would be a classic example of Schmuck Bait.) That link goes to the same image it pointed to back in the day.

That would be a dubious honor to share with our friend MJD

Don't forget Pattimmy Bolen.

It’s better, methinks, if commenters can take a quick screen grab, and then upload that small image within or at the bottom of the comment.

Use Imgur or something and link to it. Hell, I block images on the posts as it is.

At least the "pastel-lettering-on-a-slightly-darker-pastel-field" fad from a few years ago seems to have played itself out....

Blog posts by Orac are informative and have good search engine page rank. This will be a blow to the public when links are broken and page rank is reset.

I hope the owner of the domain name considers offering some sort of redirection service for a long period. Or transfer the domain name to someone who can operate such a redirection service.

I know. There's nothing I can do about it, although I have been told by a couple of bloggers who link to me that they will try to update some of the incoming links. I can also do that to some extent over at my not-so-secret other blog, but the internal links are all going to be broken. I intentionally kept the WordPress link format the same; so maybe there's a script that could chug through all the internal links and convert them. Otherwise, I might just have to do it manually for maybe the last few months of posts at least. Painful. Also, as a result of the migration from Movable Type to WordPress back around 2011 and how it dealt with media I'm very much afraid that a lot of pictures from before then are going to go bye-bye. I already know that the migration then failed to convert the internal links. There are a whole bunch of .php URLs that never converted. Of course, I never converted them over the last 6+ years myself; so they'll just stay broken. Nothing to do about it. I fix them when I happen to come across them, but that's about all. I have no organized plan to fix them and never did.

As for the lost Google juice, my traffic is about to tank as I loose all my search traffic. Posts that I consider important and prominent that aren't all cross-posted at my not-so-secret other blog (some Burzynski posts, posts about various cancer quackery, posts debunking antivaccine articles) are about to plummet to the bottom of Google search returns. I had been thinking of leaving Sb a while ago because I feared just this eventuality some day. If I had, I could already of had a head start on rebuilding and maybe even gotten Sb to do a 301 redirect to save some of that Google juice. Now it's too late. It's back to the beginning, and I'm utterly screwed, traffic-wise, at least for many months, if not years. It sucks.

I hope it won't switch to a disqus system.

Good luck with the transfer Orac!

"Said there's been a change
You push just a little too far
You make it just a little too hard"*

Nah, it looks fine.

Content is what matters to me in any case.

*Tom Petty - "Change of Heart"

Orac, maybe some of the obnoxious trolls will not be able to find you even with directions.

Oh, are going to upgrade your blinky lights?

@Orac,

In my latest book titled, "Patents and Climate Change - There's No Place Like Home" I wrote the following in the biography, "He is an active participant in the Science Blogs™ Respectful Insolence."

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/patents-and-climate-change

Now that the site is shutting down, and in hindsight, it should have read, "He was a reluctant participant in the Science Blogs™ Respectful Insolence. :-)

Either way, it's been a nightmare.

I can tolerate rather awful appearance if I can actually accomplish what I want to do at a site without a lot of messing about and waiting. Salon has become an excellent example of a web site that looks pretty good but is horrible in terms of performance - every time you go there or click on something while there it wants to open about two dozen other web sites, run gobs of scripts, load a bunch of crap and generally perform like a server running on an original IBM PC that has to phone home to Microsoft for permission to execute anything but a no-op.

Mike the Mad Biologist runs a nice clean efficient site. And he says mean (i.e. true) things about Donald Trump, which is an added bonus.

I have the feeling the traffic loss won't be as bad as Orac fears. RI and Orac as an individual are now well established as key voices on the topics they address, especially I think, among journalists. Reputation doesn't go away over night, and not that many people are totally new to these topics either. Anyone who has Googled on this stuff over the last few years will know RI and Orac, and many will make more of an effort to seek out new comments than just stopping at the top hits on the first Google page. At least that's what I'd do if wasn't checking in here daily. I mean it's not hard. Say if I wondered whether Orac has comments on the opioid/DEA/pharma scandal that just broke, I could just just Google "opioid insolence" or something...

It's hardly uncommon for web navigation particulars to shift over time, so I think savvy web users are pretty used to hunting out new locations for their old sources every now and then.

Add to that the crossover with the posts on SBM, and I doubt Orac will suddenly become a voice in the wilderness.

I hope you're correct, but most migrations to new hosts or domains are accompanied with SEO interventions, such as a 301 redirect from the host I've leaving (something I had no idea about until now) in order to minimize loss of Google juice. There will be none of that there. Rebuilding is likely to take months, if not years, and all incoming links over the course of twelve years will now be permanently broken. I can't really afford to hire an SEO expert to try to mitigate these issues.

Posts ... are about to plummet to the bottom of Google search returns.

That is very unfortunate, though there will be rejoicing in Wooville.

@orac #39:

I intentionally kept the WordPress link format the same; so maybe there’s a script that could chug through all the internal links and convert them.

Portability is the best argument in favour of building a site with relative rather than absolute URLs. Of course that's no help if the CMS itself demands absolutes, like some obsessive digital authoritarian god.

Actually, WordPress URLs should work regardless of what format is is chosen, date included in the URL or not.

Narad will need a new killfile script.

and maybe one called Rubber which is write-only and self emptying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s2uiPubmoA

Wow MJD, you just couldn't resist getting a jab in, could'ya; you can't let Orac move house in peace?

Then again, you never let anything go, do you?

The new site shows up on a quick Google search with this description:

A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt

When you get back to writing regular blogs, the recent settlement against Johnson & Johnson for talc and cancer may not have the features to justify an insolent response. But, it does share many of the characteristics of the alleged vaccine-autism connection.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/08/23/does-t…

This is one I've been meaning to write about for a while, but somehow never got around to it. We have an ambulance chaser (actually more than one) in my neck of the woods running TV ads to recruit clients to sue J&J for this.

Now that the site is shutting down, and in hindsight, it should have read, “He was a reluctant participant in the Science Blogs™ Respectful Insolence.

Um, what?
Did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to comment here?
You chose to put your ideas out there. You chose to come here and comment when Orac and Prometheus shredded them. You have chosen to repeat your flawed claims despite regularly having them torn to pieces here. You chose to attempt threadjacking even after being warned several times that if you didn't stop, you would be placed in moderation. And you have chosen to continue trying to threadjack despite Orac doing what he warned you he would do and placing you in moderation.
You were a willing participant here. Don't try to twist and say you were reluctant when after having your "theories" torn to shreds multiple times, you showed up again and again and repeated them.

What a coincidence, with a twist. I'm presently trying to migrate my website - with the exceptional complication (for me) that my present site is built in raw html with Dreamweaver, and I'm trying to rebuild it as a WordPress site.

I have absolutely no idea how to make the conversion, and web designers etc don't want to know. I've even tried to hire someone for a day's money, but nobody seems interested. As soon as I reveal that I've designed and built both versions myself, they lose interest.

I feel your pain.

Why would you want to do this? What would be the payoff?

Epsilon (#53) writes,

...you can’t let Orac move house in peace?

MJD says,

RIP (Respectful Insolence in Peace) Orac.

Now that's an oxymoron...

If you're asking me, my site is all but useless on mobiles, as I didn't understand responsive layouts when I built it on DreamWeaver. Google's bots are endlessly threatening me over this. And I want to future-proof.

Ah, yes. Well, my new site will be much more responsive on mobile. Yes, it actually looks better on smartphones than it does on desktop computers, but more than 50% of traffic to most blogs and websites these days comes from mobiles. So if the huge text doesn't look quite optimal on larger screens, I will probably just have to live with it. If there's one way my traffic could be better in the long run, it will be because Google won't be penalizing me for a poorly responsive template that doesn't look so good on mobile, which describes the current template. I do think the new template is much cleaner. It just has featured photos and blog posts, and the sidebar is available in a menu that when activated shows the search box, recent posts, and recent comments so that the user only sees them if he or she wants to see them. Also, for now, there will be no ads. If I get my traffic back up to where it was before and I have to start spending more on dedicated hosting I might have to reconsider ads, but right now I'm just using a WordPress hosting service and a domain I registered in 2011.

Wow. Like seriously. You just made another jab in response to me chastising you over jabbing at him.

Are you dense?

OK. I'm not as dumb as I thought I was; I did find the new site after a bit of trial and error. I guess I've been reading you too long to just go for the obvious! (blushes with shame).

Check speed of loading too. Possibly your images need to be quite light. I've just noticed that my theme includes a slider, which takes forever to load. Looks good on desktop, and a problem on mobile.

No, my theme loads pretty fast.

Loss of Google juice is a rational fear when moving sites like this, but I think the damage to RI will be less than most under similar circumstances. I just did a Google search for Respectful Insolence, and Safari's autocomplete feature suggested the Wikipedia entry of Orac's not-so-secret identity.

The other blog on this site that I still read regularly, Martin Rundqvist's Aardvarchaeology, is likely to take more of a hit, because Martin isn't as famous as Orac.

The new site was the third site listed in the search results for Respectful Insolence, after this site and Orac's old Blogspot site. I haven't tested the new site for usability yet, but appearance and loading are adequate.

Epsilon (#62) writes,

You just made another jab in response to me chastising you over jabbing at him.

MJD says,

While other commenter's fixate on website vanity, we're staying true to the heart and soul of this dying blog.

Let me say this, when Orac gets his new website I'm sure that he'll be as happy as a fly on a fresh file of dog shit.

@ Epsilon,

You surely can't be upset with that cheerful analogy, can you?

I agree with Politicalguineapig. Don't use Disqus. It totally sucks. You may as well disable comments.

In the sorrowing few moments of the Scienceblogs Respectful Insolence, the greatest gift for this 7-year commenter would be a symbolic life-time ban.

@Orac,

Please, I've tried so hard to be banned with distinction.

Now that the site is shutting down, and in hindsight, it should have read, “He was a reluctant participant in the Science Blogs™ Respectful Insolence.

Um, what?
Did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to comment here?

I just thought it was some strange use of ‘reluctant’ that I was unfamiliar with.

Please, I’ve tried so hard to be banned with distinction.

And there we have it. You can’t be a great martyr in the war against big pharma and their evil vaccines, with ideas so dangerous that they must not be heard, if you’re still around. Better to be a dead and thought a hero, than to be an impotent and incompetent warrior.

maybe there’s a script that could chug through all the internal links and convert them

Find somebody who knows how to use sed. It should be straightforward and fast.

Better to be a dead and thought a hero, than to be an impotent and incompetent warrior.

Or perhaps more accurately, better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

I'd say it's better not to give MJD a permanent ban at this point. One, it's exactly what he wants. Two, while I agree he's obnoxious, he hasn't (to my knowledge) done anything in the comments that rises to Orac's historical level for dropping the ban hammer. Of course, the latter is entirely Orac's call.

so maybe there’s a script that could chug through all the internal links and convert them.

I can design such a script and have enough horsepower on my laptop to go through the entire SB backup in a reasonable timeframe:

The script can be run by sed and is called like this:

sed -e 's@/lib$64$\?$32$\?/ld@/tools&@g' \ -e 's@/usr@/tools@g' $file.orig > $file

source: http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/systemd/chapter05/gcc-pass1.html

Orac, your Mac most likely include sed (bsd sed probably?) but should you don't want to invest on some steep learning curve, I can help.

Brian Deer,

I've took job for which most web developpers shunned from and did an okay job under a very tight timeframe so if your timerframe is not so tight, I can do the best job.

Want me to help you?

Alain

Epsilon,

Are you dense? The proper question would be if MJD is trying reeeaally hard to be dense or if it comes naturally :)

Alain

Find somebody who knows how to use sed. It should be straightforward and fast.

On Unix-based systems, including Linux and the Mac Terminal window, if you are keeping the same directory structure it's a three-line C shell script:

for i in path_specification ; do
sed 's/old_URL_root/new_URL_root/g' $i
done

Replace the italicized parts with the specific text you need. For instance, if your posts are separated into directories by year, then month, then day, then post title (as seems to be case, judging from the exact URL of this post), then from the top level the path specification would be */*/*/*/*,html .

It's a bit more complicated if you are planning to alter your directory structure in any way (e.g., removing one or more levels), but there should be someone on your staff who knows how to do it.

Either way, it’s been a nightmare.

Yah, this is going to fall on deaf ears (I suspect that the cerumen has found a sinus to your brain at this point), but the best way to end a nightmare is to wake up, Dozeniak.

if you are keeping the same directory structure it’s a three-line C shell script

Needs more regexp. You're going to have to hold on to the string that needs to be preserved. I mean, it's trivial, but let's (tinu) not start handing out untested recipes.

let’s (tinu) not start handing out untested recipes.

Agreed.

Eric Lund,

I doubt Orac has staff(ers) working on that.

Alain

No, now that I've had some coffee and am not using a phone, Eric's right, so long as it's a simple string substitution.

For what I had in mind, duplicating the files first, that would be:

for i in path_specification ; do sed -e 's/old_URL_root/new_URL_root/g' -i.orig $i done

the -i.orig instruct sed to make a backup copy first before changing the file. Then it's easy to compare (again, there's tools for that: diff) the changes.

There may be a scalability issue given 10~12 years of blogging...

My only complaint about it is that the header text is too large. I’ll eventually figure out how to fix that, but first things first.

Looks to be in wp-content/themes/baseline/style.css?ver=4.8.2:

.entry-large .entry-title, .page .entry-header .entry-title { font-family: "Playfair Display", "Georgia", serif; font-size: 58px; margin-bottom: 2.5%; line-height: 1.2; position: relative; }

A few observations...

RI is rather quick to display on this laptop but terrible on a tablet I sometimes used. I would give up soon.
SBM works well usually on the laptop

AS you know, I look at various web woo sites, anti-vax nonsense and (mis) informational sites,
I've found that sites that sell woo work REALLY well: the woo-meisters must invest loads of money into their 'stores'
( Mercola, Mikey**, Null)
Also most of their videos work really well.

AoA is abysmal both in content and functionally***

RI may be more easily findable after the switch because Orac and his friend are both visible on twitter.

** after all, Mike is an internet prodigy as well as a con artist

*** I suppose Kim is too busy these days teaching karate to innocent children to get someone to fix it.

RI is rather quick to display on this laptop but terrible on a tablet I sometimes used. I would give up soon.
SBM works well usually on the laptop

I gave up on SBM on all platforms after the redesign(s). The Disqustink is just icing on a sad cake.

# 73 Alain.

It would be amazing if you could help me. Maybe we could do some kind of deal for your time, coz I don't think there's much fun in it.

I can be got via my contact page. http://briandeer.com/contact.htm

It would be great, as I'm kind of paralysed at the moment, with a Dreamweaver site up and running for years, and a parallel WordPress site, with just a front page and a few sample pages that went live yesterday.

Thanks for offering.

The new site looks good and I've already updated my bookmarks. Sorry that scienceblogs is going away, but glad that you'll be keeping on! Definitely second the "no ads, or at least no auto-play video ads", if you can help it. Those get so obnoxious. I'd rather see an option to donate to maintaining the site via pay pal instead (I would!)

Brian,

You can check your inbox, I sent you an email.

Alain

@MJD

Hmm. Maybe I should not have expected so much from the mighty, esteemed, shameless self-advertiser who plugs his book into 75% of his comments until the name comes up in our nightmares.

I was wondering if anyone knew how to contact Tim Lambert of the Deltoid Blog. He doesn't really blog any more, and hasn't been active on Twitter for several years. It would be a shame if his blog disappeared. There is a post that shows up every month for discussion on the blog, but nothing other than that.

Could someone give me a link please? Google isn't being helpful.

@PGP:

Try typing in literally the most obvious URL and see what happens. :-)

My only complaint with the new site is the font size and spacing in the comments make it so it takes forever to scan through comments.

Oh, drat. I did type in the most obvious URL and was NOT happy with the result. Even though it was about chocolate.

I am guessing it is this one:
https://respectfulinsolence.net/

You’d be wrong.

.com

Rats! And thanks.

Now added to my bookmarks.

Why do people hate Disqus?

your time is gonna come...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjHBa7qpRTg

Why do people hate Disqus?

Because Disqustink is terrible.

Oh no! Where ever will I go to get my vaccine marketing from now? Please don't tell me I'll have to go directly to the merck.com website from now on!

Why do people hate Disqus?

Because Disqustink is terrible.

And Narad just barely avoids being tautological.

I can't wait to see the new website. I am expecting some serious sci-fi-ish wallpaper with gadgets, gizmos, and hopefully . . ..David Bowie's Space Oddity.mp3 playing in the background.

So take your protein pills and put your helmet on. This new website will have everything: From woobashing and ridicule to straight-up mockery. Orac is dropping the modifier and going full-insolent: Gossip about Andrew Wakefield's bed-fellows will not be off the table—the more damage we can cause to his psyche, the better. One must pay for breaking ranks, if not so much as to set an example. Let the public know who to mistrust and who to adore. With the new podium, Orac is going to prove that he really can define the strength of free radicals.

So open the pod bay doors Hal, the rarified environment of scienceblogs.com is suffocating. A new horizon awaits. Let's just hope that the next generation of politicians, biochemists, and medical doctors will be as incompetent as the former—to provide grist for the WooMill: whose stones are not quite ground-down as of yet, ready to churn-out a few dozen metric tons of 100 Mesh Powdered Wakefield (fine grade).

It's nowhere near that sophisticated. Maybe someday. Right now I'm just spending every minute of my spare time trying to get all the old content transferred over before Sb goes away forever. Let me tell you, the importer really chokes on those comment threads with 2,000+ comments. I fear I'm going to be missing some comments. One thread with over 2,000 comments only imported around 1,300. I have to ask myself if it's worth it to spend so much time trying to get the last 700 comments to transfer when there's so much other material to do. I think I'm just going to stop and move on, taking note of this particular post. I'll go back to it if I have time. If not, oh well.

Why do people hate Disqus?

Because it's shit?

Just a thought.

Why is it shit? It's used at my not-so-secret other blog, and I actually rather like it. It has the advantage of decreasing bandwidth use by off-loading the commenting function.

@sadmar: I hate Disqus because the threaded comments are AWFUL!!! You have to constantly scroll up and down a thread, and often miss new comments because they are tucked under an earlier comment. It's OK if you keep a thread open constantly because then the thread will alert you to the new one, but otherwise you have to just scroll and look for a little blue marker and "new comment".

PLEASE, Orac....don't thread comments.

WordPress threads comments now. I like threaded comments. Sorry.

The main reason I come here about 1% as often as I used to is that comments are effectively threaded here now. Apparently if you follow a thread with email updates, you get a "reply" button which makes your comment nest below the comment you're replying to.

I always swore I'd never even try to follow a comment section that was threaded--not that I'd be any loss, but I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way....

Disqus threads comments, spams the shit out of me on unrelated topics, needs me to log in every time I want to say something - even though I ask to stay signed in, tells me what my friends are commenting on (I don't care) and fails to post my comments.

Other than that, I just hate it.

Those threated comments are putting me of as well. Especially with long threads, things get hard to follow.

I don't think threaded comments will be such a big deal as everyone fears, and here's why. Comment threads here have been MUCH shorter lately. As I go back through the archives, say 2015, comment threads of several hundred comments were very common, which is why it's taking me so long to transfer the content of that year. Basically, the importer is choking big time, and I keep having to chop up the XML file into smaller and smaller bits. This year, comment threads over 100 comments have been pretty rare. It's kind of depressing to have it hammered home to me that way, actually, how much lower the commenting traffic is now compared to two or three years ago.

The new template doesn't number comments, either. There is a date and time stamp. Numbers were always problematic, anyway, because they change a lot as I approve new moderated comments, such that references to comment numbers were frequently inaccurate after I approved a bunch of new comments. I like date and time stamps better, because they do not change when I approve more comments. If the threaded comments turn out to be such a big deal, you don't have to use them, and if they really cause a lot of protest I'll consider turning them off. I just hate threading through huge strings of quoted text, though. Maybe it's because I see all comments.

Perhaps import the first page only? because after that, the comments start to fizzle-out anyway.

Not all of the comments are worth saving, especially those of Narad [sic].

I used to comment a little bit through disqus and still get notifications about dorit.
A lot of those take me to web sites where I have to scroll past ads to find the right place to click to even see comments and then the linked comment doesn't show up. So, I have to scroll up and down looking for it. Sometime I have to click several times for more comments.

But, it seems to work ok for SBM.

There is a date and time stamp. Numbers were always problematic, anyway, because they change a lot as I approve new moderated comments, such that references to comment numbers were frequently inaccurate after I approved a bunch of new comments. I like date and time stamps better, because they do not change when I approve more comments.

At some point in the distant past ScienceBlogs had time stamps on them, so I could refer to a post as "Orac@1158" (or whatever time the computer says you posted it) rather than "Orac@110", which as you note might become post number 114 after you approve comments being held in moderation. I don't remember when the time part was suppressed, but yes, that made it more difficult to refer to previous posts.

Threaded comments have both advantages and disadvantages. The main downside, as MI Dawn notes, is that you have to search throughout the thread to find new comments. OTOH, if it's a bunch of people feeding a troll, you can easily skip over those posts, and it also makes it more obvious (as long as it doesn't go more than three or four levels deep) who is responding to whom.

I had noticed occasional threaded comments here, mostly replies by Orac, but I had never had that capability myself. That may be, as the good Reverend points out, because I never check the "follow by e-mail" boxes below the post button. As moderator, Orac obviously has to get those e-mail updates so that he can retrieve posts from moderation as needed.

@ Ziggy Stardust:

Loved your last album.

I agree with your comment- there are loads of woo awaiting Orac. It is endless.

- Recently I discovered an older Bay Area doctor who supposedly treats people with light following R. Rife's frequencies and with the assistance of a NASA engineer. His website is rather clean but he has a show on prn.fm and was interviewed by the chief woo ( progressive commentary hour recently). He's been at it for decades .Dr Len Saputo.

- TMR's Oracle explains how she educated a doctor she dated. Comedy gold.

- Kim Rossi ( AoA) tweets about her new career as a part time karate instructor for kids - some of them vaccinated for flu ((shudder)) and full time divorcee.

- Mikey goes full tilt righty loon- perhaps to attract the gullible to his store.. Similar at prn.fm- politics and economics conspiracies showing corruption by the powers that be.
This may be fortunate because they speak less about health.

This year, comment threads over 100 comments have been pretty rare. It’s kind of depressing to have it hammered home to me that way, actually, how much lower the commenting traffic is now compared to two or three years ago.

Turn MJD loose.

He'll say something stupid, minions will call him out on it, he'll say 'buy my book'.

Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.

Comment counts will soar.

Or do a reiki post. Nothing else seems to draw out the faithful. I remember one such comment thread several years ago where two reiki practitioners must have dumped hundreds of comments defending their little charade. One was in Toronto and believed she could cure cancer through therapeutic touch.

Threaded comments, the issue of finding recent comments aside, seem to offer the greatest advantage with a commentariat this is not too bright. At RI, with the present scheme, most commenters are good about quoting a little of that to which they are responding, making it quite easy to follow conversations.

Again, I really loathe having a site open other sites which open other site which open other sites. How pervasive this is becomes apparent if you use a script blocker that tells you what is going on. I wouldn't mind so much if the main site supplied a "you'll need to allow access to/scripts on these sites to use this site" - but none do that. Right now, this site has opened or wants to open 7 other sites. If I allowed all of those, it wouldn't surprise me to see that number double. I have passed up offers from my ISP for super high speed, simply because I estimate about 90% of my time waiting for something is waiting for those linked sites to get off their asses and respond with crap I don't want to see anyway.

If I remember correctly, ScienceBlogs had a "most active" feature on the side, rather than the current "editor's picks" on it's front page that generated the high volume of comments. Same thing happened to FreethoughtBlogs when they got rid of that feature-no more pile-ons, I guess, but I wasn't invested enough in each individual blogger to find out where the action was.

Right now, this site has opened or wants to open 7 other sites. If I allowed all of those, it wouldn’t surprise me to see that number double. I have passed up offers from my ISP for super high speed, simply because I estimate about 90% of my time waiting for something is waiting for those linked sites to get off their asses and respond with crap I don’t want to see anyway.

^ Exacly this. How bad can it get? This bad:

http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/20/gold-star-widow-releases-trumps-call-…

Allow just one script, dailycaller.com, and veiw that the site wants to load 30 different sites -- nevermind how many extra scrips will load if any of those 30 are allowed.

NoScript ftw.

Chris: Thank you! Now bookmarked. That saved me a lot of time- I ran two different searches, and one of them kept directing me to truthwiki (which is, in my opinion, blatant false advertising.)

DW: So Kim's a karate instructor? Geez, I'd hate to be the poor kids she's inflicted upon. Must be a spectacularly soft style. I'm in one of the hard styles myself, though I'd reluctantly admit that the standards have fallen a bit since I was a white belt.

Remember to change the .net to .com !

Please do include the comments from Peter Harris, the naturopath who contradicted himself in one paragraph and then lost his temper upon our pointing this out.

Oh and was it Cervantes who was going to come back to us with loads of peer reviewed papers about plant based cancer cures, that guy was a right tool.

If anybody wants to get more comments, we can always rile up the current incarnation of Vinu, I have a German paper showing a significant decrease in allergies with increased vaccination, that's bound to cause him to do his standard denial of reality.

Hey @squirrelelite. I just started reading that book you talked about (was that you?) called Jackson's Electrodynamics. The 1962 edition can be had, for free, in one giant .pdf, vide infra. (watch-out slow browser . . .It's a monsta file.)

http://www.fulviofrisone.com/attachments/article/475/Jackson%20J%20D%20…

But I'm not sure how much I like it. The Swedes have cleaner math in this other free book I found; although they put the differential term directly ahead of the integral symbol, like this: ∫∂x·4x³. Very strange.

The electrodynamic wave equation seems to follow directly from Maxwell's Law's (Heaviside Edition), and the Schrödinger Equation is just an intuitive variation of this—a logical consequence of results obtained from the photoelectric effect and divers old classics.

I'm doing my best to dodge QuantumWoo, an eclectic and illogical collection of unicorns gleaned from the misunderstanding of divers refraction experiments reinforced by bad textbook Feynman heuristics further amplified by pop misconception culminating in Deepak Chopra!—where entanglement and nonlocality (if believed) can be used to justify nearly anything including, but not limited to, overpriced chic getaways to the Esalen Institute marketed to people who just want to appear well-informed—aimed at gullible people who don't really want to understand physics at all, but want to think that after we die we are more than just wormfood. It's the new religion: It's the flying saucer of the new age.

But Karl Popper will tell you how it really is:

Popper, Karl R. "Quantum mechanics without “the observer”." Quantum theory and reality. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1967. 7-44.

(Free full-text link of GoogleScholar, and a must read for those opposed to QuantumWoo—although he does not properly explain the double-slit experiment (only I can do that.))

Thanks, Ziggy.
I had Jackson for one of my undergrad E&M classes.
We used Feynman for the first QM class.

I like his personal biographical stuff as well.

Orac writes,

It’s kind of depressing to have it hammered home to me that way, actually, how much lower the commenting traffic is now compared to two or three years ago.

MJD says,

Once upon a time, Orac wrote about his helicopter experience and it was amazing, outstanding, and unforgettable.

Lately, in my opinion, there's been an overwhelming condescending tone that draws the reader into a sense of learned helplessness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQI0E1WCLMU

Cheer up Orac, write about it, and they will come.

Funniest Joke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IiICcSH8iY

Michael, the only condescension I detect on "Respectful Insolence" is from you.

@Julian

Took the words right outta my mouth. Orac's tried to be nice to MJD but all he's done is throw it in his face, so y'know.
He gets what he gives.

The new layout looks good on my android. Category index easy to nav.

Browsing through comments, Orac responses don't highlight like they do on Sb. I track those highlights as they usually indicate a pertinent point to take note of when considering topic that have 200+ comments.

Sneaky Tim includes link from The Daily Caller... Bad Tim!

Dude, if you're on The Daily Caller for ANY reason, you're getting polluted with all sorts of bad scripts, and I ain't talkin' about computer code...

The new blog looks good although I am not exactly thrilled with the size but I'll adapt. Maybe I'll try the tablet later.

In other news ( because woo . like rust, never sleeps)...

Mikey Boy ( Today, Natural News) shrieks about the fake news/ lame stream media proclaiming his bro's ( Alex Jones) products exceeding standards for lead.
Mike offers a suggestion how AJ can fix the problem ( i.e. call the supplements 'food') and how his fabulous** lab could have been of use by prior testing

** in the original use of the term

The interesting thing about NN's proclamation of an anti-Infowars conspiracy and his lab's offer to save the day, is the statement that no one has ever found high heavy metals levels in NN's supplements.

If true, does that mean no competent, respected lab has ever tested them? It'd be interesting to see such results, not to mention subsequent conspiracy theorizing over the level of contaminants found.*

*since elsewhere there's been reporting down to the level of _parts per trillion_ of glyphosate, it's hard to imagine that the NN supplement empire could possibly be free of contaminants. And as the Food Babe has informed us, there's no safe level of any chemical. :(

@ 88hardindr

I was wondering if anyone knew how to contact Tim Lambert of the Deltoid Blog.

https://theconversation.com/profiles/tim-lambert-3502

might work. It looks a bit old

Very strange.

Don't get out much, do you, Travis?

@Hardindr & jrkrideau, Lambert knows.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2017/10/20/scienceblogs-is-shutting-dow…

Thanks Julian

I had Jackson for one of my undergrad E&M classes.

So did I, as it happens, but Jackson is normally a graduate level text. That about 40% of the students in my ostensibly undergrad class were grad students should have tipped me off that something was amiss.

I used the then current second edition (they are now on a third edition). It was my most expensive undergraduate textbook, at $54.50 new (I rarely bought used textbooks, because I had learned by then that if the textbook was any good it was not available used). Amazon is selling the hardcover third edition new for $81.95, which is less than it has been: a few years back the subject of high textbook prices came up on Chad Orzel's blog, and at the time the book apparently cost about $180 new.

That about 40% of the students in my ostensibly undergrad class were grad students should have tipped me off that something was amiss.

I presume this was intermediate E&M, not freshman (for which we used Purcell; this was kind of a clusterf*ck, because the Berkeley series wasn't used for freshman mechanics [don't recall] or optics [Hecht & Zajak]).

^ Oh, right, it must have been Halliday & Resnick for mechanics. Kinda pricey for only a single quarter.

@Sadmar:

Will we get the ability to edit comments, a la Disqus?

The live comment preview such as used at Popehat might satisfy your desire in this regard. I don't have time right now to check whether it's this or something else, and it is a bit busy, and I furthermore don't know how pocket-rocket friendly it is, but so it goes.

they put the differential term directly ahead of the integral symbol, like this: ∫∂x·4x³

Hey, Fυcklesworth, just out of idle curiosity – completely aside from your inability to do the Unicode spacing correctly – why did you use a partial here? Do you know what the element of integration is?.

What's your preferred approach to making the concept of an infinitesimal mathematically rigorous, other than dopily screwing up the notation?

Leaving on a jet plane...

oracknows — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 07:00:45 +0000

Leaving on a jet plane...

Today, I'm winging my way to sunny Las Vegas. Yes, in the middle of summer, when southern Nevada's weather is most like an oven, I will be there. The reason? I'll be doing a workshop and a panel with fellow supporters of science-based medicine at The Amazing Meeting.

I don't know how many of my readers will be there, but if you're there and see me hanging out at the Del Mar or in the hall between sessions, feel free to introduce yourself. For everyone else, I guess we'll have to consider this an open thread. Don't worry. I plan on doing some blogging while I'm away, but it might be more sporadic and—dare I say it?—brief than usual.

oracknows Wed, 07/09/2014 - 03:00

Tags

Skepticism/Critical Thinking

Announcement

science-based medicine

The Amazing Meeting

Announcements

medicine

Damn, I wish I was there too.

There was a strong editorial in my local newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News:

Mercury News editorial: California must improve vaccination rates

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_26103926/mercury-news-editorial-c…

In the comments, from a name I don't recognize:

"Everyone here should know that Anne Dachel is the media editor for "Age of Autism", a shameless antivaccine crank blog. It is essentially her job to go around to blogs and repost lists like these - dishonest tripe. Her lies are easy enough to debunk given time and energy, but at this point her name and association alone should be enough to tick everyone off that what she's saying has no basis in reality and can and should be ignored. Thank you, other commentators, for pointing this out. Anne, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are either dishonest or more ignorant than is humanly possible."

NIZE

I hope this year's TAM is awesome and drama free! It's one of my dreams to go, and I'm really hoping I can do it next year' because after that I will (hopefully) be in school for 4 years with no money to go anywhere. I look forward to everyone's reports!

MESSAGE BEGINS---------------------------

Shills and Minions,
I look forward to tossing a few back with of you in the most comfortable of climates. Davos is so awfully chilly, why do we still meet there?

Lord Draconis Zeneca, VH7ihL
Sooper Uber Omni Mavoon of the Great Fleet, Grand Vitara of Bakersfield, Duke of Del Mar

Transit Broadcast
010100000000110111011

-----------------------------MESSAGE ENDS

Prevagen contains apoaequorin, a protein originally found in jellyfish. It is supposed to improve memory by binding calcium in the brain. It is a large protein comprised of 189 amino acids, so it seems unlikely any significant amount from an oral supplement could be absorbed intact into the bloodstream, and far less likely any could cross the blood brain barrier. Considering that apoaequorin weighs about 21,400 Daltons, calcium weighs 40 Daltons, and apoaequorin can bind three calcium ions, a 10 milligram tablet of apoaequorin should be able to bind about 55 micrograms of calcium, which is an utterly trivial amount. FDA has warned this company about their completely bogus claims.

http://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/2012/ucm3245…

A Google search returns lots of pseudonymous glowing testimonials for this product, very much like products sold by multi-level marketing schemes. But it's not MLM. It's sold through retail channels, like Walgreen's and CVS. I'd never heard of it until I saw a TV commercial a couple weeks ago. Immediately I was suspicious when they said it was a protein. A protein in an oral supplement? It can't make it into the bloodstream in any significant amount. Proteins like insulin and human growth hormone are given by injection, because they'd be broken down into amino acids if given by the oral route. Even if it got into the bloodstream, it can't get into the brain because it can't cross the blood-brain barrier. And if a foreign protein like one from a jellyfish got into the bloodstream in a significant amount, it would provoke a massive immune system response -- and definitely not a nice response. It would be like injecting ragweed pollen into your bloodstream.

A great little article by Edzard Ernst on how to do pseudo-scientific research on alternative medicine without risking generating a negative result!

http://getbetterhealth.com/how-to-create-medical-research-to-support-bo…

Prevagen has had 1-2 FDA warnings already. I keep hearing their ads on the radio. Given that this protein is almost certainly pulverized in the stomach and also its size, the odds it even gets to the brain is nil.

Dear Orac and company:

With forecast highs of 104-106F / 40-41 C, do have a great time at the meeting INDOORS. Like the smart people you are. PLEASE be careful.

-btw- I heartily dislike that place and it's not faux morality speaking (from me? Come on!) but I find it a waste land of artifice and tawdriness- UNLESS if you really like gambling or have something meaningful to do there like a conference or a party- there are SO many much more attractive places to get drunk, stoned or laid. Even in more forgiving seasons like March or November, when you can actually walk around a little without dropping of heatstroke as the heat wafts from the sidewalks and roadways rendering you languorous or exhausted as well as being already sunblinded - there are ludicrously crappy facsimiles of real places ( NY, Paris, Venice) which remind you that you might be enjoying yourself there instead, as you wish that you weren't here. Wishing that you were anywhere but here. I didn't like the food or the shows or the shopping or the hordes of near-children hungrily milling about on the strip, ogling the wonders of silicon, tattooing and Disney-fied reinforced concrete architecture and fake pirate shows as they passed them.
What I relished most- despite staying in a supposedly posh hotel- was the rental car agency and driving out of town.
The time that I was there in July was a stopover for only a few hours- THANKFULLY- at 11 pm where the outside temp was over 100 and the heat "hit me like a freighttrain" whilst I walked through the jetway door to the airport.
Although I did not experience the melted-asphalt-and-shoe phenomenon, I did live through extreme, unquenchable thirst and unmanageable, floppy hair which are nearly as bad.

I heartily dislike that place and it’s not faux morality speaking (from me? Come on!) but I find it a waste land of artifice and tawdriness

I've never actually been to Las Vegas, other than a few times to change planes at the airport. Which is enough to see what a bizarre place Vegas is: the faux pyramid on the Strip is visible from one of the airport concourses, and as you are flying out of town you can see the contrast between the lush green of the golf courses and the desert scrub which is the native vegetation (such as it is). As anyone who has been there knows, there are even slot machines in the airport (which I played once just to be able to say I've done it, risking $1 and quitting when my stake reached $2). There are definitely worse places than Las Vegas--I'd say Orlando is worse (almost as hot, much more humid, and not even anywhere near the beach)--but Las Vegas is definitely up there.

Las Vegas is a common jumping off point for touring the national parks of southern Utah (it's about as close as Salt Lake City, and cheap flights into LAS are easier to come by than SLC). Since the crowd I run with has their meetings anywhere but Las Vegas, that would be about the only reason I would leave the airport there. Of course, July is probably not the best time of year for that kind of tour.

Not about that horrid place for reasons pretty much similar to those of Denice. Concur with Eric about Orlando.

BUT I digress and here is what I wanted to post:

I got a post card in the mail recently from a DO/MPH announcing their acceptance of new patients at a nearby office under the auspices of one of the local medical systems, good-sized for my area. The system consists of a hospital, several satellite locations including at least a couple of urgent care sites, as well as labs, clinics and offices, and also a school of nursing.

This was the text of the postcard; I am begrudgingly shielding the guilty:

Dr. X sees patients of all ages. s/he provides comprehensive care focusing on wellness by integrating primary and osteopathic care. Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment can be used to diagnose and treat such conditions as: [bulleted list follows but condensed for space] sports injuries, infant issues (ie. feeding difficulties, torticullis, colic), recurrent ear infections in children, pregnancy-related pain; postpartum pain; headaches, back and neck pain, sinus disorders, and ASTHMA !!!! (caps and exclamations mine)

WTF?? I have read Orac and his friend about quackademic medicine infiltration so this shouldn't have surprised me but somehow the appearance of an explicit link to chiroquackty by another name surprised me--I thought the DO's were trying to escape this, or are they reverting?

Or am I reading too much into it?

The American Astronomical Society once held a meeting in Las Vegas, taking advantage of the cheap hotel rooms.

Apparently it was a disaster for the casino, since essentially no one wanted to gamble. Too much respect for the laws of probability, I suppose. That, and the fact that the majority of the members are either tightwad academics or penniless job-seeking grad students.

It does look like a workshop for the sartorially challenged, though, a group of which I am a proud member.

I heartily dislike that place and it’s not faux morality speaking (from me? Come on!) but I find it a waste land of artifice and tawdriness

My sentiments exactly. Even the Vegas airport is a sensory nightmare, what with all the blinking howling one-armed bandits.

Eric - I have to disagree with you about Orlando. When I've gone it's generally been in the fall or winter, and it's gorgeous. It's substantially cooler than Nevada (I've not been to Los Vegas, but I've been other places) though you are correct on the humidity. And the water is not from a rapidly vanishing river.

Sigh - LAS Vegas. I went and made them masculine.

Found an odd-looking critter in the dirt, about 2 inches long, with 3 pairs of legs at the front end, brownish, segmented. Any clues as to how to identify?

Denice,

What I relished most- despite staying in a supposedly posh hotel- was the rental car agency and driving out of town.

Heh. I enjoyed that glowing endorsement, thanks. I have known people to pay huge amounts of money to travel to Vegas from the UK to get married, for reasons I utterly fail to understand. One of these was an otherwise apparently sensible nurse-practitioner working on an ITU. I can understand wanting to go somewhere special to get hitched - I got married in Vienna once myself (a ghastly mistake as it happens, but there you go) - but Vegas? In a concrete jungle in a desert by an ordained Elvis impersonator in a huge fake pyramid? Why?

I kind of like Las Vegas, in small doses. I was there last year for Thanksgiving and had a pretty good time. The hotel (and theoretically the resturants) were non-smoking, the food was excellent and the show I saw (Cirque) was amazing. It was warm enough to go swimming. And then it was time to go home!

brewandferment@10: This person was advertising themselves as a DO/MPH? If MPH means Master of Public Health (as it usually does) that is very weird, since an MPH isn't a medical degree. From what I've learned in my MPH program thus far, usually you get an MPH to work with groups of people, not provide individual care. It's kind of like saying you're a DO/MBA; it's not super relevant to clinical care. The treatment list is super sketchy!

@ Krebiozen:

Thank you for saying that:
Las Vegas is probably the place I disliked more than any other place I have ever been which is saying a lot because I have visited:
- a tropical island which was sinkhole of industrial pollution with swampy areas rife with decaying plants and animals
- a village which hosted a weeklong HIghland folk fest
-.a mountain town which hosted a Norwegian folk dance festival. Although the dancers and musicians were very talented, there is something un-nerving about observing troupes of tall white adults performing long, complicated dance routines perfectly in black woolen clothing in blazing noonday sun and heat at 8000 feet above sea level without tiring at all in a determined fashion like... Vikings with accordions and fiddles.
No wonder they have done so well in the world.
- post-industrial waste lands of the US, UK and Canada.

May I suggest you try some great hiking at Red Rock Canyon while you're in Las Vegas?

Start in the AM and you'll beat the heat.

The Book of Mormon is also in town at the Smith Center.

The city is more than just the strip.

Jon

Three pairs of legs? That's definitely an insect!

Hi everyone,

Today mark the end of my 6 weeks training & assessment at SAP labs in Montreal and I will know tomorrow if I sign a contract with them (99% chances) or if I get booted out (1%). So far, just about everyone who met me in the company have been outstanding and are very good to me and even the hiring manager is very happy with my performance at work (I have been in his team since the last 2 weeks) and he plan to be very committed to build me a career but the final words will be those of the HR director which I'll meet tomorrow morning.

As far as work conditions goes, I set my schedule with the core hours being from 10am to 3pm but I need to put in (for the moment) 35 hours per week with next week going on to 40 hours. The work itself feel so good that I don't have any problem going over the requirement but they are very flexible regarding appointments outside work or work from {home, out of town, etc...}.

As far as paycheck goes, I'm still on an internship salary but it's freaking huge as I make more money in a week as compared as my monthly salary previously. Bonus point is that I'll get a sizable pay raise next week if I get in.

they offer insurance packages, retirement packages and even an allocation of 300$ per year to get massages and they have a professional massage therapist each week at work. We also get paid lunch every noon by the company (just swipe our card on the card reader). Probably the best company in the world to work in.

all in all, I'm happy, very happy.

Alain

@Alain

Good luck with your meeting tomorrow.

Three pairs of legs? That’s definitely an insect!

Not so fast.

Del Mar? That's a hot-sheet establishment in a sketchy area. I hope that's not where they sent you. And it will be humid, by local standards when you get here. We do have excellent hiking areas from Colorado River trails to low desert to high desert to 10,000 feet high trails in forested areas. And we have slot machines in supermarkets, also.

Have fun at TAM. I've been to a couple and they were great, but I'll never go to another unless it's not in Vegas, or at least not in Vegas in July. Insane heat for this northerner.

My first trip to Vegas was (many, many) years ago. My good buddy and I flew to LA to see my sister and her two young children. IIRC, the plane tickets were expensive (for us), with a layover in Vegas for three days on the way home. The "strip" was a lot smaller then ( the Sahara, the Stardust and the Thunderbird Hotels with their casinos, with some motor courts an cheap motels intermixed).

Back then, the headliners where Sinatra, his ratpack and some second tier ratpack wannabes.

We hung out at poolside soaking up the rays during the days and then "dressed for dinner" (cocktail dresses, heels, hosiery and the little evening purse (with extra cash for gambing tucked in our bras). There were unsavory looking goons hanging around to inspect your outfits before entering the dining rooms and the casinos and you were barred unless you complied with the fancy dress codes for men and women.

It was garish, and tacky, but in an old 1960s pretentious way and there were low cost $ 2 black jack tables and real one-armed bandits with arms to set off the slots' reels.

The next time I went to Vegas was in 1976 at 6 months into my second pregnancy, where we were comp'ed by a colleague of my husband who was a tour guide, stayed in a high rollers hotel suite.. which was before online airline ticket and hotel reservations purchases and bonus travel miles.

More recently, Vegas has been a good jumping point for our extended road trips into the canyons, on up into the Dakotas (where we managed to catch the Sturges motorcycle rally and then into the Canadian Rockies. One memorable trip was taken in March after an extremely bad winter, to travel to Death Valley, ~ 3 hours outside Vegas to have a delightful stay in a hotel with a natural spring-fed pool and to catch the desert in bloom.

Actually, Denice Walter, my view is different. I've only been to Las Vegas once for a conference, but I kind of liked it because it seemed like the American stereotype I developed growing up taken to extreme: everything too big, too artificial, too glittery, colored. It was a cultural experience. As a foreigner, it was kind of fun. A land for overgrown five year olds.

Of course, living in the U.S. for 14 years now undid much of what I came in expecting, but Las Vegas was still the closest to what I expected the American Dream to look like.

The people in underwear sitting at the machines were kind of sad, though.

And Alain, good luck! Please let us know.

Back then, the headliners where Sinatra, his ratpack and some second tier ratpack wannabes.

We hung out at poolside soaking up the rays during the days....

So, even before the "portable phone" days?

3 pairs of legs at the front end, brownish, segmented

A beetle larva of some kind, is my initial response.

@palindrom #11:

The American Astronomical Society once held a meeting in Las Vegas, taking advantage of the cheap hotel rooms. Apparently it was a disaster for the casino, since essentially no one wanted to gamble.
My father worked for IBM. The casinos hated them when they held conferences in Vegas because the IBMers didn't gamble either.

Narad...that was 10 years before my first trip to Vegas. :-) And, I still don't have a portable/cell phone. I share my husband's and grab the phone to take on the road, when I'm traveling without him.

I'm one of those people who does not feel lost if I don't have instant access to a phone for useless chatter.

I have never been to Vegas for personal reasons, but I have been there numerous times for conferences. The city hosts more professional conferences, workshops, seminars, continuing education courses, etc. than anywhere else I can think of off hand

When you work in a field that is predominantly male, as I do, I suppose it is no big surprise that Vegas has such appeal. It can be fun though, in an undergrad spring break type of way.

The cuisine is absolutely fantastic in Vegas though! The lab I work in is located in a rural midwestern town, so having access to such a wide array of nice dining options is a breath of fresh air.

That, and the fact that the majority of the members are either tightwad academics or penniless job-seeking grad students.

My primary scientific society, the American Geophysical Union, holds its big meeting in San Francisco every year. One of the legends that has grown up around that meeting is that the high-end call girls of San Francisco plan their vacations for that week. Unlike most groups who have conventions at the Moscone Center, AGU attendees are unlikely to be both interested in and able to afford the call girls' services.

I sometimes feel that the alties and woo-meisters I survey are making my job so much the easier:

recently TMR has been hawking its energy conference in which "healers" and mediums will promote their dark arts to parents of kids with ASDs. Similarly, AoA takes ads for products to combat the evil influences of chemtrails. Now Mikey is chattering about how "free energy" would lead to true AGW as he shills his new formulae to counteract heavy metals. Of course, PRN explores a plethora of woo and uber-woo such as energy healing, 9/11 theories and a forthcominhg examination of extra-terrestrial influences promised by the woo-meister in charge.

Why do I say that this is a good thing?
Obviously these promoters will do or say anything to get additional readers and listeners: they are like a television talk show which has run out of legitimate topics and needs to scrap around the refuse heap of magic, superstition and spiritualism to excite its audience. Hopefully this trend will open the eyes of at least a portion of their audiences.

Their "legimate" topics of course aren't legitimate in the least because they rely upon fake research and mis-leading conclusions about real research tarted up with a great steaming dollop of conspiracy mongering
HOWEVER they misrepresent themselves as scientists or as being science-oriented and many of their audience cannot detect the prevarication in this stance:
thus, Teresa Conrick delves into the arcane subtext of immunological research and her efforts are applauded and hailed as meaningful; Mike's research into contaminated natural products is regarded as providing important information that the government wouldn't supply. Gary Null can lull his thralls into belief with tales of his "30 years as a research fellow" at an esteemed facility and his enlightening lectures at scientific conferences BECAUSE they don't know enough to realise that they're being taken for a ride which will eventually require payment.

When alties showcase the more outlandish forms of pseudo-science they risk alienating the people who have accepted them as brave maverick scientists about to ride the cleansing tsunamic wave of paradigm shift, re-organising all science into a new system that more adequately explains the nature of reality. Tossing aliens, chemtrails and ectoplasm into the mix will not reinforce their case as being ground-breaking innovators in science but it may expose their general charlatanry to hopefully a few converts.

Now if only Andy would hold a seance, we'd be set.

I got the job :)

I'm on probation for 3 month (to assess our learning curves) but that's the case of all new hires in just about any company.

Alain

Congratulations, Alain!!!

Well done Alain! I'm happy for you!

@ Alain:

Congrats.
Is this in Montreal or your usual digs?

Congrats, Alain!

About water in Las Vegas: They are very proud of the fact that they put back all the water they take out of the Colorado river. (Cleaned, of course). There are a number of springs in the area (where the name comes from) that are used for the ostentatious fountains, but most of the water is used once; grey water goes on the landscaping, it's cleaned in the sewage/sanitation facilities, the aquifer is topped off (it's currently full) and then everything else is sent back to the lake. They can get away with this becasue there isn't any agriculture in Las Vegas, so they're not shipping the water away in the form of vegitation.

Congratulations, Alain!

Alain -Felicitations!

the high-end call girls of San Francisco plan their vacations for that week

"Vacation? I imagine they go to a conference, so it's tax-deductible.

It's in old Montreal actually (111 Duke street) and I rented an apartment 5 minutes from there which include every dream features I wanted (see http://evosqvictoria.com ) but will be available in the last week of august so for now, I'm couching in st-hubert at my coworker's place with some evening on the plateau Mont-royal (with a friend).

At Evo, it's a student residence but 2 floors are for professionals and I'll be living on the 24th floor with a very nice view. I asked my coworker about the price (1200$/month) and they said it was cheap considering 1-: Old Montreal is not cheap, 2-: no internet or cable TV to pay (they're hooked up via fiber-optic internet) and 3-: there's already a staffed gym included (which can be very expensive elsewhere).

They also plan to offer customizable meals plans so in my case, the only thing I'll need to use the kitchen (there's one on every floors) is to make beer on the weekend :)

Alain

My New Book: High Frontiers!

cevans — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 09:00:03 +0000

My New Book: High Frontiers!

Writing for the Internet is like yelling into the void: freeing, probably more than a little cathartic, but ultimately lonely. That's not to say that I haven't made profound connections out here, but like most writers I long for a little thing with my name on it that fits in the hand, that can be passed around and earmarked, tossed away and re-discovered.

Which is why I'm so pleased to announce the existence of precisely such a little thing: my brand-new collection of essays and arcana, High Frontiers, fresh from the presses of Publication Studio:

High Frontiers brings together disparate pieces of my writing from all over the web, newly polished, lined up in a row, and illustrated: things that made their debut here on Universe, science fiction criticism and reviews from my sister blog, Space Canon, and articles originally penned for the World Science Foundation, Motherboard, SEED Magazine, and Rhizome.org. Subjects covered range from submersibles to mycology, surrealism, cyborgs, machine learning, love, and art on the moon; it includes interviews with Dr. Oliver Sacks, Trevor Paglen, and Ursula K. LeGuin, and a couple of weird poems, to be safe.

From the introduction:

Art, science, poetry, technology: these all create models for reality, chance forecasts for the future, incant their vision to the public, and ultimately inform complex nesting sets of shared truth. Science fiction is shockingly predictive, while science itself often demands broad suspension of disbelief. Those who seek to understand the ultimate nature of the universe are not only creating testable, theoretical models; increasingly, it's the questions themselves which unite us. Where do we come from? How can something come from nothing?

Publication Studio is a press based in Portland, Oregon, with outposts all over North America. They print and bind beautiful books on demand, as well as maintain a digital commons where anyone can read and annotate books for free. I'm a big fan of what they do: Publication Studio is really a laboratory for publication in its fullest sense. As they say, they're into "not just the production of books, but the production of a public." High Frontiers is available for sale on their website, in physical and DRM-free eBook versions. The physical edition designed was laid out entirely by yours truly, with a cover design by Jona Bechtolt, and it's a really delightful little object, a handsome addition to any self-respecting polymath's home library.

In 2013, we may be on the tail end of print book-making in its traditional forms, and that's a longer conversation. For the time being, I'm happy just make satisfying objects, and to find a marketplace in which to share them with people. Like Universe, this book is a labor of love, and your purchases support me (and Publication Studio) directly.

cevans Mon, 02/18/2013 - 04:00

Tags

Moving

cagapakis — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 06:26:48 +0000

Moving

Oscillator is moving to the brand new Scientific American network! I'm excited for this new opportunity and sad to be leaving my old home here. I want to give many special thanks to SEED people past and present for their help and support, in particular Nikki, Erin, Greg, Evan, and Wes. And of course I have to thank all of you who read and commented and shared and supported me here, I hope you change your RSS feeds and bookmarks and come visit me at my new spot!

cagapakis Tue, 07/05/2011 - 02:26

Tags

Announcement

Bio:Fiction

cagapakis — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:56:23 +0000

Bio:Fiction

Two videos that Patrick Boyle and I made were selected for the Bio:Fiction Film Festival! One of the prizes is an online audience award, and you can watch and rate all of the films! It's such an honor to be part of this festival and to be showing our work next to that of so many amazing artists, scientists, and filmmakers, and we would be super thrilled if you voted for us!

Here are our videos! First, the world premiere of Compound 74, a fictional documentary about a possible future of synthetic drug design through synthetic biology:

And second, the commercial we made for Ginkgo BioWorks--Who is the Engineer of the Future?

Please vote!

cagapakis Mon, 04/25/2011 - 11:56

Tags

Love it, Christina! Very cool - congratulations. Hope all is well.
-AB

I voted! My designer friends Daisy and James have video's up too, so I'll probably be blogging about it tomorrow :D

After watching most of the other submissions I found there were only one or two that could compare to 'compound 74'; definitely 5 stars for it. Excellent, entertaining work. Thanks!

'Ginkgo BioWorks' was also good, but a bit corny though. 4, because it was a funny corny.

Trouble is, the videos are presented in Flash which is a dead technology. Many hundreds of thousands of people cannot see any Flash content because they've wisely chosen to turn it off in their web browser or because they use Apple produts, and Apple has turned it off for them. Get with the program and move to HTML-5

The videos are embedded from Vimeo, which I think is changing over a lot of their videos to be HTML5 eventually. For now, I have flash disabled on my mac and I use this plugin to load youtube and vimeo videos in HTML5 instead of flash and it works great!
http://www.verticalforest.com/2010/10/27/youtube5-version-2/

Why "compound 74"?
This has been suggested as a very serious answer to the war on drugs via modifying ephedra derived biology in order to produce methamphetamine "yoghurt":
http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/adhd_yoghurt_winning_drug_war

Synthetic Biology Slam

cagapakis — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:29:22 +0000

Synthetic Biology Slam

Before you get your tickets for SB 5.0 make sure that you'll be in town for the world's first Synthetic Biology Slam!

cagapakis Sat, 04/16/2011 - 12:29

Tags

Death and the Powers is here

gboustead — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:12:45 +0000

Death and the Powers is here

The innovative new opera by Tod Machover, Death and the Powers, opens this Friday for its world premiere in Monte Carlo at Opéra Garnier de Monte-Carlo. Machover gave Festival-goers a sneak peak of this hugely ambitious work earlier this summer at the 2010 World Science Festival, which included a thought-provoking conversation with AI legend Marvin Minsky.

The opera—a brainchild of Machover's Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab in co-production with American Repertory Theatre—explores transhumanist and existential territory, such as mortality and theory of mind, as well as confronting the most fundamental question of legacy: what of ourselves do we leave behind when we die?

Plus, it's going to be really, really cool. The opera incorporates a new technology developed by MIT called "disembodied performance": an elaborate system of multidimensional sensors that allows the actors to give life-like, rich performances via inanimate components from off-stage (hello, Avatar LIVE!). Oh, and did I mention that it involves a massive animatronic chandelier and a chorus of robots?

Death and the Powers comes to the US in March. More information and tickets here.

gboustead Wed, 09/22/2010 - 06:12

Tags

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!

the WORLD TRADE CENTER PROPHECY - THE DANCE OF DEATH

youtube.com/watch?v=X0Hez25fFrg

the ungrateful bastards full of hubris...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

a bullet for your head, traitor

And finally, the *only* man in Minnesota who says there is no God has suddenly become an arbiter on mental health...

unfacts.org/factsforum/viewtopic.php?t=4080

COME SEE A PHOTO OF MABUS AND AN EXPLANATION OF IT!

Sounds pretty cool! I might just buy some tickets.

i agree you Brian. ;)

Regards

Meet Ginkgo BioWorks!

cagapakis — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:28:14 +0000

Meet Ginkgo BioWorks!

Our friends at Ginkgo BioWorks are hiring and they asked Hydrocalypse Industries to make them a video! Who Is the Bioengineer of the Future?

It could be you!

cagapakis Thu, 09/16/2010 - 16:28

Tags

Great video! Hilarious as always.

Science in the News

cagapakis — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:15:02 +0000

Science in the News

The new season of Science in the News starts next week with a great schedule of science lectures by Harvard grad students free and open to the public. If you're in the Boston area, definitely check it out!

Here's the schedule:

September 22: Evidence-based Medicine: A Case Study of Vaccines and Autism
September 29: Bots That Mimic Bugs: Flying, Crawling, and Squishy Robots
October 6: You Are What Your Mother Ate: The New Science of Epigenetics
October 13: Beyond Agribusiness: New and Old Ways to Grow Food
October 20: The Laser Turns 50: A Brief History and New Frontiers
October 27: Forget-Me-Not: How Memories Are Formed and Lost
November 3: Our Microbial Organ: The Good and Bad Bugs of the Human Gut
November 10: The Science of Dogs: History, Psychology, and Genetics of Man's Best Friend
November 17: Star Power: New Ways to Harvest Energy from our Sun

cagapakis Mon, 09/13/2010 - 10:15

Tags

Broadcast: The Search for Life

gboustead — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:09:45 +0000

Broadcast: The Search for Life

Update: The broadcast went really well. Thanks to everyone for participating. You can check out the replay and transcript with Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak here â Stay tuned for more interactive broadcasts to come. We've got some dingers lined up...

Join us tomorrow for a special interactive broadcast of The Search for Life in the Universe, originally taped during the 2010 World Science Festival. Accompanying the broadcast, we're very excited to have live commentary and a Q/A session with the SETI Institute's Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak.

Are we alone? It’s a question that has obsessed us for centuries, and now we have the technology to do more than wonder. From the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, NY, scientists on the hunt for distant planets and extraterrestrial intelligence discuss their expeditions into faraway galaxies and barely visible realms. Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse moderates this eye-opening conversation with Jill Tarter, David Charbonneau, Steven Squyres, and Michael Russell to contemplate what it would mean to have company in the cosmos.

Join the conversation!
During the 90-minute online broadcast, we'll have live commentary from SETI Institute director Jill Tarter and astronomer Seth Shostak. Immediately after the program, there will be a follow-up discussion and Q/A session with these two scientists at the cutting-edge of the search for life in our universe. You can join the conversation by logging into the chat, or by using your Facebook or Twitter account.

You can also send in your questions via email or by Twitter (@WorldSciFest), and we'll ask the scientists our favorites. And you can check back to read the transcript, even if you miss the broadcast.

Jill Tarter has devoted her career to hunting for signs of sentient beings through a systematic search for radio signals from Earth's galactic neighbors. Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and she was the inspiration for Jodie Foster's character in the movie Contact.

Seth Shostak is an astronomer, lecturer, and the author and editor of several books, including the 2009 Confessions of an Alien Hunter. The Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute, he hosts the institute's weekly science radio show, Are We Alone?

Tune in to worldsciencefestival.com on Wednesday, September 8, at 3:00 PM EDT to watch the show

Image courtesy of Jill Tarter and the SETI Institute.

gboustead Tue, 09/07/2010 - 06:09

Tags

Announcement

SETI

Very well done! though the stream was not constant (i bet that will get better with experience), the solution of the broadcast together with the chat session is really nicely done!

Thank you

Danielle

Yes, that was fun! Thanks for joining the conversation, Danielle!

As for the stream quality, what sort of issues were you having exactly? If you had at least 500kbs of bandwidth, I'm very surprised to hear you were having streaming problems. With thousands of viewers watching the broadcast, the feedback on stream success has been mostly positive; so I'd like to suss out the cases where it didn't work.

Thanks again,
Greg

Hi Greg,

Hmm, well what happened was that it just stopped a lot, and sometimes indeed had to be restarted by pause and restart, and sometimes started again on its own. It got better later in the broadcast (maybe less people logged on then, not sure if that could have been influencing it?)

If you like we could do some testing, i have "high speed" (30mb) wireless access (through apple airport) which should be good enough (we can upgrade the speed to 120mb already, but i never had the need for it). I am not an expert on the subject, but if you like to, i gladly help out (you know the email address ;-)

Greetings!

Danielle

It's very cool! Using...

I'll go on twitter and write all that I think of it

The topic about life is always an interesting discussion.Every person has their own explanation of what is life.There is no specific meaning but depends on how you appreciate and look on to it.For me,life is a mission from God.

Might have to use my twitter for this. This is just one of the questions in my mind that does not have a clear answer yet, have to watch to that video for me to tell if there's another life form outside our planet.

Ne oldu da Hmm, sadece ve Ã§ok durdu ki bazen gerÃ§ekten durdurma ve yeniden baÅlatma ile yeniden baÅlatÄ±lmasÄ± gerekiyordu ve bazen de kendi baÅÄ±na tekrar baÅlandÄ±. Bu yayÄ±n daha sonra daha iyi (deÄil emin eÄer etkileyen olabilirdi sonra oturum belki daha az insan?) Var

From time to time, university students don't realize that research papers writing is really essential issue. Nevertheless, I opine that a professional essay writing service uk will be able to assist everybody.

The fact that Jill Tarter has devoted her career to hunting for signs of sentient beings through a systematic search for radio signals from Earth's galactic neighbors is totally awesome.I've been doing that since I was a kid. I actually just signed my kid up for a contest with The Afterschool awards. I'm hoping they might like the video I made of his invention (a new APP) & he might win a scholarship.