Interesting findings on the internet

[vk6zgo]

I always regard rebranding as a negative. Either there is something to forget, or the managers know something isn't right but don't know what to do. That leads to "something must be done, this is something, this must be done".

I apologise if I've told y'all this anecdote before.

I used to work with a salesman, Nick, who in a former job had sold custom carpets, the sort with a made-to-order pattern in them, often a company name or logo. Nick discerned a pattern in one sub-class of his sales; when he sold a carpet complete with corporate branding to a company that was refurbishing its reception area in more than half the instances that company folded within 6 months.

When I was at the TV Studio, from time to time we would do major OBs, which entailed someone sitting on a hill setting up microwave links, baby sitting them all day, then derigging them, & the same the next day.

Often, someone would have to sit in a Toyota Hi Ace all day, but at one place we obtained access to the former Bond Corporation land sales office, which was perched on the side of the Darling Scarp, with a magnificent view.

We could bring the link gear back into the building, so there was a lot less "derigging" involved, the place was airconditioned & generally it was a soft job.
The whole sales office was palatial, with Bond Corp patterned carpets, & a magnificent Jarrah desk, supplemented by very comfortable swivel chairs.
Looking back at the timeline of this place, it seemed that its construction didn't precede Bond Corp's precipitous disappearance "down the gurgler" by very much.

[tggzzz]

I always regard rebranding as a negative. Either there is something to forget, or the managers know something isn't right but don't know what to do. That leads to "something must be done, this is something, this must be done".

I apologise if I've told y'all this anecdote before.

I used to work with a salesman, Nick, who in a former job had sold custom carpets, the sort with a made-to-order pattern in them, often a company name or logo. Nick discerned a pattern in one sub-class of his sales; when he sold a carpet complete with corporate branding to a company that was refurbishing its reception area in more than half the instances that company folded within 6 months.

When I was at the TV Studio, from time to time we would do major OBs, which entailed someone sitting on a hill setting up microwave links, baby sitting them all day, then derigging them, & the same the next day.

Often, someone would have to sit in a Toyota Hi Ace all day, but at one place we obtained access to the former Bond Corporation land sales office, which was perched on the side of the Darling Scarp, with a magnificent view.

We could bring the link gear back into the building, so there was a lot less "derigging" involved, the place was airconditioned & generally it was a soft job.
The whole sales office was palatial, with Bond Corp patterned carpets, & a magnificent Jarrah desk, supplemented by very comfortable swivel chairs.
Looking back at the timeline of this place, it seemed that its construction didn't precede Bond Corp's precipitous disappearance "down the gurgler" by very much.

I was once involved in assessing a potential client. On entering the office reception they had wall-to-ceiling(!) carpet and a tall blonde receptionist with legs that went all the way up to her armpits.

The company had sold a novel microfilm document (remember them?) retrieval system concept to the Saudi national library for delivery in 9 months. They hadn't started development, and their salesman (a Mr Cohen, no less) wanted my company to enter into a contract with a stiff penalty clause. Unsurprisingly we declined to quote.

[vk6zgo]

I was just over on "the other place"----No, not the Australian Senate Chamber, but EEVBlog.

In their "Projects" section, there is a seriously weird guy called "artbyrobot", who purports to be building a humanoid robot.
His methods are very unlikely to be successful, he knows very little electronics & won't listen to anyone, proclaiming people who question his methods to be "haters"
He has form for slathering his nonsense across multiple forums as well as Youtube & to make it even worse, he is a "God Botherer".

After reading through his thread & trying to engage him several times, I suggested he be banned.
Sometime later, I came across a separate thread discussing him, including several people who had made the same suggestion as me, but Dave & the moderators seem to be handling him with "kid gloves".

I posted, contrasting this treatment with the heavy handedness which led to the exodus of TE Anonymous folks from EEV Blog.

I suppose I, too, am an "Enemy of the people" now!

[tggzzz]

Artbyrobot is indeed, um, a misguided twat (That's me being diplomatic). He is amusing for a short time (cf treez/etc), but becomes tiresome.

His first thread was locked because of bothering one particular dog, so he instantly created another thread. I long ago marked that thread as "ignore", and am surprised it has continued so long. I am slightly surprised he hasn't been banned; presumably he has avoided referring to deities.

Maybe the experience of the exodus has shaped the mods' responses. They wouldn't be out of keeping with the "light touch".

[bd139]

Eh wait until you see what one of my colleagues is working on. I'd post the video but it will turn into a meme rather quickly. Makes that guy look like a genius.

Edit: I should extrapolate.. Basically owning a 3d printer and printing a human sized head, inserting a USB web camera creepily into a slot in the forehead while maintaining white printed eyes, then being able to roughly drive some off the shelf computer vision software with python, then hiring some guy in the Ukraine to do a marketing video with lower production values of a North Korean propaganda video does not make you a viable robotics startup.

[AVGresponding]

I was just over on "the other place"----No, not the Australian Senate Chamber, but EEVBlog.

In their "Projects" section, there is a seriously weird guy called "artbyrobot", who purports to be building a humanoid robot.
His methods are very unlikely to be successful, he knows very little electronics & won't listen to anyone, proclaiming people who question his methods to be "haters"
He has form for slathering his nonsense across multiple forums as well as Youtube & to make it even worse, he is a "God Botherer".

After reading through his thread & trying to engage him several times, I suggested he be banned.
Sometime later, I came across a separate thread discussing him, including several people who had made the same suggestion as me, but Dave & the moderators seem to be handling him with "kid gloves".

I posted, contrasting this treatment with the heavy handedness which led to the exodus of TE Anonymous folks from EEV Blog.

I suppose I, too, am an "Enemy of the people" now!

Yeah, I chided Dave for implying the problems that caused the TEApocalypse were down to the ones that left

[Specmaster]

I was just over on "the other place"----No, not the Australian Senate Chamber, but EEVBlog.

In their "Projects" section, there is a seriously weird guy called "artbyrobot", who purports to be building a humanoid robot.
His methods are very unlikely to be successful, he knows very little electronics & won't listen to anyone, proclaiming people who question his methods to be "haters"
He has form for slathering his nonsense across multiple forums as well as Youtube & to make it even worse, he is a "God Botherer".

After reading through his thread & trying to engage him several times, I suggested he be banned.
Sometime later, I came across a separate thread discussing him, including several people who had made the same suggestion as me, but Dave & the moderators seem to be handling him with "kid gloves".

I posted, contrasting this treatment with the heavy handedness which led to the exodus of TE Anonymous folks from EEV Blog.

I suppose I, too, am an "Enemy of the people" now!

Yeah, I chided Dave for implying the problems that caused the TEApocalypse were down to the ones that left

Yeah, odd then that we have not managed to blow our current home apart then, so maybe we were the sensible grown-ups after all then?

[AVGresponding]

The stupid thing is he and the other admin/mods openly admitted they weren't intimately familiar with the quirks and flow of it... still no point in rehashing it here either.

I will note that he didn't have a comeback on that, though he did challenge me to provide evidence that the weird bible-bashing android building nutjob had been rude to people -facepalm-

I will also note that I made, what I though, a quite innocuous comment on a Franlab video lately, and got a very snarky reply from Fran. So, no more comments from me there, and no surprise the channel and their business in general struggle to survive, with an attitude like that.

[tggzzz]

Yeah, odd then that we have not managed to blow our current home apart then, so maybe we were the sensible grown-ups after all then?

Oh, steady on there!

Once a group reaches a certain size, a schism becomes ?exponentially?Arrhennius? more likely. Easily visible in churches, Californian hippy communes, companies, etc.

[vk6zgo]

Maybe the Holy Roller robot builder has a following because everything else on the forum has become dead boring!

They seem to be determined to remove any vestige of the old EEVBlog, with a lot of political posts of the favoured kind these days, but disagree & you are firmly told "no politics'!

I left AAC because they let some people run rampant, but now It seems to have happened in Dave's place, too!

[AVGresponding]

Yeah, you're not allowed to disagree with Dave about "wokeism", and there's a lot of Musk fanboyism where they'll attack you en masse if you dare to criticise it. I'm afraid alternative facts are the norm on subjects like that now.

[bd139]

Please don't use "alternative facts". It propels the ridiculous double-think ideology. To use an analogy, if alternative medicine worked it would be called medicine.

It's lies and ignorance and nothing else.

[tggzzz]

Please don't use "alternative facts". It propels the ridiculous double-think ideology. To use an analogy, if alternative medicine worked it would be called medicine.

It's lies and ignorance and nothing else.

Seconded - with an exception if it is ".... 'alternative facts' (cf true facts) ...".

The current situation was all accurately foreshadowed in Babylon 5, where some episodes were politically terrifying 30 years ago. Just a 2:40 taster: "real facts" vs "good facts"

Of course JMS wasn't inventing the concepts himself: he was "merely" being inspired by history.

Oh, I've occasionally tweaking those with a natural/alternative/etc bent. I start off by showing sympathy by noting that we should never forget that many "alternative medicine" remedies are indeed effective. I then put the knife in by pointing out that they are so important that they are given a special name: "medicine".

[Cerebus]

Oh, I've occasionally tweaking those with a natural/alternative/etc bent. I start off by showing sympathy by noting that we should never forget that many "alternative medicine" remedies are indeed effective. I then put the knife in by pointing out that they are so important that they are given a special name: "medicine".

I tend to disagree here. It's an established fact that placebos are a highly effective treatment in some circumstances and with some conditions. However, with modern labelling regulations it's neigh on impossible for a doctor to write an illegible prescription in Latin and have the pharmacist hand over a bottle of medicine that says "The tablets, take one twice daily" and contains nothing more active than a little glucose and a lot of microcrystaline cellulose. They can however say "I know a good homeopath and I've found homeopathy particularly effective for this condition, go and see them". So I'd argue for a strategic lightening up on harmless fringe therapies, else where is a proper medic going to send people for a decent placebo?

Sadly I'm completely unsuitable for placebo treatment which is bloody annoying because I have at least one real medical condition (dermatalogical) that responds very well to placebo treatment and is notoriously intractable with conventional treatment up to and including systemic retinoids - which are horrible, horrible drugs as I can tell you from personal experience.

[tggzzz]

Oh, I've occasionally tweaking those with a natural/alternative/etc bent. I start off by showing sympathy by noting that we should never forget that many "alternative medicine" remedies are indeed effective. I then put the knife in by pointing out that they are so important that they are given a special name: "medicine".

I tend to disagree here. It's an established fact that placebos are a highly effective treatment in some circumstances and with some conditions. However, with modern labelling regulations it's neigh on impossible for a doctor to write an illegible prescription in Latin and have the pharmacist hand over a bottle of medicine that says "The tablets, take one twice daily" and contains nothing more active than a little glucose and a lot of microcrystaline cellulose. They can however say "I know a good homeopath and I've found homeopathy particularly effective for this condition, go and see them". So I'd argue for a strategic lightening up on harmless fringe therapies, else where is a proper medic going to send people for a decent placebo?

Sadly I'm completely unsuitable for placebo treatment which is bloody annoying because I have at least one real medical condition (dermatalogical) that responds very well to placebo treatment and is notoriously intractable with conventional treatment up to and including systemic retinoids - which are horrible, horrible drugs as I can tell you from personal experience.

Placebos (worse: nocebos) are the bottom end of acceptable. "No better than a placebo" is a phrase used for good reason.

Fundamentally many conditions resolve themselves in a few weeks - hence the frequent phrase "... but see your doctor if you condition has not improved within three weeks". By then some people will have take ineffective "remedies", and will fall prey to the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy.

if you think homeopathic remedies are harmless, clearly you are unaware that dangerous claims are made for them. The classic one is homeopathic malaria pills, but there are far too many others.

[bd139]

Oh, I've occasionally tweaking those with a natural/alternative/etc bent. I start off by showing sympathy by noting that we should never forget that many "alternative medicine" remedies are indeed effective. I then put the knife in by pointing out that they are so important that they are given a special name: "medicine".

I tend to disagree here. It's an established fact that placebos are a highly effective treatment in some circumstances and with some conditions. However, with modern labelling regulations it's neigh on impossible for a doctor to write an illegible prescription in Latin and have the pharmacist hand over a bottle of medicine that says "The tablets, take one twice daily" and contains nothing more active than a little glucose and a lot of microcrystaline cellulose. They can however say "I know a good homeopath and I've found homeopathy particularly effective for this condition, go and see them". So I'd argue for a strategic lightening up on harmless fringe therapies, else where is a proper medic going to send people for a decent placebo?

Sadly I'm completely unsuitable for placebo treatment which is bloody annoying because I have at least one real medical condition (dermatalogical) that responds very well to placebo treatment and is notoriously intractable with conventional treatment up to and including systemic retinoids - which are horrible, horrible drugs as I can tell you from personal experience.

Placebos are generally only effective if issued under a double blind methodology. That means fine for medical trials but it could never be effective as a generic prescription. Some doctors are terrible liars and patients will pick up on it. And of course there is also the disparity between the placebo being effective via psychosomatic means or if the problem just went away anyway.

And then there's the important consideration that picking a placebo class treatment incorrectly may have a worse heath outcome. And we all know how competent humans are, doctors included. As mentioned, some are also terrible liars, but patients won't notice.

So complex. Better to stay away from it IMHO.

If your condition is what I think it is, I had the same problem. Allergy testing showed I was allergic to nothing and I was just dumped an inhuman level of steroids to slap all over myself which did nothing. Turned out that the test was wrong and the test was just not effective. Stopped drinking milk - problem solved among others. There's probably something aggravating it but finding it will be an absolute bastard and the medical profession will be of no help at all.

[tggzzz]

Oh, I've occasionally tweaking those with a natural/alternative/etc bent. I start off by showing sympathy by noting that we should never forget that many "alternative medicine" remedies are indeed effective. I then put the knife in by pointing out that they are so important that they are given a special name: "medicine".

I tend to disagree here. It's an established fact that placebos are a highly effective treatment in some circumstances and with some conditions. However, with modern labelling regulations it's neigh on impossible for a doctor to write an illegible prescription in Latin and have the pharmacist hand over a bottle of medicine that says "The tablets, take one twice daily" and contains nothing more active than a little glucose and a lot of microcrystaline cellulose. They can however say "I know a good homeopath and I've found homeopathy particularly effective for this condition, go and see them". So I'd argue for a strategic lightening up on harmless fringe therapies, else where is a proper medic going to send people for a decent placebo?

Sadly I'm completely unsuitable for placebo treatment which is bloody annoying because I have at least one real medical condition (dermatalogical) that responds very well to placebo treatment and is notoriously intractable with conventional treatment up to and including systemic retinoids - which are horrible, horrible drugs as I can tell you from personal experience.

Placebos are generally only effective if issued under a double blind methodology. That means fine for medical trials but it could never be effective as a generic prescription. Some doctors are terrible liars and patients will pick up on it. And of course there is also the disparity between the placebo being effective via psychosomatic means or if the problem just went away anyway.

I don't think that's the case.

It is well documented that people tend to feel better after they have been listened to, reassured, and given advice how to help themselves. That's primarily a mental effect, but the mental attitude can also affect measurable physical symptoms.

That placebo effect used to be invaluable to doctors when they didn't have many effective treatments in their arsenal - and that's still within living memory.

The wellness medical industrial complex (cf Eisenhower!) is well (ho ho) aware of that, and exploits it. Disreputable.

Then there's the "influencers" beloved of the Daily Wail (and other Retch Reach media), amplified by antisocial media. Where are prison keys?

And then there's the important consideration that picking a placebo class treatment incorrectly may have a worse heath outcome. And we all know how competent humans are, doctors included. As mentioned, some are also terrible liars, but patients won't notice.

So complex. Better to stay away from it IMHO.

The complexity is why it is usually better to assume incompetence and the latest hopeful fad, rather than malice.

I think liars are rare, but I do know a relative that encountered one 40 years ago on the backwater of the Isle of Wight. They had a mystery disease that had been a problem for a year, and were proposing removing some lymph nodes. Fortunately the wife was a nurse and said "I didn't know there was any lymph involvement". "What do you mean by that?" Since there wasn't any, he didn't have the operation. It was later correctly identified as brucellosis, from drinking "green top" (unpasteurised) milk. I believe JFK Jr likes that milk, presumably to feed his brain worm.

An important life skill is trapping out any tendency to lie is important when getting all specialist advice, from car mechanics to datasheets to conslutants. It helps to instantly put across that you have an engineering mind that likes to measure, think, and understand the reasons. Thus researching in advance, with a written list of questions helps. At one point I made a comment to my PCa consultant, and he remarked that I knew more than most GPs. We had a great time, only running out of things to talk about after 45 minutes

If your condition is what I think it is, I had the same problem. Allergy testing showed I was allergic to nothing and I was just dumped an inhuman level of steroids to slap all over myself which did nothing. Turned out that the test was wrong and the test was just not effective. Stopped drinking milk - problem solved among others. There's probably something aggravating it but finding it will be an absolute bastard and the medical profession will be of no help at all.

Allergy testing is a known pig. Binary searching of dietary ingredients is not something that be easily fitted into a standard appointment

[Cerebus]

if you think homeopathic remedies are harmless, clearly you are unaware that dangerous claims are made for them. The classic one is homeopathic malaria pills, but there are far too many others.

Now there's a classic bit of putting words in someone else's mouth.

[Cerebus]

If your condition is what I think it is, I had the same problem. Allergy testing showed I was allergic to nothing and I was just dumped an inhuman level of steroids to slap all over myself which did nothing. Turned out that the test was wrong and the test was just not effective. Stopped drinking milk - problem solved among others. There's probably something aggravating it but finding it will be an absolute bastard and the medical profession will be of no help at all.

The problem is chronic nodular acne that has persisted for my whole adult life and the underlying causes are probably a combination of genetics and exterior microbiome.

Conventional treatment choices are all either not particularly effective or the side effects for effective treatment are unacceptable.

Every now and then I get fed up with it and spend another year or two with a consultant dermatologist and get some temporary improvement until I get fed up with the constant serial long term trials of different regimes that have varying noticeable and even potentially serious side effects and little to only moderate success. We're talking months and months on varying antibiotics, often ones that are better avoided, systemic retinoids and even dapsone (principally associated with treating leprosy).

The only thing that works flat out is massive systemic doses of corticosteroids which I found out only coincidentally when being treated for severe acute asthma - the risks and side effects are justifiable there as we're talking about short term treatment for a potentially life threatening situation, not so much when we're talking about something that's merely generally just annoying.

[Cerebus]

Allergy testing is a known pig. Binary searching of dietary ingredients is not something that be easily fitted into a standard appointment

That's a bit old school. Radioallergosorbent tests and fluorescence enzyme-labeled assays have been standard for quite some time now. One blood sample and you're set up to find any allergy that someone's thought to test for.

[tggzzz]

Allergy testing is a known pig. Binary searching of dietary ingredients is not something that be easily fitted into a standard appointment

That's a bit old school. Radioallergosorbent tests and fluorescence enzyme-labeled assays have been standard for quite some time now. One blood sample and you're set up to find any allergy that someone's thought to test for.

Fortunately I'm not allergic to anything beyond grass pollen and bullshit. Hence I've no need to keep up with the progress on this subject

They do appear to be a significant advance, but of course I haven't bothered to look at the weaknesses.

[AVGresponding]

Please don't use "alternative facts". It propels the ridiculous double-think ideology. To use an analogy, if alternative medicine worked it would be called medicine.

It's lies and ignorance and nothing else.

So I forgot to put them in quote marks. You know me better than that

[AVGresponding]

The problem is chronic nodular acne that has persisted for my whole adult life and the underlying causes are probably a combination of genetics and exterior microbiome.

While it's probably a bit risky to fiddle with your genes at home, you can adjust your skin biome in a non-permanent way. I managed to do this myself (not really intentionally) with broadly positive results.

I used to have really stinky armpits, and to combat this, I tried a combination (eventually) of shaving them and using rock crystal as a deodorant.
The end result of this is a change to my bacterial population locally, that persists for up to a week even if I stop using the rock crystal.
My pits are now almost odorless, with a honey-like smell for a few days, starting a couple of days after stopping the crystal (which is pretty much just alum, afaik).
Obviously, depilation removes a major bacterial growth medium too.

As I understand it, it works by making a hostile environment for bacteria, though obviously some fare better or worse than others. For me, it lucks into a huge reduction in BO, but it might easily alter your local skin bacterial biome in a beneficial way too, and if it doesn't, well the effects wear off within a couple of weeks at the most.

[mnementh]

Maybe the Holy Roller robot builder has a following because everything else on the forum has become dead boring!

They seem to be determined to remove any vestige of the old EEVBlog, with a lot of political posts of the favoured kind these days, but disagree & you are firmly told "no politics'!

I left AAC because they let some people run rampant, but now It seems to have happened in Dave's place, too!

TEA That Was is just that: TEA That Was. We were a open and accepting group, and pretty much the only thing we didn't tolerate was intolerance. That was a "hideout" in the back corner of a backwater but "mainstream" forum; "normal folk" could observe us readily and lurk and decide if they wanted to participate.

We are now a refuge "hideaway" from the bullshit that ruined TEA That Was. We are not the same as we were; we are now an island where we once were just "out in the boonies". The "ready access" for new potential members isn't there as it once was; while we have escaped the heavy-handed BS that drove us away, new membership is very slow.

OTOH, the TEA Thread there is just one more cookie-cutter thread out of zillions now... it is boring as fuck anymore. So if the problem was that "our thread wasn't neat and tidy like all the others", then yes, we who left were the problem. But we were also the reason our "nerds at play" thread was the fastest growing and most lurked thread on the server.

mnem
"You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because you're all the same."