Interesting findings on the internet

[bd139]

You are a lovely and very kind person.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Honourable death etc etc

[mnementh]

Jeez guys, I didn't post it as if it were fact; just as an interesting idea that bears watching.

I'll wait to see if the study on this approach that is supposedly in progress bears any fruit.

I have a lot of problems with the deeply paternalistic nature of western medicine, which assumes all other views are pure fantasy and focuses on "fix what's broken" with rough carpentry and chemical concoctions we don't fully understand as if the human body were a faulty automobile rather than taking a preventive approach, while at the same time promoting "diet" and "hygiene" concepts that are utterly ridiculous if one steps back and actually looks at them.

That is all I'm willing to say at this point.

mnem
fuck; I feel like I'm back on eevBlog.

[tggzzz]

I see no reason a "matriarchal nature" would be any better. Swings and roundabouts, and all that.

Western medicine doesn't assume all other views are fantasy. On the contrary, they are continually seeking new remedies wherever they might be found. Sometimes they are successful, and such "folk remedies" are then given a new name: medicine. Famous example: phages in Georgia, as a possible addition to antibiotics.

The "fix rather than prevent" structure is indeed sub-optimal, and many health organisations and politicians recognise that and have struggled to address that issue. Often it comes down to a variant of Conway's Law, viz "Organizations who design systems, are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication/financial structures of these organizations." Find your way around that and you will become as rich as Croesus.

Many of the suggestions from the nutrition industry are indeed suspect, to say the least. Nonetheless many problems are caused or exacerbated by being overweight, and to that extent it is laudable to promote practices that help reduce overweight. Ditto being underweight.

[bd139]

Medicine needs to retain objectivity, otherwise it'll become a social science and we know where that leads to...

eaaso77kqxy61.jpg

But the prevent versus cure thing is an interesting point. It's difficult to be objective without being cruel, killing people or running out of money which is all a bugger. So things generally optimised for somewhere that pisses the least amount of people off if possible, starting usually with middle management, followed by suppliers.

Nutrition is a good example as you say of non-science. I mean it's quite easy to balance your nutrition and live a healthy life. The general thing is don't get fat and don't eat crap. Not difficult. Not sure how they made a field out of the rest of the faff. Oh yes by inventing bullshit to retain relevance. Really the psychology around it is where it all goes wrong. Unfortunately, psychology suffers from being mostly terrible research put together by morons and peer reviewed and published by people trying to keep the field alive.

[tggzzz]

Nutrition is a good example as you say of non-science. I mean it's quite easy to balance your nutrition and live a healthy life. The general thing is don't get fat and don't eat crap. Not difficult.

Except that the definition of "crap" and "how not to get fat" changes. I remember when carbohydrates (bread, pasta, ...) were the Thing To Avoid. Now, can you give a simple definition of "ultra-processed food" which stands up to 30s scrutiny? Thought not.

For many people it isn't easy to balance their nutrition, even if you ignore those that simply don't have enough money to eat well. Why? I suspect it is a combination of many things, including not being able to do anything involving numbers. Example: if the nutrition label says X kcal/100g and they have a 220g portion, then how many calories are they guzzling? Or "forgetting" to include the calories in drinks in the pub.

Hell's teeth, even the obvious escapes people: if you are getting fatter, it doesn't matter how many calories you are getting, you simply have to guzzle fewer.

Not sure how they made a field out of the rest of the faff. Oh yes by inventing bullshit to retain relevance. Really the psychology around it is where it all goes wrong. Unfortunately, psychology suffers from being mostly terrible research put together by morons and peer reviewed and published by people trying to keep the field alive.

With nutrition it can be worse than that. The good science is often based on epidemiological studies, which are notoriously ambiguous. The bad science is based on tiny test-tube studies extrapolated beyond all reason, especially where money can be extracted from the "worried well".

As for qualifications, Ben Goldacre had fun with Dr Gillian McKeith when he put it “to give her full medical title, 'Gillian McKeith'”. Someone complained about her for advertising herself as "Dr", and won: the ASA forced her to stop.

[BU508A]

fuck; I feel like I'm back on eevBlog.

Do you want us to ask gnif, if he wants to step in?

[bd139]

fuck; I feel like I'm back on eevBlog.

Do you want us to ask gnif, if he wants to step in?

<< insert rude comment of choice >>

[mnementh]

That whole toxic ecosystem is so far in the past now it doesn't even register on my RADAR.

mnem
and I like it that way.

[vk6zgo]

I'd been a good operator and made a flawless manual punch. It did not, however play a little melody as I pressed down the key.

I had a principle of not admitting I could type, except for programming.

Wasn't playing tunes traditionally done on the line printer?

The nearest I have is a tape of an Elliott 803 playing music by blipping a loudspeaker whenever it did one operation (ISTR). Given that the instruction time was 576µs, the higher notes tended to be distinctly flat

The "playing tunes" was a Kraftwerk reference:

I'm the operator with my pocket calculator
I'm the operator with my pocket calculator
I am adding
And subtracting
I'm controlling
And composing
I'm the operator with my pocket calculator
I'm the operator with my pocket calculator
I am adding
And subtracting
I'm controlling
And composing
By pressing down a special key
It plays a little melody
By pressing down a special key
It plays a little melody
I'm the operator with my pocket calculator
I'm the operator with my pocket calculator

On playing music with computers, the traditional way seems to have been to place some susceptible equipment (possibly a broadcast or comms radio receiver) close by and writing programs that create EMI / RFI emissions that can be picked up, demodulated and played back as audio. I had a project manager at Ericsson 25 years ago who'd done that back in the 60s, to alert him that batch jobs had run to completion; he rigged a speaker so as to hear the machine, and could then wake up as the sound changed when the batch had been run -- the idle loop apparently sounded distinctively different.

On making music, the IBM 1401 was used as inspiration, music making machine, and subject matter on the album "IBM1401" by the late Johann Johannsson, an Icelandic musician first known as member of the Apparat Organ Quartet, later as solo artist in a number of projects.

Well worth a listen.

The VFT on the old Perth to Melbourne HF ISB system was distinctly different between idle & in service, so I guess a stock VFT telegraph unit could have been hung onto an old computer to listen to.

Funny thing, Radio Techs seem to have been the only people to actually listen to VFT telegraph tones.
They were all over the place in Long Line systems, but their Techs only looked at them with dedicated instruments.

Off topic, but I knew a guy back then who could read Baudot by ear---a very rare & comparatively useless ability.

[Specmaster]

That whole toxic ecosystem is so far in the past now it doesn't even register on my RADAR.

mnem
and I like it that way.

Yes, it is so nice and peaceful here, and we can chat about anything we like without some a***hole complaining about us, what a breathe of fresh air this is. Long may it continue.

[bd139]

That whole toxic ecosystem is so far in the past now it doesn't even register on my RADAR.

mnem
and I like it that way.

Yes, it is so nice and peaceful here, and we can chat about anything we like without some a***hole complaining about us, what a breathe of fresh air this is. Long may it continue.

Yeah this.

Also considerably fewer crackheads on here

[vk6zgo]

Nutrition is a good example as you say of non-science. I mean it's quite easy to balance your nutrition and live a healthy life. The general thing is don't get fat and don't eat crap. Not difficult.

Except that the definition of "crap" and "how not to get fat" changes. I remember when carbohydrates (bread, pasta, ...) were the Thing To Avoid. Now, can you give a simple definition of "ultra-processed food" which stands up to 30s scrutiny? Thought not.

For many people it isn't easy to balance their nutrition, even if you ignore those that simply don't have enough money to eat well. Why? I suspect it is a combination of many things, including not being able to do anything involving numbers. Example: if the nutrition label says X kcal/100g and they have a 220g portion, then how many calories are they guzzling? Or "forgetting" to include the calories in drinks in the pub.

Hell's teeth, even the obvious escapes people: if you are getting fatter, it doesn't matter how many calories you are getting, you simply have to guzzle fewer.

Not sure how they made a field out of the rest of the faff. Oh yes by inventing bullshit to retain relevance. Really the psychology around it is where it all goes wrong. Unfortunately, psychology suffers from being mostly terrible research put together by morons and peer reviewed and published by people trying to keep the field alive.

With nutrition it can be worse than that. The good science is often based on epidemiological studies, which are notoriously ambiguous. The bad science is based on tiny test-tube studies extrapolated beyond all reason, especially where money can be extracted from the "worried well".

As for qualifications, Ben Goldacre had fun with Dr Gillian McKeith when he put it “to give her full medical title, 'Gillian McKeith'”. Someone complained about her for advertising herself as "Dr", and won: the ASA forced her to stop.

Many GPs don't really have a Doctorate if it comes to that-----they are Bachelors of Medicine, but we call them Doctor as a courtesy title.

[bd139]

Indeed. Medical professionals here (of all sorts) tend not to use Dr as a title formally unless they do have the title, and then most of them don't use that anyway if they do.

Ex bd140 was a Dr of Philosophy, so also not a proper one, and did not use the title unless it was for being facetious, something which she couldn't quite contextually get right being German!

[tggzzz]

Many GPs don't really have a Doctorate if it comes to that-----they are Bachelors of Medicine, but we call them Doctor as a courtesy title.

And surgeons aren't even doctors.

Indeed. Medical professionals here (of all sorts) tend not to use Dr as a title formally unless they do have the title, and then most of them don't use that anyway if they do.

Whatever type of doctorate, it is sometimes useful to use it to ensure other professionals realise you aren't a pleb. That's the only reason I might have wanted one.

[AVGresponding]

https://odysee.com/@TheSignalPath:d/tsp ... r-module:1

[bd139]

Good page. Covers the Nike Computer (missile control / guidance) analogue computer!

https://www.ed-thelen.org/computer.html

[mnementh]

That whole toxic ecosystem is so far in the past now it doesn't even register on my RADAR.

mnem
and I like it that way.

Yes, it is so nice and peaceful here, and we can chat about anything we like without some a***hole complaining about us, what a breathe of fresh air this is. Long may it continue.

Yeah this.

Also considerably fewer crackheads on here

Yeah, you and I are about it. And we're mostly manageable.

mnem

[BU508A]

Cory Doctorow:
Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" (08 Dec 2023)

Source:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/play ... james-hill

[Specmaster]

Cory Doctorow:
Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" (08 Dec 2023)

Source:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/play ... james-hill

I agree with that as well, if you pay money for something then you do expect that it actually belongs to you and is yours to do what you want with it. If the vendors cannot accept that is the case then they need to make it crystal clear to you that you do not actually own it, but are infact just leasing it.

[AVGresponding]

EDIT: #fuckphpBB

[mnementh]

There you go, brother.

mnem
Actually, not half-bad.

[BU508A]

Do we have some Toyota fans here?

https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corpo ... 38738.html

Quote:
"The investigation found new irregularities in 174 items within 25 test categories, in addition to the door lining irregularity in April and the side collision test irregularity in May. These encompassed a total of 64 models and 3 engines of vehicles (total of models currently being produced, developed, or ceased in production), including 22 models and 1 engine being sold by Toyota."

[MED6753]

Do we have some Toyota fans here?

https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corpo ... 38738.html

Quote:
"The investigation found new irregularities in 174 items within 25 test categories, in addition to the door lining irregularity in April and the side collision test irregularity in May. These encompassed a total of 64 models and 3 engines of vehicles (total of models currently being produced, developed, or ceased in production), including 22 models and 1 engine being sold by Toyota."

Looks like heads will roll.

[bd139]

Some gold...

https://archive.org/details/OUBBCT283Ep ... onics).mp4

[BU508A]

High Voltage pendulum:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0wKYvyo ... 5rZw%3D%3D