I'm not saying you're wrong, but a journalist, Nick Davies, has built an entire book on media distortion and starts with the Y2K brouhaha and argues the opposite of what you're saying about media types.

He argues that billions that governments spent avoiding the mostly fairly minor consequences of the vast majority of non-mission critical computers thinking it's the wrong date were whipped up by lazy journalists wanting easy copy: http://www.flatearthnews.net/chapter-one-bug-ate-world

He ends with "This is Flat Earth news. A story appears to be true. It is widely accepted as true. It becomes a heresy to suggest that it is not true - even if it is riddled with falsehood, distortion and propaganda".

At least with TomTom, the underlying OS is Linux anyway. (Hence all that hoo-hah with Microsoft over the FAT patents. TomTom was using FAT on their solid state media).

Try enforcing that. PR firms supply newspapers with no end of bullshit spun to their clients' message. Time-poor journalists, under stress often end up churnalizing it. Bullshit pseudoscience turns up in good newspapers and people believe it... as they read it in the 'paper. It's one hell of a battle to keep that nonsense out of the media.

No, the libel laws are busted; overall, the legal system, while not perfect, isn't. I might as well say the American legal system is busted since there are many frivolous lawsuits. But it wouldn't make it true, based on an evidence pile of n=1.

Rule out the placebo effect from your anecdote and I'll listen. Or is that burden of proof too high? It certainly seems to be (IMHO) for chiropractors.

It's not even the first example of iPhone app devs nicking wood effect graphics from other iPhone apps -- in this earlier case, e-book readers. Twitter sold it to the media something good.

You learn something new every day. Shame someone moderated me as trolling in the process, but nevertheless, cool!

Yes it is true. Meta-analyses reveal what the individual trials do not. If I wasn't typing this on my phone I'd direct you to the correct Cochrane Collaboration review on the matter. Meta analyses reveal what smaller individual trials cannot. In mild to moderate depression, ssris fail to be better than placebo. Furthermore, yes, lots of research has gone in to which placebo route of administration works best. The more painful the better. Ebocalp pills (the ones I've seen in the UK) are cool-- pink seems to work best. May I direct you to the archives of badscience.net for both details on both matters?

I may be reading some political bias that isn't there into that statement, but... A "liberal arts degree"?

What are you trying to say? That degrees that get you "proper" jobs are Conservative? Or that degrees that once were thought to be worth something but were over-sold and after a financial crisis are now next-to-worthless "conservative" degrees?!

I'd contest that SSRIs (or SNRIs) are much use in anxiety. Frankly, large meta-analyses of trials show that this class of drug is of no benefit over placebo in mild-to-moderate depression, and not much better in severe depression. Over placebo is the key bit here. Most of the benefits are the placebo effect -- an effect that seems to be in the mind, and works better on psych illnesses than others.

Now, take that placebo and create a new market for it. "Generalised Anxiety Disorder". That's classic example of a "creeping indication" of a drug./P

The reason why more than 2g acetaminophen kills you is that your liver has finite supplies of glucuronide, that it attaches to the drug. When that runs out, the other metabolic pathways (I forget which) cause the formation of free radicals that kill you. Glucuronide is cheap, and can be added to packs for little cost. Why hasn't it...?

You might be lucky. You may have an underactive thyroid gland leading to your slow metabolism. A quick blood test of T3/T4 levels will pretty much diagnose if this is the case; some thyroxin pills will sort you out pretty quickly.

My tip, if it ain't that, don't carry any money that can be spent in vending machines!

Windows Live Mesh?

It works on Macs, Windows PCs, and mobile devices, (apparently, but I do use it on the first two happily). Could you not share your desktop folders on your devices, and get MS to sync it all for you? Alas, Linux is excluded. 5Gb space online last time I looked.

The answers from slashdot's finest are equally applicable to freedom-wanting Iranians or people wanting to coordinate an attack on, say, americal soldiers in Iraq.

Hmm. I always understood it to be way more complex than that. The immune system not only mops up pathogens, but also errant cells that are then programmer to die.

Also, cancer isn't a binary yes we bad cells escape this, or don't, but a relative ratio of escaping the body's safety mechanisms to being mopped up. But then, I'm no expert these days. But I was Reading a cyclosporin patient information leaflet, and cancer spreading is one adverse event you're warned about. I'm worried Steve has had this because his quality of life will ne better in the short term, but ultately he will die faster. I really hop the wsj is wrong and Steve isn't suffering.