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Comment Re:Perfection is Impossible (Score 1) 713

by EVil Lawyer (#26186219) Attached to: Trick or Treatment

Are you kidding? Medicine isn't perfect and never will be but modern medicine has doubled life expectancies in the last 100 years, cured/prevented countless diseases, improved quality of life, and saved many millions of lives. It's one of the greatest triumphs of humanity and you are saying the record isn't there? I say you are a grade-A fool if you think that.

I'm a huge fan of / big believer in modern medicine, but there is good reason to believe that much of the increase in lifespan is due to improved sanitation of our living environments and foodsources.

Comment Re:oscillococcinum (Score 1) 713

by EVil Lawyer (#26176773) Attached to: Trick or Treatment
Would be interesting to see them maufacturing this stuff. I wonder if they go through the trouble of actually getting some duck liver, extracting its 'essence' or whatever, and diluting 200 times... of if they just put some sugar into pill form and call it good enough.

Comment oscillococcinum (Score 2, Informative) 713

by EVil Lawyer (#26174667) Attached to: Trick or Treatment
FTFR: "If one looks at the content of oscillococcinum, a homeopathic alternative marketed to relieve influenza-like symptoms, the packaging states that each gram of medication contains 0.85 grams of sucrose and 0.15 grams of lactose. Sucrose and lactose are simply forms of sugar, of which oscillococcinum is nothing more than am expensive sugar pill."

Um, it does contain both .85 grams of sucrose and .15 grams of lactose, but those are only the "inactive" ingredients. The supposedly active ingredients are "200CK Anas barbariae hepatis," or heart and liver of the Muscovy duck. Whatever that is. I'm not saying I think it works (though they do have clinical data showing some benefit over placebo), but that the reviewer is wrong that it's ONLY a sugar pill.
The Internet

Submission + - The Curious Histories of Generic Domain Names (itworld.com)

Submitted by cheezitmike
cheezitmike writes: ITworld.com uses the Wayback Machine to document the histories of five generic domain names: music.com, eat.com, car.com, meat.com, and milk.com. "In this brave new Web 2.0 world, it's almost a badge of honor to have a Web site name that only hints at what the user will find there (see Flickr) or is so opaque as to offer no clue at all as to what the Web site is about (see del.icio.us). It's easy to forget the first Internet gold rush of the mid-to-late '90s, when dot-com domain names based on ordinary (and, investors hoped, marketable) nouns and verbs were snapped up by hopeful companies from the humble geeks who had purchased them (often ironically) in the early '90s."
Education

Submission + - GameStop manager suspended after 'games for grades (kvue.com)

Submitted by
mikesd81
mikesd81 writes: "A local Austin, Texas ABC affiliate, KVUE, reports about a manager at a GameStop that was suspended for instituting a "games for grades" policy. From the article: " Brandon Scott says he started a unique new policy in his store to promote good grades in school but now his employer has sent him to detention for speaking out of turn. Scott says he's been suspended by GameStop in the wake of his unconventional "games for grades" policy at an Oak Cliff store. " Apparently, on his own, Scott decided to stop selling video games to any school-age customer unless an adult would vouch for the student's good grades."
United States

Submission + - Why don't people work? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "While there is a multibillion dollar industry out there that tracks every move of the working public, what nonworkers are doing remains somewhat of a mystery, according to the US Census Bureau. Today the agency released an interesting study that looks extensively at why people don't work. For example, for nonworkers 25 to 44 years of age, taking care of children or others was the main reason — 44% — for not working at a paid job. Nearly 2 out of 5 or 38% nonworkers 45 to 54 years old did not work because of a chronic illness or disability. Men nonworkers were more likely than women nonworkers to be retired or going to school. Almost 5% of respondents said they had no interest in work. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/19618"
Communications

Where In the US Can You Get Just a Cell Phone? 505

Posted by kdawson from the no-bell-no-whistle dept.
arakon writes "I am looking around for a cell phone for my technically challenged mother and all she wants is just a phone, and yet there seem to be no carriers in the US that carry a plain cell phone with good reception and battery life. All of them bundle cameras, PDAs, MP3 players, and a kitchen sink with a battery life of 2 hours, all for the low price of $350 or more... Having looked around, the Motorola F3 is exactly what she wants but it doesn't seem to be available in the US. If we order it online will it work on US carriers? Are there any comparable products out there with a similar feature set and price range available for US networks?"

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