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Comment Re:This is what most fortune 500 companies want! (Score 1) 926

Because doing things "the company way" (read: The BOFH IT administrator way) is not always the fastest or most efficient way to do things - if the company want value for money/paycheck, they won't lock my software down so hard I can barely breathe.

Can you tell I've just been hit with the totally locked down Exchange-server virus at my workplace? ;-)

Comment This is what most fortune 500 companies want! (Score 2, Insightful) 926

.... complete control of their employees computers. More lockdown features present in the OS = more power to the IT department = easier for BOFH IT administrators to take away any and all "freedoms" you may think you have when using equipment provided by your workplace.

In other words: What a waste of time sending letters to these companies!

Comment Re:One word.... (Score 2, Funny) 369

I earn a living (well, if you can call it that) doing biochemical research, but frankly I don't care if you believe me (RTFA, it pretty much speaks for itself).

Sorry, not bored enough to give examples, but using google scholar will most definitely help you (if you are that bored ;-).

Possible vector of contamination? Are you serious? Try just about everything they may have come into contact with.... removal of "all things resembling RNA" is much easier than it sounds... destruction of RNA strands, yes... quite easy (however that may introduce yet more contamination ;-). Removal of all nucleotides... good luck.

Contamination is actally quite a good shot as to what may have brought on at least the start of the process...

Did I mention I'm not that worried if you don't believe me? :-)

Comment Re:One word.... (Score 1) 369

From what I know plenty of previous attempts or rather "succesful" attemps have been shown to be due to contamination.

Now, I'm not saying these people don't know what they are doing, I'm saying the chance of contamination with discrete amounts of RNA / RNA bases / whatever in my eyes are probably far greater than the chance of actually making RNA.

(and no, I'm not some sort of creationist bastard heh)

Games

BioShock 2 Multiplayer Details Revealed 19

2K Games has revealed information about the multiplayer portion of BioShock 2, which will be developed by Digital Extremes. Multiplayer will be a prequel story that takes place prior to Rapture's fall, where "players assume the role of a Plasmid test subject for Sinclair Solutions, a premier provider of Plasmids and Tonics in the underwater city of Rapture that was first explored in the original BioShock." The press release says players will gain experience points which they can spend to gain access to "new Weapons, Plasmids and Tonics that can be used to create hundreds of different combinations, allowing players to develop a unique character that caters to their playing style." It will also expand on the BioShock story.

Comment Hmm (Score 1) 195

I've never heard of the other ones, but Google Notebook have come in handy plenty of times.

Sad that Google feel the need to close down these services, I mean... how much man power could it really cost just to keep them running?

Comment Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score 1) 713

You are redefining homeopathy to meet your conclusion that it doesn't work. It doesn't take much research to find out the homeopathy is NOT "get cured by diluting out all of the active ingredient". It is easy to find that homeopathy is "Active ingredients that cause similar symptoms will cure, and that since you don't want to cause as much damage with the cure as you do with the disease, you dilute the active ingredient down". The fact that most 'practitioners' of homeopathy get no real results because they do dilute it down to the point of having no active ingredients is a different argument form whether homeopathy works or not.

Homeopathy is exactly that. The founder of homeopathy, Hahnemann, actually favored a dilution of 1:10E60 for most purposes (which is WAY beyond Avogadro's number). Sorry, but you are the one redefining homeopathy to meet your conclusions.

Comment Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score 1) 713

I seriously doubt the authors said herbal medicine was scientifically impossible - in fact judging by the overview of the book presented here, the authors seems to acknowledge that herbal medicine do work (in contrast to the other examined treatments).

Homeopathy has been and will always be bullshit. If you dilute something beyond Avogadro's number, its gone. There's no "water memory" or whatever people have been trying to claim for years.

At best, if you REALLY believe homeopathy works, you will benefit from the placebo effect. However, most logical sane persons when explained what actually goes on in homeopathy will NOT believe that it works and hence they will not benefit from the placebo effect.

I apologize for not clarifying that vaccines are NOT diluted beyond Avogadro's number - there is actually an active ingredient in a vaccine, as opposed to homeopathic remedies. My mistake. Homeopathy is definitely not and will hopefully never ever be a part of "traditional medicine", not are any "big pharma" companies selling anything that could be just remotely though of as a homeopathic treatment. I will guarantee you they would be out of business / sued out of existence before you could say QUACK :-).

Comment Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score 1) 713

Clearly the writer of this book is at best nieve, likely just dumb, and at worst dishonest. Making the statement that Herbal remedies don't work is simply stupid. Herbal remedies are simply taking drugs. That's right. The only difference between what a doctor would give you and an equivalent herbal remedy is the source and purity of the drug. Obviously, pharmaceutical companies have created drugs that don't occur naturally, and some claimed herbal remedies don't actually have any useful drugs in them. But, the claim that herbal reminds don't work is by definition saying that "if the drug occurs naturally, it doesn't work. I can only work if it is manufacture in a lab."

Each year, a number of people get decreased kidney or liver function (and possibly die) from taking "herbal medicine". The reason for that is EXACTLY that the drugs in herbs are NOT pure and contains hazardous other substances and/or the people taking the herbs overdoze on the active substance as there is no way to know what the purity is.... Stuff does not only work when its manufactured in a lab, but the safety is sooo much better!

While the number of quacks in homeopathy is immense, vaccines are basically homeopathy. The premise being that you get the body to fight a desires by introducing the same symptoms as the disease so that the body can heal itself. At best I would say that our medicine is too primitive to really get the benefits of homeopathy. With our advances in genetics, I have no doubt that we will eventually start making artificial vaccines. Once we make a vaccine that is not a watered down version of the real disease, we will be performing homeopathy by definitions. By claiming that a vaccine that is created in a lab won't work because it is created in a lab is just as dumb as saying that a drug that occurs naturally won't work because it is naturally occurring.

Seriously, what a load of bullshit. Vaccines are not even close to homeopathy, as they are not diluted beyond Avogadro's number.... :-).

Furthermore, "artificial" vaccines are already in production.

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