Burly.Thurr

What may be the most exhaustive review yet of the evidence for homeopathy has come to a very strong conclusion: the treatment doesn't work, and people should stop wasting their time, money, and potentially their health on what amounts to junk science.

In 2012, the Australian government set out to examine all the best available research evidence on homeopathy as part of a look into the effectiveness of alternative therapies commonly used by Aussies. Homeopathy is extremely popular in the US, too: at last count, Americans spent a whopping $3 billion on the treatment.

The main ideas behind homeopathy are that extremely diluted versions of a substance that's causing someone to be sick can actually make them better, and that these watered-down potions retain a "memory" of the original substance. Scientists have long taken umbrage with these claims, since, when examined, homeopathic treatments do not actually contain traceable amounts of the original plant or animal material they were supposedly diluting.

This week, the Australian government published its findings based on the results of 176 studies on the health impact of homeopathy.

The conclusions?

"There was no reliable evidence from research in humans that homeopathy was effective for treating the range of health conditions considered," researchers wrote. They added: "Homeopathy should not be used to treat health conditions that are chronic, serious, or could become serious."

"People who choose homeopathy may put their health at risk"

The Australian study found numerous problems with the research on homeopathy. To start, many of the studies were poorly designed: they didn't include enough participants to have meaningful results, or the researchers failed to limit bias and control for confounding factors.

But even the high-quality studies did not find that homeopathy performed better than a placebo or another available treatment for a range of health conditions, including asthma, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome, colds, and ulcers. The studies that reported homeopathy had some health benefit were so flawed and poorly designed they were unreliable.

This means that not only did homeopathy treatments perform no better than other medicines, but they also failed to outdo sugar pills. This isn't entirely surprising, considering that homeopathy tablets and potions are essentially sugar pills or drops.

"People who choose homeopathy may put their health at risk if they reject or delay treatments for which there is good evidence for safety and effectiveness," the report reads. "People who are considering whether to use homeopathy should first get advice from a registered health practitioner. Those who use homeopathy should tell their health practitioner and should keep taking any prescribed treatments."

We don't need more evidence that homeopathy is bogus

This isn't the first report to come to such dismal conclusions about homeopathy. There have been numerous studies, books, and investigations demonstrating that this therapy is bogus.

In fact, there's so much evidence on homeopathy's failure to help people that some researchers have wondered when enough will be enough and we will finally stop investing our research funding on this alternative therapy in favor of putting it into treatments that might actually help people.

h/t Guardian

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One of the first questions to come up in almost every discussion of the Apple Watch is: what is it good for? People have trouble imagining why anyone would want a tiny, underpowered computer strapped to their wrist.

But the funny thing is that people ask this question every time a new computing platform comes along that's an order of magnitude smaller than the one that came before. And people keep being surprised by how useful smaller computers can be.

Perhaps the Apple Watch will surprise us, too.

In the 1970s, no one understood why you'd want a PC

(Daniel Bagel)

In the late 1970s, Apple and other companies began selling personal computers. By the standards of the day, these new computers were tiny, cheap, and ludicrously underpowered. They couldn't run the powerful business applications of the day's conventional computers, which were the size of a washing machine and cost tens of thousands of dollars. People who were used to these larger computers couldn't imagine what they'd do without it.

The answer, it turned out, was run a new generation of applications that wouldn't have made sense on larger computers. People used PCs for word processing, spreadsheets, graphic design, computer games, and more.

These are all applications that only make sense on computers small and cheap enough that there can be one on everyone's desk. It would have been absurd for a company executive to go down to the computer room and tie up a $100,000 mainframe typing a memo. It was a lot cheaper and more convenient to use a typewriter — or to dictate the memo and have a secretary type it up. But once people had computers on their desk, it became obvious that word processors work a lot better than typewriters.

People thought cameras and email on a phone were ridiculous

(Oscar Avellaneda-Cruz)

The same point applies to cellphones. It's hard to remember now, but a decade ago the idea of a cellphone with a camera in it seemed ridiculous. People mocked early BlackBerry users for trying to check their email on the go. But over time, people discovered that having a tiny, connected computer in their pocket is extremely useful.

And once again, people invented new apps that wouldn't have made sense on a PC. Apps like Uber or Instagram only make sense in a device that's small enough to always be in your pocket.

In both cases, what skeptics missed was that greater convenience (and lower cost) would lead people to use the new technology a lot more. If you've spent your life using film cameras — where developing a roll of film takes an hour and costs $5 — Instagram seems ridiculous. But once it takes five seconds to snap a photo and share it with your friends, people are going to do it a lot more.

Why small computers are a big deal

Apple CEO Tim Cook describes the Apple Watch on September 9, 2014. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

A similar point applies to smartwatches. It's true that any individual use for a smartwatch — say, reading a text message on your wrist rather than having to pull out your phone — is going to seem trivial.

But the thing skeptics are missing is that smartwatches won't just allow people to do the things they already do more efficiently. It could cause people to do more and different things. Smartwatches eliminate the small but real time-cost of pulling your phone out of your pocket. So short interactions that would have seemed too trivial to be worth pulling your phone out of your pocket suddenly make sense.

Of course, this is hard to imagine, just as it was hard for a PC user circa 1999 to imagine Instagram or Uber — or a mainframe user circa 1975 to imagine Excel or Photoshop. By the same token, we don't notice the things we're not doing with our smartphones because it's too much work to pull them out of our pockets.

But in the aggregate, these interactions could create a lot of value. Chris Mims runs through some of the applications developers are working on. For example, our watches might help us find items on our shopping list as we walk through the grocery store, alert us to historical markers as we pass them during vacations, or let us know when friends are nearby. These are all things we could do with our cellphones, but it's annoying to have our phones buzzing in our pockets all the time. Once our computers are on our wrists, they might seem a lot more compelling.

But the really important apps are likely to be ones no one has thought of yet. Steve Jobs wasn't trying to revolutionize the taxi business when he created the iPhone, but Uber and Lyft wouldn't exist today without multi-touch smartphones. By the same token, there may be apps that only make sense once millions of people have computers on their wrists. We just don't know what they are yet.

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

Traveling 23,000 miles over 4 years, photographer Marc Wilson has amassed an amazing collection of images spanning bunkers, gun emplacements, observation posts, command centres and other wartime infrastructure around Europe.

In his book, The Last Stand, 86 of the resulting images are arrayed to tell a complex story of different times and places. More than merely photographing these haunting remnants of war, however, Wilson also provides highly articulate reflections on everything from their site-specific purposes and aesthetics to their broader places in military and architectural histories.

“Composed of copious quantities of poured concrete,” many of these structures “defy and eschew any established aesthetic sensibilities: no hint of the classical, the gothic or the baroque here. Their geometries, purely contingent, were designed to resist the effects of the latest developments in projectile technology, their profiles shaped to deflect such missiles and avoid any direct percussive explosions on their structures.”

His shots are carefully composed and timed, often taking place in the early hours of the morning when eerie mists and dim lights grant the subjects a surrealistic atmosphere. There is a dreaminess and dreariness to his work that manages to make the objects captured seem both ordinary and otherworldly. Prints of many of the pieces featured in the book can be purchased as well.

Unlike even the most pragmatic warehouse of the time, “there was nothing speculative or arbitrary about the bulwarks of their sometimes bizarre and often ungainly forms: they were purely functional. While far from being graceful or classically proportioned, there is something visually appealing about the alien (and sometimes sinister) forms of those bunkers. Novelty does not quite describe this appeal: more surprise perhaps – a surprise that courts the sublime.”

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[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

In school, boys are falling behind. Around the world, they're more likely than girls to be classified as low achievers, meaning they weren't proficient in reading, math, science, or problem-solving.

The OECD looked at the data from the test and an associated survey to try to figure out what's causing boys to lose ground. Here are five of their findings:

1) Boys are more likely to be disengaged at school

Across the developed world, 15-year-old boys were more likely than girls to say that school is a waste of time and less likely to agree that trying hard at school is important. Boys are more likely to be late to class or skip school entirely. And boys are more likely to be held back than girls are.

These differences aren't massive — in most cases, they're less than 10 percentage points. But they still indicate that there are big, gender-based differences in how students think about school and how important they think it is.

2) There's a gender gap on doing homework

(Shutterstock)

It doesn't matter whether students have a lot of homework (almost 15 hours per week in Shanghai) or very little (around 3 hours per week in Finland): boys spent less time on it than girls. On average in the OECD, girls reported doing 5.5 hours of homework per week; boys did only 4.5.

That doesn't explain all of the gender gap in test scores, but it does explain part of it, according to the OECD — after accounting for the time spent doing homework, boys actually perform better than girls in math and science, and the gender gap in reading is smaller.

3) Boys spend more time on the internet and playing video games

What are boys doing with all that non-homework time? They're on the internet and playing video games, the survey suggests. Most girls say they never or have hardly ever played single-player or collaborative online games. On the other hand, most boys do, but not every day.

Is this a disadvantage? It might not be. Playing single-player games was correlated with higher test scores, although collaborative games was associated with lower scores. And boys tend to do better than girls on standardized tests taken on the computer, rather than on paper. That suggests the video gaming time could help them as computer-based assessments become more common.

4) Boys read for fun much less than girls

The gender gap between boys and girls is particularly evident in one subject: reading. And in every country but Korea, girls do more reading for fun than boys. The OECD found that it didn't really matter what students read — whether it was fiction, nonfiction, newspapers, or comic books, more time spent reading translated into higher reading test scores. Boys were more likely to read comic books and newspapers, and less likely to read fiction. But elementary school reading in particular has historically focused on nonfiction, and the OECD argues that this could be turning boys off of reading and widening a gender gap.

5) Boys have lower aspirations for their careers

(Shutterstock)

Across the world, 15-year-old girls expect to have higher-status jobs when they're older than boys do. They're more likely to expect to earn a college degree, and more likely to say they expect to have high-status jobs as managers, professionals, or elected officials. On the other hand, the percentage of men and women in those jobs in their mid-20s to early 30s is almost exactly the same. That suggests that girls are more ambitious — but they're not necessarily achieving those goals.

Thank God it’s Frida

War paint

By Joanna Bradley

mostlysignssomeportents:

William Gibson is the only science fiction writer I know of with his name on a line of exclusive couture repro military clothes from a Japanese company.

In a fascinating interview on style, durability, atemporality, bohemianism and literature, Gibson picks apart the symbolism of “authenticity” and ruggedness.

Read the rest…

Last night The Daily Show's "Senior Ferguson Correspondent" Jessica Williams took on the recent Justice Department report about Ferguson's racially biased policing, and pulled zero punches:

After starting with a heartfelt "fuck these people," Williams gets covered in a thick coat of tickets for spurious offenses like "Jaystanding."

Of course, Jason Jones has a slightly different experience: after he drunkenly wanders on camera drinking a beer and carrying a huge gun, a police officer pulls over to question him — about whether Williams was "bothering" him.

It's almost as if there is some difference between Jones and Williams that might lead the Ferguson police to treat them differently. What could it possibly be?

revolutionarykoolaid:

No Justice, No Peace (3/4/15): The full report of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Ferguson Police Department has been released and it is nothing short of horrifying. Please take the time to read each screencap above, and if you can stomach more afterwords, read the full report. The above barely scrapes the surface of the indignities Ferguson PD inflicted on the people they were supposed to protect and serve. Ferguson PD is not unique. This is everyday terrorism faced by Black folks from the police, around the country. #staywoke #farfromover

bae: tell me your wildest fantasy
me: i'm financially stable in a job that i love with great opportunities for career advancement. i live in a modest home with a good sized yard and a fence for my dogs, there are hardly any problems with the home, but sometimes the garbage disposal clogs. the fridge and pantry are never empty and when they're getting low, i can go to the grocery store at my leisure. my pre-owned car never makes funny noises and when it does, i have the money to take it to the mechanic. i am in good health and most days, i have the energy to carry out my daily tasks and do some things i enjoy as well.

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 Hey geeks! We're switching to a new server and changing the layout a little. If you experience any problems, please let us know.

 

Also, we have a new blogposting interface. So...   

codyslipring:

spn-fandom-breathing-heavily:

westbor0baptistchurch:

“But if you forget to reblog Madame Zeroni, you and your family will be cursed for always and eternity.”

not even risking that shit

scrolled past this, re-evaluated my life, then SCROOOLLLED back up and hit the damn reblog button. 

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

M83 and Haim have teamed up for "Holes in the Sky", which appears on the soundtrack for Insurgent, the sequel to last year's Divergent. Listen below, via MTV.

Update: The Insurgent soundtrack will be released March 17 via Interscope. Check out the full tracklist below:

01 M83: "Holes in the Sky" [ft. Haim]
02 Royal Blood: "Blood Hands"
03 Woodkid: "Never Let You Down" [ft. Lykke Li]
04 Anna Calvi: "The Heart of You"
05 Zella Day: "Sacrifice"
06 SOHN: "Carry Me Home"
07 Imagine Dragons: "Warriors"
08 Joseph Trapanese: "Convergence Score from Insurgent"

 The Divergent soundtrack featured Kendrick Lamar teaming up with Tame Impala on a new version of Tame Impala's "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards", collaborations between A$AP Rocky and Gesaffelstein and Chance the Rapper, Pia Mia, and Clams Casino, M83's new song "I Need You", and new music from Skrillex, Ellie Goulding, Snow Patrol and others.

Insurgent hits theaters on March 20. 

Watch the trailer for Insurgent:

 

Watch M83's Anthony Gonzalez talk to Pitchfork Weekly at Primavera Sound 2012:

From Gilgamesh on, the afterlife has taken many guises. Our view is an incoherent projection of needs and impulses, irreconcilably at odds… more»

By Shannon Gadberry  Published: February 26th, 2015 

bochinohito:

【動画】 NASAが宇宙から見た美しい南極のオーロラを披露 - IRORIO（イロリオ）

A Toshiba steam turbine is now operational at the Kemper county Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle Plant in Mississippi.

Do you know what’s popular on the web right now?

If you ignore search engines, social media, and shopping, the most popular content on the web is sports (espn.com), news (cnn.com, huffingtonpost.com, foxnews.com), and porn.

If you ignore celebrities like Katy Perry, the most popular stuff on Twitter is mainstream news sites (CNN, BBC). 

If you look at what’s popular among The Old Reader users, you get a much different picture. 

First off, you like comics. Really, really like comics. XKCD, Dilbert, and the Oatmeal dominate the list of most popular feeds on The Old Reader. 

After comics, the majority of feeds are tech blogs and tech news sites. Then comes lifestyle stuff like Lifehacker. There is also a lot of longer form content like TED Talks or in-depth magazine reporting. We also see national news sites like nytimes.com and what might be considered local news sites, like Boston.com.

Interestingly, there is very little sports in our feeds. That might be because our users are just not sports fans. Or it might be that sports is easy to consume on Twitter. 

Looking at all of the data, I’m starting to think that The Old Reader is like a newspaper. Our readers are using it to compile a single source of information, news, analysis, satire, and opinion. It’s a source of information that you would have to work really hard to get just going online or using social media.

In fact, I think that the popularity of comics on our list supports my theory. It seems to me that just like in the days of the newspaper, comics are the one thing everyone can agree on. 

And as a comic fan, I’d like to point out that the comics you like are not childish entertainment. These comics are satire. Satire is only useful or interesting to people who have a good handle on what’s going on and are looking for a more subtle, sophisticated take- a way to make sense of the all the other stuff they read.  

On the Internet or social media, most people don’t read much beyond the headlines on mainstream news sites. But judging from our most popular feeds, The Old Reader makes it possible to consume a broader range of stuff, from comics and satire to news and analysis, to blogs and feature-length content.

Having information and being informed are not the same thing. Our users are looking to be informed. The paradox of our time is that you can have all of the information in the world available and learn less. There are more sources of information, but you need new literacy skills to decode messages in the way news and information are presented.

Most of us don’t have the time or mental energy to really analyze everything coming at us. But if you use it right, I really believe The Old Reader can help you get a better handle on a complicated world. 

Is Scandinavia all fun and reindeer games until winter comes and throws everyone into deep depression?

This chart of antidepressant use in Europe certainly suggests that could be the case:

Chart Source: Dadaviz. Data Source: OECD.

But the truth is likely more complicated. Even though Scandinavian countries, along with other northern nations such as Iceland and the UK, are heavily represented at the top of the chart, that doesn't necessarily mean that long, dark winters are leaving everyone in those countries depressed.

After all, Iceland isn't that much darker than Norway — it gets about an hour less of sunlight per day around the winter solstice, when days are shortest — but its rate of antidepressant use is nearly twice as high. And according to the OECD, which supplied the data for the chart above, nearly 30 percent of Icelandic women over 65 had an antidepressant prescription. By contrast, in Norway, the equivalent rate was only about 15 percent. Likewise, antidepressant use in sunny, southern Portugal beats that of Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the UK, even though it has much longer days.

So what's going on? In fact, many different factors affect a country's rate of antidepressant use. The prevalence of depression is just one of them.

For instance, high usage rates could actually be a reflection of better access to mental health care. To use antidepressants, a patient typically needs a doctor who will prescribe them, and a way to afford the drugs. So what looks like an increased incidence of depression could actually be an increased incidence of high-quality mental health care, and/or a system that subsidizes the cost of medications. In other words, it could be a good sign instead of a bad one.

Differing medical cultures might also play a role. The OECD notes that there is great variation in "prescribing behavior" from country to country, as well as between individual practitioners. The higher incidence of antidepressant usage in some countries could, therefore, be evidence of local rules that encourage doctors to use antidepressants as a first-line treatment, or to keep patients on them longer.

It could also mean that some countries are more willing than others to use antidepressants as a treatment for problems such as social phobia or anxiety. That would show up as a higher antidepressant usage rate, but wouldn't actually indicate a higher incidence of depression.

Regardless of the reason, however, rates of antidepressant use have been growing in all European countries in recent years: according to the OECD, rates of antidepressant use across the EU have increased by 80 percent over the last decade.

femfreq:

Ever since I began my Tropes vs Women in Video Games project, two and a half years ago, I’ve been harassed on a daily basis by irate gamers angry at my critiques of sexism in video games. It can sometimes be difficult to effectively communicate just how bad this sustained intimidation campaign really is. So I’ve taken the liberty of collecting a week’s worth of hateful messages sent to me on Twitter. The following tweets were directed at my @femfreq account between 1/20/15 and 1/26/15.

Content warning for misogyny, gendered insults, victim blaming, incitement to suicide, sexual violence, rape and death threats.

Tuesday, January, 20th

Wednesday, January 21st, 2015

Thursday, January 22nd, 2015

Friday January 23rd, 2015

Saturday, January 24th, 2015

Sunday, January 25th

Monday, January 26th