Quackery of all kinds
Saturday, 10 am MST. Still tragically unmotivated. May take nap.
A co-worker recently told me about her experience with ionic footbaths. I'm too polite to suggest that the money would be better spent on a science class, but I was curious as to how the scam worked. It turns out that these things are not only worthless, but possibly harmful: "By and large, the people I've met, and continue to meet, are well meaning and not out to defraud others. But they do share an unrealistic and overly simplistic view of the way the world works. They recklessly bandy about terms like "toxins," "chemicals," and "poison" while misguidedly revering "natural" substances. Most possess only the vaguest understanding of molecules, chemical reactions, and research methods."
My co-worker mentioned that one of the customers was a young boy who swam daily and was taken to the ionic footbath place on a weekly basis to 'remove' the chlorine from his body. In fact, the chlorine smell during the treatment is due to electrolysed salts in the water - the footbath is releasing chlorine gas, which might explain why some people feel ill after the treatment.
I'm not entirely down on alternative medicine - some of it works on solid scientific principles, even if the practitioners don't understand them. Menthol is something of an alternative wonder drug (which is why it's used in conventional cold medicine) - it dilates blood vessels and can help with congestion, headaches and nausea. Time-honoured practices such as acupuncture have been shown to stimulate release of endorphins. And some otherwise worthless procedures may promote stress relief and offer the comfort of touch and a sympathetic listener.
What I find disturbing is the general scientific illiteracy among otherwise educated people. An e-mail circulated about a year ago warning of the threat to pets from a compound 'one molecule away' from antifreeze in Swifter floor cleaner. In fact, Swifter contains propylene glycol, C3H8O2. Ethylene glycol, HOCH2CH2OH, is the toxic stuff in your car; propylene glycol is safe enough to use in foods. More recently, another co-worker told me that her alternative practitioner had warned her against certain hand lotions for the same reason. Chemically, the two are light-years away. Structure and composition matter a great deal - a single neutron can turn H2O into a toxin - but to many people, it's all 'chemicals'.
Isn't it about time for a new issue of Vinyar Tengwar?
I wouldn't be surprised if the natives got a little restless; the last issue was published in December 2005. It's possible that the editors are waiting for the publication of The Children of Húrin due to a potential conflict or ??? (I'm just guessing.) As always, I have mixed feelings - I know the work isn't easy and that the editors aren't getting paid for it. I'm sure they have real jobs to do. On the other foot (let's stay with a foot theme here), it's frustrating to know that so much of Tolkien's linguistic work remains unpublished and therefore inaccessible.
I've been looking for a way to gather my Tolkien notes, links to documents saved on my computer, map .jpegs and external links into one place. I found a rather neat little offline wiki that is much easier to use than those I've tried, and it doesn't require anything but a browser to edit and read: TiddlyWiki.
You do need to know a bit of css, and some of the coding is native to the wiki, but if you can hand-code your html, this isn't hard to learn. It can also be used to create web pages - I'm still exploring it, and I'm sure I haven't seen a tenth of what it can do. Oh, and it's entirely free - you only need to save the template web page to your hard drive; javascript does the rest.
A co-worker recently told me about her experience with ionic footbaths. I'm too polite to suggest that the money would be better spent on a science class, but I was curious as to how the scam worked. It turns out that these things are not only worthless, but possibly harmful: "By and large, the people I've met, and continue to meet, are well meaning and not out to defraud others. But they do share an unrealistic and overly simplistic view of the way the world works. They recklessly bandy about terms like "toxins," "chemicals," and "poison" while misguidedly revering "natural" substances. Most possess only the vaguest understanding of molecules, chemical reactions, and research methods."
My co-worker mentioned that one of the customers was a young boy who swam daily and was taken to the ionic footbath place on a weekly basis to 'remove' the chlorine from his body. In fact, the chlorine smell during the treatment is due to electrolysed salts in the water - the footbath is releasing chlorine gas, which might explain why some people feel ill after the treatment.
I'm not entirely down on alternative medicine - some of it works on solid scientific principles, even if the practitioners don't understand them. Menthol is something of an alternative wonder drug (which is why it's used in conventional cold medicine) - it dilates blood vessels and can help with congestion, headaches and nausea. Time-honoured practices such as acupuncture have been shown to stimulate release of endorphins. And some otherwise worthless procedures may promote stress relief and offer the comfort of touch and a sympathetic listener.
What I find disturbing is the general scientific illiteracy among otherwise educated people. An e-mail circulated about a year ago warning of the threat to pets from a compound 'one molecule away' from antifreeze in Swifter floor cleaner. In fact, Swifter contains propylene glycol, C3H8O2. Ethylene glycol, HOCH2CH2OH, is the toxic stuff in your car; propylene glycol is safe enough to use in foods. More recently, another co-worker told me that her alternative practitioner had warned her against certain hand lotions for the same reason. Chemically, the two are light-years away. Structure and composition matter a great deal - a single neutron can turn H2O into a toxin - but to many people, it's all 'chemicals'.
Isn't it about time for a new issue of Vinyar Tengwar?
I wouldn't be surprised if the natives got a little restless; the last issue was published in December 2005. It's possible that the editors are waiting for the publication of The Children of Húrin due to a potential conflict or ??? (I'm just guessing.) As always, I have mixed feelings - I know the work isn't easy and that the editors aren't getting paid for it. I'm sure they have real jobs to do. On the other foot (let's stay with a foot theme here), it's frustrating to know that so much of Tolkien's linguistic work remains unpublished and therefore inaccessible.
I've been looking for a way to gather my Tolkien notes, links to documents saved on my computer, map .jpegs and external links into one place. I found a rather neat little offline wiki that is much easier to use than those I've tried, and it doesn't require anything but a browser to edit and read: TiddlyWiki.
You do need to know a bit of css, and some of the coding is native to the wiki, but if you can hand-code your html, this isn't hard to learn. It can also be used to create web pages - I'm still exploring it, and I'm sure I haven't seen a tenth of what it can do. Oh, and it's entirely free - you only need to save the template web page to your hard drive; javascript does the rest.