User talk:Hayford Peirce

Vertigo
Go for it! Move Vertigo to something appropriate, write Vertigo (movie) Vertigo (film), set up Vertigo (disambiguation), and modify Vertigo to point there. See, easy! :-) J. Noel Chiappa 11:33, 4 June 2008 (CDT) PS: Time to archive your talk page (I've just been good and done mine). J. Noel Chiappa 11:33, 4 June 2008 (CDT)


 * I think I'm chanelling ... :-) J. Noel Chiappa 13:56, 4 June 2008 (CDT)


 * Encouragement NEQ Ordering!
 * Anyway, everything was good - a couple of bits of the Vertigo cluster had to get moved too (e.g. the metadat), but everything else was fine. J. Noel Chiappa 00:38, 5 June 2008 (CDT)
 * What means "NEQ Ordering"? Neo-typical Ellery Queen? Hayford Peirce 11:25, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

i see, archiving talk pages is the plat du jour! - thanks - Ro Thorpe 13:06, 12 June 2008 (CDT)

Battle of Britain
I appreciate the flow edits. When the matter at hand is a question if you think something is speculative, or you aren't sure about a reference, I'd appreciate a heads-up on the talk page. Just as one example, I really did not want to have explicit statements about the V-1 and V-2 in the lead. That is why "ballistic missile" and "cruise missile" had links.

Some readers would not care about that detail. Others, I would hope, would click on "ballistic missile" should they want more detail. One of the useful things about hypertext documents, be they Web or Wiki, is that one can zoom in on more detailed reference if, and only if, the finer details are desired. Howard C. Berkowitz 12:31, 17 June 2008 (CDT)


 * If this were a paper encyclopedia, or even reference book, I would agree totally that there is a need for material to be relatively self-contained. It isn't. If there's a geezer aspect, it's being comfortable with the zoom in-out capability of a hyperdocument. That's quite natural for me, but I've been working with information systems for forty-odd years. The younger readers, I believe, take clicking on links, for further information, as perfectly normal -- and not overwhelming with information, on a single page, is good web design. Howard C. Berkowitz 17:59, 17 June 2008 (CDT)


 * Yes they click, but they are very impatient and if a quick glance at the CZ page is unsatisfactory they will click to the next item in their google search and we have lost them. Richard Jensen 18:30, 17 June 2008 (CDT)


 * Hayford, there is a very strong argument, among cognitive psychologists and assorted people dealing with computer-based learning techniques, that indeed suggest that "they surrendered on a battleship to an American general" may be the appropriate level, as long as there are hyperlinks for more or less detail. Apropos of less, there was a story that Admiral King wanted to issue only one public statement in WWII, which would read, "We won."


 * If you look at most geographic information systems, and think of things for the general public such as street maps or Google Earth, the natural cognitive model is to let the user select the level of detail they want. Indeed, in work on adaptive learning software, the software starts to develop a profile of the user's levels of interest and starts out at that detail. You'll find numerous papers, in forums such as the Usability Professionals Association, strongly suggesting that level adaptation, impossible in paper documents, actually encourages interaction rather than impatience.


 * As far as the Battle of Britain, I really cheated a bit to mention cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, since neither was used in that battle. They were used several years later, certainly as part of German air operations against Britain in WWII, but not in the BoB proper. What was seminal in the BoB was the integrated air defense system; the missiles are more critical in an overall discussion of air warfare in WWII. For that matter, the more significant cruise missile, of the anti-shipping variety, of WWII is the kamikaze. V-1's and V-2's were "guided" only in a an extremely generous way -- they were essentially long-range artillery, and not very accurate artillery, as opposed to the kamikaze, the proposed manned V-1, and the German Fritz-X radio-controlled anti-shipping missile.


 * Believe me, I understand specificity. Over the years, however, I find that there are distinctly different authorial models for paper and interactive systems. As far as the "non-geezers", in some of my consulting where I work with individuals, such as owners of commercial fishing vessels, I not infrequently ask them to get their teenagers onto the conference call; the kids are far less easily focused than the older folk. Computing and age, of course, are contextually defined; Grace Hopper simultaneously had a child's curiosity and a scientist's discipline -- and was an incredibly inspirational leader. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:56, 17 June 2008 (CDT)

Men's final at W
Hey, how did you like that final between Federer and Nadal? Not the greatest match I've ever seen, in terms of the tennis itself (lots of errors - but some truly great moves mixed in with them - I think the first time Steffi beat Martina was the best match I've ever seen in terms of the actual play), but for suspense it was right up there (although the men at the last Olympics was on another plane altogether). J. Noel Chiappa 08:06, 7 July 2008 (CDT)

Finger/hand injuries
Apparently there is an epidemic of finger/hand injuries at Citizendium, and you're the latest victim. So far it's Noel, Myself, and you now. --Robert W King 14:05, 19 July 2008 (CDT)


 * yes, i had already noted that. but didn't quite know where to post that fact. plus poor Ro, of course, who apparently has bad pain in, i believe, particularly his left shoulder, so bad that it has made it impossible for him to type. or at least to use his left hand. am gonna attack my table saw again today, to try to finish off my rebuilding project after starting it on jan. 15th. if you hear a loud scream, it's me running my fingers through the blade again.... cheers! Hayford Peirce 14:23, 19 July 2008 (CDT)
 * Poor Ro! I had no idea!  Are we all left-hand sufferers?  Maybe it says something. --Robert W King 14:30, 19 July 2008 (CDT)
 * that's why he didn't do much for a while. evidently couldn't the left hand to help create words with accents etc. as for lefthandedness: i was *stupidly* trying to push a very narrow strip of veneer through an angled blade on the table saw with my left hand instead of my usual right. was standing over on the right side of the table and couldn't *see* the friggin' blade. bad spatial visualization because doing it lefthanded. it's a wonder i didn't cut off two or three fingers completely.... Hayford Peirce 15:11, 19 July 2008 (CDT)
 * You know, most of the seven letters in "subpage" are typed with the left hand. I'm worried that our whole system is going to fall apart. --Joe Quick 22:48, 19 July 2008 (CDT)
 * Hehe. It's a sinister plot, I'm sure. But it's amazing how having a tender tip of my *left* ring finger can completely screw up my typing -- that's the fingertip I normally use to do all sorts of useful typing functions. Without it, I'm reduced to using 5 digits of my right hand and basically the index finger of my left.... Hayford Peirce 23:29, 19 July 2008 (CDT)

Editorial Marines
I'm thinking of a few good writing Marines, but I know a quite qualified officer, serving in the purgatory of the Pentagon (i.e., Army Staff), who refers to himself as a Powerpoint Ranger. (he also wears the Ranger Tab).

As he puts it, "wars are not won with PowerPoint presentations. Wars are won by getting the other side to depend on PowerPoint presentations." There are continued yet unconfirmed reports of stealthy aircraft overflying the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and parachuting laptops with video projectors, hoping al-Qaeda will start to use them...

Howard C. Berkowitz 21:07, 23 July 2008 (CDT)
 * Hehe. if i wuz still writing science fiction, that's exactly the sort of premise i used to start with for a story. hmmmm.... Hayford Peirce 21:42, 23 July 2008 (CDT)


 * I remember one Analog story about a Cold War standoff, in which the CIA sent its most incompetent spy to get information on the Soviet air defense (PVO-Strany) command post. He was immediately captured, and, in mixed contempt and pity, the Soviets gave him tea and invited him to view the command post before being taken away. That which next happened could not have been predicted in detail, but was correctly evaluated in general: he tripped over his own feet, and sent the teacup flying into the master control computer. *ZAP* and the Soviet defenses went down... Howard C. Berkowitz 22:22, 23 July 2008 (CDT)
 * yup, that sure sounds like a typical analog story, although i mostly stopped reading them after starting to write them in '74. but i had indulgent editors who liked my relatively non-analog-type stuff.... Hayford Peirce 22:56, 23 July 2008 (CDT)

Bruch
hi, hay, thanks for the assignment. i've rewritten it a bit + we'll see if he complains. i grew up with that record! cheers - Ro Thorpe 19:15, 27 July 2008 (CDT) - never heard of sarah zhang, though, but i guess i'm out of touch...

D'you have an idea?
Hi Hayford--please see my question at Talk:Changing of the guard when you have a mo. Thanks! Aleta Curry 20:29, 13 August 2008 (CDT)

What's with the new color?
Since you've been heavily involved in the colors-of-links issue, can you please tell me what this new "italicized with gold color" represents? For example, if you look at "Computer network > Related Articles", several of the links are neither blue nor red by this new thang. Bruce M.Tindall 17:06, 21 August 2008 (CDT)
 * You got me, myte! I do remember that a couple of days ago, I saw *something*, either in a Forum discussion or a talk page, about this, where someone proposed, I think, to use gold to indicate something or other.  But I can't remember where.  Why don't you try scanning the Forum articles list -- and if you can't find it, just start a new discussion somewhere.... Hayford Peirce 17:16, 21 August 2008 (CDT)
 * I haven't figured out all the functions of that formatting, but it does seem to be produced when pointing at a redirect page rather than the article. To me, that is not terribly useful; redirects should make things transparent. Howard C. Berkowitz 17:45, 21 August 2008 (CDT)

North to Alaska
Seems like you have already hit on a Write-a-thon topic for today. When can I expect the article?? David E. Volk 15:09, 3 September 2008 (CDT)
 * It's gonna be The Weavers, not Johnny Horton or North to Alaska or When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below) -- Maybe I'll do all of them some day! Hayford Peirce 16:18, 3 September 2008 (CDT)

okay, let's test this
this is a gtest

Oslo Report
The date is in the second paragraph. Move it if it bothers you. This was meant as a stub to deal with magenta links in the Battle of Britain article, and I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on it. It becomes more relevant later on, when dealing with the Battle of the Beams and the German defenses against strategic bombing. Howard C. Berkowitz 17:35, 13 September 2008 (CDT)

Who is Browne?
I think you added this ref. to the cold fusion article: "Browne 1989, para. 1." Please provide the name of the journal and author's first initial.

Jed Rothwell 13:58, 16 September 2008 (CDT)

Cancel. The ref. was formatted incorrectly and did not show up. It is now fixed.

Jed Rothwell 15:58, 16 September 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for your email
i was supposed to get my bug-ridden computador back today, but hasta mañana rules so I'm still stuck with the laptop, which regards Hotmail as a security risk, I kid you not: 'the security certificate has expired or is still not valid' it barks (perhaps it's right). So hasta whenever... Ro Thorpe 16:25, 17 September 2008 (CDT)
 * A pop-up popped up with increasing frequency & consistent cheek warning me of dire security threats if I didn't download its product immediately. It became impossible to concentrate on anything. We called in the doc, he diagnosed a virus & took it away - that was last Thursday. So I've had to relearn laptop all over again - couldn't even switch it on at first! Remarkably similar to your own experience it seems - good luck there. Ro Thorpe 17:47, 17 September 2008 (CDT)

Homeopathy and the Royal Family
Hey Hayford. Glad that you're editing on homeopathy, though your edit on the Royals was not based on any fact and isn't near the truth. The Royals use of homeopathy is not a "left-over" from the 19th century. Appreciation for homeopathy regularly proclaimed by Prince Charles, and the Queen has been a long-time patron to the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. Even George VI named one of his prized racehorses after a homeopathic medicine. Dana Ullman 07:02, 1 October 2008 (CDT)

Your proposal "Need a Subpage for Topic Informants"
Dear Hayford, I'm afraid I have been slack in managing all the proposals. However, inspired by the Monthly Write-a-Thon and its theme "spring cleaning", I now want to clear out all the proposals that are merely gathering dust and push the rest forwards. I see you made a proposal "Need a Subpage for Topic Informants" which unfortunately is still without a driver. I hope you'll find a driver within a few days, in which case, please have the driver update the proposal record at CZ:Proposals/New. Otherwise, I will remove the proposal and put it on the pile of driverless proposals. -- Jitse Niesen 16:48, 1 October 2008 (CDT)
 * Hi, Jitse -- nice to see that you're back! You might as well put it on the junk pile -- no one else seems to have any interest in it. :( Hayford Peirce 16:54, 1 October 2008 (CDT)

Kingston Trio
I have no problem with your changes. I'm just offering alternatives. Chris Day 11:59, 5 October 2008 (CDT)

Conspiracies
You shoulda taken out your deck of cards and said, "Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire, Raymond?" Hayford Peirce 21:06, 5 October 2008 (CDT)


 * That would have had the approximate effect of rubbing a $0.79 jar of Woolworth's Vanishing Cream into the flight deck of a Forrestal-class aircraft carrier


 * That's always been a nice line -- I wonder who originated it? Hayford Peirce 22:32, 5 October 2008 (CDT)


 * Hmmm...well, I got it from Condon, but I shall share the NANOG (North American Network Operators' Group) curse, which can be useful:


 * Yes, that definitely sounds like a Condon metaphor -- I'll put it into the Condon article maybe -- if I can find the exact source. Hayford Peirce 23:01, 5 October 2008 (CDT)


 * Manchurian Candidate. It was the metaphor for one of the characters, probably Raymond's, attempt to be inconspicuous. I thought you meant who originally coined it, and that I do not know. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:04, 5 October 2008 (CDT)


 * No, I meant the Condon source, ie, which book and on what page. I've been Googling it for a while and can't track it down. I've been meaning to reread all the Condon books in order and write article about them, so I'd eventually spot it.  By the way, that was a 1959/60 book -- would there have been a Forrestal-class mention that early? Hayford Peirce 23:58, 5 October 2008 (CDT)


 * Hmmm...Forrestal is from memory. I distinctly remember the line had a class name. USS Forrestal commissioned in 1955; I just checked. Otherwise, it would have had to have been Midway or Essex class, which "sounds wrong in memory". The book is in a box in the storage container outside; I'm in temporary housing. Paperback; I couldn't tell you the edition. IIRC, the scene is in the last few days in New York.


 * Do take a look in Homeopathy. I wonder...could someone have been trained in Manchuria? Howard C. Berkowitz 00:15, 6 October 2008 (CDT)


 * "You have no clue. You couldn't get a clue if you stripped naked, smeared yourself with clue musk, and hurled yourself into a field of horny clues during clue mating season."


 * Actually, when I lived near the Pentagon, shiny black VIP helicopters were quite common, with gold "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" on them. Special operations helicopters are a very dark matte grayHoward C. Berkowitz 22:03, 5 October 2008 (CDT)


 * Yep, I always figgered there was a reason that the nut cases muttered about the black helicopters. Too bad they couldn't be tracking down some of the more wingnut Republicans these days.... Hayford Peirce 22:32, 5 October 2008 (CDT)

Thanks!
I bet I drive you crazy :-) D. Matt Innis 17:12, 9 October 2008 (CDT)

irony
You have to love it from a profession that extolls the philosophy of less is more. Chris Day 13:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Em
Found it—but 'tis on left (et voilà). Strange how they are common in Murka, rare in Yurp. By the way, have you seen the latest drama at Talk:Crash of 2008? Ro Thorpe 19:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks
for clearing up those points. Of course you are absolutely right about Larry. Never understood the 1st thing about economics myself, though! Ro Thorpe 00:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Not knowing your connectivity...
It's a working draft while I wait for a few books to show up on interlibrary loan, but you might enjoy Lucien Conein. The line between reality and Richard Condon can be very thin; it is no accident that the secret world is sometimes called an "infinity of mirrors". I want to be sure I can source some even wilder Conein tales, plus I do need to grind out the details of the 1963 coup, and look further into the DEA material.

It is now mostly accepted that he was not in Dallas on November 22, 1963, but there are still rumors... Howard C. Berkowitz 06:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Vietnamese Chickens
Me military person. Not speak French. Use usual spelling military books. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:04, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Coincidence? You decide....BWAHAHAHA
This place is run by the Citizendium Foundation.

Might Larry be a distant ancestor of Hari Seldon?

Howard C. Berkowitz 00:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'd already thought of that, but since Isaac A. is dead, I didn't try channeling him to get his opinion.... Hayford Peirce 00:35, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Vital?
Stop me before I edit in "homeopathy Trusts the Force".

In Star Wars, the Force has a Light Side, a Dark Side, and holds the universe together. In this continuum, we call that Duct Tape. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:36, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I would say that homeopathy is more of the "weak force" than anything else. I also did a little editing yesterday on Astrology, ie, moving the scientific skepticism from line 88 up to line 3. Geez, the imbeciles we get here! Hayford Peirce 16:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Apropos of British English
Is it true that the U.K. rejected continental currency, as they refused to give up spending a penny as opposed to Euronation? Howard C. Berkowitz 20:18, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If so, that was very piddling of them! Hayford Peirce 21:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

 * Salut! Soyez le bienvenu! We don't have enough French people here....
 * Bonjour Hayford, merci de ton message d'accueil très sympathique. For French people, the language is a barrier to entry (in addition to franco-centrism...). Very best regards. Thierry Henri Cauchois 22:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Vital punctuation
Surely an errant comma cannot have the significance of missing periods, to say nothing of an obstructed colon? Howard C. Berkowitz 03:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Hehe, I'll have to ask my girlfriend about that, she being an expert on most of those matters.... Hayford Peirce 04:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Jean Lartéguy
I haven't read the books, but they certainly seem to address military history. For that matter, there's a bit on the Indochinese and Algerian experience in WEB Griffin's Brotherhood of War.

There's a little material scattered in CZ about GCMA, as well as the Algerian War. It might be interesting to pull together, perhaps as a subarticle to torture, that the use of torture in Algeria was, as much as these things ever are, systematic and based on theory. I've only read Trinquier on it, since a translation is available &mdash; I don't agree that he made sense in terms of what is good interrogation practice, but I will accept that he wasn't being sadistic or vengeful, but saw it as a technique. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Ayn Rand sings, "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien"?
(that heading exhausted much of my non-culinary French)

Interesting about the bronze drums; this may be something I need to order through interlibrary loan. You see, that legend ties into an aspect of what I had considered part of North Vietnamese doctrine, which I don't now have in the article but should probably put there.

Within their theory, which does seem to go into legend, they have three armies: the conventional, the guerilla, and the "phantom", which doesn't really exist but the enemy thinks it does. That's evocative of the Laotian legend.

In my non-fiction books, I often use sidebars for things such as showing a cross-cultural idea like this, or other background information. This afternoon, I've been thinking of something that mechanically might have similarity to a neutrality note, but with very different content.

Recently, there has been a significant increase in material available about the war -- declassified documents, oral histories, and that the Vietnamese seem very willing and frank to participate in historical symposia. Apropos of the latter, there's also quite a bit of healing between the soldiers on both sides; there are some amazing vignettes of how welcome Americans, visiting Vietnam, are made to feel by formerly mortal enemies.

Anyway, as I've been going through timelines, there are a surprising number of what-if's and if-only's. At various times, one side or the other would make an offensive move, just as the other side might have been considering a deescalation. Of course, since they weren't talking, there were a huge number of missed opportunities. More and more, there is a tendency in modern warfare for the intelligence services of opposed powers to keep open some disavowable lines of communications. I'm not sure if and how these sad events could make it into CZ, but I hate to see them lost. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Interesting. I no longer have a copy of the Bronze Drums, and I'm pretty sure that it was in French anyhow. Any idea of who Riec might be? Hayford Peirce 22:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

What center quote?
What was the "center quote" you removed from the front page? All I saw in the previous version were two quotes -- 1) "Share your knowledge..." and 2) "Trust yourself..." -- the first of which is now bereft of its citation because you removed the citation. What am I missing here? Bruce M.Tindall 22:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not a partisan of either quote, it's just that my nitpicking gene is confused. I'm still not gettin' it. Here's what I see when I look at the version immediately before your change -- two quotes (so which one is the "center" one, which could exist only if there's an odd number of them?), one of which has a title-plus-author citation, and the other of which has an author-only citation:

"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."

— Life's Little Instruction Book by Jackson Brown and H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

————

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do."

—Benjamin Spock

And then here's what I see immediately after your change: both quotes are still there, but the first one has lost its citation:

"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."

—

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do."

—Benjamin Spock

Bruce M.Tindall 23:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

UK vs. U.K.
Hey Heyford,

"UK" is the British orthography, "U.K." the American, so our British English articles use "UK" while American English articles use "U.K." Both countries, however, use "NATO" and "SNAFU," although Brits would say "SNAFU". (Note punctuation placement.) --Larry Sanger 15:51, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * But is it limited to SNAFU, or also FUBAR and FUBAB? Howard C. Berkowitz 16:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I know, Larry. But the homeopathy article is AE -- I should have mentioned that in the subject line. Hayford Peirce 16:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you'll enjoy this article
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." — Chris Day 18:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yup, thank you, Chris. I think if you look at a *lot* of 1930s writing, by even very *great* writers and stylists such as Evelyn Waugh, you find the word "which" being misused with great frequency.  For the Brits they seemed to be, and often still are, completely interchangeable. All I can do is fight today's battles, hehe, without having to take on FDR.... Hayford Peirce 18:26, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * If you're in the mood see what you think of this (Talk:Homeopathy). Warning, we're revisiting old turf here. Chris Day 18:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Being somewhat cynical, I suspect some of this is a bit of a shell game. On a number of occasions, when pressed about how a homeopath approaches something, the pea shifts under the shell of "well, they also use medical training, to the extent that they have it." This would not be unreasonable if homeopaths were more open to the idea of complementary, rather than alternative medicine, but the most difficult areas to understand seem to be when someone is a "classic", no-other-valid-system homeopath. I remain unconvinced that anyone is willing or capable to give a non-mystical explanation of what any medically oriented person considers the cognitive process in homeopathic diagnosis and treatment. Being told to go read a homeopathy book is about as specific as an answer as "read our holy book, assuming it is holy, and sincerely pray for guidance." (No specific holy book or $DEITY assumed) Howard C. Berkowitz 20:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Besides, no homeopathy goes into the quantum mechanics in any detail. From what I have seen we are often looking at marketing strategies and buzzwords. :) Chris Day 20:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah'll trust quantum mechanics when I see Heisenberg win, or not win, at NASCAR. Seriously, I suspect we are seeing two traditions. One is applying sympathetic magic, which, if examined from a mind-body standpoint, isn't always totally unreasonable. Psychoneuroimmunology can show some data. Within a cultural context, shamanic healers do seem to get effects, and, at least to Michael Harner, described something that was a not-irrational approach to psychosomatic medicine.


 * The other branch is based on FUD, and very much benefits, either in money, ego or both, from attacking medicine. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:37, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course there are all the positive studies, despite the fact they are not widely reproducible :) In my opinion the lack of reproducibility being due to human error on the part of the skeptical experimenters seems doubtful. My main reason is that the off the shelf remedies are robust enough to be sold without a consultation. If it is true that there are remedies this robust and effective it is hard to imagine that a slam dunk trial does not exist where the remedy is not consistently and unequivocally better than a placebo.


 * In summary, take a noisy experimental system and a good dose of conformation bias and the world is your oyster. Every scientist i know has conformation bias when interpreting data. It is a fact of life and good reason to be cautious when interpreting the work of others, and ones own work. This is true whether the data confirms or refutes your position. Chris Day 20:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * This evening, I happened to be picking up some horrible allopathic prescriptions, and, while I was waiting in line, noticed a "flu season" display rack. Among the usual (and fairly useless) over-the-counter preparations was a box of Oscillococcinum. Curious, I picked it up, and read the directions and disclosures. Like any FDA approved products, it carefully listed the inert ingredients, including things that aren't always inert, such as lactose and dyes. One active ingredient was listed. Now, I could pick up any other OTC preparation, read the active ingredients, and even if I didn't know the specific drug, I'd know, from the now WHO-approved nonproprietary naming system, its pharmacologic class. On Oscillococcinum, however, there was a burst of Latin that, had I not known what it actually was, would have been utterly mystified, other than perhaps recognizing a cognate of duck (as in quack, quack, which irony is immense).


 * Was it sometime in the sixties when pharmacies actually would tell the patient the name of the drug? I remember, as a precocious pharmacologist, conning the information over the phone, but there certainly was considerable secrecy about medicine. Over several decades, however, there has been a generally good tendency to make information available, although sometimes hard for a layman to interpret. The Latinate names have been deprecated for years due to their potential for error.


 * Yet homeopaths make a point of using Latin names, even for something as trivial as sodium chloride. Might one ask why they continue to use a "secret language"? Is it that the homeopath is the authority and the patient dare not question, which is what I tend to hear when I ask specific questions? To mix metaphors, what is the Wizard of Oz really wearing under the emperor's new clothes?  Dare anyone (I'm too controversial) ask, bluntly, '''why are homeopaths so secretive about what they do but so "authoritatively" condemning of biomedicine"? Howard C. Berkowitz 00:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Didn't the Catholic church do all their services in latin until recently? I have seen arguments that this was a convenient tool to make the bible less accessible to the masses.  Can't remember where now. In that case i presume there was a power struggle mentality between the secular authority and the papal authority. Am I dreaming up this argument or is there any basis in history for this? Chris Day 00:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * (shifting margin) Religious usage gets interesting. Several religions use non-vernacular (e.g., Church Latin, decidedly non-modern Hebrew, and a specific dialect of Arabic) for the rationale that there can be a single teaching. Religious study is considered an honor and duty for Jews, but the primary sources are in Hebrew. I understand that Jesuit seminaries often deliberately use Attic Greek or Church Latin to teach theology and philosophy, so that language evolution doesn't change meaning. As I understand, only Arabic versions of the Qu'ran are considered accurate, and any Muslim who can read it gains status. Remember that when the Church was developing liturgy, clerics were about the only people who were literate.


 * In other words, some of these practices may be more like the use of IUPAC notation in chemistry &mdash; it's precise, and not secret to anyone who wants to learn it. Now, I can remember, as a young'un having an adult library card by special dispensation, still having to get an additional stamp to give me access to the literally locked medical shelves (this being in the fifties).


 * "Tradition" has been mentioned, in the article, as a reason for homeopathic nomenclature. Something that has not been mentioned at all: are there provings of new homeopathic remedies? Do homeopaths do the internal equivalent of new drug development, or do they consider their materia medica immaculately conceived complete and needing no additions? After all, Ebola fever and acute radiation syndrome are just collections of symptoms, right? Antibiotic resistance is irrelevant if you don't believe in antibiotics.... Howard C. Berkowitz 00:42, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

[complete the indent] Interesting perspective on the religious use of language. Makes sense. As for new remedies, is there a remedy for AIDS? I assume that collection of symptoms is fairly unique and therefore would require a new proving? Chris Day 00:56, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Go look at Ramanand's webpage, where he talks about homeopaths who "healed" HIV/AIDS, although it was for a whole three months, and I vaguely remember mention of undefined laboratory confirmation. Of course, it's reasonably possible to get zero viral load with HAART, and many patients stayed virus-free for a year or so after ceasing treatment, is a lot more solid &mdash; yet they all eventually had viral recurrence with the genetically identical strain, which hid somewhere. Actually, given all the different clinical presentation of AIDS, I wonder why classical homeopaths would even recognize it? After all, while a clinical diagnosis could be made on Kaposi's sarcoma, or whatever the new name is for Pneumocystis carinii, or cytomegalovirus, the definition also requires a depressed CD4 lymphocyte count and HIV seropositivity. Do they do the latter two? Howard C. Berkowitz 01:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The disruption in the vital energy has a specific signature that identifies depressed CD4 lymphocyte count and HIV seropositivity. At least that is probably what the quantum homeomechanicists will say. But to get to your point, a remedy must exist.  So recent provings occured? Chris Day 01:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Or do they just match the AIDS symptoms to their best proving from the original set of 3000? And if so I presume each patient would get a different remedy for AIDS? Chris Day 01:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * My guess, given there were no details, that most of the patients got different remedies. Trying to use their term of art, though, as far as I can tell, there's a materia medica that identifies about 3000 remedies. The pharmacopeia has 3000 formulas for making the remedies. I don't know if there's more than one of each of those books. There do seem to be multiple repertories that say which remedy goes with which symptom, or, in some that I've looked at, with certain "personalities" or "colors" or suchlike. What I have not been able to tell if provings have been done, since the early days of homeopathy, on any new substances. There have been some experiments using homeopathic dilutions of histamine, which certainly wasn't available to Hahnemann, but it's not clear if those went through formal provings or are used in routine homeopathic practice.


 * The repertory, incidentally, includes "anemia" among "symptoms", which confuses the hell out of Matt Innis, who gave me the link. How can a macrocytic anemia be a "symptom"? It's a laboratory result that may not have any visible manifestations -- quite a few occult bleeds, tumors, etc., get picked up on a routine CBC in patients getting screening exams and having no complaints.


 * But do homeopaths only rely on natural substances, or might, as soon as some folate antagonist or TNF-alpha monoclonal antibody becomes available, do provings on it and add it to their lists of remedies? Would homeopathic doses of cisplatin be good for nausea? What about newly discovered natural sources? I tell you that I was righteously annoyed when the giant squid was superceded by the colossal squid, only recently found (I had an Invisible Playmate of a floating giant squid when i was around 4). Did anyone try to do a proving with Supersquid to find out what symptoms it might produce? I'm really curious about this -- there's lots of talk about trials where homeopathic remedies challenge medical ones, but do homeopaths themselves try for improving their remedies, doing efficacy comparisons, etc.? No comparison with medicine -- just evidence-based homeopathy, homeopathic new drugs, etc. Do you have any sense that this goes on? Howard C. Berkowitz 01:57, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You know, what *I'd* really like to see are some accurate numbers on how many 'Merkins (admittedly a pretty dumb bunch of primates) actually *use* homeopathy as a primary treatment. Ie, yesterday I saw my primary for the second time this year (normally I see him once a year) in order for him to burn off one little white spot on my arm with his handy little bottle of liquid nitrogen (?). If I were a rabid homeo-believer, would I have him/her do a "remedy" for this little white spot (which, of course, could eventually become *much* more dangerous), or would I be sent to a dermo, or what? I remember a couple of years ago when my wonderful supermarket next door sold out to those imbeciles in Colorado (I think) and it was renamed Wild Oats and they put in an *enormous* section of homeopathic bottles (at $20 a bottle) to replace the canned tomatoes and other useful items, and I would see, to my wonderment, dozens of people browsing up and down the aisles actually *buying* this stuff! And once one of the section ladies shouted at me: "There are double-blind tests, you know!" I was *so* happy to see the miserable store fail and be shut down. Even though Whole Foods bought the other branches.... Hayford Peirce 01:28, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Hayford, do you get a sense that homeopaths, at least the pure ones, have a sense of urgency about anything? Are there emergency homeopaths? I started respiratory emergencies when Ramanand was going on about trying to decide if help should be called -- I did not have a sense there was anything that would be a blazing red light until the life-threatening condition was ruled out, rather than waiting to see if the remedy did something. Little example of "index of suspicion" here: a month or so ago, a housemate mentioned she had had two nosebleeds in the day (unusual), but then said "I have a terrible headache". Now, she does have chronic migraine, but I asked her not to move (well, she is in a wheelchair) until I could take her blood pressure, and I'll tell you I was scared. Those were the last words of FDR, and many people dying of an acute brain bleed will say something like "this is the worst headache of my life." Combined with a nosebleed, which also can be a signal of extreme blood pressure elevation, I will say I was really scared until I took her BP and found it normal. Even a full paramedic ambulance may not have the right drugs for intervening.  Howard C. Berkowitz 01:57, 10 December 2008 (UTC)