"Nothing but the rain"
I stole the title for this communication from an American TV show from around 2006. This is just some more pictures of me at the Disaster Area gig at MGS. They’ve been released onto Facebook which is why the quality is pretty poor.
Today [Wed 20th August 2014], I am switching broadband supplier. I have been with EE for about 18 months and am moving over to Sky broadband. I think one of my first communications on here was about changing to TalkTalk from PlusNet. Now I am moving to give even more of my money to Murdoch and his family of companies, something I am rather unhappy about. If I was to total up how much I spend on TV and now broadband I would be horrified. I pay for my television because I like the following:
It is currently 0730 and my broadband seems to be working fine on the old router. When things seem to break I will swap over to the new Sky modem router and also change the micro-filter. I will then spend some time messing around with the router settings so that my home network things work as they should. I set up static IPs for all my devices, mostly because it keeps things nice and neat and not because it is necessary.
[Follow up written Fri 22 Aug 2014]
Went to the park in the afternoon. Had already been out in the morning and broadband was still working once we got home. Once we entered the house I glanced at the EE router and it was flashing “no internet”. I changed the router and micro-filter. Plugged in and watched the lights flash. Eventually some bits were steady white. This meant I had an internet connection.
I logged into the router and changed the SSID so it would work with all my devices. Once that was done I slowly started plugging in all the network.
So, now I am on Sky broadband and phone rental. My initial thoughts are:
Apparently Sky are spending the next 10 days testing my line and working out a good connection bandwidth for me. I hope that I get more than 5Mb/s. This was my normal bandwidth before Sky. I also hope that the router can cope with all the traffic on my network. I will give it about a month before I seriously consider getting a new router and setting it up myself.
There is an issue with getting my own modem-router to use. Sky will not release my broadband login information. This means I will have to make sure I can find that information in the router before I get a new one. A quick internet search brings up software that will work to find out those details.
Let’s see what the next few weeks bring. I am hopeful.
UPDATE 25 August 2014:
The download bandwidths have increased slightly. I have reached about 5Mb/s which is on a par with my previous provider. The router seems a bit shaky when there’s a lot going on with my network. It doesn’t like uploading large files and streaming downloading at the same time. This means I will probably change my router once the bandwidth settles down. I have a plan to use my EE router. It is more customisable than the Sky router and worked pretty well, even if it was free and I don’t like the design.
I saw a retweet or tweet, I’m not sure how a saw it as I don’t tend to follow anything on this subject matter. I saw this on my general twitter account, the one I use for following things I’m interested in rather than just my friends.
Did you know homeopathy provides the safest and most natural treatment for allergies in babies and children? #horshamhour
— Homeopathy2u Ltd (@homeopathy2u) August 13, 2014
I re-tweeted this myself in a kinda ironic way. I also asked if there were any papers to back up the claim.
@homeopathy2u amazing, I didn’t know that. Can you point me to some medical trials. — Ian G Parish (@iparish_gen) August 15, 2014
I actually got a response. Which was good. I was expecting to find that I was ignored.
@iparish_gen look at Fisher P, Dantas F, Rampes H. The safety of homeopathic products. J R Soc Med 2002;9 5 : 474–5. — Homeopathy2u Ltd (@homeopathy2u) August 16, 2014
So, this was good. I went to see if I could find the science paper. It is here, at the Journal Of The Royal Society Of Medicine. I have looked at the abstract and I have the following points to make:
My summary so far: I have been given a paper which shows that homoeopathic preparations are the same as placebo for various treatments. So I would say that homoeopathic preparations are safe to use. Whether they work or not has not been explained, yet.
@homeopathy2u Thx. Seems to be about provings, not a course of treatment. Do you have any links to safety and efficacy of treating allergies
— Ian G Parish (@iparish_gen) August 16, 2014
Here’s what I got back.
@iparish_gen Hello Ian, thx! Here read this http://t.co/HDX1AJLN27 let me know anything you would like to ask. — Homeopathy2u Ltd (@homeopathy2u) August 16, 2014
Here is a direct link to the review of evidence published by two practising homoeopaths. I looked over this review [from under the “news” section of the website] and found that it was essentially filled with contradictions. There wasn’t much talk about methodology of the trials and which particular remedies were used. It then goes on to include a table about which remedies could be used and includes statements such as:
Homeopaths contend that respiratory allergies are best treated by professional homeopaths who prescribe individually selected homeopathic constitutional medicines according to specific and unique genetic history, personal health history, and totality of present physical and psychological symptoms being experienced.
Although homeopaths assert that this method of homeopathic prescribing provides the longest-term benefits, no research confirms this observation.
If you include a statement like the second paragraph in your writing then you absolutely should not have the first. The meaning goes thus:
“Some people think this, but there’s no evidence for it”
It’s a very similar technique used by newspapers and the Discovery channel in its “science” programming. “Some people believe Jesus was an alien, we will leave it for you to decide”. Whether some people believe something or not is irrelevant. Belief does not change what the evidence shows. The review also uses the brilliant argument that “further research” is needed. Well, if the trials you are mentioning in this review don’t give stand out evidence and they are the best you’ve got then asking for more research is a form of special pleading.
My next response was aimed at getting a link to the BEST paper that a homoeopath can produce.
@homeopathy2u Thx. Had a look. Seems filled with contradictory statements. Do you have a link to your best evidence in a published trial?
— Ian G Parish (@iparish_gen) August 17, 2014
Here’s the next response.
@iparish_gen Yes have a look at these and remember it’s very subjective to the person http://t.co/gjKhS5w1ii it’s a holistic approach. Thx. — Homeopathy2u Ltd (@homeopathy2u) August 18, 2014
Here’s a direct link to the “best” trial. Which isn’t a trial. It’s a puff-piece from a British Homoeopathic organisation. Having had a look through this publication I have searched for the two references to allergies.
The first reference to allergies is:
Bornhöft G, Wolf U, Ammon K, et al. Effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness of homeopathy in general practice – summarized health technology assessment. Forsch Komplementärmed 2006; 13 Suppl 2: 19–29.
I’m not going to read this because the title has nothing about the effectiveness of homoeopathy in treating allergies. It’s about safety. I can assure you that taking homoeopathy is the same as taking nothing and so it’s safe because it has nothing in it.
The second reference is:
Bellavite P, Ortolani R, Pontarollo F, et al. Immunology and homeopathy. 4. Clinical studies – Part 1. Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine; eCAM, 2006; 3: 293-301
Here’s a link to the paper stored at the US National Library of Medicine. From the conclusion of this meta-study:
In summary, there is an efficacy/effectiveness paradox (similar to that found in several other areas of complementary medicine research) with a weak evidence in favo[u]r of homeopathy when studies are done in randomized and double-blind conditions, but yet there is documented effectiveness in equivalence studies comparing homeopathy and conventional medicine and documented usefulness in general practice.
This says that when the “gold standard” of medical trials are applied to homoeopathy, the randomised double blind placebo controlled trial, then there is weak evidence for homoeopathy. If homoeopathy produced any outcome at all we would expect strong evidence in these trials. The paper summary does not state that “placebo-controlled” so it is possible that they were really just measuring a placebo effect.
Placebo Effect – An Aside
Very briefly I would like to point out that the placebo effect is a nill-effect. Your body will heal itself what ever you decide to take. Taking any form of medicine garners the placebo effect. so, you could take homoeopathy with no clinical effect and only the placebo effect [zero real effect] or you could take real medicine and have the bonus of the placebo [zero real effect]. Placebo – you might “feel” better, but you aren’t. Simple.
I’ve followed the reference from the paper for its conclusions in this area.
Walach H, Jonas WB, Ives J, Wijk RV, Weingartner O. Research on homeopathy: state of the art. J Altern Complement Med. 2005;11:813–29.
Here’s a quotation from the summary available here.
While there are nearly 200 reports on clinical trials, few series have been conducted for single conditions. Some of these series document clinically useful effects and differences against placebo and some series do not. Observational research into uncontrolled homeopathic practice documents consistently strong therapeutic effects and sustained satisfaction in patients.
So, this is a meta-analysis discussed in another meta-analysis and it states that virtually no trials have been done on a single condition. This is common with CAM as it means there’s more chance of finding an effect when you mine the data. Some trials are tested against placebo and some not [another CAM trick]. As is most common, when good double-blind placebo controlled trials are completed the effect of homoeopathy is reduced to virtually zero although “observational” studies [self reporting and other subjective stuff] reveals strong effects. These “observational” studies may report strong effects but it does not mean that they are real.
Another of the references in this paper links to some allergy investigations so I looked through those.
Aabel S, Laerum E, Dolvik S, Djupesland P. Is homeopathic ‘immunotherapy’ effective? A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with the isopathic remedy Betula 30c for patients with birch pollen allergy. Br Homeopath J. 2000;89:161–8.
Link here. Answer “no”. There is no difference to placebo, except for a couple of days in the middle of the trial where we have pointed out small differences because it confirms what we think. But overall there is no effect.
What we think this means is that there should be further investigation. What I think this means is that there’s no need for further investigation. It’s quite clear it doesn’t work.
Another paper about allergies:
Aabel S. No beneficial effect of isopathic prophylactic treatment for birch pollen allergy during a low-pollen season: a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of homeopathic Betula 30c. Br Homeopath J.2000;89:169–73
Link here. NO BENEFICAL EFFECT.
Another:
Aabel S. Prophylactic and acute treatment with the homeopathic medicine, Betula 30c for birch pollen allergy: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of consistency of VAS responses. Br Homeopath J.2001;90:73–8.
Link here. This trial looked for correlation between taking homoeopathy and the self-reported symptoms of people and found correlation. r=0.7 or so, which isn’t bad, but then although it shows correlation it most definitely does not give any causation. So this is a mostly useless study.
Here’s the final one I’m going to look at. I was trying to make sure that I have looked at most of the evidence before replying to Mr Homoeopathy man.
Lewith GT, Watkins AD, Hyland ME, Shaw S, Broomfield JA, Dolan G, Holgate ST. Use of ultramolecular potencies of allergen to treat asthmatic people allergic to house dust mite: double blind randomised controlled clinical trial. Br Med J. 2002;324:520
Direct link here. Here’s some words from that paper:
Results
There was no difference in most outcomes between placebo and homoeopathic immunotherapy. There was a different pattern of change over the trial for three of the diary assessments: morning peak expiratory flow (P=0.025), visual analogue scale (P=0.017), and mood (P=0.035). At week three there was significant deterioration for visual analogue scale (P=0.047) and mood (P=0.013) in the homoeopathic immunotherapy group compared with the placebo group. Any improvement in participants’ asthma was independent of belief in complementary medicine.
Conclusion
Homoeopathic immunotherapy is not effective in the treatment of patients with asthma. The different patterns of change between homoeopathic immunotherapy and placebo over the course of the study are unexplained.
So, this was a double blind randomised controlled trial and it showed no effect. time for a reply to Mr Homoeopathy. I’ve asked for best evidence but have found none of good quality so far. Even the best RCT says no effect. It’ll be time soon to call quits on this discussion.
@homeopathy2u have looked through lots of the references. This one says no effect. http://t.co/hFNLB5zeEp do you have good study that is +ve
— Ian G Parish (@iparish_gen) August 19, 2014
The reply was thus:
As of yet I haven’t received a reply. When I do I shall continue this communication. I hope to get a reply with a good RCT with a positive result for homoeopathy.
Hey, this is another communication on the theme of “things that Parish is trying to explain using his rather limited writing ability”.
In this communication I will try and explain my thoughts on what our purpose is. Why we are here. What it is we are meant to do. By “we” I mean us as individuals and as a cohesive [ha ha] world society.
Firstly, let me explain just how insignificant we are. We live on a tiny planet orbiting a pretty boring star in a galaxy of 300 billion stars. To give you an idea of how many stars that is, it is around 9510 year’s worth of seconds.
Humans are rather terrible at visualising large numbers, or understanding how significant numbers can be [it’s why betting companies and lotteries are so profitable]. We mostly work in numbers the size of us. We are generally comfortable with numbers up to around a thousand and then after than we lose all conceptual understanding. If you talk about a million or billion then people think they have a good understanding but they don’t. A million seconds is somewhere around 13 days worth of seconds. A billion seconds is around 31 YEARS. That’s quite a difference. To give you an idea of how insignificant our numbers are the sun fuses 620 MILLION TONS of hydrogen EVERY second and is still going to last for BILLIONS of years.
As far as we know there are over 170 BILLION galaxies in the observable universe. Spend a few hours thinking about just how large and amazing the universe is. I guarantee you will develop a headache and feel slightly ill. The chances of life elsewhere is total, it is clear we are a tiny part of this universe. We are insignificant. We can control our environment and probably some aspects of the solar system. Other than that, we essentially don’t exist. We do not matter. The universe does not care about us. There is no god or gods. Religion is an incorrect view of the world. That conclusion leapt out of nowhere, but I think it is valid. God did not create the world for us. God does not send his rules to us. There is nowhere for god to be. God is a human creation to ease our sense of uselessness.
Let’s bring things down to a more human size and consider “purpose”.
Ultimately, there is no purpose. We, as modern humans, have existed for such a short amount of time [~100,000 years] and we might manage to exist for quite a while, but the evidence is that even if we last for a billion years then eventually the Sun will grow and kill us all. Interstellar travel is essentially impossible. We have no “universal” purpose.
So, the universe doesn’t care what happens to us. We can’t change that. So now we need to be more mundane.
We exist on Earth. The dinosaurs ruled this planet for a few hundred million years. We’ve managed ten thousand [of civilisation] and have only just managed at that. We seem to be very good at killing ourselves. It is arguable that the Earth does not care about us. Our visit to Earth, so far, has been fleeting and yet also so damaging. So, we look to biology for purpose. Essentially my biological purpose is to propagate my genes. To ensure that my part of the species carries on. That is my ultimate biological purpose. Everything I have do leads to that point. I eat and breathe solely for the purpose of helping my genes survive. The problem of purpose is added to because I am conscious and able to think in abstract terms.
Humans are not the only animals able to think in abstract terms but we are the only species who do it so very well. We are able to question and discover. It is quite remarkable that we can do that and it has taken 4 billion years to get to that point. We are a fluke of evolution. One that will occur over and over again in this universe [large numbers etc].
We have biological purpose. We also have no absolute morals [no god]. Therefore the morals we have come from within and what we are taught. Some are the result of being animals and some are the result of having thought.
I have two children. My biological purpose is complete. I do not need to exist for biology any more. However my purpose is not complete. I think it is my purpose to do the best I can for society, for humans in total. Now, given no absolute morals it is hard to argue for any particular purpose, but I use reason and hopefully logic to reach some conclusions about what we are for. Once I accept that my family need others to help them survive I look to the society that will provide this. I will consider society to be the human race as a whole now. Everyone on the planet [and those currently in low Earth orbit].
I have a duty to do the best I can to maintain a good society around me so that my genes have the best chance of maintaining themselves in this world. As a human with feelings I also want the best for my children and for all humans around me. It is therefore imperative that I work for the best of society. This is how I create my morals and views on all things. I start from a point of “what is best for us?”.
My ultimate purpose is to contribute to a world where my genes [children] have the best chance of living their lives to fulfil their purpose to breed and to contribute to society to maintain and improve the lives of all. I need no god or gods. I don’t need the promise of ever after life [how terrible] and I don’t need the fear of hell. I just know my purpose.
I am uncomfortably aware that my purpose is entirely selfish and internal. There is no ultimate purpose, only that which we discover for ourselves. Many are uncomfortable with this, but they should explore this. Doing good for the sake of doing good and understanding that it is just for you and not some supernatural dude in the sky is something we should all get used to.
I went walkabout on Sunday with my niece and we spent the day wandering around 35 km around London with me boring her most of the time. We had lunch at the RAF Club and also saw a gig at Electrowerkz in the evening. One of the things I did was to show her around Imperial College and the student union.
In Beit Quad of Imperial College there is a place that used to be my office [it’s no longer an office] and also the union dining hall. Inside the hall are some honour boards and on there, my name! I have wanted to go back and get a photo of this for some time now and this proved to be the perfect opportunity.
If you look, you will see me in the 1994 to 1995 season, just after Charles Leary.
Here’s a link to a previous communication about IC.
So, Alt-Fest got cancelled. Rather gutted about that. I was looking forward to a weekend seeing some favourite bands and also discovering new music and bands along the way. I guess a number of bands had already organised travel to the UK as a (much) smaller festival turned up at Electrowerkz in Angel.
The SOS Festival played over this weekend and many of the bands who were booked to appear at Alt-Fest played here instead. One of my favourite bands played on Sunday 17 August and I travelled there to see them. I also took my niece as I was going to take her to Alt Fest for her birthday.
Here’s the timings sheet from the front door of the entrance. It’s blurry because I took it in a hurry.
This bothered me slightly! The last train home was at 23:43 from St Pancras, just over a mile from the venue. It wouldn’t be worth it to leave early, or to get the tube, the quickest method to get to the mainline would be to run. We decided that was what we would do.
Jared Louch and Mark Plastic were good fun. Mark Plastic was a guitarist and he played along to a backing track while Jared Louch sang. The songs were reasonable but it was the segways what were great. Jared Louch was an older man of rock and didn’t care. He was funny.
Next up were Global Citizen. As a band they were good but the music didn’t do a great deal for me. There were two keyboardists, a drummer and the singer. The structure of the songs didn’t really have any bass lines. The bass sounds were created using a chord progression on the keyboards with a choral sound. It just didn’t work for me.
XP8 were playing their last ever gig. This is a shame as they were really good. According to Wikipedia they are from Rome, which surprised me somewhat as they sounded perfectly English, but then, what do I know? There songs had pumping bass lines and a good fast and hard dance beat over the top. They had a video show in the background to which I didn’t really pay attention. Their songs were interesting, well structured and both of them seemed to be having a really good time. A minor thing is that the not-singer seemed to look a lot like Greg Wallace from Masterchef and this was a little off-putting, although more my problem than his. I’m not sure what they are going to do now, but I was pretty impressed with their set. They did over-run by about 20 minutes!
Finally Aesthetic Perfection were on. This was causing me slight problems as they were due to do a seventy minute set and they were late. I didn’t want to miss any AP but then again, I didn’t want to spend the night in St Pancras station waiting for the first train home [I’d done that plenty as a teenager].
Aesthetic Perfection were excellent. All of their songs were good and they had great energy. I do have a problem with their live sound. This is the second time I have seen them and some of the best bits of their songs are the high pitched “twiddly” bits. When playing live these seem incredibly quiet in the mix. A lot of the timings in the songs come from these sections and I feel that something is a little lacking. This *could* be my problem, maybe my ears are too old, but my niece also couldn’t really hear those bits. She had a great time, and even got to hold the singer’s hand.
There was slight confusion on stage as they played a song and then announced that it was their last one. I’m pretty sure the club has a curfew and so the band had to finish. I was starting to get worried that we wouldn’t see all of the AP set. They had about ten minutes before we had to leave. AP left the stage, we called for an encore and then they played two more songs.
After the last song, which conveniently was “Spit It Out”, I say conveniently because I think it’s their standard set finisher, my niece and I ran out the door, down the steps and then the mile and a bit to St Pancras station. We got there with just enough time to buy a bottle of water and get on the train before we departed.
Here’s how far we moved over the entire day:
This communication is going to be a little different. This entire website contains a lot of stuff written by me, most of it is pretty dull. I’m not really sure of my motivation but it’s something to do and it makes me feel modern even though I’ve been writing web pages since 1995 [Imperial College Student Union web site].
Over the last year or so I have been thinking about horse racing and whether it is morally justifiable to allow this to happen. I have slowly come to the conclusion that there is NO moral justification for humans to use animals in sport.
I dislike the idea that we, as a species, put ourselves on top of horses and then race them as hard as possible around a track and that it is then broadcast for people to watch as sport. I do realise that it is a huge industry and that many people rely on this for their livelihoods but that doesn’t get around the fact that I find it impossible to justify as a just thing. Horse racing is a hangover from a time when we were not a liberal society. I would argue that our society (esp in the UK) is largely liberal and we seek reason for doing things. I do not see any reason why we take large beings and race them against each other for the financial gain of ourselves.
Sport is for human pleasure and social cohesion so we can only use humans to help us create that. I do not see any reason why humans should be using animals for sport. I would happily sign a petition calling for the end of animals in human forms of entertainment. Sport is, essentially entertainment. It doesn’t matter who or what wins, we just use it as a distraction from the more important aspects of our lives, such as our moral duty to save this planet and ensure everyone has enough to eat and freedom to be what they want. [Deep breath] Here goes:
Animals should not be used for sport
I’m pretty sure that this also goes for greyhound racing, fishing, cock fighting etc. As I said, this topic is one that I have been thinking about gradually and so “pretty sure” means I am working through the arguments in my head and trying to decide on what is “right”. Just in case you are wondering, I do NOT need a god to help me decide what is just.
I am happy for humans to be used in sport. Having said that, we generally don’t have to “destroy” humans if they fall in a race. Yes, some sports people die for what they do and that is sad, but at least they were (hopefully) aware of the risks.
I am reasonably happy to grow animals for food. I like eating meat and poultry and fish. I am aware of the inefficiencies of us growing meat to eat and that is a problem I should think about another time. We specifically grow animals to kill and then eat. I understand that, morally, that is different from growing animals to use as ENTERTAINMENT. This does not make me an hypocrite, just in case you were thinking that. I’ll explain my rationality for you: growing and eating animals to survive as humans is ok, growing animals for entertainment is not. Whether it is justifiable to grow animals for food, given the energy constraints this world faces I shall deal with another time.
I do know that when I try to put my thoughts down in writing that I struggle a little to get my ideas across. This is because writing is not a natural thing for me. I also haven’t spent all my time covering every aspect of this communication because I haven’t got the time. What you are reading here is the condensed version, putting my argument as simply as possible and trying to justify it. If you have problems with what I say, I don’t care. Perhaps you will start to think about this and work out what your arguments are.
It is hard to explain just how important this EP is to me. I know that it shouldn’t really appear in this series as it’s not an album but I don’t care.
Loud, hard, heavy, angry, sexy, violent, calming, soothing, political, gentle, vicious
Rock, rap, heavy, soft, crazy, DJ, mixing, scratching, chugging, funk, trance
Andy first got me into this in around my third year of university. I lived in Ongar road and he gave me a tape of new music he had found. He always found good music and passed it on to me. It sounded a little like Faith No More who, I felt, had messed up heavy metal a little by mixing in some funk and crazy stuff.
Senser had taken music I loved and turned it on its head. They had funk, metal and they even had a DJ dude who would scratch in the background. This stuff blew my mind. It has to be played loud and let the bass ring out. I do like rolling bass lines that play all the while other ditties are played around the steady beat of the drums and thumping bass. I think all my favourite bands have managed that [AC/DC, Dokken, Iron Maiden].
So, all of the four songs on here are great. Download it from iTunes or whatever your preferred music provider is. I especially love Eject (Over Zealous Mix) with the David Koresh quotes. You youngsters should look it up and see how religion fucks everything up and belief in crazy things fucks everything up.
I would say that the sound that Senser created, along with the Prodigy, allowed other bands to build and transform the heavier side of music leading to Rammstein and Slipknot.
This EP still sends shivers down my spine. If it can do that after about twenty years then I’d say it deserves all the merit I can bestow upon it.
No one knows when it’s going to happen. When they asked him, Jesus said even he didn’t know the exact time, but it’s going to happen. One of these days, and it could be any minute now, Christ is going to come back for us all and after that it’s going to be pretty awful around here.
I can’t quite remember how I heard about Front Line Assembly. I think they were on a compilation album and then I downloaded the album “Millennium” which will be reviewed much later in this series.
This album I bought before I saw FLA last summer at the Garage. This was their latest album and I wanted to make sure that I knew some of the songs they were going to play. I do like it. All FLA stuff makes it into my Hellektro playlist on my phone and Sonos system. This album has fewer guitar sounds throughout and is a bit more industrial/dance than Millenium. The voice is distorted and almost whispered throughout the album and that’s not my favourite type of sound. The songs are all well crafted as you would expect from someone with over 20 years in the business.
I rated this film a 6 on IMDB. See this page about my scoring system.
I went to see this film expecting something that I knew would be a terrible film but great fun at the same time. That is what I got.
It’s an obvious adventure with some laughs and great cameos. Worth a watch but don’t expect to be intellectually challenged.