Click here for my 2009 NetProphet presentation in PDF. (Video to follow)
Also see the NetProphet Website and the very active Twitter Stream.
Also see the NetProphet Website and the very active Twitter Stream.
I've heard a couple of friends and family swear by Natura Rescue Remedy, "for Shock, Anxiety & Sleeplessness". So I thought I'd do a bit of research. Here's what I found:
Firstly, let's have a look at the ingredients listed on the Natura website. (The ingredients don't actually matter, but more about that later.)
Ambra grisea.
Natura says: "supports the functioning of the nervous system to treat anxiety, fear, hypersensitivity, shyness and numbness of the body."
Wikipedia says: "biliary secretion of the intestines of the sperm whale ... was used as a fixative in perfumery"
Banisteriopsis caapi
Natura says: "helps calm extreme nervous hypersensitivity"
Wikipedia says: Hallucinogenic used by native American tribes and some religious sects. Entheogenic.
Clematis
Natura says: "is a flower essence indicated for inability to focus on reality and the present and is useful in the treatment of shock."
Wikipedia says: Essentially toxic. Causes internal bleeding of the digestive track. Despite its toxicity, it was used by Native Americans in small amounts to treat migraines.
Rock Rose
Natura says: "is the flower essence that relieves extreme fear and a feeling of panic"
Wikipedia says: "This is a good nectar source for bees"
Impatiens glandulifera
Natura says: "acts on the nervous system to relieve irritability, restlessness, hyperactivity and impatience"
Wikipedia says: When crushed has a strong musky odour.
Melissa Officinalis
Natura says: "has a carminative and sedative action to help induce restful sleep, prevent insomnia, soothe irritability and help cope with stress and tension."
Wikipedia actually notes one study that did find it may relieve stress, though even the authors of this study state that further research is needed to confirm it.
I say: Don't expect much from this as Natura dilutes this ingredient 1000 times before adding it in with the mix of other ingredients.
Moschus moschiferus
Natura says: "acts on the central nervous system to relieve fainting, shock, anxiety and fear."
Wikipedia says: Siberian Musk Deer. Hunted for its musk gland (believed to have aphrodisiac qualities). Classified as a threatened species by CITES.
I say: Now Natura is helping to kill endanged animals!
Star of Bethlehem
Natura says: "is the principle flower essence specifically indicated for shock"
Wikipedia says: "The plant is toxic."
Cherry Plum
Natura says: "is a flower essence that acts on the nervous system to treat anxiety and fear"
Wikipedia says: "excellent for jam making"
Hopefully by now you've figured out that Natura is trying to fool people and relieve them of their money, rather than their anxiety. Firstly, not a single one of the ingredients has been proven to have any of the effects Natura proclaims. Furthermore, the ingredients are so dilute that they wouldn't have any effect in any case.
If you thought that you'd at least get a little bit high from Banisteriopsis caapi as the Native Americans did, think again. It is diluted 1x10^60 times before it's added. This means that there is 1 part of this in every 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 parts of water. That's a pretty big number. Let me try put this another way: It will take 2 billion doses, per second, to 6 billion people, for 4 billion years, to deliver a single molecule to any one patient.
I.e. you haven't a snowball's chance in midsummer to get any effect from Banisteriopsis Caapi.
And that ain't the end of it! Hold on to your chair for this one:
According to homeopathy principles, the more dilute the solution, the stronger the effects! I kid you not.
Now, I know some of you reading this are saying: "But I've tried homeopathy and it works for me!". And this may well be true, because of the Placebo Effect, and of it has indeed been scientifically proven that Placebos do help with symptomatic relief.
The question is: How much are you willing to pay for a Placebo?
---
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_remedy
Please share this article with your friends and family. Even if Rescue might have no effects on your body, the long-term effect on the environment from manufacturing and distribution of these remedies is highly destructive.
Firstly, let's have a look at the ingredients listed on the Natura website. (The ingredients don't actually matter, but more about that later.)
- Ambra grisea D6
- Banisteropsis caapi Spag D60
- Clematis vitalba (Clematis) aqua inf.
- Helianthemum nummularium (Rock Rose) aqua inf.
- Impatiens glandulifera (Impatiens) aqua inf.
- Melissa officinalis Spag D3
- Moschus moschiferus D6
- Ornithogalum umbellatum (Star of Bethlehem) aqua inf.
- Prunus cerasifera (Cherry Plum) aqua inf.
Ambra grisea.
Natura says: "supports the functioning of the nervous system to treat anxiety, fear, hypersensitivity, shyness and numbness of the body."
Wikipedia says: "biliary secretion of the intestines of the sperm whale ... was used as a fixative in perfumery"
Banisteriopsis caapi
Natura says: "helps calm extreme nervous hypersensitivity"
Wikipedia says: Hallucinogenic used by native American tribes and some religious sects. Entheogenic.
Clematis
Natura says: "is a flower essence indicated for inability to focus on reality and the present and is useful in the treatment of shock."
Wikipedia says: Essentially toxic. Causes internal bleeding of the digestive track. Despite its toxicity, it was used by Native Americans in small amounts to treat migraines.
Rock Rose
Natura says: "is the flower essence that relieves extreme fear and a feeling of panic"
Wikipedia says: "This is a good nectar source for bees"
Impatiens glandulifera
Natura says: "acts on the nervous system to relieve irritability, restlessness, hyperactivity and impatience"
Wikipedia says: When crushed has a strong musky odour.
Melissa Officinalis
Natura says: "has a carminative and sedative action to help induce restful sleep, prevent insomnia, soothe irritability and help cope with stress and tension."
Wikipedia actually notes one study that did find it may relieve stress, though even the authors of this study state that further research is needed to confirm it.
I say: Don't expect much from this as Natura dilutes this ingredient 1000 times before adding it in with the mix of other ingredients.
Moschus moschiferus
Natura says: "acts on the central nervous system to relieve fainting, shock, anxiety and fear."
Wikipedia says: Siberian Musk Deer. Hunted for its musk gland (believed to have aphrodisiac qualities). Classified as a threatened species by CITES.
I say: Now Natura is helping to kill endanged animals!
Star of Bethlehem
Natura says: "is the principle flower essence specifically indicated for shock"
Wikipedia says: "The plant is toxic."
Cherry Plum
Natura says: "is a flower essence that acts on the nervous system to treat anxiety and fear"
Wikipedia says: "excellent for jam making"
Hopefully by now you've figured out that Natura is trying to fool people and relieve them of their money, rather than their anxiety. Firstly, not a single one of the ingredients has been proven to have any of the effects Natura proclaims. Furthermore, the ingredients are so dilute that they wouldn't have any effect in any case.
If you thought that you'd at least get a little bit high from Banisteriopsis caapi as the Native Americans did, think again. It is diluted 1x10^60 times before it's added. This means that there is 1 part of this in every 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 parts of water. That's a pretty big number. Let me try put this another way: It will take 2 billion doses, per second, to 6 billion people, for 4 billion years, to deliver a single molecule to any one patient.
I.e. you haven't a snowball's chance in midsummer to get any effect from Banisteriopsis Caapi.
And that ain't the end of it! Hold on to your chair for this one:
According to homeopathy principles, the more dilute the solution, the stronger the effects! I kid you not.
Now, I know some of you reading this are saying: "But I've tried homeopathy and it works for me!". And this may well be true, because of the Placebo Effect, and of it has indeed been scientifically proven that Placebos do help with symptomatic relief.
The question is: How much are you willing to pay for a Placebo?
---
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_remedy
Please share this article with your friends and family. Even if Rescue might have no effects on your body, the long-term effect on the environment from manufacturing and distribution of these remedies is highly destructive.
Until one is committed, there
is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one
elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
- Goethe
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
- Goethe
Vinny Lingham just announced to the the world that he has raised $20 million for Synthasite, a simple online website building tool.After Twitter, this investment is probably the 2nd largest VC deal since Lehman Brothers hit the fan.
TechCrunch has more details, but seems skeptical and questions whether SynthaSite would be able to grow in the "current economic climate". I think this is a silly question. Services such as SynthaSite are perfectly positioned to take advantage of the situation.
There may be an economic crisis afoot, but TechCrunch is mistaken if it thinks it means every economically active person is going to go into hiding after being laid-off. There will be many small businesses founded by laid-off workers in the next year. These businesses will need websites, quick!
With SynthaSite you can set up a brand new website, choose a professional looking template, add some basic info about your business and even create an online store that automatically integrates with your PayPal account. You can then publish to a synthasite.com subdomain or simply pay $15 to buy a custom domain through SynthaSite. You can literally do all of this within 10 minutes.
The other question TechCrunch raises is the Me-Too players in the market. Geez, do they even deserve mentioning? Synthasite has been growing 34% month on month (see compete.com) over the last year, and there's a simple reason for this: Small Town South African born Vinny Lingham is smarter and faster than all the sheltered Stanford kiddies in Silicon Valley combined. Good luck to them though...
Disclaimer: Vinny is an investor in Skyrove WiFi Hotspots.
Joy Tang recently sent me a bunch of interesting links anyone involved with Wi-Fi in the developing world should check out:
Wireless Networking in the Developing World (This is a brilliant practical guide everybody should read - h.)
http://wndw.net/
Wireless Africa wiki
http://www.fmfi.org.za/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Africa_ Workshop
Wireless Africa Outcome Mapping Workshop at Winneba Open Digital Village, OVF Ghana
http://www.flickr.com/photos/1village/sets/ 72157607377038340/
Winneba Open Digital Village wireless mesh set up
http://www.flickr.com/photos/1village/sets/ 72157607311037594/
Last year (2007) through my role as the VP in a Taiwan OEM for networking equipment, I faciliated the process of making open mesh routers based on open source SW:
http://drupal.airjaldi.com/
I am currently part of a force to intiaite Open Hardware. The 2nd conference will be held in Taiwan in March time frame.
http://wiki.openpattern.org/index.php/ OpenTechSummitTaiwan2008
oneVillage's Open Digital Village network key points:
http://www.opendigitalvillage.net/index.php?title=Main_Page
I often need to take a screenshot, crop it and save it to a web-friendly format. In Windows this is a quick and easy process using MS Paint. However, there's nothing bundled with Mac OS that can perform this basic function. (Which is odd, considering they do bundle software that assumes I will start a garage band...)
Enter Paintbrush 2.0 by Soggy Waffles Software.
Paintbrush does all the basic things you need:
Paintbrush can open and save to most major image formats, including BMP, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, and GIF. Full support for transparency is available for image formats which support an alpha channel (currently PNGs and GIFs). You can also paste images copied from many common Mac applications, including Microsoft Office and Apple iWork.Best of all, it's entirely free. (Free as in beer, and free as in open: the full source is distributed under the GPL.)
Gmail has just become perfect by offering offline access using Google Gears.
No longer do you have to download your mails using a separate application for those times you're running around without internet. Best of all, almost all the functionality you could want is there: read it, write it, label it or star it. Once you're connected to to the internet again, Gmail will send all mails in your outbox.
I think this makes Gmail qualify as the first fully fledged browser-based email application.
I've criticized Google (and others) in the past for overlooking developing countries, but this will be a huge boon to anyone familiar with Flaky Internet Connections in Africa and will further help Google in establishing a global base. Let's hope that 37 Signals and Salesforce.com will also wake up and smell the roses.
Demo Video Below (link):
No longer do you have to download your mails using a separate application for those times you're running around without internet. Best of all, almost all the functionality you could want is there: read it, write it, label it or star it. Once you're connected to to the internet again, Gmail will send all mails in your outbox.
I think this makes Gmail qualify as the first fully fledged browser-based email application.
I've criticized Google (and others) in the past for overlooking developing countries, but this will be a huge boon to anyone familiar with Flaky Internet Connections in Africa and will further help Google in establishing a global base. Let's hope that 37 Signals and Salesforce.com will also wake up and smell the roses.
Demo Video Below (link):
Finally, I'm able to access my Google Calendar even when offline, as long as you are using Google Apps. The bad news is that for the time being it's Read-Only access, so you cannot update or edit any of your entries and have them synchronise later.
Firstly, watch the demo video below (link):
UPDATE: Arbitrary User informed me that Google Latitude is already available in SA. Just point your Mobile Browser towards http://www.google.com/latitude
UPDATE: Arbitrary User informed me that Google Latitude is already available in SA. Just point your Mobile Browser towards http://www.google.com/latitude
Recent Comments