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Homeopathy takes the body as a whole instead of independently working parts (hearts, lungs, brain etc.). You cannot prescribe correct homeopathy medicine for headache, for example, without taking into account all the mental and physical symptoms.

Though I am not going to start another controversial thread (about homeopathy), I just wonder why the mainstream medical science does not looks at human malfunctioning as a whole system. In other words why there are so many organ/tissues/functions specialists?

May be (with main stream medical science) we are on wrong path and have made things so complicated that it has impossible to consider the whole human body in one shot in any particular disease. Though we fully know that analyzing/treating the parts in a complex system won't take us too far.


Though I am not going to start another controversial thread (about homeopathy), I just wonder why the mainstream medical science does not looks at human malfunctioning as a whole system. In other words why there are so many organ/tissues/functions specialists?

I'm only answering this part, because I also don't want to get involved in a homeopathy debate.

They do look at human malfunctioning as a whole system. The people who do this are called "internists". Your primary doctor is probably one of them.

The reason that there are so many specialists is that the human body is really complicated. As much as we would like it to be simple, there's just too much to know about it for any one person to know everything, even if all the information is available. For the same reason that mechanical engineers specialize in things like mechanism design, aerodynamics, or materials, doctors specialize in different areas of the body. An internist simply does not know enough to figure out everything that could possibly be going wrong with a person's body.

To my mind, the big problem is not with the specialization; it's with the coordination. All of the above specialties, and more, were involved in the design of any given vehicle you're likely to encounter, from a performance bicycle to the Concorde. Yet, it's really hard to get doctors from different specialties to collaborate to tackle a complicated disease. This is not a problem with medical science, so much as a problem with the way things are done right now.


That is true, however even your internist is interested in your "primary complaint". There is this idea that one problem should be addressed at a time.


Not so much for anything serious or unusual, in my experience. If you have multiple complaints, the first thing doctors look for (in my experience) is something tying them all together. If you only have one complaint, they often ask if you're having other symptoms that you've just overlooked. I found out that a number of... corner cases that my body has just always had, were not normal, because of this. (There was fortunately nothing serious).

Of course, for very common symptoms (like headache and nausea), they usually just treat the symptom.


We always try to balance Occam's razor vs Saint's Triad.


Homeopathy as it's commonly known describes the practice of giving very small doses of chemicals known to cause a problem in an attempt to cure it.

I think you should clarify what you mean by homeopathy before arguing that it is superior. I suppose it's possible that someone administering homeopathic remedies may have a belief about the body as a whole, but I think it's a stretch to consider homeopathy an improvement on western medicine in any way.


You know what they call 'alternative medicine' that’s been proved to work? Medicine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0W7Jbc_Vhw


I love RT. Real solid product with great hackers behind it. And you did not mention that it is open source and takes hardly 1-2 hours if you know your way through CPAN and Apache.

The latest 3.8 is not that bad with new theme.

I can even do a free install/setup for any non-profit.

http://bestpractical.com/rt/

And don't forget the http://hiveminder.com/ from same company.

EDIT: Added links.


I am not sure what response you get here because accounting is traditionally a non-hacker domain. In my own research, there is a huge need of a service like yours for the particular segment you are aiming for.

I have been offering SQL-Ledger (and its fork LedgerSMB; both open source) hosting, training, support, customization for many years. (See my info)

Though both packages are targeted to small to medium sized business, the biggest problem I find with new users is they always find it difficult to learn. This is mostly because of a large number of features even for smbs (and also because accounting software does require you have a basic understanding of accounting) And no one has time to read the fine manual.

I have been experimenting for the last few months by removing/rearranging menus, adding context sensitive help/tips, making it more user-friendly but still not satisfied with the results.

So yes I also want to target exact same segment (bare basics accounting system for freelancers, micro-isvs, and small businesses) but I need to do a lot of work/testing before doing that.


"The answers are longevity, maturity, and a rich ecosystem of development tools and modules that developers can leverage for almost any programming task. Consider the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). CPAN is an enormous collection of software and documentation, largely unmatched outside of the Perl community. Yes, other languages have similar repositories patterned after CPAN -- but thus far none have matched CPAN for its size and scope. CPAN continues to grow at a rapid clip."


Any trick I use is to mindlessly start doing anything, just anything, related to work. You will gain momentum after a brief period of activity.

While procrastinating, don't do anything which feeds it. (like facebook, browsing, HNing etc.)


Umm... if you have ever tried it, you might know its hard to quit HNing. Specially if you have a very curious mind


The easiest way to bookmark HN articles is to leave a comment.


That's not correct, the easiest way to bookmark is to upvote.

The articles then end under your 'saved' list (see your profile links) and you can find them again later.

These lists were limited in length until recently but it seems that that has now been fixed and you can go all the way back to when you joined HN.


I have not read this book but the list of tips seemed to be bit too much. I am really a fan of all simplicity and tips from getting real book.

But someone who has read both books can explain it better.


Well, for what it's worth, I really liked it and consider it a keeper. It's on my bookshelf between "Programming Pearls" and "Mythical Man month".

It's less about programming per se and more about how to think about programming.


I found the book underwhelming, but then I realized that programming blogs have probably ripped off every single paragraph.

I preferred Kernighan and Pike's _The Practice of Programming_ to both TPP and Code Complete, though. _Programming Pearls_ (and its sequel) have also held up well to repeated reading.


I am working on simplified hosted accounting service for startups based upon open source sql-ledger. There will be a free single user version.

Keep yourself updated via blog or mailing list (see my info)


I don't think anyone has a generic formula for success yet (other wise we would be busy working on it and everyone would be a success story). And in my experience other's people success formula is not going to help me much even if I copy it bit by bit, unless it tune it to my personality/environment/limitations/resources etc.

So I just read these articles (or watch interviews) in the hope of just getting new insights and not looking for a sure way to make millions.


I was expecting "Answerly" similar to stackexchange but from a cursory look, it just seems a search engine. I think some integration of stackexchange like features might be useful.


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