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from the leaving-a-very-big-pair-of-boots-to-fill dept.
Where to begin?
How about at the beginning? Would that be https://soylentnews.org/~martyb/journal/60? That was the first journal article I posted to SoylentNews. I am talking still earlier than that. That would be the day I created my account on the site — it was a few days before we went live. I have been active ever since. Well, up until about a couple weeks ago.
That was when I experienced a medical condition that has precluded my continued participation here.
Since that day, janrinok (our former Editor-in-Chief) has ably filled my shoes in my absence. That is until Fnord666 (our Alternate-Editor-in-Chief) could take the reins.
I ask you to extend to them the same kindness and support you have shown me. I've grown creatively and professionally in ways I had never even imagined! Thank You!
janrinok writes:
It is hard to explain just how much of a contribution Marty has made to this site - from its very early days before it even went public Marty was there providing whatever help he could. If there was a job to be done he was there offering to help. There was nothing that he was not prepared to tackle. If he didn't know how to do something he would go and find out and then return to do whatever needed to be done.
Fnord and I have processed far more more stories than either of us had ever expected to do (6570 and 6166 respectively) but we are a long way behind Marty's contribution of 11076 stories at the time of writing. If you conservatively estimate each story at 15 minutes (and I can assure you that many stories can take much longer than that!) the man-hours he has spent keeping the front page full is a huge amount of effort. That would be, and is, worthy of recognition in its own right - but he didn't stop there.
He has also served as our QA specialist and spent many more man-hours testing software and finding ways to bring it to it's knees, and then finding solutions to each of those problems. He ran our donations and looks after the funding 'Beg-o-Meter'. And he still found time to be the Editor-in-Chief for the site since 2018. There are so many jobs that he does - many of them having gone almost unnoticed - that we now find ourselves trying to work out who will pick up which extra tasks for the future.
I am also fortunate to have Marty as a friend. My own life has had a few ups and downs over the last 5 years or so and Marty has been there to provide sound advice, wise counsel, or just a listening ear. I hope I will be able to repay him in kind in the future.
In addition, he has other ways of helping his local community which have nothing to do with this site. He would not wish me to go into details but he takes his caring and helping attitude with him throughout his life.
It is not all bad news - Marty is stepping down from the role of Editor-in-Chief but he is not leaving the community. How much he is able to contribute in the future is still very much unknown but you may still see his name appear from time-to-time alongside a comment or on IRC. He has specifically asked me to pass on his best wishes for the future to the community and the site that we all support.
Marty leaves behind a legacy he can justifiably be proud of, and a very large pair of boots to be filled. We will do our best to maintain the standards he has set. Good luck and best wishes, Marty, and I hope that your recovery is swift and complete.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday March 24 2022, @09:05PM (7 children)
A very intelligent good friend recently told me how, quite a few years ago, his father beat incurable terminal cancer by taking in lots of apricot seed extract that he made himself. I forget what the cancer was, and I'll ask him more about it. The active compound is "amygdalin", but friend says that commercially available amygdalin doesn't work well, if at all. Maybe the commercial extraction process harms it, or maybe there's something else in the seeds. It may be quackery, I have no idea, but AFAIK it's harmless to try (esp. when conventional chemo won't work, or will kill you anyway).
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 24 2022, @10:52PM (1 child)
Do not take that stuff or its derivatives. I have seen too many people poison themselves on that snake oil. It can cause some serious damage to your body and each dose makes the next more dangerous so by the time you notice problems the damage can be substantial.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2022, @01:16AM
I agree. That chemo stuff is terrible. Killed my best friend's father.
Stick with naturopathic remedies.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Reziac on Friday March 25 2022, @02:25AM (4 children)
Apricot seeds contain cyanide compounds. Quick-and-dirty from Wiki:
"Amygdalin is classified as a cyanogenic glycoside because each amygdalin molecule includes a nitrile group, which can be released as the toxic cyanide anion by the action of a beta-glucosidase. Eating amygdalin will cause it to release cyanide in the human body, and may lead to cyanide poisoning."
This is basically a nonspecific poison. If it ever works at all, it's because like early forms of chemo, it just poisons some particular cancer faster than it poisons you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalin [wikipedia.org]
On cyanide toxicity:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507796/ [nih.gov]
"Patients who are removed from the exposure and treated immediately tend to have a good outcome. Following intravenous administration, cyanide can result in a fatality within seconds or minutes, compared to a few hours after oral ingestion. Even individuals who survive may have signs of anoxic encephalopathy. Anecdotal reports indicate that movement disorders and neuropsychiatric symptoms are not uncommon."
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Friday March 25 2022, @09:10PM (3 children)
And it can be a matter of trial and error to find out which particular poisons do more harm to your cancer cells than to your non-cancer cells.
Medical establishments have resources to keep you alive while they're poisoning youe cancer cells (and you).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Friday March 25 2022, @10:14PM (2 children)
Yup. And it never fails to amaze how folks suspicious (sometimes rightfully so) of mainstream medicine will nonetheless pursue treatment with something unproven to do good and known to do harm. Apparently being processed through a con artist renders anything into a cure!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26 2022, @10:06PM (1 child)
Most con artists abuse an already existing chain of trust. Whether it is a friend, relative, deity, in group, or something else. They are really good at reading people and abusing that trust.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday March 27 2022, @12:31AM
True, but some invert that: You can't trust A, so you can trust Not-A.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.