Slashdot Mirror

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/cokecan.asp

Relevant quotes:
To prevent consumers from identifying partially-filled Coke cans as winners by discerning differences in weight or listening for sloshing sounds, Coca-Cola added a chamber of chlorinated water to these special cans. This special water was doctored with the addition of ammonium sulfate, a foul-smelling yet harmless substance placed there to prevent anyone from mistaking the chlorinated water for Coca-Cola. It also served to alert the lucky consumers that they were holding winning cans, not just misfilled ones, if they somehow failed to notice their prizes and managed to gain access to the sealed-off liquid in the cans' bottoms.
...
In May 1990, 11-year-old Zachary Gendron of North Andover drank from one of the defective cans. His parents took a whiff of the clear, bad-smelling liquid and felt a foreign object inside the can. "Knowing nothing about the promotion, we thought it might be a case of product tampering," said Robin Gendron, Zachary's mother. The Gendrons handed the can over to the local police, who dissected the can back at the station and contacted state health officials.

Young Zachary had gotten a winning can that misfired. His prize, a soggy five-dollar bill, was duly retrieved and presented to the him (although his mother threatened to have it framed), and Coca-Cola also sent along coupons good for free product. Despite the confusion over his find, the boy had never been in any danger -- the potential harm from drinking the doctored water was limited to possible nausea.

It wasn't the chlorinated water. It was the ammonium sulfate that caused the nausea.

I gather it's more like a lemming stampede than a mass suicide. The ones at the edge get shoved off by the guys behind--who can't see the edge because there are lemmings in front of them.

Have you witnessed this?

As the parent post stated, this is an urban legend [site lists reference citations]

Nasa wasted millions developing a zero-G ballpoint, whereas the Russians used pencils.

Urban Legend

As for Gore, it was Gore who claimed that he himself invented the Internet.

Snopes has debunked your lie.

Clark will do himself in. Most of his statements are outright lies: he is living in a fantasy world. He is like Howard Dean: an incredibly mean liar

Pot kettle black.

BTW, did you know that When the Titanic hit an iceberg in the north Atlantic, the silent version of the film The Poseidon Adventure was being screened aboard ship.

I actually tried the steak thing while doing Science at college level. It works.

Well, it didn't work for these guys.

Indeed, Snopes themselves dispute it.

False. Seriously man, is it really necessary to spread such bullshit urban myths when 2 seconds at Snopes shows that it is fake? Oh wait, I guess you must be one of those people that believes that a litre of Coke will dissolve a steak in 2 days.

Actually, there is some controversy over why the towers would come straight down instead of falling over.

Even more interesting is why would World Trade Center 7 collapse 'just like a controlled demolition'. Oddly, the CIA had offices in WTC 7.

[plaguepuppy.net]

The pentagon crash is even odder. I don't see how a large commercial airplane could scoot across the lawn, not leave marks on the lawn and then go in to such a small hole. See [Snopes.com] for a link to the original page and some attempts at rebutting them.

I guess I should adjust my tin hat.

However, looking around at some of the WTC collapse and Pentagon crash conspiracy pages gives one food for thought - like an excellent mystery.

No.

"a zealous group of vigilantes, hunting down and killing spammers"

I kinda liked the "hunting down" part too.

I think there is potential here for a popular new sport. Rather than "Hunting for Bambi" we could have "Hunting for Spambi".

I know quite a few people who would be willing to fork over for some quality time with a gun and Mr. Enlarge-Your-Breasts/Schlong.

No. Snopes says its true. But even IBM meant it as a joke.

That particular story has been told not only regarding Word Perfect's tech support, but several other service providers and software support lines. Check out this explanation of the origins of this particular story, which probably didn't really happen at all.

Good story though. Quite relevant =) I wish I could tell my users that just about every day.

I here you are also supposed to pay royalties when you sing the "Happy Birthday" song in public. Strange world.

True

Just interesting to note there's more information about those loops here.

Funny, but wrong.

And yet if you sing the public domain "Good Morning To You", which uses for all intents and purposes the exact same melody, you don't need to worry about copyright fees. These are two songs which share the same "fundamental structure", but are considered vastly different works.

Chuckle. Are you familiar with "Good Morning To You"? The only difference in the melody is that the first pair of quarter-notes is merged into a single half-note. The only difference in the lyrics is that "Good Morning" is changed to "Happy Birthday".

They are essentially identical, yet "Good Morning to you" written in 1893 is clearly public domain and "Happy Birthday to you" will remain under copyright until 2030. Unless congress decides to extend copyright yet again of course.

Full info on Happy birthday here.

-

This is one of the few times that snopes has given me a positive response on a story like this. Wow.

"One exception to the above: a subsidary of the RIAA, whose name temporarily escapes me, is responsible for collecting the fees and redistributing them for all music played on radio where the station operator hasn't negotiated directly with the copyright holders. That's the only place the RIAA could be said to have a "monopoly" in any meaningful sense of the word. But that's barely relevent here."

Your post was otherwise excellent but the above absolutely needs to be corrected.

Radio royalties are collected by two non-profit agencies, BMI and ASCAP. BMI and ASCAP are run by and for composers, songwriters, and publishers. And they are not part of the RIAA.

As there are two independent agencies that handle this in the US, I guess one could call it an oligarchy, but if one is of the "RIAA is bad" mindset, then BMI and ASCAP are definitely the good guys. Again: they are non-profit agencies run by and for songwriters, composers and publishers for the purpose of getting radio royalties to the composers, songwriters and publishers.

Collecting radio royalties is one of many things that they do in support of the individuals who work hard to create the music (royalties based on public performance, such as in bars and restaurants with live bands or jukeboxes, is just one other thing they do). These royalties, too, go to songwriters, composers and publishers, not the RIAA.

In anticipation of the next question, "aren't the publishers the record companies, so doesn't that mean that the RIAA gets more money, RIAA DIE DIE DIE DIE," the answer is: typically not. In this context, publishing refers not to the actual recording of a piece of music, but the rights to the music and lyrics. This includes, but is not limited to, printing the lyrics in the liner notes, quoting them in a book, covering a song, and using an original song in a commercial (for which multiple rights holders may have to be consulted -- including the owner of the recording, which is often a record company). Nowadays, the publisher is a smallish company, often just one or two people. One can sell or transfer their publishing rights; perhaps the most famous example is Michael Jackson's buying of much of the Beatles catalog. Michael Jackson owns the publishing rights. Here's more info.

By the way, typically for a song to be available on a legal download service, approval must be acquired from both the owner of the recording (the record company) as well as the music publisher. This is why you might see eight out of ten of an album's ten tracks available on buymusic or itunes -- for the other two, perhaps the songwriter or the composer simply did not give permission. This is one reason why getting legal services with large catalogs has been so tough... all those permissions to obtain. This is precisely why many folks have advocated extending the concept of compulsory royalties for downloads -- under such a system, the download service would not need to seek the composer's permission before making the song available for download, as long as the composer was paid a fixed fee set by law.

Even more information is here and here.

The 2 Million Dollar ball point pen (Russians used pencils which are cheap and abundunt)

Not so sure about that one. Google for "snopes ballpoint pen" gets you to:

The Snopes Pen Story

I just heard some sad news on NPR - Johnny Cash was found dead in his Nashville home this afternoon. Apparently, he was in the garage and fell off a ladder trying to retrieve some vintage Jack Tripper outfits to reinact the Three's Company scene where Jack's balls fell out of his shorts. Scary. Who hasn't done the exact same thing on countless occassions? I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular music. Truly a American icon.

Read more on VIN numbers and stoen cars at snopes.com:

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/vin.asp

As stated in the link, I highly doubt anyone can just steal a car of the shopping mall lot. It takes too long to get a key made. You will be home by then. Also, I think covering the VIN number may be illegal in some states/countries.

I believe you are incorrect, Micheal Jackson just owns the publishing rights to the Beatles songs, not the actual recorded songs. see

Happy Birthday Copyrighted

While a lot of people have been focusing on the RIAA's most recent doings, I am still writing an alternative to the Happy Birthday song, so I can legally and freely sing a ditty to wish someone Happy Birthday. The story of Happy Birthday shows the extreme end of how ridiculous and corrupt copyrighting music can be. I first became aware of the Happy Birthday copyrights, when a friend pointed out to me that restaurants no longer sang Happy Birthday. Looking into the history of Happy Birthday got me thinking about how we view recorded music. For this little girl Kazaa functioned as radio, something that everyone in the US has taken for granted. This, I believe, is fundamental to understanding why people download music.

Simply put, downloading music is illegal. However, instead of focusing on how they can sue everyone on earth, the RIAA should be looking into why people download instead of buy music.

People around the world have been exposed to free music since the turn of the century. The largest provider of free music has been the radio. Granted the radio pays for the music lists that it aires, which is paid for through advertising revenue. However, the end user does not pay to listen this music, except through listening to ads. People feel the desire to buy copies of this music, so that they can listen to it free of ads and at a higher quality level.

The advent of tape, introduced people to the idea of protecting their investment in music or creating custom mixes through the making of copies. Here is where the whole recording situation became sticky. No longer could the recording industries easily control people's access to high quality music. This problem did not turn out to be a significant issue, especially with the advent of CDs which offered people even higher quality listening.

Nowadays CDs are considered to be overpriced and digital radio stations offer CD quality music. MP3s offer better than FM quality music in a small compact format. Additionally there is more music available now than at any previous point in history. Music trends, largely dictated by radio and MTV, rise and fall faster than people can appreciate them.

This leads me to believe that we should focus on convincing people that their ROI is justified when they buy music. For instance, if you buy a CD, you gain access to a site that will allow you to download a variety of MP3, WMA, etc versions of the music on the CD in varying compressions and sizes, so that you can take your music with you anywhere you go. Make people feel that they are getting something better, by offering HD-CDs. Offer more singles and custom made CDs (pay based upon the song not the album). Offer more low quality MP3 versions of music (FM quality) for free, so people who want to buy an album know if they want to buy all of the tracks. If consumers were offered those options, maybe they wouldn't question the $10-$20 price tag on a CD.

People enjoy music, however if they cannot afford it or do not see the value in buying a CD, they will find a way to access that music. The RIAA cannot sue everyone who uses CDs, but they can change it so that people do not feel that free is better.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Happy Birthday to you.

Exactly right, it's an urban legend according to snopes.

I was going to call you on that one, but sadly it is true. Guess that means that anyone who scans a pic of their kids favorite character for the desktop is a criminal too.

"I got really scared. My stomach is all turning," Brianna said last night at the city Housing Authority apartment where she lives with her mom and her 9-year-old brother.

This is precious, just the kind of screw-up the RIAA didn't need. They sued frickin' Tiny Tim. That's about one degree shy of suing the burlap sack boy. Way to go RIAA, we couldn't buy better press.

Two years ago, a reporter found evidence that one James Morasco is behind the tiles.

I seem to remember reading more about the Morasco link somewhere, but it was so long ago I cant remember where. It was almost definately linked to on the snopes.com message board, but their search system is pretty bad.

Redundancy, anyone?

I figured I ought to google
it: http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.htm

It isn't.

Personally I think SCO has chosen to craft their business model after an urban legend.

Travis

BTW, I do agree, there are other manufacturers out there. Take your dollars somewhere else...

Boost demand for [original] Coke by producing an inferior product branded "New Coke", then switching back to the original formula when consumers complained.

Take Coke off of the market for long enough that people wouldn't notice the switch from sugar to high fructose corn syrup. "New Coke" was rumored to be simply a distraction from the real goal of moving to a cheaper sweetener. However, this was actually started years before New Coke arrived.

However, the truth is that New Coke was generally preferred over Coke in blind taste tests, but Coca-Cola didn't anticipate everyone's knee-jerk reactions -- most consumers hated New Coke without ever having tasted it.
If you're really interested, check out snopes.com -- they do a much better job than I could.

Snopes.com rocks ;-)

Snopes is your friend

See here.

In fact, stretches of interstate have to meet certian specifications for landing of (large) aircraft, in the event that airbases are destroyed.

That is a myth.

That's because it'
s been September for at least 5 years now, maybe longer. I keep getting the same stuff every time a new relative gets connected. Thank God for Snopes as a place to send these people every time I get a cookie recipie email.

Huh? Sounds like a badly mangled version of this urban legend.

It could be useful, in case you ever have to use your program while in Alabama.

(Legend here).)

the NASA seeemed to spend a lot (several $100k) to develop a ballpen which could be used upside down in space. the russians used to use pencils at $0.1/piece...

You might want to at least check a site like this before repeating something that sounds both ironic and iconoclastic, chances are you'll get a hit.


http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.a sp

Nice story, and I've told it a couple of times myself. Looks like it simply isn't true, though.

Sorry. False.

"Fisher did ultimately develop a pressurized pen for use by NASA astronauts (now known as the famous "Fisher Space Pen"), but both American and Soviet space missions initially used pencils, NASA did not seek out Fisher and ask them to develop a "space pen," Fisher did not charge NASA for the cost of developing the pen, and the Fisher pen was eventually used by both American and Soviet astronauts."

Well, there are many websites that vigorously claim that the email tax is a number one hoax....

So it must be true then.

Right?
RIGHT!

Uh Oh.

That was this summer 2003, Sen. Mark Dayton's idea to fight Spam...

Pfew, that was a close call: Senator Downplays E-Mail Tax Idea, Thursday, May 22, 2003.

If they tax email, then the spammers have won.

Now, if 'they' find this posting, they'll probably come up with a tax on hyperlinks...

But will anybody think of the children?

How about the State of Iowa voting that the value of pi is 3? At least I think it was Iowa...

Er, Stranger in a Strange Land is fictional, you understand. Despite what happened in the novel, Tennessee did not actually pass such a law. Here's a good debunking of this legend, with citations and everything.

Here is the standard, "you would all know that this whole story is bullshit if you bothered to check snopes before posting," link.

Thank you, and good night.

It's almost as funny as when General Motors executives couldn't understand why the Chevy Nova was not selling in South America. Then some bright boy realized that 'No Va' is spanish for 'it doesn't go - it doesn't work'.

A related urban legend/joke regarding 'fuck': "Pluck Yew"