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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'.

For starters, nova and no va don't sound alike and are unlikely to be confused, just as "carpet" and "car pet" are unlikely to be confused in English. Additionally, no va would be an awkward way in Spanish to describe a nonfunctioning car (no funciona, among others, would do better), just as in English we'd be more likely to say "it doesn't run" than "it doesn't go."

Assuming that Spanish speakers would naturally see the word "nova" as equivalent to the phrase "no va" and think "Hey, this car doesn't go!" is akin to assuming that English speakers woud spurn a dinette set sold under the name Notable because nobody wants a dinette set that doesn't include a table.

Even if nobody in Detroit knew enough rudimentary Spanish to notice the coincidence, the Nova could not have brought to market in Mexico and/or South America without the involvement of numerous Spanish speakers engaged to translate user manuals, prepare advertising and promotional materials, communicate with the network of Chevrolet dealers in the target countries, etc.

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'.

Don't know about exploding batteries, but exploding gas stations are certainly a hoax:

http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp

http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp

You mean like this?

> The entire questionare is almost certainly a hoax,

You, sir, are absolutely correct.
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.h tm

> Education? Well, let's consider. Here's a test that was actually given to 8th graders in 1895

Define education. Maybe you don't consider researching wild claims as a valid part of education.

What do I mean? Click this..

The change in sweetener wasn't anything that diabolical. Corn syrup was cheaper than cane sugar; that's what it came down to. In 1980 -- five years before the introduction of New Coke -- half the cane sugar in Coca-Cola had been replaced with high fructose corn syrup. By six months prior to New Coke's knocking the original Coca-Cola off the shelves, there was no cane sugar in American Coca-Cola. Whether they knew it or not, what consumers were drinking then was 100% sweetened by high fructose corn syrup.

*Sigh*

That's a popular myth, but it simply doesn't wash. Check out the article that snopes.com did on why New Coke wasn't a marketing ploy to sell classic Coke.

Thanks for playing, you luddite.

...I'm still kind of confused on what your issue is. The Grossman case you mention definetly sounds more like an issue of public domain rather than copyright, and that's a completely different can of worms.

The label owns the copyright to the recording of the song. Meaning... say I record a track with Colombia Records. The label drops me, so I go record with another label, and I record a remix of the same song on their label. I can do this because I (actually, my producer) owns the copyright on the song. The label, however, still owns the copyright on the original recording of that song. I could not just take the recording of the track I did with Colombia and put it on my next record. I would have to re-record the track. The label has control over whether or not the song makes it into commercials, soundtracks, etc. because they own that recording of the song, not the song itself.

I find it hard to believe they aren't allowed to perform their own songs. -- Owning the performance rights doesn't necessarily mean no one else can play the song. Otherwise, no one would be able to play cover songs. After a little Google searching, I find that Jackson owns the publishing rights. That link explains it better than I could. Note that the income is usually split 50/50 between the songwriter and the producer (a.k.a. whoever holds the copyright).

Blackout babies are an urban legend. Read up on it here.

The baby boom bit is an urban legend

This Salon article debunks that myth that started with a blackout in New York in 1965 (see page 3).

See also the Snopes article on the 1965 NYC blackout.

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

The claim about formaldehyde sounds suspiciously like the urban legend about aspartame...

Anyway I wouldn't get all worked up about what is good and what is bad for you. My great-grandfather god blacklung from the coal mines and smoked cigars till he died, living past his 100th birthday. I think the funniest people are those who deny themselves all their lives and then die anyway.

Just face it, there isn't much agreement about what is and isn't healthy. Probably the best advice is to take the middle road.

The idea is not that lie detectors tell the truth. The idea is that you tell the truth if you are connected to a lie detector. It doesn't matter what that thing does at that time, it doesn't even need to be connected to any power source.

As seen in this urban legend? :)

-- Pete.

I'm surprised that ET for the 2600 hasn't been mentioned yet. Jeeze, what a piece of crap that was. Crappy enough for Atari to dump 5 million copies down Mexico way.

Here are some more articles about the infamous number: Social Security Administration, Snopes Urban Legends (True Story), Wikipedia (whole list of invalidated numbers). Interesting stuff for a Karma whore like me! :)

Didn't Bill Clinton sign an internet privacy act in 1995 that allows people to say before people connect "if you are government, get out" and therefor make any information obtained without explicit permission to access the server invalid?

One sentence, in isolation, can often be misleading. Please see snopes for a more complete look at the issue. It is not exactly complimentary to Gore, you'll notice, but I think it straightens the whole mess out.

As for your invent==create assertion, I quote snopes: To those who say the words "create" and "invent" mean the same thing: If they mean the same thing, then why have the media overwhelmingly and consistently cited Gore as having claimed he "invented" the Internet when he never used that word? The answer is that the words don't mean the same thing, but by substituting one word for the other, commentators can make Gore's claim sound [more] ridiculous.

And you should know that a thesaurus lacks literary depth--it's why English teachers tell students never to use words they just happen to find in a thesaurus. Instead of making the student look smarter, it usually makes him look foolish.

Now the case should be closed :)

Why would she have loved this, when it's a LIE

-T

They have a hard time admitting when they're wrong. For years, the "Up the Butt, Bob" story about the Newlywed Game was listed as false. When someone found the episode, the Mikkelsons' response was to shrug it off since it wasn't an exact quote. Now, it's finally listed as true. I've seen other examples of Urban Legends being 99% right, but they'd call them false on a technicality.

Especially right after a story about snopes.com.

I don't know how closely you ever followed it, but as I saw it, they actually produced a pilot episode for it (complete with clips on their site), then started shopping it around to networks and such. I assume that went nowhere. It must be frustrating as hell to see some of these networks (TBS, TLC) turn around and make their own show, especially when they take a gag from your website and report it as true.

If you ever see a HVAC technition using duck tape fire him immeadiatly. The stuff does not hold up to use in duct work. (Exception: a temperary fix not intended to last more than a week) The glue will let go and then you have unsealed ducts. There are ways to seal ducts, but they are not tape.

Duck tape is not just a brand name, according to snopes.com's duct tape page:

By the by, although everyone (including us) calls that all-purpose handyman's necessity "duct tape," it is more properly styled "duck tape," which was the original name of the cloth-backed, waterproof adhesive developed for the U.S. Army to keep moisture out of ammunition cases.

Here's the Snopes entry on it. Essentially, while it's technically true that this is the closest pass in 60,000 years or so, to most observers there won't be any appreciable difference between this pass and the semi-close passes it makes every 15 years or so. The interest lies mainly in how this makes it more easy to launch probes. (and note the similarity in wording between the Snopes version and the post. Hmmm...)

Hillary vs. Hillary

But I don't see this as saying she has never lied.... in fact, they even seem to say that the claim seems to have been a lie, although they characterize it as a harmless one (which, frankly, it is).

The other three items were all demonstratably false.

So, how is she using the site as a political tool? She doesn't seem to make the claim she has NEVER lied, just that these particular examples can be looked at for themselves. That they might come up when elections come near has more to do with the fact that false e-mails about Hillary Clinton are inherently going to come about around elections (because people want to spread these around to show she is a liar and shouldn't be voted for or whatever).

-Tom

Snopes also does not say that Gore created it either. Quite the opposite, they explain that even validating the claim is iffy, and they explain why.

Your characterization of Snopes' entry on this subject and accusation of them getting it wrong is in itself wrong, if you would read the actual entry:

"...it's hard to find any specific action of Gore's (such as his sponsoring a Congressional bill or championing a particular piece of legislation) that one could claim helped bring the Internet into being, much less validate Gore's statement of having taken the "initiative in creating the Internet."

It's true that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet) and has introduced a few bills dealing with education and the Internet, but even though Congressman, Senator, and Vice-President Gore may always have been interested in and well-informed about information technology issues, that's a far cry from having taken an active, vital leadership role in bringing about those technologies. Even if Al Gore had never entered the political arena, we'd probably still be reading web pages via the Internet today."

Nowhere in this entry does Snopes say that he created the Internet, or that even the claim he made is necessarily true. From their research, they find that even Al Gore's original claim is probably not true.

So, seriously.... read that entry and tell me exactly where Snopes got anything wrong? Do you just have some bone to pick with Snopes, and don't care about the accuracy of your accusations against them?

All I can think is that perhaps you are confusing the listing of their entry as False? Note that the entry is about whether it's true that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. If you read the entry, they start off showing that that claim that has been attributed to him is false. But they they go on to research the actual quote and point out that whatever role he might have played, they don't find any evidence to support even the notion that he helped to create it in any way by supporting legislation, etc. since much of the legislation and work had happened before his time anyway.

-Tom

www.snopes.com


Internet Explorer 6.0 shows just the background color of each page. No text. Mozilla displays the site correctly. Weird.

Seems to be where new legends are discussed before they create a page for them.

Some of the other material is interesting as well.

There is no record of Marilyn's having had an operation at that point in her life, and no contemporary references to anyone's noticing her walking with a bandaged foot or a limp for a period of time. (One doesn't simply get up and start trotting around after having a toe removed -- the missing digit affects one's balance, and it takes some time to adjust to the change and "relearn" how to walk.)

The problem is that according to my wife, a podiatric (foot) surgeon, the recovery period following a phalangectomy (ampution of a toe (or finger)) is almost nil. The big toe, let alone a vestigial "pinky toe", is not crucial for balance or stability. You can verify this yourself; lift up your big toe and walk around. Bet you can still do it, can't you? Sure you can, especially if you're wearing a shoe with a sole that is even moderately stiff, which would replace some of the big toe's stabilizing influence.

I reported this via the Snopes.com comment form. After a couple of days, I received a reply that basically said "everyone knows you can't walk right if you have a toe cut off", and my wife's qualified medical opinion was pretty much ignored. Now, I really don't think that Marilyn Monroe had six toes. However, I stand by my assertion that at least one of the reasons they give opposing such an idea just doesn't work.

Why do I think that's important? Because I don't know anything at all about a lot of the subjects that they speak authoritatively about. Since I know of at least one topic where they discarded the opinion of a subject matter expert, I have no reason to believe that they haven't done so elsewhere.

An old saying, paraphrased, is that "the news is accurate, except for the parts you personally know about", and I now kind of feel the same way about Snopes.com. I agree with a lot of their findings, but I have to take it all with a grain of salt.

The whole thing never happened, you know.

the junk your father-in-law sends you that is either urban legend, or ancient, or both)

If you do offer this class, please tell them about snopes.com. I have told my family about this one and it has cut down on the number of scam reportings, virus hoaxes, and other such nonsense I used to recieve from them.

No, especially not considering that the song "Happy Birthday" is also copyrighted.

Yes, this is for real. There are sources listed in the linked article.

The dudes midsection is like good ol' c3po's, including the ever illusive C3PO Schwantz

Every time someone sings happy birthday in a public place.

Here's something else for you to ponder. If someone with a photographic memory reads copyrighted material without paying for it, is that copyright infringement ?

In general, the idea that people are making a big deal out of something with a more mundane explanation is a good one. But in this case, according to the *actual* Snopes site, that doesn't seem to be the case - http://www.snopes.com/rumors/putcall.htm

See here for details

Maybe someone at the Pentagon is trying to learn from this? Remember, greed makes people do stupid things. If some low-level operative knew of an impending attack, s/he might be tempted to make a quick buck on this "futures market".

Theoretically, it seems like an interesting idea (aside from the various moral/political aspects).

The question is: why the Pentagon? Couldn't they have just used a shell company to do this, and accessed the realtime data?

Bite the wax tadpole

Actually, this is a common misconception, but in fact they don't have to tell you they are cops. Check out the Snopes article for more info.

Actually, this is a common misconception, but in fact they don't have to tell you they are cops. Check out the Snopes article for more info.

I wish to warn you about a new crime ring that is targeting business travelers. This ring is well organized, well funded, has very skilled personnel, and is currently in most major cities and recently very active in New Orleans. The crime begins when a business traveler goes to a lounge for a drink at the end of the work day. A person in the bar walks up as they sit alone and offers to buy them a drink. The last thing the traveler remembers until they wake up in a hotel room bath tub, their body submerged to their neck in ice, is sipping that drink. There is a note taped to the wall instructing them not to move and to call 911. A phone is on a small table next to the bathtub for them to call. The business traveler calls 911 who have become quite familiar with this crime. The business traveler is instructed by the 911 operator to very slowly and carefully reach behind them and feel if there is a tube protruding from their lower back. The business traveler finds the tube and answers, "Yes." The 911 operator tells them to remain still, having already sent paramedics to help. The operator knows that both of the business traveler's kidneys have been harvested. This is not a scam or out of a science fiction novel, it is real. It is documented and confirmable. If you travel or someone close to you travels, please be careful.

Yea yea I know where it came from.

there is even a requirement in the laws establishing the interstate system that a certen persentage of the interstates be totaly strate and flat so that they can be used as runways in times of war.

see http://www.snopes.com/legal/privacy.htm

But if you're gonna take photos, this is far more entertaining

finally i can watch those SUBLIMINAL messages frame by frame!

No there isn't. This is a classic urban legend "I heard from a guy whose cousin..." etc. You ask the guy's cousin, he actually heard it from a barber. You will never find any actual witness or evidence. There's a million stories like this. See Urban Legends Reference Pages for a few others.