Slashdot Mirror
News Media Scammed by 'Free Energy' Hoax
The General Electric corporate empire was scammed - they modified the story with a skeptical headline but otherwise left it alone. The AOL/TimeWarner corporate empire didn't have any problem with the story. The Environmental News Network, which probably should know better, didn't.
Now I know that wire stories are often run with minimal verification - each paper or website assumes that Reuters, or UPI, or AP has checked the story for veracity before it went out. And I know that reporters and editors can't be experts on every field of endeavor that they report on.
But this is Basic Science. The Three Laws (everyone loves the Second Law[1]) are not a new thing, and they're not going away any time soon. This should have been taught in junior high. There's a simple, well-known test that Reuters could have applied to this story: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof". This claim is the most extraordinary of all - free energy, perpetual motion, whatever you want to call it, and it demands proof beyond question. Reuters is running this story based on an anonymous inventor. Is that extraordinary proof?
But wait, I said perpetual motion. The phrase "perpetual motion" is one which sets off alarm bells in people's heads, so the anonymous inventor was quick to head off that thought process:
"But he is keen to head off the notion that he has tapped into the age-old myth of perpetual motion. ``Perpetual motion is impossible. This is a self-sustaining unit which at the same time provides surplus electrical energy,'' he said."
This quote is simply embarassing. It parses to "Perpetual motion is impossible. This is a perpetual motion unit." The inventor must be snickering in his Guinness right now to have snuck that one past.
The story gets better when you read it several times. Three 100 Watt light bulbs created a drain of 4500 Watts, according to the nameless inventor. That would be an impressive feat all by itself, except that it's total nonsense.
The piece would have made a good humor article. A properly skeptical and properly educated Reuters reporter could have examined these claims, poked holes in them, and published a story that simultaneously reported on the claims and educated the public about why they are a load of hogwash. Too bad that's not what happened.
Maybe you'd like to take a crack at evaluating their claims? You think you can examine their device a little more critically than Reuters? Give them a call.
And I have a second task as well. Slashdot is occasionally criticized for getting a story wrong, even though we diligently correct ourselves when necessary. My theory is that the difference between Slashdot and other media is that they never correct themselves, no matter how inaccurate, so readers are left with a false picture of accuracy. To test this claim, I'll send a Thinkgeek t-shirt to the first person who finds a retraction of this 'free energy' story published by Reuters or any of the newspapers/media outlets that ran the original story. *Any* of them. I don't expect to pay out.
Update: 01/24 16:38 GMT by M : CNN has updated their story with a new headline and several new paragraphs at the end, which qualifies. A couple of people also noted that ZDNet appears to have taken their copy of the wire story down. Lucas Garsha was the first to email, so he gets a t-shirt. I wasn't clear whether the claim should be email or in the comments, so I'll also send a t-shirt to the first commenter noting this, which appears to be skia.
[1] This is a fine world that we live in, where I can find a website devoted to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Hello?
If so, there would be no need to resort to therapeutic cloning - cloning people to get matching stem cells from the resulting embryos. Nor would you have to genetically engineer embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to create a "one cell fits all" line that does not trigger immune rejection. The discovery of such versatile adult stem cells will also fan the debate about whether embryonic stem cell research is justified.
Slashdot analyzes an article critically. Truly the apocalypse is upon us!
CmdrTaco, you are a complete ass... This "SLASHDOT" is in the doldrums.
Taco, you are a far cry from a Linus Torvalds or an Alan Cox, who can work WITH people and their community to make things BETTER; you make this place suck worse. You suck. You wield your stick of power, you and you fag editors.
John-fucking-Romero selling a car on Ebay? Indiana Jones 4?
I would never presume to make Slashdot a 'freshmeat.net' or a 'sourceforge.net', that is to announce every picayune release of every little open-source project, but there have been some gross oversights here - particularly in light of the fact the very site and community relies on various core technologies and the distributions that in turn support those applications. My gripes are no longer relevant, as several releases of important things have gone unnoticed and honorable maintainers of the unsaid projects don't get recognized by the site that proclaims to be "news for nerds." What a crock.
I have also attempted to post using precedent. Doesn't help. What was front page worthy a week, month or year ago isn't again because I'm not an editor - even if the context and circumstance is the same. Bill Gates could die, and I'll bet anything I would never get the post, even if I knew a day in advance. Death, dark, painfull, death to you who hold the scepter of power.
You betrayed your community, you are a lucky bitch like Bill Gates, right place, right time. I hope to the powers that be you quit being the "leader" of this dirty unreadable mess you call slashcode and hand the scepter of power to someone who can RESPECT his community.
And a tip for you; you elitist jerk: Tell people why, besides blind stupidity or bias, you reject stories! You can't - that would be like seeing the M$ source code, it would be a laughing stock to actually reveal your twisted half-assed reasoning.
No wonder the Taco Snotting FAQs and all sorts of shit comes out on here, and all the crap flooding and trolling. YOU FAILED as a leader, you betrayed your community and you suck. I love slashdot for the others that come here, and the news ends up being better than shit (not hard to do in a world full of mega-omnipediaplex corporations that spew forth garbage 'news'), but the editors here are biased, unfair and categorically suck; I hope you all re-evaluate how lucky you are to have jobs, you suck at interviews, you suck at content and community management. You are not the "portal for nerds," the Yahoo for nerds if you will. You are a petty band of garbage vendors who have duped a larger company into giving you jobs so they can spray ads in our faces.
Give this project to a real person who has sex with people and doesn't fuck blow up dolls of anime characters and plays video games and "hack" Perl for a living. God damn loser. And pick up a book on Perl idioms.
DIE.
Drat! Some domain squatter already snapped up secondlawofthermodynamics.com!!
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
You know, am I the only person here who swears up and down I've seen Jasker on BattleBots ?!
Reuters calls members of al-Qaeda "freedom fighters", as part of their drive toward neutral reporting.
Slashdot is occasionally criticized for getting a story wrong, even though we diligently correct ourselves when necessary.
So are we ever going to see a retraction of "Yahoo News Posts Advertisements as News", which was widely debunked by commenters? Or how about "Message from Kabul", where Jon Katz claimed to know a boy in Afghanistan who was downloading movies off the Internet using a Commodore 64?
Not only was that ON-TOPIC (!!!), but it was funny as hell. Step of Modtardators!!!
hehehe.
You're reference to that website is more bogus...
Are you a COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD??? You're=you are. The apostrophe is there to denote a contraction of two words. Why do people have so much goddamn trouble with such a simple concept.
Uh, Northen Ireland is the same thing. Ireland is a different country.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
Calm down Michael. You'r not supposed to be so obvious.
Hahaha.. Well at least they are second on the list, right after the US.
You have gravely insulted me. AC, I will never forgive this affront to my honour and good name.
Hey Heather,
Don't you have email at wired? Did they cut on spendings that much?
Next, Mack the weatherman will explain how precictive modeling of possible weather patterns are based not only on complex mathmatical algorithms, but firmly rooted in the observations of patterns from HISTORY. By reading our history books instead of burning or changing them, we can all gain the benefit of millinia of trial and error, hardships and victories. Mack also points out that weather does not simply change because we want it to. In predicting weather, it only does ill to selectively choose only those 'facts' of current weather patterns and certain tidbits of history (not to mention blatant falsification, fabrication and misrepresentation). For if we do that, then the outcome (the prediction) will surely be off, unless there is some random chance... we weathermen understand the very real impact (often counted in lives) of weather and cannot afford to take such narrow, closed minded, illogical, hypocritical and counterproductive steps to produce the prediction (much less the actual result) that we merely have an emotional desire to fabricate. I cannot wish a tropical storm away from an island. Mack leaves the obvious lesson to be learned from that up to us. Thanks Mack. Although it is sad, the fact is that too many will refuse to ever learn anything that is not prepackaged for them and spoon fed with fancy words, cute slogans or angry little men creating chanting crowds of hate filled protesters who have little differentiation from wild blood lust induced monkeys.
Ah, you're of course referring to the classic Schrodinger's Drunken Irishman quandary. Will he be drunk or not at the end of 24 hours? Until we open the box, he's both drunk AND sober!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
its true its true.
Articles like this get published all the time on slow news days...
The article takes an extremely skeptical stance, and despite what michael said about non-humor, there ARE bits of humor in there (Guiness reference).
This proves that MICHAEL is an incompetant boob, not that Reuters is.
Hey, isn't it fun to insult random strangers? Gee, maybe if I do this enough /. will get better! Right?
Asshole.
The biggest beer producers in the world meet for a conference, and at the end of the day, the presidents of all the beer companies decide to have a drink together at a bar.
The president of Budweiser naturally orders a Bud, the president of Miller orders a Miller, Adolph Coors orders a Coors, and so on down the list. Then the bartender asks Arthur Guinness what he wants to drink, and to everybody's amazement, he orders tea!
"Why don't you order a Guinness?" his colleagues ask suspiciously, wondering if they've stumbled on an embarrassing secret.
"Naaaah," replies Guinness. "If you guys aren't going to drink beer, then neither will I."
--Metrollica
Because you'd be just another wacko abductee?
Are you serious?
Money for nothing, pix for free
woof.
cant be bothered getting an account-jeez-and the us govn is hiding ufos in area 57,the jews are taking over the world (in conjunction with aliens??) ets etc etc
tesla hasnt been blackwalled-he just isnt a yank and therefore isnt important
HAHA MOD up please do not mod redundant or troll this is funny
Ford, There's an infinite number of monkeys here typing 'First Post' on Slashdot...
I can't believe anyone who reads slashdot would also listen to Mancow. He's damn near a nazi. He spews venom against Muslims, Islam, Palestinians, Afghans, anyone that doesn't agree with him. What an anachronism.