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Batterylife Activator Reviewed
Daniel Rutter writes "Slashdot chewed over the BatMax Battery Life Booster - a nanotechnomagical sticker that's meant to rejuvenate lithium ion batteries - a while ago. Now I've reviewed the strikingly similar Batterylife Activator, and subjected it to actual empirical testing, with automated datalogging and everything. The results confirmed my original suspicion -- that the local Batterylife branch made a serious error of judgement when they decided to send me their product."
I hate to say it, but he has flawed results that do not demonstrate that the sticker is a placebo.
He used only one battery to do his test. He should have used two; one with the sticker and one without. By only using one battery, running 3 tests, then putting the sticker on and running a 4th test, he's introduced an additional variable into the equation. It could thereofre be argued that his graph (http://www.dansdata.com/images/batterylife/activ
DUH the test was a waste of time and everyone here already knew it was BS, but people, have you SEEN the "cow taser" page linked to from the review article?!! I think I just pissed myself from laughing so hard.
Then it wasn't exactly a waste of time, was it?
Part of the reason people read Dan's stuff (just in case anyone missed the main link to his site) is his entertaining writing style. I almost always learn something from his articles, even if it's got nothing to do with what the article's supposedly about. Dan is obviously fully in on the joke himself or he wouldn't even be linking to things like cow tasers in his articles. It's people like you - who think reviews have to be a "waste of time" simply because the products in question are such obvious bunk - who don't seem to quite get it.
In a world where product reviews often offer little or not information at all, and where the strongest and most specific statement you might read is how one product or another is vaguely "generally good", writers like Dan are a refreshing change - he writes pieces that are always entertaining in and of themselves, often more informative than they need to be, and with plenty of useless but interesting trivia to keep you interested when the product in question is less than worthwhile. I only wish he'd review more stuff that I'm actually interested in buying (though I've become interested in buying a few things I would never have even known about but for his review).
As for this particular review, I think it's worth reminding the Slashdot crowd of the dangers of pseudo-science every now and again - pseudo-scientific articles do occasionally slip through the editing process here, and are often accepted as fact.