10 Great Snake-Oil Gadgets

The Byelorussian Strikes Again writes "Wired offers up 10 of the most awesome snake oil gadgets, from industrial cables sold as $200 ionized pain-relieving bracelets to a plastic chip that cures anything, improves gas mileage and cleans swimming pools. One truly sad development: the infamous $500 wooden volume knob is no longer on sale."

Comments

Quote:

[Bananatree3]

"Bergstein said the device offered a false hope that consumed his wife and robbed the family of precious remaining time with her. A retired Microsoft manager, Bergstein looked at the source code in the EPFX's software. It appeared to generate results randomly." quoted from the article

Re:major study needed.

[Shambly]

James Randy Swift is offering 1 million dollar to show that they can accuratly dowse. I would like to assume that anyone actually able to do it would have claimed the prize. The fact that no one can replicate it in a controlled setting makes claim that it is possible dubious at best.

The Randi Challenge is open to everyone, you know

[Moraelin]

The Randi challenge is open to everyone, you know, so it's hard to argue with a straight face (and an undamaged brain) that somehow the real dowsers just mysteriously slipped through the cracks, and all the thousands of studies picked just the wrong ones.

It's open to everyone. If anyone thinks he's a real dowser (or a real telepath, or anything else "paranormal"), he can register, prove it and walk with a cool million dollars for their efforts. That's more than they make out of finding water for some farmer too, so it should be incentive enough to register if they actually have the gift. Heck, a million dollars isn't bad at all a deal for a couple of day's work even for someone who's in the business of dowsing for oil or minerals. Plus they'd get the free publicity of it all. People went through a lot more effort for a lot less gain.

To my mind that's as close as testing literally everyone as it gets. If at least one person on the whole Earth had such powers, they're not just free to get it tested, but actually invited and promised a nice reward.

And the first test there is: do they even genuinely believe they have those powers, or do they know that they're running a scam? If they don't even try to register there, you can already know in which category to file them. The _vast_ majority of dowsers, magicians, clairvoyants, mind-readers, etc, fall in that category by their own hand.

But of course that still won't stop gullible people from believing in fairy tales, just because they feel a need to believe in fairy tales.

Re:Do the volume knobs count?

[CrankyFool]

You're right, there's a missing context.

I remember seeing the original hype around the knobs. At the time, there were in fact claims being made that the beech knobs, and the specific way they were made, had a notable impact on the quality of the sound your sound system outputted. Ah, found the link:

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They are custom made with beech wood and bronze where the bronze is used as the insert to mount to the stem of the volume pot. The beech wood is coated several times with C37 lacquer for best sound as pointed out by Dieter Ennemoser. How can this make a difference??? Well, hearing is believing as we always say. The sound becomes much more open and free flowing with a nice improvement in resolution. Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved. Here is a test for all you Silver Rock owners. Try removing the bakelite knobs and listen. You will be shocked by this! The signature knobs will have an even greater effect really amazing! The point here is the micro vibrations created by the volume pots and knobs find their way into the delicate signal path and cause degradation (Bad vibrations equal bad sound). With the signature knobs micro vibrations from the C37 concept of wood, bronze and the lacquer itself compensate for the volume pots and provide (Good Vibrations) our ear/brain combination like to hear way better sound!!"
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See http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/past_pres_msg/06-11_pres_msg.htm

Wooden Knob page via wayback machine....

[Ellis D. Tripp]

http://web.archive.org/web/20070830091736/http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C

Here are some of the claims made:

[quote]The sound becomes much more open and free flowing with a nice improvement in resolution. Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved. Here is a test for all you Silver Rock owners. Try removing the bakelite knobs and listen. You will be shocked by this! The signature knobs will have an even greater effect...really amazing! The point here is the micro vibrations created by the volume pots and knobs find their way into the delicate signal path and cause degradation (Bad vibrations equal bad sound). With the signature knobs micro vibrations from the C37 concept of wood, bronze and the lacquer itself compensate for the volume pots and provide (Good Vibrations) our ear/brain combination like to hear...way better sound!![/quote]

Complete and utter bullshit, of course, but great for separating gullible yuppies from their money.