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

Re:Pear cables

[nuzak]

Randi has all the right ideas, but is seriously the wrong front man for his challenge. He's so easily baited into flaming and vitriolic diatribes that he completely loses the plot, making the challenge not about the claims, but about the players tossing an exchange of schoolyard taunts.

As for the prize, it's really too small these days: a million bucks is nothing to sneeze at, but it really is chump change for the high profile targets he supposedly (but it would seem not actually) is now exclusively pursuing. It's kept around as more or less cash, when it would seem that it wouldn't be too hard to get an even bigger prize insured. I guess all that's needed is enough incentive to get applicants to take the challenge in the first place, more won't make the testing any different. Regardless, the Sylvia Brownes of the world still aren't taking that challenge -- because they'd have everything to lose from their fraud being exposed, of course -- but they're also given a fairly easy out when they can simply portray themselves as rising above abusive and insunting invective.

As a skeptic, I really do applaud the work of the JREF. I just think the challenge isn't being administered very well, and it's really about time to take a serious look at dropping it altogether.