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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."
multi thousand dollar EPFX machines that run off random number generators. Apparently this William Nelson fraud character lives in a multimillion dollar house in budapest because of it.
I've seen a list of audiophile gadgets here:
http://www.ilikejam.dsl.pipex.com/audiophile.htm
"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
In related news... the Pear cable calls James Randi's million dollar challenge a hoax.
Warning: Troll Alert!! I'm sure I'll get modded down for this but...
I would think that the latest spate of HiFi speaker wires would be right up there. The key difference between dowsing rods and these cables, is that once in a while dowsing rods seem to work. The multi-hundred dollar cables, time and time again in double-blind tests, have been shown to perform more poorly than the cheap utility speaker wire. And yet, there's a whole industry out there that argues (and markets) to the contrary.
Snake Oil indeed.
The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes
Next year's list will include MS Vista operating software !
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The number of comments supporting dowsing rods based on anecdotal evidence on the article page makes me realize that we have a lot of work to do before anything like an educated majority will happen.
A product is worth exactly what it's purchaser will pay for it.
"there's no engineer out there dedicating his life to polishing wooden volume knobs."
;)
Well as far as I'm concerned, anyone that spends that amount of money on a volume knob IS a dedicated knob polisher.
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.
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
He believes this with all his heart.
So one day I had him do it over a stretch of ground we both knew to have some old pipes buried under it. And then I had him repeat it, blindfolded. He couldn't hit the same spot twice. Not even close. (The pipes were indeed buried roughly where he said they were when his eyes were open.)
I tried to explain to him that he was simply remembering where he had buried the pipes, and that it was his subconscious mind that was causing the wires to cross, but he really didn't want to hear that. He'd rather believe in dowsing.
John
When we had our main water line in Herefordshire replaced, Welsh Water had a great deal of trouble finding the original pipe valve in order to shut it off. Our house is an Edwardian Rectory about 500 metres off the road so after consulting the old maps of the area proceeded to dig a series of pits across our front field. This went on for a couple of weeks resulting in a fairly good recreation of a WWI battlefield.
It was pretty odd, we knew where the pipe entered the house and where the junction was to the mains, but the earlier Brits had a special way of routing things. Anyhow, believe it or not Welsh Water employ a dowser who looked like someone from the mesolithic; low and behold he found the pipe after a couple of days.
Pot luck? Maybe. Or perhaps Welsh Water have a strong desire to instill mystical beliefs in their customers. Either way that episode certainly changed my views on it.
I think there's some kind of error with Slashdot, the article link is not working for me.
It's just taking me to the Skymall catalog.
This is after all about snake-oil, not overpriced rubish. The other 9 don't do what they claim to do, the article doesn't mention that the knobs claim to do anything except that they are made of wood and can be used as a volume knob. I see no reason why they cannot be used as such.
Might as well put diamonds there as well then, overpriced when cut glass can be made to sparkle just as pretty.
Unless these knobs make some idiotic claim, they are just overpriced toys.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The wooden knobs are $400 because the manufacturer claims that they improve the sound quality.
That's rather a huge difference, IMHO.
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.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
That one person may be willing to pay a million bucks for something is less indicative of worth than the fact that a million people wouldn't pay a penny.
I'll be happy to sell someone a wooden knob for $500.
SOLD! D'ye know how much Pirate Penis Prosthetics go for on the open market, lad? That be a good deal, so it be.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Bringing free market theories into it is good and fine, but only if you also realize the context in which they apply. The free market is a bit more complex of abstraction. There are a heck of a ton of assumptions there, such as that the products are interchangeable, there are many suppliers, etc. And most importantly in this context: the buyers are perfectly informed.
That last part is crucial here: a product is worth exactly what you paid, only if you knew _exactly_ what you're buying. I.e., that doesn't apply to scams and cons.
If you think you bought Product A, but instead you got Product B, then that whole "is worth exactly what the purchaser paid" assumption falls flat on its face. Your judgment of whether or not it was worth it was based on Product A, not on product B.
E.g., if I offer to sell you, say, Porsche Carrera, how much is that worth to you? Even second hand it's still worth tens of thousands. Now imagine that you pay that money and I give you a toy car. That's just not the product you thought you were buying. Saying that it's worth exactly as much as you paid for it, would just be stupid.
Now that's a case where the fraud is easy to spot. This kind of snake oil is the same kind of fraud, only it's a lot harder to spot for the uninitiated.
E.g., if you had cancer and I promised you a medicine that can cure you, how much is that worth to you? Quite a lot, I'd bet. People have been known to blow their life's savings on such a miracle medicine or cancer-curing gizmo, in that situation. But that was worth the price only assuming that it is what I assured you it is. If instead I give you coloured water or a box that displays random numbers, then it's just not the product for which that price was judged.
It's the same fraud as in the car example: you were promised Product A and were given ample assurance that it is indeed Product A. That's what you judged that price for. But instead you were given Product B, which isn't even remotely the same thing. That's what makes it a fraud.
Now if those things were sold honestly as snake oil (think, "this bracelet won't do jack shit for your health, but we think that industrial cable looks cool and we're charging 500$ for it anyway"), _then_ that "it's worth what the purchaser paid" idea would apply. Sure, then the buyer knew exactly what he's getting, judget it worth every cent. Fair enough. If someone knew they're buying just a piece of steel cable, and was ok with paying that price for it, I can't argue with that.
But as long as the buyer was deliberately mis-led into thinking they bought something completely different, sorry, no. Just no.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I wandered in to Radio Shack the other day for a TOSLINK cable. Young "not quite a geek" spys me and approaches. "How may I help you?" he says. "I need a few TOSLINK cables" says I.. and reach for the Radio Shack house brand.. "OH" he interrupts; "You don't want those; you want these" and reaches for a brand name that will remain nameless. I see a 59.00 dollar price tag on a 3 meter cable and look at the fellow. "So; what's the difference" I ask (Knowing he has not clue) "Well"; said the young not quite a geek; "these have better insulation". "Oh?" I counter; "Insulation from what; sunspots?" "No" he replies; "for all of the electronic gear around your house. The better insulation blocks hum and pops". Sad thing was the young lad had no idea why his argument was pointless. I remember the day when I could walk into a Radio Shank and hob-nod with my fellow wizards.. Now; I could probably go to 7-11 and get better advice. Rant mode off ..
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
A few years ago, I received many stock spams for "XLPI.PK", or Xcel Plus, which sells fuel and lubricant additives. Such additives are referred to in the automotive industry as "mouse milk"; they usually don't do much, and may make things worse. That whole category of products is mostly bogus.
Back then, their web site contained endorsements from the FAA and the US Army. The web site reproduced a a letter of endorsement appearing to be from an FAA representative. I thought this was a bit strange, so I sent off a note to the regional FAA office asking if it was legitimate.
A few weeks later, I got a call from an anti-terrorism investigator at NCIS. Someone at the FAA had looked at the letter and the web site. They apparently didn't like what they saw, and referred the matter for investigation of the use of unapproved lubricants in military equipment. That comes under the "sabotaging the war effort" laws, which brings in military investigators.
I'm not sure what happened thereafter, but the spamming stopped and "XLPI.PK" is now trading at $0.001.
1. Everybody has a personal investment in not being proven wrong about this crap. But the lying/fools that think Dowsing works have a MUCH GREATER personal investment in not being proven wrong than James Randi does. Even claiming the personal investment arguement makes you look foolish.
2. The Let me get this straight, you are complainging that his tests are too strict? I got news for you kid, every scientific experiemnt has FAR stricter tests than the relatively easy thing James Randi does. Why? Because CON MEN DO EXIST. You have to be pretty moronic to complain about someone making it dificult to be conned. As a stage performer, Randi KNOWS how to trick people and he is NOT stupid enough to let someone use those same methods on him.
3. Real things work no matter what kind of strict tests you do. You light a match, it works. It works if 'non-believers' are present. It works if cameras are watching you. It works if a CHILD does it. It just works. Dowsing simply does NOT work.
4. The thing to remember is that people claiming that Dowsing work: a. make money doing it, so they have LARGE incentive to lie and cheat. b. If they did work, they would make SO money by actually doing it for real that the million dollars from Randi would be small potatoes.
5. You admit that there ARE shysters and frauds. Fine. Believe it or not but that puts the burden of proof on you. Because the rest of us do NOT admit that anyone can do it for real. The existence of shysters and frauds means there is PLENTY of doubt that ANYONE can really do it. Why? Because for a real product, the shysters and fraud get OUTSOLD by the people doing it for real. When you go buy a new car, you do not have a real chance of getting something that has no engine. The existence of REAL cars make it very hard to sell fake ones. If Dowsing etc. was real, the real people would outcompete the fakes and it would be hard to find one of the shysters and frauds. The fact that there are so many many shysters and frauds is not 100% proof that no real ones exist, but it pretty darn close to it that no real ones existed 10 years ago (because if one real one existed 10 years ago, he and his students would have put the fake ones out of business by now.
Stop attacking the guy that proves you wrong and just prove yourself right. Otherwise, everyone will continue to laugh at your foolishnes.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
True snake oil is completely useless. Monster Cable is good quality, well manufactured cable. For 1/3 to 1/2 of what they charge for it, it would actually be worth using in some situations.
No, no, none of those models will of course. The problem is that they all try to cancel magnetic fields, or create a static magnetic field. However, the earrings I have right here for a measly $1399 use a reverse ionization engine that will modulate the electromagnetic fields centered on your brain. These modulations are self-adjusting and completely unaffected by power lines and are proven to increase your brains throughput by 33%, but only in those regions which promote healthy thinking and habits.
Taking into account the way that your white blood cells will respond to our reverse-ionization self adjusting magnetic fields, I think you can just see for yourself how curing AIDS and bringing back your hair is just one of the many miracles that these earrings can offer you.
. . . go quite a non-meterian distance to obtain a device which emits "non-Hertzian frequencies."
Especially if I can pay for it with non-monetary currency.
Don't be ridiculous you gullible sap.
Let me clean off my monitor, geez, that was funny.
I am frequently disappointed at the level of stupidity out there amongst seeming non-stupid people. There are people who think rubber tires protect them in a lightening storm, that man walked with dinosaurs, that 72 hot virgin babes who wouldn't touch you while you were alive would have sex with you if you manage to die while killing innocent people, that jesus needs money send to a P.O box, or that any one particular god is any less ridiculous than any other particular god or collection of gods.
It may be termed a "donation" but that doesn't make it less than a mandatory payment. As an example, look at the wealth amassed by the Catholic/Anglican church and tell me nobody is paying for their salvation.
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.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Randi will handle all kinds of weird claims without getting mad. Last week he tested a woman that claimed she can cause anyone to urinate against their will "through the power of Jesus". http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/125/1/
They forgot to mention those stickers that you can put on your cell phone battery that will magically boost your reception. While they aren't as expensive as a Q-ray bracelet, I'm sure they make up for it in volume.
I actually bought one of these - the i-tena for my iphone. Naturally, it made absolutely no difference whatsoever. There's no excuse really, thirty seconds of Googling shows these signal booster stickers do absolutely nothing. I guess I wanted it to work, so I conned myself into thinking it would...
I think it has more to do with people in business, rather than government, benefiting from people who have no critical thinking skills. Look at the history of public education. In frontier days, our schools taught people to be critical thinkers because that's what a frontier demands. With the advent of industrialization, the robber barons knew they needed educated specialists who couldn't put two and two together outside of their area of expertise. Obviously, people who could put two and two together would realize how important they were, and how utterly unimportant the robber barons were. So these early industrialists made massive donations to the public school system, with the caveat that the money would go towards buying their textbooks and teaching their lessons. And thus we have things like the four food groups including dairy separate from other protiens, even though most adults can't properly digest milk.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
When I was 2 years old I had ear aches that were excruciatingly painful and would not go away. My parents took me to a general doctor who prescribed putting plastic tubes in my ears to help drain fluid that was causing the painful pressure in my inner ear. My parents went to a Naturopatic doctor who saw I was allergic to dairy and soy, and my parents put me on Rice milk for years. The pain went away, and I didn't have to go through invasive surgery to end the pain. I didn't like rice milk at first, but it was still a hell of a lot better than not having those hellish earaches.
Cue one pirate penis prosthetics joke:
A pirate walks into a tavern, & the barman says "Excuse me sir, but do you know that you have a steering wheel coming out of your crotch?"
And the pirate replies (drum roll, please): "Yarr! It's driving me nuts!"
Bertrand Rusell is making a mistake then, isn't he? --Nobody can research teapots cruising around Pluto. But nobody is being stopped from trying out dowsing.
As for proof? I would suggest that there are plenty of people who have studied dowsing and come back with positive results, but there are several problems. One is that dowsing only seems to work for some people. Another is that the mechanics are not understood. Another is that there is a bias against even looking at the problem. There is a tendency for people who study dowsing or any of the other "taboo" subjects to be ostracized for coming back with anything other than a negative finding. And then we slip into the decidedly un-scientific realm of egomaniacs like, James Randi. We get people saying, "There is NO PROOF!" despite the fact that obviously some people have had experiences which they have found convincing enough to tell others about. --Except such findings do not count because there are conditions on proof.
The primary condition being, from what I can tell, is that the TV people, the Arbiters of Reality, declare on the 6 O'clock news that the proof is valid.
Yes. That's the big one. But to make that happen, one must spend a great deal of energy publicizing a finding, arguing to validate that finding, and that's hard enough to do when the finding exists within acceptable boundaries. Really, only the big companies and big university labs can afford to do alter the shape of public perception. But the moment you step outside those boundaries, people start to actively attack you and push back. I mean, it's a grim scenario; when James Randi is a self-appointed arbiter who openly attacks people for even approaching him with their ideas, and people actually use him as some sort of yard stick of respectability. . , well it's a bad scene.
What I'm saying is that people who attack either have a messed up agenda, like Randi, or they don't know what they're talking about. They say, "There is NO PROOF!", when really they don't know one way or the other. --Which is why I always say that people really need to stop swinging fists and actually go explore the available material in order to know what they're talking about. Anybody who does this honestly tends to come back quite shocked by the actual state of reality. But most people simply don't bother looking, choosing instead to resort to poorly fitted arguments like, "The burden of proof is on the one making the claim! I refuse to look!"
And so they don't look. They wait until the TV people and James Randi tell them what to believe next. --And they continue to repeat canned meme arguments like, "The burden of proof is on the one making the claim," and think that they've actually said something meaningful when really their brains are on auto-pilot. When people actually set aside their biases and start thinking for themselves, (and this is profoundly difficult to do and I suspect most never manage it for even a few minutes every few years), then suddenly the world opens up.
Perhaps you can understand why those for whom things like Dowsing have become useful and functional tools in their lives can feel a bit frustrated with others.
-FL
First I never said that real dowsers would drive all fake ones out, that is your bad argument (called 'a strawman fallacy'). What I said is that the existence of real dowsers would make it very hard to find a fake one. Because real stuff beats good ones. And yes that means that bad building contractors ARE much less common than good building contractors. Most buildings made by building contractors stand up. The prevalence of known and proven fakes is far far greater in Dowsing than in building contractors.
.
Straw man fallacy? Now, that's hardly fair. Please re-read what you wrote, the last line in particular, (such as it is), and tell me again that you honestly think I wasn't responding squarely to your assertion:
5. You admit that there ARE shysters and frauds. Fine. Believe it or not but that puts the burden of proof on you. Because the rest of us do NOT admit that anyone can do it for real. The existence of shysters and frauds means there is PLENTY of doubt that ANYONE can really do it. Why? Because for a real product, the shysters and fraud get OUTSOLD by the people doing it for real. When you go buy a new car, you do not have a real chance of getting something that has no engine. The existence of REAL cars make it very hard to sell fake ones. If Dowsing etc. was real, the real people would outcompete the fakes and it would be hard to find one of the shysters and frauds. The fact that there are so many many shysters and frauds is not 100% proof that no real ones exist, but it pretty darn close to it that no real ones existed 10 years ago (because if one real one existed 10 years ago, he and his students would have put the fake ones out of business by now.
As for there being few bad contractors. . ? You should talk to somebody who has had work done on their house sometime. I've known a lot of people like this, and many of them complain bitterly about over-billing, poor construction, and being held hostage once the side of their kitchen has been knocked out and then left while the contractor abandons the project for weeks to pick up new clients. There are a LOT of shady or incompetent contractors out there. The analogy may not be entirely apt, (being an analogy), but it is not nearly so far from the mark as you suggest. --And it's still a lot better than your, 'cars have engines' thing, which is the whole reason I brought it up. --And in case you're wondering, that isn't a straw man I'm knocking down. It's you.
I am presenting my ideas well (See the "insightful" ratings I got). The problem is you have already made up your mind and every time I present something, you refuse to read what I wrote, instead you make up something similar, but not quite true. Then you argue with it.
Insightful? Oh, please. You're playing in your home stadium, so don't let the applause go to your head; Your arguments are very shaky by all rational standards. As for refusing to read what you wrote. . . That's completely unfair and it makes me wonder if you are reading what I write. It doesn't seem like it to me. Case in point. .
Part of the problem is the very fact that you attacked Randi at all. That is called "Ad hominem" fallacy - when you attack the person instead of their argument.
Look, Albert Einstein was a great scientist. But he also cheated on his wife. People don't bring that up much, because it has nothing to do with his science. Similarly, you have no business attacking Randi. If you dislike something he did than attack THAT PARTICULAR THING. Talking in a general way about how bad he is, then telling other people to research him is pretty much proof that you have no good argument. If you did, you would describe the particular thing you that he did wrong, not try to bring in a bunch of unrelated stuff.
Einstein cheating on his wife bears no relevance on his mathematical equations, but the way Randi manages his 'challenge', and I described some of those ways, is entirely relevant to the argument. Again to correct your analogy,