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Drought Inspires a Boom In Pseudoscience, From Rain Machines To 'Water Witches'
merbs (2708203) writes Across drought-stricken California, farmers are desperate for water. Now, many of them are calling dowsers. These "water witches," draped in dubious pseudoscience or self-assembled mythologies—or both—typically use divining rods and some sort of practiced intuition to "find" water. The professional variety do so for a fee. And business is booming. They're just part of a storied tradition of pseudoscientific hucksters exploiting our thirst for water, with everything from cloudbusters to rainmachines to New Age rituals.
Dowsers? They need THIS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
Are soon parted.
When you have a better model and fail to take advantage of it, in favor of a completely bullshit model without any suggestions on how to falsify it, you are a fool.
Here in Sacramento, I saw somebody from the county water district using dousing rods while on the job. I'm not sure if he was looking for a pipe or what, and I was sadly too preoccupied to inquire with the water district to see if it's standard procedure, but, shit. I felt bad for my county.
...unless someone was taught it over a series of Sundays. :/
I suppose ignorance on things like this is generational, and we'll stamp it out slowly, like racism or smoking.
People who are suffering, ignorant, and afraid are more willing to turn to the supernatural - be it religion or superstitions - as a 'solution' to their problems.
As long as the contract stipulates payment only after confirmation of findings, who cares if they use geology or dowsing?
when will this crazy train finally go off the rails.
OK, if someone claims to be able to find water with a stick, takes your money then doesn't find water, are they committing fraud?
Let's test this: Did they *guarantee* to find water? If yes, then fraud happened.
If no, then fraud did not happen.
Why? Because they only claimed to be able to find water, they did not guarantee that there would be water under the test area.
HOWEVER, if it is known that water is under the test area (and this can be proved contemporaneously with the dowsing), then fraud did occur because that would prove that either the stick operator knows the stick is broken or someotherhow malfunctioning, or his method is hokum as either way he FAILED to detect what he claimed to be able to detect yet it was present at the material time.
(up until 1951 witchcraft was illegal in England, since then it has been the burden upon the accuser not to apply an ambiguous label to someone's behaviour, but to prove that his actions were of a malicious and criminally fraudulent nature, ie a medium stacking tarot cards).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I was looking at an acreage and asked the realtor if he knew where the septic field was.. He said no but would find it. He grabbed a wire coat hanger out of the closet, bent it into some divining sticks, and went outside trudging through 2' deep snow... My wife and I just kind of glanced at one another and rolled our eyes... Thing is, he honestly thought he was helping...
but it's California, so they may be hard to find.
It sounds like a typical reaction:
"No, I'm afraid we can't fix this. We're going to have to work around our problem... Conserve water, reuse wa.... No, no! Don't pay the fucking witch doctor for a rain dance!"
So what about that "gets" you? Supernatural by definition needs not be observable. What gets me are the natural conclusions supposedly justified by this supernatural being, like that God considers homosexual behavior to be a sin (not to mention the concept of sin in the first place) or that humanity can continue to multiply exponentially because God will end the game before too many people become a serious problem.
A single locating flag wire bent at an angle works EVERY time for buried infastructure. Some use two wires, but I use one. It works every freaking time. Not sometimes, not occasionally, every time. I can find gas lines, water lines, sewer lines, co-axial lines, you name it and it is buried it can be found using witching sticks. The main problem is that you can not identify what you pick up while locating, which is why I then confirm the locate with some other source such as an map or line locator.
But the main point is that it works.
Santa Claus does not exist any more.
The SWAT team shot him in the head
... or that humanity can continue to multiply exponentially because God will end the game before too many people become a serious problem.
On the flip side, since many of the most devout religionists are prone to war and episodes of mass suicide, perhaps they will inadvertently help with the overpopulation problem.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
... look up Water Witch in Google Play.
It's free.
If you download it in the next 15 minutes, it's ABSOLUTELY free.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
In San Diego, California, USA where I live we have an initiative to build the worlds largest Desalination plant of its kind, yet are plagued by the state constantly forcing setbacks. Partially EPA related, partially playing card material for the Governor Jerry Brown.
China has a similar design going into effect right now and achieving an effective and profitable desalination design. Still, it comes down to two things:
1) Economy of scale in desalination (how much) There is currently a break point in efficiency/pollution whereby anything under 100 gallons/hr. can easily be cost efficient. Anything beyond that has to this point, cost more than importing it. San Diego's DeSal is attempting to create a new break point @ the high-end of production however (2 million gallons per hour) and it remains to be seen if it will work. Source
2) Supply & Demand When it rains, why spend money on desalination when you get it from the sky? As California's Jerry Brown once stated: "When it rains here in California, it might as well be raining money." Jerry Brown, 1982.
The biggest concerns from the EPA about Desalination technologies come down to what happens to the brine sludge byproducts and the cost to run. Well, San Diego's option is actually rather efficient and its cost only slightly higher than importing water. A cost we can live with, but the fight continues on another front! The sludge has become the new controversy that the EPA and PETA girls are all upset about.
Right now, most desal plants average about ~1 metric ton of sludge per ~12 million litres of fresh drinking water. So what happens to it?
- Australia, Africa, Saudi Arabia and the UK bury it.
- Ghana, Egypt, Nigeria and a few other African nations with Oil reserves are using it as part of their Oil extraction method
- USA, Japan and Greece currently use it for industrial use as soda ash and sodium bicarbinate
- Japan and Australia are currently looking to use it for cement compound, bricks and building materials
In summary, it certainly is NOT pumped back into the Ocean as much as it was even 5 years ago, but the EPA is still "concerned". We just cannot seem to win. Another technology being deployed RIGHT NOW will actually make use of it... ALL of it. WaterFX, a new company on the scene (relatively) has a solution to the amount of sludge that results in 93% of the water becoming palatable. With only 7% byproduct being "sludge salt", it is converted directly into Soda ash and Sodium Bicarbonate and used for: Fire extinguishers, Cooking, Neutralization of acids and bases, Medical uses, Personal hygiene, Cleaning agents, Biopesticides, Cattle feed supplements, Glass making, Pool chemicals, Water softeners, Laundry detergents and a ton of other uses.
None the less, we have to drudge through the political process to get anything done here in California, which unfortunately will take years.
Well, it's easier to say God doesn't exist, than to say that He does. If we simply believed something with no proof, than why are we willing to take shit from so many people we meet in life that think we are fools? Slashdot likes to brag about things like using the scientific method and requiring proof, but the proof that God exists is intangible. You can't point to something and say,"There, that's God," but He's still present. He changes people, He changed me.
But He WILL NOT reveal Himself to someone who doesn't want to have an encounter with Him. Saying that Christians(I'm still on the fence about some of the other religions) are simply fools indicates that that person wouldn't respond in a positive fashion if God showed Himself, so He doesn't.
This has nothing to do with farmers, or droughts.
Plenty of people here on Slashdot believe in:
Ghosts
Vaccines cause Autism
Sugar is poisonous
Gluten sensitivity
Alien visitors
Wifi allergies
and on and on and on...
Some people are desperate for water, others are desperate to explain their childs ailments, desperate to explain their own ailments, desperate to live in a world different than our own. Desperate people will believe strange things. Myth is the anesthesia for anguish.
"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day"
Unless its digital :)
"A dowser is less effective than a geologist and bears, at the minimum, a higher opportunity cost over the average (of instances of people searching for water with a dowser instead of a geologist)."
Wait, a dowser is less effective than bears, at the minimum? What kind of low bar do bears set? Where does one go to hire a bear to find water and how do they go about it?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
My grandparents had a dowser site their well. apparently all of the natural springs on their land wasn't enough of a clue that water was not hard to get.
You might want to pick up an easy million dollars from James Randy. funny thing is, nobody has ever succeeded in a real test, no matter how easy they claim it is.
The Amazing Randy has $1 million waiting for you to come and claim. You fucking liar.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
One, if there were a 100% failure rate dousing would have been abandoned years ago.
Actually if the failure rate was exactly 100%, it would be a valuable tool:
it would very reliabily show where NOT to look for water, and by deduction you'll know that you need to look for water at the remaining NOT dowsed places.
The real failure rate would be something very high, but not close to 100%.
By random chance, you're bound to find water, eventually.
The whole point of a scientific statistical test would be to see if the few successes occur as frequently as random chance, or if dowsing has a slightly higher success rate that could NOT be explained purely by random chance.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I called the local call-before-you-dig number because I was having foundation work done and you have to have an underground lines located before you can so much as plant bedding plants around here. A lady showed up and followed procedure for the gas and electrical lines then she pulled out her water witching wands to locate the rest of the stuff. Crazy. I called and left a complaint but they never got back to me. One day she's going to have some equipment malfunction and she's going to use her wands to locate an electrical line and it'll kill someone.
Very confusing. You are willing believe in aliens from other worlds, time travel and the idea all this can be kept hidden but a person being able to witch a well is a bridge too far? Wow dude. Put down whatever you are smoking.
so, anyone who *would* believe in god if they had some rational evidence of it's existence is shit out of luck, their soul damned for eternity, because you have to believe with all your heart in something unbelievable before it reveals itself to you, and you alone? thanks god, for making it impossible for rational people to be saved by you.
"god made me this way". if he wanted skeptics to believe in him, he's going to have to pony up some real evidence, the kind he created us to desire, otherwise skeptics will simply continue down the path toward eternal damnation that "He" himself set them on.
I know it sounds batshit crazy. I know it's not science. I know I'll be moderated to "shutup dumbass". I'll say it anyway.
I grew up in rural Oregon. My family moved there in the early 70's, from California. We bought a big chunk of land, with nothing but trees on it. We pitched two tents, and started searching for the best house site. We filled 5 gallon bottles at the neighbors for a while, until we decided where to build the house.
The neighbor's father was a well witcher. We assumed that it was part of a big joke on the city slickers, but humored him, and let him witch the well. He had a forked stick, and walked around for 30 minutes with it. He said "drill here. at 60 feet, you'll get 10gpm, but keep going to 80. At 80, you'll get 20gpm". We offered him money, and he said this was a gift from God, and he refused any sort of payment.
When the drilling rig showed up, they asked where we wanted to drill. Keep in mind that there are no maps, no charts, *nothing* to tell you where to dig. The guy with the truck will always suggest a spot; the one with the easiest access for his giant truck. So we drilled where the old man suggested. The driller shrugged his shoulders when we told him to keep drilling when he hit good water at 60 feet; he gets paid by the foot, regardless of water output. We got 20gpm at 80 feet (I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was within a foot or tow, and a gallon or two).
20 years later, my folks built another house on the property. They got the well witched again. It was a different guy, but a very similar story. "Gift from God, no payment". Accurate prediction of depth and volume of water.
If I didn't see it myself, I'd call bullshit.
That said, I'm sure there's a million scammers out the now.
You forget that aliens are often branded as "science" (minus the fiction of course). Watch a few Discovery and National Graphic TV shows, and remember that those are supposed to be our "educational programming" networks.
Prefixing an argument with "Scientists believe that" is an easy way to dupe people that want to believe they are more intelligent than those other people. That particular appeal to authority is used quite often with good effect.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You are willing believe in aliens from other worlds, time travel and the idea all this can be kept hidden but a person being able to witch a well is a bridge too far?
Where's the evidence? If the Greys land in front of the White House in a flying saucer and ask to be taken to our leader, then I would allow that there's something to this UFO stuff. Who knows? You might too.
Gas lines, water lines, sewer lines, coaxial lines, electric lines can all be found with a minimum of effort without witching sticks. All you have to do is go to a random spot, any old spot, it doesn't even have to be within 1000 miles of a human settlement, and dig. If you do not hit one of the above, you will at the very least cut the only fiber connection to an entire continent.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Rain machines and weather manipulation is a capability we possess but they keep it for themselves. They prefer to create natural looking disasters and fuck with each other than to create peace or to regulate the weather in a productful way.
10 governments plus the yakuza have access to interferometers. And countries been messing with the weather using them since the 1950s. Read up on directed energy and electromagnetic interferometric terrorism : http://www.OregonStateHospital.net/d/story.html#nsabrainlink
Tornados and hurricanes and quakes and rainy and snowy seasons and hot and cold bursts and jet stream shifts can all be created.
Also rise in tempurature leading to more hot weather is totally man made thanks to piss poor planning and profit games off unclean technologies. :D
What makes me laugh about all these people who criticise whatever because it has a bad reputation, are mostly the same people who would be completely accepting if dowsing was commercialised and sold everywhere by some company who commission some bullshit "research" where a tiny group of people had success 50% or 60% of the time. But oh no, because some prick hasn't robbed people en masse, you suddenly have the balls to say something. My point is there's a lot worse shit out there than someone with a pair of metal wires prancing around land dressed like a wizard. Good luck to em.
If California is really doing this, then they are doomed. They need to learn to conserve, even if that means learning new ways that are actually old ways. I have a garden, and I haven't watered it a single day this year. I have a bumper crop of tomatoes, more than I can really deal with. California could do this too, it's a lot of work to conserve water, but I don't know anyone else personally that garden like I do. I cut grass with my Scythe, I put said grass in my garden carefully. The grass is a water barrier, as well as nutrients for the fruit. Also since Tomatoes are versatile, I dug them up, and replant them 2 foot deeper, so on top of the grass water barrier, my plants are 2 foot underground where they would never usually be. Food for thought. Also I don't water my lawn, I let mother nature take care of that, and the grass clippings I don't get to. P.S. 200 years ago people didn't water their gardens in America, why do they do this now.
That's the thing with water too. There's a water table in many places, and if you dig and find water chances are if you move 100 feet in any direction and dig you'll find water too. Other times the dowsers instinctively head to where water is most likely, stream beds, depressions in the earth, etc. Where dowsing fails though is in a blind test, they absolutely do not find water reliably in closed opaque barrels where neither tester nor testee know which has water.
I tried it as a skeptic, but its hard to deny what happens in your own hands. It was demonstrated by someone who works in archeology and is highly respected in her field with a track record of finding buried structures (roman villas, neolithic burials etc).
Ignoring or ridiculing an observable phenomenon because you have no explanation. Even though that ridicule has precluded any sort of mainstream scientific study. Is pretty unscientific IMO.
Superposition or the simultaneous wave/particle properties of light sound pretty batshit to the layman. But im glad they are being investigated enough to at least present hypotheses to test.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
Posting this AC for obvious reasons, it's bad enough accidentally re-igniting a flame war over systemd just to ask a question...
Anyway, my dad taught me this as a kid. He, my sister, and I can all do it, while my mom could not. We use it to find water pipes, though it sometimes works for other utilities. We use bare wires (low but not too low friction) bent into an L-shape, and you hold the short end tightly in your clenched fist so the short end points down and the long one points straight ahead, one in each hand, although you can also use just one. You then walk slowly ahead and when the wires turn 90 degrees toward you you're standing over the pipe; walk backward, and the wires open up again.
Here, this video explains it better. As the video author says, I can't explain how it works, but it does and is reliable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I've tried using this technique for other things, such as finding ground water or gold, and failed. I also have never been able to do the dowsing with the wishbone-shaped branch you often see.
The start of burning man was delayed by rain.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
That tells us only that it isn't the water itself that the witcher can locate. It says nothing about the ability to find a geologic structure that will typically have water.
There is exactly one surefire way to create rain, it works flawlessly every time:
Wash your car.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Stephen Hawking has said (paraphrasing), "The existence of God is impossible because time did not exist before the Universe existed; therefore, nothing could have existed to create the Universe."
And as I said in 1993 physics class: change requires time (delta t), so if there was no time "before"* the universe exists, there is no changing from nothing to something. Instead it is more likely that the Big Bang theory is wrong, and that there is an eternal source for existence.
*what does before mean without time?
Dowsing, astrology, homeopathy, whenever anything like this comes up I always find it scary to see the angry response that comes from "science" people. It's as if they feel threatened somehow like their gods had been insulted. If they truly thought the subject was worthless they would just ignore it and not even bother to get into the debate.
When I worked in an IT company in Johannesburg one of the kernel developers there used to get extra money finding water for farmers. Not sticks or wands, what he did was get a brick and stand it upright on the palm of his hand. He would walk around and interpret the water course according to the brick's movements. I have no idea how or why it worked but he was getting paid regularly.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
bend 2 coat hangers at a 90 degree angle and walk outside with the long side hanging down at 50- 55 degrees from vertical. The coat hangers will swing together and cross against gravity for many people. I tried it. Does that mean there is water under you? Who cares. There's a force similar to magnetism that is not understood.
Quick, make a kickstarter campaign!
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Dousing is retarded because it can't actually hold up to a controlled test. Get a giant tank of water of 50 gallons, cover it and have some dousers try to locate it in a large area. You'll be very hard pressed to get results even p less than 0.1
it is possible to scientifically test dowsing, it would just be expensive and scientists have already decided that dowsing is BS and don't want to do the research to prove it.
All you have to do is have a dowser go out and do his/her thing. Where they indicate there is water, dig. Also, dig 10 or 20 other random holes and figure out if there is water within about the same depth. Repeat about 100 times at different geologically separated and diversified areas. Shouldn't cost more than 10 or 20 million to put this to bed one way or another.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Too many people making Orgonite and clearing the sky of clouds and chemtrails.
Or just 50 cents worth of common sense.
Common sense isn't always right. I don't see a good mechanism, but I'm not going to assume dowsing won't work without a decent study. Currently, I figure it's an interesting story with some not-particularly-convincing evidence, but I have no actual need to either believe it works or believe it doesn't.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It's a groping *or* a rapey scan, usually. You make it sound like there's something unseemly!
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
One only needs to read a Slashdot article about climate change to prove that this story is legitimate...
But yet business is booming? Such success would suggest REPEAT customers or "word of mouth" reference! But how can this be if it's just a mythology?
http://xkcd.com/808/