Snake oil

[Money4Nothing]

PowerPerfector and their "voltage optimisation" wank. They've only gone and installed one where I work, despite me trying to discourage them. Retarded...

http://www.powerperfector.com

They come and install a hideous, useless, bright green box:





(Not my images)

They come to your place, take a few "measurements" and produce a report showing the "amount it will save" with a sufficient amount of zeros on the end. The savings they claim are in the order of 9 to 13% - I reckon this would be around the expected level of fluctuation between any two years of usage on a normal mains supply anyway.

The counter on their website (here, top right: http://www.powerperfector.com/Media.html) just increments once a second at a predetermined rate. The top one (kWh) increments 17 per second. The bottom one (£) increments at £1 per second. That’s about on par with the price of gas per kWh, not electricity. It even resets back to £303,254,134 or if you refresh the page!
This doesn't even tally up with the cost of electricity - 17 kWh would cost more like £2.36 at the average rate of 13.86p per kWh (it's what Google said).

PowerPerfector are currently dissolved with a net worth of £100 on last published accounts, with £0 in the bank.
It appears that “Intelligent Energy Saving Company” now own them. Their registered London office houses 30 companies – of which, five have £0 in their bank account, one has £1 and seven have a net worth of less than £2. Around half of them have no accounts info, including the company in question. So, it's a PO box, which is sufficient for them to say that they have a London office or head office.

PowerPerfector and EEVS (The Energy Efficiency Verification Specialists, who seem to verify the energy efficiency/savings claims made by PowerPerfector) have been colluding together in a sort of back-hand deal: https://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2013/1/powerPerfector-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_200249.aspx#.V5de7PkrK70


 

If you had a big problem with non-linear loads causing harmonic distortion, and this actually reduced harmonics like is says, then it could increase the efficiency of your primary utility transformer, and save you some money. We used auto-transformers to do this sometimes in our systems.

$

[mc172]

If you had a big problem with non-linear loads causing harmonic distortion, and this actually reduced harmonics like is says, then it could increase the efficiency of your primary utility transformer, and save you some money. We used auto-transformers to do this sometimes in our systems.

$

You just won Bullshit Bingo, well done!

[Bud]

OMG, best snake oil BS video ever! 

The guy has a bright future as a polititian or the boss of a big media outlet.

[djos]

OMG, best snake oil BS video ever! 

The guy has a bright future as a polititian or the boss of a big media outlet.

Indeed, his ability to lie his ass off with a completely straight face, while simultaneously screwing over stupid ppl, would make make him an ideal candidate for any conservative right wing party.

[cprobertson1]

So here is a question - technically off-topic, but still intricately related; so feel free to shout at me

Audiophoolery: is subjective marketing (it "sounds" better) actually immoral? Let us suppose I wanted to make a quick buck - so I designed a cable with good noise rejection/low distortion (under lab conditions) - and sold it as an audiophool grade cable.

The purchaser, who probably won't know any better then buys it, and perceives and improvement - even if there is no demonstrable changes in sound quality - in other words they have been misled but still perceive a benefit: is it still immoral in this case?


And just to stay on topic - Healing Lamps! Put a bulb inside 2-3kg of Sodium Chloride (with some impurities) and Voila! Instant "Healing"!

No, I don't know what shining a light and/or heating some impure sodium chloride is supposed to do for your health - though I suppose if you sat there and licked it for a bit it might raise your blood pressure...

[CJay]

So here is a question - technically off-topic, but still intricately related; so feel free to shout at me

Audiophoolery: is subjective marketing (it "sounds" better) actually immoral? Let us suppose I wanted to make a quick buck - so I designed a cable with good noise rejection/low distortion (under lab conditions) - and sold it as an audiophool grade cable.

The purchaser, who probably won't know any better then buys it, and perceives and improvement - even if there is no demonstrable changes in sound quality - in other words they have been misled but still perceive a benefit: is it still immoral in this case?


And just to stay on topic - Healing Lamps! Put a bulb inside 2-3kg of Sodium Chloride (with some impurities) and Voila! Instant "Healing"!

No, I don't know what shining a light and/or heating some impure sodium chloride is supposed to do for your health - though I suppose if you sat there and licked it for a bit it might raise your blood pressure...

I don't think it's off topic for this thread, at least not far...

Immoral, depends I guess, for audiophool stuff, probably not as you need to be a rich phool to take advantage of such 'offers' and if you're daft enough to believe the outlandish claims then more phool you, it' really rather unlikely anyone is going to get hurt by a phool paying out bucketloads of cash, besides if someone derives pleasure from the kit they buy then have they really been ripped off?

If you're claiming to cure acute illness and are taking money from people who are in need of genuine medical help then I'd say that's immoral (and potentially illegal).

Things like crystal healing, aromatherapy, homeopathy and similar are an odd collection of therapies in that people believe they work so I'm undecided on those as general 'wellbeing' therapies, if they make someone feel better for having a nice smell around the house or give them a bit of attention that lifts a feeling of gloom are they really a bad thing?

[cprobertson1]

If you're claiming to cure acute illness and are taking money from people who are in need of genuine medical help then I'd say that's immoral (and potentially illegal).

Things like crystal healing, aromatherapy, homeopathy and similar are an odd collection of therapies in that people believe they work so I'm undecided on those as general 'wellbeing' therapies, if they make someone feel better for having a nice smell around the house or give them a bit of attention that lifts a feeling of gloom are they really a bad thing?

I have a very firm stance on false healing claims - in part because I come from a biochemistry/immunology background (I even have a degree in it... that I haven't technically used yet...). The difference between a health claim and a "good audio" claim is that one of these can kill you and the other is much less likely to hurt anything save your bank account.

I mean, just last week a homeopathist died from an overdose.

He forgot to take his meds


"Wellbeing" treatments are all fine and well - it's well known that simply talking to a patient without actually treating anything can have quite drastic effects - which is why when a doctor has 10 minutes tops to spend on you, and your homeopathist has an hour, one will instantly win favour with the patient - even if their "treatment" has no efficacy. But there is a difference between prescribing a bogus treatment and talking - talk to your patient all you want - but don't give them water and tell them it will cure their cancer!


Now, to bring this full circle, I think we're now at the point where we have to describe what we mean by "moral" - for instance - audiophoolary could be considered immoral and harmless - while bogus health claims (from somebody who knows better) could be considered immoral and harmful: and this branches into a philosophical discussion about whether being misleading is a type of dishonesty and it goes on a bit from there.

For instance, if I sell moondust audio cables - as long as they contain moondust they are technically moondust cables - it just doesn't mean anything - so I haven't actually lied - but by leading you to believe that they impart better audio: am I now lying by omission/proxy?

No matter which way I fathom this I end up branching into philosophy (whether "immorality" can be equated to "harm", what is truth, what is harm, etc etc etc which is a massive field unto itself) - it might be worth separate post on the forum actually - though Im not sure I can be bothered!



Also, um... is it just me, or does the idea of "moondust cables" sound really cool? sure they won't do anything (apart from transmitting audio) - but they certainly sound really cool! Plus it'd be a major bragging point amongst audiophiles - "dude have you heard these cables? They have DUST FROM THE MOON IN THEM!"

All I need now is a rock from the moon that I can crush into very, VERY fine dust which I'll place inside the sheath in minute quantities and I can make a LOT of money!

Maybe get 100-200 cables for per moonrock? £1000 each? That should offset the cost of buying a gram of moonrock (about £50'000)... I can even make them in 3-meter lengths - BARGAIN cost! Can even come with a certificate guaranteeing actual moondust... Hmm, maybe meteoric iron would be better... antimony impurities make the cables surprisingly brittle and weak - but it's sound quality? OUT OF THIS WORLD!

Despite being a perversion of science and technology, I kinda want to try this just to see if it'd catch on... anybody want to invest £50'000 for some moonrock? I could go on Dragon's Den with this!

--EDIT--
I feel kind a guilty just for coming up with that idea... I'd make a terrible businessman!

The other problem is that I'd probably want to keep the moonrock - because its a rock from the moon and I am a nerd and think that a rock from another body in the solar system is REALLY ****ING COOL

[CJay]

Indeed, selling a 'cure' which has no known effect is a particularly evil form of fraud, if I believed in %deity% I'd have them create a special hell for that sort of con artist.

Selling audiocables to fools with too much money and too little common sense to do some sensible research, I'm thinking a fool and their money...

If we were to make all the flowery language used in marketing illegal or at least make it so it have to be substantive then it'd be a hell of a job to sell fragrance, flavours, anything that's got a subjective element.

For instance, I don't particularly like white wine but a good red or, even better, a good scotch is something that can only be described in that flowery language, if I don't get 'smoky, peat, reminiscent of smooth morning mist over Loch Maree' from my scotch can I say I've been ripped off?

Sadly once we enter into the esoteric end of the audio market then it becomes subjective as we can't measure the claimed differences so morality becomes something we can't really argue or can we?
 

[cprobertson1]

Indeed, selling a 'cure' which has no known effect is a particularly evil form of fraud...

...subjective as we can't measure the claimed differences so morality becomes something we can't really argue or can we?

Seconded! I agree wholeheartedly!

And now, to return us to your previously scheduled thread, I bring you...

Prism HEALING

It's a mixture of shamanism, crystal healing, and "prism energy"

My favourite part about claims regarding rainbows/prisms/spectra is that there are "7 colours" - 7 colours of the rainbow, 7 bands of human emotion, always 7, lucky 7,  etc etc etc...

Except, if you look at the visible light spectrum/rainbow... you see exactly one of those things you're looking at: you see a spectrum!

There's pretty much an infinity of colours there... 7 is commonly chosen for mystical reasons that people long ago forgot about... So when you combine that with somebody trying to sell you the idea you suddenly realise how utterly ridiculous it is: it'd be like me trying to sell you on the idea of Chinchorro mummification but not telling you why mummifying you is a good idea (because I don't actually know)

He also offers Energetic House Cleansing which is a bit like when you hire the energiser bunny as a maid/butler but with less hoovering and far fewer adult videos on the subject.

[CJay]

There's pretty much an infinity of colours there... 7 is commonly chosen for mystical reasons that people long ago forgot about... So when you combine that with somebody trying to sell you the idea you suddenly realise how utterly ridiculous it is: it'd be like me trying to sell you on the idea of Chinchorro mummification but not telling you why mummifying you is a good idea (because I don't actually know)

He's missing octarine...

[SeanB]

So here is a question - technically off-topic, but still intricately related; so feel free to shout at me

Audiophoolery: is subjective marketing (it "sounds" better) actually immoral? Let us suppose I wanted to make a quick buck - so I designed a cable with good noise rejection/low distortion (under lab conditions) - and sold it as an audiophool grade cable.

The purchaser, who probably won't know any better then buys it, and perceives and improvement - even if there is no demonstrable changes in sound quality - in other words they have been misled but still perceive a benefit: is it still immoral in this case?


And just to stay on topic - Healing Lamps! Put a bulb inside 2-3kg of Sodium Chloride (with some impurities) and Voila! Instant "Healing"!

No, I don't know what shining a light and/or heating some impure sodium chloride is supposed to do for your health - though I suppose if you sat there and licked it for a bit it might raise your blood pressure...

Well, I have a Bioptron lamp, which I bought at auction as "not working, bulb faulty" for $30, just because I was interested in what it was.  googled and found the stock faults of a dead Zetex transistor and a failed transformer, and my one had the dead transformer.  10 minutes of work later and I used a salvaged one in it, and it worked again. Works at least as a really efficient room heater, 200W of input energy to around 5W of light, the rest being heat in the 100W halogen lamp and half the rest being absorbed in a large polarising mirror. But interesting electronics wise, and really well make, seeing as the new price is over $2k each.

[Bud]

Grounding sleeping bags, grounding bed sheets, grounding yoga mats, and even grounding laundry detergents are here:

https://www.upayanaturals.com/Whole_Body_Grounding_Bag_with_grounding_plug_9_p/bc-1012.htm

...with a ground cord, similar to the Earthing Connection sheets. One end of the cord snaps onto the bag and the other end inserts into the Earth Tap, which plugs into a grounded electrical outlet.

 

[cprobertson1]

Wow! It even comes with a DVD!

That must be the visual tutorial on how to use a sleeping bag. A tutorial on better science may be more beneficial at this point in your life

I suppose it might be beneficial if you want to handle ESD sensitive components from the comfort of your own bed!

[McBryce]

Grounding sleeping bags, grounding bed sheets, grounding yoga mats, and even grounding laundry detergents are here:

https://www.upayanaturals.com/Whole_Body_Grounding_Bag_with_grounding_plug_9_p/bc-1012.htm

...with a ground cord, similar to the Earthing Connection sheets. One end of the cord snaps onto the bag and the other end inserts into the Earth Tap, which plugs into a grounded electrical outlet.

 

"The Whole Body Grounding Bag was initially designed for Tour de France cyclists"....

So they're saying that someone who is willing to sit on a bike for a few hours a day, completely isolated from the earth, moving swiftly through unfiltered air particles and at varying altitudes... is really worried about being grounded??

McBryce.

[Daruosha]

Guys, behold the magnificence of the greatest invention of the entire human history:

It's a CD/DVD ROM energizer that not only "aligns the entire signal path (conductors in A/V equipment) within 1 meter (3ft) of the disc player. " But  "also, the disc will generate the PVA field that aligns the motions of gases and water molecules in the air" once its protons has been aligned in the energizer. I don't have enough knowledge to understand it, but i quated from their own website!

For you electronics and physics amateurs, PVA stands for Proton Vibration Alignment. Go figure:

http://www.improveaudio.com/how-does-it-work.htm

Who the hell has bothered to wrote that BS and waste money on a domain registration, web hosting expanses and time to make it appear on the internet?!?! 

At least it makes your audio sounds better, psychologically of course.

[G7PSK]

Guys, behold the magnificence of the greatest invention of the entire human history:

It's a CD/DVD ROM energizer that not only "aligns the entire signal path (conductors in A/V equipment) within 1 meter (3ft) of the disc player. " But  "also, the disc will generate the PVA field that aligns the motions of gases and water molecules in the air" once its protons has been aligned in the energizer. I don't have enough knowledge to understand it, but i quated from their own website!

For you electronics and physics amateurs, PVA stands for Proton Vibration Alignment. Go figure:

http://www.improveaudio.com/how-does-it-work.htm

Who the hell has bothered to wrote that BS and waste money on a domain registration, web hosting expanses and time to make it appear on the internet?!?! 

At least it makes your audio sounds better, psychologically of course.

Euphoria technology. That's the feeling they get when banking the last mugs money I guess.

[CJay]

"The Whole Body Grounding Bag was initially designed for Tour de France cyclists"....

So they're saying that someone who is willing to sit on a bike for a few hours a day, completely isolated from the earth, moving swiftly through unfiltered air particles and at varying altitudes... is really worried about being grounded??

McBryce.

You're missing 'willing to pump themselves full of dubious legality performance enhancing drugs' as well

[Buriedcode]

http://www.vitastiq.com/

And... https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/irife-detox/id563078652?mt=8

It used to be, back in the good 'ol days of the internet (15 years ago?) that this sort of thing was rare... sure, lots of people still believed it, but it was generally considered very niche - "tin foil people".  Sadly, it is becoming far more mainstream, without actually using any 'new' ideas (new scam ideas that is) but creating slicker marketing it seems more and more are falling for it because they assume it *must* work, otherwise authorities would stop them selling it.

What used to be a guilty pleasure of mine, to look for the silliest pseduoscience and who falls for it, is now becoming a real worry.  I am amazed how many seemingly educated, and reasonable people fall for scams/snake oil that is clearly ridiculous.  I might understand if there was a rather clever deception going on, but there isn't.  It just requires one to ask 'how does it work'.. but clearly some are incapable of entertaining that question.

[McBryce]

http://www.vitastiq.com/

And... https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/irife-detox/id563078652?mt=8

It used to be, back in the good 'ol days of the internet (15 years ago?) that this sort of thing was rare... sure, lots of people still believed it, but it was generally considered very niche - "tin foil people".  Sadly, it is becoming far more mainstream, without actually using any 'new' ideas (new scam ideas that is) but creating slicker marketing it seems more and more are falling for it because they assume it *must* work, otherwise authorities would stop them selling it.

What used to be a guilty pleasure of mine, to look for the silliest pseduoscience and who falls for it, is now becoming a real worry.  I am amazed how many seemingly educated, and reasonable people fall for scams/snake oil that is clearly ridiculous.  I might understand if there was a rather clever deception going on, but there isn't.  It just requires one to ask 'how does it work'.. but clearly some are incapable of entertaining that question.

So their target market are people who have a fear of getting sick from chemtrails / radiation / frequencies etc, but walk around with an iPhone in their pocket???  Does that even exist?

McBryce.

[t_ryner]

"add life to water and other liquids" 

[helius]

Must... preserve... liquids...

[CJay]

"add life to water and other liquids" 

I definitely prefer water without life in it, anything larger than bacteria tends to get stuck in the kettle filter and makes my tea taste funny.

[daqq]

So their target market are people who have a fear of getting sick from chemtrails / radiation / frequencies etc, but walk around with an iPhone in their pocket???  Does that even exist?

Yes, but it's covered in tinfoil and has a little piece of orogonite so they are OK.

[skarecrow]

Wooden capacitor anyone...?

No?  How about a Cotton resistor

Omg I was laughing my ass off by the time I finished reading the wooder cap page.  It is obviously a joke site, but I'm sure he still gets tons of people contacting him trying to buy stuff.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Nanotech enabled silicon carbide solid state energy, oh yeah man let's talk about that: