Snake oil

[Cyberdragon]

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

Provided it actually works as a capacitor, it might be interesting to use for historical reproductions or steampunk. IDK how good it would be but it should be fine at low voltage. Although it also depends on how expensive it is... is always expensive...

[cprobertson1]

Found this while researching something for website development.

www.HowDoesHomeopathyWork.com

Priceless!

[X]

Found this stuff 7-8 years ago:

Free energy module which produces oh so much power. Pity they don't show where the wires are really going...


And we also have this guy, who is still in love with some "time traveller" called "Steven Gibbs" and the "Hyper-Dimensional Resonator" even after all these years, and proves that he can travel through time by exposing watches and CRTs to an electromagnet:




More proof that he really knows the device well:



"I know what you're thinking punk. Your thinking does a bridge rectifier have six diodes or only four? Well to tell you the truth I've forgotten myself in all this excitement."

Don't travel too far back in time or you won't find any power outlets to plug the "HDR" and get back home.

[grumpydoc]

"I know what you're thinking punk. Your thinking does a bridge rectifier have six diodes or only four? Well to tell you the truth I've forgotten myself in all this excitement."

A three phase bridge rectifier has 6 diodes.............

[X]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a 3-phase rectifier doesn't look like a hexagon, nor are they used with single-phase supplies.

[McBryce]

These are radionics "experts", annoyances such as the laws of physics or even common sense doesn't apply to them.

McBryce.

[grumpydoc]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a 3-phase rectifier doesn't look like a hexagon, nor are they used with single-phase supplies.

Indeed, I didn't say anything about whether I thought it was a three phase rectifier - I was just pointing out that not all bridge rectifiers have 4 diodes 

[CJay]

Looking for some HMS-2829 quad ring diodes lead me to this work of genius:

http://www.davideuler.com/DavidEuler.com/Shop.html#6

Yup, that's a gold plated ring with a couple of magnets and a diode soldered onto it.

Wonder if it's ROHS at least or if they're contaminating their suckers with lead?

[X]

He's got "Euler" in his name so he's alright.

[djos]

Looking for some HMS-2829 quad ring diodes lead me to this work of genius:

http://www.davideuler.com/DavidEuler.com/Shop.html#6

Yup, that's a gold plated ring with a couple of magnets and a diode soldered onto it.

Wonder if it's ROHS at least or if they're contaminating their suckers with lead?

The guy is almost honest!

There are no claims made for the use of these devices

Clearly he makes junk for whacko's and knows it's junk. 

[cprobertson1]

Wow... I just realised I could make a fortune selling vaguely electrically inspired jewelry and claiming they protect you from something that doesn't exists but sounds cool...

For instance: diode-necklaces protecting you from <buzzword 1> <buzzword 2> <buzzword 3> <buzzword 4> <buzzword 5>

Buzzwords must be recognisable as "sciency" by the layman, and when googled must sound bad (words like "radiation", "nuclear", "avalanche breakdown", "quantum tunneling", "chemicals", "toxins" etc etc)

I can even guarantee my jewelry will be "toxin-free": for the simple reason that toxins are organic and metals....are exactly not that...

(and while I'm at it: Pet Peeve #34315498 - "Toxicants" vs "Toxins" - learn the difference for Pete's sake!)

It's a pity my moral compass still points north - there's a lot of money to be had by peddling  to people who don't know any better: conversely there's a lot of frustration to be had debunking it... the phrase "flogging a dead horse" comes to mind.

Just last week one of my friends was bragging about her new au-natural moisturiser - it was chemical free! Really? They sold you a perfect vacuum? Jeez, they're wasted selling moisturise... they should be out collecting Nobel Prizes like some people collect stamps... I gave up arguing after fifteen minutes of explaining that "anything you can see is a chemical*"... Me >>

* which is pretty much true as far as I can tell: excepting maybe the blackness of space (which I would argue is actually the absence of you seeing anything - rather than actually seeing something that is black: it's like asking you to "see darkness" - it doesn't really make sense since darkness is just the absence of light - and you don't actually see the light itself you're seeing the information (frequency) of the light which is a property of how it interacted with whatever emitted it (and whatever it bounced off recently) - you can get infinitely pedantic about such matters! (For instance, write your name on a page. Is that your name? No, it's just some writing media on some paper: are you seeing it? No, you're seeing a representation of what your eyes see and what your brain reinterprets it (repeatedly I might add) - lots of space here for the philosophical to discuss age-old arguments such as "do you see red the same as I see quesadillas?" and "if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to witness it, should I file my tax returns in quarterly or annually?")

So you've never actually "seen" my post... but that is just being REALLY REALLY pedantic

Speaking of perfect vacuums (that is a vacuum lacking everything - even photons...) - I thought I'd introduce the concept of "biophotons" to you!

Did you know the human body's mind's eye emits light?

Also - if you stay long enough (about 10 seconds) you'll be greeted with a popup on how "You’ll discover the most effective ways to prevent and beat cancer — from 131 of the world’s top experts — that you won’t hear about elsewhere."

You wont hear about it elsewhere because it's total 

[McBryce]

Wow... I just realised I could make a fortune selling vaguely electrically inspired jewelry and claiming they protect you from something that doesn't exists but sounds cool...

For instance: diode-necklaces protecting you from <buzzword 1> <buzzword 2> <buzzword 3> <buzzword 4> <buzzword 5>

Buzzwords must be recognisable as "sciency" by the layman, and when googled must sound bad (words like "radiation", "nuclear", "avalanche breakdown", "quantum tunneling", "chemicals", "toxins" etc etc)

I can even guarantee my jewelry will be "toxin-free": for the simple reason that toxins are organic and metals....are exactly not that...

(and while I'm at it: Pet Peeve #34315498 - "Toxicants" vs "Toxins" - learn the difference for Pete's sake!)

It's a pity my moral compass still points north - there's a lot of money to be had by peddling  to people who don't know any better: conversely there's a lot of frustration to be had debunking it... the phrase "flogging a dead horse" comes to mind.

Just last week one of my friends was bragging about her new au-natural moisturiser - it was chemical free! Really? They sold you a perfect vacuum? Jeez, they're wasted selling moisturise... they should be out collecting Nobel Prizes like some people collect stamps... I gave up arguing after fifteen minutes of explaining that "anything you can see is a chemical*"... Me >>

* which is pretty much true as far as I can tell: excepting maybe the blackness of space (which I would argue is actually the absence of you seeing anything - rather than actually seeing something that is black: it's like asking you to "see darkness" - it doesn't really make sense since darkness is just the absence of light - and you don't actually see the light itself you're seeing the information (frequency) of the light which is a property of how it interacted with whatever emitted it (and whatever it bounced off recently) - you can get infinitely pedantic about such matters! (For instance, write your name on a page. Is that your name? No, it's just some writing media on some paper: are you seeing it? No, you're seeing a representation of what your eyes see and what your brain reinterprets it (repeatedly I might add) - lots of space here for the philosophical to discuss age-old arguments such as "do you see red the same as I see quesadillas?" and "if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to witness it, should I file my tax returns in quarterly or annually?")

So you've never actually "seen" my post... but that is just being REALLY REALLY pedantic

Speaking of perfect vacuums (that is a vacuum lacking everything - even photons...) - I thought I'd introduce the concept of "biophotons" to you!

Did you know the human body's mind's eye emits light?

Also - if you stay long enough (about 10 seconds) you'll be greeted with a popup on how "You’ll discover the most effective ways to prevent and beat cancer — from 131 of the world’s top experts — that you won’t hear about elsewhere."

You wont hear about it elsewhere because it's total 

I've just added you to my list of people I'd gladly have a beer with... However I think I'd have to start on the beer about an hour before you arrived

McBryce.

[CJay]

Wow... I just realised I could make a fortune selling vaguely electrically inspired jewelry and claiming they protect you from something that doesn't exists but sounds cool...

For instance: diode-necklaces protecting you from <buzzword 1> <buzzword 2> <buzzword 3> <buzzword 4> <buzzword 5>

Buzzwords must be recognisable as "sciency" by the layman, and when googled must sound bad (words like "radiation", "nuclear", "avalanche breakdown", "quantum tunneling", "chemicals", "toxins" etc etc)

I can even guarantee my jewelry will be "toxin-free": for the simple reason that toxins are organic and metals....are exactly not that...

(and while I'm at it: Pet Peeve #34315498 - "Toxicants" vs "Toxins" - learn the difference for Pete's sake!)

It's a pity my moral compass still points north - there's a lot of money to be had by peddling  to people who don't know any better: conversely there's a lot of frustration to be had debunking it... the phrase "flogging a dead horse" comes to mind.

All of that. Introduce your friend to the dangers of DHMO??

Bloody moral compass, if I didn't have one I'd definitely be an awful lot richer (to the tune of ~£1.5 Million, ask me over a beer some time)

Oh well, life is what it is and for the most part it's fun.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

-I'm not rich because of a single word
-Really? How so?
-I went to the bank and said: "Give me 10 million dollars"
-And?
-They said: "NO"

[helius]

"anything you can see is a chemical*"

I would be fine with s/see/touch/g. Some visible light is not emitted from atoms: for instance, the light from the Crab Nebula is synchrotron radiation. The semantics of "chemical" also gets pretty fuzzy when talking about highly excited states and plasmas, which we see light from more regularly (neon signs). You can expand the rubric of chemistry to categorize those states, but then why not keep going and do the same for muons, antineutrinos, strange matter, glueballs...

I can even guarantee my jewelry will be "toxin-free": for the simple reason that toxins are organic and metals....are exactly not that...

The link you posted describes toxins as biomolecules, which is more specific than the current meaning of organic. Correcting the misbelief won't work, as many people have a firmly entrenched belief that natural means safe which is quite impervious to reason. Consider the "experts" on the news who tell you quite earnestly that dioxin is the most toxic material known to science....

[CJay]

-I'm not rich because of a single word
-Really? How so?
-I went to the bank and said: "Give me 10 million dollars"
-And?
-They said: "NO"

Something like that but mine involved a single word called copyright and a managing director who had some very unconventional ideas about what it meant and the law surrounding it.

I resigned my directorship and jumped ship because I didn't want any part of it (as well as a bunch of other grievances and broken promises).

As I said, much better told over a beer or two with all the gory details. 

[cprobertson1]

I would be fine with s/see/touch/g. Some visible light is not emitted from atoms: for instance, the light from the Crab Nebula is synchrotron radiation. The semantics of "chemical" also gets pretty fuzzy when talking about highly excited states and plasmas, which we see light from more regularly (neon signs). You can expand the rubric of chemistry to categorize those states, but then why not keep going and do the same for muons, antineutrinos, strange matter, glueballs...

Okay - that is awesome (regarding the Crab Nebula) - I had assumed it was mostly dust - apparently the syncrotron-radiation hypothesis is quite an old one (1953) as well - now that is cool - why does nobody brag about that when talking about astronomy?

Aye, the definition of a "chemical" really is pretty fuzzy - it ranges from "any discrete substance" to "discrete substance capable of reacting with another discrete substance" - by either of these definitions I'd include most plasmas as a "chemical" - since it is, at it's core, a highly ionised gas that is capable of reacting with other chemicals.

It'd probably be easier to say that "pretty much anything a normal person will be able to see is extremely likely to be a chemical" - but it just takes too long to say! I suppose you could also be sarky and say "anything you see is a chemical" (implying that they somehow see less than a non-layman by virtue of ignorance - which is quite a passive aggressive stance!)

On a technical level I'd generally try to avoid classifying something as a "chemical" or a "non-chemical" for the simple reason that it really doesn't describe anything useful.

Ultimately if you start trying to classify anything you always reach a level where reductionism takes over and you can easily get very pedantic about how things are classified and subclassified...

...and for that reason it's a true miracle that phylogenists aren't constantly fighting. Well, they are constantly arguing, but it rarely comes to physical blows.

The link you posted describes toxins as biomolecules, which is more specific than the current meaning of organic. Correcting the misbelief won't work, as many people have a firmly entrenched belief that natural means safe which is quite impervious to reason. Consider the "experts" on the news who tell you quite earnestly that dioxin is the most toxic material known to science....

Aye, I've tried correcting the belief many a time! It's one of the reasons its one of my pet peeves xD

Generally speaking, if somebody is worried about "the toxins" then I generally won't have a great deal to talk to them about anyway..... um... Wow.

That made me sound SO arrogant!

I'm don't sound that arrogant in real life! Honest!

Anyway, I was using organic to mean "anything containing carbon" a la organic chemistry - which is pretty much unanymous amongst toxins - HOWEVER there are some inorganic toxins too - like ammonia and nitrites/nitrates which are commonly produced by various soil organisms :p - so technically insisting that all toxins are organic is wrong: rather they are all produced by organisms (biomolecules) as you rightly pointed out

Some people go further in their definition of a toxin to include that all toxins must also be able to act as an antigen.

I'm not a fan of this definition mind you - as pretty much anything can be antigenic (though this isn't necessarily the case of course!) - meaning that to infer that pretty much every toxin is also antigenic seems superfluous.

WOAH I am way off topic!

The point is that my jewelry will be toxin free at the time of production by virtue of not being made with any biomaterials (all metal and inorganics)

All of that. Introduce your friend to the dangers of DHMO??

- I might just do that



Finally - I return us to our regularly scheduled thread... EMF Detector Apps... even Apple banned one of them for containing too much  - and that's saying a lot given the amount of  on their appstore!

Im going to download one of these apps tonight and see if it can detect a 5W transmission right beside it or not xD Wanna take bets on how much malware I get free with it?

[EDIT] - just occurred to me you might maybe be able to use the magnetometer to get some measurement of strong EM - I'm doubtful though xD

[X]

Around 10 years ago I came across Cool Chips that claim to be even more efficient than phase-change cooling.

It feels like bullshit, but at the same time also seems like it could be legit. They're claiming 55% Carnot efficiency, which seems reasonable, but a discussion from 2003 talks about a 65% value. Someone there claimed they originally claimed 100%, so I looked into this and discovered that they said 80% in the first couple of years of having the site up.

The Borealis Thermal Management technology is a true thermionic solution for all thermal management problems.  It uses a revoutionary new thermionic technology to deliver up to 80% of the maximum (Carnot) theoretical efficiency for heat pumps. Conventional refrigerators operate at up to 50% efficiency and current thermoelectric systems (Peltier Effect) operate at 5-8% efficiency.

This appears to have dropped down over the years, and it seems they stuck with 55% for at least the last decade.

There are a few calculations and graphs scattered about, but I'm not familiar enough with refrigeration engineering that I can call it bullshit. Also, very little information about samples (other than the picture on the front page), and many of the presentations seem like marketing talk. Also, latest news on the site is November 2013, so either they're genuine and have given up, or they are snake-oil peddlers and ran out of other peoples' money.

A thread was actually made about this on the EEVBlog forum in 2012, but there wasn't much discussion there.

[helius]

just occurred to me you might maybe be able to use the magnetometer to get some measurement of strong EM - I'm doubtful though xD

I don't know the specs of cell-phone magnetometers by heart, but it seems to me they would be most sensitive around DC, since the Earth's magnetic poles only flip once every two hundred thousand years or so (~ .1 picohertz). Most man made magnetic fields are of much higher frequency than that.
See this funny thread for more laughs.

[cprobertson1]

just occurred to me you might maybe be able to use the magnetometer to get some measurement of strong EM - I'm doubtful though xD

I don't know the specs of cell-phone magnetometers by heart, but it seems to me they would be most sensitive around DC, since the Earth's magnetic poles only flip once every two hundred thousand years or so (~ .1 picohertz). Most man made magnetic fields are of much higher frequency than that.
See this funny thread for more laughs.

::Reads linked thread::
Okay I think I vomited in my mouth a bit xD Oh deary-deary-dear! That was magical xD

I tried out five or six "EMF" (which is "Electro-Magnetic Field" rather than electromotive force) apps on my smartphone and was pleased with the results - by which I mean I figured out how each of them worked and it doesn't involve electromagnetic fields...

The test setup was simple: set the phone up, watch the screen, and then deliberately introduce EMF on different frequencies.
A DC bulb, an AC bulb, a VHF radio at 4W (distance of 1 meter), UHF radio at 4W (distance of 1 meter) done nothing except make the speakers on my computer make a "BOOP" noise.

It was the only proof of any EMF I had anywhere...

It would seem that the apps use a mixture of the various sensors in your phone to make a pseudo-random number.

-Barometer: higher pressure = higher readout (confirmed by putting my phone in a jar and increasing the pressure)
-Accelerator: moving the phone forward then back causes a "spike" in the readings
-Magnetometer: rotating it causes a decrease in the readings
-Microphone: some of the apps used sound to change the figure (constant sound = decrease EMF, silence = decrease reading: sudden sound = increment substantially, sudden quiet = decrements substantially)
-Random Number God: the number drifts over time

The funny thing is if you combine these, you could probably get a very accurate indication of where the user thinks EMF is in their house (it's whatever they waved their phone near )

The best part about these apps is the sheer number of reviews raving about how accurate the readings are... it's a classic reporting bias with a nice little bit of detection bias and some sampling bias layered on top! Which is a fancy way of saying "only people who believe in EMF poisoning bother downloading the app - normal people haven't heard of EMF - and people who actually know a little about EMF ignore it!"

The sad thing is that I'm not convinced that downloading and testing these apps wasn't a total waste of my time 


If I were nefarious  I'd totally make a little wideband scanner so that EMF-junkies can spot sources of EMI... This idea popped into my head because I picked up a new Uniden UBC3500-XLT Scanner today, and I just discovered that it:
a) can be tuned to my computer monitors (which apparently emit EMI at some multiple of 134.450 MHz)
b) the demodulated audio ("buzz-uzz-uzz-uzz") changes depending what is being displayed on the monitor

The EMF "Ghost" Detectors are actually a pretty ingenious scam - and a good example of using the Divine Fallacy (I can't explain why there is EMF here, therefore it must be something supernatural) to garner money from people with poor critical thinking skills.

I wish I'd thought of it

You know... I could probably make a black-box with a bunch of sensors (humidity, light, motion, pressure, temperature, maybe a rudimentary direction-finding antenna (mounted backwards for the lolz)) and market it as a ghost-finding unit... only I'd probably give it a touchscreen so you can log your trip, and more importantly, so it can double as a weather-clock/media center for non-ghosthunters......)

Hmm, maybe I should turn my moral compass off for a week or two, make a ton of cash, and then turn it back on... and admit that it's not a ghost detector, but actually an overly-enthusiastic low-end weather station


And finally, I leave you with......... the Harmony Chip

It combines crystal healing with EMF protection. Clears electro-smog, most chronic health problems, pacemakers? (how can you "heal" a pacemaker?), body hair (excess OR not enough - it knows what you want) and my favourite - and the reason I'm going to buy a hundred of them - it even cures "Anger" 

Only $180.

[CJay]

This wouldn't be a bad starting point and I can see it could have legitimate uses.

https://www.elektormagazine.com/news/elektor-tapir-sniffs-out-electro-smog

The vast majority of the EMF pollution detectors out there I would suggest are as legitimate as a free 'personality test' from a certain business who use a convoluted and modified resistance meter.

[SeanB]

If I were nefarious  I'd totally make a little wideband scanner so that EMF-junkies can spot sources of EMI... This idea popped into my head because I picked up a new Uniden UBC3500-XLT Scanner today, and I just discovered that it:
a) can be tuned to my computer monitors (which apparently emit EMI at some multiple of 134.450 MHz)
b) the demodulated audio ("buzz-uzz-uzz-uzz") changes depending what is being displayed on the monitor

That is the bus clock, which is also used to generate the VGA dot clock as well. multiplied up from a 66MHz crystal on the motherboard, and also used as the CPU clock as well. A lot will be synchronous with that clock, so it being radiated is no surprise.

[cprobertson1]

If I were nefarious  I'd totally make a little wideband scanner so that EMF-junkies can spot sources of EMI... This idea popped into my head because I picked up a new Uniden UBC3500-XLT Scanner today, and I just discovered that it:
a) can be tuned to my computer monitors (which apparently emit EMI at some multiple of 134.450 MHz)
b) the demodulated audio ("buzz-uzz-uzz-uzz") changes depending what is being displayed on the monitor

That is the bus clock, which is also used to generate the VGA dot clock as well. multiplied up from a 66MHz crystal on the motherboard, and also used as the CPU clock as well. A lot will be synchronous with that clock, so it being radiated is no surprise.

Ah, cool! I had made a provisional assumption that may have been the LCD Driver, so I guess I was pretty close! Aye, it's being radiated everywhere (and there are plenty of harmonics too)

If only I had a spectrum analyser Pity I can't justify the expense! I have a £20 usb SDR that probably shares a few of the features (albeit far less quantifiable than an actual spectrum analyser!)


It's been a while since I've seen any actual electronic snake oil... all the examples I've came across lately have been healthcare related - rather than actual bogus electronics... and then, today, I hit the jackpot...

We had a vendor in to sell us welding equipment - namely a new pyrometer we had requested, and he of course decided to peddle his wares when he delivered it. Not unusual for this particular rep, whom we widely regard as a bit of a sleaze ball and always hits on our secretary even when she’s rolling her eyes so hard it’s giving the rest of us motion sickness…

Except, this time was different: this time, he brought a "friend"... he started off with the usual spiel about the newest welding plant, the fanciest flexy-headed MIG/TIG handpieces, and then went on to brag about about some new flux-core wire (dude, we're ISO 9001/29001 certified - we can't just use any welding wire you sell us - we use exactly what the manufacturer tells us to use and nothing else unless they say it's okay in triplicate! Jeez!)

While he's going on with his spiel, his "friend" was shuffling around in the background with a couple of custom-branded pelican cases... eventually the vendor introduces his "friend" as a "a close associate and work colleague" (aren't those the same thing?) who "specialises in NDT (non-destructive testing)"

He then hands me a fairly hefty ABS plastic handpiece with a BNC connector on the bottom, and a telescoping rod antenna mounted on a little hinge extending out the front and explains that it is a contactless defectometer (what the **** is a "defectometer")?

Now immediately I'm on-guard - no this cannot be what I think it is. He can't me that daft to try and sell us a dowsing rod to detect defects to an engineering company... nobody is that stupid - surely...

He pulls out a lump of steel and says I can check this with regular NDT methods - he has known defects marked on the back and he'll show me them from the front - well - of course I'm not buying it... and that's when this little voice at the back of my head says "let’s have some fun" 

You see, we happen to have actual NDT Specialist contractors on-site just now - working on a pair of large and fairly expensive wellhead adapter assemblies, one of which has several very large and very obvious defects on the inner bore - clearly visible on the boroscope (camera-on-a-stick xD) but invisible to the outside.

Well, of course I badgered him to give us a "live" demonstration in front of the NDT professionals (who had already identified six defects on the inner bore, all located within a square foot area.). He was reluctant, and after criticising the three NDT pros, proceeded to point out every "section OK" symbol drawn on the piece.

After much frustrations, straw man arguments, dodging, weaving, and accusations of incompetence - he asked where we "so called experts" think the <explicative> defects are... and one of the NDT guys just pointed to the other well head adapter assembly in the bay next to us: the one they were currently working on was defect-free xD

It was magical.

[CJay]

Didn't look like this device did it?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/02/fake-bomb-detector-conman-jailed

[cprobertson1]

Didn't look like this device did it?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/02/fake-bomb-detector-conman-jailed

HA! I had forgotten about those bomb detectors xD I see Iraq (finally) banned their use, but Pakistan still use then...

The device they tried to sell us was very, very, suspiciously similar :O

It differed a little though - bulkier, and with a handguard - and the BNC led to a belt-mounted box that contained a set of D-cell batteries - and the handpiece had some weight to it so there *may* even have been some sort of electronics inside (though I'd wager not very much, if anything, given the lack of any controls on it apart from the "power on" switch!)

Maybe a variant of the fake bomb detectors? It was marked as a "MayCal-861" - though I can't find anything on that brand let alone the model number

It must be a quite elaborate scam - custom branded peli cases w/ cut foam, advert in a brochure, printed operating manual... was listed as £17500 in the brochure but he offered to give us a discount since he knew the vendor... I told him (politely) where he could put it.

I suspect it was manufactured by somebody by some group in China copying the orginal fake bomb detectors - though why somebody is trying to sell it in Scotland is a little beyond me... but then again, at the listed price you wouldn't need to sell many to make a living...