Good morning Acowlytes all. Speaking of things that are so absurd that I couldn’t have made them up in my wildest flights of fancy, I ask you to cast your mind back in time to Sunday April 27, 2009. Can’t remember what you were doing on that day? Well then, you evidently haven’t been using your Special One Drop Liquid. If you don’t recall that particular milestone of scientific progress, I urge you to go back and refresh your memory before reading on…

…because I have been contacted by someone who quite obviously has a stake in Special One Drop Liquid. Entropy0 left this comment on that post:

Wow. What a glorious display of just how stupid and ignorant you all are. Attacking a product you’ve never even looked at with your own eyes, with infantile mockery and ridicule. A product someone had to find for you on the net. A product who’s operating principles you’ve demonstrated to be too stupid to understand. Not only have none of you morons ever tried the product you’re bashing (you kids obviously couldn’t afford it anyway), you’re all too dumb and insecure to have even tried the free tweaks you’re bashing. You are the same unevolved cretins who back in time, lambasted a surgeon with mockery and ridicule for being so silly as to wash his hands before surgery. How nice to see some haven’t evolved beyond their ancestors in hundreds of years. Luddites literally so scared of science, they prefer to revel in their own ugly ignorance and display it before the rest of the world; rather than try to understand the world better. I mean really! Aussies. Is there any race on earth stupider? Given that you people are known to chainsaw your own arm off to win a bet, it’s hard to imagine. Thanks for making me laugh in the middle of my day. LOL! Now go back to slapping each other on the back for squashing a bug.

Well, after the inevitable pinging noises in my brain settled down, I decided we should scrutinize some of Entropy0‘s points. After all, there’s nothing I like better than a good reasoned argument.[tippy title=”*”]OK, OK, I know I shouldn’t engage in Loon Bashing, but really, they bring it upon themselves…[/tippy]

First of all Mr 0 (may I call you Entropy?) infantile mockery and ridicule is not something I dispense lightly here on The Cow. Oh no, I save that for very special grades of stupidity – like Breatharians and people who believe their anus is haunted or that lizard men rule the Earth. What these things have in common with the claims of the purveyors of Special One Drop Liquid is that they defy the rational, normal commonsense with which we navigate the world.

Now, let’s examine some of your criticisms:

•I haven’t looked at the product with my own eyes.

No, that’s true. But I don’t need to try and live on nothing but air for a month to know that idea is an unparalleled piece of stupidity either. Nor do I need get myself bled to get rid of an illness, nor feel the need to sacrifice a goat when the moon eclipses the sun in order for the light to return. Why? Because I’ve made an effort to understand the world through rational thought. Unlike yourself.

•Someone ‘had to find’ the product for me on the net.

Er. No. Your implication is that I was looking for it. I could never have anticipated something as daft as Special One Drop Liquid in my most bizarre dreams. It was brought to my attention by someone as something I would find amusing, which I do.

•We ‘kids’ couldn’t afford Special One Drop Liquid.

Well first of all, that would have to be the first time I’ve been called a kid in forty years or so. I’m flattered. Oh, I see, it was meant to be condescending! Silly me. And I actually could afford to buy it, but the measure of my sanity (not to mention my robust financial situation) is that I choose to spend my money sensibly.

•I don’t understand Special One Drop Liquid’s ‘operating principles’ because I’m too stupid.

I don’t understand Special One Drop Liquid’s ‘operating principles’, that’s for sure. But it’s not because I’m too stupid – it’s because the claimed ‘operating principles’ defy any kind of cogent thought processes. Allow me to quote a small segment of the press release:

To ascertain the effect of the One Drop Liquid on any object, it is only necessary to initially stand the small bottle containing the Liquid on the face of the object.

So, to paraphrase: if I stand a bottle of SODL on an object, I will be able to ascertain from that act the effect of the liquid itself on that object.

Without even entering into any discussion of what Special One Drop Liquid does, this claim is manifestly absurd (well, except if the liquid does nothing at all I guess, in which case the proposition is self-evident).

•I and my readers are ‘too dumb to try the free tweaks we’re bashing’.

Oh, would they be the things like: A piece of blue paper placed under a vase of flowers will improve the sound of music played in the same room? Or: Tying a reef knot in the power cord of my music system will improve the sound?

Just to prove I’m not ‘too dumb’ (or perhaps to prove that I actually am) I tried both of these things. As I expected, there was not one whit of noticeable effect on my music. So how are you going to explain that, eh? (let’s just forgo the old pseudoscientific party-line that my ‘skeptical vibes’ stopped the effect from being activated – it’s the lamest get-out-of-jail-free card of all time).[tippy title=”†”]And I will point out here that I am a very experienced sound engineer, and eminently qualified to assess any ‘effect’ on the music that might have been taking place.[/tippy]

There is no reasonable explanation that you can offer that these things would work, and there isn’t one on the Special One Drop Liquid website either.

•I and my readers are ‘the same unevolved cretins’ who would not have scoffed at medical hygiene in previous eras.

Ignoring the rather desperate and sad name-calling (of which you seem inordinately fond – excellent debating technique sir!), the conjecture is unprovable and irrelevant; show us proper science behind the absurd claims for Special One Drop Liquid and we will believe it! It’s simple.

•I and my readers are Luddites.

Do you actually know what a Luddite is? Let me quote from Dictionary.com:

Lud·dite (lÅ­d’Ä«t)
n.
1. Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment.

2.One who opposes technical or technological change.

Now I assume you are not accusing me of being a 19th century mill worker, so you must, somehow, think I am a person who opposes technological change. If you’ve bothered to read any of The Cow you will know that’s an absurd and erroneous claim (except when it comes to robots, it goes without saying). Mr 0 – I am not opposed to technology or change. What I am opposed to is ludicrous piffle that poses as science.

•Australians would chainsaw their own arm off to win a bet.

Aside from demonstrating your incredible gullibility (the chainsaw bet is a much-loved yarn, pal) you are using the most pathetic of ad hominem attacks: damning one person on the basis of a racial stereotype. Nice work.

-••-


On a serious note, Cowpokes, people like Entropy0 confuse, frustrate and sadden me. It is plain that unlike the Steorn swindlers, or the ShooTag crooks, Mr 0 and the sellers of Special One Drop Liquid are not fully attached in this reality. His tendency to name-calling and ad hominem vilifications is a measure of his inability to fully engage with the lack of any real rationality in the claims of a product like Special One Drop Liquid. I find it hard to take his vitriol personally (like I most certainly do with the badly-educated Melissa Rogers from ShooTag).

It makes me wonder what a strange world Mr 0 inhabits, where things like turning up the corners on a curtain in a room or placing CDs overnight in the freezer have magical effects on music quality. Is he just deluded and imagining the effects? And does that actually matter if he thinks the music ‘sounds better’? Has he ever bothered to try a blind test, where, over a series of trials an impartial person randomly determines whether or not to place blue paper under a vase in his ‘listening area’? And if he did, and found that he actually couldn’t tell the difference, how would he respond?

Your task for today is to try one of the methods for ‘improving’ your music suggested on the Special One Drop Liquid site. They’re all pretty simple and cost nothing at all. If your music sounds better – or even different in any way at all – make sure you let me know.

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*OK, OK, I know I shouldn’t engage in Loon Bashing, but really, they bring it on themselves…

†And I will point out here that I am a very experienced sound engineer, and eminently qualified to assess any ‘effect’ on the music that might have been taking place.

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