Tetherd Cow Ahead

No new cracks. Oopsy. Another miss for the fruitloops.

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Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

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Ah, you gotta love the combination of the internet and the tendency for people in large numbers to suddenly lose all capacity for coherent thought. The Guardian reports today that, probably due at least in part to a Facebook group called 11 Maggio Terremoto a Roma, thousands of people in Rome believe that the city is destined to be destroyed by an earthquake tomorrow, May 11.

And it is, supposedly, all because of the predictions of a self-styled ‘geophysicist’ by the name of Raffaele Bendandi.

It will not surprise you to learn that Bendandi, who died in 1979, was not any kind of proper scientist. Despite being awarded a knighthood by Mussolini, he had no formal scientific training and none of his research was ever supported by independent corroboration. The many ‘theories’ that he advanced in his lifetime were not inhibited by actual factual content. Among other things, Bendandi advanced an hypothesis for the flooding of Atlantis and believed that he had discovered a planet in an orbit between the sun and Mercury.

But here’s the best part – the rising panic in Rome appears to be the result of some idiot somewhere getting his wires crossed. Bendandi didn’t actually ever predict an earthquake for May 11, 2011. According to Paola Lagorio, the president of an organization who looks after Bendandi’s legacy, there is no such indication in any of the the writings attributed to him. Someone just pulled that right out of their ass (Paola Lagorio didn’t say that, you understand, but I bet she was thinking it).

But hey – Rome is the where the Pope lives, right? Why don’t the people who think there’s going to be an earthquake just pray to God that it won’t happen? ((I’m betting that the Venn diagram of People Who Are Very Religious in Rome and People Who are Very Gullible in Rome has a pretty big area of intersection…)) Oh, yeah, right. I guess they will, and that’s why it won’t happen. Silly me.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow Faithful Acowlytes, in order that we might comprehensively ridicule all those Romans who took their kids out of school and fled to the countryside. You know you want to.

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Thanks once more to Atlas for bringing this to the attention of the Cow.

Acowlytes! From the people who brought you Special One Drop Liquid and ShooTag (Froot Loop Central, that is) I present today for your delectation a new wonder of the modern age. Allow me to introduce, direct from Somerset’s Maperton Trust, the astonishing HELRU:

The Head Lice Repelling Unit (HELRU) is a small device using the latest technology to repel head lice from infesting children and adults.

“Awesome!” I hear you cry. “My head lice infestation is OUT OF CONTROL. I want a dozen of these things right now! But before I spend my money, how does it work?”

Ah yes Faithful Cowpoke, I have trained you well. It’s the very question I asked myself when I heard about this wonderful gadget. Fortunately for us, the Head Lice Control website has a comprehensive FAQ and our query is the first one on the list:

How does it work?

Without a comprehensive understanding of technology e.g. that used in space travel, it is not really possible to provide a very satisfactory answer.

That’s right, dear friends. Frequently Asked Questions are not necessarily Frequently Answered Questions. The technology that HELRU, uses IS rocket science! There’s no use us worrying our pretty little heads about all that technical stuff! ((Perhaps the term ‘space travel’ is apropos in this context though; someone at the Maperton Trust is definitely on another planet.)) Just fork out £19 ($US31.00) and trust them! They say it’s science, and, gosh, therefore it must be! ((Seriously, why don’t they just say it’s magic and be done with it? They have a picture of a unicorn on the damn thing for chrissakes! Why even bother with the pretense of science??? Actually, let me answer that question: They bother because they know that science works. They are trading on all the credentials of legitimate science (which they eschew when it doesn’t suit them) because proper science, done by proper scientists using proper scientific method, quite demonstrably has credibility. Unicorns, quite plainly, do not.)) One thing is for certain – the cash you’re handing over for the HELRU gives you much better value than what you get from a ShooTag. The HELRU’s effects last for a very decent 2 years! And it has much more entertaining testimonials as well:

Please forward another head lice unit as soon as possible, my previous one went in the washing machine and now my son has started to come home with unwanted visitors.

Ma’am, it only protects against head lice, not Scientologists.

Elsewhere in the Maperton Trust Universe (which is most definitely not the same one in which the rest of us reside), you can get a free online treatment for anything that ails you! It’s as simple as clicking a button. ((I wish I could give you a direct link to this wondrous resource, but this site must be one of the very last to use frames. Most people have figured out that frames mean far fewer hits on their pages and have abandoned them years back. That Maperton is stuck in teh intertubes Stone Age hardly surprises me.))

Yes, indeed, it does sound ‘incredible’. As in: ‘having no credibility’. But what the hey, all they want is an email address, what have I got to lose! ((I probably don’t have to tell you that you should not, under any circumstances, leave a real email address on a site like this. Usually – as is the case on the Maperton website – you don’t need to. It doesn’t even do a rudimentary check of address viability. So use this random identity generator and have at it!)) Clicketty click!

The website counts down, during which time something is supposed to happen.

You know what, I have to confess I felt kind of ‘better’ afterwards. Not in a specific way, but a little more energized, maybe even a little happier… OH COME ON! Who believed me for even a second? The whole process is about as effective as putting Special One Drop Liquid on your CDs. I swear I could hear pinging sounds in my brain for the entire time. There is, however, a disclaimer (surprise!):

Not everyone ‘feels’ the effects of the treatment at the time it is being delivered. Sometimes no feelings are felt and no effects are noticed. Sometimes however, the benefits are only evident some time after the treatment has finished.

Righty-ho. So maybe I can expect a delayed effect. I fully expect it to kick in sometime this evening after a glass or two of the Quinta Ruban. Now that’s a proper special one drop liquid.

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Via Professor Bruce Hood

Dear friends. This morning I’m angry. I’m also sad and a little depressed, but mostly angry.

Yesterday ((World Malaria Day, coincidentally.)), Cow reader Battman, in a comment on the post Shoo Us the Science (Project)!, pointed me to an article on CNBC headlined:

Energetic Solutions Corporation Donates $30,000 of shoo!TAG Product to Family Legacy’s Camp LIFE in Zambia, Africa. Donation will help to prevent mosquito bites among children, staff and volunteers at Camp LIFE.

Yes, you read that correctly. Right now, in the 21st Century, some little kids risk illness and death because badly-educated ignorant people believe that stupid plastic trinkets with magnetic strips are somehow going to help protect them from contracting a life-threatening disease. ((Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the staff and the volunteers at Camp LIFE themselves. Christian proselytizing also ranks high on my list of crimes against humanity. I figure that if God really wants people to be ruining the cultures and communities of poor third world countries, then the least He can do is protect his flag-wavers against mosquitoes.)) It’s bad enough that the peddlers of this ridiculous magical thinking are imposing their hocus-pocus on pets, but when it comes to the lives of kids, they have, in my book, crossed a line into criminality.

Before we go on, though, let’s get some perspective. $30,000 is an impressively generous amount if we’re talking about actual money, but what does Energetic Solutions’ donation mean in real terms? ‘People’ ShooTags are selling for something like $30 or so on Amazon at the moment. That means that $30k buys around a thousand of the things. Doing a quick search tells me that you can get blank swipe cards for about 5c apiece (probably less if you have bulk orders). Let’s be magnanimous and add another 5c per card for printing and packaging. The truth of the matter is, then, that the boastful ‘$30,000 worth of ShooTag product’ has a cost value of something like $100 to Energetic Solutions (in other words, the retail cost of 3 ShooTags). Wow, I bet they feel really good inside about that big sacrifice. ((It’s actually worse than that in fact – the tags being sent to Zambia are part ShooTag’s ‘shoocycle’ program, which entails ‘spent’ cards being ‘refurbished’ and sent off to charity. Thus, these cards probably cost them nothing at all, since they’ve already been paid for by some poor gullible sod.))

From the CNBC report:

“When we saw Family Legacy’s dedication to the children of Zambia, we knew there was an opportunity for shoo!TAG to deliver a unique level of support,” said Carter McCrary, CEO of Energetic Solutions Corporation.

In the light of what we can assume about the true value of the tags, I think we can confidently re-interpret Mr McCrary’s statement to actually mean: “…we saw this as a unique opportunity to once again hoodwink people by deceiving them. By throwing around some big numbers we’ve made ourselves appear like really swell caring-and-sharing folks.”

He goes on:

“Our hope is that shoo!TAG will assist in providing relief from mosquitos and contribute to the prevention of disease among Camp LIFE participants this summer.”

No, Mr McCrary. Your hope is that publicity stunts like this one will help make you rich. Energetic Solutions doesn’t give a flying fuck about the children of Zambia, in the same way that you don’t give a flying fuck about people’s pets.

If you did – if you were really, sincerely concerned – you’d take the time to do some proper science on your product, instead of making unsubstantiated claims supported by nothing but lies and duplicitous sleight-of-hand. Because you seem completely determined not to make proper scientific investigations of your tags, any rational person must conclude that you are afraid of what such investigations would reveal. ((Or, I guess, that you haven’t a clue what a proper scientific investigation is.)) This, in turn, demonstrates your utter indifference to the wellbeing of African children.

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A big thanks to King Willy for the suggestion for this post’s image. Photography by Queen Willy.

Quantum physics is clearly at work in the new Trinfinity8: Energy-On-The-Go iPhone and Android phone app. This unique app streams natural mathematical algorithms to the user via earbuds to help balance energy, feel better, and even boost sexual libido. And all that for only $3.99.

How many of them did you count, Faithful Acowlytes? You know what I mean: woo buzzwords. Let me see, there was ‘quantum’, ‘natural’, ‘balance’ and ‘energy’. No mention of fractals or magnets, but I’m sure that if we visit the Trinfinity8 website we’ll get at least one of those…

This unique software program was developed as a direct result of information brought back from a near death experience by Dr. Kathy Forti. Trinfinity8 is the first system of its kind to use a personal computer to deliver non-invasive rejuvenation programs based on mathematical codes, vibrational energies, and fractal formulations that are in harmony with core energetics that encompass all of nature.

Haha. Well, look at that. Aside from fractals we got a bonus ‘vibrational’, as well as ‘harmony’ and ‘energetics’. It’s a veritable treasure trove of woo buzzword bingo.

I will save you the interminable chore of wading through the addled pseudoscience that makes up Trinfinity8 by telling you that it is software (clearly using quantum physics) that plays musical drones and movies of fractal patterns that pretend to have all kinds of magical powers. How does it work? I’m glad you asked:

Trinfinity8’s unique technology allows for streams of coded data to be transmitted through your computer’s USB port.

As opposed to what’s normally transmitted through your computers USB port which would, of course be… oh, that’s right – streams of coded data!

A digital translator device then sends information to the body via specially designed hand-held quartz crystal transmitter/receiver rods

Bingo! ‘Crystals’! I win.

Trinfinity understands that you may not always have a computer nearby and so have made their software available in a handy iPhone version: Trinfinity8; Energy On-The-Go. What better way to christen my new iPhone 4, dear Cowpokes, than with this app. You know my commitment to exposing all things ridiculous is profound when I am prepared to part with my hard-earned money to bring you personal demonstrations here on The Cow. So I downloaded Trinfinity8; Energy On-The-Go from the Apple Store and set it running:

Here you see me using the Male Libido Boost program. I can assure you I was not at all aroused when I was doing this. Of course, to be fair to the Trinfinity8 instructions I should have had my two thumbs on the screen, rather than a thumb and forefinger. It’s a little difficult to take a photo while doing that, however. Personally, I think that even if I’d had a thumb and my penis on the screen the effect would have been exactly the same. ((And no, I’m not going to take a photo of that, even if I could.)) What basically happens is that a little movie of an animated fractal cycles back and forth and a droning tone plays. The drone is supposedly made up of what the Trinfinity8 website calls ‘Solfeggio sound tones’.

These pure sacred tones have been used since ancient times to awaken a natural expansion of consciousness in order to bring about transformation. In Trinfinity8, the tones act as a carrier wave to further strengthen the transmission of digital data to the cellular system.

Of course they do. Let’s do a Search™ on solfeggio tones. Crikey. It’s a Google Jackpot of WooWoo sites. Looks like Solfeggio tones are the new Schumann Waves. But it’s not just ‘music’ that comes out of your iPhone earpiece, my friends. Oh no! The Trinfinity8 iPhone app mainlines PURE MATH straight into your ears!

The algorithms are delivered through earphones sub-audibly with the music.

Sub-audibly. As in ‘you can’t hear them’. As in ‘if they weren’t there, no-one could tell’. As in ‘total utter fucking bullshit on stilts’.

Oh, really, I can’t go on. The Trinfinity8 website is such an addled and meandering mess of stupid doublespeak and woo weasel language that it’s painful. It’s particularly offensive to me, since, as some of you know, I have a great love for mathematically based image generation (which includes fractal work) and mathematics in nature. Dr Forti, the ‘brains’ behind Trinfinity8 (who you can hear babbling on and on here, if you are so inclined) has had, in effect, a ‘vision’ that told her to bring this half-baked concept to the world. As is the manner of such visions, it makes little sense to anyone who is not taking the same drugs. ((Seriously, I remember having a conversation once with a guy who was off his face on mescaline, who promoted pretty much the same idea as Dr Forti. The main difference is that he finally came down and Dr Forti is still tripping.)) Dr Forti quite predictably claims that her system has efficacy in just about any field where a subjective outcome is available: stress reduction; ‘energy’ restoration; libido improvement; skin & hair rejuvenation; slowing down the ‘signs’ of aging (WTF?); weight loss.

The Trinfinity8 site is, in fact, one of the biggest agglomerations of utter crap that I’ve seen in a very long time. Here are some choice snips from around the Trinfinty8 universe:

Trinfinity8â„¢ Energy On-The-Go uses uniquely designed geometric fractal images to amplify the algorithms. Quantum physicists are discovering that enlightenment is the charge you attract when your thought patterns get fractal.

Is that what quantum physicists are discovering! And here was I thinking that they were after the Higgs boson!

A fractal is a geometric shape that can be split into billions of parts, each of which contains an exact copy of the whole.

No dear. That’s a hologram, not a fractal. Like most everything else in your ‘theory’, you have taken a half understood idea and mushed it into another half understood idea, ending up with a completely useless factoid. If you want a proper definition of a fractal you could try: A curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. ((Thank you Wikipedia for your staunch support in the face of woo.)) I don’t suppose you even have the remotest clue how that is different from what you wrote.

The Science of Fractal allows phase conjugation and a unified field for waves of people.

Now you don’t even know what that means, do you?

Trinfinity8 incorporates the most sophisticated technology that sends billions of bits of information to the body to help effect positive vibrational and consciousness change that is in alignment with nature.

Wha? Have you been gargling with Special One Drop Liquid, by any chance?

Energy On-The-Go does not contain any subliminal messages or binaural beats. This application contains pure information algorithms.

Well, that’s nice to know. I certainly wouldn’t want subliminal messages working on me, ‘cos that’s, y’know, BALONEY isn’t it! As for binaural beats, well, they’re some kind of hippie bullshit too! Not like the jen-yoo-wine, rooty-tooty, honest-to-goodness fractals and crystals of Trinfinity8! ((What is this tactic? Diss other idiot ideas in promotion of your own unhinged ravings? Do people really fall for that? “Oh, I don’t hold with binaural beats – fractal brain massage is MUCH safer!”))

Digital messages are sent to help dissolve unwanted fat and cellulite.

Yeah, right. I think maybe you should re-tune them to dissolve unwanted court cases, because with claims like that, you are really asking for them.

(The) fractal resonator amplifies the energetic and mathematical codes for the most powerful remedies, rejuvenators, and body elixirs that have been digitally imbedded into Trinfinity8 to maximize the desired treatment effect.

Jesus H. Christ. Is there anything Trinfinity8 doesn’t do? Or, perhaps, a more pertinent question: is there any ridiculous pseudoscientific buzzword that isn’t used on the Trinfinity8 site? Oh. Magnets. I couldn’t find magnets. Maybe they should fix that.

Well, that’s all for now my friends. I see, though, that now I have purchased my Trinfinty8 On-The-Go for my iPhone I am entitled to Customer Support. I think I just might take advantage of that offer. That should be… enlightening…

[Travel into the FUTURE and see how I fared with my customer support!]

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A big thanks to Universal Head for bringing the Trinfinty8 madness to The Cow’s attention.

It appears that, no matter how many times perpetual motion (or ‘free’ energy) machines are wheeled out, exposed and taken back in shame to the sheds where they were nailed together, there will always be another one waiting in the wings. And usually, another one that claims to use exactly the same discredited working principles of every one that’s come before it – invariably involving magnets. Here on The Cow, we’ve waited several years for those Irish spruikers over at Steorn to show us their wonderful machine, which, in the grand vision of their marketing manager, will mean that you need never put your phone on charge again. ((There’s nothing quite like thinking big.))

We’re still waiting.

In the meantime, this morning I bring you a website that offers to sell you plans to build your own free energy machine which its purveyors say will provide you with limitless free energy! It wasn’t easy for them but they…

…finally succeeded in creating a website which offers the Do-It-Yourself instructions for building such a device

God, tell me about it. Creating a website is such a fucking bitch!

Anyway, the site that they finally succeeded in creating is called Magniwork. The Magniwork logo, subtitled The Energy of Tomorrow in Your Home Today!, features, as the ‘i’ in Magniwork, an energy-efficient light globe.

Yeah, now see, the absolute irony of this is that if you have a machine that produces endless clean energy as the website claims, you don’t need to worry about energy-efficient appliances. It surely doesn’t matter. In fact, what your logo should really be offering is the kind of electrical abundance favoured by vendors of electricity at the fin de siecle ((The 19th C fin, that is.))

That’s better! The promise of SQUILLIONS of volts carelessly squandered.

OK. Tell me about how I can have my own free energy machine Magniwork! I’m eager to cast off the shackles of dirty coal and even dirtier uranium!

Using our easy-to-follow guide, you will be able create a Magnetic Power Generator which creates absolutely free energy, and doesn’t require any resource like wind or solar energy to function. The magniwork generator creates energy by itself and powers your home for free. The generator works fully off the grid. ((An ambiguously worded claim if ever I read one. Works fully off the grid? As in, it works fully powered by the grid? No? Oh, you meant it works independently of the grid! I see!)) Take a look at the following diagram to get an idea of how it works:

Whoa. That’s a little technical, so for the laypeople, let me just try and give you an easy-to-understand explanation of what’s going on.

First, the Power Source (1) feeds into the thingamabob (2). This in turn is fed to the gadget with numbers (3) and the battery (4). Of course this requires a whoosamacallit (5) to transfer back and forth between the doodah (6), the whatsit (7) and the gismo (9), with additional input from the red doohickey (8). COMPLETELY FREE ENERGY is thereby delivered to your house (10). So, did that give you an idea of how it works? Yes! That’s right, it is completely powered by FLIM-FLAM! Genius.

This method has been researched for a long time, but due to suppression of this idea from the big corporations, the plans for building a free energy generator which could change the world have never been out on the open.

Ah. The ‘big corporations’. Yes, I can see how the ‘big corporation’s would be quaking in their boots after seeing ‘the method’ laid so daringly bare in that diagram. ((The ‘big corporations are hiding it from us’ plea is a sure marker of pseudoscientific thinking. People: big corporations can be greedy and self-serving, sure. Evil, even. But one thing they are not is stupid. Any ‘big corporation’ in the world would give their metaphorical first child for this kind of technology if it worked. Think about it, Mr Free Energy Machine Inventor: a ‘big corporation’ could take your machine, make vast powerplants with it, and sell the power to consumers at ridiculously under-cutting prices, thereby doing the one thing that all ‘big corporations’ love to do most – put all the other ‘big corporations’ out of business. The assertion that they would take this idea and suppress it is nonsense of the highest order.))

The Magniwork website offers, as an endorsement of its wares, a Sky News video featuring Queensland free-energy proponents John Christie and Lou Brits, who are known in this arena for their Lutec 1000 generator, a device that has, in the manner of the Steorn ‘Orbo’, consistently failed for over a decade to live up to the hyperbole of its inventors (the failure for the Lutec 1000 to gain traction is, of course, due to the Machiavellian influence of the ‘big corporations’, rather than because of the small technicality that it doesn’t actually work).

Magniwork trots out the same misguided claims that we encounter with Messrs Christie and Brits and all ‘free’ energy technology advocates:

You can eliminate your power bill by 50% or even completely, depending on how you implement the magniwork generator.

Eliminate it by 50%? Um. I think the word ‘eliminate’ is kind of absolute. You can’t partially eliminate something. You’re probably searching for the word ‘reduce’, here. Even so, the 50% saving that Magniwork boasts involves accepting a fatal logical non-sequitur based on the concept of ‘overunity’ energy generation. As a special service to Tetherd Cow Ahead readers (and all people everywhere who like things explained in diagrams) I have created a page here that outlines, in simple terms, the logical flaw inherent in overunity. You don’t even need to understand physics to see how such a scheme must always fail.

The free energy devices have been suppressed by the corporate world because such devices, would allow people to create their own energy for free, which would ultimately shut down the big energy corporations, because people won’t need to pay anymore for electricity to fill their pockets.

It’s an intriguing image, people walking around with pockets full of electricity.

Our easy-to-follow guide will show you how to construct the Magniwork free energy generator, which will run infinitely and create free electric energy. This method has been thoroughly researched, and is currently considered as a possible mean of completely solving the energy crisis.

Only by idiots.

The magniwork free energy generator, can be efficiently used to power your home with almost zero costs on your side. Furthermore, the generator is eco-friendly and doesn’t produce any harmful byproducts.

Well, that’s probably true. Because it doesn’t produce ANYTHING.

We predict that the technology will rapidly spread, and some industry-insiders even predict that the magniwork free energy generators will be the energy in the future. These experts estimate, that by 2020 energy companies will start implementing this technology in order to create cheaper and more environment friendly energy.

OK, well I predict that in 2020 you’ll still be wheeling out the same old crap about your ‘invention’ being suppressed by the ‘big corporations’. Let’s see who’s the better predictor.

The Magniwork free energy generator is safe to use and operate. It doesn’t produce any harmful byproducts or gases, and there isn’t any hazard concerning the generator itself. Even if you have little children, they may freely walk in the close vicinity of the generator.

Although that might not be entirely safe, because they might point out that you’re violating the laws of thermodynamics and thus expose you as a nitwit.

Anyway, it goes on and on like this for a bit, with some testimonials that hold about as much credibility as a Shoo!TAG science experiment, before signing off with another convincing video about the evil plan by ‘the big companies’ to hide this amazing technology from us dumb suckers.

Hahahahaha! Dear Acowlytes! This is where the Magniwork site becomes very special and dear to my heart. The snippets of video featured in this ‘report’ are from a spoof documentary called ‘Conspiracy’ for which I wrote the music! In a fantastic metaphorical echo of the preposterousness of the overunity feedback loop, this ‘meta’ documentary, which was designed as an agglomeration of as many absurd free energy claims as we could stack together in one place (coupled with great Cold War-style black and white propaganda footage) has now come back to life as an endorsement of the the things it was sending up!

Just as overunity energy production pulls itself up with its own bootstraps, it seems that the free energy community is boosting its credentials with parodies of its own credentials! It is to laugh.

⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗∴—∴⊗

Well, that turned out rather more long-winded than I expected. What happened, you see, is that I connected a Magniwork generator to my computer, and before I knew it, I was producing unlimited free energy fuelled postings. In much the same way as the unbelievable claims of the free energy movement, they just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and ….

Infinitely.