Tetherd Cow Ahead

You may remember that I wrote, some time back, about Dr Masaru Emoto, a man who believes that water has feelings. Dr Emoto has a fairly substantial following in the magic water fraternity and his name is used to promote products such as H²Om Vibrational Water, which we’ve had cause to discuss previously on The Cow.

Well, it seems that Dr Emoto is happy to lend his name (and image, it would appear) to quackery, but is most reticent to appear anywhere that is critical of his ideas. This morning I received a letter from his office:

Hello,

I’m Michiko Hayashi from OFFICE MASARU EMOTO LLC in Tokyo, Japan.

I would like to let you know that your use of water crystal photos has not been approved by OFFICE MASARU EMOTO. Please find attached the letter “Use of water crystal images on websites” and make the appropriate procedure to use water crystal images legally.

This is part of the attached letter:

– IMPORTANT NOTICE –

Use of “water crystal” images on websites without permission

Please be informed that water crystal images are intellectual property, and OFFICE MASARU EMOTO LLC owns the copyrights to the water crystal photos that you have posted on your website. It is important that you obtain an official permission for such use authorized by OFFICE MASARU EMOTO LLC. The fee for the use on the website is 1,200€ (one thousand and two hundred Euro) or $1,400(one thousand and four hundred US dollars) for one year.

You what? 1,400 US dollars! Hahahahaha! I wonder if anyone would be daft enough to actually pay that? And I wonder even further whether they try this on with people who aren’t critical of Dr Emoto? Let’s do a quick image search, shall we… Oh, what a surprise! almost a hundred thousand images of Dr Emoto or his water crystals. And virtually none of them on sites that are critical of his silly ideas. The letter goes on to say:

If you have Mr. Masaru Emoto’s face photo (portrait rights) and/or his name on your websites, please delete it/ them IMMEDIATELY. The use of “Masaru Emoto®” and his portrait rights are strictly prohibited.

Ha. I hope that they aren’t thinking they can get away with his name being intellectual property too! Just sticking a ® on the end of something means toss-all folks.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the letter – it’s basically just repetitions of the same thing, coupled with a vague threat of legal action that doesn’t really scare me in the least. I have, however, um… altered the images I used on the original post because, quite frankly I can’t be bothered getting into any kind of legal dispute with people who aren’t able to think rationally.

I am a little disappointed in Dr Emoto and his office, if the truth be told. He got off pretty lightly on The Cow, all things considered. I cut him a bit of slack because I think he’s just a misguided old duffer, rather than a cynical con artist, ((Emoto is one of the very few of his ilk that has, at least, the courage to call his ideas ‘magic’. The problem is that he does so while wearing a lab coat and calling himself a doctor. Unfortunately most people aren’t able to understand that just because he has a laboratory and does ‘experiments’ doesn’t make him a scientist)) and he certainly didn’t get the roasting that many of his fellow loonies have copped on my pages. But it is immediately apparent from today’s letter, that, like all practitioners of pseudoscience, one of Dr Emoto’s raisons d’être is the financial reward his nutty beliefs bring.

Michiko signs off…

With love and gratitude,
Michiko Hayashi

… an unusual (to say the least) salutation for a legal letter. Perhaps you will not continue to feel much gratitude towards me Ms Hayashi, when you know I have no intention of paying you any money, and have not changed my opinion of Dr Emoto in the least. As for the love, well, I have a feeling that yours is nothing more than the watered-down kind.

You may remember that a little ways back I told you about a film called Shriek of the Mutilated, which, aside from having one of the best movie titles ever, is a work of cinema so terrible that it’s a must see. My friend Sean points out that io9 has a short clip up at the moment which allows you to get a taste of the full awfulness of this creation.

As well as some truly frightful yeti action, the snippet features some awesome ‘girl-in-lingerie-terror’ acting. Truly, girls, you need to watch this. Among other things you will learn that if you are trapped in a bathroom by an insane over-sized teddybear-with-fangs, you should flap ineffectually at the window with your hands and pull your hair across your face a lot.

Apparently SOTM is now available on DVD. This is something that the world has needed for many decades.

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*You have to see the film.

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Hey! Remember how I told you about the Thrilling Space Adventure competition over at Bearskin Rug? I actually won a blue ribbon! I am totally chuffed – my very first attempt at a cartoony-like comic and someone who is a genius at such things thought it was worthy of a prize. And I didn’t even have to send him a bribe or anything!

Here’s my winning entry. It’s a truly Thrilling Space Adventure.

What’s even better I won a prize – a signed copy of The Superest book. And, along with Kevin’s signature, it has hand-drawn pictures of Mojo.

I am so happy.

Go to Bearskin Rug now and buy stuff.

He said what?

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Thanks to Atlas (who else?) for bringing this to the attention of The Cow.

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The art world has never really been known for being sensible, but there is a feud going on at the moment in England that must surely rank as one of the most petty and unfathomable squabbles since my school days when Charlie Peerbohm poured green paint on Debbie McMahon’s fingerpainting in first grade. Synopsizing: last year, a 17 year old street artist named Cartrain made a number of satirical collage portraits of the much more famous artist Damien Hirst using copies of some of Hirst’s own images. Hirst took exception to this for reasons unknown and, using his considerable fortune, pulled legal muscle on Cartrain to force him to hand over the portraits (so that they might be disposed of) along with £195 in compensation (the amount of money that Cartrain allegedly made from selling them).

Considering that Damien Hirst is one of the most commercially successful plunderers of popular culture of all time, this seems churlish at best, and downright petulant otherwise.

I’ve never been a great fan of Hirst’s creations. In my view he’s just fine art’s version of a shock jock; he creates things that are supposed to put people’s noses out of joint under the pretense of making insightful or droll commentary. I could never quite put my finger on why his efforts annoyed me so much until one day, after getting brain freeze from a slushy whilst watching the sharks at Sydney Aquarium, it came to me: Damien Hirst’s art has no sense of humour. It is po-faced pretension of the most vacuous kind. And I think Hirst quite possibly believes that he really is saying something profound. This latest episode has pretty much confirmed my suspicions.

Cartrain, on the other hand, is my kinda guy. He does have a sense of humour and he makes interesting and provocative social commentary. He’s not an artistic genius, perhaps, and owes more than a little to Banksy, but heck, he’s a teenager after all – he’s got plenty of years ahead of him to develop. The portrait of Mr Hirst that you see reproduced above, is one by Cartrain that has escaped the iron clutch of Hirst’s moneyed henchmen and, via the blog of art commentator Jonathan Jones, found its way to teh internets. ((As anyone with an ounce of insight would have realised was quite inevitable given the circumstances. Hirst’s attempt to quash dissemination of the portraits looks all the more silly for his failure to understand their ultimate cultural context.)) Its sarcastic caricature of Hirst is surely well within the purview of artistic witticism. I believe the confiscated portraits are in the same vein.

But the thing that has really enamored me of Cartrain is the revenge that he he has wrought upon Hirst. In July this year, Cartrain visited the Tate Britain and stole a box of pencils from Hirst’s intellectually vapid installation Pharmacy which is on display there. He then created a mock ransom note demanding return of his portraits in exchange for the pencils. The note stated that failure to comply would result in the pencils being ‘sharpened’. Most anyone would consider that fairly amusing – this is not the mindset of a vicious person – but not Hirst, apparently. As one of the wealthiest artists of all time he looks sulky and pathetic as he stands on his assertion that his intellectual property rights have been violated.

And now, in what must be one of the most egregious over-reactions of the decade, the situation has escalated to the point where the police have arrested Cartrain over the stunt, and he has been charged with £10,000,000.00 for ‘damages’ and a further £500,000.00 for theft. ((Cartrain’s father was also arrested, on suspicion of ‘harbouring’ the pencils.)) Translating into American money, that’s over $17 million dollars worth of charges for a box of pencils. ((And I bet the security guard who was on duty that day would have been a lot more attentive if he’d realised he was guarding pencils with that kind of pedigree…))

This whole debacle reminds me of nothing so much as the Metallica/Napster affair in 2000, and Lars Ulrich’s indignant posturing over the ‘damage’ that file sharing was doing to the band’s sales. The outcome of that particular episode was that Ulrich came out looking like an ass and nothing changed except for Napster getting shafted. Metallica certainly isn’t hanging out at the soup kitchen as a result. Similarly, it’s difficult to comprehend Hirst’s disproportionately vehement reaction to Cartrain’s satirical jibe. What the hell does he care? It’s not like he’s going broke anytime soon.

Maybe it’s simply that Cartrain’s portraits are just a little bit too incisive, and the emperor doesn’t like everyone seeing right through his clothes to his cubic zirconia-encrusted skeleton…

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.

-•†â€¢-

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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