Tetherd Cow Ahead

For most of you, Tetherd Cow is an unfolding story of antics in Cow World that plays out on a fairly linear daily or weekly basis. You know how it goes – I post a story, you comment, we have a some fun repartee and then we move on. Very civilized. But because I have an expansive overview of The Cow (a Cowish ‘omnipotence’ as it were) the Cowiverse looks somewhat different to me. I see a whole lot of stuff to which you are not privvy. There is, for example, activity that occurs way back in time, in posts that have had their moment in the sun and are never visited again except by the occasional lost web traveller. Or by spammers. Spammers discovered long ago that the vast hinterland of forgotten blog comments provides another fertile venue for their pathetic attempts to hawk various car insurance/viagra/cheap mortgage/locksmith ((Yes. A New York locksmith and his pals were, apparently, touring the blogosphere and leaving comments in an attempt to boost their linkability. Rather sad, really.)) schemes. Because visiting millions of blogs and posting comments is (quite obviously) a tedious and time consuming task, the spammers have mostly relegated this drudgework to bots. Sometimes very clever bots, but bots all the same. Bots are mostly pretty easy to defeat, and these days most bot comments get swept up by blog spam utilities and never see the light of day. ((My spam tools automatically shift such comments into the spam graveyard without me even being aware of them. On average, TCA gets about forty of these a day.))

Recently, though, a new spamming ruse appears to be on the rise. This technique requires real people to spend time browsing around blogs and posting comments and linking their names to some crap or other. ((The technical reason they do this is to increase the number of legitimate websites ‘linking’ to their garbage product. This, in turn, increases their search ranking in various engines. Search engines find it easy to defeat standard spambot link farming, but this kind of ‘human’ bot requires (so far) human brains to intercept. And not only that, human brains that understand the context of their own blogs.)) Here’s one that I got yesterday:

This was a comment left on my post Ooze which you may remember concerned the curious fungus that once appeared in my backyard. On the face of it, ‘Jeff’ appears to be taking an interest in the post and leaving a pertinent comment – he is obviously not a bot.

What the spammers don’t appear to understand, though, is that when a commenter leaves his or her mark on TCA comments, I can tell all kinds of things about them other than just their email address and their name. I know, for instance, that while Jeff Morgan is (most likely) a real person, with a real Bigpond email address, it is not the real Jeff Morgan who has visited my blog. Someone has stolen his name and email address for the purposes of making their spam look legitimate. The clue to Fake Jeff’s real agenda is written clear in two places – one is in his IP address which comes out of Pakistan, and the other is in ‘his’ website which is easily recognizable ((By a person, at least.)) as a ‘front-door’ for a spam operation linking off to various kinds of crummy products. ((Typically, these ‘front’-door’ sites are set up as link farms into products that the spammer has been paid to ‘advertise’. They are disposable sites that will be abandoned as soon as they are busted, only to spring up somewhere else in a matter of minutes. The spammers probably have thousands of them on the shelf, ready to go.))

As is usual in these cases, I leave the comment intact and ‘repair’ the weblink to take it somewhere a little more useful. ((I usually redirect it to the JREF, because I think if there’s one thing we could do with a whole heap more of in this world, it’s some rational thinking. Can’t ever have too many links to the JREF. Did I mention the JREF?)) This morning though, I got a rather intriguing one of these ‘comments’ from ‘Mircea’:

This one appeared in my post We’re All DOOMED! as a reply to Cissy Strutt. Unlike Jeff’s comment, it only half makes sense, but I have had far more incomprehensible legitimate comments in my time. ‘Mircea’ evidently thinks that by embedding it in the flow of commenting (he/she would have to have physically clicked the ‘Reply’ button) that it would go unnoticed. ((And I guess on a lot of blogs maybe it would have.)) But I don’t see comments the same way as commenters do, and for me it’s a trivial exercise to spot it as spam. Here’s part of what I see:

Did you see the very interesting thing here, Cowpokes? ‘Mircea’ appears to be spamming for Microsoft. Oh, I’m sure that Microsoft would deny having anything to do with such a practice. They would, most likely, claim that anyone can type any URL in the web field and that they can’t be held responsible for random punters being fans of their search engine. But It is easy for me to see that ‘Mircea’ is not a legitimate entity: she/he has an IP in Quebec and an ISP in Germany – a very curious and probably impossible combination. Additionally, this is not the only one of these I’ve had in recent times.

There is a bit of discussion going on about this elsewhere, and one suggestion has been that the Bing URL is being truncated in some way and that Bing (and Yahoo as it turns out) ((I’ve also had several linked off to Yahoo.)) are just victims of a software snafu. But I want to point out that the way these blog commenting systems work does not support that conclusion – if people are physically reading the posts and entering comments, they are also physically entering the URLs they have been given to promote. To put it in clear terms, ‘Mircea’ is a fraudulent identity who has visited an historically distant Tetherd Cow Ahead post with the sole intention of leaving a link to Bing.

Well, now that The Wedding ((Yes, apparently there was a wedding of some kind.)) has cleared the airwaves for some real reportage, we find out yesterday the extraordinary news that President Obama is, in fact, dead. Whoopsy, did I say President Obama? What I meant to say was Osama Bin Laden! But shucks, it’s a mistake anyone could make, right? Especially if that anyone is Republican-biased, Murdoch-owned Fox News.

Well, maybe you could forgive a tongue-tied reporter in the heat of the moment… it’s not like he was typing it or anything…

Dammit, that ‘b’ is so close to the ‘s’ on the keyboard isn’t it? I’m always accidentally typing abbholeb when what I actually meant to type was assholes.

Just because Tim Minchin is fuckin’ awesome. ((As are the folks who made the clip.))

When it comes to poemin’ the handiest bookmark I have is Rhymezone. Imagine my puzzlement when today I went looking for some rhymes for the word ‘free’.

Cod? Huh?

(It took me several minutes to figure it out).

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.

Technology We Don’t Actually Need #1

OK, so this morning I’m driving along on the freeway and a question comes into my head. It’s not the first time I’ve asked this question, but I think now is the right time for the world to ask it with me:

What the hell are parking lamps on a car for?

Ponder this – when was the last time you used your parking lamps for parking? In fact, an even more pertinent question is: how useful are parking lamps in the process of parking anyway? If I tried to park my car using the pallid gleam of its parking lamps I think I’d end up parking myself into the rear end of another car. Parking lamps are wussy and dim. In the light from the average streetlamp, they may as well not even be switched on.

Of course, this is not the reason for which most drivers think parking lamps should be used in any case. Those who are even aware of their parking lamps (other than as the temporary switch position between OFF and HEADLIGHTS) think that they’re supposed to employ them when they’re driving along on a dimly lit or rainy day. BUT, my friends, if the point of this activity is to heighten visibility, then why not use your headlights??? Parking lamps are, in this capacity, a grudgingly marginal commitment to safety. It’s like wanting to be visible, but not too visible. ((It strikes me that it’s not unlike the floatation vest you’re supposed to wear in the event of a plane crash – sure, put it on if it makes you feel better, but when you hit the water at 800+ mph, a life vest is going to be about as useful as a banana in a swordfight.)) The driver of the car who was behind me on the freeway this morning may as well have been waving a birthday candle, for all the visibility his parking lights were offering. ((Seriously. Outside, in the overcast daylight, I couldn’t actually tell if they were on or off. I only knew they were on because we had previously passed through a tunnel.))

So, racking my brains as to any conceivable explanation for the automobile parking lamp’s purpose for being, I did what all hip 21st century netizens do and turned to the Font of All Knowledge, Wikipedia. Well. The first thing that must be said is that Wikipedia’s entry for Automotive Lighting is one of the longest and most comprehensive I have ever come across. You want lights, it’s got lights. And it has more footnotes than a Tetherd Cow Ahead article about ShooTag. If you need to know stuff about car lights, this is your one stop shop. Suck on that Encyclopedia Brittanica.

It throws scant illumination, however, on the topic of parking lamps. Oh, it has several paragraphs about them, alright, but nowhere is there any persuasive explanation for any practical utility.

So, even with the vastness of the internet’s information-gathering clout at my fingertips, I can draw no other conclusion than that the car’s parking lamps are nothing more than the automotive evolutionary equivalent of a vestigial tail or an appendix. It is my view that they serve no function other than to supply the makers of light bulbs with a nice reliable income stream.

Honk if you agree.