Tetherd Cow Ahead

Well, I don’t know about you guys in the North, but down here in Oz it was way too late to watch the Steorn cavalcade at the scheduled broadcast time, so I missed the actual moment that marked the re-writing of History As We Know It. Damn.

But as soon as I woke up, I tuned into The Guardian this morning to read about the massive shock and disbelief of scientists around the world as they came to the cruel realisation at just how wrong they’d been to dismiss Steorn as a bunch of conniving swindlers. Alas – not so much as a whisper about Steorn’s miraculaous achievement. There were just more boring stories about the iPad. So I jumped across to the Steorn website for the lowdown, and to watch the video of the ground-breaking demonstration to find that… they’re going to post it tomorrow.

Oh heck. I guess that the universe has waited this long for its physical laws to be broken that one more day won’t hurt. While I was at Steorn, I watched some other videos that they have, including a six part demonstration of absolutely fuck all. Mr Slippery himself, Steorn CEO Sean McCarthy, was there with plenty of claims about how great their Orbo motor was, and the wonders it could accomplish:

“The electromagnetic components themselves return more energy and/or heat than is put into them!”

“It can achieve from 150 to 200% efficiency!”

“The faster you go, the more powerful the device is. In theory there is no limit to the energy it can produce.”

And as I watched the long-winded and banal technical demonstration (that was so full of misdirection and waffle that even my untrained engineering mind could spot it) I kept wondering “If the thing does what it says, why don’t they just show it powering a toaster or something?”

Indeed, in the Q&A afterwards a sensible gentleman asked just that. Here is the exchange verbatim (my thoughts highlighted), complete with Sean McCarthy’s squirming ((Some of his oleaginous tone does come through in the text, but to get the full effect you will, unfortunately, have to watch the clip)):

Bearded Gentleman: “So you say the reason that you don’t have a prototype that demonstrates load is that it’s cost prohibitive?”

Sean McCarthy:”No, I didn’t say that.” [Uh oh. Someone with some brains snuck into the demo. How did that happen?]

BG: “Well… why don’t you have one?”

SM (looking as if the guy has just spoken to him in Esperanto): “Sorry?” [Seems like a reasonable question to me you pillock]

BG: “Why don’t you have one then?”

SM: “Oh, wh… um.. wha? You mean showing load? We’re recharging batteries and you will see… we’ll be lighting lights and all that kinda stuff later on… [That’s ALL we want to see, dropkick.] but… you’re misunderstanding what we’re about. [You know, I think the Bearded Guy has a very good idea of what you’re about…] As a busi… we’re not, we’re not going to be next week selling generators down here just to charge your iPhone” [Who asked if you were?]

BG: “I think the problem though is that this isn’t really very convincing”

SM: “To whom?” [Oh, let’s see… to ANYONE you brainless halfwit!]

BG: “To the general public”

SM: “Um… we’re not… we’re interested in the development community. [OK, well show it to THEM then you simpleton]”

BG: “OK, but you’re broadcasting it on the internet”

“Absolutely (smug laugh)… we’re look… as I said… you understand our business model is engaging with the b… we’re not selling anything to Joe Public. Y… I mean, there’s no box of tricks we’re going to sell [Wow, they’re not even selling the box. Just the tricks.], we’re saying, we’re trying to sell this to the product development community and, if they understand the experiments, and they believe them [Yeah, now see, this is the crux of the problem Sean – NO-ONE BELIEVES THEM. Hence the reason we want to see your daft device actually doing what you claim it does!], um, that’s the next step for us to engage with the product development communities. [Waffles with syrup, anyone?]

(I’ll spare you anymore of the blow-by-blow – it’s exceptionally tedious – but if you think I’m exaggerating you can watch it to verify what comes next: Mr McCarthy goes on to say it’s cost prohibitive to build a demonstration Orbo motor, ((Um.. actually, what the FUCK, then, is the thing in the video clip that’s spinning around and around with all the measuring gadgets hooked up to it? My brain is exploding here Steorn! If you can’t build one, then the gadget you’re showing us is what, exactly? Why are we here again?)) comparing it to building just one hard disk drive ((I fail to see how the analogy is even remotely relevant – the reason people will put money into building millions of hard disk drives is because the science behind them works and is completely understood. If you’re claiming you can do miracles, then you have to produce a miracle, or at least very convincingly explain how your miracle works. Not just tell everybody how cool your miracle is.)) “… but even if I had a billion dollars, we still wouldn’t build one…”. Well, no, because even though you are a complete moron, you know it would be completely fucking stupid to waste a billion dollars on building something that doesn’t actually DO anything.)

So, examining the above exchange, we see Sean McCarthy first saying that the reason that Steorn can’t show us a working version of Orbo has nothing to do with it being cost prohibitive. Then he promises that ‘later’ they will be showing it ‘recharging batteries and lighting lights’. In the same sentence he negates himself and says that they won’t be making ‘a generator to charge things’, ((A small point here – the use of this example “We won’t be making a generator to charge your iPhone” – is a favourite trick of practitioners of woo: trivialize a critic’s good question by mocking them with a daft re-phrasing of it. The man simply asked why Steorn didn’t have a demonstration that would do what they claimed – ie, show overunity. This could be as simple as their Orbo motor, under its own power, lighting a simple LED. Since they say they have a working Orbo motor, which can deliver ‘up to 200% efficiency’, then this should be absolutely and utterly straightforward.)) and then, a few sentences later explains this as being ‘because it’s cost prohibitive’. Go back and plug Mr Bearded Guy’s original question in here, and see how long you can go around this loop before you fall off. ((Fractionally longer than the Orbo will remain in rotation without a power supply, is my guess))

Sean McCarthy has not been merely kissing the Blarney Stone, he’s been chewing off dirty big chunks. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s video.

Oh joy, oh joy! Oh joyohjoyohjoyohjoyohjoyohjoyohjoy!

Acowlytes! The world is about to change forever! Goodbye Global Warming! Goodbye cumbersome coal mining, solar panels, wind farms and hydro schemes! Yes, my friends, tomorrow (Saturday January 30, 2010) our old friends at Steorn are going to demonstrate once and for all, conclusive and unequivocal PROOF that their overunity ((Overunity means that it puts out more energy than you put in)) energy system actually works!

I hope you will tune in with me at 14:00 GMT to the Steorn website for a jolly old belly laugh this world-shattering event!

(It’s like some kind of Saturday matinee thriller – how will they get out of their dastardly fix this time???)

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*Sort of. Like, if I close my eyes and squint. And the light’s just right. And I have my lucky rabbit’s foot. And the moon is in Aquarius and my chakras are aligned…

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Excellent! A new magical potion has appeared on the supermarket shelves. Harry Potter eat yer heart out! This particular version is called ‘Nutrient Water’ and their marketing department has been pulling out all the stops with this one. Here’s what you get if you choose the ‘D-Stress’ flavour:

Remember what it was like to be a kid? One hour for finger painting, two hours for hide-n-seek, naps in the morning, naps in the afternoon, naps in general. Life as a grown up of course is a little more complex. Play-time is now work time, home-time is over-time and free-time is pushed-for-time. That’s why we’ve packed D-Stress with Vitmain D and L-Tyrosine to help bring you back, get a grip and put it all in perspective. Think of it as a step back in time. Just without the hand-me-downs and times tables.

What kind of whacked, off-his/her-face imbecile wrote that heap of crap? So you drink this stuff and it will help you get a grip and put everything into perspective? Then I don’t think the copywriter even opened the bottle. He needs about another fifty gallons by my reckoning. But as laughable as all that is, you have to go for the ingredient list for the full guffaw:

Ingredients (nature approved) – deionised water, crystalline fructose, food acid, natural blackberry goji flavour, etc etc

That little snippet has got to be the biggest gob of codswallop that I’ve heard in years. Nature approved? What the fuck? How did ‘nature’ approve it? Just by it existing? My brain is making pinging noises. And then we have ‘deionised’ water. Let me ask you, dear Cowpokes: do you have any reason at all to suppose water is any better without ions? (What they mean is simply that the water has been filtered, but oh no, they can’t just call it ‘filtered water’ – who’d buy something like that?). And of course ‘crystalline fructose’ is just a form of corn syrup. They could have said ‘ultra sweet sugar’ but that sounds a little too much like a step back in time… And I really don’t even want to go into the whole stupid goji thing. ((Goji berries are the new wheatgrass. They’re supposed to cure everything from depression to cancer. A clinical study done in May 2008 and published by the peer-reviewed Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine indicated that parametric data, including body weight, did not show significant differences between subjects receiving Lycium barbarum berry (goji) juice and subjects receiving the placebo; the study concluded that ‘subjective (my italics) measures of health were improved’ and suggested further research in humans was necessary. That was all I could find of any value. That’s the BEST they’ve got. Paraphrasing – if you imagine hard enough, maybe you’ll feel better.))

I was interested in why they might stick L-tyrosine in this product though, so I did a little bit of research. ((This is so easy to do now, that my mind just explodes with frustration – why don’t people check this stuff out?)) L-tyrosine is an amino acid, and one of the building blocks of neurotransmitters. Most people get all they need from their diet, and you have to be pretty unhealthy to have a deficit of the stuff. ((It’s in so many foods that it would be hard to avoid, in fact. You can even get it from an average McDonald’s meal.)) Not only that, you shouldn’t have too much of it, and several websites about nutritional supplements that I found have this kind of thing to say:

If you do not have any need to, you should not take L-tyrosine as supplements without consulting your doctor.

I figure that if they printed something like that on the label it would cause you to get a much better grip than all that other crud.

Still, at least this water has some active ingredients, even if they do have the potential to screw up your brain chemistry. Unlike some other waters we have visited.

Good morning Acowlytes. Today on The Cow we are going to have a science lesson. No, no, sit down there Joey, it’s not the kind where we make a miniature volcano and gas all the eighth grade on the top floor of C Block with sulphur – this is a lesson about science. Specifically, about how science works, and why it is different from, oh, just making stuff up.

As usual for a science lesson, I have some visual aids.

First of all here is a rabbit’s foot: ((Rabbit’s foot picture borrowed from The Skeptiseum – I didn’t think they’d mind))

A rabbit’s foot is what most rational modern people regard as a superstitious curio. The rabbit’s foot accrued its status as a ‘lucky’ object because in very ancient times the European Celts considered rabbits as sacred animals. Using a kind of logic that is mostly these days reserved for young children, the Celts figured that if the rabbit itself was lucky, then bits of the rabbit were lucky too.

Of course, there is no science at all behind this notion. A rabbit’s foot is an object that, no matter what people convince themselves to believe, does absolutely nothing at all. ((…well, after it’s removed from the rabbit, obviously.)) You can tell me you think it brings ‘good luck’, and even that you did a scientific study that shows, to your satisfaction, that it does what you claim, but (here’s the crucial thing about science): until your study is reproduced, under controlled situations, and in double-blind experiments by a third (preferably unbiased) party your claim is absolutely meaningless.

What exactly does all that mean? Let’s look at the bits:

Reproduceability: Well, obviously, if I can’t get the same results as you do, there is something seriously wrong with your idea; if you say your rabbit’s foot brings luck, and I don’t experience any luck while holding it, then how do we explain that?

Controlled Situation: This has a very rigorous meaning in science. Scientists spend a LOT of time perfecting controls, because they are crucial to experimental protocol. To put it simply, a good control is one that is completely free from the possible effects of the experiment. Not only that, a good control must be free of other artifacts that could be mistaken for possible effects of the experiment.

Double-Blind Procedure: When you have a vested interest in proving that your hypothesis is valid, you may, consciously or unconsciously, effect the outcome of the study. For this reason, scientists have come up with a very clever concept which ensures that neither the person conducting the experiment, nor anyone involved in collating the results of the experiment, know exactly what data they are handling until after the experiment is concluded. At that time, the double-blind protocol is decoded and the data is matched to the experimental procedure.

An Unbiased Third Party: Being able to convince others that your results are persuasive is a crucial part of the scientific method. That’s why the protocols I’ve outlined above are so important. If two or more groups of experimenters conduct the same study under the those conditions, and they get results that match yours, well then voila! – you have yourself a nicely working model! The really great thing about science is that if you disagree with someone’s hypothesis, you can perform the experiment yourself, under the same conditions! This is how we know so much of what we now know – this is why we no longer have smallpox, why diabetics can live a normal life, and why we know to keep ourselves clean to avoid contracting disease.

We could easily design an experimental protocol to test if rabbit’s foot charms are really ‘lucky’ but I think most normal people will accept that they are nothing more than a diverting superstition. But the lure of the talisman or amulet is a very strong one.

Which brings us to my second visual aid:

It is called a Shoo!TAG™ Essentially, until some scientific proof to the contrary is forthcoming, ((Hahahahaha! It is to laugh!)) the Shoo!TAG™ is exactly the same as the rabbit’s foot, ie, a functionless tsotchke. This is despite the personal testimony of its inventors, no matter how enthusiastically they spruik it:

As a founder and co-developer of the Shoo!TAG™ I was looking for a non-toxic “green” alternative for controlling fleas and ticks on our dogs and cats and flies and mosquitoes on my horses and milk cow. When the finished prototypes were ready, I picked two dogs and one horse and cow for the first trials and put a Shoo!TAG™ on them. Within 36 hours, the dogs wearing a Shoo!TAG™ had a noticeable reduction in fleas and ticks. In addition, those pests still on the dogs were staying on top of the hair, moving slowly and easily picked off. I also observed that the dogs with a Shoo!TAG™ did not scratch or bite at themselves, unlike the two dogs not wearing a Shoo!TAG™ . The horse and cow wearing a Shoo!TAG™ had a dramatic reduction in flies. After two weeks observation, I tagged the other animals so they could receive the same comfort and benefit. Again, after 36 hours, all newly tagged dogs, horse and cow demonstrated the same reduction in pest problems as the test group did. I knew then we had a winner!

-Kathy M. Heiney, Wimberley, TX
Developer and Founder of Energetic Solutions, Ltd. and Shoo!TAGâ„¢

This, explicitly, is not science. Merely saying ‘you saw’ some results is exactly the same as saying “My lucky rabbit’s foot won me the lottery!” Until you set up a controlled, double-blind experiment, you’re not offering evidence, you’re just tendering an anecdote.

Nor is any of the ‘explanation’ of the supposed mechanics of Shoo!TAG™ offered on the Shoo!TAG™ site under the tab called ‘Science’, actually anything of the sort. You don’t get to call yourself a scientist just because you know words like ‘quantum’ and ‘electromagnetic’. ((It is significant, in my opinion, that since I criticized the Shoo!TAG inventors’ claim to have had their science published in the (non-existant) Quantum Agriculture Journal, they have removed all references and links to the pdf which purportedly originated in that journal. Their allegiance to the dubious ‘Professor William Nelson’ has also evidently waned – he no longer features as their ‘voice of authority’ anywhere on the site.))

Lately I’ve been pretty much resolved to letting Shoo!TAG™ take its place in the Museum of Cow Lore – something for us all to wheel out every now and then as an in-joke. Dumb pieces of pseudoscientific trash like Shoo!TAG™ tend to flourish in the United Flakey States of America, where 45% percent of people believe the Bible is the literal word of God, and some 20% believe in angels. It truly belongs there.

But this week Atlas informed me that Shoo!TAG™ now has an Australian web domain, and I see on it that they have some several dozen Australian suppliers, as well as Australian offices and representation.

They’re on my turf now.

An unbiased poll at Tetherd Cow Ahead finds that Stephen Conroy is officially a dunce!

Good iMorning iCowpokes!

Well, down here in sunny ((That’s sarcasm, in case anyone missed it.)) iMelbourne we have just survived the insanity that is iGrand iFinal iFootball whereat the official name for the new Vegemite product (formerly known as ‘Name Me’) was kicked off. And as promised, the iCow is bringing the new name to you hot off the iPress.

I know what you’re thinking – that image above is a cheeky Photoshopped pisstake of the actual name which I’m going to reveal to you in due course…

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…

…

Was that long enough for the cold reality sink in? Yes dear iFriends, the people at iKraft, demonstrating a dorkiness that transcends anything I thought was even possible, have climbed on the iBandwagon and, in some kind of bizarre and incomprehensible grab for what we can only assume to be their concept of coolness, named their product iSnack 2.0. It’s worse than I could possibly have imagined. And I can imagine pretty bad possibilities.

How many kinds of wrong can be encapsulated here? The whole ‘i’ phenomenon has become so hackneyed and feeble that it’s really only Apple that can carry it off in any way, and that’s solely because it’s their heritage. Aside from anything, the ‘i’ was originally intended to designate ‘internet’ and if there’s one thing that Kraft and Vegemite has demonstrated extremely clearly, it’s their complete lack of intertubes acumen. Further to this, as if to underline their credentials as people who have totally missed the boat, they’ve appended the meaningless (but OH so hip…) ‘2.0’ to the name – if anything it would be Vegemite 2.0, not iSnack 2.0, which by any proper reckoning has just come out of beta and is in v.1.0.

What were they thinking?