Autism.   Yep, that’s a new one, as far as i know.   Wifi’s been “linked” to cancer, depression, headaches, tiredness.   Autism has been blamed on vaccines, power lines, cell phones, “chemtrails” and other bull.   But this is the first time that the two have come together.   The article states:

The study, published in ‘Australasian Journal of Clinical Environmental Medicine,’ claims that the radiofrequency waves emitted by Wi-Fi routers isolate and trap metals in brain cells. These metals, according to the study, are the cause of the drastic increase in autism.

Damnit, do I even need to go into all the bull here.   I think that my brain is being effected by all the times I bang my head against the wall after reading this sort of idiocy.  I suppose I’ll have to track down the study and point out all the flaws, aside from the fact that it’s an obvious stretch and doesn’t even make sense.  (How the hell does a low power microwave device trap metals in your brain cells.)

Anyway, it’s Thanksgiving here in the US and I’ve eaten too much turkey.   I’ll have to take this on later.  *Sigh*

This website claims to be working on a fuel-less “gravity powered” aircraft, which it claims will be able to fly indefinitely by exploiting a combination of gliding and buoyant lift, as in an airship. It’s gotten the attention of a few online magazines and blogs: Gizmag, Damn Interesting, Mobil Magazine and others. It seems as if it amounts to a perpetual motion machine, since it claims to be able to fly indefinitely by climbing via buoyancy and descending as a glider. But there are some problems with this idea. Here’s a youtube video explaining the concept.
How it supposedly would work:

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How do you know when your career as a public figure or entertainer has officially ended?   Well if you were on TV in the 1950’s and have not been since, that should be a clue, but in some cases you may not even have gotten that far.   This website is just kinda sad:

Hollywood Is Calling

Not sure what is more sad:  The has-beens or the never-weres.   But I don’t really think I’d get that excited to get a phone call from someone who has had a supporting role in three B-list movies I’ve never heard of, or was the voice of a character on an obscure cartoon in the early 1990’s.    Yes, that’s what the site is:  You can pay $19.95 to get a phone call from a “Celebrity” and no:  it’s not a joke.   Apparently these make a great birthday present, for those who have a kind heart and would like to humor someone who pretends to be famous.

David Hahn became well known for his attempt to build a nuclear reactor in 1994 at the age of 17, after receiving his a merit badge for nuclear energy in the boy scouts. What he ended up building wasn’t really a “reactor” but more of a combination of an beryllium isotopic neutron source and a “breeder blanket” of material which it irradiated. It never achieved a chain reaction, but it did cause a lot of concern and force officials to step in and clean up his backyard shed. He created this from a combination of the tiny americium-241 sources in smoke detectors, radium paint from old clocks, thorium from lantern mantles and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Hahn slipped into obscurity after the radioactive material was confiscated and he went off to join the US Navy. He was assigned to a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but just as an ordinary seaman, not in any way involving the reactor. Eventually he left the service, and that was basically that for Hahn…

Well, until recently. Hahn was arrested back in August when a maintenance person saw him stealing a smoke detector from his apartment complex. Police charged him with larceny after they found an additional sixteen smoke detectors in his apartment. He was held on $5000 bail and plead guilty, which got him a sentence of 90 days in prison.

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Wikipedia gets a lot of criticism based on the fact that it’s open-source and just about anyone can edit it. That’s definitely something that is worth considering whenever using it, but I’ve found it is surprisingly good, considering this. Inaccurate content exists, but it’s fairly rare. A few articles are poorly written, but generally it’s pretty decent. Most articles have citations, which is probably the best way of assuring you can track down the validity of the information.

That having been said, I would never cite it as a source for any sort of scholarly research or any academic paper or serious news article. But there’s one thing that I love about Wikipedia, aside from the fact that it’s free: It has *EVERYTHING* in it. When you want concise information on a topic, there’s no other place I can think of to find it right away. The only alternative might be to start searching the web. You could also turn to a traditional encyclopedia, but aside from being updated as frequently they might not have quite as many topic. Here’s just a few:

The Holy Roman Empire
Ren and Stimpy
GNU Project
“Paul is Dead”
Project Jennifer

The biggest issue with Wikipedia is generally baring in mind that it is user-written, so if you are serious about the information being 100% accurate, you had best track down the sources or get some kind of independent confirmation. And above all else, be skeptical, especially with articles on topics that are controversial or prone to strange theories or where someone might have an interest in misleading. But where else can you get info on Ren and Stimpy and The Holy Roman Empire?

There are a lot of scams and snakeoil products being pushed these days, and the article which was posted the other day on the Wired site made me think. It’s occurred to me that while there are plenty of products that make crazy claims and then just plain don’t work, it takes a special kind of shamelessness and treachery to sell a product which claims to do something and is just “empty.” By “empty” I mean there’s nothing in it or it’s not even designed to do anything. It’s simply a brick with a label on it or a bottle of water or some other common object which is stamped “MAGIC BUY THIS.”

“Natural” products or “Organic” may be a ripoff, but at least it’s got something in it. An herbal supplement may not really work as advertised, but at least it does have herbs in it and maybe possibly the maker might even believe their product works (but I’d doubt that most of the time). But when they blatantly sell you a pill that’s just empty, that takes it to the next level. If you’re going to sell a quack product, at least try to put some lights and knobs on it! These products seem like an insult to anyone’s intelligence but they sell and they make money.

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Can’t say I really disagree with the items on this list from Wired. It contains their top ten items for scams, unfounded promises, ridiculous claims and general snake-oil sales. However, while all of the products are definitely snake oil, I think there are some which are absent from the list. What about the Sniffex? Surely that idiotic scam belongs in the top ten. However, it does have a few “devices” which have shown up here before, including electromagnetic defense “spray” and everyone’s favorite: The unmoving perpetually disappointing Orbo.

Of course, the fact that there are dowsing rods on the page has lead to a lot of comments about how the post is “naive” or that they should not talk about what they don’t understand. Yes, many people will make such claims with something as old and common as dowsing, but will they prove it? Well, needless to say a certain Mr. Randi’s name came up and the dowsers didn’t take that too well. You can’t change everyone’s mind. But at least the folks at Wired seem to know what’s up.

“Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong” ~Carl Sagan.

I don’t know the source of this quote but it comes to mind every time I hear someone argue something based on the “Well it was believed by…” Often this comes up in religion or creationism such as “Well, Newton believed in god and was very religious.” Alternatively, Einstein or some other scientist is quoted as furthering creationism or homeopathy or some other idea. But certainly this does not prove anything. No matter what someone’s credentials or accomplishments or background it’s always important to realize that they could be dead wrong, and that the message is more important than the messenger. The message needs to be evaluated regardless of the messenger and looked at in the context of the whole of science and not one person, no matter how well accomplished they may be.

Here are some examples that came to mind…

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The term “Audiophile” literally means “lover of sound” and is generally defined as one who loves music and high quality reproduction of recorded music. But in recent times, it’s come to mean the fringe group of audio equipment lover who are obsessed with adding every expensive, techno-sounding or ridiculous product to their stack of stereo equipment. It is a pursuit which is generally best suited to those with very very deep pockets and only a partial understanding of acoustics and science in general.

When criticized the general response is that “You don’t appreciate high quality sound” or don’t “understand” it. Well, I for one, happen to love some good music and I fully appreciate the importance of good audio equipment. Obviously cheap, crappy, low-quality sound systems are not going to sound very good. Low-quality amplifiers and players can add noise or distortion or just not reproduce the sound accurately. Good speakers are important, especially when you plan on cranking it up while maintaining good continuous bandwidth that doesn’t get “thuddy” or distorted. And well placed speakers and heavy speaker cabinates can make a huge difference if reverberation and “bass buzz” becomes an issue. Cables can be important too. While it’s not nearly as much of an issue with digital cables, having thin, unshielded analog audio interlinks can definitely effect your sound.

But… lets not get ridiculous. There are limits to human hearing, to the bandwidth of air as an acoustic medium and to the laws of physics. And many audiophile produces take the issue of “high quality” to the point of being ridiculous. Having speaker cables which are made of oxygen-free silver, triple shielded and wrapped in several inches of Teflon, copper foil and other shielding might make a difference if you’re using them for a microwave interferometer, but for a stereo system, not so much. And some products don’t even make sense or have any theoretical merit.

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There have been a lot of movies made over the years. Literally tens of thousands of feature length films were created during the twentieth century, so when one of them is called “The Worst Film Ever” by numerous authorities and critics, you know you’ve got something special; something very very bad. That’s the case with the movie Plan 9 From Outer Space. Released in 1959, the movie is the most well known (and possibly worst) product of director Edward Wood. Wood himself would later be cited as the worst director ever.

The 1950’s were known for extremely cheesey sci-fi films. Special effects were quite bad, budgets were often low and plots were rather cliché and shallow. But just the same, one has to give some credit to the directors who were working with very few resources and inventing the genre as they went along. Of course… not all deserve such credit. Ed Wood did legitimately have a love for movies and big dreams of becoming something in the industry and creating epic, inspiring stories. He poured all his passion into this movie, hoping to make his masterpiece and failing just so badly.

I generally like sci films, and even the B-list ones can be okay, but this just butchers the very concept.

The movie has become known as the worst film of all time because… well… it’s just so very very bad. It tries to have memorable and dramatic lines and fails. The acting is so very very bad. The script makes no sense and is overdone. This is not one of those movies that you can watch as a cheesy, shallow, but entertaining pop-culture piece. It’s just bad bad bad. It’s not even really “so bad it’s good in a funny way.” Here are a few clips put together in a tolerably-short video which illustrates it pretty well.

If you want to see the whole movie, you can do so here, via Google Video.
Worth checking out and skipping through, but I doubt anyone will be watching it beginning to end with a big bowl of popcorn.