Archive for March, 2008
Magnetic fuel saving scams
Too good to be true
You instinctively know what something is too good to be true, don’t you? And things which seem that way almost always turn out to be just that, too good too be true. I am constantly coming across products for sale on the internet which are such obvious bullshit, and yet someone must be buying them.
MagnoFuel
Recently, while researching for my book on bio-fuels, I am coming across loads of magnetic miricles. These things simply attach around your engine’s fuel lines, attached with zip-ties, and enhance the fuel magnetically; reducing pollution, increasing performance, reducing consumption, increasing range.
Sound too good to be true? Well obviously! If these things worked they would be fitted as standard to all new cars, in fact it would be compulsory.
Eco Balls are no better than nothing, they are just another eco-scam.
I have been running a little, admittedly unscientific, experiment; I don’t use any laundry liquid, or other detergent, when washing my clothes and I have not noticed if they come out of the wash any dirtier than if I did use detergent. They don’t come out of the machine smelling of detergent and fabric softener, but they don’t come out smelling dirty either, they just smell of nothing much and appear clean.
(Update: I have now been doing this for a couple of years.)
There are exceptions, heavily soiled clothes do not come up clean, but how much of ones washing is heavily soiled? And I can always use some detergent if I need to, the point it that about 90% of the time I don’t.
San Francisco - March 2008
Started the month on a weekend, went cycling all over the city again with Amanda on the 1st - visited Coit Tower (good free stuff, murals on the ground floor and the obligatory car park on the
top of a hill), up Lombard Street and Haight Street (which I hate). Got visited By Chris and Tara on their way back from New Zealand, which was such fun too.
Bicycle helmets
Recently I rediscovered cycling, I have been off my bike for too long but I am back in the saddle now and trying to do an hour a day on the streets of San Francisco.
The law here in California with regard to cycle helmets is similar to the law elsewhere, if you are a child then you have to wear a helmet but if you are an adult you can choose for yourself. In countries where compulsory helmet wearing for cyclists has been introduced (Australia for example) cycling reduced, people became less likely to use bikes at all.
Why is the BBC iPlayer so crap?
I have been trying a little experiment with the BBC’s iPlayer, the radio player not the TV thing.
I am staying in San Francisco right now and I am missing Annie Nightingale’s two hour weekly slot. It is on air live at a more convenient time here in the US that it is in the UK (because of the time difference), but still I can’t manage to get it together to listen live, but that does not matter as the BBC have Listen Again!
Ecotopia and their Facebook Forest
Ecotopia, not the fine people who cycle across Europe every year but the pedallers of “environmental and ethical shopping” (an oxymoron if ever i heard one), have created the “Facebook Forest”, a place on Facebook where, in return for our joining up and inviting our friends to join up, Ecotopia will plant one tree for every fifty of us who join up.
Ecotopia are one of a large number of companies selling eco-nonsense, blatant eco-cons and fraudulent eco-snakeoil products. While I am sure some of the products Ecotopia sell are great, they also sell EcoBalls, magnetic toilet descallers, magnetic fuel savers, Aqua Balls and Magno Balls; none of these products offer a any proof that they work, indeed i am quite certain that they don’t work, they are a cynical exercise in extracting money from well meaning people. More info on what I think of EcoBalls here and the magnetic products here.
Earthquake Appeal
An Appeal For Your Help
A major earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale, hit in the early hours of Wednesday morning at 12:56am. Epicentre: Barnsley, England. News of the disaster was swiftly distributed to all betting offices by the town’s 35000 racing pigeons, as victims were seen wandering around
aimlessly muttering “What the chuff wer that?” and “Na then, wots guin on?”.
