Skeptic's Bar (No crappy, no party !)

[Max]

Hi all,
my idea is posting here some "useful" links and stuff related to nonsenses and pseudoscientific concepts and theories that are flying around the universe of LRL... and not only, and that are often used to legittimate fake claims about LRLs devices.

Skeptic's Bar motto would be "No crappy, no party !"

To join the club here you need just few requisites :
- be a proud owner of a pseudoscientific LRL
- or just be a skeptic about LRL concepts
- make yours the bar's motto

Anyone else please keep out.

I'm looking around to find the testimonial...

Hard work... but anyway.

This is just a test... we are working for you !



Kind regards and stay tuned,
Max

[Max]

Hi,
this on wikipedia...

that seems going in the right direction about BRASS:

(find full article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing)
History of dowsing

Dowsing has existed in various forms for thousands of years.[3] The original may have been for divination purposes — to divine the will of the gods, to foretell the future and divine guilt in trials. Dowsing as practiced today probably originated in Germany during the 15th century, when it was used to find metals. The technique spread to England with German miners who came to England to work in the coal mines. During the Middle Ages dowsing was associated with the Devil. In 1659 dowsing was declared Satanic by the Jesuit Gaspar Schott.[citation needed] In 1701 the Inquisition stopped using the dowsing rod in trials. In the late 1960s during the Vietnam War, U.S. Marines may have used dowsing to attempt to locate weapons and tunnels.[4] An extensive book on the history of dowsing was published by Christopher Bird in 1979 under the title of The Divining Hand.

Possible explanations

Skeptics of dowsing and many of dowsing's supporters believe that dowsing apparatus have no special powers, but merely amplify small imperceptible movements of the hands arising from the expectations of the dowser.[5] This psychological phenomenon is termed the ideomotor effect. Some supporters agree with this explanation, but maintain that the dowser has a subliminal sensitivity to the environment, perhaps via electroception, magnetoception, or telluric currents.[5] These explanations give rise to the classification of dowsing as pseudoscience. Other dowsers[5] cannot explain the source of their powers apart from the paranormal, such as paranormal auras, or as a matter of faith.



Dowsing equipment

Many dowsers use simple brass rods bent in an "L" shape known as divining rods; others use wooden Y-rods and/or even bent wire coat hangers. According to some dowsers who use divining rods, brass allows the rod to attune to magnetic fields emanated by the target without the earth's EM field interfering, as would be the case with a metal such as steel.[citation needed] The end of the rod to be held by the dowser is often encased in a material that provides a constant electrical impedance, to prevent the dowser's own conductivity from interfering with the dowsing process.

---

Damn Brass! Seems the only thing that work in dowsing activities.

So what's e.g. Mineoro's choice for the sensor "front antenna" ??? ASK YOURSELF.

But most important... who is the man with the wood in the hands ??????
And why he don't use brass instead ???

Kind regards,
Max

[Max]

Just a case ???

I think not. Was intentional.

Why don't e.g. inox steel or copper ???

"According to Karl Spiesberger in his book "Reveal the Power of the Pendulum", Straniak believed that brass was the most suitable material for all kinds of dowsing and that he discovered that even fruits such as apples, oranges, pears and lemons demonstrate a polarity at each end."



In the book Reveal the Power of the Pendulum, Karl Spiesberger, a german occultist, explains the secrets the brass as sensitive metal to realize a pendulum for remote dowsing.

Mineoro's unit has two parts (the long rod and back plate) made of brass.

The back part of ahead "antenna" rod has the tipical shape of a dowsing pendulum, according Spiesberger, even if real function is still unknown there, and made of brass.

What a concidence !

Kind regards,
Max

PS:

(Ludwig Straniak (born 1879-1951), was a German mystisist, Germanic revivalist and most notably a Pendulum dowser. He was an Architect and Astrologer and was used by the German military in the Third Reich, not nessesarily willingly

Karl Spiesberger (Spießberger), also formerly known as Frater Eratus or Fra Eratus (his mystico-magical name whilst a member of and involvement with the Fraternitas Saturni ('Brotherhood of Saturn')), is a German mysticist, occultist and Germanic revivalist. He is most well known for his revivalism and usage of the Sidereal Pendulum for divination and dowsing and Armanen Runes.
)

[Max]

(read the full article here:
http://skepdic.com/quadro.html
)

"
Quadro QRS 250G "Detector"

"If it works, I think it could be a real good tool and deterrent in our school system," said one high-school principal. Gastonia Gazette, April 6, 1995

The Quadro QRS 250G (the Quadro Tracker) is a plastic box with an antenna which was sold by Quadro Corp of Harleyville, South Carolina, as a detector of just about anything: drugs, weapons, golf balls, even lost coon dogs. Wade Quattlebaum's invention sold for about $1,000 each. Some schools and government agencies spent as much as $8,000 for the device which turns out to be good only at detecting suckers who can be easily parted with other people's money (i.e., our taxpayer dollars). Sandia Labs of Albuquerque, New Mexico, took one apart and discovered that there is nothing inside. It probably costs about $2 to make. For their trouble, Sandia labs was threatened with a lawsuit by Quadro. Quadro did not threaten to sue the FBI, however, when its tests determined that the Quadro Tracker was incapable of detecting anything. According to the FBI, the device was little more than a piece of plastic. Quadro may have had nothing in their Tracker but they certainly had chutzpah in their marketing: the FBI was one of their target markets.
On January 19, 1996, the FBI Economic Crimes unit seized the merchandise and records of the Quadro Corporation and arrested its officers. In April, 1996, a federal judge issued a permanent injunction against Quadro Corp, which was convicted of engaging in a mail and wire scheme to defraud customers, under statutes 18 U.S.C. 1341 and 1343. In court it was pointed out that the Quadro Detector had been carefully examined and that no "inductors, conductors, or oscillators" were found, though Quadro advertised those as the working parts of its "secret technology." Quadro claimed that theirs were not "ordinary" inductors, conductors, or oscillators. Theirs are of an advanced sort not yet known to "regular science."
The FBI sent out a bulletin to their branches warning that "A device marketed to law enforcement agencies nationwide, the Quadro Tracker...is a fraud. All agencies should immediately cease using the device...." Even so, several law enforcement officers, as well as several school principals, still swear by their QRS 250G Detectors.
How could such smart people be so easily deceived? Perhaps it was the technical sounding literature sent out by Quadro Corp. Quadro claimed that the device uses "tuned frequency chips" to hone in on its target:

The frequency chip is oscillated by static electricity produced by the body [of the user] inhaling and exhaling gases into and out of the lung cavity. This static electricity is propagated on the surface of the body to the tracker which utilizes the charge to oscillate the chip....[A]ll matter contains exact molecular frequencies. When a magnetic field is created by a contained electrically charged body moving through space at a perpendicular angle moving to its direction, and that field is brought into alignment with another exact field, resonating at the identical frequency modulation, then both objects attract, just as two bodies are attracted toward each other in a gravitational field.
"
...

ETC ETC

NO COMMENT


Kind regards,
Max

[Max]

http://www.psi-tronics.com/

[Max]

seems good as testimonial !

[Max]

Hi all,
have you looked at rangertell... ehm... too StarTrek similarities...
even if this seems my VCR remote control on a funny pistol...

And this could find gold ???

Yes like with the same probability a comet strikes the same gold !

Kind regards,
Max

PS: crappy apart... note the coincidences again ! Too funny!

[Max]

From wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing_rods)

A divining rod (also known as dowsing rod) is an apparatus used in dowsing. There are many types of divining rods:

• two brass"L" shaped wire rods (commonly made of brazing or welding rod, but glass or plastic also work) that are to be held one in each hand. When something is found they cross over one another making an "X" over the found object. Brass is used to prevent interference due to the Earth's magnetic field.

...

DAMN BRASS AGAIN ! So what's the story with brass ???

The interference due to the Earth's magnetic field ??? Eh ???

Kind regards,
Max

[Max]

What's really puzzling me is that almost every LRL manifacturer use it !

[Max]

Another... NO ELECTRONICS ! BUT STILL BRASS!

(http://www.get-intuit.com/pendulums_...l#brass%20rods)

The brass madness !

[Max]

and another

Tons of brass !

http://www.diviningmind.com/volvoline.html

[Max]

There are of copper too... but brass is always present !

http://www.adermark.com/store/produc...categoryid=174

[Max]

"
How To Find Water With Rods:
Take two brass rods 3 feet long. The diameter may be as small as a 12 gauge wire or about the same diameter wire as a stiff clothes hanger all the way up to a 1/4 inch diameter rod. Bend the last four inches on one side of each rod at a 90 degree angle so the rod forms an "L." In each hand, old the short leg of each rod, keeping this part of the rod as vertical as possible with the long part of the rod on the top of the hand. If you are doing this correctly the long end of the rod should be running parallel with flat ground.
Now, go outside. Using your mind to form a picture of what you are seeking, slowly walk back and forth over the known object and observe the rods crossing and uncrossing. Outside your house there should be several things you can concentrate on - your water line, sewer line, natural gas line or underground electrical line. When you feel comfortable with this, try going out into an open area where you don't know where things are and try finding veins of water. I can only expect you will be as amazed as I was with this most interesting wonder. "

(http://waltonfeed.com/old/dowse.html)

NO COMMENT

[Max]

Look here:

http://www.treasure-signs.com/lrl.html

Another ...endless series of nonsense all made of brass!

[Max]

Another funny story...
"
"I have a partner, we bought LRL 2 unit from Fitzgerald, the treasure
navigator which is his top of the line LRL product. but it doesn't work well, it ignores the real target and located some rings near and far from target, some sites it pinpoint signal lines which really doesn't have any treasure buried on that place. When we drill the place the Navigator point is nothing, its handheld locator the PPL is also same."

"I am using a single handh
eld lrl from Rangertell, its a frequency resonance machine, it used a gold sample everytime on locating site, i faced many challenge from other detectorist in my place they only using dowsing rods. we hide gold sample from a distance and using their dowsing rod, they couldnt able to locate. when they hide the gold sample my locator located it easily. but when i am locating the true and real target. my locator pick up some signals, the exact frequency that my target was supposed to be, 1 box gold, 1 box of silver bars and 1 box of jewels, with 1 meter apart buried in 1 hole. after the first spot was located i drill using pipes with water and signal gone, then i locate again then about 150 meters plus i located again a new signal , i repeat the drilling process and signal was gone again, then i stop locating on that place. this is the biggest problem now, i couldnt locate the real target."
"

from: http://www.lrlman.com/NewsLetter/vie...b9766f80f2c528



"..then i locate again then about 150 meters plus i located again a new signal , i repeat the drilling process and signal was gone again, then i stop locating on that place..."


" ...i couldnt locate the real target"

OH MAN ! I WOULDN'T NEVER SAID SUCH A THING!

Kind regards,
Max

[Max]

After seen all this brass he agreed to the MOTTO !

and joined the club !

and bought an LRL from SA !?

[Max]

[Max]

of course he had some dubts about LRLs really work...
but anyway, this is the Skeptic's Bar...

[Max]

8:40 PM 4/22/1996
Federal judge bars sale of product, labels it a fraud


BEAUMONT (AP) -- A federal judge on Monday permanently barred a South Carolina company from making or selling the Quadro Tracker, a device supposedly able to detect a slew of items, from illicit drugs to golf balls.
U.S. District Judge Thad Heartfield, citing fear that the device could lead to civil rights violations and calling it a fraud, extended a temporary order he issued against Quadro Corp. of Harleyville, S.C., in February.
Quadro has sold about 1,000 trackers to school districts and law enforcement agencies nationwide at prices up to $8,000. Company officials touted the plastic, nonelectronic device with aradio antenna as a detector of weapons, explosives and narcotics.
But the FBI, after examining it at laboratories in Quantico, Va., and New Mexico, concluded that the tracker was nothing more than an empty plastic box.
Heartfield, who heard a week of evidence regarding the tracker earlier this month, agreed, finding that "the defendants engaged in a scheme to defraud." He ordered Quadro not to manufacture or sell any of its devices.
"None of the operational tests conducted by witnesses showed that Quadro's devices could locate objects except by chance,"the judge wrote. "Like the dowser with a divining rod, the user of a Quadro Tracker must ultimately rely upon, not science, but the belief that it works.
"The court finds that defendants do not know of any scientific principles which could make the devices operate."
Among the school districts that purchased the trackers were the Houston, Spring and New Caney public schools. Some who used it contend that it appeared to work, even though they couldn't explain it.
The Houston Independent School District bought two Quadro Trackers at about $900 apiece. But an official said after the controversy broke that the district was returning them to the manufacturer as part of a money-back guarantee.
New Caney ISD police chief Dennis Doerge said the district returned its Quadro Tracker recently for a refund, though he declined to say why. Doerge, who had once praised the device as a deterrent to mischief, said that his superintendent had asked him not to comment further.
Heartfield on Monday also expressed concern that continued use of the devices could lead to violations of the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The possible civil rights threat was a key argument brought by federal prosecutors.
"If a police officer attempts to use the Quadro Tracker properly, the device's antenna could swing towards a person, automobile, container, house, etc. by the forces of gravity, inertia or another outside agency," the judge said.
"The device would, in effect, improperly implicate the person or object and provide the officer with probable cause to search."
U.S. Attorney Mike Bradford said his office will now concentrate on an ongoing criminal fraud investigation against Quadro officials, and he hinted that action in the case could be announced "in the near future."
Robert Lyles, the Charleston, S.C., attorney representing Quadro, said he was disappointed by the ruling.
"The fight has been a very difficult one for Quadro," Lyles said. "They were essentially shut down in January. They have been expending their time ... fighting this thing. Now they've got to sit down and decide what they can do."
Lyles said an appeal to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was likely, adding that Quadro continues to maintain the effectiveness of its devices.
While the company was under FBI investigation, Quadro invited authorities to study its devices and offered a money-back guarantee to any displeased customers, Lyles said.
Quadro Corp. officials told prospective customers that the device has conductors, inductors and oscillators in it and is powered from static electricity generated when the operator walks around holding it. According to marketing literature, the tracker's user simply inserts a "locator card" in the device to find drugs, weapons and even specific people. During this month's hearing, government experts in physics testified that there was no scientific basis to believe the tracker works.

(http://www.ih2000.net/ira/quad0422.htm)

[Max]

Quadro Crime Tracker

In 1993, The Quadro Corporation, based in Harleyville, South Carolina, started marketing theQuadro Tracker, a high-tech device which could (depending on which model was bought), find lost golf balls, illegal narcotics, weapons and explosives, or missing persons.

To use the machine, you fed in a “carbocrystalized signature card” which had been tuned to the “identical frequency modulation” as the object you were searching for. The Quadro Corporation explains the theory behind the devices:

[A]ll matter contains exact molecular frequencies. When a magnetic field is created by a contained electrically charged body moving through space at a perpendicular angle moving to its direction, and that field is brought into alignment with another exact field, resonating at the identical frequency modulation, then both objects attract, just as two bodies are attracted toward each other in a gravitational field.

The Quadro QRS 250G, consisted of an empty plastic box, an antenna, and a place to put the “signature cards.” James Randi describes how these cards were prepared:

To prepare a “carbocrystalized signature card” tuned to cocaine, the white-gloved [Quadro founder Wade] Quattlebaum took a Polaroid photo of the substance. That photo was then taken to what appeared, to the uninitiated person, to be a Canon copier. In actuality, explained Quattlebaum, this was an “electromagnetic frequency transfer unit.” Science marches on. An enlarged photocopy of the Polaroid photo was made, which “extracted the molecular structure and its subsequent frequency emission from the photo.” That piece of paper was then cut into tiny squares, one of which was inserted into the plastic “signature card” chip. Et le voila!

Quadro Corp. sold these things to, among others, law enforcement agencies and school districts, for as much as (U.S.) $8,000.
They were assisted by an assistant U.S. Attorney from Houston who bought into the scheme, paid $13,600 for distribution rights in four states, and then used his office to promote the devices. He’s the only one to have gotten nailed for the scam so far (he resigned and paid a $5,000 fine); although the company was shut down by court injunction in 1996, the three Quadro employees charged with mail fraud were acquitted by a jury in early 1997.
The prosecutor in that case, baffled to be on the losing side, tried to explain: “We felt that we proved that this was a worthless device,” he said, but “in fraud you have to prove intent, and perhaps they did not see clear intent to defraud.”
It is unknown how many search warrants were issued or gym lockers searched based on findings of the Quadro Tracker.


(http://sniggle.net/quadro.php)

///

FIND "missing persons" ???

What's interesting is that “carbocrystalized signature card” which had been tuned to the “identical frequency modulation” obtained from "a Polaroid photo of the substance"

What's really puzzle me is that even scientific institutions belived that BS at first.

"The Quadro Corporation explains the theory behind the devices:" bla bla bla like all the others !? like pseudoscientific argumentations maybe...

The Quadro's MFD theory is pretty funny :

"[A]ll matter contains exact molecular frequencies. When a magnetic field is created by a contained electrically charged body moving through space at a perpendicular angle moving to its direction, and that field is brought into alignment with another exact field, resonating at the identical frequency modulation, then both objects attract, just as two bodies are attracted toward each other in a gravitational field. "

NO COMMENTS AGAIN. ANY TEENAGER WITH A BOOK OF PHYSICS CAN Pi$$ OFF ALL THESE BS.

How law enforcement agencies in the US belived all that crappy theory ?

” That piece of paper was then cut into tiny squares, one of which was inserted into the plastic “signature card” chip. Et le voila !"

Oh yeah... so put that I want to find ELVIS... I have just to prepare that Polaroid photo and start walking ???

Kind regards,
Max

[Elie]

Originally Posted by Max

Quadro has sold about 1,000 trackers to school districts and law enforcement agencies nationwide at prices up to $8,000.

I have been sitting here, trying to find strong enough words to convey how I feel about the educators and police who buy these things. There are none.

[Max]

Originally Posted by Elie

I have been sitting here, trying to find strong enough words to convey how I feel about the educators and police who buy these things. There are none.

Hi Elie,
totally agree. I don't know why these things happen.
I think that advertise is the only big discovery some of these "manifacturers" made in their entire life.

They are really good on pushing their pruducts.
It's the only thing I could think to explain why they actually sell that stuff.

Kind regards,
Max

[Max]

"
Quadro Tracker worthless, wastes taxpayer money

Would you ever invest in a device that's supposed to find people buried under wreckage by detecting their psychic emanations? Would you ever invest in a company that you knew absolutely nothing about, and even the name was a secret? If you answered "no" to either of these questions, consider yourself a whole lot more intelligent than a whole lot of other people.

Quadro QRS 250G (the Quadro Tracker) is one of the greatest products ever marketed. It's a plastic box with an antenna on one end that, and I'm not joking or embellishing at all, detects people by a "...frequency chip [that] is oscillated by static electricity produced by the body [of the captive] inhaling and exhaling gases into and out of the lung cavity." Apparently, the technology inside is of a "secret type" not yet "known to modern science." This device, marketed by the Quadro Corporation of Harleyville, South Carolina, was supposed to not only detect people buried by wreckage after an earthquake or terrorist attack, but could be used for just about anything, including (once again, as much as I wish I was, I am not joking) detecting drugs in schools and police units.

Why am I, you ask, so upset about the Quadro tracker? Because when the FBI investigated the device in 1996, they determined that it's an empty plastic box that costs about $2 to make, assemble, and package. Well, I suppose that's nothing to be upset about, unless you're aware that they sold dozens of the Trackers for as much as $8,000.

What's really shocking is who they sold it to. Not your average chump fresh off the turnip truck, but to government agencies, high schools, and police departments. If you've still not caught on, re-read that to say "thousands of the tax dollars you worked so hard to give to the government have been spent on a worthless bit of pseudo-technology."

What's scary is that it was a fairly learned group of people that bought into this thing. Anyone who's been past a freshman chemistry class should know that the tracker's various claims about "static electricity," "molecular vibrations," and so on are completely bogus. And anyone who's been through grade school should know that if you're going to spend $8,000 on a device, you should at least get some idea of how it works. An enormous waste of money and time, money and time that you and I as taxpayers pay for, would have been avoided had people known just a tiny bit more about critical reasoning or, at the very least, been a little more cynical.

...
"

full article at: http://media.www.thetriangle.org/med...y-917761.shtml

It's bocoming a school case of how a fraud can involve higher level security of a country.

Kind regards,
Max

[Max]

"

Box of dreams - use of the Quadro Tracker which is supposed to locate anything, for the fight against illegal drugs

How a too-good-to-be-true tool fooled drug warriors.
Wade Quattlebaum had a dream, and he wanted to tell the world. Even better - and all the more American - he wanted to sell the world. He had built a better mousetrap - better than a better mousetrap, really. Quattlebaum went beyond doing something better to doing something that couldn't be done at all without his magic widget. 'He had designed a box that could find things - somehow. He wouldn't tell you, me, or anybody, not even the U.S. Patent Office, exactly how.
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It looked like just a plastic cellular phone, about 4 inches long, with a chrome antenna loosely attached. If you walked around, looking for something, the antenna was supposed to pivot around and point in the direction of what you were looking for. It was sold as a golf ball finder to begin with. But then Quattlebaum discovered further benefits and further possibilities for his gadget.
With the insertion of the right preprogrammed "frequency chip," Quattlebaum claimed, the device could find most anything - drags, guns, even missing persons. The law enforcement benefits seemed obvious - not just to him, but to cops, school board officials, even U.S. attorneys around the country.
He called his little magic box the Quadro Tracker, and it was a small-business success story that should make any hometown boy, high school dropout, and ex-car salesman from Harleyville, South Carolina, proud. Quattlebaum claimed sales of at least 1,000 Quadro Trackers, at prices ranging from $400 to $8,000 - the cost rising the more frequency chips you bought. He had distributors across the country helping get his helpful product into the hands of customers. A fine customer base it was, too: mostly local school boards and police departments.

It might have been happily-ever-after time for Wade, too, if it hadn't been for that meddling FBI. Their entrance on the scene as an unexpected spoiler turned the story of Quattlebaum and his amazing Quadro Tracker into even more of an archetypal modern American dream/nightmare - one that casts aspersions on the good sense of those embroiled in the front line of the war on drags.
Quattlebaum doesn't seem to want to tell the world much anymore. The phone just rings and rings, hollowly and eternally, at the headquarters of his besieged company, the Quadro Corporation of Harleyville, South Carolina. Directory assistance in Harleyville has no listing for him. His lawyer won't tell you how to get in touch with him. His vice president, Ray Fisk, doesn't return repeated phone calls.
Surely, Quattlebaum should have expected trouble - selling a device like this to law enforcement officers. He should have known someone might take a jaundiced look, maybe decide it was too good to be true. That's exactly what happened, and that's exactly the argument that Wade's lawyer uses to defend his sincerity.
Tim Kulp, a lawyer out of Charleston, says he knows fraud - the unlovely accusation that Federal District Judge Thad Heartfield of the eastern district of Texas heaped upon the head of Wade and the whole Quadro Corp. with his April injunction against the further sale or promotion of the Quadro Tracker. And, says Kulp, his client is no fraud: "I was in the FBI. I've dealt with these sort of boiler room fraud cases. And I tell you, those sorts don't try to sell things to cops. They sell them to old grandmothers, retired people down in Florida."
Still, facts are facts. And when FBI agent Ron Kelly, stationed in Beaumont, Texas, got savvied by one of his boys on the Jefferson County Narcotics Task Force in nearby Louisiana about this miracle device, which was sweeping the imaginations of various cops and school board officials in 1995, he thought it sounded screwy. Later on, big-shot scientists at the Sandia National Laboratories backed him up, but at first he just decided he wanted to get a look inside the magic box. So he took it to the nearest place that could help: He ran it through the courthouse X-ray machine.
"It was clearly hollow," he recalls with almost a chuckle. "It didn't take a lot of effort on our part to determine it was phony."
At first Kelly thought they might just be dealing with a local bunco artist; soon he realized the Quadro deal was big, bad, and nationwide. The FBI boys in Beaumont brought it to the attention of the U.S. Attorney's Office there, and they told it to the judge: Judge Heartfield, who decided to put the kibosh on it. Heartfield permanently enjoined the Quadro Corp. and its staff from, and pardon the legalese, "using the United States mails or private commercial interstate carriers, or causing others acting on their behalf to use the United States mails or private interstate carriers, to solicit customers or entities, promote, sell, transfer, or demonstrate the Quadro Tracker...and devices of a similar design marketed under a different name." The same went for using telephone or other wire communications to do the same.
That's not the end of Quadro's troubles. On August 21, a federal grand jury in Beaumont indicted Quattlebaum, the company, its officers, and a Quadro distributor in Texas on four counts of mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Each defendant is facing a possible five years in prison and a $250,000 fine per count.

All this Quadro Tracker business sounds too silly to be true, and it sounds worse yet when you read some of the Quadro Corp.'s promotional materials. A brochure selling the device to a school swears: "The tracker will also locate specific drags in solution. This means that even a person who had been using drugs will have traces in their bodily fluids, blood, etc. Thus the Tracker will indicate people who are using drugs, as well as those who are merely carrying it. Therefore extreme caution should be taken if searching a person, or making accusations, as they may, indeed, not be carrying drugs on them!"
Philosophy-of-science mavens may detect a hint of what Karl Popper calls "unfalsifiability" in the above claim - and that means bad science, in Popper's eyes. But people buying this device seem to have more problems with science than merely failing to grasp Popper's philosophy of demarcation.
And that's not all, as they say on TV: "Quadro units have been designed to locate people from a photograph, as well as from a fingerprint. Thus missing prisoners, or escaped prisoners can be located with ease. The machine will identify an individual, no matter what disguise or surgery is undertaken. It has been tested over a distance of 500 miles, and will track, we believe, at any distance."
Well, it's possible, isn't it? It's possible! Isn't anything possible in this topsy-turvy world of ours?

Maybe in the topsy-turvy world of an ultimately futile war against drugs, any old flimsy straw looks like a mighty log with which to build. Certainly, school officials who bought, or thought about buying, Quadro were really convinced it worked. Never mind that the "frequency chips" that had to be loaded in the Quadro (and cost hundreds of dollars extra per chip), which were said to be "oscillated by static electricity produced by the body inhaling and exhaling gases into and out of the lung cavity," were merely small photographic images of the search target, sealed in plastic.
But the Quadro boys were good salesmen. "It was a very exciting demonstration," admits Wolfgang Halbig. "I was excited." Halbig, director of student discipline for Seminole County in Florida, only narrowly averted wasting the school board's money on the device, through magical intervention of a sort.
"We were all sitting in the school board auditorium," Halbig remembers. He had invited Quattlebaum and the former police chief of Harleyville down to demonstrate the tracker after an enticing phone call from a Florida Quadro distributor, who also happened to be the mayor of the small Florida town of Lake Helen in Volusia County.
"They walk in with it in hand. You see the antenna swing. It points to a sign. You move the sign, there's a bullet. They had a gunpowder chip in there. We were finding bullets, we were finding marijuana. I saw the big picture: A device that could serve as a deterrent! Just let kids know we have a tool that can find those substances...." Halbig trails off wistfully. A dream too fine to come true. But Halbig got a hint of how it might have worked.


..."

full article (very long) at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...28/ai_18850960

[Max]

another member joined the bar