My favorite brand of snake oil is ...
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My favorite brand of snake oil is open source (Score:5, Insightful)
My favorite brand of snake oil is open source software.
"Many eyes make all bugs shallow."
"Just open up your proprietary closed source code and developers will pop out of thin air to carry on development and fix all the bugs."
"Open source means anyone can audit the source code and prove that the application is secure, bug free, etc."
"Launch an OSS project and a bunch of people will show up to help you build it."
There are some notable exceptions, the Linux kernel being one of them, but OSS works best when a developer is scratching their own itch.
Ok... see.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You eat this little cracker and drink this wine and zombie jebus will "save" you if you're super duper sorry.
No we're not insane! No! Really!
Stop looking at us like that!
Antivirus products? (Score:4, Insightful)
My vote for snake oil are a lot of AV products out there.
1: They can't pick up 0-days, and virtually everything out there is a zero day. My ad-blocking software is far more useful.
2: It doesn't really help clean much if infected. The days of clicking on a utility, having a beer, and coming back to a de-loused system are far gone. Generally if you find some oddball application trying to toss a browser extension, it is time to grab media, save off files and reinstall.
3: Other than Windows, it is pointless. I worked at a place using POWER7 machines, and McAfee had to be on all LPARs due to contract stipulations. Still no single detections.
4: A scanner on a compromised box's disk drives is probably the only use an AV program has, or perhaps a SAN that can snapshot LUNs, search for malware, then freeze/roll back the machine.
Secret Option F (Score:4, Insightful)
Austrian Economics
Re:"Cleansing" diets (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a need to clean it, just not with any ridiculous methods. You clean it by having adequate fibre in your diet.
economics. (Score:2, Insightful)
Since Reagan, "free" market theory has been treated almost exactly like a religion.
And I want to shout, "But these are all just assumptions!" just as much as I did when sitting through chapel every Sunday. But I can't, because the whole point in faith is blind acceptance.
(And no, deer knee-jerker, this isn't a pro-Soviet post. Exactly the same problem occurred there.)
Please, please, please .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fiat currency (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fiat currency (Score:5, Insightful)
"If Congress can apply money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may establish teachers in every State, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public Treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads. In short, every thing, from the highest object of State legislation, down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare." -James Madison
"The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."-James Madison
"With respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."-James Madison
Re:Placebin (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, there are numerous scientific studies that prove that a placebos improve medical outcomes (compared with not administering any drug).
Here are some cool facts* about the effectiveness of placebos: http://listverse.com/2013/02/16/10-crazy-facts-about-the-placebo-effect/ [listverse.com]
This is why you can actually say [homeopathy/snake oil/Magnet Therapy] etc. all are "scientifically proven to improve your outcomes" and be telling the truth.
The real question is if [homeopathy/snake oil/Magnet Therapy] is any "more effective than a similarly administered placebo".
Re:Fiat currency (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile: The entire world stands and watches in awe as you deny your citizens basic rights like health and then fight over unnecessary ones like being able to kill each other on sight.
I actually agree with the comment the above poster is making, however if you need to actually make these arguments you have lost the battle already I fear.
Greatest Slashdot Poll Ever? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is truly the perfect flamebait.
We've got libertarians claiming it's fiat currency.
We've got non-libertarians claiming it's Austrian economics.
We've got atheists claiming it's religion.
We've got conservatives claiming it's global warming.
We've got closet Nazis claiming it's the Holocaust.
We've got Republicans claiming it's Obamacare.
We've got trolls claiming it's open source software (the perfect choice to piss off Slashot!).
Now we just need a couple people to insist that it's gun control and affirmative action, and the shit storm will be perfect!
Re:Poor Steve Jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
Steve would have made a great snake oil salesman himself. Marketing genius.