cocker
Member
- Messages
- 864
- Location
- lincs , England
This time next year you could be a millionaire .
Bottled spring water .
- Thread starter Blobber
- Start date
Bottled spring water .
Guineafowl
Member
- Messages
- 1,275
- Location
- Nairn
He was definitely local, but this wasn’t water table - it was an aquifer 30m down. It does sound a bit far-fetched.
brightspark
Member
- Messages
- 41,226
- Location
- yarm stockton on tees
1st time i saw it was 50 years ago . a mate with his jcb digging across a school yard .he was told no cables or p[pes where digging .got the rods out and and went over the rods crossed but was asured nothing there 
dug along and ripped up 2 armoured cables that fed a portacabin 20 yards away 
i had to put new pieces in using scotchcast joints
dug along and ripped up 2 armoured cables that fed a portacabin 20 yards away i had to put new pieces in using scotchcast jointsThat's great except under controlled scientific conditions it's never been proven, funny how as soon as it's a controlled environment no one can do it.
Even myth busters covered it on more than one occasion and declared it no more accurate than random chance.
To be compliant with todays' regulations you also need two of these.Well I think it definitely works, tested on a few known areas where there are water pipes, I also got Mrs Blobber to do it and she doesn't know where the pipes are and it worked! had a dig around the wet patch and even though I was getting a signal there didn't seem to be anything there so none the wiserI will try and get some videos
I did add a couple of tubes to the rods though as suggested in a previous post
View attachment 486938
Morris
Member
- Messages
- 1,766
- Location
- Northamptonshire.
Local has nothing to do with my reply so no, I didn't note it.
Define "local" in relation to ley lines. At what point does a ley line become non local?
All of which ignores the elephant in the room, it was/is a load of mumbo-jumbo plucked out of thin air by a man with no formal qualifications in any science subject. From the 60's on further mumbo-jumbo has been added by new age nutters including the whole alien pathways rubbish.
I have looked up "local ley lines" out of interest, the first one I got was Pershore to Winchcombe. The sites on it are dated at 681ad, 11th century, iron age, 17th century, 12th century and 798ad. Those are the websites dates not mine. There is no connection other than a vague line they are on.
cheb
Member
- Messages
- 3,714
- Location
- Outer Hebrides
That proves that Ley Lines are a link from the ancient world and all it's wisdom to the current day. Such powers and forces are as old as the universe.
Anyone else keep their razor blades sharp by storing them under a pyramid?
Guineafowl
Member
- Messages
- 1,275
- Location
- Nairn
Zanex (gold miner) DID employ Uri Geller for no good reason - his only superpower being unlimited self-confidence.
pedrobedro
Man at Matalan
- Messages
- 13,094
- Location
- CX near Chesterfield
Morris
Member
- Messages
- 1,766
- Location
- Northamptonshire.
No- not having that. Bullshipping is a superpower as well.
Guineafowl
Member
- Messages
- 1,275
- Location
- Nairn
Linked phenomena…
Guineafowl
Member
- Messages
- 1,275
- Location
- Nairn
Call me a curmudgeonly old sceptic, but was there not a clue there?
Correct, Ley Lines are equal nonsense. It's simple statistics. There is a concentration of human history in a country. You draw a line on a map and it is a calculable probability that the line will intersect a number of such sites of human interest. You look for causality and you'll find it when it's not there evidentially - confirmation bias. Also, why the fuss about lining things up anyway? Prehistory and the Mediaeval mind were mainly concerned with local phenomena, not with top-down cartographies that prioritise an (unobservable) arbitrary straight line. You will find the same result generating lines from anything, from Little Chefs to drainage substations.
You dig a load of wells following a stick, you remember the ones that had water in. There is zero evidence for dowsing, and an enormous pile of rigorous tests that have shown any effect to be no greater than random chance. A previous poster has it right - the divining is not the rods but the person. However, not from any mysterious mystical ability that has somehow been completely overlooked by science, but because they have a set of experiences that allows them to have a (conscious or subconscious) appreciation of what they're looking for. Someone with a business in finding water will know where water is likely to be found. They may say it's the rods, but it's their intuition from similar situations. The rods move because of the ideomotor effect. In much of the world the water table level is accessible (in Cornwall it's unavoidable at the moment), so you'll end up with a useful well pretty much wherever you dig. An oil man will look at spreading lines of magnetic reversal because we have proper evidence of the type of geology and strata where their substance of interest is likely to be found. Even if they were dowsing, would they start in a space station so they can decide where on the globe to begin looking?
I could toss a coin a hundred times and get a hundred heads. That's not magic, just that random chance results tends to cluster, and even out over numerous repetitions.
A funny illustration of this is Tyler Vigen's website 'Spurious Correlations'. He uses publicly available data sets to generate graphs of superficially similar shapes that actually have no relation. The example attached purportedly shows a relationship between 'Google searches for cat memes' and 'Automotive recalls for issues with the air bags'. He even gets generative AI to write unfounded justifications for these being linked. If you weren't of a critical turn of mind, it would be possible to start to believe in a link.
A similar pseudoscience quackery exists in hi-fi. After about the 1950s when amplification technology advanced to the point where distortion was measurably tiny in the 0.1% range, and certainly inaudible* hi-fi magazines started getting concerned because they couldn't justify one amplifier over another. Today we have a lake of idiocy where it's possible to spend thousands of pounds on a fuse (yes, a simple fuse) because the poor buyer has zero critical capacity. Qualitative phrases are used instead of rigorous terminology, and great claims for 'depth of soundstage' or 'tightness of bass' are bandied about. Manufacturers hand-roll beeswax capacitors. It's complete nonsense. There's an idea that the audio band is somehow magical and requires special tending, despite the stone-cold fact that electrically it's very straightforward with low frequencies and no special requirements for circuitry. Not a thought is given to the fact that none of these mystical artefacts are used in the gigahertz range where peculiarities of skin effect and placement of circuit board tracks can have problematic effects. They use the cheapest part with the measurable characteristics they need, and that's what keeps GPS working; radio; TV; this computer; the car. Guitarists hope that it's not the effort they haven't put in during practice that's responsible for their lack of success, it's because their amplifier has not been repaired with components from the 1960s. Snake oil. It's a reality, but it's one that's entirely in the mind.
Again, a resistance to double-blind testing demonstrates its quackery. If one spends several thousand pounds on components, spends several hours fitting them then listens to some music, of course it'll sound different! However, it's not the components, it's the human that's changed. A capacitor has no 'sound'. Wanting to see the result makes the result occur, much like in the placebo effect. The most bizarre aspect of that is that the placebo effect has been shown to still have a beneficial effect when the recipient knows they are taking a placebo. The ability of the brain to create what we want it to, or simply make stuff up that we believe, is the big story around any pseudoscience.
*It is sometimes possible to hear certain distortions under very specific conditions using a signal designed to exacerbate negative characteristics of a certain circuit. Some '60s amplifier circuits are subject to known problems at certain frequencies simply because they weren't experienced in the use of new components like transistors.
You dig a load of wells following a stick, you remember the ones that had water in. There is zero evidence for dowsing, and an enormous pile of rigorous tests that have shown any effect to be no greater than random chance. A previous poster has it right - the divining is not the rods but the person. However, not from any mysterious mystical ability that has somehow been completely overlooked by science, but because they have a set of experiences that allows them to have a (conscious or subconscious) appreciation of what they're looking for. Someone with a business in finding water will know where water is likely to be found. They may say it's the rods, but it's their intuition from similar situations. The rods move because of the ideomotor effect. In much of the world the water table level is accessible (in Cornwall it's unavoidable at the moment), so you'll end up with a useful well pretty much wherever you dig. An oil man will look at spreading lines of magnetic reversal because we have proper evidence of the type of geology and strata where their substance of interest is likely to be found. Even if they were dowsing, would they start in a space station so they can decide where on the globe to begin looking?
I could toss a coin a hundred times and get a hundred heads. That's not magic, just that random chance results tends to cluster, and even out over numerous repetitions.
A funny illustration of this is Tyler Vigen's website 'Spurious Correlations'. He uses publicly available data sets to generate graphs of superficially similar shapes that actually have no relation. The example attached purportedly shows a relationship between 'Google searches for cat memes' and 'Automotive recalls for issues with the air bags'. He even gets generative AI to write unfounded justifications for these being linked. If you weren't of a critical turn of mind, it would be possible to start to believe in a link.
A similar pseudoscience quackery exists in hi-fi. After about the 1950s when amplification technology advanced to the point where distortion was measurably tiny in the 0.1% range, and certainly inaudible* hi-fi magazines started getting concerned because they couldn't justify one amplifier over another. Today we have a lake of idiocy where it's possible to spend thousands of pounds on a fuse (yes, a simple fuse) because the poor buyer has zero critical capacity. Qualitative phrases are used instead of rigorous terminology, and great claims for 'depth of soundstage' or 'tightness of bass' are bandied about. Manufacturers hand-roll beeswax capacitors. It's complete nonsense. There's an idea that the audio band is somehow magical and requires special tending, despite the stone-cold fact that electrically it's very straightforward with low frequencies and no special requirements for circuitry. Not a thought is given to the fact that none of these mystical artefacts are used in the gigahertz range where peculiarities of skin effect and placement of circuit board tracks can have problematic effects. They use the cheapest part with the measurable characteristics they need, and that's what keeps GPS working; radio; TV; this computer; the car. Guitarists hope that it's not the effort they haven't put in during practice that's responsible for their lack of success, it's because their amplifier has not been repaired with components from the 1960s. Snake oil. It's a reality, but it's one that's entirely in the mind.
Again, a resistance to double-blind testing demonstrates its quackery. If one spends several thousand pounds on components, spends several hours fitting them then listens to some music, of course it'll sound different! However, it's not the components, it's the human that's changed. A capacitor has no 'sound'. Wanting to see the result makes the result occur, much like in the placebo effect. The most bizarre aspect of that is that the placebo effect has been shown to still have a beneficial effect when the recipient knows they are taking a placebo. The ability of the brain to create what we want it to, or simply make stuff up that we believe, is the big story around any pseudoscience.
*It is sometimes possible to hear certain distortions under very specific conditions using a signal designed to exacerbate negative characteristics of a certain circuit. Some '60s amplifier circuits are subject to known problems at certain frequencies simply because they weren't experienced in the use of new components like transistors.
But thats the point of the internet - so you can spend half your life correcting those who are wrong on the internet . . .that and making references to frozen sausages in lawns . . . (might have to be a car enthusiast site from a long time ago for that one . . .
)
Guineafowl
Member
- Messages
- 1,275
- Location
- Nairn
Same here. Interesting discussion.
I’m looking to find out if dowsing is real. Plenty of anecdotal stuff but could do with a bit more. If real, it should be explainable with existing science, or represent a new branch of physics.
Paranormal/ghost stories are somewhat similar, in that some accept them, and some try to explain away. One chap on another forum swore he saw an old lady in old-fashioned clothes, sitting in a chair, while he was lying in bed. Turned out he was in a far-flung country, and was severely jetlagged. He’d not heard of waking dreams, where you slip into REM/dream sleep while conscious*. It’s strange how he went straight to ‘ghost’, telling that story for maybe 20 years. Paranormal would always be a last resort for me, because it so consistently turns out not to be true.
*edit: he also reported being ‘paralysed with fear’, but we were able to explain that that’s a normal part of the sleep paralysis.
Last edited:
