Check this shit out:

You’ve heard of cold fusion, yeah? Not the Adobe product, the actual fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium atoms at near room temperature. Usually fusion only occurs at extremely high temperatures and/or pressures like those found at the center of the sun. Cold fusion, on the other hand, supposedly occurs at near room temperature inside a palladium electrode in a bath of heavy water. It almost certainly doesn’t actually exist–two electro-chemists were the initial “discoverers” of cold fusion back in 1989, and since then, nobody has been able to reliably replicate their experiment. Perhaps more telling, nobody has started selling cold fusion generators yet, either.

What this guy is doing, however, isn’t even close to what cold fusion supposedly is. In the video, he runs high voltage current through water and causes the water to split into hydrogen and oxygen. The heat created by the arcing current causes the hydrogen to burn in the oxygen, forming water again and making a nice glow. This is a high school level chemistry experiment known as electrolysis. The splitting of water into its component parts by adding energy in the form of electricity. It’s a net energy sink–you use more energy splitting the water molecules apart than you get back when you burn the hydrogen in the oxygen. So not only is this not cold fusion, it’s not anywhere close to being “over unity” as the dude seems to think. Over unity, by the way, is kook talk for perpetual motion–a closed system that creates more energy than it consumes. It doesn’t exist either.

But that doesn’t stop this asshole from acting all smug. My favorite part is when he carefully explains how you have to use distilled water for this experiment, then says “of course now we have to add our electrolyte.”  WHAT? What was the point of using distilled water if you’re just going to dump an electrolyte in it anyhow? You might as well have saved yourself the trouble and just used tap water. (Hint: His “experiment” would likely have worked just as well with normal tap water, but likely would not have worked at all with actual distilled water!)

He goes on to describe the reaction that’s taking place. The hell of it is, he describes it correctly. The electricity is “creating” hydrogen (by splitting the water molecules) and then burning the hydrogen. He’s totally right about that. Then he triumphantly declares “that’s the fusion process that supposedly doesn’t exist.” NO! Not even the people who believe cold fusion is real think what you’re doing is cold fusion! It’s just electrolysis plus combustion, just like you yourself explain.

So go to hell, Smugsly McSmug. Go to hell and learn some chemistry, maybe.

All week I’ve been taking clothes out of the hamper when getting dressed in the morning. I had failed to put the clean clothes away after doing the laundry last time, so the clothes in the hamper were clean and the ones piled on the floor were dirty. See, I got me a system.

At least, that’s what I thought anyway. This afternoon I did a load of laundry. When I opened the dryer, it was full already–of clean, dry, wrinkly clothes. The clothes I had thought were in the hamper. So… where did those clothes in the hamper come from?

I… I don’t know. I don’t know, but I suspect. I suspect I have been wearing dirty clothes all week.

Yuck.

This is a true story.

Here’s the setup. It’s about 11 pm on a Saturday night. I’m taking the garbage out to the dumpster. Two 20-something young gentlemen pass me heading the other way. They are carrying Chinese takeout, although where they got it around here at 11 pm is still a mystery to me (thankfully, it is not relevent to the rest of this story.)

Apparently the sight of my garbage bag triggers a fond memory in the mind of one of the two fine young men. As I am passing them by, he turns to his companion and says,

“Hey, remember when we were in that dumpster doing all that meth?”

His companion, clearly taken back to that wonderful time, replies,

“Yeah. That was awesome.”

This has been a true story.