Beware the Cup and Ball scam

cup and ball scam

Yet again the BBC has been publishing a warning to anybody who will listen about the Cup and Ball scam. It looks like a harmless bit of fun. Some guy has 3 cups on the ground and all you need to do is to bet on which one the ball is under after he has … Read more

The Promotion of BS by UK Charities

charities

The basic concept of a charitable organisation is of course well understood. On a legal level, an officially established body is focused on an activity that is designed to promote social well-being and hence does not exist to make a profit. Their finances are open and public, and often they also have income that comes … Read more

What is the Dietary Supplements fuss all about?

supplements

While attending the QEDcon conference in Manchester last weekend, I was approached by one chap who handed me his mobile saying “Oh my God have you see this?“. It was this story from CNN … Nearly 800 dietary supplements sold over the counter from 2007 through 2016 contained unapproved drug ingredients, a new analysis of … Read more

Bruno and Bob signed up for a predatory conference

predatory conferences

You are perhaps familiar with the concept of predatory science journals. This is where a supposedly peer-reviewed journal will publish scientific articles, but will in reality publish anything as long as you are willing to pay them a high fee. The range of these runs from those that are simply poor quality all the way … Read more

What the heck is a TOR Exit Node?

When writing about an analysis of the report on the Russian Hacking the other day, the following was mentioned … …What we’re seeing in this IP data is a wide range of countries and hosting providers. 15% of the IP addresses are Tor exit nodes. These exit nodes are used by anyone who wants to be anonymous online, … Read more

TV Preacher TB Joshua covers up his failed “Clinton win” prophecy

TB Joshua, the Nigeria TV Evangelist, is rather influential and popular. He has over 2.5 million Facebook followers and 500,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel where he has managed to rack up 300 million views, so clearly a few are paying attention to his con act message. He recently claimed that God had told him that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 … Read more