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Best type of capacitors for recapping Type A Xovers?


lynnm

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LOL

Just exactly what IS snake oil anyways? Does anyone know the origins of the saying?

Snake oil originally came from China, where it was used to as a remedy for inflammation and pain in rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis, and other similar conditions.

Chinese labourers on railroad gangs involved in building the Transcontinental Railroad

to link North America coast to coast gave it to Europeans with joint

pain. When rubbed on the skin above the pain, snake oil brought relief,

or so it was claimed. This claim was ridiculed by other rival medicine

salesmen, especially those selling patent medicines.

In time, snake oil became a generic name for the many medicines that were marketed as a panacea

or miraculous remedy, whose ingredients were usually secret,

unidentified, or mis-characterized, and mostly inert or ineffective. At

best the placebo effect might provide some temporary relief for whatever the problem might have been.

The snake oil peddler became a stereotype in Western movies: a travelling "doctor" with dubious credentials, selling some medicine such as snake oil with boisterous marketing hype, often supported by pseudo-scientific

evidence. To enhance sales, an accomplice in the crowd would often

'attest' the value of the product in an effort to provoke buying

enthusiasm. The "doctor" would prudently leave town before his

customers realized that they had been cheated.

W. C. Fields portrayed a snake oil salesman in My Little Chickadee (1940). The English musician and comedy writer Vivian Stanshall satirised a miracle cosmetic as "Rillago - the great ape repellent" and many of J. B. Morton's Beachcomber

books and radio programmes included short spoof advertisements for

"Snibbo" a fictional treatment allegedly tackling various unlikely

human conditions.

The practice of selling dubious remedies for real (or imagined)

ailments still occurs today, with different marketing techniques. The

term snake oil peddling is used as a derogotary term to describe such practices.

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"Just exactly what IS snake oil anyways? Does anyone know the origins of the saying?"

Probably one of the 'active' ingredients listed on the the bottles of cure-all elixirs that were pawned off on unsuspecting patrons of get-rich-quick shams in the 1800s. Snake oil was probably advertised as something that could cure everything from impotence to blindness. Sounded impressive; did absolutely nothing. The advertisements on Cardas interconnect cables are just as bad (I'm not knocking the cables, which I'm sure work fine). The descriptions of the wire is what's kind of snake-oil-esque.

Erik

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"Just exactly what IS snake oil anyways? Does anyone know the origins of the saying?"

Probably one of the 'active' ingredients listed on the the bottles of cure-all elixirs that were pawned off on unsuspecting patrons of get-rich-quick shams in the 1800s. Snake oil was probably advertised as something that could cure everything from impotence to blindness. Sounded impressive; did absolutely nothing. The advertisements on Cardas interconnect cables are just as bad (I'm not knocking the cables, which I'm sure work fine). The descriptions of the wire is what's kind of snake-oil-esque.

Erik

Snake oil for impotence. Perfect name. I wish I thought of it. I need to use that phrase at work.

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I like the "Smoke and Mirrors" analogy better. I did the AKfest last spring and the guy from Elusive Disc had all the goofy cable risers and other "Smoke and Mirrors" type goodie's for sale. I dubbed him the 'Smoke and Mirrors man" Later him and Tyler(customer of mine) came down to my room to tell me that "Smoke and Mirrors" really does work. They explained that you Smoke a little, then sniff a little off a mirror and the music truly does sound better[:)] Of course I told then well I wouldn't know that.

Craig

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"Consensus is the absence of leadership"

We were using asprin for over 100 years with no understanding of how it worked.

What year was the Nobel prize awarded for this work?

Sounds too easy doesn't it. There are many things like that. Such as, "What the hell is a hangover"?

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Yes Neil, I remember this. I think it was Lynn's last great discussion here. 10/13/06 this thread was born. A simple request that netted quite a discussion, strangly enough, most of it civil. I too learned a lot from this particular thread. Lots of the regulars joined in on this one as it was a very popular topic for us all.

I find it amazing that even with his prognosis, which couldn't have been good, that Lynn was still striving for audio perfection and helped us all along the way. Pretty cool in my book.

Amy, could you maybe 'pin this one up for a while'?

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