The new Synergistic Research BLUE fuses ....

Did some reading on this a while back FWIW. The iron in hemoglobin (red blood cells) is weakly reactive to magnetic charge (has been demonstrated in a lab along with micro-graphs as evidence), but there are 2 kinds of charge - oxygenated hemoglobin weakly repels and hemoglobin carrying CO2 is weakly attractive. Most of the hemoglobin in the human body is oxygenated.

The magnetic bracelet idea works in the mind of the consumer as being a way to 'attract and to hold' RBC's at a particular site on the body, presumably for tissue repair. 

But, if you understand how the cellular respiratory system in the body works this is a pretty dumb idea and, in fact, the exact opposite of what you would want to happen. RBC's deliver oxygen to all the cells in the body and collect the waste (CO2) and take it back to the lungs where it is exchanged for O2 again and the cycle repeats...cellular respiration. Assuming there was a way to 'collect and hold' RBC's to a given site (let's presume it is for the sake of, say, tissue repair), then we have to consider the following. A) there's only one task that the RBC's can perform (exchanging the 2 gases...the fighting of foreign bodies in the blood can only be done by white blood cells which contain no iron) and that B) any delay in the exchange process can and will only result in a delay of cellular respiration...not an advantage at all, and in fact, a disadvantage.

But, because of the fact that oxygenated hemoglobin is weakly repelled by a magnetic charge, even the implied claim that they can be influenced to stay at the bracelet's applied site by magnetism is wholly untrue. Only the CO2-carrying RBC's could theoretically be attracted to the site which of course, can be of no benefit and in view of the process of cellular respiration overall, that delay is nothing more than an interference.

@nonoise and everyone.

It’s not really a matter of piousness per se, I’m supposing...or maybe it is, except of course that the piety is false...as it always is with these kinds of skeptics - regardless of the topic du-jour...cables, fuses, whatever.

I’m going for quite a different take here rather than confine my response to the narrowest of terms that the skeptics present...not their technical or scientific concerns - that at this point is not the problem.

The problem for me is that they are simply DEMANDING that they be helped. This for any number of reasons is quite childish behavior. I’m not concerned personally or offended by this development, nor am I in any way threatened by it, I’m just stating my overall reason for my own POV.

I happen to be a Christian by faith. That does not mean of course that fuses are my god, or that science is not real to me or any other such inane thought. As a Christian, I’m just as open to seeking the truth (the Relative truth...not the Absolute truth - which I am generally content to leave to God) as anyone else, be they atheist, agnostic or otherwise.

Arguments with the most steadfast of skeptics always bog down for the same reason.

As a Christian, and certainly among many non-Christians, the usual tendency is to try to help whenever someone asks for it...maybe especially if we feel we can see how that person can need help and/or we can see how it is that what we know may be of some use to that person. You can predict a certain amount of reciprocated good feelings when you initiate on that level.

But, when the skeptics bog down it’s because the underlying rules of engagement have changed. Again, they utterly DEMAND to understand something. They demand "proof" yet reject all proposals of it. I have simply decided to stop giving these people the time of day in such an argument.

I’ve learned by this stage in the game, that when someone crosses that line and makes the demand known, it’s always best to let them stew in their own lack of cooperation until they ultimately have no choice but to resume their own course. And when I say ’course’, I mean the larger philosophical course we are all on...that of someone actively engaged in the process of seeking answers...any answers in life, large or small. But, along that particular road, and it actually can be quite a spiritual road, if you ask me, you find two types of travelers: those are already well on their way and those who have been run into the ditch. These people in the ditch may look like they need help, but in fact they don’t. They don’t because the moment they DEMAND to be helped is the moment they take themselves off the road of being a seeker and, whether actively or inadvertently (it makes no difference which), they run Themselves into the ditch.

You will find they are more than content, adamant even, to stay there. In their minds they may think that it was somehow someone else’s fault they are in the ditch. To pass the time they may take to throwing stones at passers by, especially when they may resemble those whom they feel drove them into the ditch. But their ’Demand for help’ is, I say, actually their supreme dissatisfaction with God being acted out. Their own trek on the road of seekers has left them tired and impatient to have the universe open up to them and make enough things finally understood to them. But, they have decided in their rage and frustration to take things out on others as a deliberate protest to God himself - to hold anyone who may venture close enough to help as a kind of spiritual hostage. But, of course, God does not play this game. God is infinitely willing to allow us to stay in the ditch...for the rest of our lives if we so choose...or...for us to come to the realization, that maybe, just maybe, that judgment of God’s lack of virtue in our mind was...well, maybe just a little..uh...premature. Once the desire to be actively on the road again finally outweighs the rage, then and only then, will we be able to resume our own course, but note that it’s the return to the road of seekers itself that is the necessary act of humility before God. It is the one toll we all must pay. God does Not grant us the Right to travel on this road - He grants us the Privilege...and it’s up to each of us to remember the difference.

I have driven myself into the ditch many a time before. So have you. So has everyone else and there can be no exceptions to that. That’s just life. But, what I’m saying, as a Christian anyway, is that it is plainly not God’s intent to come to our aide when we are angry at Him (always epically wrong anyway) and that we should try to take our que from that. When people ask for help then we can help them. When they Demand it, we cannot. And besides, I have better things to do with my time. And we cannot be truly responsible for someone else’s conscience against their will, as we all each ultimately have our own judgment day to reckon with, as it should be.

Sorry for the obnoxiously long post....but there. I’ve ranted a bit.

Wow.

Hello all - I think I was fully prepared to walk into a buzz saw when I checked back in here. Pleasantly shocked to see positive responses....(although I suppose those blades are being sharpened as we speak!).

Thanks for all the kind words all around!

Normally I don't go in to play the 'religion card', lol, but it seemed like I didn't hardly have any other choice in this case. My post was just really my form of push back on the most adamant forms of denial. Less virulent skepticism I might try to entertain, of course.

@nonoise 

I suspected what you meant by your 'pious' comment, but everything clicked in my head just so and just seemed to give me the in I was looking for so I didn't question it too awful much.

@Clearthink, 

I **think** I understand now what you mean and, yeah...that might work. I would say that leaving such an out as that for others who might not wish to follow quite so blindly might very likely be the right tone to set.

Again, thank you all!

@oregonpapa 

Thank you for that post.

"What Ivan called a 'road,' I always referred to as a narrow pathway.  

  I could have called it a path too if, for no other reason, that it can so often seem to us that we encounter so few others at any one time on the same part of the 'path' as us...and that we seldom ever seem to traverse it at anything other than at a slow walk. But, I guess I call it a 'road' since everyone who has ever lived and ever will is to travel down it.

One thing I know you'll agree: whoever built the road of life sure didn't intend for it to be a super highway, now did they? ;)

@GK

Thanks for your post on pseudo-skepticism. Much appreciated.

@prof 

No, indeed I'm not trying to insult people. 

"I have voiced some skepticism about tweaks like the fuses, and have given my reasons. But nowhere have I made any close-minded absolutist claims like "they don’t or can’t make a difference," nor have I told anyone to go blind testing whatever they buy, as I don’t do that myself. As I’ve said to each his own. I’ve explained that I come to my skepticism also based on acquaintance with the fallibility of my own perception (as revealed when I’ve done blind tests). Which mirrors the fallibility well documented by scientific studies of human bias. I’m of course willing to drop my doubts with better evidence."

Believe me, I'm perfectly fine with that. I have no problem with you or anyone else saying it. 

"I’m not selfishly "demanding" anyone do anything. Asking for good evidence for a claim isn’t selfish or a sin (except perhaps in your faith)...in normal life, it’s being sensible and adult, rather than just believing any claim that comes along no matter how much enthusiasm is behind it." 

Glad to hear it. I see no reason not to accept that premise at face value.

"He painted skeptics as selfish demanding children who bog down conversations with "demands for proof!" and himself and those like him as enlightened and charitable."

No! Not True! That would be a rather foolish thing for me, or anyone else I imagine, to seriously say. What I've had trouble with are those that say or act outright that they demand that someone help them, as if somehow they were being violated to the core, if you like. Not all skeptics are this way and, moreover, I don't find it so much a particular set of individuals that need to be labeled and blamed so much as a behavior that ought (in my view) to be avoided. And first and foremost the only real punitive measure I'm suggesting is that their (one) demand be ignored. This is not, nor does it need to be, a blame game. If it is then I will not play it.

It's just that my own path may be different than yours...certainly philosophically. Everyone's path is different. And where I might tend to fall back on faith when the going gets a little tough for me, you might choose to fall back on the the things that restore you: your love of science, your love of the scientific method, your love of engineering, equipment, art, philosophy...whatever gets you through - but, my point being it's your Love of it that restores, yes?. I made a proclamation that was in line even with what I feel to be true on high with things that endure with me. The proclamation itself is not on high, just that I tried very hard to make it in line with all that as I know it. Just as you might do the same in the course of your audiophile journey, but according to your own beliefs. I would expect no more and no less. If my putting it in terms of my being a Christian bothers you, then I'm sorry, but being a Christian is not about entitlement and in any case these days we are, if anything, coming under increasing fire from many sides. I do not think that you would have the monopoly on being attacked or marginalized, nor did I see that what I was saying, and still am saying, attacks you. Nor was the fact itself that I am a person of faith my point, but rather that the nature of all that was inherently good as I see it...that I am not out to deal from a position of bad faith simply because I was voicing an objection to some repeated behavior in the forum. 

I hurl no insults. I can't always agree with everything going on, but I take some exception to those who insist on making demands...and no, if you're still wondering, a question, or a statement, or a suggestion is not a demand. A demand is a demand and that, and only that, is what truly irks me. A demand neither proves nor disproves, it just gets in the way of the proving or the disproving. 

I did miss the party, but mapman's post was indeed hilarious. More...uh..power to him. 

@gdhal

My guess was, since apparently none of the other Oppo’s are soldered fuses, that Oppo had been farming out the fuse-holder part to a supplier. Once it became clear Oppo was going under no one was allowed to renew a supplier contract for a part so superfluous as a fuse holder...???