Fuses that matter.

There's a lot of talk about how great these fuses are by some people. The way the metal is drawn, the structure of the burn wire, and endless ways of stating they must be better.

Here's one for everyone. When metals are continuously heated and cooled, their structure deteriorates. The burn wire in these fuses get quite hot, cool down, over and over.

With that thought in mind, what is better. A month old fifty dollar designer fuse, with its abused burn wire, or a new fifty cent shiny burn wire fuse, that has a burn wire that has not been exposed to all of these heating and cooling cycles yet. I'd guess the new fifty cent one is superior...

04-28-12: Geoffkait
B C - not sure why you use the word intuition, that appears to be your way of saying this whole thing is psychological.

No. I used the word intuition here...

For those who acknowledge the likelihood of Unknown Parameters, what is the standard by which Possible Unknown Parameters are distinguished from Impossible Unknown Parameters? Since by definition it cannot be the standard of prevailing knowledge, it must be something else. But what? Intuition?

As should be clear from that paragraph, I was asking people how they decide what tweaks are plausible and what tweaks are nonsense. I asked that in response to the people who have said, in one way or another, that fancy fuses are nonsense.

As far as my own view, I made it clear that I DON'T believe that fancy fuses are nonsense, though I acknowledge that it is a possibility. So you could put me down as a Tentative Believer. That is a far cry from saying the whole thing is psychological.

04-28-12: Audiofeil
And make sure you check the polarity of the dilithium crystals. The humanoids say it makes a difference.

Dilithium crystals? I will Paypal immediately. Better yet, I will send a Cashier's check for twice the price, and you can refund me the difference.

bc

It should be pretty clear that if you ask people what they think about controversial tweaks you're going to get a variety of responses. It should also be pretty obvious that Skeptics will always respond something to the effect, it can't possibly work, it disobeys all known laws of physics, it's the placebo effect, it won't pass a double blind test, etc. Don't you often find a Skeptic to be someone who pontificates from the comfort of an easy chair but who rarely, if ever, gets down to business and actually investigates the object of his pontification?

As I mentioned previously somewhere along the line, anyone wishing to indulge in armchair skepticism need look no further than Shun Mook Mpingo discs, Rainbow Foil, SteinMusic Harmonizer, those tiny little metal bowls, Schumann Frequency generators and many other devices. Controversial tweaks are controversial because they are not really subject to intuition. If they were they wouldn't be controversial.