Hydrogen Generators for Dummies

If you stop by Amazon and browse the customer reviews, you'll find that one of the most common reasons why people give 1-star ratings to a product is "Not as advertised." We're with 'em: nobody likes the old bait-and-switch, whether it's an electrical circuit breaker tracer or a pair of socks. Here at the Antisocial Network, we are quite unimpressed by freelancers who pull that trick in hopes of picking up more pennies. Take, for example Matthew B. Dexter, a self-described freelancer with "expertise in outdoors [sic] living," and the bull he titled "How to Build a Hydrogen Generator"¹ at LovetoKnow.com. Yeah: "How to Build"...

We'd like to think an accomplished freelancer would know how to make his work "evergreen." an assignment Dexter immediately failed: his first paragraph says,

"With gas prices causing headaches at the pump, many people wonder how to build a hydrogen generator."

Yeah, well, maybe in 2008; but evergreen? nope... and "many people"? Probably not – probably just a few weirdos Matthew runs across out in the wilds of Cabo San Lucas. Of course, Dexter's convinced that

"...there is actually an easy way to convert your car so that you can save significant money and avoid paying an arm and a leg at the pump. Here is some information about how to build a hydrogen generator."

Yep, another scientific illiterate who fell for the whole "run your car on water" meme. The gullibility of people who fall for that line of bull notwithstanding, Dexter immediately drops the conversational ball in his next paragraph:

"Constructing a hydrogen generator requires detailed instructions which go in-depth to explain the safety and specific details of the procedure. There are many online guides that can provide this information for a price. The cost ranges from about ten dollars to a couple hundred dollars. The pages of essential information they provide are necessary to make sure that you know exactly what you are doing."

Wait, dude: we thought this was supposed to be a How-To guide (it says so right in the title): why are you telling us to use one of those "many online guides"?

Point number one, Dexter's research skills are subpar: Popular Mechanics is just one of many outlets with better technical skills than Matt, and they say the "run your car on water" movement is a scam. I'm more inclined to believe them than some boat bum. Number two, Dexter said he'd tell us "how to build a hydrogen generator," but the scam he describes isn't a hydrogen generator. There are conversion kits (for several hundred bucks) for gasoline engines, but they don't use this pseudo-technology. Number three, the post's a bait-and-switch: he didn't tell us how to, he just reworded some pseudoscientific gobbledygook. Around the Antisocial Network, three strikes like those and you're the Dumbass of the Day, Matt.

¹ The original has been deleted by the website in a general cleanup, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   greenliving.lovetoknow.com/How_to_Build_a_Hydrogen_Generator

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