To get enough phones to try it out...

my daughters car door for her...she was 10 miles away and locked her keys in the car.  I had the other transmitter, put it thru my cell, told her to hold hers about a foor from her door...it popped open.   Works on mine too.   That's the same principle "onstar uses to open your doors for you"   It actually works!!!

Nice job explaining this.  

I think people simply like to believe in things beyond reality because it gives them hope that somehow we aren't responsible for our actions, and when you take away that belief you hurt their feelings.  Rational thought is often abhorred by those who have never really tried it.

James Randi -- who is a skeptic, magician and hero of mine -- once infuriated a class of college freshmen by showing them that astrology is nonsense.  He had them fill out some forms that told when and where they were born, and he told them he would use the information to determine what sorts of people they are and how their lives must certainly be going due to the influence of the stars.

A week later he returned to the class and he handed each of them a sealed envelope.  In it was a very specific set of statements about that individual student.  He asked the class to read them individually and gave them time to do so.  When they had completed their reading, he asked, by a show of hands, how many people thought his statements were accurate.  Nearly every student's hand was in the air.

Next, he asked them to pass their envelope to the person next to them and then to read the other person's packet.  They were all identical.

This made a few of the students laugh, but many were furious.  The argument was, "Just because you don't believe in astrology doesn't mean it isn't real."  Of course, they're right.  The fact that Randi or you or I doesn't believe something has no bearing whatever on the truth of the proposition.  On the other hand...

If one is going to make an extraordinary claim, as Carl Sagan liked to point out, it will require extraordinary evidence.  The fact that I can't prove reindeer can't fly doesn't mean they can.

Penn and Teller, many years ago, gave a great example of this too.  They suggested we could take 100 reindeer to the top of The Empire State Building and toss them off one at a time.  As we watched each fall to its inevitiable and messy death, we would still not have proven that reindeer can't fly.  We would have proven only that those PARTICULAR reindeer either couldn't fly or that they had a death wish.  But you could simply never prove that no reindeer anywhere can fly.

Because you can not prove a negative, if you want someone to believe something incredible, you must provide credible evidence.

The videos of people popping popcorn with their cell phones looked pretty convincing.  How could this not be the truth?  There's your extraorinary proof for the extraordinary claim.  Fortunately, however, there were people who were not so easily convinced do a little more research to find out how the trick was done.  The rational among us are smiling or laughing at the ingenuity of the producers of the original video.  Others will, however, refuse to believe it's not true.  They want to believe ridiculous things, and who are we to tell them not to?

Sometimes, of course, it's simply fun to believe ridiculous things.  One example would be that I choose to believe that when a Provider comes to see me, she really likes me.  I know that there is no more truth in that idea than that I can pop popcorn with my cell phone.  However, I ignore the facts, I ignore what logic tells me, and I allow myself to pretend it's true in order to enjoy myself as much as possible.  Those Providers who do better fostering this illusion tend to be those I most like to see.  

We all cling to whatever myths make us happy.  I'm sure that when people got angry with you it was simply because you challenged their deeply held but irrational ideas.    

PS.. please NEVER tell me my ATFs aren't secretly in love with me or I'll pop your brain with the ulra powerful radiation from my cell phone.  lol

I'd like the address of the guy giving away the $$$ thank you....lol

kept falling out of the rolling papers and I couldn't keep it lit.

well I don't know about a ham but you may be able to cook a few hotdogs or mabe a grilled  cheese.

what about mythbusters Rea, this sounds like something they would try to disprove so have at it...be sure to let us know.

Rae......

when you try it out, put the pop corn & the cellies in the microwave, make the phone calls & turn on the microwave for 30 seconds & see what happens....

Re: You all take things so freaking literally......

I thought it was very entertaining...for a moment I had wanted to try it....