Discussion of how crazy can it get

How crazy can it get? (Claims of witness tampering)

One consequence of this filing is that Dewey Weaver has been silenced — or at least inhibited for a time. It was always a wonder that he disclosed so much.

There is discussion on LENR forum that I review below.

On LENR Forum, Dewey Weaver wrote:

I’ve been asked to tone it down on the blogs for a little while so Rossi wins that skirmish but I’ll leave you with this – find the Rossi SP posting from Feb 21 on JONP where, out of the blue, it gets posted that the Lugano reactor was made of “Durapox” and check the 1:59pm timestamp. The partial clip from my deposition (conveniently clipped in the exhibit) discussing Durapot 810 was at about the same time / date. R was sitting right there posting away, during my testimony, apparently desperate to influence the story. That has other implications as well regarding aliases and our attempts to figure out how we and others were tricked.

Dewey may have the same difficulty as Rossi. The above post is a comment about the trial. To be sure, so far, Dewey is not under a court order, but Rossi has used his frank communications with researchers in the field, and with mention of blog postings, as ammunition in a claim of witness tampering, even though they were not witnesses, and very unlikely to be called as such. Rossi is attempting to shut up everyone who might point out the truth (or, of course, lies) about what has actually happened. It’s not going to work, but for now, we will not have information from Dewey, which has, so far, been a mixture of accurate information, with innuendo, and it has been easy to distinguish them. The alleged “threat” to Hoistad was simple, and not a threat, legally, it would be considered a warning, and not a warning of any retaliation, but simply of possible natural consequences of continuing the status quo.

Rossi is attempting to shut down communication between Industrial Heat, the major source of significant funding in LENR, and those involved in the field, specifically, the “Swedish professors” — plus Levi — all out of his paranoia. Industrial Heat, by supporting Rossi’s research, as they certainly did — see that email — had created an impression that Rossi technology was real, and they have a level of responsibility, if they are interested in science — and they are — to clean up the mess.

Rends pulled up the JONP post. Including the question:

Anonymous
February 21, 2017 at 7:59 AM

Dear Dr Andrea Rossi,
In the reactor of Lugano the reactor was made by Durapox?

Andrea Rossi
February 21, 2017 at 1:59 PM

Anonymous:
In the test of Lugano the reactor had only the caps at the ends made by Durapox. The proper reactor’s cylinder was made by pure alumina. Tha material has been scratched from the surface from the Professors and analyzed, and resulted to be pure alumina.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

There was a hearing on February 21. I could not find a notice giving the time. The Order issued that day calls the hearing “informal,” and it lasted 15 minutes. Dewey, however, gave a deposition, he is referring to, claiming Rossi was there. As I have noted, the material from his deposition is “clipped.” (the document is, after all, more than 250 pages.) The deposition was from 9:06 AM to 4:05 PM, and this is consistent with the timing of the JONP response.

Dewey was being asked about his 2/15 email to Bo Hoistad, which brings up the Durapot (not “Durapox”) issue. And Levi had informed Rossi of the email 2/17. So Rossi and his lawyer went into the deposition with this in mind. It is then plausible that Rossi posted the “Anonymous” question, setting up his response, which appears before the deposition ends. This is consistent with the style of the question, which uses RossiEnglish and Rossi repeats the spelling error.

Dewey Weaver explains his intention in the deposition, (p. 239) but that is cut off. What he explains is consistent with the Hoistad email, and with his work with IH. Notice that the Dewey deposition is sworn testimony, subject to penalties of perjury. He explicitly denies any attempt to “get him [Hoistad] to recant his support for the Lugano report.” His assigment from IH is acknowledged and is consistent with scientific purposes of Industrial Heat.

The evidence for “witness tampering” is incredibly flimsy, and contradicted by sworn testimony. Levi’s testimony is titled “unsworn declaration,” even though it includes an attestation, the document was designed to be attested, before a notary or other official, and that does not appear to have happened, the document was merely signed. This document was prepared by Rossi’s attorneys, and Levi may not have understood what to do with it. Did it say “unsworn” when Levi signed it? At this point, as a result of this, Levi may have become a deposition target, on, indeed, claims of attempting to influence a witness, and possibly involving Rossi’s attorney. I do not know if IH will choose to go down that path. A Levi deposition, however, could bring out a lot that has been obscure. It could help establish a pattern of deception, already well-established by other evidence.

 

Key would be an attestation under Italian law, where he lives, not “U.S. law,” I’d think. But that’s the kind of legal detail that one pays lawyers to know or find out.

(there is no basis for such inquiry with respect to the “Lugano professors” other than Levi. We now know that they were more peripherally involved than had been the public impression.)

Notice, the little tidbit in the Hearing transcript. The Magistrate shreds the Nobel Prize issue, so Rossi is beating a dead horse. Limiting the scope of communications with the Lugano professors, the Magistrate opines:

You know, in the other area you are able to come to me and show that Rossi was — you know, this company was actually Rossi. 

Hence all emails with JMP were relevant, but not necessarily all emails with the “independent professors.” There, discovery was limited to  what was “related to the E-Cat intellectual property.” Annesser objected that this was still overbroad, claiming development not related to “the testing under the License Agreement.” However, Annesser is falsely limiting case issues to the Tests. All “E-Cat” intellectual property is at issue from the Agreement, not just some specific tests or even some specific “E-Cat”
technology, which is still covered by the Agreement if related, and it is related if it would compete with the E-Cat. I.e., Quark-X.

On LENR Forum, Zeus46 wrote:

Uzi Sha is some kind of investment security dude.
https://il.linkedin.com/in/uzi-sha-067a1a3b
At least I think he is, going from an ‘incognito browser’ limited view… And 167-06 is Darden giving him everyone’s contact details.

167.06 is dated February 23. 2016, just after the end of the one-year “Test.” It appears to be a provision of “Doral team” information to “Zalli and Uzi.” It does not mention Levi, and what I infer from this is that Uzi was interested in LENR investment and Darden provided him with the Doral team information so he could find out for himself, the Rossi story. He did not give “everyone’s” contact details. Just the Doral team: Fabiani, Rossi, Penon, and Johnson and Johnson’s secretary.

There is nothing apparently hostile or sinister about this. Essentially, it is consistent with what Uzi had represented to Levi. It is obvious what happened: Levi complained to Rossi and this went to the Rossi attorneys. So they searched the IH documents for “Uzi Sha” or the like, and found that email, but all the email shows is IH providing some information about Rossi’s “Test” to Uzi. There is no evidence that Uzi is an “investor” in IH, and, in fact, it is pointed out that Israel is not IH “territory” under the License. So, basically, IH might refer inquiries to Rossi, and did. However, IH would also need to create relationships with LENR investors other than around the alleged Rossi technology. Hence contact with the Israeli attorney.

I think there is possible attorney misconduct here, flying off half-cocked without doing deeper research. However, maybe not. It’s iffy, but the Rossi claims aren’t “iffy,” they are wigged-out, paranoid rants. And Levi is right there, fanning the flames.

Okay, the Linked-In profile. It is not surprising that Zeus46, the troll, is browsing incognito. He would not want to take any chance that someone with access to server logs could figure out who he was, a little matter of defense against libelous claims, the habit of trolls. However, I have a Linked-In account. There is nothing there but information that he is following Pulse, along with 1.5 million other people. This is meaningless. So where does Zeus46 get “information security dude” from. Not there!

Okay, looking further. People who looked at Uzi’s profile also looked at some information security professionals. This is about as thin as evidence can get. I found nothing connecting Uzi Sha with Industrial Heat or with LENR at all, or even clear evidence of existence under that name, other than the documents being cited on E-Cat World. Frank Acland wrote a decent description of the Motion for Sanctions documents. The discussion there, so far, is vapid. Frank does not link to the documents themselves, other than to the difficult-to-use Eric Walker Googledrive archive (which does not allow, AFAIK, individual document links, in addition to being overlong, crashing browsers, and having no annotations as we do.) Back to LENR Forum:

Paradigmnoia wrote:

Anyways, I was under the impression that this Motion and exhibits were to be struck, so I am wondering why we are looking at it.

P is a smart guy and this shows how even a smart guy can read just a little bit carelessly and make mistakes. 161 was filed under seal (and not published as such, pending ruling on seal) 163 ruled against seal (not against the Motion!) and struck 161, to allow Rossi to consider what to actually file, given no seal, and having stated that the documents were not to be considered confidential. The clerk affirmed that 161 was struck (DE 164, no document). Then, as I considered possible, Rossi refiled the Motion as 167. It is possible but not certain that 167 is identical to 161.

If I were looking at the Googledrive archive, I’d be confused too! I go over and over our Docket page (and keep improving annotations there, correcting errors, etc.) That page is neutral, or should be! I express opinions and reactions in blog posts, generally. I have started a Case review page, but haven’t done much with it yet. The goal there is to organize documents by type and the like, so that a particular issue can be tracked easily.

This is how I learn, by the way, doing this kind of work. It makes me thoroughly familiar with the materials. Lots of stuff that might seem irrelevant still gets filed away in my head, creating associations later. It is not about “understanding” and this kind of learning sometimes is deeper and better if we don’t insist on “meaning.”

Alan Fletcher corrected P’s misunderstanding.

Paradigmnoia still flopped around a bit.

This (167 and attachments) seems to be that motion for Sanctions. Apparently it was re-filed, but why was it it stricken before, if it was the Motion to Seal that was denied?

Maybe it is some Court procedural rule. I would have thought that the original 161 and attachments would have remained intact. Maybe they took some parts out?

This is common sense. If a filing under seal is rejected, the filing cannot be simply shown, because it may violate confidentiality in some way. The filer must have the opportunity to redact or decide not to file. So it was struck, but without prejudice (though that was not stated, and, yes, I looked for it.) This is the court saying, in effect, 161 didn’t happen, it is null, moot. But the Order did state that the allegedly confidential bits were not legally confidential. If it were me, I’d have asked the Judge if this meant that it was up to me to file or not file. Maybe Chaiken did that, maybe not. We can guess, and nobody is likely to tell us, it would violate Court rules to reveal information like that. Chaiken could say, I suppose.

What is possible to learn here — which most people are largely ignorant of — is court process, which has been designed over a very long period to be rigorously fair, even where there is ridiculously high controversy, even where some participants might be looney-tunes. They can still get their day in court if they can follow the rules.

Forty-Two wrote: (about the Googledrive docket archive)

Am I the only one who faces difficulties to download those files?

No, he’s not. I’m using my desktop and it can be tedious, waiting for the full page to load. I go to the List View button near the top right, and then choose the “Last modified” sort, which then displays from most recent instead of the default. That shows files by modification date, which can be misleading, but is better than trying to navigate to the bottom of a useless pile of icons and relatively unformative filenames.

Eric showed a better way than just waiting and hoping, sorting by Name, descending. However, there is an even better way, and it’s totally obvious, but Eric is not likely to mention it, because of LF politics. In addition, it allows easily finding and linking to specific files. It is also searchable, even into content, if content is text. Etc.

Eric later wrote that even he was having trouble under some conditions, and then:

Forty-Two, I assume you have access to a desktop or laptop computer? If so, that might be the most straightforward way to access these documents for now.

Nah. The most straightforward way is just to go to the docket page here, which is organized, and from which individual files can be loaded or linked, easily. This docket page loads relatively quickly. It is broken up into sections, so for example, this link goes to the current time period.

There is a table of contents at the top, and from there, this link goes to the next section beyond the case documents, at least at this point, so new files would be right above it.

If the page ever becomes too large, it would be easy to split it up, keeping all links still working. By the way, I have an expert backup administrator for all my domains, in case something happens to me. I also have regular blog backups.

can wrote: [an OCR version of the Darden email]

Why did he write this? Because he can.
Seriously, this is totally helpful, and I’ve copied it here and have linked it from the docket index here. I will edit it where I can make it conform more closely to the original, and corrections are invited.

Rends wrote:

can wrote: [badly copied, corrected]

Our primary work now focuses on intellectual property development and on developing business partnerships. We want to acquire other technology rights and to find deployment partners that can implement. We want to see LENR technologies developed by larger, more sophisticated companies.

That’s what it is all about!

This is hilarious. Yes, it is what it developing LENR is all about, but Rends means, from his history, something else. He means that IH wants to dominate LENR, and to control it through “larger companies,” and Rends has pointed to a huge network of large companies, allegedly part of a network of huge corporations, mostly Sifferkoll and Rends fantasies (as to being connected in any coherent way). Mats Lewan has somewhat fallen for this, wondering why IH would, for example, be working with APCO and Jones Day. (How much IH has worked with APCO is unclear. There is one former APCO associate who may have volunteered or been retained by IH. Other companies are then linked to Jones Day, which is, after all, one of the largest law firm, with many major clients.)

Shades of Bob Greenyer and the Red Pill.

What does Rends want? Some garage inventor bringing a product to a trillion-dollar market? Such inventors, where they exist, always work with major investors, or they fail. Period. From the document and what we have seen, Rossi basically won the lottery, and then tossed the ticket in the garbage, because he trusts nobody, and Mats has told that story many times, but somehow doesn’t put it all together. Postponing judgment, that’s normal skepticism. But Mats then provides non-postponed opinions!

Alan Smith wrote:

BTW, my guess about the origin of the reactor chips analysed for content after Lugano has become a sworn fact of Dewey’s in Doral.

Alan does not provide links for what he quotes, routine for him. What he is referring to here is in the Weaver deposition (not “in Doral”), which then refers to LENR Forum and Alan Smith. So let’s look in detail.

The deposition.

Q:   So you write in your email, second paragraph, “We are in process of learning previously unknown facts about Andrea Rossi, his E-cat research and test methodologies as part of the ongoing litigation effort. We have learned that the material test of Lugano reactor with an XRD system at the university of Bologna was conducted on the reactor plug, not a piece from the main reactor body. How did you learn that?

For reference, the actual email is copied here.

A.   It’s in the report, the Lugano report.

Q.   So it wasn’t a previously unknown fact, it was a known fact, right?

The Rossi lawyer may be playing Gotcha!, probably trying to rattle Weaver. Was it a “known fact”? Facts are only known when noticed. Is it a fact? As I write, as yet, I don’t know it.

A.  Sitting right out there in the open, apparently, but that was pointed out to me by Alan Smith, of LENR Forum, one of the moderators.

This doesn’t go into detail. However, Weaver has other reasons for inferring that, in fact, the reactor body wasn’t pure alumina. Relatively direct knowledge! A problem with the Lugano report is that the authors do not necessarily specify how they knew what they claim. Who witnessed it? We have other information from the email that the Swedish professors are not hiding, they are merely not commenting, for the most part, but they revealed information to Weaver before.

Q.  Then you wrote. “as you may know, the plug results came back 99% pure alumina and did not match the reactor body, which was made from Durapot 810.” How did you learn that?

A.   Because I have the can it was made from and I talked to the person that made them.

Ya think? What a silly reason, when Rossi Says….

Q.   And who is that?

A.   T. Barker Dameron.

This was relatively well-known, the part about IH making the Lugano reactor, not Rossi, and Rossi made a big deal out of it at the time. So how does Rossi know what the reactor body was made from, that he so strongly affirmed on JONP, cited above?

If this goes to trial, in court, it would be the testimony of T. Barker Dameron that would be admissible on the point, and probative. This may require another deposition, because this issue was not raised in the original T. Barker Dameron deposition, I suspect. It is not clear that this is sufficiently relevant, this is all being brought up by Rossi as his story of attempted intimidation and harassment.

Q.   So T. Barker Dameron made the reactor body?

A.   Yes, and we have — we still have some of this Durapot 810.

Q.   Did you ever provide a sample of that to the Lugano professors? 

A.   Did not.

Q.   Is there a reason?

A.   I offered to send over the remaining reactor, as you noticed earlier, and they were not interested in that.

Q.   And he writes, top of the next page: “We have also learned that the reactor was painted with an off-white high temp paint and that information is not accurately reflected in the Lugano report as well.” Is that something — the off-white high-temp paint, was that something that you learned after the fact?

A.   I learned that from J.T.  who got that information from Fabiani during the test, along with the paint make — brand, make, and model number.

Q.   So wasn’t it known at the time of the test?

A.   It was known, but didn’t register.

Q.   And what is the significance of that?

A.   Because the emissivity settings reflected 99 percent pure alumina, not alumina cement that was 75 t0 80 percent alumina, per Cotronics and their support group [, n]or a painted surface, an off-white painted surface. It’s substantially different characteristics, versus what is claimed as a 99 percent pure alumina setting that was plugged into the Optris camera settings.

Q.   Now when you make these statements, are these statements that were told to you or are these statements that you know because you actually saw the reactors and held them in your hands and did tests yourself?

And then the excerpt terminates. Were I the IH attorney therer, I’d have objected that the Rossi attorney was starting to badger the deponent, who has already answered the question as to how he knew. There were various sources of knowledge, and none of them qualify as direct knowledge from personal testing. However, they are quite sufficient for Weaver to assert what he asserted to Hoistad.

Remarkable here: confirming what Dewey wrote above, instead of engaging in a discussion, such as “How do you know that?”, Hoistad asked Levi, who went ballistic. Here is what I suspect: the Swedish professors know that the Lugano test was flawed, or at least strongly suspect it. They are apparently engaged in their own independent study, which they don’t want to talk about, I’d guess. This is remarkable from the Weaver email:

During our phone conversation last summer, you stated that Levi was forceful in controlling the specific Optris camera sensitivity / transmissivity settings and that the Uppsala contingent left that decision up to him.

So no wonder Levi blew up! However, did Hoistad actually say that to Weaver? I know that back in 2014, when Lugano was published, I and others speculated that Levi had exercised control. The Darden email covering the conditions of that test allows for that, and points to the lack of calibration with an unfueled reactor, that would have uncovered the problem. With the previous Ferrara test, Rossi had announced “independent third-party professors,” and it was widely noticed that Levi was not exactly independent, and that Essen was a prior reviewer, committed to a positive judgment from that prior study — which was seriously flawed in other ways.

I’d say that Levi is in trouble. It could be serious trouble. That is not any kind of threat, and recovery would simply involve looking at and acknowledging any mistakes made. But Levi has firmly refused to even discuss the possible errors, and took a request to write a report on the methods used as a request to disavow the Lugano conclusions.

It is all getting unbelievably obvious, to those paying attention.

Now, what is in the Lugano report on the analysis? To save time, I will find the Alan Smith material first. It was difficult to find because the Forum revision of the number of posts per page causes Google links to be incorrect. (I can think of no good reason for changing from 20 to 30 posts per page). So, using Google cache and then the specific post link, I found:

Alan Smith wrote: (February 6, 2017)

I think I may have found the answer to the ‘Durapot 810 scandal’ that -for no good reason since it makes little difference to a flawed experiment – is being launched..

I suspect that the sample used for analysis by Enio Bonetti came from the ‘seal’ of the reactor, not the reactor body itself. It would seem only natural (if sloppy) to assume that the sealing cement was the same stuff as the rest of the reactor- and there was some reluctance to damage the reactor itself which was the property of IH. IH obviously never informed the Lugano testers that the reactor body was made from Durapot 810 at the time. And if IH made the reactor, the sealing cement was probably provided by Rossi- who always used AFAIK pure alumina cement as did Focardi. So fragments of the broken seal would have been both the obvious (because this part of the reactor was handled by AR himself) and then most accessible source for a sample.

I quote from the report…

“Three braided high-temperature grade Inconel cables exit from each of the two caps: these are the resistors wound in parallel non-overlapping coils inside the reactor. A thermocouple probe, inserted into one of the caps, allows the control system to manage power supply to the resistors by measuring the internal temperature of the reactor. The hole for the thermocouple probe is  also the only access point for the fuel charge. The thermocouple probe cable is inserted in an alumina cement cylinder, which acts as a bushing and perfectly fits the hole, about 4 mm in diameter. When charging the reactor, the bushing is pulled out, and the charge is inserted. After the thermocouple probe has been lodged back in place, the bushing is sealed and secured with alumina cement. To extract the charge, pliers are used to open the seal.”

What would be more natural than to use the broken fragments as a convenient source of test material?

Quite plausible (congratulations, Alan!) and, given that the emissivity of the alumina was apparently not what was used, from other evidence, it could even be likely. What was actually in the Lugano Report?  The section quoted above is here. (People citing long pdfs should know that they can add “#page=[number]” at the end of the URL, apparently that works for all major browsers and pdfs. This is a great convenience for the reader! The page number is the pdf page, not some numbering on the page.)

There is also this, just above that:

Whereas the surface of the caps is smooth, the outer surface of the body of the E-Cat is molded in triangular ridges, 2.3 mm high and 3.2 mm wide at the base, covering the entire surface and designed to improve convective thermal exchange (cylinder diameter is calculated from the bases of the ridges). In this
way, the current model of E-Cat is capable of attaining higher temperatures than the earlier models, avoiding internal melting, a previously fairly frequent occurrence [1].

Who designed and implemented the ridged surface? It may well have been an IH idea. I have not checked, but this could have been the basis for a T. Barker Dameron-required attribution on the patent application, necessary to prevent the Lugano report from putting the design into the public domain, from prior publication. That would be ironic. The cement could also affect radiation, then, not merely convection. All of this would have been covered by the control experiment that was not done. In any case, a natural material to use for the surface would be … Durapot!

Dewey Weaver responded to Alan’s post, and mentioned the paint. Nobody is accusing Levi of faking anything, but … rather, of possibly making a mistake. Dewey suggests that Rossi might have played a role, and Alan Smith points out that it might simply have happened accidentally, especially if nobody was thinking that the ridges were a different material than the reactor alumina cylinder.

Not for me to say how any of this arose, and I don’t intend to poke my nose in by asking. Either way it makes no difference, if the sample was one of the fragments laying on the benchtop and came via Rossi’s hand or was picked up by Levi and assumed to be the same material the reactor body was made from , the analysis itself is good and rather spoils any assertions of deliberate wrongdoing on the part of the Lugano team or any of its members . This ‘large’ mystery becomes an almost non-existent one. Anyway, I am unsure whether Durapot 810 band emissivity would be wildly different from that of pure Alumina. I am far from being a thermography expert, in fact very far away. Maybe THH can enlighten me?

In his quotation today, Alan adds, on that last question:

he never did- unless I missed it. 

There have been lengthy discussions of most of this, but the point might not have been addressed, specifically. At this point, in fact, all that matters is that there was a possible variable that was not addressed by the Lugano team, one more straw on the camel’s back that is already straining under the load. Or, perhaps, sound asleep.

The information Dewey provided to Hoistad would be appropriate to provide to any scientist, and by this time, the reputation of the Lugano team is indeed being called into question, and not just by Dewey, and there was no “threat” involved, no plan to “expose” them, and they are not being attacked, in spite of Levi’s paranoia. The credibility of a test is being questioned, and Rossi behavior is being investigated, as he mentions. We, the public, now know much more about what actually happened at various points, and we can assume that Weaver and IH know much, much more, because the public has only seen what has spilled out due to various motions and discovery appeals. And now this Motion for Sanctions.

The net result, close to certain by now, is that Rossi not only doesn’t get the $89 million, but will have extraordinary difficulty raising any new capital for further development. Of course, if he doesn’t have a technology, this would not matter.

THHuxleynew does respond.

Paradigmnoia noticed what I noticed above about the Magistrate’s comment on the “company.”

I want to qualify that, i.e., that this is not actually a conclusion by the Magistrate, but rather than IH had established a reasonable basis, a theory, a possibility that then needed to be investigated with discovery. It is possible that the court will decide that the Zalli/Uzi link deserves more examination. Or not. My own opinion is that not enough basis was established, but the Court may disagree. Penetrating attorney-client privilege is not easy, but the court might decide that documents must be disclosed in camera, i.e., privately to the Magistrate or Judge.

Paradigmnoia also noted the true Lugano issue, probably of higher weight than the Durapot mishegas, and this has been discussed at great length, with many interested persons agreeing and rb0 or randombit0, a likely Rossi sock, almost alone arguing to the contrary:

Simply make a nice, easy to measure tube of 100% alumina glowing hot, no fuel (empty even), use the Lugano emissivity method (total emissivity for both the IR camera and radiant power calculations), and make a bogus “COP” of 3+.

Paradigmnoia nailed it, with only one problem: personal testimony from anonymous users is not worth the paper it isn’t written on. Science doesn’t depend on anonymous reports, it needs reporters who are personally responsible (and that is also why the Lugano team is wandering around the edge of science, in danger of falling off. They are avoiding personal responsibility by stonewalling. Of course, the Lugano report was not formally published, all the more reason this is all mishegas. Nobel Prize, my ass!

They don’t have a Nobel Prize for inventors, anyway.

Alan Smith wrote, apparently about the alleged witness tampering:

Judge Altonga thinks that it was a bad thing, however. Wrists were slapped.

 

This was a misunderstanding, quickly corrected. But Smith doesn’t go back and correct errors. If the chatter is the only purpose, why bother? But that is a shallow understanding of what is possible for a forum. It can be a content generator, but if it is full of errors that could have been corrected, it is less useful.

Meanwhile, Sigmoidal nails the matter of the alleged witness tampering, with a well-organized and succinct post. (I’ve covered the same above, I think.) At the end he has:

That said, I don’t see why Dewey thought this was an appropriate time to send that email to Hoisted.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Look, people who are actively engaged sometimes make more mistakes than those who do little or nothing, but learn from the mistakes, and overall accomplish far, far more. However, I’m not convinced that the outcome of this is negative and that the Hoistad contact was a mistake. Now that the mails are public, that the issues are being laid out, the Lugano professors may find it a bit harder to hide and carry on as if nothing happened. Public pressure may increase, and all of this, from my point of view, would be to simply encourage them to engage on the scientific issues. It appears that Hoistad has already disclosed a major characteristic of the Lugano test: it was basically run by Levi.

And this Uzi Sha guy does seem a little creepy, so if it turns out that there is evidence that Darden ‘incentivized’ Sha to contact Levi, that would indicate sleaze on Darden’s part. (With emphasis on the ‘if’.)

Yeah, I had the same impression, but … this is filtered through the deranged mentation of Levi. There is no evidence that Darden ordered the contact, that Uzi was working for IH, rather than for another group of investors. However, the core of the Levi complaint is a perceived bribe. However, a proposed payment for Levi to write a paper (without attached restrictions) would not be a bribe, and learning more about Levi’s thinking on the matter of how the Lugano test was run — or how other tests should be run — would be of possible scientific value. One man’s bribe is another man’s compensation for work done.

Uzi allegedly mentioned “big earnings are possible.” They are possible. Unless this was accompanied by an actual suggestion to do something illegal or unethical, not merely a suspicion that they might suggest such a thing or “wanted” such a thing, it would not be an attempt to bribe.

The picture of Uzi Sha as sleazy, then, is a reflection from Levi. He might be slimy or not. It don’t get that Uzi had any skill in actually reaching Levi; it obviously failed. So, to me, he seems naive, that’s all. Uzi Sha comes off as someone representing Jewish interests, specifically about Israel, and may have been very interested in Rossi technology. The email from Darden to the Israeli attorney, Zalli, and to Uzi, gave Uze means to investigate the Rossi claims for himself, and did not libel Rossi. However, did Darden disclose the problems with Rossi? This was in February, 2016, and IH knew a lawsuit was coming. I would guess that Darden did disclose a fuller view of the situation to the lawyer. Uzi did decide not to work with Rossi, but still offered an opening for Levi. Levi rejected it, suspicious. Suspicious of what? He mentions fear of retaliation by IH. Except if they were going to retaliate, he set up the maximum disaster. Levi is not terribly smart, I’m afraid, something others have pointed out…. odd for a physicist, to be sure, but it happens. This is about human skills, not science as such.

So then IH Fanboy, who has become increasingly incoherent — many times I’ve been tempted to cover some of his ravings — wrote:

@sigmoidal
I was waiting for a true IH believer to defend the indefensible.

Nothing has been shown that is indefensible, no “belief in IH” is needed. I don’t actually see anything wrong in what Rossi claimed was witness tampering, and sigmoidal covered that, quite well.


Update

Rossi posted again today on JONP about the “Durapox” issue.

Anonymous
March 10, 2017 at 6:08 AM

Dr Andrea Rossi:
The Hot Cat tested in Lugano by the independent third party was made by Durapox, as somebody says, or by pure Alumina?
Thank you if you can clear this issue up,
All the best
Anomymous

Andrea Rossi
March 10, 2017 at 8:25 AM

Anonymous:
The reactor tested in the Lugano experiment was made by pure Alumina. We used Durapox to make the two caps ( the larger drums at the ends of the cylinder of the reactor ), but these drums did not contain any charge: they just contained the cablings of the terminals. The thermocamera was focused only on the cylinder of the reactor, made by pure alumina, not on the lateral caps, made by Durapox. By the way: the material the cylinder was made of has been analyzed by the Professors and resulted to be pure Alumina, as reported.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

This is very much “commenting on the lawsuit,” it is very current because of the Motion for Sanctions referring to the Durapot issue.

“Durapox” is a Rossi-ism. There is a product called Durepox, it is epoxy resin, it has nothing to do with alumina and the reactor material. Durapot will resist high temperatures. So why is “Anonymous” using a Rossi-ism, not found anywhere else in this regard? The answer is obvious.

Rossi did not make the reactor used at Lugano, Industrial Heat did, and it appears that T. Barker Dameron made that reactor, and told Dewey Weaver that the fins that covered the reactor were made from Durapot. Paradigmnoia pointed out the reference to Durapot in what we might call the “Lugano patent,” the one with T. Barker Dameron as co-inventor, which infuriated Rossi, but if Dameron added the Durapot idea, to make the Lugano reactor, it would be a legal requirement to list him. Rossi does not understand patent law. In any case, here is the patent.

[0074] In some embodiments, an optional refractory layer 18 with supports 20 are positioned around the resistance wires 16 to thereby hold the wires in position. As illustrated, the refractory layer 18 has a ribbed or finned surface, which may increase heat dissipation away from the reaction chamber 12. It should be understood, however, that the refractory layer 18 may omit the ribbed or finned surface, and may instead have a smooth, rough or other surface configuration. The refractory layer 18 and supports 20 may be omitted in some embodiments. The refractory layer 18 may be formed of a thermally conductive material and may be electrically resistant to reduce or prevent shorting or arcing events. In some embodiments, the refractory layer 18, supports 20 and sealing members 14 are formed of an alumina base. For example, an alumina base with volume resistivity of 10″ ohm-cm or better, dielectric strength of 270 volts/mil or better, thermal expansion of 4.5 10−6/defF or lower, and thermal conductivity of 15 BTU-in/defF-Hr-ft2 or higher, such as Durapot™ 810 (Cotronics Corp., Brooklyn, N.Y. (USA)), is suitable.
It is possible that Rossi did not know or realize that the reactor fins, the outside, may have been made of Durapot, probably over a pure alumina cylindrical base, which wasn’t his design. If he is not simply lying, he is not paying attention, and did not pay attention to this detail in 2014, nor later.
The Lugano report also has this about the sampling of alumina:
However, in order to acquire from the literature a more adequate emissivity vs. temperature trend, it was necessary to know some of the characteristics of the material the reactor was made of, such as its composition and degree of purity. For this purpose, upon completion of the test, we took a sample of the material constituting the reactor; subsequently, Prof. Ennio Bonetti (Bologna) subjected it to X-Ray spectroscopy. The results confirmed that it was indeed alumina, with a purity of at least 99%.

There are no details about how the sample was taken. There is an appendix on the analysis, by Professor Bonetti. It states:

In order to determine the nature of the material covering the reactor, a sample from one of the ridges was analyzed.
The author of the Bonetti report is, of course, Bonetti. But Bonetti did not take the sample, most likely. It was handed to him, presumably by Levi. Bonetti was told, we can assume, it was from a ridge. This is inconsistent with the information coming from T. Barker Dameron through the sworn testimony of Dewey Weaver. That’s all. Someone may have made a mistake, but it is unlikely that T. Barker Dameron would not know how he made the reactor and especially the ridges. And it is not particularly likely that the ridges would be made of pure alumina.
The whole sequence is particularly crazy because it may not matter very much whether the ridges were Durapot or Alumina. This could merely be a detail that was not nailed down. There is a much more significant, and likely, error, the abuse of band emissivity and total emissivity, which has been discussed at length on LENR Forum. And who made that error?
The one who is so upset at questions being raised. Levi, according to Dewey’s comment to Bo Hoisted — which Bo apparently did not challenge:
During our phone conversation last summer, you stated that Levi was forceful in controlling the specific Optris IR camera emissivity / transmissivity settings and that the Uppsala contingent left that decision to him.
This is consistent with Mats Lewan’s conversation with Levi, Levi still arguing for what he had done, that is, on examination, so nonsensical.
Levi did it.

Author: Abd ulRahman Lomax

See http://coldfusioncommunity.net/biography-abd-ul-rahman-lomax/

22 thoughts on “Discussion of how crazy can it get”

  1. Abd: perhaps you could comment on the Proposed Order 160.1? Is this still in play as a possible outcome? Or what? I don’t really understand the [PROPOSED] qualifier, and enlightenment would be welcome.

    1. Rossi proposed a Motion for Sanctions. When a motion is submitted to the court, it is a normal requirement that a draft order is attached. 160.1 is a draft order. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of this being issued by the court. All court orders will be primary documents, not attachments. 160.1 is an attachment to 160.0. I set off attachments on the Docket page with “== ” at the beginning. It is still “in play,” and will be until the Judge addresses it. She may want to schedule a hearing. IH may possibly reply to the motion.

      It is fascinating to see how Planet Rossi is responding, as if these documents presented by Rossi prove major misconduct. Apparently, it is not just a different planet, it is an alternate universe with alternative facts.

      1. Thanks for that Abd. Planet Rossi, on LENR forum, have become ever more weird, but seem unshaken in their views, as the evidence contrary to their case piles up. That is no surprise.

  2. Abd,
    I am sure you will see Eric’s thread on your work. I will say again, you are not a threat to people that think for themselves. The fact that being banned on LF and also that you do not try to go around it speaks volumes. Anyone can (and has) come here to speak. But, I would not censor anyone PERIOD. Come up with a better way than to moderate by delete. Just consider it, and think if you can find a way. A link would be better moderation to a delete.

    1. Actually, I’ve been doing other stuff and hadn’t seen it, so thanks. It was Jed’s thread, by the way. However, Eric chimed in, for which I thank him. I also thank him for downloading files, because it saves me a little cash when he beats me to it.

      It’s known how to moderate with minimal deletion, but it is a bit of work. That work was offered and rejected. It is simpler just to delete something you don’t like. There are many ways to do it without creating harm, but something else was apparently considered more important. What was that?

  3. It would be fascinating to review a complete write-up of me356’s experiments – say just one with claimed excess heat where all the extra instrumentation that he says in that thread he has is used and logged, so that we can, as he himself points out, work out what is what. From what he has revealed so far there is nothing clearly extraordinary (RF emissions would be likely depending on how he controls the heater -most people seem to use triacs that have RF edges).

    A picture of steam coming from a hose from a reactor with a heating element is remarkably unhelpful in determining is there excess heat…

    Obviously me356 likes to provide teasers. Should he ever like to provide something else I’d treat it with the attention it deserves.

    1. While it might be fascinating — and I think there was such a write-up on ECW — it’s also in the realm of largely unverifiable gossip, depending on an anonymous source, and, in my opinion, not worthy of any reliance at all. Until and unless there is independent verification, it’s distraction, only worthy of a few taking a look and maybe encouraging Me356 to take steps to improve communication.

      Yes, that video is essentially meaningless. It does appear to be live steam, but my electric tabletop water carafe does about the same. Maybe more, actually, it doesn’t have the small diameter steam pipe. With data, it could be more meaningful, but there is that that anonymity problem.

      1. While it might be fascinating — and I think there was such a write-up on ECW — it’s also in the realm of largely unverifiable gossip, depending on an anonymous source, and, in my opinion, not worthy of any reliance at all.

        My point was that me356 has never provided any sort of competent write-up – which makes all the talk about his results more surprising, since there is no evidence of these! Hints, nudges and winks do not constitutes results and that people take them seriously says something about the people.

        1. It does, though not very loudly. That is, people like to consider stuff. From my point of view, it’s largely a waste of time, extremely unlikely to bear useful fruit, but that’s just my opinion. Yesterday’s steam plume was meaningless, not impressive, and utterly uninformative. Unless, perhaps, the power input was zero. That might get my attention, but only if Me356 were not anonymous, or a reliable witness sees it. And then it’s still edgy.

  4. Hi Abd,

    I just received this link to a me356 video showing his current steam producing reactor:
    https://vid.me/IpLl

    me356 uploaded other videos in the past at vidme, as can be seen at LENR forum:
    https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/thread/1275-me356-reactor-parameters-part-1/?postID=16878#post16878

    Also compare the wall in the background with the walls of me356’s other videos and pictures he published.

    Looks like he’s in the final stages now 🙂

  5. Yes. I have seen Bayesian statistics abused by assigning a ridiculous prior that simply reflect strong, highly attached opinion, and in a peer-reviewed journal, no less. I saw this used to reject evidence of very high ordinary significance. Data was rejected because it conflicted with expectations, and the expectation was given a value of 1 in 10^20 against, not the data, but an inference from it. I’m not that sure I’m alive. If the priors are more reasonably assigned, Bayesian statistics are extremely useful.

    If I’m wrong, please show me, precisely! Where do our ideas deviate from each other? Can we test this?

    This in fact provides a framework in which we can consider the issue of skepticism. It is highly unclear what the prior probability of an LENR hypothesis is, as compared with an unknown experimental artifact. Both these two things are a matter of judgement – the one that is most difficult to judge is the LENR hypothesis because it depends on the weight you give to its coherence/ lack of coherence with other observation and theory. And on how you choose numerically to evaluate that weight. 10^-20 may seem like a large handicap but these things are exponential, so actually it is not that large – it can easily be overweighed by replicable experiment. But, whether it is appropriate is complex. I’d be hard put to justify any number here – whether 10^-20 or 0.1.

    So it could be that much of the apparent irreconcilable difference between skeptics and those less skeptical is simply the prior probability that they informally give to LENR.

    Irrespective of that, Abd’s second paragraph above applies and is useful. Such analysis of an experiment’s weak points, and suggestions as to how to cover them, can be done independently of what is your prior probability. If, however, your prior is close to 1 you will be less interested in the matter, becayuse it will seem like dotting is and crossing ts. If your prior is very very low you will be less interested since you reckon the chances of the experiment results not being due to artifact, and therefore highly interesting, are still very small.

    And then, some people like me are more interested in the process of seeking truth in these matters irrespective of the outcome, so they will be more tolerant of and interested in work to make results clearer.

    1. One of the problems in the LENR community is a mirroring of the rejection cascade. That is, LENR researchers, in general, have concluded that there is at least enough evidence to warrant their own investment in the field (even sometimes at high risk). Then there are “mainstream” scientists who, they can see, reject LENR without having knowledge of the experimental work that has been done. It is easy to conclude that these people are somehow stupid or even vicious. And some, in fact, are more or less vicious. But most casual skeptics are simply not enough convinced to invest what it would take to become familiar. It took me at least a year to become reasonably convinced, enough to justify continued study and writing (they are the same for me, writing is my process of study, documented, typically). My goal, then, became, not convincing skeptics, but making enough evidence available that a genuine skeptic might move a little toward “maybe there is something there,” even if they still are not motivated enough to go further. What I want to interrupt and stop is the knee-jerk reaction to cold fusion as bogus, that then has various and serious harmful effects.

      Both U.S. DoE reviews recommended more research, but if those who actually do that research are socially rejected — and that has often occurred — more research will be hampered. The first time a graduate student’s PhD thesis was rejected because it involved cold fusion, that sent a massive chill through the research establishment, and graduate student labor disappeared. To be sure, there was something quite odd about this. After all, recommended research? And then a student does it and is sanctioned, ipso facto, not because of the quality of his work?

      So I do understand why some think there is a conspiracy. Or was a conspiracy. However, my own view is that the most powerful response of the CMNS community is to become rigorously careful about work, and about publication. Nail it down, or if it is not nailed down, explicitly say so and discourage premature conclusions. This is still difficult. I have support from probably the most important scientists in the field, but certainly not from all. The field became, overall, very reluctant to criticize anyone’s work for fear of being like the skeptics. This harmed the science, there is no doubt. My mind is still boggled that we have Kim and Takahashi both proposing BECs as part of the explanation for cold fusion, and they never cite each other. Why? Nor do they criticize each other, when they may be among the few with both the inclination and skills to do so.

  6. Abd:

    You mention LENR Forum quite often. I don’t notice much comment there about your efforts here, though a few people note it from time to time. I can understand your frustrations with the open nature of that place, where clearly bonkers views are repeated. Also I agree that Alan as moderator has definite views on various issues that color his moderation. Nevertheless I don’t feel that Alan does a bad job overall.

    I disagree that, as Forums go, it is badly run. I personally like posting where I have committed intelligent advocates of the opposing view. It does not matter to me (though it is slightly annoying) that they are biassed and bonkers. Such intelligent contrary comment can force me to test and retest my own assumptions – which I like and find useful.

    Holding together diverse comment on controversial topics is pretty hard, and LENR forum does it well. There are enough there who value well-argued discussion, and who reckon openness is worth the cost of higher noise and bonkers arguments, to make it worth while.

    In particular, Eric Walker has always strong and well-reasoned points, whether I agree with them or no, and is an LENR Forum moderator. Paradigmnoia, whom you also mention above, is tenacious in the extreme and values technical truth above all else, being willing to spend more of his time searching for this, with some skill, than even me. These are all qualities that I admire, and I would personally favour a more positive tone here (a place I also like, seeing much to admire) towards that place.

    That preference need not sway you, but I’m putting it on the record.

    1. THH – Alan Smith has skin in the game, since he’s trying to replicate Parkhomov (and by inference, Rossi) and he’s hoping that it will actually work. This is bound to colour his responses to comments implying that Rossi never had anything. Even at this stage, though, when we’re pretty sure that the Doral test was set up by Rossi to get false measurements and that the Lugano test was similarly set up in a way that would mismeasure the output, I can’t be sure that Rossi never saw some unexpected successes. Tom Darden’s mention of a meltdown/explosion, where a stainless pipe of 3/4″ ID and 1/4″ wall-thickness swelled by 1/4″ and split as well may be one of those unexpected successes. Despite all that’s happened, therefore, it would be illogical to write Rossi off as just a fraud. Running on this logic, it’s possible that Alan’s experiments may actually work, though it’s also possible that that “explosion” was some sort of chemical energy and may need a larger quantity of fuel than Alan is actually using. Since there was no isotopic analysis of the results of the “explosion” mentioned, we just don’t know what really happened.

      The construction of the reactor, as mentioned above, was previously said to include a type K thermocouple. At the temperatures stated, this would have melted and would have been no use in process control. It’s thus obvious that the optical temperature measurement was wrong, even though we can’t be sure just how wrong from that snippet of information. The “Durapox” coating is pretty critical, and Rossi’s sock-puppet talking about it shows that Rossi knows there’s a problem if people examine it too closely. Don’t look behind the curtain!

      With Levi, it seems to me that he knows his data is wrong, and that it’s becoming obvious to him that we know that he knows it’s wrong. Being caught out fudging data isn’t forgiveable in science, even if it’s innocently done and has no consequences for the science. Here, there are big consequences. Could be that Levi gets stuck with a charge of conspiracy with Rossi, which is serious.

    2. Thanks for sharing, THH. Alan Smith doesn’t just do a bad job, he does an intolerable job. That is, if he was going to continue deleting material without notice or opportunity to recover it, I declared I was not going to write any more, there. So he banned me. THH, we have differing views of the future, of what is possible. Dewey Weaver called LF “amateur hour,” and he’s right. I have thirty years of on-line moderation experience. They don’t know how to do it, and don’t want to learn. Only Alan Smith was intolerable, but other moderators and administrators were not willing to restrain him. They are a “team.” So they are mutually responsible, even my friends among them.

      I do not disagree with the value you find there. However, while it is not being tested yet, this is a truly open forum. My opinions are my opinions, and everyone has opinions. The problem is not that LENR forum moderates, it is that it does it by deletion instead of organization. Harmless “off-topic” by users is deleted, but if by Alan Smith, in particular, of course, it stands and creates more off-topic discussion. Alan Smith is also interesting, on occasion. While he’s working in the lab, he’s not an academic writer, he frequently makes obscure or controversial comments without sources. However, that would not be such a problem if he were not wielding a moderation axe.

      At one point, LF asked for community input on how to deal with moderation. There was a discussion. It was then largely ignored, but then a policy was created. Which they don’t follow. This is a structural issue, and the owner is responsible for it. Alan is not really the problem, he’d be fine with supervision and guidance, I assume.

      Yes, Eric Walker is a moderator. He also said that he was not willing to rock the boat. He follows the hidden policy of the owner (or non-polciy, but Eric would not challenge Smith misbehavior. Nor will Alain, who invited me to LENR-Forum.

      I am not willing to bet the future of LENR on anonymous users or hidden ones with autocratic practices. LF is actually a business, I don’t know if you have noticed. There is no question about it being useful at times. It may serve your purposes well. It does not necessarily serve mine — as far as participation there. Now, if you want to see good content here, please build it. There are many ways you can do that. It does not start, however, by wishing for a change in tone, except as you create that with your work. I might not allow author tools to anonymous users. I would make an exception for you, because you are not actually anonymous.

      The debate and testing with on-line fora, I have been doing since the 1980s. I use LF as a source of material, but LF itself doesn’t have the potential for organized content that is far easier here. I have barely begun. Hypertext, the promise of the early 1990s. It’s about time we apply it.

  7. The whole alumina/durapot issue is a sideline, except to cast even more doubt on the Lugano results. Since these were debunked from the moment the band emisivity vs total emissivity issue was understood – and as far as I can see only stayed in play because of Levi’s insistence and Mats compliant going along with him – they are not to the point, except that if – now – you wish to argue that the Lugano reactor did generate excess power there is less strong negative evidence for that from the test.

    One of the strange things about blog comment is that a test that provides no evidence – because of known high errors – can be seen as positive evidence for excess heat. The wider the error bars the greater the positive evidence! It is a social phenomena, related no doubt to the no publicity is bad publicity truism and the fact that people often apply no smoke without fire argument to controversial propositions so that in any controversy it is seen as unbalanced to support one side 100% against a compromise position even if the proposition is essentially binary.

    The way that, in processing evidence, people find it hard to distinguish between probabilities and probability of probability distributions is not surprising but always fascinates me. E.T. Jaynes (the logic of science http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/prob/book.pdf) gives a readable introduction to Bayesisan statistics as it applies to scientific analysis which should be required reading for all. Not because Bayesian analysis of problems solves the difficulties in deciding what prior probability attaches to hypotheses – it cannot – but because it illuminates simple cases and from a secure understanding of the simple we can better guess the complex.

    1. Yes. I have seen Bayesian statistics abused by assigning a ridiculous prior that simply reflect strong, highly attached opinion, and in a peer-reviewed journal, no less. I saw this used to reject evidence of very high ordinary significance. Data was rejected because it conflicted with expectations, and the expectation was given a value of 1 in 10^20 against, not the data, but an inference from it. I’m not that sure I’m alive. If the priors are more reasonably assigned, Bayesian statistics are extremely useful.

      1. I should add: Bayesian statistics provides mathematically inescapable ways to assign priors – but only when the hypothesis space, and all its symmetries, can be completely characterised. That is far from true in most realistic examples. Still, the fact that in principle prior probabilities can be assigned helps by providing us with an idea of what they mean. For example, we can see why hypotheses that match outcomes using free parameters should be dis-favoured and even quantify exactly how large this affect us in a consistent manner.

        This is quite subtle: on the one hand the mathematical consistency requirements really do tie down priors in a useful manner and allow some different priors to be compared. On the other hand the difficulty in formulating a complete space of all hypotheses or in determining the effective number of free parameters in some complex discrete hypothesis makes this of much less value than you’d think in many cases. It certainly can be abused by people with no physical understanding of the problems they apply it to. Also Bayesian statistics has been often abused by people who do not understand the way that first principles symmetry arguments can be used to determine prior probabilities, and who instead use rules of thumb out of the correct context.

        Over the key question here – what should the prior of an unusual hypothesis such as LENR be – things are very complex indeed. I’d need a lot of space to enumerate the various factors that affect this, let alone try to resolve them even as a guestimate. But perhaps it is still worth trying to do.

        1. Some try to use Bayesian priors to pretend that experimental evidence does not extraordinarily contradict the prior expectations, and prior expectations, properly, simply apply to “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” I.e., “extraordinary” is subjective, not objective, or too often is such. Nevertheless, human beings make choices subjectively. Always. That is, our judgment of “objective” tends strongly to be subjective. What is extraordinary to one person may be ordinary to another, especially if their experience varies. In the ECREE trope, there is a missing performative. “Require” for what? Spending a billion dollars? Yes, damn straight! However, looking again, investigating, or, more to the point, tolerating that some investigate, no, ordinary evidence suffices for that. Cold fusion was very much not expected. Pons and Fleischmann suspected that fusion rate might higher in the solid state than in a plasma, than the free-space approximations calculated, and they were probably right on that, there is evidence that this is so (for hot fusion). However, by looking where nobody had looked before, under very unusual conditions, they found a very surprising heat effect. It surprised them, so they kept investigating. They did not announce until forced. They were clearly not ready, and the rest of the story is the Scientific Fiasco of the Century, Huizenga was right on that. The first priority should have been, in 1989-1990, to replicate their results. We can look at all the ways in which some different agenda was followed. Replication is not, properly, confirmation or disconfirmation; what happens if one finds different results is normally to assume that one has not replicated, something is different. Only extensive — many years — of failed replications may lead to a conclusion of mystery, the original report is some unknown anomaly. Or, of course, fraud. The proper goal of replication would be to obtain the same results, and then carefully investigate the experiment for artifacts, to be demonstrated with controlled experiment. This is under way in some cases. Coolessence has experienced extensive replication failure, with different experiments. To my mind, they are choosing the most doubtful experiments, not the strongest. They have a tendency to assume that if they find some possible artifact, that is the original problem, but they are far too much believing in their own conclusions. Still, they are actually looking, which puts them far ahead of most. What I’m hoping for is more collaboration and cooperation, instead of what tends to happen: argument and opposition and claims of “they’re wrong!”

          If I’m wrong, please show me, precisely! Where do our ideas deviate from each other? Can we test this? In some cases, though, the research funding evaporated, the original claimants cannot or are not funded to redo the work, in spite of skeptical demands. Cold fusion research is a huge mess, in part. I started looking for what was consistent, even if still, in some ways, defective. This was the research to be more deeply and more precisely confirmed or disconfirmed.

  8. Abd – our attorneys asked me to tone it down for a little while. I’m taking a self-imposed break for several reasons including a “test”. It is interesting that the animals, including imposters, have come out in force today. We’ll let them have some Planet Rossi fun for a little while.
    With their bush league tactics, Rossi and his attorneys now have a legal firestorm in their forecast.

    1. Yes. Got it. Silence is good for the soul, for a time. When you talk again, you will speak with more power, though you are already damn good. Reading your deposition, I was … impressed with how you handled the questions, straight-on, unflappable, apparently, and succinct without losing significant accuracy.

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