Pacermonitor.com appears to be dysfunctional. While the Rossi v. Darden docket page claims to have been updated, it hasn’t. It ends at this point with DE 281 (May 3), while Eric Walker and I have documents up to 289 (May 6). Pacermonitor ordinarily updates at midnight, but it looks like their PACER login might be failing, and their automated access may treat a login failure as if there were no new documents.
(I contacted pacermonitor and they fixed the problem. At least for now!)
LENR-Forum.com is being spammed with a new troll: Ahlfors. “Female, Member since May 6th 2017”
Googling Ahlfors comes up with many references to Lars Ahlfors. There are other Ahlfors, but none appeared, as far as I looked, to be interested in LENR or Rossi, The probability that Ahlfors is female is very low — though not zero.
The posts are in Rossi v. Darden Developments, but are mostly off-topic there, having the most peripheral significance possible without being entirely irrelevant. One post led me to notice a filing in the supplement to the joint stipulation, a piece of evidence that Rossi has listed. That is itself entirely off-topic for the lawsuit, it would be like a criminal case that notes the alleged offender was once cited for jaywalking. Obviously, if someone could jaywalk, he could rob a bank. I’ll cover this elsewhere.
The posts are typically images, very little text if any. The images are copies of documents with supposed Great Significance, I’d guess. All posts but appear to have been made within a three-hour period. In time order, latest first, as of this writing:
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JT in Zürich 09/12/2012
Photos allegedly JT Vaughn in Zürich. JT Vaughn went to Zurich. Big whoop?
Replied to the thread Rossi vs. Darden developments – Part 2.
Intern 2
Position notice for ‘startup technology company,” Chemistry lab manager. Involves hydrogen storage materials. However, the listing then is about a “Graduate Research Assistant,” Solid State Materials, North Carolina State University, Professor Paul Maggard’s lab. This is the lab. Connection with Rossi v. Darden practically invisible. However, the lab is in Raleigh, at North Carolina State University there. Maggard has published in the field of solar electric energy conversion, which would then make connections with the people behind Industrial Heat quite plausible. However, I found no evidence so far. People who spend more time and are more diligent may find something.
This appears to be a LinkedIn page for someone working at HMRI, since August 2016. This led me to the profile for Nicholas A. Renck, who worked at HMRI R&D, Inc., from December, 2015, to June, 2016.
Responsible for investigation of chemistry related aspects in development of a proprietary energy source as well as the preparation of a chemistry lab and related processes at a small start-up.
Successfully calibrated the spectral profiles of metals of interest for a SEM/EDS system without training from Brüker.
The imaged information is from this page: Josh Dickerson. The only information of interest (for any possible relationship to RvD) is the name of the employer: HMRI, Inc. The work was “characterization of materials.”
From these sources, HMRI, Inc. is involved with a “proprietary energy source.” That’s about it.
V = 2,33kV
P = 244,9W
I = 0,105A
d = 0,015m
λ = 0,53nm
This is a Google cache of a staff page for Fabio Fabiani at Upsalla University. Fabiani is called a “researcher,” and this is in the Department of Chemistry. There is no evidence that this is the same Fabio Fabiani as was Rossi’s helper, though it would be somewhat remarkable as a coincidence if he is not. Rossi has friends at Upsalla.
The Google cache comments are in Italian, and the page was captured 20 March, 2017. The cache copy calls him a “visiting researcher.”
This has nothing to do with Rossi v. Darden Developments.
This user is wasting the time of many readers. There was a complaint.
Ahlfors,
Personally, I’d like to see you make some coherent points or arguments rather than just spamming the forum with disconnected screenshots and pictures.
Ignored.
I notice the people who upvote things like this….
IH Fanboy wrote:
Looks like Ahlfors has been digging. You might recall that AlainCo discovered that JT Vaughn might be behind HRMI R&D, Inc.
Antonio LaGatta and John T Vaughn have incorporated HMRI R&D Inc in North Carolina
This is where I came in. Looking at this thread brought it all back. The breathless gossip, basically rumor. Dead sources. But, wait, Vessela Nikolova! never mind!
It was there that David Nygren valued IHHI at over $1 billion, by multiplying 23 million shares by $45. Nobody corrected Nygren’s error until I posted about three months later. The ordinary stock is penny stock, worth $0.01 per share par value. $45 was the approximate price per share of preferred stock, issued to the two Woodford trusts. The total value of that preferred stock was $50 million, quite precisely.
Since I started writing this, there are a few more posts:
[two images: line 210 of the Rossi evidences re “Proprietary Information Agreement – PIA No. 2011-2011 between The Boeing Company and Leonardo Corporation”, dated 4/13/2011 (before the IH/Rossi agreement, but this has IH Bates document numbers? Perhaps Boeing gave these documents to IH?), and then an excerpt of a handwritten note provided by Ampenergo, saying “Device sent to Boeing, Rossi does not know.” Which we already knew. Rossi was upset about this, as I recall, expressing it on JONP. How could anyone possibly test the device without authentic Rossi Grease?
(Well, if the IP has been transferred, they could! If not, then, of course, failure would be expected. The magic incantations would be missing.)
Friends and IP protection …
Quote: “AR is a convicted fraudster”
At least now Ahlfors gives URLs as sources, not just screenshots. Andrea Rossi was convicted, and served time in prison; what later happened is unclear to me and I’ve never seen a thorough examination of it. Mats Lewan is unclear, etc. This thread is supposedly about Rossi v. Darden developments, but Darden doesn’t make that “convicted fraudster” claim and it is irrelevant. What is this stuff doing here?
snap4: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitst…9480/Pinho.pdf?sequence=1
60 page paper about RU-486. No page number or clue of relevance. The image, however, shows a page, but the page number is obscured. So, searching for a name visible in the image, I find that it is page 37. Unfortunately, I cannot directly link to that because of how this paper is hosted, and it’s not worth uploading the whole thing here.
This is about Joseph Pike. See our page examining this and connecting it with present concerns.
snap 5: https://beta.companieshouse.go…ent?format=pdf&download=0
68 page Articles of Association of IHHI. No page number or clue of relevance. However, the image shows a list of investors, and JPIH Holdings LLC is an investor in IHHI.
snap6: http://search.sunbiz.org/Inqui…cumentNumber=M14000008590
And this shows the Florida registration of JPIH Holdings LLC as a foreign corporation, from Delaware. The Delaware incorporation was in May, 2013, about the time IH was raising their initial cash, that allowed them to make the $10 million payment, and to begin working seriously with LENR.
The purpose here is to smear Pike and thus IH, by claiming that if Rossi might have been a criminal, so was Pike. But Pike’s offense was thirty years ago, was relatively minor, apparently, and he is not a principal in IH, not an officer, and, for the most part, an investor. His involvement with the RU-486 affair was shady, but it appears to have been fully resolved, nobody was left screaming “Fraud!”
Ahlfors’ agenda is now clear. Slimy.
Update
Ahlfors left in a huff after Allan pointed out he’d been warned and one post was deleted. (As is SOP with him, — and some other newcomers — he doesn’t link to what he is responding to.) Then, encouraged by some support, he put up a new mish-mosh:
Link to profile but not the post. It was probably this. The lack of understanding or caring about general intelligibility is quite noticeable here.
Complex systems must be shattered a bit to collect REAL data on corresponding phase spaces.
This is extremely unlikely to be Andrea Rossi. It is quite possible someone has recognized Ahlfors. So then he puts up three images, again with no sources. Hmmphh. I wrote one of them, and there is no credit. Maybe I should create a license page. It’s rude to quote people without credit. It also can be a violation of copyright law, that depends on details.
The first is from Dewey Weaver. There are links in it, but as an image, they cannot be followed, and certainly the sources can be found, but it’s tedious. Given that he could have added links in a few seconds, again, this shows his lack of care for other people, characteristic of the probably-involved developmental disorder. He is not stupid and could learn if he recognized what is missing.
The source is the member activity display for Dewey, but that may change. So the original posts are at here (May 9, 2017), and here (March 27, 2017). Ahlfors habit of posting edited screenshots conceals context, and this then makes it easier to promote some interpretation of the “data.” It’s data, all right, but cherry-picked and filtered for some appearance or other.
The second image is some text that might be an LF private message, but it could also be from many other sources. It says “8 hours ago,” then the message is:
Hej Ahlfors. Jag undrar om du skulle vilja ta kontakt direkt med mig på [blacked out].
This, then, appears to be a message to Ahlfors — at the LF account — from someone who speaks Swedish, likely, and expects if from him, maybe. It gives no clue as to Ahlfors actual identity or nationalilty or language. There is another indication, from a Google cache display, that his preferred language is Italian. Of course, perhaps Ahlfors got that image from someone like that. None of this, in isolation, is strong evidence.
And then there is a shot from here. This page, in fact, above, near the top.
LENR-Forum.com is being spammed with a new troll: Ahlfors. “Female, Member since May 6th 2017”
Googling Ahlfors comes up with many references to Lars Ahlfors. There are other Ahlfors, but none appeared, as far as I looked, to be interested in LENR or Rossi, The probability that Ahlfors is female is very low — though not zero.
The posts are in Rossi v. Darden Developments, but are mostly off-topic there, having the most peripheral significance possible without being entirely irrelevant. One post led me to notice a filing in the supplement to the joint stipulation, a piece of evidence that Rossi has listed. That is itself entirely off-topic for the lawsuit, it would be like a criminal case that notes the alleged offender was once cited for jaywalking. Obviously, if someone could jaywalk, he could rob a bank. I’ll cover this elsewhere.
What is the connection between the three images? What is the point, or is this pointless? My guess. Dewey claims Ahlfors is ele. That is a kind of critique. Ahlfors quotes someone addressing him, though this could merely be a copy of an LF PM, which would, of course, use his LF username. He might imagine that this somehow establishes his independence from ele, maybe that it’s in Swedish is imagined to amplify that. And then I have noticed Ahfors (actually, from timing, before Dewey posted that comment, his first in a long time). Aha!
Isn’t it obvious?!?!
This is how Sifferkoll thought and worked. Whatever connection could be found was taken as proof of … of … what? Large companies sometimes hire the largest law firm in the U.S. Therefore they are all controlled by a single interest! (If Cherokee were not a defendant, would IH have hired Jones Day? Maybe. They have those habits.)
Meanwhile, the flood of flabber continues. In this case, it might seem to be from the “other side.” or from the side of Haven’t a Clue. From my point of view, there are no sides and one can be terminally obtuse in favor of any position.
I don’t think there’s enough information to be forced into a negative interpretation yet. One possibility: Perlman Bajandas are just cleaning up loose ends after Annesser left, and “withdrawal can be accomplished without material adverse effect on the interests of the client”.
Well somebody at LENR-forum apparently doesn’t agree with you. Here is the (spam) e-mail I received:
Hello {username},
today new court documents were released, where especially document 292 “Motion to withdraw” seems to indicate significant negative developments in Rossi’s camp.
In document 292 most of Rossi’s lawyers ask the court for permission to “withdraw from this case and from further representation of Plaintiffs, Andrea Rossi”.
I got the same email. Including “{username}”. There was a little more:
For more information see the forum discussion thread:
Your LENR Forum Team
joshg goes on:
Spamming a premature, tendentious, and likely inaccurate interpretation of this Motion just confirms that LENR-forum is biased against Rossi in favor of IH. There have been plenty of motions that could be viewed as a setback for IH, yet I was never spammed about that.
And yes, it is spam, since LENR-forum does not provide users with a way to opt-out of receiving such unsolicited notifications.
LENR-Forum is run by amateurs without wide experience in such activity. I think of the interpretation as merely clueless. LF process is quite unclear. My suspicion is that while this is signed “Your LENR Forum Team,” it is really a message from a single moderator or administrator, struck by his own imagination that the Motion to Withdraw is some sort of major “sign.”
First of all, this was obviously happening. The first sign I saw was Bernstein appearing with Annesser at a hearing, April 21. I wrote about it here. Bernstein was an associate at Silver Law Group. Annesser had moved to PBY&A, Rossi gained all those attorneys (August 16, 2016), and then Annesser, for Rossi, requested Silver Law Group be relieved (September 21). I think Ms. Silver died in October.
April 27, Annesser and Chaiken issue a notice of new address. They have clearly formed a new firm, Annesser and Chaiken. There was no mention of PBY&A in that notice, and that firm’s lawyers were not on the service list.
May 9, Bernstein appeared for Rossi, and later that day, Turner and Evans, of PBY&A, requested to be relieved. There are Forum moderators who are legally naive, and who interpreted the motion to allow withdrawal as having some accusatory edge. That is extremely unlikely. The move itself may raise eyebrows, but attorneys would never accuse former associated attorneys of misbehavior during an action, absent extremely unusual situations. I think the mod was confused by this:
2. Pursuant to Rule 4-1.16(b), Florida Rules of Professional Conduct, grounds exist for this Court to allow Undersigned Counsel’s withdraw from representing Plaintiffs.
“Grounds exist.” So a reader goes to Rule 4-1.16(b) and finds this:
(b) When Withdrawal Is Allowed.
Except as stated in subdivision (c), a lawyer may withdraw from representing a client if withdrawal can be accomplished without material adverse effect on the interests of the client, or if:
(1) the client persists in a course of action involving the lawyer’s services that the lawyer reasonably believes is criminal or fraudulent;
(2) the client has used the lawyer’s services to perpetrate a crime or fraud;
(3) a client insists upon pursuing an objective that the lawyer considers repugnant or imprudent;
(4) the client fails substantially to fulfill an obligation to the lawyer regarding the lawyer’s services and has been given reasonable warning that the lawyer will withdraw unless the obligation is fulfilled;
(5) the representation will result in an unreasonable financial burden on the lawyer or has been rendered unreasonably difficult by the client; or
(6) other good cause for withdrawal exists.
To understand this, one must notice that the list of causes comes after a general permission to withdraw if it “can be accomplished without material adverse effect on the interests of the client, or if:” — and then the list follows. The additional causes as listed would never be announced like this, because it could harm the client. If it were necessary to assert them, this would be done privately with the Judge.
Rather, Turner and Evans then give cause:
3. Lead counsel for the Plaintiffs have resigned from the office for Undersigned Counsel and Plaintiffs have moved with them.
4. Plaintiffs’ counsel is John Annesser, Esq., Annesser & Chaiken, PLLC, located at 2525 Ponce De Leon Blvd., Suite 625, Coral Gables, Florida 33134.
§ 3 gives cause (which might satisfy Rule 4-1.16(a), that they must withdraw if discharged). § 4 assures the Court that Rossi will continue to have representation.
While this is food for flabber, DE 292 was one of the least significant documents to come out recently.
What this reveals is that LF allows moderators to email all members. I’m a bit uncomfortable calling this spam, but this is one example of unprofessional conduct — not surprising for a group of amateurs. Moderators are not given special privileges to give them special access to eyeballs, except with the performance of duties. The importance of this document was a moderator opinion, and it was offensive to joshg, never mind that he lives mostly on Planet Rossi. There are other examples. On the home page for the Forum, we have a banner:
LENR Forum
The Independent Low Energy Nuclear Reaction Community
Is LENR forum a community project? It displays advertising. Who decides to do that? There is a LENR community, but the vast majority of those involved with LENR do not read or participate in LENR Forum. The Forum users are a kind of community, but the Staff may include or exclude people without showing any cause, and Staff discussions are private, not disclosed, though occasionally they are mentioned.
And then at the bottom of the screen, there is a pair of buttons. [What is LENR?] and [Forum]. The “What is LENR” button goes to an article. When Barty upgraded the site in January, my guess is he decided the site needed an introductory article, so he wrote it, and featured it. Without going into details, it is a poor article, he simply isn’t well grounded in the relevant subjects. I suspect that Barty is also the one who can “spam” the members. But it might be any admin or any moderator.
That “spam” wasn’t signed, but was represented as coming from all staff.
Moderation decisions on LF are ad hoc. It is not clear that there are any restraining rules. There do not appear to be logs showing deletions or other moderator actions. (That’s also a problem with WordPress). If it’s like WordPress, there are deletions that merely hide, and there are deletions that erase the material so it is not recoverable unless there is some off-site backup. (Actually, I just checked. I could install WP Security Audit Log. What this would do is to allow monitoring administrative activity. The WMF wikis would be practically impossible without that.
Update2
All but the latest of Ahlfors’ posts have been deleted on LF. See his profile. It shows 12 posts, but only 3 remain. He has 15 likes, but only 5 show.
One user suggested an Ahlfors thread, so he could continue to compile his “evidence.” (evidence of what? Stuff happens?). Ahlfors is clearly supporting Planet Rossi, perhaps trolling (I called him a troll above, and a troll may want to create exactly what LF admin then cooperated with), but channeling this so that it does not derail more constructive conversations would be what skilled moderation would do. Skilled moderation was offered to LF, it was rejected (with no reasons given, a blank wall was presented, with the suggesting staff member somewhat in despair). It only takes one skilled moderator and some sane discussion process to infect the whole staff with sanity. And that is exactly why someone might want to stop it. The fact that a moderator who abused the privilege could be immediately suspended by any admin with rights assignment privileges is ignored. People will protest!
Yes, they will. And if everything runs on preventing squeaky wheels, the best way to prevent them is to stop moving.
Ahlfors is not banned, but deleting the content of an author is stronger — more offensive — than a ban. Moving it to the Playground, say, was the older, less dysfunctional response. There is no supervisory process visible for LF. I suspect the “rule” that (Alan?) had in mind was flooding, but response to that should be totally predictable and should cause no harm. Alan, however, follows the Absolute Truth principle. If Alan thinks it, it is Absolute Truth and everything else is stupid or vicious. Full stop.
New Update (Update2). Ahlfors’ posts almost entirely deleted. No comment that I’ve seen. User requests for an Ahlfors thread were ignored, as far as anything I could find.
Abd – since this morning LF was on page 256 and now ends on page 255, I suspect some of your links above may be invalid. The ones I’ve checked seem to work though end up on the wrong comment. In the meantime there are now 256 pages again. Trying to hit a moving target (I presume some of Ahlfor’s comments were removed totally or moved to the playground, and/or some other comments about moderation were moved to the same place) can be a bit tricky.
I’m not prepared to spend any time puzzling out what Ahlfors is trying to show. To me it seems simply an attempt to derail discussion rather than adding useful information. The comments on “Loopy” are however very relevant – looks to be building consensus on what will actually work.
Thanks for letting me know. I have discussed this before. It is an LF bug, my opinion. Some incoming links shift when stuff is moved, and not just the link for what was moved, other links as well, because of how pages are numbered. I’ll review my links.
A basic problem there is slow response and then an incoherent way of making and handling decisions. Moved posts should actually have a forward link left in place showing that the post was moved, similar to what is shown with deleted messages.
LF is not designed for content building, or, at least, is not used that way.
It was obvious immediately that Ahlfors was filling the Rossi v. Darden developments section with irrelevancies, and that could have been immediately stopped. (He was “flooding” the topic, and a temporary block could have been used to get his attention and invite him to positive participation. As it is now, there are plenty of responses to Ahlfors, on LF and elsewhere (I think on ECW) that now make no sense. I’ll see if I can tie it together.
Updated with more misc mash — more from Ahlfors, plus RvD case confusion and LENR Forum administrative flabber.