Re: [Vo]:Shouldn't we consider the free chat GPT3.5 AGI?

[Sean True]

LLM do not have intrinsic short or modifiable long term memory. Both require supplemental systems - reprompting of recent history or expensive offline fine tuning or even more expensive retraining.I think it’s fair to say no AGI until those are designed in, particularly the ability to actually learn from experience.Sent from my iPhoneOn Apr 10, 2023, at 9:34 AM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:Robin  wrote:As I said earlier, it may not make any difference whether an AI feels/thinks as we do, or just mimics the process.That is certainly true.As you pointed out, the AI has no concept of the real world, so it's not going to care whether it's shooting people up
in a video game, or using a robot with a real machine  gun in the real world.I hope that an advanced AGI will have a concept of the real world, and it will know the difference. I do not think that the word "care" applies here, but if we tell it not to use a machine gun in the real world, I expect it will follow orders. Because that's what computers do. Of course, if someone programs it to use a machine gun in the real world, it would do that too!I hope we can devise something like Asamov's laws at the core of the operating system to prevent people from programming things like that. I do not if that is possible.
It may be "just a tool", but the more capable we make it the greater the chances that something unforeseen will go
wrong, especially if it has the ability to connect with other AIs over the Internet, because this adds exponentially to
the complexity, and hence our ability to predict what will happen decreases proportionately.I am not sure I agree. There are many analog processes that we do not fully understand. They sometimes go catastrophically wrong. For example, water gets into coal and causes explosions in coal fired generators. Food is contaminated despite our best efforts to prevent that. Contamination is a complex process that we do not fully understand or control, although of course we know a lot about it. It seems to me that as AI becomes more capable it may become easier to understand, and more transparent. If it is engineered right, the AI will be able to explain its actions to us in ways that transcend complexity and give us the gist of the situation. For example, I use the Delphi 10.4 compiler for Pascal and C++. It has some AI built into it, for the Refactoring and some other features. It is enormously complex compared to compilers from decades ago. It has hundreds of canned procedures and functions. Despite this complexity, it is easier for me to see what it is doing than it was in the past, because it has extensive debugging facilities. You can stop execution and look at variables and internal states in ways that would have been impossible in the past. You can install add-ons that monitor for things like memory leaks. With refactoring and other features you can ask it to look for code that may cause problems. I don't mean code that does not compile, or warning signs such as variables that are never used. It has been able to do that for a long time. I mean more subtle errors.I think it also gives helpful hints for upgrading legacy code to modern standards, but I have not explored that feature. The point is, increased complexity gives me more control and more understanding of what it is doing, not less.

Re: [Vo]:COVID19 Scenario Explorer

[Sean True]

You can set the duration of the simulation in a calendar control:
[image: image.png]
and adjust the transmission rate to reflect improvements in counter
measures:
[image: image.png]

It's very hard to set parameters that will not include the US running out
of ICU beds and the attendant
catastrophic death rate.

On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 4:41 PM Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> Charles  wrote:
>
>> 'We are a research group at the Biozentrum, University of Basel,
>> Switzerland . We are broadly
>> interested in evolution, ecology, and population genetics with a focus on
>> rapidly evolving pathogens such as HIV, influenza virus, or pathogenic
>> bacteria.'
>>
>> https://neherlab.org/covid19/
>>
> This is a excellent modeling program. It takes into account many different
> parameters. I poked around with it for a while. I don't yet understand how
> to use it properly, but let me make a few basic observations:
>
> Set this for "United States." On the top left, set the "epidemiology"
> parameter to "Slow/North" and the projection for March 21 (yesterday) comes
> out 19,624 cases, 260 deaths. The actual total for yesterday was 24,207,
> 302 deaths. So, the model is remarkably close to yesterday with that
> setting.
>
>
> This model assumes the control parameters will not change. That's
> unrealistic! We are not a flock of birds with no control over the epidemic.
> Of course the parameters will change as people are frightened and they
> begin to follow orders and stay in their houses. How much they will change
> I myself cannot predict. I hope epidemiologists can predict this, and
> advise government officials.
>
>
> Obviously, the parameters could have changed completely, enough to
> extinguish the epidemic weeks ago in the U.S., if only our political
> leaders had learned from S. Korea and Japan. And learned what not to do
> from Italy. Alas, they did not, and now whatever happens, we will surely
> pay a high price. How high? This model predicts 223,000 deaths by Sept. 1.
> The epidemic continues after that, but . . . um . . .  I cannot figure out
> how to extend this graph.
>
>
>

Re: [Vo]:frequency detection

[Sean True]

Frank --

Here's an existence proof:

 https://aubio.org -- free for research, but not free for commercial use.

but this is not an easy problem, particularly for instruments without fixed
pitch (voice) or polyphonic (piano) or both.

Zero crossings are inexpensive to compute, and not very valuable (there's a
lemma in here about the cost of getting information).
FFT can certainly be done in realtime, even on a phone, but may require
using GPU code or carefully tuned CPU code, depending on the platform.
If you can make it work with ZCs, you will have people approaching you with
business propositions.

Cell phones are quite capable of doing local speech recognition, but it's
much cheaper to use customer paid bandwith to centralize large vocabulary
ASR on servers, and to use edge devices for very limited cases, such as
wake up phrases (hey siri, alexa).

-- Sean

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 4:10 PM  wrote:

> In reply to  Frank Znidarsic's message of Tue, 23 Oct 2018 00:57:26 +
> (UTC):
> Hi Frank,
>
> I don't think cell phones recognize human speech at all (unless you have
> one
> that takes voice commands). AFAIK, they just sample it very fast, and
> digitize
> the samples for transmission. IOW they use an ADC.
> However there is real speech recognition software, which is what I was
> talking
> about. (E.g. built into Windows.)
>
>
> >Thank you Mixnet.  I only want to get the frequency not to recognize
> speech.  Its amazing that a cell phone can understand speech.  I makes me
> appreciate how behind I really am.  If they can do that I should be able to
> produce a simple algorithm that extracts a frequency from an array of
> amplitude points.
> >I am taking a break now.
> >
> >
> >Frank Znidarsic
> >ps My bottle of black iron and helium sucked in after a few months.  I am
> not sure what happened.  I detected no anomalous energy.
> >
> >
> Regards,
>
>
> Robin van Spaandonk
>
> local asymmetry = temporary success
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Article: This Overlooked Theory Could Be The Missing Piece That Explains How The EM Drive Works

[Sean True]

In lieu of the paywalled article, this earlier preprint may be
illuminating: http://vixra.org/abs/1706.0283

On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 12:53 PM, Bob Higgins 
wrote:

> Pilot wave theory posits that particle positions can be known and there is
> no wave-particle duality.  Instead, a "pilot wave" guides the particles
> through the slits and standing waves in the "medium" are what produces
> apparent wave-like behavior of particle motion.  Pilot wave theory itself
> does not hypothesize what the "medium" comprises that is able to propagate
> the guiding wave.  I think Pilot Wave Theory fits perfectly with Hotson's
> EPO ether.
>
> Continued investigation of the EM-drive may be the crack in physics that
> finally shows that conventional quantum mechanics is an arcane, obsolete,
> and incomplete formulation of the physics of small matter.  Just because
> quantum mechanics mostly works, doesn't mean it is a good formulation of
> the problem.
>
> On Sat, Oct 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Jack Cole  wrote:
>
>> This Overlooked Theory Could Be The Missing Piece That Explains How The
>> EM Drive Works
>>
>> http://flip.it/R11OHO
>>
>
>

Re: EXTERNAL: [Vo]: Rossi: 1MW Plant Customer Bought Three More Plants

[Sean True]

There appear to be shell and holding companies. This is not unusual, nor is
it unusual for a lawyer to act as a cutout. This keeps prying eyes (us)
from observing the principals (people who want many watts of steam)
closely.

Try penetrating a real estate trust, sometime.

Throwing additional dust into the air, it's also possible that more than
one law firm is working for Rossi, but only one shows in the court filings.
Less likely, but possible.

-- Sean

On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 11:08 AM, Roarty, Francis X <
francis.x.roa...@lmco.com> wrote:

> I thought the problem was the "customer" is also Rossi's lawyer?
>
> -Original Message-
> From: a.ashfield [mailto:a.ashfi...@verizon.net]
> Sent: Friday, April 15, 2016 10:51 AM
> To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
> Subject: EXTERNAL: [Vo]: Rossi: 1MW Plant Customer Bought Three More Plants
>
> So Rossi says the customer has ordered three more plants and he hopes to
> build them in 180 days.
>
> I expect the skeptics will write about "Rossi says" but I recall them
> not believing the first plant existed because it was secret. Do they
> accept the plant is real yet?   I don't know.
>
> Anyway, if he has three orders in hand from the original customer, I
> would say that is worth more than any expert's report when it gets to
> court..
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Next Big Future - goes out on a limb

[Sean True]

In fact, it would fit in a modest living room. The dimensions are 6'
across, 6' high, and 7' long.
The interesting question is how would you use that much steam?

-- Sean

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 9:35 PM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> I wrote:
>
>
>> A dry cleaner steam generator is ~10 kW. See:
>>
>> http://www.reimersinc.com/steam-boilers-garment
>>
>
> Here is a 750 kW boiler. I will grant, you could fit this boiler into the
> warehouse. You would then operate 75 steam presses from it, which is not
> possible:
>
> http://www.reimersinc.com/_assets/pdf/RHP600-750_Brochure_Rev2.pdf
>
> There are mills and factories with 75 steam presses. They are big
> buildings, well ventilated, with chimneys and blowers and large plumes of
> steam. You can see this building is not one of them.
>
> Also, what is a chemical distribution warehouse doing with enough steam to
> operate 80 to 100 dry cleaning stores?
>
> - Jed
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Next Big Future - goes out on a limb

[Sean True]

Jed --

I think we might agree that Ing. Fabio Penon is not an expert HVAC
engineer. That's different than saying that he is not an expert in
something relevant to the contract between IH and Rossi, and it seems silly
to assume that IH would be foolish enough to agree to a expert irrelevant
to the task at hand.

It does appear that he is an expert in certifications, industrial
processes, and possibly in power plants. Perhaps IH was originally more
concerned about safety and deployment than whether LENR is practical.

-- Sean

On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 7:59 PM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> Craig Haynie  wrote:
>
>
>> The legal case does not hinge on whether the device works. As the
>> agreement is worded, IH pays IF and WHEN the ERV signs a document that the
>> device performed to certain specifications. IH does not have an option to
>> bail if they don't agree with the report.
>
>
> Two things:
>
> 1. There is more than one ERV.
>
> 2. It would be insane to pay $89 million based on a report written by
> Penon. I would not pay 89 cents. It would be insane to agree he is an
> expert. I am sure I.H. did not do that.
>
> - Jed
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Fabio Penon

[Sean True]

If by Professional Engineer, you mean "recognized by a licensing board in
the US", I'll accept the notion, while not considering it in any way
significant. Using "glorified mechanic" does seem like code for something
else, however.

It's well known that only the US has professional engineers, and that a
proper education is only available from US education institution. :-)

-- ST

On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 3:57 PM, Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> Sean,
>
>
>
> He is a professional engineer in Italy by their standards.
>
>
>
> Until he is licensed in the USA as a professional engineer, he is a
> “glorified mechanic”.
>
>
>
> He is no PhD or Doctor in either country.
>
>
>
> *From:* Sean True
>
>
>
> His curriculum vita: http://www.cobraf.com/forum/immagini/R_123620809_1.pdf
>
>
>
> His registration with the Italian National Council of Engineers: 
> https://www.tuttoingegnere.it/PortaleCNI/it/albo_unico.wp;jsessionid=2B2157893F630F8D03291BDA1DDD3B14.tomcatprogetti?internalServletFrameDest=8=/ExtStr2/do/ricercaRegistro/dettaglio.action=false=FABIO.PENON.PD2311
>
>
>
> Mr Beene may be posing an equivalence being a Professional Engineer and being 
> a mechanic.
>
> If I were to criticize Ing. Penon's credentials, it would be that he appears 
> to spend a lot of time doing management consulting and not reading gauges. 
> Not exactly "glorified mechanics".
>
>
>
> -- ST
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 3:39 PM, a.ashfield <a.ashfi...@verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
> Does anyone have a direct reference for Fabio Penon's qualifications?   I
> see him listed in several European sources as: Dr. Ing. Fabio Penon, Ph.D.
> in Nuclear Engineering (with 110/110 summa cum laude at the Alma Mater of
> Bologna-Italy ).
>
> Jones Beene has stated he doesn't have a PhD and is just a glorified
> mechanic.
>
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Industrial Heat Patent?

[Sean True]

Justin Robert Nifong has one patent issued as an inventor, for a device for
reducing the problem of smelly drains in commercial kitchens:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1=HITOFF=PALL=1=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm=1=G=50=8,409,433.PN.=PN/8,409,433=PN/8,409,433

His Linked In profile says: "Mr. Nifong is a registered patent attorney and
is admitted to practice law in North Carolina. Mr. Nifong’s practice is
focused on patent preparation and prosecution, patent litigation, patent
legal opinions, and various other Intellectual Property matters. Mr.
Nifong works
in technologies that include mechanical, medical, optical, textile,
chemical, computer, and the electrical arts.

Mr. Nifong is admitted in North Carolina, the Eastern and Western Districts
of the Federal Court of North Carolina, the United States Patent and
Trademark Office, and the Supreme Court of the United States of America."

He has a BS in Mechanical Engineering, an MS in Electrical Engineering, and
a JD from Wake Forest. Typical profile for a patent attorney.

He appears to be one of two founders of NK Patent Law, a small IP law firm
with multiple specialties, including Nuclear Patents:

http://www.nkpatentlaw.com/nuclear-patents/

-- ST

On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Russ George  wrote:

> Published on E-catworld is a copy of a provisional patent (
> http://www.e-catworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/R_123621412_3.pdf)
> that Rossi says is part of the trouble with IH, the patent was filed by a
> patent filer, Nifong, located very near IH... This clearly substantiates
> what Rossi is saying. How could IH claim that Rossi's E-Cat inventions
> don't work and thus they don't pay their contracted payment while they are
> filing patent claims covering the very same technology. Of course the Rossi
> haters, actually simply haters, are gonna hate regardless of any facts.
> They will just keep posting lies, distortions and hate here in the Vortex.
>
> -Original Message-
> From: a.ashfield [mailto:a.ashfi...@verizon.net]
> Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2016 10:13 AM
> To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
> Subject: RE: [Vo]:Industrial Heat Patent?
>
> Russ George,
> Jones Beene wrote.  "since the evidence does not support that (crimes were
> committed) yet."
> But he is the most vociferous one in libeling Rossi and his supporters.
>
> Why they can't wait for evidence like the ERV's report and other actual
> facts suggests some emotional problem or possibly lack of experience.
>
> Russ wrote.  "Vortex is a bleak lesson in internet trolling"
>
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Fabio Penon

[Sean True]

His curriculum vita: http://www.cobraf.com/forum/immagini/R_123620809_1.pdf


His registration with the Italian National Council of Engineers:
https://www.tuttoingegnere.it/PortaleCNI/it/albo_unico.wp;jsessionid=2B2157893F630F8D03291BDA1DDD3B14.tomcatprogetti?internalServletFrameDest=8=/ExtStr2/do/ricercaRegistro/dettaglio.action=false=FABIO.PENON.PD2311


Mr Beene may be posing an equivalence being a Professional Engineer
and being a mechanic.

If I were to criticize Ing. Penon's credentials, it would be that he
appears to spend a lot of time doing management consulting and not
reading gauges. Not exactly "glorified mechanics".


-- ST


On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 3:39 PM, a.ashfield  wrote:

> Does anyone have a direct reference for Fabio Penon's qualifications?   I
> see him listed in several European sources as: Dr. Ing. Fabio Penon, Ph.D.
> in Nuclear Engineering (with 110/110 summa cum laude at the Alma Mater of
> Bologna-Italy ).
>
> Jones Beene has stated he doesn't have a PhD and is just a glorified
> mechanic.
>
>

[Vo]:Some data on Fabio Penon.

[Sean True]

First, a link to his curriculum vita:
http://www.cobraf.com/forum/immagini/R_123620809_1.pdf

Penon is a registered engineer in Padua (registration #2311). He is is
listed with the Italian National Council of Engineers:

https://www.tuttoingegnere.it/PortaleCNI/it/albo_unico.wp;jsessionid=2B2157893F630F8D03291BDA1DDD3B14.tomcatprogetti?internalServletFrameDest=8=/ExtStr2/do/ricercaRegistro/dettaglio.action=false=FABIO.PENON.PD2311

Which states:

name: FABIO
last name: PENON
born in: PADUA 06/18/1957
business address: ... Abano Terme
engineers order: PADUA
number: 2311
section: TO
sector: Civil / Environmental, Industrial, Information
degree: NUCLEAR
on: 1982
university: BOLOGNA
State Examination: 1982 (BO)

No disciplinary action is shown.

The Italian NCE has a long history of rules and regulations:

https://www.tuttoingegnere.it/PortaleCNI/it/regolamenti.wp

Penon has a consultancy in systems engineering, ISO 9001 certification, CE
mark,  and interestingly, due diligence for acquisition. His CV states that
he was consulted for Caterpillar, among others.

His CV says he has worked with a number of large certification
organizations, including:

http://www.bureauveritas.com/
http://www.certiquality.com
http://www.detnorskeveritas.com/
http://www.sgsgroup.it/en/
http://www.rina.org/en

There is no apparent long term link to Rossi, to IH.

He's not an HVAC engineer, but he would appear licensed, reputable, widely
experienced, and highly technical.

-- ST

Re: [Vo]:I.H. press release responding to Rossi

[Sean True]

>From the earlier posted copy of the agreement between Rossi and IH (
http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Rossi_et_al_v_Darden_et_al__flsdce-16-21199__0001.2.pdf),
there is a list of patents included in the licensed IP:

1 - ltalian patent granted for process and apparatus
2- USA patent pendlng for process and apparatus
3- Europe patent pending for process and apparatus
4 - USA patent pending for particulars and theory
5- USA patent pending for control systems
6- USA patent pending for additives and catalyzers in process and apparatus
7 - USA patent pending for HotCat
8-  USA patent pending for direct conversion of photons into electric
energy
10 - USA patent pending for partlculars of the reactor

-- Sean

On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> Axil Axil  wrote:
>
> Rossi does not need IH anymore and he was looking for a way out from under
>> the IH contract without giving IH that 50 COP package.
>>
>
> If that were the case, Rossi would simply walk away. Let me remind you he
> is suing I.H. for $89 million. He wants payment because he says the
> verification test worked. If all he wanted to do was to get out from under
> the contract he would say: "You say it does not work? Fine. Good. Sayonara."
>
> I.H. has opened the door and offered him a way out. They want him out.
> They do not want to pay the money, so that would end the contract.
>
> What you say makes no sense. I.H. wants out from under the contract; Rossi
> wants them to abide by it.
>
> The only issue is whether the test proves there was heat or not.
> Everything hinges on that. If the test showed no heat, that means there is
> no intellectual property at stake, and nothing for I.H. to steal or sell to
> the Chinese.
>
> If the test is ambiguous the dispute will continue indefinitely. Otherwise
> it must come to an abrupt end one way or the other. All discussion of
> motives and plots and plans is irrelevant. Calorimetry is the only salient
> issue in this lawsuit.
>
> - Jed
>
>

[Vo]:Kick starter for funding?

[Sean True]

If Dr. Miley is in need of low thousands of dollars to get to a breakthrough, 
is there a possibility of using kickstarter.com to raise the money? I'd kick in 
a thousand dollar pledge if Jed said it would get the good doctor over the hump.

Sean

Re: [Vo]:Report on Rossi's visit to Boston

[Sean True]

I'm not sure anyone has pointed out the IP advantages to Rossi of
selling his initial plants to the US military.

Unlike the Chinese army or the Iranian republican guard, the US
military is not in the business of reverse engineering, or of lowest
cost procurement. For mission critical components, they can pretty
much purchase what they need, subject to it fitting into the petty
cash requirement.

When your HVAC cost in two theaters of water is 20 billion plus
(http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning),
a few millions for Rossi devices is modest. Petty, even.

This gets Rossi devices into the field for testing and use by a
willing customer. This moves him _far_ down the curve towards broad
utility. Engineering is always best tested in the field, the muddier
the field -- the better. And once tested -- and eventually
acknowledged -- by such a customer, his IP prospects improve
dramatically.  From both an intellectual and a political point of
view. I am not going to speculate which is most important.

As for Rossi's declarations of not having the military for a customer,
if you are in high technology they _will_ be a customer if you have a
competitive product. Filtering through Rossi's declarations about
this, and imagining what he was thinking (as opposed to what he
translated into English), one could read I won't sell this as weapons
technology, but if it keeps soldiers warm or cold or more effective,
that's OK with me. If that sounds like rationalization, welcome to
the world of getting things done on a shoe string as an entrepreneur.

“He must needs go that the Devil drives.” Shakespeare: All’s Well
That-Ends Well, i. 3.

Let's hope that his bargain is not Faustian.

-- Sean

Re: [Vo]:USPTO Lawlessness?

[Sean True]

I've spoken to two patent attorneys about this, one who has been
involved in patents in this space. They were both clear that it's
policy, but have never seen a written policy, and could not find one
on a casual search. This smacks of unwritten rules, and that smacks of
, well, lawlessness.

One was pretty clear that attempting patents in CF was somewhere
between pointless and professional suicide.

-- Sean

Re: [Vo]:Swedish physicists run the site Ecat.com

[Sean True]

The physicists behind hydrofusion.com (and ecat.com) are not _just_ physicists.

As I noted in an earlier thread, Sandstrom is a VP at DBRS since 2007,
a financial rating service in Canada. Think Moody's, but a little
smaller. Not a lot smaller, though:
http://www.dbrs.com/research/211085/dbrs-strengthens-emea-structured-finance-group-with-senior-hire.html

Holm was/is CEO of a software company working on advanced search
algorithms: http://www.mindmetric.com/company_mngt.html

Sandstrom and Holm have published a paper together in 1999 (on
curvature relations in product manifolds):
http://fy.chalmers.se/OLDUSERS/tfens/paper2.pdf

Nothing conclusive about a third member of the team, Staffan Helgesson
... but the only one I could find
that makes marginal sense is the Managing Director of a VC firm, Creandum.

[Vo]:Hydrofusion behind ecat.com?

[Sean True]

http://hydrofusion.com/ is also an apparent affiliate of Ing. Rossi.

http://energycatalyzer3.com/news/whos-behind-ecat-com reports that the
ecat.com DNS record was
associated with hydrofusion:

ecat.com; global options: +cmd
ecat.com. 86400 IN SOA ns1.ni59hosting.com. magnus.holm.hydrofusion.com. (
2011062802 ; serial
86400 ; refresh (1 day)
7200 ; retry (2 hours)
360 ; expire (5 weeks 6 days 16 hours)
86400 ; minimum (1 day)

Magnus Holm looks a lot like the Magnus Hahn at the October 6th demo,
and the same note from energycatalyzer3.com
links Niclas Sandstrom (also at the demo) to Hydrofusion as well.

Sweden
Magnus Hahn (??Scania)
Staffan Helgesson (??Equity/VC Creandum)
Niclas Sandstrom (Finance, ??VP Structured Finance, DBRS, ?PhD Theoretical
Physics Chalmers U, Gothenburg)
Thomas Johannson, (?Journalist, ??Swedish IIIEE)
Koen Vandenwalle (?Production Engineer, Volvo, Ghent Belgium)
Edward Jobson (Adjunct Professor, U of Gothenburg, Research Director, Volvo)
Roland Petterson (Professor of analytical chemistry, Uppsala)

Holm and Sandstrom have some chops in high energy physics:
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9904099, and may have become high end
quants.
As Sutton says, it's where the money is.

New relations involving curvature components for the various
connections appearing in the theory of almost product manifolds are
given and the conformal behaviour of these connections are studied.
New identities for the irreducible parts of the deformation tensor are
derived. Some direct physical applications in Kaluza-Klein and gauge
theory are discussed.
Subjects:   High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
Cite as:arXiv:hep-th/9904099v1

Re: [Vo]:Oct. 28 demo: 3716 liters of water vaporized

[Sean True]

Something Jed said about customers spurred a thought about customers,
investors, and the difference between them.

Customers exchange money for something that meets a current need. That
can be a need to use a device, a need to gain access to technology
early, or even a need to do some good. But in any case, there is a
contract (implicit or explicit) for an exchange of values. The process
of purchase is relatively rational, and relatively reversible. The
return
to the customer is relatively predictable. If the item purchased is
grossly different from product specified or advertised, there is broad
recourse under common and contract law. It's pretty easy to scam a
customer if you only sell one item and flee, if you sell items so
cheaply that the duped find the cost of recovery higher than the value
recovered, or if the item
sold is actually illegal. But selling large industrial equipment to a
knowledgeable customer with a large legal department, in the hope of
then selling them another one in three months is a scammers nightmare.

Investors exchange money for an unknown future return. Business plans
typically change radically as they encounter reality, unknown unknowns
dominate the landscape. Decisions to invest are often irrational,
emotional, and have less to do with physics than with hope. Investors
are the ideal targets for a scammer: they are already dealing in
intangibles and the time lines are long and the opportunities for the
scammer to exit, stage left, are numerous. Investors are making high
risk, high return bets.

When we discuss the flow of money here, I think we should be clear
about the role of the customer vs. investor, and draw conclusions as
appropriate. Steorns actions are entirely consistent with wishful
thinking on the part of investors and entrepreneur (if not an outright
scam); Rossis actions are entirely consistent with a bold attempt to
bootstrap a business on personal capital and customer sales.

Rossi's business plan is currently and _clearly_ centered on
customers. Let a system be evaluated, sell it on a returnable
contract, expect to sell more units because the product itself
generates a return on investment (if not for the first unit, then in a
predictable fashion as a customer understands how to proper deploy
them). This is not a scammers plan.

I've been down this road (smaller scale, less impact on the world, to
put it mildly) -- he's doing _exactly_ what I would do if I had the
idea, the technology, and the courage.

Mind you, I think I would spell better, have a cooler website, have
better PR, and be a little more precise in my business language. But
I'm not the guy who has the problem.

Re: [Vo]:National Instruments signs to do E-Cat controls

[Sean True]

Mary raised the interesting point that NI will sell to anyone (even
Iran or Qadaffi, when legal).
But NI is less likely to negotiate a contract apparently _requiring_
that the NI name appear on the control
panel with just anyone.

As a scientist in a former life, I bought NI hardware and software --
but they never asked me about what
I was going to do with it. The deal with Rossi sounds much more like
an OEM contract, and they are very
likely to have done some diligence on it. Just the risk of adverse PR
(which they are already experiencing,
I suspect) would require a reasonable return on the cost of the perceived risk.

-- Sean

Re: [Vo]:National Instruments signs to do E-Cat controls

[Sean True]

Re: [Vo]:National Instruments signs to do E-Cat controls
Mary Yugo
Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:44:09 -0800

 The deal with Rossi sounds much more like an OEM contract, and they are
 very
 likely to have done some diligence on it. Just the risk of adverse PR
 (which they are already experiencing,
 I suspect) would require a reasonable return on the cost of the perceived
 risk.

What due diligence do you think they did?  And how do you know?  And whose
word are we relying on about the need to label the panel with the maker's
logo?  Yes, I read the peswiki.com statement that NI approved their
writeup.  Maybe they didn't read it as carefully as they should have.

Peswiki.com also endorses, promotes and tries to actually raise funds for
UFO stories, conspiracies, and free energy perpetual motion schemes that
can't possibly be anything other than rank scams.  They (and Sterling Allan
and Hank Mills) are not usually a reliable source of information.

If the contract with NI is the best available evidence that Rossi's kludge
works, that's a pretty sad commentary.   On the other hand, if NI conducted
independent tests of it, that would be very interesting.  However, nothing
I read remotely suggests that.

Mary --

I don't know they did diligence: as noted above, I said I thought it likely.
We have Rossi's comment in public about the labeling clause, which NI can
take
exception to if not true.  I've done OEM deals: ones which allow, let alone
require,
public branding typically have required approval from management (read:
director or
VP level), and press releases will require approval, passing legal, and
importantly,
_making business sense_. If NI were concerned about risk, they could have
offered
a deal prohibiting any publicity. I've seen my share of those, too. :-(

This proves nothing, of course. But personally, I'm not demanding proof.
I'm interested
in information and data. I can draw my own conclusions ...

Re: [Vo]:Rossi E-Cat web site up

[Sean True]

The design is dated, as is the software used to create it: Microsoft
Frontpage 4.0 (circa 2000).
The domain appears to be hosted on pair.com, which is a step up from
stayhosted ...

I suspect that Mr. Rossi is following the advice of friends, and is
not providing the best possible
venue for his ideas, products, hopes, and dreams. Then again, perhaps
this is part of the grand
plan to deflect attention and discourage people from taking his
business seriously. In any case,
there are now more tea leaves to read.


Domain information:

Registration Service Provided By: Namecheap.com
Contact: supp...@namecheap.com
Visit: http://namecheap.com
Domain name: leonardo-ecat.com

Registrant Contact:
Leonardo Corporation
Andrea Rossi
116 South River Road
Bedford, NH 03110
US

Administrative Contact:
PES Network, Inc
Sterling Allan (sterlin...@pureenergysystems.com)
+1.8014071292
PO Box 429
Mount Pleasant, UT 84647-0429
US

Technical Contact:
PES Network, Inc
Sterling Allan (sterlin...@pureenergysystems.com)
+1.8014071292
PO Box 429
Mount Pleasant, UT 84647-0429
US

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
ns371.pair.com
ns7.ns0.com

Creation date: 11 Nov 2011 17:12:00
Expiration date: 11 Nov 2012 09:12:00

Re: [Vo]:Rossi E-Cat web site up

[Sean True]

On 11/12/2011 11:36 AM, Aussie Guy E-Cat wrote:
Nice to see the web site is registered to Rossi but what the heck does
the validity of the E-Cat have to do with the software that was used to
create the web site or who the web site was created by or who it is
administered by?

Because it indicates that he is moving at high velocity, with an almost
reckless disregard of the kind of evaluation that most people would
apply to his business. This actually underlines the case against it being
a scam. The site is purely (and barely) functional. No wasted time on
marketing or public relations. Just the facts, Ma'am.

[Vo]:Mr. Rossi appears to be busy for the foreseeable future.

[Sean True]

Either his customers are convinced or he is playing a very complex
game. There are applications for raw heat in winter
that might be worth putting up with leaky gaskets to get. His
interactions with the public on his blog are getting shorter,
and more like: please go away, I'm very busy.

Blog post:

Dear Wladimir Guglinski:
So far we are manufacturing 1 MW plants, and our next 2 years capacity
of production has been already saturated. For the small units we need
at least 1-2 years for the approvals. Your suggestion, anyway, are
good, among the infinite possibilities of employ, those are surely
possible too.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

RE: [Vo]:Physorg comments : new Krivit Crusade

[Sean True]

Krivit seems to have an awful lot of time on his hands to follow other
peoples coverage of Rossi. Either this translates to traffic for his blog
and advertising revenue from it, he is mounting a personal vendetta of
impressive proportions, or he has another source of revenue to support
him as he neglects his own work and pursues a negative PR campaign against
someone who is not even a competitor.

Some of you know him, or have met him. Any other motivations seem plausible?

-- Sean

[Vo]:Pricing for E-cat?

[Sean True]

Not that I expect to buy one soon, but I've seen the price/Kw given as
$2000. It actually appears to be in Euros, although customers in the US
might benefit from the common practice of leaving the number alone, and
just changing the currency. I don't think this changes the economics at all
for early adopters, but it may make the price curve go out a little further
in time before it hits a more manageable $500/Kw.

[Vo]:Tailgating on day zero for the E-Cat 1MW.

[Sean True]

Pretty clear from Passerini (@22passi) that the assembled witnesses are
tailgating in the parking area (http://yfrog.com/z/hs6dppsj) while being
allowed in one at a time to see the plant in operation.

-- Sean

[Vo]:Photos of test report and a spreadsheet

[Sean True]

have been posted on Rossi's blog (JONP).

Let the digestion begin.

-- Sean

Re: [Vo]:Photos of test report and a spreadsheet

[Sean True]

The report is signed by a professional engineer, selected by a customer. The
test he ran may not meet our expectations, but
the input/output curve for water temperature is impressive. It's not clear
that a customer would _care_ how it was gotten, as long as
it was inexpensive and reliable.

You can argue that there was a hidden heat source to explain the difference
between 66KWh used and the 2.6MWh produced. But that's a huge difference,
and both a customer and and a licensed engineer appear to be satisfied.

Licensed engineers treat their signature with some care: it's their
livelihood, and they are legally responsible for their statements.

As for the notion the customer is a food processor? Makes a ton of sense:
they consume a lot of relatively low grade heat. Why pay for expensive
electricity or gas to produce it if you can get it cheaper from an eccentric
Italian.

If this takes the short term economic pressure off Ing. Rossi, he may be
able to make more progress on both electrical generation and
on home-sized heat generation. Both should be more than welcome to all of
us.

-- Sean

Re: [Vo]:Spreadsheet author is Manutencoop Facility Management

[Sean True]

Seems possible that Domenico F, the engineer who produced the spreadsheet
also consults for Manutencoop. Software is known to float easily to your
machine if you are consulting for a company who has a bulk or site license.

-- Sean

[Vo]:Observers at the October 6th demo.

[Sean True]

It's not scientific, but I've been digging into the people listed as
attending
the Ross ECat demo on October 6th. Most of these are familiar names, but a
few names pulled from a focus.it posting are less familiar. ? marks
identifications I think are correct, but may not be. ?? is more speculative.

Greece
Christos Stremmenos (OMRI, Defkalion, Greek Ambassador to Italy, 1982-1987)

Sweden
Magnus Hahn (??Scania)
Staffan Helgesson (??Equity/VC Creandum)
Niclas Sandstrom (Finance, ??VP Structured Finance, DBRS, ?PhD Theoretical
Physics Chalmers U, Gothenburg)
Thomas Johannson, (?Journalist, ??Swedish IIIEE)
Koen Vandenwalle (?Production Engineer, Volvo, Ghent Belgium)
Edward Jobson (Adjunct Professor, U of Gothenburg, Research Director, Volvo)
Roland Petterson (Professor of analytical chemistry, Uppsala)

Italy
Stefano Riva (Confindustria)
Nicola Parenti (Confindustria)
Roberto Sgherri -- ?Director ProductsTechnologies, OTO Melara
Enrico Billi, software developer, lists himself as eCat Asia Agent on
Google Plus, and appears to have a masters (not a doctorate) in physics.
Sergio Focardi (UNIBO - Professor Emeritus)
Loris Ferrari (UNIBO)
Henry Campari (UNIBO)
Ennio Bonetti (UNIBO)
Joseph Levi (UNIBO)
David Bianchini (UNIBO)

Press
Mats Lewan (Ny Teknik)
Andrea Granatiero (Focus)
Massimo Brega (Focus)
Raymond Zreick (Focus)
Irene Zreick (Focus)
Maurizio Melis (Il Sole 24 Ore)
Damiana Aguiari (Independent multimedia?)
Paolo Soglia, Radio Citta' Del Capo
Daniel Passerini, Blogger

US
Paul D Swanson, SPAWAR/DARPA