Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[christianahannah]

I copy and paste for you this comment that I posted on TJMK and PMF (some points about Sollecito’s performance at Porta a Porta):


1. About the question: what does he say on whether Knox went out that evening. Did he actually say that?
I listened again to the interview, and what I can say is: if you listen carefully, you can understand he does not state Knox went out that night, but what happens is Bruno Vespa does not understand correctly what he means (but who would?) and he understands that he is talking about the night while he probably talks about the morning. When Sollecito says “Knox went out” and “she came back”, and then soon after he says “she came back in the morning”, Bruno Vespa understands that he is talking about the night; I think most likely Sollecito in his broken speech refers to what she did in the morning, but this is not clear at all. Bruno Vespa asks him more than once to be more precise, whether he is talking about the night; Sollecito also apparently doesn’t get the questions entirely and mixes up topics of when she came back and went out at night and what she did in the morning. He mixes up also Vespa’s questions when Vespa seems to point out he means a different topic, so you don’t always understand what he is taking about and not everything is really clear. But I tend to assume he says that he doesn’t know where Amanda was, rather than stating that “she was out” during the evening. However we should note point 2.

2. Something I found remarkable: Sollecito cites multiple times his interrogation before the GIP Claudia Matteini. He claims what he says that interrogation is his version, it seems that he stands by it. I find this a remarkable point, since in that questioning he states some things, including that Amanda went out during the evening.

3. The setting of the program was definitely favourable to Sollecito’s defence. In fact the aired reports looked like they were written directly by his PR consultants. But perceivably, as a person in the studio he failed to convince Bruno Vespa, who at the end wished him “good luck” as a “father” but, putting big distance the two roles, he looked in an opposite direction “as a citizen” hoping the Cassazione would bring “justice”. The politely skeptical expression of Bruno Vespa can be noticed even by those who don’t understand Italian.

4. His performance was about a series of old rehearsed points, which included several lies. For example, when he claims that it was only his experts who discovered the wrong attribution of the shoeprint.

5. Another glaring lie, this one stands out for the first time in an interview with Raffaele, is when he mentions Filomena’s door, saying it was “socchiusa”. What is interesting is he brings it up himself, he intends to bring it as an argument to Knox’s inconsistence, to point out that there are strange things about her behaviour Amanda Knox should explain. The remarkable contradiction that we see instead, is that in his police statements, and in his diaries, he said “spalancata”.

6. His answers on direct questions are convoluted to say the least. Just look what he says when Bruno Vespa asks him if Amanda went out that evening, Vespa also pointing out how Amanda claimed they were together (so he was her alibi). Sollecito starts a complicated statement that begins with “ho rimostrato le mie piccole perplessità” because when he and his lawyers examined the papers more “thoroughly” they found out that “the judges were placing responsibility on Amanda” about “things that she did and said”… and so on with this incredible rambling statement that gets lost in circles (where Knox went that night, is that an answer that should depend on his lawyers examining thoroughly the papers to discover something the judges thought about what Knox said… you can’t follow that.)

7. Apparently Sollecito found out that there was blood in the bathroom only when he saw that at the apartment. From his interview it seems Knox didn’t tell him about it.

8. Overall one perceives Sollecito puts some distance between him and Amanda. He is annoyed about having to answer about “mistakes and choices” of Knox, he shoves that away emphasizing that “she has things to explain” and he just can’t answer for her actions. He has no clue why she said or did some things. Bruno Vespa seems incredulous, slightly exasperated, about such unrealistic ‘detachment’ from Knox’s statements.

9. By the end of his interview I noticed one thing more he says that is an outright lie. Bruno Vespa asks why did he refuse to be questioned. He asks him: why did you never answer questions?
Sollecito answers: you should ask all the magistrates and judges, they never asked me; I was always available to be heard for questioning, I never refused but they never asked me.
Besides being a ridiculous argument, this is false.
The truth is Raffaele was not ready to be questioned, he refused to answer questions. invoked his right to remain silent when the magistrate (Mignini) summoned him for interrogation on Dec. 20. 2007.
Amanda accepted, but her interrogation turned out catastrophic on Dec. 17. Maybe Sollecito’s defence got scared because of this. What happened anyway, is that he invoked his right to remain silent, he refused to answer questions. I note that he lies before Bruno Vespa about this.


* * *

About point 6. TheConte on PMF wrote this comment:

Thank you. I will view the link to the program and compare with what you have written.

 

[Bill Williams]

I copy and paste for you this comment that I posted on TJMK and PMF (some points about Sollecito’s performance at Porta a Porta):


1. About the question: what does he say on whether Knox went out that evening. Did he actually say that?
I listened again to the interview, and what I can say is: if you listen carefully, you can understand he does not state Knox went out that night, but what happens is Bruno Vespa does not understand correctly what he means (but who would?) and he understands that he is talking about the night while he probably talks about the morning. When Sollecito says “Knox went out” and “she came back”, and then soon after he says “she came back in the morning”, Bruno Vespa understands that he is talking about the night; I think most likely Sollecito in his broken speech refers to what she did in the morning, but this is not clear at all. Bruno Vespa asks him more than once to be more precise, whether he is talking about the night; Sollecito also apparently doesn’t get the questions entirely and mixes up topics of when she came back and went out at night and what she did in the morning. He mixes up also Vespa’s questions when Vespa seems to point out he means a different topic, so you don’t always understand what he is taking about and not everything is really clear. But I tend to assume he says that he doesn’t know where Amanda was, rather than stating that “she was out” during the evening. However we should note point 2.

2. Something I found remarkable: Sollecito cites multiple times his interrogation before the GIP Claudia Matteini. He claims what he says that interrogation is his version, it seems that he stands by it. I find this a remarkable point, since in that questioning he states some things, including that Amanda went out during the evening.

3. The setting of the program was definitely favourable to Sollecito’s defence. In fact the aired reports looked like they were written directly by his PR consultants. But perceivably, as a person in the studio he failed to convince Bruno Vespa, who at the end wished him “good luck” as a “father” but, putting big distance the two roles, he looked in an opposite direction “as a citizen” hoping the Cassazione would bring “justice”. The politely skeptical expression of Bruno Vespa can be noticed even by those who don’t understand Italian.

4. His performance was about a series of old rehearsed points, which included several lies. For example, when he claims that it was only his experts who discovered the wrong attribution of the shoeprint.

5. Another glaring lie, this one stands out for the first time in an interview with Raffaele, is when he mentions Filomena’s door, saying it was “socchiusa”. What is interesting is he brings it up himself, he intends to bring it as an argument to Knox’s inconsistence, to point out that there are strange things about her behaviour Amanda Knox should explain. The remarkable contradiction that we see instead, is that in his police statements, and in his diaries, he said “spalancata”.

6. His answers on direct questions are convoluted to say the least. Just look what he says when Bruno Vespa asks him if Amanda went out that evening, Vespa also pointing out how Amanda claimed they were together (so he was her alibi). Sollecito starts a complicated statement that begins with “ho rimostrato le mie piccole perplessità” because when he and his lawyers examined the papers more “thoroughly” they found out that “the judges were placing responsibility on Amanda” about “things that she did and said”… and so on with this incredible rambling statement that gets lost in circles (where Knox went that night, is that an answer that should depend on his lawyers examining thoroughly the papers to discover something the judges thought about what Knox said… you can’t follow that.)

7. Apparently Sollecito found out that there was blood in the bathroom only when he saw that at the apartment. From his interview it seems Knox didn’t tell him about it.

8. Overall one perceives Sollecito puts some distance between him and Amanda. He is annoyed about having to answer about “mistakes and choices” of Knox, he shoves that away emphasizing that “she has things to explain” and he just can’t answer for her actions. He has no clue why she said or did some things. Bruno Vespa seems incredulous, slightly exasperated, about such unrealistic ‘detachment’ from Knox’s statements.

9. By the end of his interview I noticed one thing more he says that is an outright lie. Bruno Vespa asks why did he refuse to be questioned. He asks him: why did you never answer questions?
Sollecito answers: you should ask all the magistrates and judges, they never asked me; I was always available to be heard for questioning, I never refused but they never asked me.
Besides being a ridiculous argument, this is false.
The truth is Raffaele was not ready to be questioned, he refused to answer questions. invoked his right to remain silent when the magistrate (Mignini) summoned him for interrogation on Dec. 20. 2007.
Amanda accepted, but her interrogation turned out catastrophic on Dec. 17. Maybe Sollecito’s defence got scared because of this. What happened anyway, is that he invoked his right to remain silent, he refused to answer questions. I note that he lies before Bruno Vespa about this.


* * *

About point 6. TheConte on PMF wrote this comment:

This is a very helpful summary of the Porta a Porta interview - and I am closer to "getting" why you find anything about it incriminating to Sollecito.

Even in the way you put various segments - it makes more sense when viewed from the point of view of Sollecito representing the Appeals' document he now has before Cassazione.

I completely disagree with the evaluation you make of the reasons why Sollecito may be trying to represent his own version of things, rather than the version which has always been foisted upon him.

But in the main, this is a very helpful English summary of the interview.

Thanks.

 

[Bill Williams]

By the way, did you notice Sollecito lied, and that he is belied by an official legal paper?

No..... there are many things you call lies. It makes me wonder if the word has a different meaning in Italian.

You continually define variations of descriptions of things as "lies", before exhausting all the other reasons why things can vary.

And you shift the goal posts all the time. You call it a lie that Sollecito claims that Amanda is 100% innocent, while at the same time saying that in his own mind he knows she's guilty. How do you know his mind?

You say, "A forensic expert working on a case cannot reject any sample nor refuse to test something," and then further claim that Stefanoni was justified in not examining the putative semen stain.

I can only repeat the other stuff you avoided:

One can only repeat lonepinealex's question - do you believe Raffaele is innocent of this murder?

Also maybe add one more. In what way does Raffaele's comments on Porta a Porta meaningfully diverge from his Appeals' document, or from what he wrote in Honor Bound?

Do you believe him when he says that Amanda Knox is 100% innocent?

 

[Desert Fox]

The one problem I see is that they went clear and concise recollection for something that was over seven years ago. I trust nobody's memory of individual details from back then. If doors are open or closed, the exact appearance of the crime scene, etc.

If anybody ever read anything I have previous posted, memories get altered over time. It is almost inevitable that you have memories of things that did not happen how you remember or never even happened. Memory does not work like a tape record but instead you rewrite the memory every time you access it.

As such, I take nothing anybody recalls from seven years prior as a lie.

 

[Desert Fox]

Well I am afraid Knox told a big heap of lies also before her false confession and in her Dec. 17. interrogation.
(in her book too, btw).

I can't see her inconsistencies - those highlighted in the Dec. 17 interrogation for example - as acceptable from a person who is not a liar.

But I also think her 05:45 statement and, above all, her hand written memoriales, show she is lying.

The concept of "false confession" of "false accusation" just defined like that as general terms and linked to the word "coerced", I think that's, well, simply something general, of no value.
Anything called "confession" or "accusation" or "false" could be something "coerced", but could well be malicious as well. As long as you don't look at details you won't know anything.
What Knox said qualifies her as a malicious liar because of the specific details of the things she said, and of time and circumstances when she said these things.

What you just wrote here seems to have not basis in reality. . . .I have a term for what you just wrote but it would be caught by the language filters.

 

[Bill Williams]

Well I am afraid Knox told a big heap of lies also before her false confession and in her Dec. 17. interrogation.
(in her book too, btw).

I can't see her inconsistencies - those highlighted in the Dec. 17 interrogation for example - as acceptable from a person who is not a liar.

But I also think her 05:45 statement and, above all, her hand written memoriales, show she is lying.

The concept of "false confession" of "false accusation" just defined like that as general terms and linked to the word "coerced", I think that's, well, simply something general, of no value.
Anything called "confession" or "accusation" or "false" could be something "coerced", but could well be malicious as well. As long as you don't look at details you won't know anything.
What Knox said qualifies her as a malicious liar because of the specific details of the things she said, and of time and circumstances when she said these things.

What you just wrote here seems to have not basis in reality. . . .I have a term for what you just wrote but it would be caught by the language filters.

Machiavelli's thought processes are becoming clear - it is certainly a lot easier for someone to think that someone else told a "heap of lies" when they are already confirmation biased against them. Also, when one insists on calling normal inconsistencies of memory to be "bald-faced lies".

What Knox said qualifies her as a malicious liar because of the specific details of the things she said, and of time and circumstances when she said these things.​

The chief reason why Machiavelli needs Knox to be a malicious liar is to explain why the Perugian police declared "case closed", with Lumumba as part of their closed case.

What Machiavelli is arguing for is for this evil witch to be a specific-liar, targeting the exact lie needed to pull the wool over seasoned investigators. Those people who should have been embarrassed to claim "cased closed" when they did, instead needed a scapegoat.

So the most minor inconsistency becaomes some sort of evil-plot, engineered by someone who is positively.... and yes, I'm going to say it..... Satanic in the ability to lie-with-anticipation as to how it would throw the cops off track.

And gratefully, Machiavelli limits this with language like, "I can't see her inconsistencies...." meaning that this is just his opinion.

If he'd leave it at that, one really cannot argue with another's opinion. Yet he doesn't always talk that way. Often what could legitimately be called his opinion, is represented as if fact; judicial or otherwise.

But it is good to see where he's coming from. It sure helps to see her as guilty, because then that makes her a malicious liar, and once she's determined to be a malicious liar, that can then be used to prove she's guilty.

And, oh yes, the PLE can be forgiven for booting a murder case on their watch. The evil witch made them do it.

 

[Bill Williams]

What you just wrote here seems to have not basis in reality. . . .I have a term for what you just wrote but it would be caught by the language filters.

The term you may be searching for is "baffle them with doggy do." It is a constructed reality, essential to save Mignini and others from accountability.

 

[Desert Fox]

Machiavelli's thought processes are becoming clear - it is certainly a lot easier for someone to think that someone else told a "heap of lies" when they are already confirmation biased against them. Also, when one insists on calling normal inconsistencies of memory to be "bald-faced lies".

I have a challenge for Machiavellian based on this. . . .
When something unusual happens, record it at the time (or shortly after) in detail. Could do it in written or audio form.
Wait a week or two and recall what happened and record it again in written or audio format (Edit: This has to be without looking at your original notes.)
Afterwards, compare them. bet you that you will find a lot of serious inconsistencies.

While longer term, this is a good stand in
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/911-memory-accuracy/

Edit: Another good case is the Linda Labrane case of false memory of the victim herself
http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/dateline/one-summer-night-part-7-303085123834

 

[anglolawyer]

'Socciusa' = ajar
'Salancata' = wide open

Ajar does not exclude wide open. Did anyone ask him at what point after he entered did he notice Filomena's door. Was it straightaway or after they split up and went looking around the place? In one of the books, maybe Follain, Bongiorno is described as strongly criticising Mignini for not scheduling Sollecito for questioning during the trial. That suggests to me some deliberate ruse on Mignini's part. If he had scheduled him he could have asked him about the door but he didn't.

Refusing to answer questions in December 2007 might be down to several things. His lawyers may not have been sufficiently prepared or they may have felt the prosecution case insufficiently disclosed to be confident of dealing with surprises. Even with an innocent client I would want time in advance of such an interrogation to ensure he was fully prepared and that I already knew his answers to likely lines of questioning.

ETA is the point about Filomena's door in Massei? If not, I assume it's another of those secret reasons (like the lamp) which Italy likes to use to convict people of trifling crimes like murder.

 

[Machiavelli]

No..... there are many things you call lies. It makes me wonder if the word has a different meaning in Italian.

You continually define variations of descriptions of things as "lies", before exhausting all the other reasons why things can vary.

And you shift the goal posts all the time. You call it a lie that Sollecito claims that Amanda is 100% innocent, while at the same time saying that in his own mind he knows she's guilty. How do you know his mind?

You say, "A forensic expert working on a case cannot reject any sample nor refuse to test something," and then further claim that Stefanoni was justified in not examining the putative semen stain.

(...)?

Bill, testing the semen stain has nothing to do with the issue of refusing to carry on judicial orders.
Btw, the pillowcase hasn't even arrived at Stefanoni's lab, it was sent at the print analysis lab and never departed from there as far as I know. But that's not important.
Stefanoni just never refused to test anything: she never refused to carry on an order.
This is what I am talking about: obeying to orders.
It is Vecchiotti who refused to test, violating a judicial ordnance, not Stefanoni.
Recall btw, not even the defence requested to test the semen stain; Sollecito admits they decided not to ask for that during the investigation because they were afraid of the result.

 

[Bill Williams]

He decided to not defend her, because he knows she is indefensible.
He also decided not to blame her, in order to avoid the risk of being blamed.

This is what I mean about your double standard.... you say, "he knows she is indefensible"?

How on earth do you know that? What has he ever said that indicates that? More importantly, why do all his documents say she is innocent?

A forensic expert working on a case cannot reject any sample nor refuse to test something.

Bill, testing the semen stain has nothing to do with the issue of refusing to carry on judicial orders.
Btw, the pillowcase hasn't even arrived at Stefanoni's lab, it was sent at the print analysis lab and never departed from there as far as I know. But that's not important.
Stefanoni just never refused to test anything: she never refused to carry on an order.
This is what I am talking about: obeying to orders.
It is Vecchiotti who refused to test, violating a judicial ordnance, not Stefanoni.
Recall btw, not even the defence requested to test the semen stain; Sollecito admits they decided not to ask for that during the investigation because they were afraid of the result.

Machiavelli - you are issue surfing.

I realize you meant that bit about a forensic expert being unable to not test something was meant as a "gothca" against Vecchiotti, but you are issue surfing around a bunch of themes here.

Judge Massei discusses why Stefanoni chose not to test the putative semen stain. Massei records that on Dec 4th, 2009, his court had to deal with Sollecito's request to have the stain tested....... putting the lie to what you've just said above.

And where you say that experts can only act on orders, Massei says different. Massei talks about the various decisions Stefanoni herself made on what to, and what not to test.

She stated that the pillow was found half under the pelvis of the body. Analysis was
not done on the pillow because it was considered more useful to use it for print
analysis, whether of shoeprints or handprints.​

Rather than deal with what Stefanoni was or wasn't ordered to do, Massei (on page 382.) simply defends her decision not to test it, with the, "spermatic DNA cannot be date stamped." argument.

So, this started because I said that Raffaele has said that Knox is 100% innocent. You said that this was false, that Raffaele did not say those exact words in the Porta a Porta interview.

Yet nothing he said at the Porta a Porta interview is at variance with what he's always said, and more importantly, what's in his appeals' document to Cassazione.

And while you are telling me what I am saying is false, you turn into a mind-reader saying, that Raffaele knows Amanda's position is indefensible.

Huh?

When has Raffaele ever said that?

Then..... you are if nothing else an interesting person to exchange messages with.

 

[Bill Williams]

'Socciusa' = ajar
'Salancata' = wide open

Ajar does not exclude wide open. Did anyone ask him at what point after he entered did he notice Filomena's door. Was it straightaway or after they split up and went looking around the place? In one of the books, maybe Follain, Bongiorno is described as strongly criticising Mignini for not scheduling Sollecito for questioning during the trial. That suggests to me some deliberate ruse on Mignini's part. If he had scheduled him he could have asked him about the door but he didn't.

Refusing to answer questions in December 2007 might be down to several things. His lawyers may not have been sufficiently prepared or they may have felt the prosecution case insufficiently disclosed to be confident of dealing with surprises. Even with an innocent client I would want time in advance of such an interrogation to ensure he was fully prepared and that I already knew his answers to likely lines of questioning.

ETA is the point about Filomena's door in Massei? If not, I assume it's another of those secret reasons (like the lamp) which Italy likes to use to convict people of trifling crimes like murder.

Folk need a better definition of "lies" if they are going to make character assessments on the difference of meaning between:

'Socciusa' = ajar
'Salancata' = wide open​

It is what is truly bizarre. I've posted here about that dreaded "list of lies", which I found (cf Harry Rag) because of a PM I was having with a guilter long ago. No matter that each item in "all the other evidence" is vapourware, this guilter always defaulted to "all the lies Amanda told."

In my view, his list of lies included such things as this business of at one time saying a door was ajar, and then at another time saying it was wide open.

He was going to send people to jail for perhaps even once purposely embellishing some trivial issue, and it got written down. For some reason the trivial issue gets interpreted as "malicious lies".

This whole line of argument from the guilters is just bizarre. (It perhaps shows how little there really is of substance.)

 

[Bill Williams]

8. Overall one perceives Sollecito puts some distance between him and Amanda. He is annoyed about having to answer about “mistakes and choices” of Knox, he shoves that away emphasizing that “she has things to explain” and he just can’t answer for her actions. He has no clue why she said or did some things. Bruno Vespa seems incredulous, slightly exasperated, about such unrealistic ‘detachment’ from Knox’s statements.

I wish people would actually read Sollecito's appeals' document. Then again I have said that.

Right from Katie Couric's interview with Raffaele in New York (for her afternoon TV Show) until now, people have been asking Raffaele to explain Amanda's behaviour.

No one has ever been able to answer his question in reply, "What do your accusations against Amanda Knox have to do with me?"

Many claim that this is "putting distance between himself and Knox." What it is, is putting distance between himself and those who would accuse Knox.

Note how Machiavelli characterises Bruno Vespa's reaction to this. For people like Vespa (and the American journalist Katie Couric) this becomes an "unrealistic detachment" from Knox's statements. What it is, is an appeal from the "judicial truth" that what condemns one condemns them both.

For heaven's sake, read Raffaele's appeals document. What do the accusations against Knox have to do with him? And, oh by the way, Knox is innocent!

This is not difficult to understand, but I can see why some try to skew this part of his defence.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

no accountability

Hard to think about a more dishonest fashion of posting comments

Machiavelli,

This is the key sentence from Amnesty International: "There was no independent police complaints and accountability body." For you to ignore this, is disingenuous. A true Italian patriot would try to fix it. A blind supporter would sweep it under the rug and abuse the people who had pointed it out.

 

[KarmaComing]

Machiavelli is right

Machiavelli,

This is the key sentence from Amnesty International: "There was no independent police complaints and accountability body." For you to ignore this, is disingenuous. A true Italian patriot would try to fix it. A blind supporter would sweep it under the rug and abuse the people who had pointed it out.

You really shouldn't be allowed try to divert attention away from Machiavelli's simple point about the need for a victim complaint.

General blathering about Amnesty International, true Italian "patriotism", etc is puerile and emotive. Not to mention tending towards xenophobia - a recurring and disgraceful theme hereabouts.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

discontinuous trace; continuous use of the same gloves

That was an analogy, not an injunction. I was pointing out how extremely sensitive PCR work is to contamination, and what care must be taken to avoid it. Anyone being as careless as she is seen to be has no business being there in the first place.

Rolfe,

She is worse than careless; her testimony is misleading. She implied that the bidet and toilet samples were continuous traces, but when one views the film (I posted a link a couple of weeks ago), one can see that the technician collected in a discontinuous manner. In addition, her views on how often one should change gloves simply wrong. I have presented about three or four citations to this effect over the years. Good PCR labs divide their pre-amplification and post-amplification work areas, to avoid some of the problems that your comment addressed by implication. Whether or not Stefanoni had a clue about this is difficult to say.

 

[js202]

Down is up, black is white

You really shouldn't be allowed try to divert attention away from Machiavelli's simple point about the need for a victim complaint.

General blathering about Amnesty International, true Italian "patriotism", etc is puerile and emotive. Not to mention tending towards xenophobia - a recurring and disgraceful theme hereabouts.

In fact, based on his posting history here and elsewhere, I'd trust Machiavelli to be wrong about everything from the time of day to whether the sun rises in the west or east.

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited for a breach of rule 12.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

not quite up to the master's standards

You really shouldn't be allowed try to divert attention away from Machiavelli's simple point about the need for a victim complaint.

General blathering about Amnesty International, true Italian "patriotism", etc is puerile and emotive. Not to mention tending towards xenophobia - a recurring and disgraceful theme hereabouts.

I am sorry that you think that Amnesty International is xenophobic; I think they do some good work. Besides failing to address my point, your comment is almost as silly as Machiavelli's original comment. Please try harder.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

heavens to Betsy

I don't believe those criticisms that you must use tweezers not gloves or paper bags etc. I do think that quantity is important, and I also believe that a principle that is also the basic one of Italian Cousine always applies, that is: always think you need to make the best of what you have.
You must start by optimizing what you have, start plans and procedures based on what is possible.

You have been given numerous citations on these points. At some point ignorance of a topic becomes fecklessness.

 

[MDDVS]

You have been given numerous citations on these points. At some point ignorance of a topic becomes fecklessness.

Yes, why have scientific police in the first place, if you're just going to invent stuff? it's much easier and cheaper to "improvise" sitting in your desk or sofa.