What is wrong with what Steorn is doing?

Blight said:
If only they switched the subsidies to Sugar Cane or Hemp (I believe hemp is the best crop for bio-diesel, followed by sugar cane), but the political system is so obtuse I don't see it coming soon.
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So let's start arguing about that. I'm all for Nulcear power! CANDU Can Do!




:)
 
The fontanelle is closing.


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(Only joking, Blight)
 
Horatius said:
I'm all for Nulcear power!
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The debate has started in Australia, but it seems only the PM is interested.
We have the uranium. Don't know if we have the know-how.
We certainly don't have the will-power.
 
Snadert, I will not rpetend I udnerstand everything which was said in the pdf you linked, but as I can read german very well, I could partially read it. And there is NOTHING at all which describe an algorithm in it which would allow for the claim of getting 2k key out of a video. Oh sure the CLAIM might done, but the algorithm is not described in its entirety. Look for Huffman, or LZW for example and the description of what it does. This is an algorithm. But from what I could read in the pdf it is not ever mentionned.

Then again it might have been in a dutch I could not read since I could only read and udnerstand about 1/3 of the text.
 
And there is NOTHING at all which describe an algorithm in it which would allow for the claim of getting 2k key out of a video. Oh sure the CLAIM might done, but the algorithm is not described in its entirety. Look for Huffman, or LZW for example and the description of what it does. This is an algorithm. But from what I could read in the pdf it is not ever mentionned.
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Right. You just confirmed the sole purpose why I brought up the Jan Sloot case: a patent can be filed with only a description of the invention on the highest possible level.
 
By-the-way, is there anybody out there with access to the Developers Forum going on trial with 200 users? The login fields don't seem to work (that is... I us a Mac)?
 
The "Developer's Forum" doesn't go live until next week (Tuesday, 13th). But Sean has stated that the first part of it will be educational - can't remember the exact quote - in physics and magnetism. Only then will they start to reveal the techical details of their design. You know - when people have enough knowledge to understand and appreciate what they are being shown! And presumably can build things!

According to them the Developer's Forum will " ... allow everyone from a product developer to a research organization to understand and develop products based around our technology."

There is restricted membership at present (and you have to sign and return an NDA to get access) but no cost is involved. When the jury presents their verdict, access will be more open (although there may be some "nominal" charge at that time).

My spin on it - another part of the "look we are doing things and moving forward" without actually doing anything. In other words, still more bs.
 
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Snadert said:
Right. You just confirmed the sole purpose why I brought up the Jan Sloot case: a patent can be filed with only a description of the invention on the highest possible level.
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I can file a patent that is just a picture of a cloud that I thought looked nice. It shouldn't be accepted, but I can file it. Even if the patent office was extremely stupid enough to accept it, it wouldn't stand up in court.

For a patent to have any meaning, it must be a complete, accurate description of the invention. If it isn't, it is completely useless.
 
sk3ptical said:
The "Developer's Forum" doesn't go live until next week (Tuesday, 13th). But Sean has stated that the first part of it will be educational - can't remember the exact quote - in physics and magnetism. Only then will they start to reveal the techical details of their design. You know - when people have enough knowledge to understand and appreciate what they are being shown! And presumably can build things!

According to them the Developer's Forum will " ... allow everyone from a product developer to a research organization to understand and develop products based around our technology."

There is restricted membership at present (and you have to sign and return an NDA to get access) but no cost is involved. When the jury presents their verdict, access will be more open (although there may be some "nominal" charge at that time).


My spin on it - another part of the "look we are doing things and moving forward" without actually doing anything. In other words, still more bs.
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Actually, this reminded me that I meant to post last weekend.... The old forum is still there, contrary to my initial findings. It's just buried deeper into the site so it's not so prominent as it was. ( A good thing 'cuz it's fairly empty of anything of substance. )
 
More quotes from the stoern forum, brazenly copied off SteornTracker :
skeptical:The Kinetica Toy video was shown and that certainly wasn't OU! Again, the impression was it demonstrated "some feature" of their technology. If it didn't why show it? So I suppose the same can be asked of the post-validation PR toy.

Maybe it will be like one of those toys you get at McDonalds.

steorn:
lol, the power of assumption strikes again, in fact the 'Kinetica Toy' showed a far greater level of OU than we understood at the time - the point is that there is no way to defend a video without test data and there is no way that such test data can be seen as real. The point about the products is that unlike the version of the Kinetica toy 'seen on video' there is no manual intervention, they self sustain.
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The product produces energy, up to 100,000 will be made (if the demand is there) but no more than 100,000. It will go on sale only after validation, and we are not taking any pre-orders.
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There's a few other quotes over at this blog. The blog makes it easier to check for updates rather than wading through all the fluff stuff on their forums.
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Excusez moi,

I haven't been following this thread trough, forgive me if this has been asked already. What I'd like to know is what's Steorn's angle to get profit out of this? As far as I could gather they had massive financial losses for the past few years. Supposedly because they invested in this new technology,plus they payed 100.000$ for the ad in the Economist. Exactly how are they going to earn this money back with a snakeoil product? Who are they going to sell it to? Who are their investors? Surely no serious company would invest millions into something that violates basic laws of physics without verification? And if this is just a PR campaign what is it going to accomplish? Making people aware of Steorn being a hoax? Not exactly the public oppinion you want IMO. Any ideas?
 
Burner said:
Excusez moi,

I haven't been following this thread trough, forgive me if this has been asked already. What I'd like to know is what's Steorn's angle to get profit out of this?
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No one knows yet. I'm betting on the "fleece gulible investors by faking the jury results" angle, but that's just speculation.
 
Horatius said:
No one knows yet. I'm betting on the "fleece gulible investors by faking the jury results" angle, but that's just speculation.
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That strategy falls flat on its face since members of the jury will release their results to the media at the same time. My guess is they'll actually get a positive result, but the jury will be composed of hand picked 'scientists'. Still, I see no serious investors falling for this one either.
 
Burner said:
That strategy falls flat on its face since members of the jury will release their results to the media at the same time. My guess is they'll actually get a positive result, but the jury will be composed of hand picked 'scientists'. Still, I see no serious investors falling for this one either.
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If you go back a page or two, you'll see a link to the non-disclosure agreement the jury members signed as part of their deal. It basicly gives Steorn complete control over all the information and data created, and complete control over how it is published. So no, I don't think we'll see anything independently of Steorn's propaganda.

As for "serious" investors, well, there are still some people putting money into cold fusion. A few million may not be much to a company like Exxon or IBM, but for a few guys in an office, it's not a bad take.
 
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Mojo said:
The jurors' contract on Steorn's website indicates that the jury will be under what amounts to a non-disclosure agreement. It looks very much as if the jurors aren't allowed to publish anything without Steorn's approval.

See: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2345171#post2345171
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They are pulling a Schwartz, then.

Schwartz tried to put a gag on Randi, too, when Randi tried to see Schwartz' results of the Arizona experiments.

Totally unacceptable.
 
Horatius said:
If you go back a page or two, you'll see a link to the non-disclosure agreement the jury members signed as part of their deal. It basicly gives Steorn complete control over all the information and data created, and complete control over how it is published. So no, I don't think we'll see anything independently of Steorn's propaganda.
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Ouch. Reading some of that contract, it does seem Steorn has absolute control over pretty much everything. It could be argued, that members of the jury might be allowed to state a clear " Yes or No" on wheather Steorn device actually works. I'm no lawyer tho.

As for "serious" investors, well, there are still some people putting money into cold fusion. A few million may not be much to a company like Exxon or IBM, but for a few guys in an office, it's not a bad take.
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Cold fusion has scientific background. It is based on physical theories, it was reviewd over and over for 17 years and there's still no definite agreement on weather it is possible or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion#Experimental_evidence
There are disputes in scientific comunity about cold fusion but to call it a hoax is rediculous, as is all comparison to this Steorn sharade. More so because even if existance of excess heat was proven , cold fusion could hardly be used for comercial purposes. This Steorn thing on the other hand, claims 300% energy gain, has absolutely 0 scientific background, and has so far presented 0 evidence or experimental data.
 
Burner:
Just as a side-note. You mentioned no investors would go near something as unproven as this.

Well, let me remind you of a certain web site (pets.com ?) during the bubble period that sold pet food with free shipping. The problem was, due to the weight of pet food, the cost of shipping was higher than the cost of the actual product. And still people invested millions in this.

I think a wait and see approach is best here. Steorn is claiming a july 7th public presentation, so I guess we'll know more then.
 
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