Display More"He'd have to be crazy to be a fraud like this." What the Answer presently shows, my opinion, is that he is a fraud or crazy or both.
I won't commit myself as to fraud - which is a legal term requiring strong justification. And "crazy" is a very loose term.
Rossi is a very unusual person. Even the rossifans here would agree that I think. the circumstantial argument that maybe he has something has mostly been "we can't imagine him acting like that if he had nothing". Personally I've never seen that. But he is unusual - probably believing what he says while also acting like a transparent fraudster. It has always been a lack of imagination about the infinite variety of humanity that has been the failure of those supporting Rossi.
Both "crazy" and "fraud" are used here loosely.
THH has ""we can't imagine him acting like that if he had nothing". That is a version of "he'd have to be crazy," i.e., it doesn't fit our models of rational behavior.
"Fraud or crazy" is about a specific dichotomy, i.e., there could be pure fraud. Under the pure fraud idea, he never had anything and it has been willful deception from the beginning. The problem with this idea is that to think he would get away with it, "he'd have to be crazy!" At the very least, we see serious social dysfunction, a lack of understanding or sympathy for how others would perceive what he was doing.
His confidence in his email to Darden about the Hydro Fusion deception shows this. What impression did he think that would create? I explained this to a social worker this morning (we talk about a lot! An amazing woman.) She said what she would think if someone wrote that to her. She'd think "He cheated them, am I next? He lied to them, is he lying to me now?"
Or the matter of choosing the ERV. The ERV is crucial to the major payments. So, instead of allowing Industrial Heat to pick an ERV, Rossi wants it to be his old friend, and there is a nice piece of business on JONP recently where he emphasizes how "reliable" Penon is, because of helping him with safety certification -- which was before the Validation Test. Would anyone socially sane think that would increase confidence?
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=892&cpage=151#comment-1216786
QuoteAbout the test of one year of the 1 MW Plant, the measurements have been made for one year by a nuclear engineer, who got his doctorate in nuclear engineering when he was 23 years old in the University of Bologna with 110/110 summa cum laude, then worked as a nuclear engineer in a nuclear power plant, then, taking advantage of such experience, became a professional specialized in certifications and validations of industrial plants and industrial products. He has been chosen, as proven by copious documents, in agreement between IH and us to make the ERV and he made it with all his professional skills and with the integrity that characterized all his life, that is immaculate under any point of view, as I investigated when I knew him because I had to choose a trusted professional to make the safety certification of my products years ago; he resulted to be the best in absolute among all his colleagues for preparation, honesty, confidentiality. This is also the reason why he has been chosen to make the ERV, in agreement between IH and us. By the way, IH has totally agreed upon his report released after 3 months of test, and has cited such report in interviews released by Tom Darden. Same thing happened after 6 months of test, when the second quarterly report has been released by the ERV, same thing again happened after 9 months, when the ERV released the third quarterly report: please note that during 9 months of the test IH repeatedly accompanied to visit the test their investors, explaining to them how the ERV was measuring the performance, showing the seals of the flowmeter, showing the temperature measurement system ( agreed upon directly between Mr Tom Darden and the ERV) and IH collected many million dollars of investments from Woodford after the officers of Woodford visited the test twice, during the first 9 months, and repeatedly accompanied Chinese top level investors and engineers to visit the test. The results of the first three quarterly reports, obviously, were substantially equal to the results of the fourth and final report, that IH now is renegating. Eventually, IH paid the first three quarterly reports, but did not pay the final one. The first three reports determined the allowance to IH of enormous investments and they loved them. The fourth report determined the obligation of IH to pay us and they discovered the results were wrong: what a strange coincidence.
Let's assume he is not simply lying through his teeth. I have no great difficulty considering that Rossi believes what he is saying. He has developed a story based his own interpretation of events. IH accepted his naming of Penon as ERV for the Validation test. He thinks of that as a joint choice. No, it was an acceptance, and Rossi had already shown, many times, that if things were not as he wanted, he walked away. If they wanted to find out if the technology was real, in spite of some obvious appearances, they chose to accept it, even though, apparently, in this case, they did protest, and Rossi refused to accommodate their concerns. Since they accepted that, he thinks that this was no problem. But it was a problem, and things like this accumulated.
Penons issued reports to IH, but sometime around the first report, the IH engineer attempted to visit the plant, and this was refused -- for no apparent reason, other than the obvious, not wanting an independent engineer to see it. So IH had little basis on which to challenge the reports. How did Darden cite the first report? He might have said, somewhere, what it contained. Did, however, he *approve* of the report, and, more to the point, did he ever accept that this was from an ERV in an agreed-upon Guaranteed Performance Test?
Rossi then clearly has an imagination about what was said to Woodford and the Chinese. Woodford's visit was early, I think. However, by this time, IH knew that devices they made per Rossi's instructions and guidance did not work. So, Woodford visits the Doral plant and sees the E-cat, very impressive, but with a steam line going out and into a Secret Customer Area, No Admittance. No way to get an immediate impression of real heat or not. "Heat" depends, in this situation, on the accuracy of instruments and of analysis. It can't be seen. It is not impossible that the problem with waste heat was known that far back. I have no special information, not yet, at least. So perhaps Darden shows Woodford the reactor then tells them privately -- and in writing, I would assume -- that they have no success at confirmation and they are allowing this power application to humor Rossi and, besides, this Customer is paying them $30,000 per month.
So that they might continue the agreement and not blow the whistle makes $30,000 per month of sense. Sure, they were paying Fabiani $10,500 per month and something to Penon. But still it was a profit, probably.
Rossi has no idea how real people think.
