Rossi-Blog Comment Discussion

Quote from sigmoidal

I'm new here, so forgive me if everyone in this discussion already knows this, but one item that has not been brought up in this discussion is the documented evidence that IH (Vaughn) did not consider Rossi credible in December of 2014.

This is according the report filed by Brady Crowe of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services in response to a complaint filed that nuclear devices were potentially being produced without proper permits. For reference, see a copy of this government document here: freeenergyscams.com/wp-content…2015/02/NCDHHS-Report.pdf (this is the first link that came up in Google, so I don't want to imply that I 'endorse' this site).*

Good thing. First of all, this report is linked from ECW, with Rossi's reaction. "obviously the statements introjected in JT Vaughn, vice president of Industrial Heat, are totally false, never said to any “investigator”, totally groundless, and I confirm, under my word of honour, that our relationship with Industrial Heat has never been better than now." There was a followup by Mats Lewan, which I consider definitive on the point of authenticity. Rossi was doing what he commonly does, shooting off his mouth, in this case providing "information" based on what he obviously would not directly know, since he was not a witness to what Vaughn said.

What happened here is obvious to me; those with a predetermined conclusion in mind pay inadequate attention to detail, and thus see confirmation of their conclusiion. We don't know what Vaughn actually said. What we have is a summary from the investigator. "Mister Rossi did not appear credible (paraphrase)." That is, there is no evidence that Vaughd said that Rossi was not credible. He said something else that the investigator interpreted that way (which was probably helpful to the cause of continued research). I can imagine conversations where Vaughn could say something that is like what, say, Mats Lewan has said about Rossi, and the investigator took it as he did. At this point (December 11, 2014), IH knew that they were having difficulty confirming Rossi claims. They knew that the radiation claims were bogus (which were not from Rossi, as such, Rossi had perhaps claimed "nuclear.") They knew that there was question about "nuclear." Vaughn also knew at this time that they were not seeing radiation from Rossi devices, and that others had found no radiation. To the inspector, "no radiation" would mean "not nuclear." I remember when this report came out, and saw it as what it was, apparently. Something of very little significance, certainly not proving that IH was rejecting Rossi. They were about to allow the Plant to be installed at Doral, they were willing to pay Fabiani and West and Penon. Rossi responded in February, and was probably telling the truth as to their relationship, though he was to toss a huge monkey wrench in it, in July.

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Abd, doesn't it make sense to fit this into the timeline of your posited scenario?

It's far too weak, essentially meaningless.

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Assuming Vaughn was sincere when characterizing Rossi as "not credible" when talking with the NC DHHS (and as a lawyer and principal at IH, he would be risking a lot by being insincere), we can conclude that by the end of 2014, after working with him, IH had little to no confidence in Rossi. They apparently had little hope of getting any value from Rossi, whom they had paid $11.5M to, despite (or possibly as a result of) having entered into the 'steam energy rental' with JMP in August of 2014.

Vaughn is a lawyer? I've been seeing this, an assumption that IH principals are "lawyers." Rossi ejected Dewey Weaver from an early demonstration at the IH facility with something like "get that lawyer out of here." Lawyer apparently equals "bad" in some circles. But lawyers are the most professionally careful thinkers we have. Someone who is truly against the presence of lawyers is probably disliking careful thinking. (Of course, there are unethical lawyers, etc, but ... no profession is perfect.)

No. He is a business major, as I'd expect. Nice resume, by the way. I have an Ethiopian daughter. I don't think Dewey Weaver is a lawyer, either.

At this point, they had entered the agreement with JMP, but the Plant had not been installed. I do think it quite possible, even probable, that by this time IH had serious doubts, but I also think they had serious doubts from the beginning. Just consider that they actually read that email from Rossi about the Hydrofusion demo. What would they think. A "magnificence."? But they had decided to "crush the tests." There had been massive doubt and derision of Rossi since 2011. It was, however, all unproven, i.e., there was no proof that the "Rossi effect" was fake. There actually still isn't, and may never be, even if there was never anything there but artifact and/or fraud. What IH did was twofold: they found out if Rossi could or would keep his word to sell the secret for $100 million. And they bought a hedge just in case Rossi couldn't or didn't keep his word but then hit the market.

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Assuming all this, the timing gets interesting. Let's say that some time in the first half of 2014, IH started having serious doubts about Rossi, as they had not had any success demonstrating anomalous heat.

this much is reasonable, and fairly obvious.

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Rossi, sensing IH's frustration cooks up the July 2014 'urgent' proposal of selling heat to JMP (a 'masterpiece'). Perhaps at this point in the summer of 2014, IH is thinking Rossi is more likely to be a 'quack' then 'con man',

Again, they may have had this idea from the beginning. "Sensing IH's frustration" is part of the scenario I imagined.

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but they just don't know for sure. In response to the FL/JMP 'urgent' proposal, they think about it and figure that they have nothing significant to loose, and if it's real, they risk missing out on the opportunity because of the 'urgent' nature.

Whatever was happening in Florida, it wasn't as urgent as presented. Or maybe it was, and it actually fell through because of the delay. This scenario was all imagined by me to provide a way to frame Rossi's behavior as perhaps foolish, but not exactly fraudulent. If Rossi is able to establish something like this in court (he might), then he might avoid a civil fraud finding, and escape without major harm. He might get to keep the $10 million, but, if so, he'd have to accept IH holding a license. Or maybe IH would sell the license back to him. These are all possible settlement directions.

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However, once they sign the term sheet, it does result in what seems to me to be an awkward situation for IH. We know that by Dec. 2014 Vaughn states that he does not consider Rossi credible.

Garbage in, garbage out. Or is it compost?

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However, they are getting payments for heat from JMP (even as they are sending payments to Penon and Fabiani). They are not in a position to publicly 'move on' after failure with Rossi, yet they have little confidence that he has anything of value.

I think they had little confidence before the start of Doral. However, they are not shallow, knee-jerk thinkers. "Crush the tests" means becoming absolutely sure, as sure as possible. It is almost like the standard of proof in criminal cases, it might not be enough to have a mere preponderance of the evidence. That is, even with the obvious defects, Doral still had some value to them. Only when Rossi said the magic words, "Guaranteed Performance Test" did the fuses blow.

According to Weaver, IH never did invoice JMP. (I have expressed an opinion that this was an unnecessary caution, costing them roughly a third of a million dollars. But, after all, it was their business and their money, and I don't know what their lawyers would have told them, only that these guys are not likely to wing it, except when some quick decision must be made, and that decision could be put off. They could still bill. The Terms Sheet left it up to JMP to determine the power, and if JMP relied on Rossi, that was their problem, not IH's problem.)

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This does fit with Abd's well articulated and thought out characterization of IH deciding they were willing to risk the 11.5M to get to the bottom of the E-Cat, either positive or negatively. And also, it explains Rossi's highly creative behaviors (JMP creation, comments on JONP, etc.) to resist the efforts of IH to reach and publicize any final conclusion.

Thanks.

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This tension could only go on so long, however. Now IH has essentially laid out all their cards on the table in the court documents.

The gloves are off. However, they have not revealed all that they have, probably. They will be revealing it in discover, and that mountain of paper Rossi has been dealing with came as responses to his requests and questions. Most of it we have not seen, just a little. The same is true in the other direction; Rossi has not answered the counterclaim yet, and may include exhibits with his Answer. He just postponed it until no later than December 14, 2016.

(This postponement is totally proper, but I find it ironically hilarious, because of how Planet Rossi treated an IH delay of a few days, as well as their Motions, while when Rossi did the like of it -- it was normal legal process, for the most part -- they became silent. In fact, I have not seen any notice on Planet Rossi that the Court rejected Rossi's Motion to Dismiss, entirely. I haven't shoved it in their face, at least not yet.)

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Rossi has one week before he too must lay down his hand, under threat of perjury. It will be very interesting to see what happens next week!

It is now two weeks, unless he asks for more time. or "Oh Noes!" he appeals the dismissal, which I doubt will happen. He would lose, I'm sure, but ... he would gain more time.

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*BTW, this was the second complaint filed to a state agency about Rossi's nuclear activities. The other one, in 2012 was in Florida. Within a day or two after this complaint was filed, Rossi changed his story in JONP and elsewhere, and also in his response to FL officials, declaring that there was no nuclear reactions occurring in the E-Cat. This was contrary to dozens of statements where he asserted nuclear reactions were occurring prior to this date.

It's all meaningless. The regulatory agencies don't have any concept of LENR, of nuclear reactions without radiation. Indeed, "mainstream science" rejects the AHE as having a nuclear origin, still, if we think of it as a majority of all physicists, say. Rossi will say whatever will create the impression he wants, we already know that. He is not a scientist and is not bound by the ethics of science. (I pointed all this out in 2011, saying that Rossi could put on whatever magic show he wanted, and we might jump up and down and scream "fraud," but it wasn't fraud unless there was a binding consideration. IH created that condition by buying the License and access to the technology. Rossi was completely unaccustomed to this, it was outside his "comfort zone," we might say.

Society (and legal process) will hold him responsible for promises made upon consideration. Deliberate deception or merely incautious claims can lead to civil fraud claims.

IH has woven a story of deliberate deception. They might not be able to prove that (the "deliberate" part). We have not yet heard how Rossi's lawyer will respond, we only have hints as to Rossi's response, himself (which is largely hysterical and paranoid, simultaneously overconfident and presenting himself as a victim).

Quote from oldguy

I have missed it- is there proof somewhere that IH paid Penon and Fabiani during the work in Fl? Or is it just a Rossi claim somewhere?

I think it is a Rossi claim, but this is plausible: IH paid for the three preliminary reports but not the final report. From the 3rd Amended Answer, etc.

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Not surprisingly, since the day he left Florida in February 2016, Penon has refused to discuss his measurements, his measurement plan and design, or his report with Counter-Plaintiffs (though he has requested that Counter-Plaintiffs pay him for his work).

Count IV is a fraud claim against Rossi and all 3rd party defendants, mentioning as harm:

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145. Another goal of the scheme was to obtain various payments from CounterPlaintiffs for work that one or more of the FDUTPA Defendants was performing not to benefit Counter-Plaintiffs, but in fact with the goal of harming Counter-Plaintiffs. Among these payments were service payments to USQL, Fabiani, and Penon; expense reimbursements to Leonardo, Rossi, USQL, Fabiani, and Penon (including for travel, apartment rentals, visa-related costs, repair work to the Plant, patent attorneys, and patent application fees); and payments for equipment (or the transportation of equipment) to be used – or purportedly to be used – by the FDUTPA Defendants.
...
g. Charging Counter-Plaintiffs for services, expenses, and equipment that were purportedly being used either for the benefit of, and to further the goals of, Counter-Plaintiffs when in fact no such services, expenses, or equipment were being used for Counter-Plaintiffs’ benefit.

So they did apparently pay Penon for "service," plus expenses. Just not the final payment requested.

Rossi tends to mash everything together. If they paid Penon, he argues or one of his surrogates argues that they must have been satisfied, so they must be lying now. That is a non-sequitur, for obvious reasons. I suggest, if one is interested, becoming familiar with the facts, through the evidence we have. I suggest avoiding premature conclusions. I do give conclusions but I've soaked my head in this material for about six months. (I remember being in my thirties, and a woman told me to "go soak my head." (Ah, she was beautiful ...) So I did, plunging it into ice-cold water in a stream running outside. The world looked very different after that. Kind of tilted. Any any case, I have already soaked my head....)

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it is an error to assume that Woodford invested due to the research testing going on in FL. The paperwork for the investment from Woodford was initiated before any reports were given by Penon and was done in the context of IH supporting other work.

I keep reading this from various sources but the "other work" is never specified. Except maybe Brillouin which would be almost as reckless an investment as Rossi.

When questioned on their own forum, Woodford's representative briefly answered before, as is typical of such conversations, cutting off the discussion (censoring). He said they had vetted carefully. I forget if that was generally or specifically Rossi. What he was responding to was the usual comments about Rossi's criminal history, lack of accomplishments, and dodgy experimental methods. He would not say how the vetting was done, not even generically, which was odd, considering he was mostly writing for investors.

Do you know what it was that Woodford was investing in? Any idea what vetting they did and what they learned from it and about which company that was? Seems to me, they were simply negligent. Why would that not be the case? I mean, if you are investing $50M, it seems prudent to spend some appreciable fraction of that to find out exactly and precisely what you are investing in and how solid it might be. Don't you think?
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Rossi has one week before he too must lay down his hand, under threat of perjury.

Do you really think that the possibility of perjury would bother Rossi or affect his responses?

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He did the same when he came up with the Hotcat, to distract us away from his 1MW when we figured out there really was no "military customer" that bought the plant. It worked too, as everyone abandoned talk of the 1MW, and switched to the Hotcat. Yes, Rossi is good at what he does. Very good.

Do you think that those bait and switch maneuvers you describe really distracted anyone? I've been saying ad nauseam that no megawatt plant and no one year are necessary to make Rossi billions of dollars. All that was needed was proper and credible reproduction of Levi's mass flow calorimetry with the oldest of ecats. Does anyone really think the QuarkX exists other than in Rossi's bizarre imagination? Yikes! Not even Abd does and he will consider almost anything as possible.

As for Rossi being good, very good, what he is good at, as I have been saying from early on, is CHOOSING HIS MARKS. Rossi can tell a gullible person from a mile away. That's why he makes some very dumb claims. He is not looking for investors who will not invest without proper and credible test results. He is not seeking anyone who is not extremely gullible. The QuarkX is simply Rossi's desperate last try to find someone dumb enough to still believe him.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

(This postponement is totally proper, but I find it ironically hilarious, because of how Planet Rossi treated an IH delay of a few days

It is correct that several posts on ECW really bashed IH when a postponement was requested from them and ECW reported on that postponement request.

http://www.e-catworld.com/2016…nst-rossi-perhaps-others/

and there were 156 posts on this thread... mostly negative.

Yet...

I just checked and not a mention on ECW about Rossi's request for a postponement/delay. I have always had a fairly good opinion of Frank Acland. While I know his site is
"pro-Rossi", I feel he is an honest person. Perhaps it is time he starts asking both sides of the question however. We are past the point where "looking through Rossi Colored glasses" is of any beneficial capacity. Not that ECW has to become a negative site, but that honest questions for truth is better than denial.

What is wrong with asking :
1: What about the eCat. Nothing is being said about it, only the QuarkX?
2: What about the satisfied customer that purchased (3) more units? What is the status of these units?
3: What about the long mentioned "robot factory" and it's facilities?
4: QuarkX in customer site by May, releases to be in June?

etc. etc.

One thing that seems apparent... honest questions are not asked because many people realize (but do not want to admit it), that if you ask these questions, Rossi will simply cut you off. So to avoid that and "stay in the game", only superficial questions with no real conviction are asked.

I am not against Mr. Acland at all, I just want to encourage him to become a little more journalistically balanced and unbiased. It will give him much more credibility. E-CatWorld can still be a positive site without becoming a cult.... where no one is allowed to question or the "leader" (i.e. Rossi) is not held accountable.

----
cult
kəlt/
noun
noun: cult; plural noun: cults

a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.

Quote from oldguy

sig- it sounds from the countersuit that Penon was not paid but was requesting payment. And that Fabiani was paid something.

Fabiani was definitely paid. See Exhibit 21.

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I just wonder since some here seem to assume that IH paid Penon as the ERV. It seem like they did not although Penon requested payment for that. I don't think that "we" can assume that IH accepted Penon as ERV and paid him for that role.

Penon was ERV for the Validation Test in 2013. He was paid for that, I assume. He was then apparently retained for measuring output in the Doral plant. IH has denied that this was as "ERV.," This is reported from the December 4 mail, in a question asked by Rossi.

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REQUEST NO. 30: Any and all documents which support and/or pertain to your claim that “Neither IPH nor IH ‘engaged’ Mr. Penon to serve as the ERV for the Guaranteed Performance process, which is a requirement under Section 5.”, (sic) as stated in the letter of December 4, 2015, which has been attached hereto as Exhibit “A”.

(We don't have the attached exhibits, which were attached to the request for production to IH, not to the Rossi appeal of objections.l

Murray, in Exhibit 5, punts.

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As I noted above, the questions above are not all of the questions I have from my visit to the 1 MW Plant location, but if you can address these, it would be a good start to me better understanding what you were measuring and how you were measuring it in connection with the 1 MW Plant. (Just to be clear, I am not asking you, and I do not plan to ask you, about the license agreement or whether you are an ERV under the agreement. I am trying to focus just on the test and its measurement.)

The document we have that was the "protocol" proposed by Penon is attached to the IH response to Rossi's first request for production, as quoted by Rossi. (it starts on page 26). In that document, dated February 9, 2015, Penon refers to himself as "ERV." Perhaps given that he had acted as ERV before, this did not set off alarms, or if it did, perhaps IH decided that they were protected by the explicit requirement for written agreement to the start of the GPT. We have not seen IH's reply to this, so this is only a statement by Penon, and it is not clear that this was the actually implemented protocol, there are some known differences. This is the closest thing I have seen to evidence that the Doral installation was a GPT with Penon as ERV. In the Complaint, Rossi has

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65. Accordingly, on January 28,2015, the ERV prepared and submitted to the parties a proposed test protocol for the Guaranteed Performance Test. After suggesting minor changes to the test protocol, and clarifying other points, DARDEN on behalf of IH and/or IPH agreed to the test protocol prior to the commencement of the Guaranteed Performance Test.

If this is true, as to the substance, not the included assumptions, the agreement was as stated: to the test protocol. Not to it being a GPT or Penon being an ERV for a GPT. but, just maybe, "ERV."

It just occurred to me that if these negotiations are shown to have included an explicit agreement that this was a GPT, or something reasonably taken that way, this could establish a start date, it would be when Penon was engaged to start up the "test." It would not be a signed agreement of all the parties, as required, but, squinting a bit, it could establish estoppel against IH claiming it wasn't a start.

Quote from Bob

I am not against Mr. Acland at all, I just want to encourage him to become a little more journalistically balanced and unbiased. It will give him much more credibility. E-CatWorld can still be a positive site without becoming a cult.... where no one is allowed to question or the "leader" (i.e. Rossi) is not held accountable.

In favor of Mr. Acland, I have not seen any pattern of censorship of my posts on ECW. I have also requested that others who believe their posts were deleted, post copies here. (Ordinary deletion would remain in the Disqus user profile list of posts, at least the very few of mine that have been deleted have, AFAIK.) So far, nobody has bothered. I have been roundly attacked by some users there, but not by Acland. The site is not for raw pseudoskepticism and "debunking," but it certainly allows critique. As more and more fact comes out about the world of Andrea Rossi, Frank may have some choices to make. I have no demands, and appreciate diversity.

Quote from oldguy

I have answered the "others" before in this forum. Peter and Henry from Woodford visited many labs during their US visit. You can find verification of at least support of Letts and Hagelstein in Marianne Macy's interview with Darden in Inf. Energy. for example.

Oldguy is responding to a long-term debunker, who is himself not one who pays careful attention, and this is common among those with strong ideas in relatinoship to facts that may not be consistent with those ideas. As I have been pointing out for many years....

That debunker mentioned Brillouin as if it might be one of the companies supported by IH. Apparently it is not. Darden may have given some level of support long ago, but IH is not a major investor in Brillouin. As to the Brillouin prospects, I can see the signs that a debunker might seize on. I have met Godes, though. He tried to explain his theory to me. I was not particularly receptive. It sounds highly implausible to me. However, Pons and Fleischmann had some implausible theory, incorrect in parts, and still found something amazing. It took years of work to demonstrate that this wasn't merely artifact. It has never, so far, created a killer product that would end all debate. But it has created experimental results that will have that effect, in due time, and those results are currently under investigation with increased precision, as I suggested and promoted for years and formally in my paper last year. Brillouin has some level of results confirmed by SRI replication. This is not yet adequate to include it with major events. Debuinkers, however, never create anything, cannot, practically by definition, understand anything new, anything outside the expected. They might even usually be right, but the attitude shuts down possibilities, and I would much rather spend my time with even starry-eyed believers, they are, ah, nicer. There is another kind of believer that is a dedicated fanatic, and these can be horrible....

In that paper I recommended looking at two "experiments." The first and central one was actually a whole family of experiments on the heat/helium ratio and this I saw as transformative, the only direct evidence that the AHE was nuclear in nature. That's been fully and generously funded. Not by IH, though. IH is not the only Good News in the field! The other work mentioned was a finding of resonances, apparently in the THz region, in generating AHE with dual laser stimulation. That's Letts, and, yes, Letts has been funded by IH. Great minds think alike.

As well, Peter Hagelstein has been funded. Good news, whether or not one agrees with his theories. This gentle soul has been beating his head against the cold fusion theory barrier since Day 1. In 2015:

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We would like to thank Industrial Heat for support for some of the research reported here.

Neither of these researchers is likely to be on the track of any quick commercial implication, this is blue-sky research. The company with the money is IHHI, and it openly plans to spend the money, and it plans to raise more. While there is potential for long-term profit, that's obviously not the immediate goal. The debunker story of greedy and gullible investors just doesn't fit reality, apparently some debunkers live in a fantasy world.

Quote from JedRothwell

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

I disagree. If the investigator and reporter got that wrong, I am sure I.H. would submit a letter to the editor and circulate a press release. They would say, "we have complete confidence in Rossi and we consider him credible."

This is essentially argument from "I can't understand A, therefore B." First of all, what the investigator actually wrote strongly implies that Vaughn did not say "Rossi is not credible." He said something else that the investigator "summarized" or "paraphrased" that way. It was harmless (and if IH was going to do anything to ameliorate damage, it would be privately with Rossi. "I.e., I didn't say that.") (And then Rossi might make his announcement, since he also jumps to conclusions.) But what did Vaughn actually say? We don't know. We only have information about the summary of the investigator. What I'm saying is that there are lots of reasons to consider Rossi statements as not to be taken literally. And that is relevant here. There is another point raised by oldguy that is of interest, I'll deal with that there.

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I.H. statements to the press, to Marianne and at ICCF conferences appear to be carefully thought out. They are carefully calibrated. I.H. does not say things by accident.

I hate to break it to you, Jed, but Vaughn is not "I.H", but an officer, and what he says in real time to an investigator who shows up at the door isn't necessarily carefully thought out and calibrated. As to what was important to them, what he said worked (and was legal and not deceptive). The point being made was that there was no radiation from the devices, no matter what had been implied by Rossi in any way. Extracting meaning from an unrelated context often leads astray. He was not saying, I'm sure, that there was no heat. (Even if he thought that. It wouldn't be the investigator's business.) Just no radiation, and they went and checked out the lab, finding, big surprise, no radiation!

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I find some of their statements opaque, but this one is clear to me.

Except, Jed, you don't have his statement! You have a paraphrase, which was really focusing on one issue, a "claim of nuclear" and specifically radiation.

[/quote]I find most of their statements clear, especially by the standards of venture capitalists. People seem to have trouble understanding them. I don't see why. Many people raised questions about their March 2016 press release and whether it meant they did not endorse Rossi's claims. I thought it was quite clear that is what it meant.[/quote]
I also find them clear, but careful, as you note, and often not disclosing a great deal. They play their cards close, they are not big on major revelations, and I suspect that they asked Peter to stop mentioning their support. At least that is plausible. I'd ask Peter, but he wouldn't want to talk with me, and he wouldn't want to disclose that situation either. I see no problem with it, they are not obligated to tell us what they are doing, and mostly, they don't.