Posts by Randy Russell

Axil can explain it to me if we don't get too far into rydberg matter. I tried reading up on that since he mentions it in nearly every post and I'm pretty sure my brain cramped up.

Tungsten also makes for an excellent and durable electrode if the recipe frequency is more electrical and has to be driven at very high voltages. Just ask BLP.

@Thomas,

I totally hear you on Sniffex...but what seemed to me to be happening was a couple of one note sambas were going Sniffex on the Sniffexers.

I thought MY had an interesting and occasionally cogent thesis that was often helped by the fact that topical actors would often turn out as predicted. That said, if I know that I'm hiking through an active cow pasture, I don't need a crusader with a megaphone to be constantly reminding me and everyone else enjoying the scenery to watch out for the pies. We get it...about the third time you're really wondering if somebody's not stuck in a loop or something.

Then there's the whole thread hijacking thing and personal venom that was getting really off putting.

I actually enjoying reading the contrarian and cautionary viewpoints, probably more than the fannish ones. They make me think. Yours in particular. I went and read your critique of the Lugano report on PDF and had a major eye opening to where you're coming from and assigned much respect your way.

You post a lot, but you post on the thread's topic and make good arguments, albeit predictably directional, but I respect that. You don't post off topic as a wedge to start driving your singular agenda home.

So, yes it's a shame a familiar voice had to be silenced, but it was done to the massive relief of the hardy few who remained to see it. Who knows how many just got turned off and left. As for some others, they just remind me of atheists going into faith based forums and pissing on the views of the faithful because they don't believe or haven't seen anything for themselves. I know this is science, but I can't pass up a good analogy.

Neither will be missed by me. Non-Value Added.

@Shane D,

Like they say "Always follow the money". Always, always, always FOLLOW THE MONEY! And when they say it's not about the money, IT'S ABOUT THE MONEY!

Let's say you were a C-Suite executive, R&D engineer, corporate spy, or in the briefing chain from an intercepting intelligence agency to their governmental overmasters, that you suspected with high confidence, that oil and the oil economy was about to be replaced. You wouldn't be able to tell anyone, but you'd darn sure short those oil stocks and futures.

I've only been a member for a few months, and was a visitor long before that. I basically quit coming and observing the discussions because of a handful of obnoxious individuals. I'm not socially fragile either, I got paid to deal with the disagreements that got too big or bad for anything other than the law.

I learned long ago, there are two sides to every story and you really need to get the other one before you make up your mind or you might regret it. So, I actually seek out divergent views on controversial topics. My world view has broadened immensely because of it. My early eagerness has had to slow down a time or two, and my 'prove it' skepticism has tasted crow more than once.

I'm glad the admins here finally agreed to deal with some of the negative droning. I see forums kind of like extended dinner parties where the host has invited a lot of people that you don't know, but are interested in hearing, with a generally common thread.

Like a good dinner party (as opposed to a club) you get into, or overhear conversations that have a differing viewpoint or even theory than your own. This is entertaining and informative and hopefully mutual. But, also like some dinner parties, there's a guest or two that drops in on every [lexicon]conversation[/lexicon] to repeat their stock line. It may have been informative at one time, but every time just makes you want to walk away and join another discussion...and they show up there, saying the same thing, over and over. After a while, you realize the host is content to let this boor wreck all the conversations, so there really isn't much point in sticking around, even if you really like the party otherwise. Dissent and all.

So, to the MYs and TYYs, GTFO! We already know what you're going to say. Been there, done that. Can't you see grownups are talking here? Now leave us alone and don't let the door hit you on the a**. Good night.

My 2c. Thank you, Admins. Now where were we?

This whole thing is very, very interesting. Something is going on, and not just with Rossi and [lexicon]IH[/lexicon]. Look at the world energy markets. The Saudis were pumping like crazy, probably at the request of western governments and in self interest to punish Putin's adventures. Then when the House of Saud and PutinGaz agree to a truce and limit production...the markets came back...except oil. What? Dropped some more. That's not because Iran didn't play along. They don't have the ability to crater prices against Saudi Arabia, much less SA and Russia together. No, something else is up.

Does that mean that Rossi and [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] have it bagged? We'll see. It would explain why after all this time the chief trumpet player is silent shortly after the territorial rights disclosures. If [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] has a winner and they know it, their lawyers and PR people will want to control the messaging from here on out. The biggest, broadest, and longest payday in a disruptive technology emergence is in the IPO and owning that stock going forward. That means that you hunt where the ducks are...on the US stock markets...and have SEC rules to consider...like 'prospective statements' which need to comport with the public statements of knowledgeable interested parties after the 'when did you know it?' date. AR may be under an NDA on his own baby.

China, Russia, and even good ole' Uncle Sam would leak like a sieve in the C-suites if the engineering departments of certain major companies got some advance working papers to begin doing production pilots and found out that it works with those huge COPs...and the money boys would move out of oil and not move back.

I'm wondering if it's just that 'we the poor people' will be the last to know. I mean Brillouin didn't do a demo for congress for nothing. Something's up, and I think I know what it is. Got nickel?

Mr. Ahern,

Is it possible that your friend had an induction coil under the driveway? I'm not a scientist, but there is no identifiable source of power being harvested sufficient for what was observed to my limited understanding.

That's why I am intrigued by LENR...I can see where the power comes from...it's unzipping what was crammed into an atom by a supernova for the metal, or the big bang for the hydrogen...I'm sure there are lots of yet unknown ways to release that.

In the case of your friends device...and the only thing worse than my physics is my electronics, but when I see coils and capacitors, I think LC tank circuits...then I think fields. Since the earth's field has been found to be far too weak for kinds of outputs you were observing, I begin to wonder about other field generators that could be being harvested by the apparatus...like a buried coil. Just a theory that's worth what it costs.

That said, an NDA, and a qualified reverse electrical engineer might prove equally useful.

Best of luck.

Randy

I find it hard to watch the detailed explanation and level of crosschecking of these CR39 experiments, particularly those done by Dr.s Boss and Forsley, and not come away convinced that these are highly competent scientists and that they are recording nuclear events from the LENR.

Shane,

Thanks for the tip. Wilco.

Eric,

You're a bright young man and wise beyond your years. Your sparring here will pay off one day when it matters. Audentes Fortuna Iuvat

I have to go with MY on this.

Personally, if the effects are so trivial that it spawns a discussion regarding whether the needle moved a degree this way or that, those discussions should have been limited to the research group and a handful of advisers and checkers. Publishing trivial or marginal results is what seems to keep things locked in the academic hellstew it's currently in.

Maybe I'm looking at this too simplistically, but if LENR works enough to matter, it'll have to pass the village idiot test. And this village idiot wants to see somebody fire one of these things up and watch it get cooking on it own. Until then, I think the incremental, iterative, experimental stuff is necessary, but isn't the kind of haymaker it's going to take to move this into the 'Got It' column.

For some reason, I thought there were a number of researchers that were in fact getting high COP and high repeatability. I would only include AR if he had vetted company, otherwise he's too much of an outlier, IMHO.

Shane, yes I'm a believer that there is something real happening when you energetically excite a hydrogen or deuterium loaded transition metal matrix. I also believe that something is nuclear simply by eliminating what it is not and seeing if what's left still agrees with the hypothesis, and it does.

I don't think it's any new physics, just your normal historical discovery of an 'accident observed' in a previously unconsidered and improbable niche within conventional physics.

I also don't think of the skeptics as opponents except that they force the proponents to play at a professional level. To the extent that is done professionally, it is done well. The personal stuff is beneath the caliber of the site and I think the mods should nip that aspect swiftly and privately when it happens. That said, task conflict is good; personal conflict isn't.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't seen to much outright skepticism as to LENR itself...albeit some, but mostly what I've seen is TC saying the scientists need to do a better job to convince him. I watch police work differently than most and am very critical of shoddy work that would seem fine to an untrained eye. To that end, if TC is a scientist, then I value his critique of the science and his standards are for him to set, not me. Some other folks I suspect are secretly cheering for the technology, but very alert to the fact that AR seems to be going about things in a sketchy way. I have to admit, after watching AR for a while, I have to agree with his critics. I think something funny is going on. But I didn't hear his chief critic dissing LENR.

As for the few that are outright dismissive of LENR, I pay no more attention to them than they would to some 'believer' saying "LENR is real, now shut up!"

So, I see one group as being necessary for quality control and the other group hasn't demonstrated worthiness to even be considered. In fact, I am merely a hopeful spectator and honestly even those convinced it's not real would be sociopathic to actually hope against it. Being against the promise of LENR would be like being against free, clean food appearing your pantry or money growing on a tree in your backyard. So even the one's convinced that it's a waste of time are just trying to spare others that waste of time. The real enemies are the ones actively trying to derail it for their own ends. To them, I say 'Karma is a b*tch'.

I have no idea if LENR ever achieves it's potential, but I'm convinced all those people saw something and I hope for sake of mankind they're right.

Since my nuclear physics is admittedly weak, I have to digest much of what I see and hear on the topic and the dialogue generated after translating it into something that I can understand. This is where analogy is useful.

The interesting thing here is that I don't really have a dog in this hunt except that I would love to see cheap, clean energy for everyone...and the sooner the better as I'm not getting any younger.

I can see both sides here and it may come as some surprise, but find myself with a tent in each camp. I actually believe that LENR is a very real phenomenon. The retired cop in me tells me that when you have a whole lot of witnesses saying they saw something...they saw something. Agreeing on what they saw and under what circumstances seems to be a little harder to pin down. Once their number and credibilities gets high enough, you can bet they're reliable.

Some of the witness testimony doesn't match, but that happens a lot. Some of the witnesses have an agenda. That happens a lot too. We ignore them...or put them in jail. I can see jail in some folks futures. But at the end of the day, a lot of otherwise good people are saying they saw something and it looks similar enough to assume it's the same thing...whatever it is.

It seems the real problem here is recreating the crime scene such that when the actors play it out it fits the evidence. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Nobody's taking this mess into court. More work has to be done. And it has to be done in such a way that if you're charging a particular crime, that is exactly what plays out...every time. Some variables have to be refined or removed and others considered. Other suspects may have had an unseen hand...others may in fact be innocent.

In the end, and I hope the end is soon, the investigators will nail down the suspects and circumstances that validate what all the (honest) witnesses are alleging. Once that happens, this can proceed to trial.

The prosecutor demanding better evidence is still on the same side as the officer who's convinced of the suspect's guilt...even more so, because the case will win against the best arguments against it. To that end, even the defense makes the case better by demanding a right trial.

So with that analogy, I'm empathetic to the police, ready to run with facts, the prosecutor needing those facts to be unassailable, and the defense chirping that it had better be right or else.

I have a hunch however, that we're close to an indictment. Brillioun going to congress without making a Rossi-esque show of it is the kind of thing one would do before making headlines. Sort of like detectives asking the State Attorney to get the Mayor and City Council together to let them know to get ready for the shockwave to hit...soon.

This is definitely an interesting field and there seems to be just enough evidence on either side of the topic to keep it in play. I guess that is almost a given, since anything of certainty would've put this part of discussion to bed by now.

As for being at a tipping point, I'm inclined to intellectually admit that while I'd like it to be, it most likely isn't. As for the signalling from the A-listers, I guess it's just that they have stronger radar and brighter blips, that others are happy to report seeing. Nobody big is betting the house.

I definitely think something is about to shake out, and for the better on the energy front for many of the reasons that Walker outlines wrt to the massive outflows from the sector. My gut tells me that. Macroeconomics tells me that. Neither tell me why. However, I also doubt LENR is a big a reason for this for the equally valid reasons TC makes. Correlation is not causation. There are a lot of reasons deep pockets want out of oil for the long play; the short play is usually geopolitical, like poking Putin in the eye.

So, if the money is flowing out, where is it going? Notice that other than small, interesting, $2 bets, the big money isn't flowing into LENR...yet. If it were, the correlation argument would get better legs. The VC's to me aren't that predictive since they'd probably want to have money on ANY horse that has a shot in this big a space. There are boring equations for this and their MBA's and analysts have done them and figured out the ante. The interesting part is they didn't recommend avoidance. It still just looks like buying insurance if it takes off. That's what VC firms do.

Interestingly, there are a number of boutique energy companies doing direct-to-market commercialization labwork, but not many multinationals, except wrt to how it would affect their products, planning, and market mix. To me, the reason you don't see the big corporations researching this directly is that even if the recipe gets worked out, LENR's future, while transformational, looks like a giant generator, heater, or small engine market, with a few profitable islands in the [lexicon]industrial heat[/lexicon] and power space, and maybe prime mover powerplants. The rest of what would be a huge market would almost instantly be flooded with an insane number of entrants.

Putting the early, non-industrial scale LENR market into a Porter's five forces model to me doesn't look like one with high profitability guarantees until the economies of scale shake out and you wind up with a handful of ultra competitive, high volume, low margin manufacturers and some higher profit, but much smaller scale boutique outfits in the niches of disinterest to the bigs. The barriers to entry would be too low for that not to happen. I can't see any inputs other than some well guarded IP that could be sewn up that would allow integration up or down. Competition would be global and ruthless.

Apparently, the money's in the licensing for the Brilliouns and other players, and probably what Rossi actually dreams about. This would be especially true if one of them could perfect a claim to 'the' critical path. Two things seem to me to work against this: Early methods to do anything useful are almost universally out-engineered by subsequent iterations when smart people get to look inside the box; and, secondly, if LENR works on the individual scale, you will have virtually no way to enforce your patent unless you can flood the market with low cost options making it not worthwhile to the bootleggers.

It's clear the voltage has been turned down on the electric fence, but probably not off and efforts to cross it are being led by the brave, perhaps the foolish, and those with a lot of insulation. But I guess the tipping point, if it comes, is still a ways off.

It seems be a lot easier to see who loses money if this works than who will wind up with the heavy purse.

Thanks to everyone for the thought provoking responses to my first post and Happy New Year!

So, we wait...some more.

I'm curious what the LENR and LENR-watching community thinks about the recent signalling by leading members of the A-list in various fields openly coming out and making statements (signalling) favorable to LENR?

I'm referring to recent articles by or quoting Huw Price, Carl Page, venture capital investors, and Bill Gates as examples within a larger theme package.

I am NOT referring to publicity stunting by interested parties.

Is this the signal to the wider audience that we're passing the tipping point? Not necessarily that breakthroughs are occurring, but that the water isn't toxic anymore and in fact, it's OK to put your toe in.

I'm an MBA, not a physicist or engineer, and have some opinions based on that perspective, but would like to hear what others in this space feel about the uptick in authority chatter.