Just to clarify, Mark Iverson wrote:
Jones writes:
"Here is a sanitized version of the story cleansed by LTI, but the true grit is
worse than this
sounds. Bottom of Page 5 is where it gets interesting:"
http://dodfuelcell.cecer.army.mil/library_items/Thermo%282004%29.pdf
Frankly, I'd prefer to read the unsanitized 'true grit'! Its usually much more
interesting and
entertaining!
The narrative in question is then appended below, starting here:
========== EXCERPT FROM DOD REPORT ==================
Leonardo Technologies, Inc.
LTI was incorporated as a response to the thermoelectric power generation
research
by Dr. Andre Rossi. Dr. Rossi indicated that his devices would produce 20 . . .
This is a tale of woe, quite familiar to anyone who tried to develop a
product, even one as easy, malleable and predictable as computer software.
I do not find anything fishy about this. Or even unusual. I have never
heard of anyone who developed an interesting, valuable, novel product
who did not go through experiences such as this, usually lasting for
years. Often ending in failure. That is how things go!!! That is what
you have to expect. My grandfather spent years in the 1930s trying to
make a blood processing and transfusion machine on his back porch,
bringing home bottles of cow's blood from the butcher and scaring
grandma to death. That project did not pan out. He invented lots of
things that did work (everything made by Exacto, including medical stuff
that worked) but the failures, trials, tribulations, fires, trade-show
demos run amok, the heartbreak and setbacks ALWAYS outnumber the
successes. No inventor or scientist succeeds once without first failing
dozens of times. No profession is more discouraging. It is like being a
doctor where most of your patients die for no reason you can discern.
These Wall Street ninnies who think they are taking risks, usually with
other people's money, do not know the meaning of the word compared to a
person who tries to invent something.
To hold this kind of thing up as an example of suspicious behavior or
nefarious conduct is to totally misunderstand the nature of experimental
discovery.
One of the greatest scientists and inventors in history, Benjamin
Franklin, wrote: "For [an inventor's] attempts to benefit mankind in
that way, however well imagined, if they do not succeed, expose him,
though very unjustly, to general ridicule and contempt; and if they do
succeed, to envy, robbery, and abuse."
- Jed
