Peter Heckert <peter.heck...@arcor.de> wrote:
> Rossi is overworked and unable to explain the simplest facts correctly. > In all seriousness, that is true. It is important aspect of his personality. I do not think it is because he is overworked. I think he is just not good at explaining things. That is no reflection on his intellect. It does not detract from his achievements. Many famous inventive people have had great difficulty explaining themselves, such as Harrison and Arata. Rossi is also careless and he gets facts wrong. He does not care about details. He REALLY does not care about details, to an extent that most of us find pathological. Take his webpage. He has a board of advisors listed including a professor who does not exist and probably never did. I told him the guy does not exist then he said something like: "Well the name is something like that. I don't recall. What difference does it make?" He said the same thing with regard to his fake PhD from the diploma mill. He said: "someone gave me that; I don't know anything about it." As if we were talking about a vase on the shelf. He really, truly, sincerely does not give a fart about public relations or the fact that his web site features absurd statements. I suggested he take that stuff off his website because it gives a bad impression. He said he doesn't care about impressions and he does not want to bother to clean up the website. Not worth the trouble. It isn't as if he is lazy. He works 14 hours a day and only eats one meal a day in order to have more time to work and think. He lives in his own world, doing things his own way. People think he is lying when he's just describing what is in his imagination, which I believe is as real to him as the so-called real world. I would not call it "lying" because he makes no attempt to deceive anyone. He knows that anyone can check the fake PhD. It is what you might call a hypothetical PhD, one proposed for the sake of argument. Scientists and programmers often talk about hypotheticals and the future as if it were the present, already accomplished. Some of them live in a dream world. Ordinary people would say they are lying. It is said that Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field." When people worked with him or talked with him they began to believe his crazy notions, in some cases converting those notions into reality. Rossi also has a reality distortion field but it only works on him. The rest of us do not see what he sees. He too sometimes converts crazy notions into reality, but he does it by inventing things. His inventions are infinitely more important than those of Steve Jobs, so we should cut him some slack. One of the many ironic things about Rossi is how often people ascribe to him personality qualities which are the opposite of the way he is. He is said to be a master manipulator of people and a superb confidence man. Where does anyone get that idea?!? I have never met someone who inspires less confidence! He makes legitimate businessman sweat in fear while they look for an excuse to bolt for the door. Krivit calls him "strategic, articulate, charming." Good grief! What strategy?!? It looks like chaos to me, shifting from a deal with Defkalion one month to selling reactors the next. Articulate? He cannot express a simple, conventional technical concept without inducing confusion. Charming? He is one of the least charming people I have encountered. He is sweet at times, but he aggravates everyone I know -- especially his friends. The ability to constantly shift your plans and change your mind is vital to the kind of intuitive, hands-on experimental work that Rossi does, or to an artist or fiction writer, but it makes interacting with other people awkward. Rossi has many outstanding qualities, and many faults too, but he does not have a single one of the qualities ascribed to him by Krivit or Heckert. Perhaps Rossi is in some sense a mirror to us. He is so confusing and so unexpected, we project our own fears and hopes in him. We end up seeing and him whenever we want to see, or whatever we fear. Whatever else he is, he is like the fellow in the beer commercial: the most interesting man in the world. - Jed
