Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint <zeropo...@charter.net> wrote:
> In addition, there was plenty of rational skepticism here long before Yugo > or Cude came around. By the time Yugo even made his/her/its presence > known, I think the forum had already touched on her criticisms, including > Rossi’s sordid past and run-ins with the law, the coziness of Ampenergo > people with Rossi, shared office space, poorly done demos, how easy it > would be to do a proper demo to remove all doubt – the list goes on – ALL > of that was already discovered and brought up BEFORE she arrived. > Yup, yup. Perhaps she was unaware of that. Perhaps she did not review the archives. However, many people pointed out to her that we have been over this ground. We said we agree he is controversial. It was clear when I said "I would not buy a nail clipper from this guy" that I was referring to his sordid past. I am sure Mary Yugo saw that. But she seems to be tapering off on the criticism so let's not fuss about it. The one accusation I think should be dismissed is the part about "shared office space." A startup company is often located in the same address as a venture capitalist who is financing it. It is just a post office address, for convenience. Also let's give Rossi some credit here. He is offering an escrow agreement and other assurances. He cannot rip off the customer. He knows that he has a controversial past. He does not try to cover that up. Most important, he has invented important catalytic technology with his bio-fueled diesel engines. He has the right expertise and background to make this contribution. He has impressed many excellent people such as Kullander. A person can be creative scientist and also have bad business judgement, run-ins with the law, and a reputation for being "a dodgy character" (McKubre). Many great scientists and inventors were dodgy characters. Some deserved to have bad reputations; others were innocent. I do not know enough about Rossi to judge. Plus I am not a policeman or a judge, so this is not my job. If Rossi's technology is real, and he succeeds in introducing it, then all of his previous problems should be forgiven. They are trivial compared to this magnificent contribution. As I have pointed out, Edison was a dodgy character par excellence. He was constantly being chased by creditors and sheriffs waving unpaid bills. He operated like today's dot-com companies. He would get a huge advance from investors for an upcoming project. Instead of budgeting or paying old bills, he would splurge and buy laboratory equipment galore. After that, quoting Conot, p. 44, describing a project in 1870: "A for $20 bill was paid $240 in cash, then $50 more, then nothing -- until the patient, pleading creditor finally sent the sheriff. A $335 bill was paid $115 cash, $145 later and $40 much, much later. . . . [The investor] Harrington had expected to put in $6000, but by the end of March Edison had spent well over $30,000 . . ." Edison blithely assured Harrington, "expenses may be a little heavy for the present but results will be tremendous." Harrington blew his top, sent in an accountant, and Edison said to the accountant (in effect) "it is about time! Did you bring more money?" In the event, results were tremendous. Harrington got his "hockey stick" return on investment, as we would say nowadays. Results usually were tremendous with Edison, except when they were not. He blew tens of millions of dollars on stupid projects that were not tremendous. We forget that Great Men in the past made idiotic mistakes. Rossi may have made mistakes too. Read history -- real history, not iconography -- and you will see that you must to look beyond a person's faults. - Jed
