Not Much Happening

Not much has been going on this weekend over at Steorn, at least not publicly. We're all still waiting for their Q1 announcements.

I haven't received or found any additional information confirming or denying Jeff Bechtold as a Jury Member. I do want to point you to a better Google Scholar search that doesn't include Jill Bechtold's work. Thanks go to Steorn's Orbo Blog for pointing that out (Note: Steorn's Orbo Blog has no relationship with Steorn that I'm aware of). I've added the term "Houston" to limit the results to work coming out of the University of Houston.

Also, here is a link to Jeff Bechtold's PhD Thesis Abstract.

From crank: It's next week :-(

From crank:

Since it's almost 5.30pm I texted Sean to ask when the tech details would be revealed, and he just texted back 'Next week'

We'll just have to be patient.

Unbanned

The dust has settled, and I am now unbanned. Here is what crank had to say:

I received an email from SteornTracker overnight, and have reinstated his account. He was not banned for publishing the name of the juror, BTW. He knows why he was banned, and that was the subject he addressed in his email...

We'll see how long I stay unbanned. Here is a clarification of the banning policy on Steorn's forums from crank:

When you're more trouble than you're worth you're banned.

I'm happy that she's completely honest about it at least!

Shooting the Messenger

Crank has banned my account on the forums. Here is her reasoning:

I banned Steorntracker, because he requested to be allowed to join at a time when new joining was suspended. He said that he wouldn't publish confidential information, but did.

He can read the forums just like anyone else. He doesn't post anyway, so it won't make much difference to him, but I don't see why he should be accommodated when he didn't keep his word.

Steorn and Crank have every right to ban me from their forum, it's their forum. It's silly though to accuse me of publishing confidential information.

BREAKING NEWS: Potential Juror Discovered

I'm a believer in getting any possible news out early and often. I just received this information from an anonymous reader who did a good job digging around on the Internet. It may just be a joke, or it may be our first public Juror:

From the Minutes of Physical Sciences Task Force:

Jeff Bechtold announced that he had answered the “Steorn Challenge” which was advertised in the "Economist" magazine for a jury of scientists and engineers to evaluate an "over-unity" device. He then informed every that he was accepted and will probably be traveling to Ireland in January.

Dr. Jeff Bechtold is a professor of physics at Austin Community College. Here is a query of potential papers that he's published over at Google Scholar.

Let the fun begin.

The Alan Wall Conspiracy Theory Debunked

An Anonymous poster asked this question today over on the Calling All Forum Members post:

Why doesn't Alan Wall mention his work at Steorn on his web-pages ? ... On his website you can se a lot of logos that he has designed for different companies, but there is no mention of the Steorn-logo. Why?

To me it seems that Alan Wall is not proud of what he is doing at Steorn. He doesnt want to get his name connected to Steorn. I guess he know what is going on and is afraid of loosing his design bussiness when Steorn is proved to be a hoax or fraud.

I personally think that's a bit of a stretch. I can imagine plenty of reasons why Alan may not highlight Steorn on his websites. To find out why exactly Alan doesn't bring up Steorn much, I simply emailed him. Here is his response:

There are two reasons I don't highlight Steorn on my blog:
Firstly I don't want it to be a mouthpiece for or representative of the company. We have our official channels and I don't want to cloud our communications.
Secondly, for personal reasons: I have found that when some people find out your work for Steorn they tend to ask a lot of questions that either I can't legally answer or I have answered hundreds of times. As exciting as it is to work for Steorn, it's more convenient that people don't know about it. That goes for everyone from taxi drivers to people at parties to people who might read my blog!

I am a full-time designer for Steorn, and Waltzer is my sideline business, which was set up before I joined Steorn. I am considering deleting the site altogether because Waltzer is no longer a viable business for me since most of my time is taken up with Steorn work. (I'll keep my blog though!)

I just keep the blog for my friends, not to push my career or business.

Hope this clears up any confusion.

Best regards
Alan

Thanks Alan for the reply! That definitely clears things up.

Steorn Around the Blogosphere

Recently there have been a lot of bloggers getting introduced to Steorn. Here are some excerpts of what others had to say about this craziness:

From Steorn's Orbo:

Exactly when Steorn will reveal how their technology works to the SPDC is unknown, but it is expected to be well before they release the information to the public.

From The Two Wolves:

Well I’m not going to pass judgment exactly but I do lean on the pessimistic side and it does seem that all will be revealed soon - so lets wait and see shall we?

From YONBEASTY.COM:

Imagine power for free, and how this would change the world as we know it. I can't help but feel giddy at the prospect. Surely, this is too good to be true.

From Cohenside:

On the surface the company’s claim seems valid and possible except as I pointed out in a previous post, it violates one of the fundamental principles of physics, which is that energy is never created or destroyed it is simply converted from one form to another.

From Ashwin Sharma's Blog:

Last year I blogged on Steorn's breakthrough technology of free energy which is under validation with results expected by the and of 2007 and they claim that once it gets validated we don't have to pay hefty amount forelectricity bills, gasoline etc. and our dying mother earth will get hope to survive few more thousand years if idiot politicians don't involve this world innuclear war.

Man that was a long sentence!

From Oil Walnut's World:

If their claims are true, then mankind itself stands at the brink of a incredible revolution; one where energy is completely clean, limitless, and completely independent.

And finally, SaCreD MaTriX has no editorial, but has put together some of the interesting videos from Steorn and Craigy.

The world will absolutely hear what happens at the end of this process. Whether we're on "the brink of an incredible revolution" or not, the word will spread.

Dr. Mike, SPDC

Dr. Mike had this to say today:

Sean is out of Dublin this week, so we wait.

Is it possible that Sean is visiting members of the Jury to get an update? That might explain why he hasn't been chatting in the forums. Or maybe he's busy with one of these items:

1. The SPDC
2. The Jury update coming out this week
3. The Technical Details being published this week
4. Building the Demo Units for July

Needless to say, a lot is happening behind the scenes right now if Steorn expects to get all of this done!

On another note, this blog was referenced in some way inside the SPDC forums. Isn't it slightly recursive that the SPDC is talking about a blog that talks about the SPDC?

Finally, I came across Dr. Mike's resume today. It's pretty impressive. He's published a book on cryptography, and has a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin. He also has a web page focused on analyzing some of the data Steorn published a while back. Unfortunately I didn't see any conclusions from his analysis.

SPDC Update From Crank

It looks like Crank got permission to publish updates on the SPDC. She has a long post over on the forums here. I've quoted the more interesting points:

People have quite a few beefs with the forum software. It's not as user-friendly as the software on this forum
...
So far we've been presented with the first module of an e-learning course - this module was visible to non-members when the website first went live, so many of you will have seen the first incarnation.
...
I've asked Sean (here on this forum) if the effect will be understandable to 'people with dirty fingernails' and he's said Yes. If all the information is provided in as clear a form as the first module, then hopefully he's right.
...
Sean has been noticeably absent for the last ten days, there appears to be a big push on to design the 'public demo' unit, and implement/improve the new incarnation of the technology.
...
There's been a deafening silence from the members who are the chief suspects for The Magnificent Seven (the first set of replicators).

And now for the most interesting part of her post:

A few days into the SPDC, we were given the name of one of the physicists involved in the original round of testing. It's intended that this physicist will join the SPDC, and do a Q & A session with the rest of the members. This physicist is still working on 'the effect', so everyone's really looking forward to speaking with him. The SPDC members are satisfied with his credentials, background, experience and area of expertise.

Some surprisingly illustrious names have appeared on the member-list, which has caused a flurry of excitement. Even the most illustrious is approachable and friendly, and (like the rest of us) looking forward to the meat course.

This was a great post from Crank. I quoted more of it than I left out. Let's hope that we all learn who some of these people are in the near future! It would be great if one of the SPDC members could independently verify the physicists involved in the original round of testing. They have their names now, why not visit the university and see if they know what Steorn says they know? That would go a very long way towards removing thoughts of scam or hoax.

An Old Quote

Sean hasn't posted to the forum in 6 days. Is this the quiet before the storm? We'll hopefully learn a lot this coming week, with a jury update and also some technical specifications being released. It will be interesting to track how Steorn's news spreads out over the Internet, just like their initial Economist Ad and also their January Press Release.

We had some really great replies to The Czech Dream Theory post. I figured I should let Sean have a say in this debate. I personally think this is a more plausible theory then a scam or the idea that they are just measuring things wrong. Sean posted this message back in November 2006:

Hi Folks,

Just to be clear, Steorn have funded the documentary but own no rights to it at all (editorial or otherwise), so if it is ever shown or if it happens to be a big hit there will be no financial reward for Steorn.

Thanks,

Sean

It is very clear in this message that Steorn doesn't benefit from the documentary, which is strange. You'd think they might just say "All profits go to charity" or something. I was thinking today, who knows of any other startups with revolutionary technology (Google, EEStor, etc) who actually hired a film crew to document their progress?

The Czech Dream Theory

Rhaomi, a recently registered forum member, had this to say today in the forums:

Steorn interests me for much the same reason Lost does -- interesting people, a cryptic premise, and the fact that the "plot" is painting itself into a corner. That's not necessarily a bad thing -- it's just that, as the more mundane and cynical explanations for Steorn's actions become untenable (too expensive for a hoax, losing money = no fraud, pledging aid to poor nations, etc.), the few remaining answers become more and more fantastic. Sure, inventing a miraculous energy system that violates centuries of physical law is a pretty tall order, but Steorn's behavior thus far is steadily eliminating all other possibilities.

In light of this, I find it interesting to try to find ways to explain what Steorn might be up to if it's lying. A sort of thought experiment, if you will. Assuming that Orbo is not real, what plausible scenario can you devise that explains their actions?

I'll go first (duh, I'm the OP ): One thing that struck me while reading the company's Wikipedia article was the fact that they're using a film crew to document the trial process. This could just be for posterity, but consider this: what if the documentary is the whole point? Let's say that some cutting-edge filmmaker decides to explore human reactions to the idealistic and the impossible. So, they work with a company to create a fake OU device, pay for the Economist advert, and fill the website with enough pseudo-science to convince laymen and keep the scientific types busy. Everything from then on is recorded: the reactions of forum members at the party, the visits from skeptics, perhaps even how the world reacts when Steorn unveils its machine.

Why would they do this? I can think of a few reasons, offhand. Perhaps the director wants to explore the idealism and gullibility of the average person. Or how communities can form around simple and powerful ideas. Or how science can be as recalcitrant as religion when it comes to challenging established beliefs.

This is my first post here, and I'm pretty new to the world of Steorn, so forgive me if I've overlooked details that nullify this theory. All I ask is: is it possible? Could this be Steorn's true objective? If not, what other explanations can you dream up? Go on -- exercise your think-bone!

PS: I'm not saying any of this is true. It's just idle speculation -- all in good fun!

I think Rhaomi has a good point. Others have discussed this theory in the forums, and it's known as the Czech Dream theory. The Czech Dream is a movie that was made back in 2004. Here is what Crank had to say back in November about this hypothesis:

The difference with the Czech Dream thing, to my mind, is that they were students. They didn't have lives that could be ruined, didn't have careers and reputations already in place. I've researched the Steorn documentary-makers (wasn't about to make a prat of myself by being interviewed if they seemed iffy). They're well-known, and would never be able to interview anyone ever again for a documentary if they were involved in a spoof. Who would trust them again?

I can now quote myself

Magnatrix unbanned my SteornTracker account on the Steorn forums, so I now am able to post, and possibly quote myself if I say anything useful. :-)

Dr. Mike Update

Here is an update on Dr. Mike's visit. Hopefully we'll get a firm date in the next week or two:

No date set yet, but Sean has informed me that he'll set up a date for the trip when he gets a chance. He wants me to do some reading first

But it sounds like the plan is definitly in for a trip, so hang on to your hats!

SPDC Registration Officially Closed

From SeamusF in the forums:

Hi Folks,

The applications for the SPDC is now really closed - we are well over quota on SPDC Members and expect some attrition of members over the next month as we do a final audit the SPDC NDA's received back into Steorn.

To people who have not got in, our apologies but from a resource viewpoint we can only efficiently manage a certain amount of members whilst the Knowledge Base is going through its required development stages.

Many thanks for your interest!

Kind regards,

SeamusF

The Email has been Sent...

These instructions were posted anonymously earlier today:

For those who genuinely want to register for posting:
Please be sure to read the forum first. Don't just get on & start posting about how it's all "BS" or a "scam".
Contact one of the Admins via email.
{ie Magnatrix has her email viewable if you click on her name}

Include your name,general location ( ie, what country you are from), & registered forum handle.
Also include a valid email address ( or better yet, send the info from one).

It may also be a good idea to include a brief paragraph on the reason as to why you want to be able to post :-)

Thank you to whoever posted this. My guess is that this posting has to do with WhiteLite's post "Can we un-ban people please?" on Steorn's Forums. Thank you WhiteLite! On another note, I want to make sure Crank gets quoted:

"eeeeeekkkkkkk! It's really creepy to see one's comments quoted elsewhere, plus a link to a search on your name "

Crank, just imagine what your celebrity status will be if this all ends up being real! You ain't seen nothin yet.

On another note, the forums have definitely slowed down since the SPDC started. As far as what took place today on the forums, the only activity worth mentioning is another SPDC crash:

From SeamusF in SPDC waiting area....:

Neo:Hi Mildside
I was in the middle of testing photo imports in franks test thread and thought I had buggered the whole thing!

So it was YOU crashed the SPDC server!!!

Seamus Cartoon

Ugg. Sean hasn't posted in the forums in two days. Even Crank is concerned:

Sean is being remarkably quiet over the last few days. Have you checked the walls of the test-area for blood-spatters?

But fear not, we have at least some entertainment until the end of this month. Thank you Spiritual Beggar!


And one final note, we've received even more posts about folks not getting access to the forums. Still no un-banning. Again, if any of you are forum members and can post a message about this, it would be very appreciated.

Dr. Mike's NDA, The First News Article

Dr. Mike's NDA is in Steorn's hands now:

drmike: Thanks all. NDA has been received by Steorn, now it's really Sean's turn.
I've been playing with avatar's instead of physics, but at least it's math related...

As usual, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Nothing else substantial happened in the forums, other than a few folks being fooled by the very clever Edward Windermere. It doesn't take much reading to realize that Edward is fictional.

For those who haven't seen this, I figured I would highlight the very first new article that I know of about Steorn, "Firm strives to extend mobile battery lifespans," published in May of 2006. What is unique about this article is that it came out before Steorn's August PR campaign. Here are some of the interesting quotes:

Steorn, which is based in the Docklands Innovation Park, is raising funds from private investors to complete development of its microgenerator technology. The company has already raised about €3million in backing, and is three years into a four-year development plan.
...
Sean McCarthy, the cofounder and chief executive of Steorn, said the firm’s products were based on the same principle as kinetic energy generators in watches. The products should be ready by the summer of 2007.
...
Steorn employs 16 people designing its products, which are manufactured by a partner company in Holland and shipped back to Dublin for testing. ‘‘We have adopted a policy of partnering rather than hiring,” McCarthy said.
...
The firm is also in the process of raising further investment, but McCarthy would not comment on the amount of funding required.
...
Steorn worked on some of the biggest internet projects in Ireland, including Fyffes’ Worldoffruit.com portal, but had to restructure after the boom ended.

I find it fascinating that a dot-com company transitioned to researching wind power, where they supposedly discovered free energy. I'm also amazed that they were still raising capital last summer after already raising €3 million.

1000th Visitor!

I've been blogging for a little over two weeks now about Steorn, and I'm proud to announce that we had our 1000th visitor today. Here are some of the highlights these past two weeks:

• Details have emerged about the July Demo being planned
• Dr. Mike has replaced HairyKrishna as the visiting skeptic
• Steorn Started the SPDC
• And More!

Here is a global map of the SteornTrack visitors so far. Click the image to see a better view. Thank you all for your feedback, participation and support!

Calling All Forum Members

Unfortunately I have nothing to report on the forums today, everyone must be out drinking! If Steorn, Crank or anyone else in the forums has started reading this blog, I have a question. Are there plans to un-ban any new accounts that have registered recently? I received this reply from H_Farnsworth in my last blog entry:

The general updates seem to be a good idea to me - but it would help if they activate the recently registered accounts - have they activated yours?
otherwise the forum is dead already :-(
im waiting for 10! days now.....

A lot of us would love to participate in the forums. I realize that Steorn is most likely in their final stretch and extremely busy, but it would be great to interact with all of you.

Today in the Forums

There wasn't much going on in the forums today. Here are some highlights from Crank and Dr. Mike:

Crank had this to say:

I'll ask Sean if I can do some kind of general reports on what's happening in the SPDC, for those who didn't join. Otherwise this forum might die - although it's more suitable for discussion than the forums in Clearspace.

I'm guessing Sean will like the idea.

Dr. Mike is doing his background research preparing for the trip:

I've been working on pinestone's stuff and having a blast. Next thing I want to do is understand the relationship between induced field and external field at the quantum level. It's pretty ancient stuff, at least at the level I'm looking for. I suspect it'll help when I start asking questions

Sounds like a lot of fun :-)

Demo Details

Steorn was active in the forums today. Sean had these things to say:

The devices that we will demo in July are neither the launch product or the so called 'k-toy' (which was binned long ago). They are very simple devices that demonstrate a point in a very simple, very clear and very powerful manner.

I thought that this question and Sean's reply were pretty hilarious:

weakinreaper:sean....set any dates yet rather than sometime in july? also when you might release the end of Q1 info?

1st week of July and end of Q1

Sean reiterates what he has said all along about this whole process:

tweakinreaper: all we have is opinion and speculation in this forum

I agree, it is no different at the moment in the SPDC, I do not know how much more I can say this but I again repeat that I have not asked you to believe our technology claim. The result of the Jury process tied with other actions are designed to deal with the key issue, all is speculation until the Jury deliver their verdict.

Sean discussing Steorn's current strategy:

As I said above, the July thing is an addition to the plan. The reason for the first week of July are the concerts that are happening that week, we want to ensure that free energy is on the agenda.

And more on the purpose of the July public demonstrations:

tweakinreaper:why not give a taste of the fruit to have everyone begging for it?

As I said, it is a 'stunt' to get FE on the agenda - the best advise that we have to ensure this is to do the 'stunt' 1st week of July.

As far as revealing exactly what will take place in July:

so on july would you only show a device or connect it to a generator to power something? a pump to help awareness of your africa project?

You will have to wait until July to see!

Other items in this discussion worth mentioning include Sean stating that he'll look into Dr. Mike's NDA on Tuesday (they are off on Monday), The first quarter announcement will take place in March, not April, and finally, Crank mentioned that she hasn't made any progress on her follow up items with Steorn.

Recent Steorn Forum Comments

I've added a quick link list on the left hand side of the blog with links to specific users on Steorn's Forum that I monitor. Check out some of the interesting posts from Steorn, Crank, Dr. Mike, and Others!

Randi Forums

I wanted to point folks to the Forums over at Randi.org. There is a long discussion about Steorn, which started back in September and is still active. Back in September Horatius made this statement regarding the Jury process. I still think it applies until proven otherwise:

The problem is, with thousands of people applying, if they're not honest about their belief in their results, but are instead frauds, they can select the ones most likely to either screw things up, or actually bias it in their favour. Without having a public list of who's volunteered, we have no way of knowing if the people they select are really the best to test their claims.

I mean, you read Randi's Commentaries, right? How many "scientists" has he profiled who accept any and all claims without reservation? I'm sure there's more than 12 of this sort in the list of volunteers. Free energy attracts them like bugs to a flame.

If I was them (and really believed I had something, rather than being a knowing fraud), I'd want the worst (and thus best) skeptics to be on the panel, and I'd want that to be public. That way, if they end up validating my claim, there wouldn't be nearly as many accusations that I had stacked the deck in my own favour. Because, as it is, any positive reports will be critisized in just this way. <---(can I claim that as a prediction for the Challenge? No? Oh, okay....)

The Lucky Seven, a Forum Member Video

The only comment at all from Steorn today was from SeamusF. And I quote, "LOL". This was in response to people hypothesizing what will happen when Dr. Mike arrives at Steorn next month.

On another note, I figured I'd call to attention the seven members in the forum that are currently ahead of the rest of the SPDC. According to Steorn and verified by Crank in posts over the last month, some members of the forum are already reproducing the effect in their own labs. I would call this the "Alpha" group, the folks that get the raw documentation from Steorn before everyone in the SPDC gets it. I wonder at what point these folks can reveal themselves.

I have a hunch that Craigy is one of the seven. Here is some work he's posted to YouTube. Still very far from anything perpetual, but I'm sure Sean was impressed:



Keep up the good work Craigy!

SPDC Discussion

There's no doubt that Steorn is interested in magnets. From their test rigs to the SPDC, they clearly have put in a lot of engineering time. In the forum today, the members of the new SPDC post on their initial feelings about the content on the site, and whether it has persuaded them one way or the other. Crank has this to say:

Nothing in the SPDC so far has changed my opinion. I'm about 2/3rd of the way across on the fence - I'm 60% unbeliever because 'it's impossible', 40% believer because I don't see why they'd have put so much effort (and money) into something that wasn't true, and I can't find another logical explanation.

What are other possible logical explanations? As for why they launched the SPDC, if they were a scam, the SPDC may be their vehicle. Here are a couple of interesting quotes from the same discussion:

From oak:

I don't plan to participate in SPUD feedback polls like this in the future, because I don't think it's my place to suggest I've learned some secret information in the SPDC that, if outsiders also knew it, might convince them one way or the other.

From tewkatz:

The forums were a single community, skeptics and believers alike, watching Steorn from the outside...there is now a division that will inevitably grow.

As these forum members point out, SPDC may be a powerful tool for Steorn to either convince outsiders, or also to brainwash SPDC members. I'm confident that most of the SPDC members will be vigilant. I also hope that there is no reason for them to be.

Important Business...

Today in the forums we saw that while Steorn is (im)possibly going to save the world from our energy crisis, they also may amuse the world with their forum shenanigans. Crank, who has administrator rights in the forums, banned Sean, who then turned around and banned SeamusF and Crank. Later Sean put the blame solely on Seamus and unbanned Crank. All of this, and the two accounts that I applied for are still both banned. What a strange place this forum is.

Speaking of Crank, I figured I would post some of the pictures that she has up on her Flickr Account. A while back Sean discussed having a large test setup in a stairwell:


Crank was able to photograph the setup. So at least they don't seem to just make stuff up. Also, here is a screenshot of some video that Steorn allowed Crank to screen capture:

The little black thing in the middle is the special configuration of magnets in resin which Steorn claims produces free energy. This toy looks overly complicated, and even Steorn has said in the past that there are much simpler ways to use the technology than this.

Dr. Mike's visit in April?

Steorn didn't have anything to say in the forums today. I figured I'd check out what Dr. Mike has been up to:

4 days ago Dr. Mike announced that he was talking with Steorn:

The process has started. Give it a week or so for all the dust to settle!
At this point, we've got each other's e-mail address. Good start, but long ways to go!

2 days ago:

Hope to meet a few forum folk when I get there. Starting to look like it's for real!

It's clear that Dr. Mike is a skeptic:

At the atomic level, energy has to be conserved. Anything else is magic. Since leprechans live in Ireland, it's a good possiblity!

And finally some recent updates posted yesterday on when this all might take place:

Don't know for sure, hoping for first week of April. My kids don't have school that week, and if I can find really cheap fares on Aer Lingus it'd be ideal. But I've no clue really.

...

We're waiting for the snail-mail to deliver the NDA paper.

Dr. Mike, from all of us, keep up the good work!

Sean's Quotes....

GravityBoot has created a nice forum thread that highlights some of Steorn's claims and quotes. It's absolutely worth reading the whole thing. Here are some highlights:

Steorn will NEVER build a cell phone battery, we will never build a car engine - this is not what we do. Now the technology can be developed into a replacement cell phone battery, car engine and so on. However this work will be done by other organizations after validation under license from Steorn. We develop core technologies, others build the products

And:

Crank saw an NDA with a 'well known' global company and a contract with a separate manufacturing company. We know the manufacturing company is building your demo mechanical units. That leaves us with the global well known company. Is there a global well known company looking at your tech with a view to purchasing an IP license once validation is complete?

Steorn

We have over the years spoken to several global manufacturing companies under NDA, all with a view to validating our business model.

[by this we mean…]

we approached several companies to see if our licensing concept is one that they where prepared to adopt - i.e. is our business model of licensing one that potential clients would be prepared to adopt. I will not say anything beyond this.

Keep up the good work GravityBoot!

SPDC Live Today, Some nice Steorn Quotes

The SPDC went live today. Many forum members commented on problems with the software, especially lack of smiley's. Also, Sean had some interesting things to say today in this forum discussion:

skeptical:The Kinetica Toy video was shown and that certainly wasn't OU! Again, the impression was it demonstrated "some feature" of their technology. If it didn't why show it? So I suppose the same can be asked of the post-validation PR toy.

Maybe it will be like one of those toys you get at McDonalds.

lol, the power of assumption strikes again, in fact the 'Kinetica Toy' showed a far greater level of OU than we understood at the time - the point is that there is no way to defend a video without test data and there is no way that such test data can be seen as real. The point about the products is that unlike the version of the Kinetica toy 'seen on video' there is no manual intervention, they self sustain.

Sean

Here's some more clarification on the device to be sold:

The product produces energy, up to 100,000 will be made (if the demand is there) but no more than 100,000. It will go on sale only after validation, and we are not taking any pre-orders.

Sean

And finally:

The Pope:Sorry, you answered me before I got my question out!

Ours produces energy - free energy.

Then why do you only expect sales in the thousands then?

First understand that we are not producing a household item that everyone will want, the production of the product is another part of the validation process. Our business model is licensing - hence we have set an upper limit on the production, the product is more of a statement than something anyone will want IMO - other companies used to large scale manufacture and productization will have to produce consumer products, its not what we do, or will do.

Sean is very clear and precise when speaking about the details of the toy Steorn will be selling. He's also not afraid to come out and say he has free energy. I'll reiterate my thought that this is extraordinary.

SPDC Tomorrow

Sean has posted a short update on the SPDC, which goes live tomorrow:

Folks,

The SPDC will go live tomorrow. We will e-mail the user names/passwords overnight. All who applied will receive the login details, even if we are still waiting for your NDA. We will sort out any NDA issues within the SPDC forum itself.

Thanks,

Sean

I assume this means everything in the SPDC right now is non-proprietary, or else the NDA issue wouldn't fly. We pretty much knew that already, but this reinforces that view. I wonder how long the SPDC members will have to wait before their NDA was worth signing?

And now for some light entertainment, provided by Spiritual Beggar:

Believers and Fence-Sitters - What Would It Take?

There were no posts from Steorn today, so I thought I'd quote some of the discussion from Thicket's question to Forum members. It's important, and a good discussion ensues:

As a Steorn-cynic, I’ve been asked several times what would it take for me to believe that Steorn truly has a free-energy device. I’ve answered that question a couple of times on these boards.

I’d like to turn the question around.

What would it take for you to become a skeptic? Would you become a skeptic if…

1. The SPDC did nothing useful for 6 months except chat about magnetism?
2. The July public demonstration of the Steorn technology did not happen?
3. There was a July demonstration, but the device shown was stop/start, with mechanical/manual intervention each cycle.
4. There was a July demonstration, but there were excuses about technical hitches during the demonstration.
5. 6 more months have gone by without anything concrete about the Steorn device.
6. One more year has gone by with nothing.
7. Two more years have gone by with nothing.
8. The 100,000 products clearly are not free-energy.
9. Word gets out that Steorn is being investigated for fraud.
10. Steorn starts openly soliciting for money to further develop their technology.

What would it take?

Here are some other quotes in the discussion worth mentioning:

WarriorPoet:
I think everything can be boiled down to one word, and that word is

RESULTS.

shunyacetas:
That exceptional claims require exceptional proof holds good for me.

I agree with Thicket, WarriorPoet and shunyacetas. It is up to Steorn to make us "believers" by providing the evidence that they are promising.

Steorn Reiterates SPDC Starts Next Week...

Steorn didn't have much to say today in the forums, but we do get a confirmation that the SPDC goes live next week in the discussion Title for the book.....:

Emeraldsong:@Steorn

As long as we've got you here. How are the modules looking?

I'll let you guys decide on Tuesday, we go live with two modules and will load the others as they become available.

2007 Timeline

From observer in the forums:

Just for fun , I made this small timeline list of what's going to happen this year. I will list some sources for the info in the next post.

March --- Crank's new report (phone conversations with insiders, Orbo demo?)
March --- SPDC starting
March --- Dr.Mike visit agreed?

End of Q1 --- Jury status update
End of Q1 --- Some tech specifications released (specifics on power density, power to weight and so on)

Q2 --- Dr.Mike visit?
Q2 --- SPDC non-technical information starts trickling to the public forum (hopefully)
Q2 --- Replication of Orbo tech by SPDC 7 --- applying for 1M JREF prize?

July --- public demonstration, followed by media coverage

Autumn 2007 --- Validation Day (Sean's estimate: 6 months from Feb)

Jury report released
Developers Club goes live
100,000 Orbo demonstrators go on sale

Later in the forum he posts references to all of these items. I doubt the SPDC predictions, specifically the JREF prize, will occur before "Validation Day" happens. Still, it's interesting to see all Steorn's pronouncements appear in one timeline.

Zero Steorn Posts Today... A look back at the Kinetica Presentation

Steorn must have had real work to do today. Zero posts were made by Sean or SeamusF. So I figured we could look back real quick at the Kinetica Presentation, an important event that occurred last December. During Steorn's presentation at Kinetica, they showed a video of a toy supposedly produced by a third party demonstrating the technology. I believe this is so far the only evidence that they even have a "fake toy" other than the video of their test rigs.

At least we know the event actually took place. At this point, sometimes it's difficult to determine fantasy vs. reality:

From the Guardian: Perpetual motion: fact or fiction?

Poor Sean, what a horrible photo ;-(.

Dr. Mike willing to go...

It looks like we may have a winner. Dr. Mike, a long time forum member, skeptic and scientist, has a agreed to take Steorn up on their offer for a visit. This is the same offer that hairykrishna refused:

From Dr. Mike willing to go...

I've been burried in electro-magnetic field expansion of optics on dielectric rods
formed by ferrofluids. Bessel functions up the wazzoo! I'm still willing to go -
my love of Guiness has not diminished

I see the web site has totally changed. Very nice colors!

If there's a chance to go to Dublin, my passport is good!

Patience, persistence, truth,
Dr. mike

Who knows how long it will actually take to coordinate this, but at least someone is going to get filmed sticking their fingers into a supposed perpetual motion machine.

Also in the forums today, we saw Sean combat another skeptic, Kent767. Kent767 was defending hairykrishna's choice to back out, highlighting some of Steorn's "scam-like" attributes, such as "previous scientists refusing to go on the record", etc.

This quote from Kent767 in Separating Free Energy Research From A Scam sums up the argument:

If you expect us to be sceptical, then you must also expect us to have our own theories to explain things.

Sean is basically saying that anyone calling Steorn a scam is being belligerent, when unfortunately for them right now the odds are that this is a scam. I would say that this being a scam should be the default position of everyone until Steorn provides evidence otherwise. There is nothing wrong with leaving room for this being a mistake or actual free energy, but the odds are stacked up against those two options unfortunately ;-(.

There are steps that Steorn can take to prove this isn't a scam. They claim to be taking those steps, but until some of that information becomes available to the rest of us, we're stuck where we're at.

By the way, I've now applied for two forum accounts, one with "Steorn" in the name, and one without. Both are still in the "banned" state, and it's been almost a week. I wonder how many people have registered on the forums and haven't got a chance to speak.

hairykrishna replacement?

Not much exciting going on in the forums today. The discussion Nominate the next Skeptic to go see Steorn! hasn't produced much, other than a clear statement of what Steorn would be willing to do with said skeptic, and the requirements that skeptic must meet. As for requirements, first they have to be a skeptic which right now isn't easy to come by in Steorn's fan forum :-). Second, they have to be a scientist, which is also hard to come by in the forum ;-(.

If a skeptic is chosen, the visit will be primarily designed for the documentary. The idea is to capture the skeptics reaction to viewing and examining a working prototype. Sean mentions that they can beat on the thing with a hammer, take it outside, etc. Most everyone in the forum would volunteer in a heartbeat to be the next hairykrishna.

Also, Seamus has a long explanation of why they will no longer be tolerating hairykrishna. It comes down to HK's last discussion with crank, where he tried to get the name of one of the original scientists to look at the data:

Simply put we could not trust HK.

Until crank gets to visit Steorn this weekend or possibly next week, we may not have that much activity in the forums. hairykrishna definitely made things interesting for a little while!

Battling hairykrishna, Crank's Activities, Forum Update Announcement

Thicket, a regular on the Steorn Forums, started a thread entitled Separating Free Energy Research From a Scam . As crank points out early on in the discussion "my first thought was that that was written by someone who was deliberately targetting Steorn". If Steorn is not a scam, they will still be labelled as one until they release real data. Understandably, they won't until their validation day, so we should just hang tight. As Steorn has pointed out repeatedly: "...who has asked you to believe?"

This forum discussion turned into a yelling match between hairykrishna and Steorn:

hairykrishna: ... Why am I at the bottom? is it because it would take me about 20 minutes to establish that you were talking bollocks?

And to cap things off:

Steorn: ...You have as I said in a recent e-mail to you, zero, repeat zero trust from this company.

So it's pretty clear now where this whole hairykrishna saga has gone. I like this one the best:

Steorn: Ok, I have to admit that I banned HK there - the only excuse that I have is that it is my birthday present to myself

Not only do we know where the saga is gone, but it seems to be over as well! As Speccy put it, happy birthday Sean!

Back to real information. Crank discusses the 12 jurors a bit in this forum thread also:

I've seen the list, but only remember the two names from it that I originally researched. So can't give any more info than that.

If you didn't know already, last year, Crank was selected as a forum representative to do some due diligence for the entire forum. She got to see a lot of things that no one else has. She's still doing some investigative work:

I haven't verified as in 'phoned them up and asking them if they really are on the jury'. I checked them out on the websites of the places where they work.

However, at some stage Steorn will have to give out the names of the jury members, so they'd hardly risk giving me the names of scientists who aren't on the jury.

And at some stage over the next week or so I'm to have a chance to speak to a physicist from the first lot (The Disputed-Reality Eight).

Very interesting. It'll be fun to hear what Crank has to say after speaking with one of the original investigators of this technology.

Now to some logistics. Steorn is planning on converting the forums over to their new software system that is also hosting the SPDC, Clearspace. Once they are happy with how Clearspace hosts the SPDC, they'll migrate over to their forum software. My only prayer is that they allow us to browse posts by user. I still haven't figured out how to do that with their current software!

From the Forums Today: SPDC Going Live Soon, hairykrishna Still in Talks with Steorn

Sean posted this message today:

Folks,

A quick comment to let you know that the SPDC will go live next Tuesday (March 13th). There will be two modules available at this time. Expect some 'teething' issues as Clearspace is a new package and so on.

Thanks,

Sean

My assumption are that these modules are simply educational in nature, with no major details on the Steorn Effect.


Also hairykrishna had some things to say today:

Sean and I are communicating via email. Not a lot of progress made yet- I'll give an update if/when there is!

I'll keep monitoring what hairykrishna has to say.

The Forums discuss SteornTracker, Account Still Banned

I registered an account on Steorn's forums, figuring I should participate there if necessary along with this blog. The account name is "SteornTracker." I'm not sure if having the term "Steorn" in my username was such a good idea. I'm still banned, which I assume is the default state of an account until the admins approve it.

I registered so that I could respond to Crank's comment about this blog:

He's made a mistake in his run-down on the forum postings, though. He's shown one of Sean's answers (to a question about the SPDC, far as I remember) as being an answer to a different question...

She was right, I got my "technical details" mixed up, although the main point still stands, we're not going to see anything exciting this month ;-(

Technical Specifications and Media Attention

In today's forum conversations, we learn a little bit more about the "Technical Specifications" being released at the end of this quarter. Yesterday, when Sean was asked about what technical specifications will be released, he said:

Not sure - the build of the main content is a long (and slow) business.

Today the answer is different, from the thread Opinions on the July Demo of the device...:

Ok - this relates to us providing specifics on power density, power to weight and so on.

So there you have it. "Technical Specifications", which will be released end of Q1, do not mean technical details on how the product works. Also:

A couple of points (1) there is no 'major' announcement at the end of Q1 - I have said this again and again - all we are doing is proving an update of the status of the Jury process - no more - no less. (2) The reason for the demos during the first week of July is that there will be a lot of media attention that month on environmental issues due to the concerts taking place on 7/7/07.

So if you were getting your hopes up on learning something this quarter, forget about it. Again, we'll just have to wait till validation.

I find it funny that Steorn feels it necessary to time the demos with the environmental activity in July to maximize media attention. As we saw in August, Steorn had no problem getting on Fox News and many other news media outlets, by simply buying a one page advertisement claiming free energy, with zero evidence. This time supposedly they'll have live public demos. I seriously doubt they'll have trouble attracting some buzz.

More on hairykrishna...

Well, I guess Steorn isn't up for writing a detailed paper about their method for net energy loss. I can understand that proving net enery loss, while exciting scientifically, may not fit into the goals of Steorn at the moment. Maybe they could give enough information to one of the forum members to write up a detailed scientific paper for experimentation and publication. Here is what Steorn has to say about the subject:

From the forum thread Update:

What makes you think that I have a detailed test plan for an energy loss lying around the office? I was/am quite happy to meet with Atkins and HK and describe a test set-up, but to be honest I have no time to sit down and write up a formal test procedure for an energy loss - why would I?

Busy Day in the Forums...

Today was an especially busy day in the forums. Sean is back from his visit to the States, and is updating everyone on what's going on... Some highlights:

From Did I miss anything - what are the 'burning' issues:

Steorn:

Speccy:Do you still expect that detailed technical specifications of the Orbo tech will be made available at the end of this month?

http://www.steorn.com/orbo/technology/

Yep.

So, we should be seeing detailed tech specs soon right? Maybe not...

From the same thread:

Steorn:

Jowik:What kind of technical details will be released in April?

Not sure - the build of the main content is a long (and slow) business.

Too bad ... I was hoping we'd get something by the end of this month! ;-(

Some other developments in this thread include details on the current state of their "toy" production:

Yep, we have a preproduction model and have requested some (cosmetic) changes. There will be a total availability of 100,000. Outside of a certain stock level they will be built to order (i.e. we will not have a warehouse full of them).

So basically they aren't producing 100k, they are only producing a subset, and will build to order the rest up to 100k. One forum member asked about pricing, I guess we'll just have to wait:

...sorry not going to give that out at this stage!

Sean also discusses a "safe room". Earlier, Steorn mentioned the development of a very high speed version of the technology. They were doing testing in the stair well. Now they have a safe room with strong enough walls to withstand shrapnel.

Lots of interesting points and declarations, including details on potential public demos:

Steorn:

rosco:Sean,

Is there still going to be a public demonstration in april of the device?
You mentioned London as a possible venue.

Yes there will be several places where we are going to put devices - this will in fact happen in the first week of July, at least one in the UK and one in the US (maybe several other places) - why? Well its kinda a rock and roll week for carbon emissions!

By July we should actually see live devices running in public places. He mentions that they are already in negotiations with the locations.

In summary, we may or may not see technical specs by the end of this month. And we should see a live demo of the Steorn effect in July. Not much time between now and then. On that note, maybe ABC will add some closure to Lost. Maybe not.

Backround on Steorn

Is this the first time you've heard about Steorn? Or maybe you saw the news back in August but haven't heard anything since. Here are two resources that cover most of what has happened in the past few months:

Wikipedia - Steorn

PureEnergySystems - Steorn Free Energy

The hairykrishna Saga

If you check out Steorn's forum, you may have noticed a bit of activity involving a skeptic "hairykrishna" and Steorn's CEO, Sean. While forum members highlight that this whole thing is a side show compared to the "Validation Process", we all know very little on how the validation process is going. So here is a quick summary as to what is going on.

hairykrishna, who claims on the forum to be knowledgeable in physics and located at some university, initially attacked Steorn by calling them a scam, etc. Steorn's reaction was to engage hairykrishna, and attempt to set up a third party validation of a specific experiment that supposedly demonstrated a net-loss of energy in a closed system, thus violating the law of conservation.

The third party validation didn't work out, and as of 2 days ago hairykrishna was working with Steorn's lawyers on an agreeable NDA. But that is when things may have hit an impasse. hairykrishna refuses to travel to Steorn's company until he has some evidence that this is the real thing. I completely understand his perspective. He doesn't want to be made a fool on film, which is one of Steorn's requirements, and he knows how good cons can be. What he really wants is some sort of scientific paper that would allow him to reproduce the device on his own.

I completely understand Steorn's perspective also. They are holding their IP close until validation day, so the only way they could release this info, in addition to having harykrishna sign an NDA, is also to have him sign a contractual agreement, which would be more in line with what they have done with the validation process.

Unfortunately I don't see a resolution here. And I agree with some of the commenters that point out that Steorn has most likely faced this type of situation before with the universities they claim to have worked with. If you are a scientist, and someone comes up to you and claims free energy, how do you protect yourself from not getting scammed? You're going to be extremely defensive, for good reason. If you are a company that has really discovered free energy, what the heck can you do to get it validated while still protecting your IP?

Needless to say this is very entertaining. Here is my suggestion to get things going again: Steorn, if you really care about persuading hairykrishna, write up a scientific paper on the "net-loss of energy" claim. Send this to hairykrishna or publish it. This most likely isn't part of your core claims, but it would be scientifically interesting and may give credence to what you are claiming!

Silent No More

On the 19th of August, 2006, I saw the headlines on a lot of the tech sites I read: "Irish Company Claims Free Energy". I eat this stuff up, so I started monitoring Steorn's forums and other sites like SteornWatch.com. Unfortunately SteornWatch.com burnt out very quickly, and no other site really focuses their energy on a daily discussion of Steorn.

I don't blame them really. There is a 99.999% chance that Steorn is full of it, and that they have some other agenda other than what they claim.

So why my interest in Steorn? Well, first off, if there is a 0.001% chance that they have what they are claiming, that's pretty amazing. But more interesting to me and more realistically I want to get to the bottom of what Steorn is all about. Current theory's abound. During the time I've spent on the forums reading, I've seen a lot of deep thought go into possibilities. I've also seen Sean, the CEO of Steorn, do his best to answer questions on the forum. In fact, I would have to say that for a CEO of a well funded startup with outrageous claims and a world of industry to tackle and a scientific community to convince, he's made it one of his priorities to discuss Steorn and it's claims on their forum.

To date I haven't registered or posted on their forums. I've had discussions with friends, including physicists, about this whole thing. We are all interested in getting to the bottom of this. To me this is as good as waiting for the next week of Lost. With Steorn's current claims, we should all have a good feeling for whats going on by the end of this year. In the mean time, I hope to elucidate some of the conversations that Steorn participates in on the forums so that more people out there can get a feel for what is going on. I also hope to dig into any interesting developments.

Enjoy,

SteornTracker