The Day After Questions

Today Sean posted this to the forum:

After all the disappointment of yesterdays 'news', drop any questions in here and I will try to answer.

Unfortunately Sean wasn't able to keep up with the gazillion questions from everyone, including myself. He did address many of the questions and concerns. Here are most of Sean's comments broken into sections:


On The Jury Process and the Demo:

SteornTracker: ...Do you have any plans between July and December to keep up the publics awareness? What impact do you expect the July demos to have on the Jury?

Steorn: Hi ST - the July demo was never in the original plan, it is a 'opportunistic' move on our part. Again I have to stress that I cannot with any degree of confidence say when the Jury process will end, its just not up to me/Steorn in any way. We have no other plans at this point, but I would not rule out anything at this stage either.

duncan torus: do you promise that come July if the constant motion version is not ready you will still demo the original "start/stop" device?

Steorn: The demo will happen, we fully expect to have a constant speed device, if not we will demo a 'stop-start' device.

Dovetailed: What is the principle reason for Steorn's current level of secrecy?...

Steorn: There are several reasons, on a very basic point it will make no difference to our time to market, since we are obviously waiting until validation anyway. There are IP and patent issues also and clearly there is a risk of giving counterfeiters and competitors a heads up.

The decision on the July demos was a risk/reward decision for us - we feel that the public exposure will be worth taking some of the risks highlighted above. And it is also about the time that we need to engage with main stream media again.

Sean didn't explain why Steorn needs to engage the main stream media again before the Jury process is over, that'll be a question for a future discussion.

nleseul:Have the jury members seen a working device? (If this is something you can comment on.)

Steorn: They are currently in part I of the process (an addition at the request of the applicants), this is a form of 'peer' review and is paper based. We have confirmed visit dates set for the near future, but I am not going to go into this any further for obvious reasons.

nleseul: Unfortunate that the skeptics are going to love spinning that one, though.

Steorn: They are entitled to their views, the non-believer/believer war will not be resolved until the Jury process is complete, and for the truly crazy this will in fact be part of the scam as well. Its all noise, lol Seamus was showing me some of the comments from another forum, its pure vitriol, according to the stuff that I was shown I had already made 750k from sale of Steorn shares (I have for the record made zero from the sale of Steorn shares), there are crazy theories surrounding the Steorn Nominees thing and so on.

We do far more than most companies would be bother do do about demonstrating that we are about the validation process, and not a fraud. People will always make their own minds up about this. It is never the reaction of the fringes of either side of the argument that matter, it just seems that way because the fringes tend to be very vocal!

spinn3er: General expectations (at least here on the forum) for the jury to conclude phase 1 was from 5min to a month maybe. Now after more than 3 months, what is going on? Thanks for the answer. (i hope)

Steorn: Yes, but again I have to state that the addition to the process was done at the request of many applicants. We are very much slaves to the process that we have engaged in, it was never going to be fast, some parts may be faster than we expect and some may be slower. I personally believe that the current phase of the process will in fact speed up the overall process, because the fundamental 'science' issues are being looked at, but as always time will tell.

We've learned a lot more about the current state of the Jury process this past week. From a closure standpoint, it's sad to learn that the Jury process may go on for a much longer period then what was initially expected.


On The Technology and Orbo Product:

my_pen_is_stuck: Can you please tell me the colour, length, width, etc of the 100K orbo toys?

Steorn: They will fit on a desk, but I wont say anymore than that at this time, sorry!

Steorn: The colour, like the device itself we will only 'reveal' following validation. They are all going to be the same colour though!

Neutrino:what progress do you have with the continuous motion testing? Do you observe this effect at all, if so, how much more effective it is than the start/stop version, does it it make all your existing patents obsolete? Well, any news in this direction?

Steorn: Yes, we have made huge progress on this - we expect to be demoing this version in July. Again I have to say sorry and say that there is not a lot of detail that I can go into at this time.

babcat: Could you share any more technical specifications of the technology with us (start/stop or constant motion)? ... is there anything you could tell us about the general direction the specifications (for example power densities or power to weight ratios) are headed?

Steorn: Hi babcat, the answer is no at this point. Of course the very limited details we put on the site yesterday in no way could be considered 'detailed', and I am genuinely sorry about the disappointment that this caused. With respect to the direction, the version that we are currently developing will have a significantly greater power density than the 0.5 watts/cm3 quoted yesterday.

I appreciate Sean accepting the fact that yesterday was a bit of a let down for us.

rubentherat: How far are you on the road to continuous motion. An estimation? 50%, 60%,70%

Steorn: I would say 80-90% of the way.

uomipoika: What's the basic difference between start/stop and continuous motion devices? Does the start/stop mean that the device must be restarted and restarted all over again to keep it running? Or does it mean that the device is startable and stoppable? (Once you start it, it rolls until someone presses the stop-button?)

Steorn: Stop/start devices stop in the middle of a cycle, there is no manual intervention.

Chilean One:Does the Continuous motion involves electromagnets?

Steorn: Nope

icuken: What is the cycle timeperiod for the start/stop device?

Steorn: Well obviously it depends on the config, they can be pretty fast, I do not know off the top of my head, sorry.

smarthousesys: Sean, Any unfamiliar elements used in Orbo (Neo is a familiar element) - just looking for a yes/no? Thanks

Steorn: No!

J i O: You've publicly stated that your intention all along was not to move forward with the development of continuous motion. Yet that decision was reversed? What did you learn or ascertain that motivated this reversal?

Steorn: Well we obviously continue to look at methods of implementation (mostly from a patent standpoint), one of these concepts we spent some time building a test rig and testing and the results from these tests lead us to believe that the development would d be worth the investment.

On the SPDC and Near Term Activities:

Suomipoika: Question about crank's and drmike's visit. Have those visits been scheduled? If not, why?

Steorn: The answer is that no they have not yet been scheduled, the reason is that we have been extremely busy for us. Cathy C keeps our to-do list and she has started to hassle me about it so I think that these will get set up pretty soon.

my_pen_is_stuck: I'd like to know your reaction to the progress of the SPDC. Are they living up to about what you expected?

Steorn: Again another slow process - we are pushing content up as fast as we can produce it, but it takes time. I guess the real question would if the members feel that it is living up to expectations, if I were a member I might be frustrated with the speed of content .

On the Media, the Documentary, and Everything Else:

my_pen_is_stuck: ... So, are you guys deliberately trying to look like nutters to avoid attention?

Steorn: lol, we never had any doubts that we would be viewed as nutters from the outset, and we have rejected any media interviews since early September, we have no more to say of an substance until the key question is answered.

Neutrino: Since Steorn technology is known to public for 8 months now, have you been contacted by some influential people, e.g. governments, military, UN, European Commission, greenpeace, individuals?

Steorn: We still get contacted by loads of people from across the spectrum, we do not meet any of them to be honest, there is just no point until the validation process is complete.

Neutrino: I remember you said that the validation should be completed before the documentary will be released. What is the planned format: one episode 45 or 90 minutes long or whole series dedicated to one of the greatest inventions/discoveries of XXI century? Any clues from the production company?

Steorn: My understanding is that it will be a single 60 min documentary.

With all the video that has been captured and the magnitude of the claim, I expected at least a mini-series!

my_pen_is_stuck: At this point, the fence sitters still don't know if it's real or not. Are they wasting their time? Or are they in for the most exciting ride of a life time? We just want to know if the bloody thing works or not.

Steorn: I understand that, but to be honest the if it works or not is up to the Jury, it has always been. I must admit to being shocked at how much time people spend debating us, I think that in a way that Steorn is just the topic that allows the people in here to get into debate, it could just as easily be religion or something else. The answer to the question is still some time off.

I do enjoy a good debate. Good observation Sean! And finally, iscore4ever wanted to know how Sean felt about the technology somehow being thwarted by big oil, governments, or some other entities:

Steorn: Ok first, we do not file patents in the US only, second we will not only rely on patent protection and finally our 'market' is the internet.

I wonder what else they will rely on besides patent protection. With their claimed licensing model, and the Jury publications digging into the fundamental physics of the phenomena, it doesn't sound like they plan on holding any trade secrets. Sean's comment on the market being the Internet sounds a little dot-com'ish to me. Maybe he was getting a little tired by this point!

I appreciate Sean's willingness to confront some of the more ardent skeptics in Steorn's Forum. I hope he continues the dialog. There are so many more questions!