Blake Talks

In the forums today, FreshLaundry points everyone to Free Energy Truth, which has an exclusive interview with Blake, a Northrop Grumman employee located in Stuart Florida. Blake is a member of the SPDC, and is claiming that he was able to run an Orbo-like device in his own workshop for more than 8 hours:

It was late and I knew I had to work the next day so taking a final look at the running rig. I went to bed...it was still running when I woke up and when I left for work.

Unfortunately Blake has not been able to repeat the 8 hour run:

I intend to keep trying to replicate the run to quell the naysayers. Until then it is just my word against the odds.

K-Toy Video Discovered

On Steorn's forum today, RunningBare points us all to the full version of the k-toy video:

As folks point out in the forum, audio and parts of the video have been available since the beginning of this year, but this is the first time non-insiders get to see the full video. In the video, we see Thieu Knapen, founder of Kinetron, expressing how unbelievable Steorn's invention is and how certain he is that it is real.

Nothing New

In the Steorn forums yesterday, a new thread started entitled "Nothing New" which highlighted this entry from hdeasy over on Randi's forums:

So – some have visited the public forum. I am a member of the SPDC (private – NDA needed) and it is much more orderly there, as we have more scientists etc. Many skeptics did a u-turn in there as we have been shown a video of a famous inventor enthusing over the ‘miracle that is behind the technology’.

Then we learned the name of a physicist from an old uni who confirmed the effect but can’t go public as Steorn doesn’t want that yet. The story around that is very believable for me.

Finally, the mechanism has been explained – very simple, and I wrote a Fortran sim to convince myself of it. It actually works – as long as a stator magnet is not depleted, and it doesn’t look like it would be – test plots showing this to be the case have been presented by Steorn and some forum members have come close to reproducing the setup – one of them says he had an 8 hour run before something loosened up. Now none of this is substitute for the 22 Jury members and their report – but it’s pretty damn good.

Coming soon for the cognoscenti 7 of us were selected to test the tech themselves.. That activity will start in a few weeks time.

So – it’s all go: no sign of closing up shop after the London debacle.

If you do a quick google search on hdeasy, you'll discover that he's been following Steorn since last August, and applied to be on the Jury. He's currently a member of the SPDC and has been active in Steorn's forum in the past.

Unfortunately, the thread on Steorn's forum has been removed. This is most likely due to the NDA related details Grimer was sharing with the rest of us. It'll be interesting to see if any of that information is verified.

Harsh light shines on free energy

hairykrishna directs us to the latest edition of Physics World, which includes an article on Steorn's failed demo. Here are some interesting quotes:

The device consisted of a CD-sized plastic wheel adorned with 16 neodymium magnets that can rotate about two stationary magnets. After being given an initial push, the wheel was supposed to spin freely at about 250 revolutions per minute - not only overcoming air resistance and mechanical friction, but also lifting a small 10g mass.

Sean McCarthy is also quoted as saying:

"If we were in the business of doing tricks," he says, "then the demonstration would have worked."

alsetalokin's connection

maryyugo, a regular commenter here, came across an interesting post over on Steorn's forum by alsetalokin:

Well, for what it's worth, I know of one senior scientist at a well-known (non-academic) institution who applied and was selected for the original "12" jury, signed the NDA and all. Of course this was many months ago now, and I have heard no reports through "back-channels" of any developments since then.
I, therefore, believe that there at least _was_ a jury, once, containing at least one member with eminent qualifications.
Whether there is still a jury, now, that I doubt. It probably exists "on paper" but I'd bet that, once they all stopped ROTFLTAO, they went back to work at their "real" jobs.

In another thread, riterX asks alsetalokin if he'd be able to follow up with his contact:

Well, I respect the NDA, and I was sort of waiting for the promised report, after which presumably all could be revealed, but now I see the error in my thinking.
So, I think I will do just that.

I hope alsetalokin can share with us details about his potential contact. More evidence of an active or inactive Jury would go a long way to understanding what Steorn's intentions are.

Forums are Public Again, Two Unnamed Jurors

The forums are again available to all anonymous lurkers. These seem to be Sunday only blackouts. Also in the forums today crank lets us know that she has the names of two jury members:

The way I'd look at it is...I was shown the names of two jury members. At any time over the past six months if Sean pissed me off sufficiently (and Sean is good at pissing me and everyone else off ) I could have phoned those scientists and asked them if they really were on the Steorn jury. If they weren't, they could and would have publicly disassociated themselves from the Irish crackpots who were using their name in vain. So if it was a house of cards, it would all have come tumbling down over quite a simple thing.

Therefore...the names he gave me had to be genuine. Therefore...there is a jury. Therefore...anything Sean has stated publicly about the jury has to be real, or jury members would be kicking up a fuss.

I don't exactly follow her logic, but it is her choice not to follow up on the information that was provided to her. She continues to talk about the Jury:

How could they be 'planted' members? They're people with pretty illustrious careers, in very famous institutions. Why would they get involved in a scam? What would be in it for them?

I'm assuming she is referring to the two jury members that she has direct knowledge of, but I could be wrong.

There is most likely a Jury, what we don't know is where they are in the process of ruling. Steorn has predicted that the Jury will reach a verdict late this year or early next year. In the mean time, we may or may not get additional information from Steorn.

Forum Lockdown

For all those "lurkers" out there who browse Steorn's forum, you are out of luck, at least temporarily. Magnatrix has again blocked read access to all those not logged in. Back in June, when I published this entry, we went through a similar event. We'll have to wait and see Steorn's official reaction to the change. Remember, both forum administrators do not work for Steorn, but are volunteers. I suggest readers start using the google group Steorb.

In other news, If you haven't been reading messages here and over on the Google Group related to Steorn, Steorn has asked them to change their name, which is now Steorb. My hunch is Steorn won't actually follow through on their legal threats. Consider steornpower.com as an example.

Demo Feed Update

Today we finally got the official word on the AStream feeds that seemed to indicate that Steorn might be demoing again soon:

crank: Sad news about the cameras ;-( I asked Sean why they were still working, turns out Steorn booked only the ten days that the demo was supposed to last. So A-Stream have just forgotten to turn off the stream.

While many folks around here tend to give crank a hard time, I appreciate her getting the little bits of news that she can in her position as forum rep. Her statements in the forum normally clarify vs. confuse.

Nodding Donkey Video

The Nodding Donkey has made its way to YouTube. There seems to be some debate about the nature of the video. We've heard exaggerated claims from cynics that Sean McCarthy, CEO of Steorn, waited 20 days before explaining that the video does not demonstrate perpetual motion, and we've heard back from others saying that Sean presented the video as a joke, and he only waited a few minutes before explaining that the nodding donkey is not perpetual motion. While we all wait for something of substance, enjoy the video: