Paul's blog

For centuries countless people have searched for the holy grail of physics: The perpetuum mobile: A device that would go on and on forever, without the need for external energy. Or even more interestingly: a device that would actually produce more energy than what is put into it. Wouldn’t that be nice? Free energy!

So far, however, such devices have never been constructed and shown to work as promised.

And there is a very plausible reason for that unfortunate failure: such a device would have to violate one or both of two VERY basic laws of nature. It would either break the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy), the second law of thermodynamics (entropy never decreases) or both.

It’s not my intention to go into the physics side of all this. Nor will I go over the long history of failed attempts. I just like to focus on the latest folks who are making claims of being able to produce free energy.

And I also will make a prediction or two.

The folks I’m referring to is the company Steorn (link), their ‘free (and clean and continuous) energy’ technology is called ‘Orbo’, they are based in Ireland and their spokesman and CEO is Sean McCarthy.

How are these folks different from all those that have claimed the same and failed miserably?

Quite frankly: Not that much.

The only obvious difference I can see, is that these folks seem to be very good at marketing! They have a very professional web site, have some ‘convincing’ (well…) stories to tell, they REALLY seem to be serious about getting ‘name and brand recognition’, are engaging in discussions in forums, engage the scientific community and generally seem very eager to tell everyone in this world about their ‘claim’: their name is all over the Internet.

All of which will probably raise a bunch of red flags and trigger some alarm bells for folks who have been following the ‘free energy’ clubs around the world: the “Investment Scam’ light will flash as a warning and reminder of previous claims.

Then what are the similarities with previous claims?

Quite a few, but just let me mention the single most obvious one:

THEY CAN’T DEMONSTRATE A WORKING DEVICE!

Another one would be their claim: “BUT WE WILL HAVE A WORKING DEVICE REAL SOON NOW!”

Think about it! You have this great idea! You discovered something that all physicists, to this day, have overlooked (the temporal variance of of magnetic viscosity, in Steorn’s case) and you realize you could build a ‘free energy’ machine with it. What would you do? Would you withdraw in your garage and build a proof of concept and then take this working prototype to investors to help you turn this into a commercial success? Or would you go to investors FIRST, telling them you WILL BE able to build this, but first you need a bunch of money? I can tell you what would I would do, and I can also tell you how I would react as an inversor if you tried to get some money out of me with this ‘device’.

But anyway, Steorn is going to demonstrate this device .. *drum roll* .. this July!

This world will never be the same!

Unless, … some of my predictions come true!

The simplest prediction of course is “No demonstration of a working ‘free energy’ device will take place in July 2007”.

Of course, as Sean McCarthy already has admitted: “.. It is simply a question of money ..” (link), not showing anything wouldn’t be good for those streams of investor money.

So they already came up with the obvious cop-out:

Q: What progress do you have with the continuous motion testing?
A: We have made huge progress on this – we expect to be demoing this version in July. …I would say 80-90% of the way.

80-90%? 

Let me give an example here: Suppose I claim to have a ‘free energy’ device. Let me be VERY modest here, and claim 101% efficiency. The device will demostrate this by dropping a ball from 10 feet. Without any added energy from outside, you will see the bouncing ball reach a height of 10.01 feet!

However, I’m still working on refinements and I’m not quite there yet (I need more money!). So I’ll demonstrate to you (in July 2007) my device as it is now. I will already announce that what you will see is that the dropped ball will bounce to 80 – 90% of its original height! Impressive right? I’m REALLY getting there.. ALMOST there, just a few more percentage points! Please hand me your money.. I really need to finish this! And hey, you just SAW I’m ALMOST there…

Needless to say that a device that ALMOST produces free energy, is NOT a ‘free energy’ device. There are of course cases where ‘almost’ can be impressive or desireable (I wish I ALMOST was a billionaire!), but this is a case where ‘almost’ doesn’t get any points.

It’s probably not easy to find investors for this: most of those interested have their money tied up in premium swamp land in Florida and the Brooklyn Bridge!

Here’s another prediction: I will make this company’s claim known to James Randi, whose JREF organization (link) offers ONE MILLION BUCKS to anyone who can … well … put simply … break laws of nature. I’m sure he’ll agree these folks qualify …

My prediction: The JREF will get to keep their money!

And yet another prediction: before too long this device will show up in the Museum of Unworkable Devices (link)!

Notes:

1. Thanks to my dear friend Leo W. for bringing this to me attention.

2. “A device that would go on and on forever, without the need for external energy”: Of course, ANYTHING goes on and on forever when in motion and no other force acts on it! (Newton made that very clear!): I’m talking here about a machine whose internal ‘motions’ keep going on without addition of energy from outside!

3. This site lists quite a few attempts by folks who didn’t let their thinking be clouded by knowledge of the laws of nature: link.

4. And here’s an interesting link in case you yourself think you can get rich off of the free energy craze: link.

5. Steorn’s announcement: See Sean McCarthy explain (?) it all: link.

Last Monday morning, around 2am.

“You KNOW God is with you right now, right?” .. whispered she from behind me.

In other circumstances I gladly would have engaged in the discussion by informing her that I, in fact, did not know that, and more specifically, that I was pretty sure he wasn’t, and that if he WAS, he wasn’t doing his job.
But this was neither the place nor the time, so I kinda nodded. After all, she was a very nice girl and meant well.

Just before entering a room she stopped and walked up next to me, turned around, grabbed my hand, gazed me in the eyes and said: “Do you want me to pray with you?”
This is always a bit of an embarassing question to a devout atheist like myself, but in this instance even more unsettling, since a) I found myself in a situation where the LAST thing you want to hear is people praying for you, as it usually means there’s nothing else they can do anymore, and b) I just had several people ‘work’ on me, from hooking me up to an EKG, to taking chest X-rays and stabilizing my blood pressure, heart rate and pain (administering nitroglycerine, lopressor and (yummie!) morphine), and now I was ‘supposed’ to be rushed to have a CT scan to look for blood clots, so I found it a bit disturbing that this, undoubtly well meaning, nurse delayed this process by trying to take out some time for praying to God.

I’m fairly sure (not really, since I don’t believe in God) that if God didn’t want me to have this heart attack, I wouldn’t have been here in the first place.
So I responded with something like “Mwnaah”, with that friendly “Maybe not today” look one uses when someone tries to sell you something for a good cause at your door when you’re watching a Spurs playoff game (Go Spurs!).
“Well”, she smiled at me, “be sure that I certainly WILL pray for you!”. Again, friendly as it may have been meant, I didn’t find it very encouraging for my situation.

Then, when she prepared me for the CT scan she happily informed me that I was going to experience the closest thing to female menopause (something about a warm feeling like I had been peeing all over my self  (apparently induced by the injected dye liquid) .. ? .. Uhm… okay).

The whole procedure made me think of going through a whirring rotating mini-Stargate.
But that was all.

When she enthousiastically enquired about ‘that’ feeling, I had to tell her that I, truthfully, hadn’t experienced anything of the kind.
She was visibly disappointed by this. She didn’t speak a word while she pushed me back to the ER.

No feeling of peeing all over myself, and no prayer sessions, it must have been a disappointing night for her.

Mine wasn’t too great either: Around 4am I was admitted.

I just read this:

President Bush vetoed a $124 billion war-spending bill Tuesday because it included an Iraq pullout timetable which he called setting a date for failure.  

 “setting a date for failure“?

No. It doesn’t.

It sets a date for admitting failure!

The actual failure happened years ago.

I’m currently ‘into’ investing, and re-reading my ‘investment’ books.

Every single one of them mentions the single biggest error one can make: staying in a losing position thinking it will go up soon and that it will erase the losses.

It never does.

In that light .. even if it WAS setting the date of failure… (known in investing-speak as placing a stop-loss order) that would be a good thing.

Support our troops.

Get them outa there!

You buy a new DVD player (one that ‘upconverts’ to 1080i HD, to your, also newly, acquired HD TV). It has (wow) Digital Output through ‘Digital Coax Out’. And even though the manual says you can use a regular RCA cable ($2.15) for that, you run to your local Radio Shack and happily pay $25 for a REAL Coax Digital Audio cable. After all, you want GREAT sound. That’s why you paid BIG money for those THICK speaker cables from ‘Monster Cable’. The ones that assured you of that DEEP VIBRANT Bass that you always wanted.

I’m an immoral person. I admit it. Especially in the context of this post: if I see an opportunity to get rich off of snobs, I go after it .. that’s why I looked if I can invest in Monster Cable.

I can’t. It’s a private company. Too bad.

Why is this company so successful?

Because it played out a stereotype! Ask someone to describe a singer who sings bass! He/She will undoubtedly describe him as BIG… as LARGE … as FAT. Nobody would ever suspect my bluddy Rob of being a bass!

So people fall for the fallacy: “With this HUGE BIG FAT cable… you get an incredible bass sound from you speakers, especially your subwoofer”.

Nonsense of course! That ‘Bass’ sound comes from the quantity of air moved by the speaker. The ‘wire’ is only there to provide the ‘sound information’ (I’m now speaking of powered sub-woofers). You can actually make that wire VERY thin, and not notice a difference (since there is none). Okay, if you make it TOO thin, it CAN actually melt .. but it will do that before you notice any loss of ‘bass’. I have preached this (in vain!) for many years, but last week I ran into something similar. VIDEO cables.

We purchased an HDTV, and I needed to connect it through video cables .. so called ‘Component’ cables. I also needed (well.. wanted!) a new ‘upconverting’ DVD player, for which I paid $42. Because HD video players are still well over $500, and I’m a cheap skate!. Turned out, the cables were MORE expensive than the video player, with all its electronics, firmware (!), moving parts, laser, remote control (batteries included!), manual, shipment from China, etc etc…

INSANE!

So I looked around for cables….

I found them. On BOTH sides of the spectrum. Here they are … see the links… remember… there is NO WAY IN HELL (or heaven) that ANYONE, for simple reasons, can actually ‘SEE’ a difference in picture quality between these cables.

The ‘not-so-cheap’ ones: link

The ‘cheaper’ ones: link

Yes! That’s $5.95 for common sense ($3.89 if you buy a 1oo of them, at which price they STILL make a hefty profit!), to $299 for easy-to-fall-for-hype.

(As for the not-so-cheap ones… I have actually found a cable for $399, but granted, that was quite ‘lengthy’ (not sure who needs 150 Ft of this crap anyway!)

Amy Sorrell, a 30 year old High School teacher (English and Journalism), was placed on paid leave, will be transferred to another school and is still facing being fired.

Her ‘crime’?

Failing to report to the principal a controversial article in the students’ own newspaper for which Mrs. Sorrell served as an adviser.

What was so ‘controversial’?

Student Megan Chase wrote an editorial calling for tolerance of gays.

Yes, you read that right: not only did Woodlan High School censor the students’ own newspaper, it also deemed a plee for tolerance ‘controversial’!

Such an outrageous display of homophobia by an institution that we entrust our children to for education is as maddening as it is scary.

“The school administration has said in no uncertain terms that she’s not going to be given a journalism position”

Ah, right, yes, God forbid that she teaches the kids at the other school such dangerous notions as freedom of speech and press!

Mrs. Sorrell said that she is proud of the student who wrote the article, but that she has no money to fight the decision.

Sounds like a perfect case for the ACLU: not only are certain elements of the school’s administration clearly overstepping the boundaries of their power to promote and push their own narrow-minded views, they are also brutally abusing the rights to free expression of both the students and Mrs. Sorrell.

They should be stopped! This is outrageous.

(Even so outrageous that one has to wonder if there’s not more behind the story than meets the eye)

Link to article: link

(and yes, I know, that picture is sickening too. Comes from that deranged lunatic Fred Phelps, America’s Ueber-homophobe!)

I just watched this:

A kid announces his atheism. Dad seems to grab a beer and sits down at the dinner table to discuss this clearly unexpected revelation.
But mom explodes and starts the typical threatening, cursing (f-word!) and yelling (way to go mom!!).
(Dad wisely stays out of it from now on).
Curiously, mom appears to think that Christmas is all about getting presents.
But what really got me (laughing) is the way how, probably, a sister or brother, sneakily video-taped the outburst and sneaks away when things get TOO hot…

Still .. a very sad display of bad parenting…

Link to video

This post is related to my two previous posts.
Recently I was listening to some details about a certain type of ‘minimally invasive’ surgery, when at some point the risks were brought up.
It was explained that this procedure was relatively safe, as it had a risk, expressed in mortality rate, comparable to that of a colonoscopy.
That sounded very reassuring, since a colonoscopy doesn’t involve incisions and messing with vital organs.
Then I saw the actual numbers and sure enough, they were fairly close.

But I was shocked nevertheless.

In 2004 I had a colonoscopy, based on my primary care physician’s recommendation to ANYONE who turns 50, to have one. Just as a precaution.
Since they did remove some polyps, it was recommened to have another one in 2006. I’m overdue for that one, and I really should get one scheduled.

Or SHOULD I?

I’m still shocked by the mortality rate of a colonoscopy. It was given as around 1 in 2000.
It is recommended that by the time you turn 50, you should get a colonoscopy, and then one every 5 years after that (or more often when they find something).
There are about 50 million people over the age of 50 in the US. If they would all follow the recommendation, each year 10 million people will have a colonoscopy! With the above mentioned mortality rate, 5,000 people WILL die each year by simply having a colonoscopy.
This scares me a lot.
I had no idea that such a procedure would kill one out of every 2000 patients.

The past few days I have been thinking a lot about this number.
And now I do of course realize that there’s another side of this coin. Something that poker players may recognize as a pot odds calculation: what is the cost of NOT having one. What are the odds that I DO develop undetected colon cancer.
When I wrote my ‘Odds’ post, I was still heavily leaning towards not going in for my second one.

But now, considering that this is widely recommended (so you think that someone has done the proper statistical analysis of the odds involved^1.) PLUS the fact that I am more at risk due to the removed polyps .. maybe I SHOULD get another one.

I’m not asking my readers to make this decision for me, but I would appreciate their thoughts on this mortality rate^2..

^1.Here I appear to follow one of my commenter’s remarks, basically saying “If the authorities say it’s safe, I don’t care too much about the numbers”. But there is a difference I think.
^2.I restricted myself to mortality, there are also various other, rather nasty, risks (like colon perforation) that require immediate and complicated surgery)

I just came across an old post from my previous blog at Live Journal (link). For some reason I felt like re-posting it here:

Today, November 30th, 2004, I have been abducted by aliens.
I can’t give a full, detailed, account, since I’m only faintly aware of the actual abduction.
No, I didn’t dream it. It really happened. I remember laying on a gurney in a dimly lit chamber.
Soft strange music playing in the background. I also recall laying on my side, staring at an unfamiliar and complicated looking aparatus which was connected to a long black shiny rubbery hose.
I instinctively knew that that would have to be the infamous anal probe, and I’m frightened by the size and length of it: they are going to stick that thing WHERE?
So, all those alien abduction/anal probe stories are real after all?
One of the less conscious memories is that of beings coming into the room, beings in long loose robes. Green ones I believe.
From then on I am aware only of some faint experiences of uncomfortable pressure in my abdominal area and some soft strange whirring sounds.
The next thing I remember is waking up, feeling VERY dizzy and disoriented, still laying on a gurney, next to strange machinery that’s making soft puffing and bleeping noises.
And I realize that it’s all over. That I’m still alive. And will live. And that the experience, although by no means pleasant, wasn’t even painful!
Actually, the only rather painful part of the procedure was the $250 co-payment for this colonoscopy.

(you can click on the picture)