Polywell FOIA

[Maui]

I guess the stink smells sweet enough to some and they seem to like it. Maybe they are right and the odour is misleading and just an acquired taste. Maybe it will actually be a very pretty flower once it buds. But whichever way you swing it, the current pungency is definitely there, and it doesn't do anything for me.

Good way of putting it... and it doesn't do anything for me either.

[Aero]

I guess the stink smells sweet enough to some and they seem to like it. Maybe they are right and the odour is misleading and just an acquired taste. Maybe it will actually be a very pretty flower once it buds. But whichever way you swing it, the current pungency is definitely there, and it doesn't do anything for me.

Good way of putting it... and it doesn't do anything for me either.

Like it or not, we will not boycott polywell power if it works, and if it doesn't work then EMC2 and the little navy contract office empire may milk it for all its worth. It could be that they are already doing the milking for all we know. I don't think Dr. Nebel would milk a lost cause but he does have a lot of ideas and he may believe that one of them will pull his chestnuts out of the fire. The only way we can know is with data to evaluate. Fat chance of getting that.

[Betruger]

That's what I remember. Maybe I missed where the new one was discussed.

I didn't intend to imply there WAS a new one, just that a new one was needed because that one doesn't carry the water.

Well I'm all ears anyway.

[chrismb]

It would take lawyers and courts to possibly force the government to release the data. Do we have the money and the will to go get the lawyers and start the legal process?

Then you need to read more and comprehend more. You need to understand that the Navy presented no restrictions to the information requested, it was EMC2 that vetoed it, on the basis of commercial imperative.

Lawyers would do nothing - it has already cleared with the Gov already for release. To me this implies only one thing - a milking stage of a project already at the limit of its delivery. It should also occur to EMC2 that it may be viewed in this way and if I was in that position then I would concoct a form of words to satiate this issue without commercial secrets being revealed.

It is very 'non-savvy' of them to not do so because commercial interests need to raise good will and interest - always. If you look excessively secretive now, then you are always going to have looked excessively secretive. They are going about this in a very odd way. It does not ring 'true'.

[Betruger]

Plausible cause isn't evidence.

And even if they decide to go back on their word, implied or explicit, to publicly signal success come "two years", so what? It's their business. A bunch of guys on the internet who don't know you or your motivations serving you an FOIA headache because they think you "smell" is no cause for gratitude.

The only way you can conclusively call Polywell physics bogus, or their fund raising deceptive, is to see concrete evidence of a fraud or scientific train wreck. Not just subjective smells.

You and Icarus are less than impartial.

[Giorgio]

Plausible cause isn't evidence.

And even if they decide to go back on their word, implied or explicit, to publicly signal success come "two years", so what? It's their business. A bunch of guys on the internet who don't know you or your motivations serving you an FOIA headache because they think you "smell" is no cause for gratitude.

The only way you can conclusively call Polywell physics bogus, or their fund raising deceptive, is to see concrete evidence of a fraud or scientific train wreck. Not just subjective smells.

You and Icarus are less than impartial.

You are still missing the point, I think they have all the right to know where their TAX money went. This was the deal when they took those funds.

[KitemanSA]

Separate point: The consensus is that the Navy benefits from censorship during only the first couple of years of PW development.

There needs to be a new concensus. That one is ridiculous. Sorry, perhaps stated a bit harshly, but heart-felt none-the-less.

I don't know which is being contested. That the Navy would benefit from a head start, or that the Navy would seek to gain a head start.

[KitemanSA]

Once upon a time, there was a little company girl named Emcee Too that had a great idea for lingenberry pie. Emcee just knew that folks really wanted lingenberry pie but only Emcee knew where the lingenberries grew. So she went out to the lingenberry field, where blueberries also grew in great profusion. All Emcee had to do was gather the lingenberries as she crossed the field to the road that led to the folks she new wanted the berries. So she started picking the berries as she crossed the field toward the road.

After a short while, she saw a great big bear in the field who was eating the blueberries. The bear didn't touch the lingenberries, so little Emcee went on her merry way, picking the ligenberries as she went. After all, the bear didn't want the lingenberries.

She picked and pick right out in the open, until the bear ate her.

Sorry, no lingenberries for anyone!

Maybe she should have been more circumspect around that bear?

[Aero]

Once upon a time, there was a little company girl named Emcee Too that had a great idea for lingenberry pie. Emcee just knew that folks really wanted lingenberry pie but only Emcee knew where the lingenberries grew. So she went out to the lingenberry field, where blueberries also grew in great profusion. All Emcee had to do was gather the lingenberries as she crossed the field to the road that led to the folks she new wanted the berries. So she started picking the berries as she crossed the field toward the road.

After a short while, she saw a great big bear in the field who was eating the blueberries. The bear didn't touch the lingenberries, so little Emcee went on her merry way, picking the ligenberries as she went. After all, the bear didn't want the lingenberries.

She picked and pick right out in the open, until the bear ate her.

Sorry, no lingenberries for anyone!

Maybe she should have been more circumspect around that bear?

In other words, if you're in this field the DOE and other major players don't care about eating your lunch, they will eat you for lunch.

[ladajo]

Well, I had this great text drafted with previous quotes from Rick and everything, and I friggin clicked the wrong thing and lost it. Poop.

In any event, I will spare you all my diatribe on why I have made the decision I have made, instead you just get some.

The FOIA and associated appeals process will be placed on hold by me until the April/May timeframe. At that time we will see where everything is at, and I will reconsider. I am fully prepared to pursue to conclusion at this time, but am choosing to wait.

Bottom line, I think nothing is really lost by waiting, and that EMC2 should be allowed to run the course given the sensitive go/no go experiment they seem to be in now with WB8. (It scales or not so to speak). Confinement is a done deal, per the EMC2 website, and, better than predicted, by Rick's statements. Now we all wait while EMC2 empirically looks at whether it will scale to net power or not with WB8/8.1.

[chrismb]

Once upon a time, there was a little company girl named Emcee Too that had a great idea for lingenberry pie. Emcee just knew that folks really wanted lingenberry pie but only Emcee knew where the lingenberries grew. So she went out to the lingenberry field, where blueberries also grew in great profusion. All Emcee had to do was gather the lingenberries as she crossed the field to the road that led to the folks she new wanted the berries. So she started picking the berries as she crossed the field toward the road.

After a short while, she saw a great big bear in the field who was eating the blueberries. The bear didn't touch the lingenberries, so little Emcee went on her merry way, picking the ligenberries as she went. After all, the bear didn't want the lingenberries.

She picked and pick right out in the open, until the bear ate her....

...which was just as well because she had taken many millions of dollars worth of pre-orders of her pies even though she had never made a single one! If she had actually tried then she would have found that the pie-crust confinement times for the lingenberries was so short that they all just dribbled out of all the holes so quickly that she would've bankrupted many people who had put faith in her, which in turn would've lead to redundancies on other pie-making projects and, 10,000 years later, the whole of the human race would die out because they would starve to death as her lingenberry project had sucked money out of other viable projects that would have actually lead to a permanent and stable supply of pie filling.

[KitemanSA]

You seem to have a very dark opinion of the world. The first thing you jump to is that this innocent little person is a massive fraud. to you!

[Betruger]

You are still missing the point, I think they have all the right to know where their TAX money went. This was the deal when they took those funds.

No: they have that right, no argument there, but there's no definitive evidence that it's EMC2's motivation to not communicate and that it's not for good reasons. Neither the pro nor con scenarios are conclusive.

When it's about fusion possibly being made to work, finally, you need more than just some small communication cock up like this to screw with people's work with something like an FOIA. When I say small I'm not downplaying that it'd be wrong -- wrong is wrong no matter what, no argument there either. But unless Polywell starts to undeniably show a trend like ITER, or we see some truly significant lies e.g. evidence that the WB7 peer review wasn't "positive", or a negative (incl stagnating) milestone in the near future, there isn't enough evidence to conclude either way.

Certainly not enough to screw with people's work. I was on the fence up to now but if the FOIA is like Ladajo describes in that bolded sentence a couple dozen posts earlier, you darn better have solid justification. Mere suspicious whiffs "smelled" by people who aren't even directly in touch with the program aren't enough.
Like I've said a dozen times already, I don't believe in PW, Nebel, or anything. What's needed here is more evidence. "Smells" are the mirror opposite of "church of Polywell" accolades - both are biased excuses for evidence.

That's my criticism. What do I suggest instead of just criticizing? Waiting till the end of the current research cycle. "Two years", or whatever the exact ETA is. Don't interrupt serious work. Like I'd said the first time we did this, two years is nothing. Time is on our side if they really are crooked. Five years would be plenty to let them mire themselves in excuses and then you use something like an FOIA.

...
Which is what Ladajo seems to be aiming for now.

[chrismb]

but there's no definitive evidence that it's EMC2's motivation to not communicate

you mean, apart from Ladajo saying that the Navy said exactly this? At least, that was what I though I had read?

[Betruger]

That's right. You've never known business pressures to take the blame? Like I said above, a few more years is plenty to let them sink in their own crap if that's what's going on. Let em squeeze everything they can in that short time period, write their reports, beg borrow and steal undue funds, and then you're justifiably intruding on their work with something like an FOIA.

Not before then.

And notice the part you left out in the above quote. Which is the crucial distinction. Hindsight is always perfect. So let's give this thing a little margin. Two or three little years aren't going to kill anyone. Except the credibility of those you expect don't deserve any. Time is on our side on this one.


edit- I've known and worked with a number of successful (smaller versions of famous tycoons) business leaders. Their work was always solid and often irreproachable. Their fault was in not giving a rat's ass about PR or following rules. In fact I do the same every now and then. I disregard rules if that's what's needed to get things done. If someone or something gets in the way I'm totally open to playing dirty.
But I don't shrug off responsibility - I'll pay for my wrongs after the job is done. (Of course "the job" must be ethically correct. Duh) In this unique respect, the ends justify the means. IMO