Polywell FoI: grounds for appeal:

[ltgbrown]

LPD17? Aaarrrgghh!

I know the Chief Engineer of the San Antonio. He doesn't sleep, is losing his hair, and has developed an ulcer. Other than that, he is "loving" it!

[ladajo]

ltgbrown: Alas poor Ethan, I knew him well...

KitemanSA: I believe that Princeton dropped the aft load, as well as had to take down SPY and the Suite for a couple of hours. They also lost the aft launcher. For Tripoli, I am not sure, but I think you are right, she did not drop the plant, just some equipment. Given, she had more mass/size to absorb the shock hit. CVN's are built to take the hits as well.
In CruDes, you will drop the plant and the suite. The question is how long it takes to get it back, and whether or not you will need it in that time. It still amazes me that Roberts held together, a little stitching and welding made the difference.

LPD19 dropped everything as well, and she has the newest kit, as well as size/mass.

LPD19 Final shot close aboard.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MTE3roZy35A/S ... k+Test.jpg

LPD19 second to last shot.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... trials.jpg

Tripoli Hole:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/11/10111002.jpg

Princeton Damage:
http://www.militaryspot.com/gallery/sho ... 11&cat=all


Bennmann: I have sticks in the fire. I am not posting details on purpose.

[bennmann]

Fair enough. Should I send off for my own FOIA then? Here, have an old text based adventure game response:

You come across a wilderness area to a castle in the middle of England. You take the castle. You are French. After a short discourse with Bennmann after he approaches you about a some sort of valueble object, would you like to taunt him a second time?

[Brian H]

I did not mean to prompt a debate on taxes, merely that if any perosn or company gets any amount of small change in their cap on the promise of future research then it becomes onerous on them to share information.

There is no issue on how trivial, or good a cause, a thing is. This is merely that if you take from the politi then you must expect to give to the politi. If the Navy find it, it is with the future visionary management to put defence in place for our future - that is their return to "us". But after that acceptable reason, if a company working for them, and thus for that purpose, has no real claim as to commerciability if otherwise the Navy are happy to explain what they are up to.

This is defence money. That bit is OK (in my book - at least in a margin somewhere). So why is it going to help someone do some work with which they will then claim commerciality? This situation might be slightly different if it is a DoD outright-purcase of a proprietary thing for which the vendors are keeping details secret, but it isn't that scenario either.

I think you mean "incumbent" above, Chris; onerous means "difficult". Or you could have said "the onus is on ...".
But as to who gets access to "dual-use" technology, especially when the potential implications for the economy as a whole are as large as with fusion power -- it hardly seems as though the minutia of patent and contract law and so on are adequate to address the issue, does it? This isn't just a matter of who is and isn't going to make big bux off of a project.
I was reading through a bunch of Eisenhower quotes recently, and some of his 'military-industrial complex' musings are relevant:
http://quotationsbook.com/quote/44492/

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citzenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. "

[bennmann]

But really, ladajo, were you just being facetious?

I guess I'll keep waiting patiently.

[ladajo]

I was being serious.
I will let everyone know when I have run the course.
I currently am pursuing two options. Both have promise.
Be patient.

[bennmann]

I found this link to help my patience:

http://www.foiadvocates.com/appeals_litigation.html

As far as the law goes. the appeal must be answered within a 20 business day deadline. ladajo filed on the 7th of February and got a response on the 18th of March.

Then he implied he sent in the appeal the next day after sleeping on it (March 19).

That was a Friday, so let's start counting from the Monday after that (March 22nd), that puts us at about 29 business days since the approximate appeal as of this post.

They could have provided "due diligence" on certain aspects of the information (basically saying "we're working hard but can't provide it yet") and added 10 more business days which would put the day of reckoning this coming Monday.

Or I could be totally mistaken and it's going to be tied up in courts.

Anyways, yes I will continue to wait as patiently as possible while trying to guess the time and hour we will know anything.

Keep up the good work ladajo

[BenTC]

it's going to be tied up in courts.

no.......please no.......</terror>
don't even joke

thats the sort of talk and behaviour that turns possible allies into adversaries.

[bennmann]

I think we're all realists here.

I think ladajo wouldn't take EMC2 to court anyways, even if the appeal wasn't declined and EMC2 didn't comply (because of propriety commercialization), and I think we all support the appeal should it work, but it's safe to say none of us want to see polywell paperwork dragged to court.

Onward to a slight tangent:

Maybe that's the definition of "Publishable work" as well. It could well be that even though WB7 has been peer reviewed, it HAS NOT by some fluke fallen under the definition of "published". This entire FOIA business could be (for R Nebel) academic in the strictest sense. Maybe I'm deeply mistaken here. That would have strong implications for the Physics scientific community in general. It would almost be a slap in the face to many of them if he did just bypass the publishing phase and released too much info.

Anyone with more experience in published scientific works care to elaborate on this or correct it?

[bennmann]

I am trying to be very patient while waiting for ladajo's appeal to go through.

It is very difficult. I have refreshed the news section in my browser twice daily for a month.

[ladajo]

Another of my FOIA paths ran itself to ground.
Denied on Proprietary (again).

I am now on the appeal path only. As previously stated, the plus side is that the appeal process gets handled by big navy in DC. And I get to cite previous releases, as well as EMC2 must demonstrate to big navy JAG why the information is proprietary, vice just saying it is.
In the appeal, specific argument is made for release of non-proprietary info. ie. leave out design specifics/nuances not previously released, just tell us how it is working...

We shall see.

[vankirkc]

Well, I've had about enough of this. I'm going to start complaining to my representatives in Washington about the government funding private green field technology development, particularly in view of the controversy concerning whether or not it can work. The people on this site who have advanced arguments that I believe pretty much uniformly say this can't work. No sense spending any more public money on it, especially if we stand to gain nothing if it actually works.

[BenTC]

No sense spending any more public money on it, especially if we stand to gain nothing if it actually works.

Some questions....
1. How much pure research do military personel do directly themselves, versus employing organisations to do it for them - eg these guys
2. How much restriction is placed on other defence contractors in commercialising their publically funded research (assuming its commericalised in a non-classified way)?

It seems a bit simplistic to just say NO public money to be paid to any private institutions doing fundamental research. As much as there are some believable arguments against the Polywell working, they may still be some missing element outside their knowledge that makes it work. In my opinion, the risk/reward payoff is to great to ignore.

However this is an interesting read about whether it should just be funded directly from government rather than through the military

Meanwhile, the Japanese government is funding private commercial research into lasers with immediate non- military potential -- carbon-dioxide and solid-state lasers designed for indus­ trial uses, such as welding, and semiconductor diode lasers that can power compact-disc players and fiber-optics communications equipment.5

At issue is not just the possibility that U.S. firms in particular product markets and industrial sectors might lose some profits. What these firms face is much more serious -- the loss of their world leadership in the devel­ opment and diffusion of knowledge-intensive technologies. If this loss proves permanent, America's ability to compete in the emerging information-based manufacturing and service economy may be severely impaired.

[GIThruster]

Some questions....
1. How much pure research do military personel do directly themselves, versus employing organisations to do it for them

Almost all of the best personnel working in research for the USG are subcontractors because they make much more this way. DOD and NASA personnel all get very substandard wages so you can look for the best people in the private sector working under contract. Additionally, I think it would be pretty rare for places like DOD to be doing any "pure" research. Usually, places like AFRL at Wright-Patterson, and Kirtland AFB are doing developmental work as opposed to research. They are in some sense doing research, but certainly not "pure" research, and the best people doing this are also civilian contractors.

2. How much restriction is placed on other defence contractors in commercialising their publically funded research (assuming its commericalised in a non-classified way)?

None. Even research done in the national labs gets privatized, often to commercial start-ups with the folks who originally did the work at the lab then left and started their own companies. Your tax dollars at work. Ref things like Terfenol-D and IIRC, Liquid Metal. When a technology is classified, it is still owned, researched and developed by the private sector, but the classification forces USG to provide security. This is one reason USG does not "take" technology as often as it might (though it still does this very often, especially with things like metallurgy), because even when USG takes a technology in the interests of national security, they then have to place it in the private sector anyway and provide security.

[rschaffer8]

Apart from that, Why would anyone think that Barack and Co. give a care what the constitutional requirements are? They wouldn't even submit a real birth certificate to establish legitimacy. Every other constitutional thing is inconsequential.

Read this guy's take on the constitutional issue.

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=19640

Kindly refraim from making provocative political statements in this part of the Forum. Your snide remarks and dubious link undermines the credibility of Polywell. It would be a real tragedy to have Polywell become linked to the birther or other crackpot political movements.