The View from Number 80
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 Remnant Spam Tablet - Jan 03

Edison Con?  It is interesting how in pursuing one line of inquiry about "free energy" scams and claims, one ends up in completely different territory, with Christian Fundamentalists, and finally (thankfully) with the Australian Skeptics. As these topics are very much within 80's remit here follows a kind of free association of ideas and websites pretty much as they appeared on the monitor.  After a mention in Robert Park's excellent What's New (if you don't subscribe to this newsletter you are missing something) of a firm called Genesis World Energy a little further investigation seemed in order. GWE are offering a retread of the old "something for practically nothing" hokum popular with the free energy merchants. Here is the intro to their mission statement "The Genesis Project was created to quickly develop a viable, abundant, low cost and totally environmentally-friendly source of energy, capable of immediately eliminating the world's dependence on oil, gasoline, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy at minimal cost, minimal conversion effort and without requiring people, businesses or industries to change the way they use energy." Too good to be true (TGTBT) is the phrase that springs to mind here. Genesis claim to have developed a  new type of fuel cell which is incorporated into their Edison device, which itself will replace a consumer's reliance on the power utilities without a disruptive change to habits of energy use (TGTBT). The Edison Device comes in two models, residential and commercial. Scrutiny of the Questions page is revealing - more revealing than wading through the gushing pseudoscience elsewhere on this site. The project team, we are told, consisted of 400 "visionaries" working in groups with no knowledge of each other's work - this sounds more like a recipe for disaster than a coherent research project. Worth noting here also is that "In order to retain their privacy and for reasons of confidentiality related to the protection of their intellectual property assets, the individuals involved in the Genesis Project wish to remain anonymous."

License to Shill  Even more interesting is the business model whereby a separate company, World Energy Management, will exclusively market licenses for the technology. This is a popular tactic in the free energy world - sell licenses to make and distribute the product - much more lucrative than trying to manufacture the devices yourself - and will blur the demarcation of responsibility when the things don't deliver as promised. Here is a supplementary Q&A page which goes into further detail but one question keeps nagging - where are the independent laboratory test results on the system? GWE's answer seems less than reassuring "The Edison Device has been demonstrated to people from many walks of life. Previous invitees have included past and present US Senators and members of congress, the Dean of a university, science and engineering professors, community leaders, CEO's of major corporations and engineering firms. Individuals that attended the presentations viewed the entire working process on an unrestricted basis." To back up the claims made for this technology such "demonstrations" fall well short of an acceptable standard of proof. When the product was launched in Boise, Idaho, USA the Montana Associated Technology Roundtables was somewhat underwhelmed and found "its cloak-and-dagger public launch left attendees puzzled and curious." The MATR goes on to highlight some pertinent queries including - "Where did the research take place, and what are the locations of a residential home and industrial facility said to be fully operational using the Edison Device?" These questions have, as yet, to 80's knowledge, not had an answer. Don't hold your breath on this one. 

Update - for a more detailed look at the Genesis World Energy shenanigans this page from John Lichtenstein is definitely the place to go.

Holy Leftovers  The claims and future projections of the success of the Edison Device are pushed on these pages with an almost evangelical fervor. So what, you say, many firms understandably allow their enthusiasm to shine through about their product's benefits and it is perfectly understandable. Nevertheless, elsewhere, there is a strong religious connection with free energy sites. Putting Genesis World Energy into Google throws up (and throws up seems an apt phrase here) some interesting linking sites, in particular that of the Remnant Saints. (They define themselves as "people set apart" in some way, hence "Remnant" and "Saints" as, well, as having a high opinion of yourself - surely saint is a term applied by others if deserved in some way and not a self-applied label.) Anyway, these remnant saints, apart from their own narrow biblical interpretations, turn out to be real "Alternative utility" buffs, and also super "patriots" who are busy preparing for a forthcoming war which will naturally herald the Second Coming etc etc.(yawn) Quite whether such items as perpetually running self-powering magnetic motors or a generator that charges the very batteries that power the generator that charges the batteries that power the generator (that's enough!) and other items of TGTBT pseudoscience have anything to contribute to the coming Kingdom of God is something of a puzzle. 80 is no theologian (surely one of the most useless forms of study ever conceived) but if the big G will be running things directly, and He created absolutely everything in the universe, power supplies are not something He and his remnant minions are going to be short of. Unless of course He performs the necessary miracle for any of these perpetual motion, over unity, zero point concoctions to actually work as claimed - which is the only way the damn things would work.
Escher Power   The makers of the Lutec 1000 free energy machine, alluded to above,(and which sounds more like something dreamed up by M C Escher (note - large image) than any real world device) are more than a little touchy over their creation having received less than sympathetic coverage from the Australian Skeptics, who awarded Lutec their prestigious Bent Spoon Award, and whose site incidentally is well worth more than a moment of your time. Another site with a low regard for the ridiculous claims made by Lutec is The Millenium (sic) Project, (hosted on the Ratbags site which is also home to Quintessence of the Loon). This page has a funny and incisive email sent to the free energy company making the obvious comparison between Lutec's device and every other perpetual motion machine, for that is what it surely is, merely dressed up in modern pseudoscientific bafflegab. For more background and technical information on free energy devices, including Lutec's baby, look here and here  (pdf Acrobat documents from The Skeptic - journal of The Australian Skeptics).                                                 
Tablet of Deceit? A short while ago the world of archaeology, or at least that subset with an interest in so-called New Testament times, was abuzz with the news of the James Ossuary (see Backwards Glance - Box of Hot Air? ) with its inscription that, to some observers, seemed to confirm the historical reality of three biblical characters, Joseph and his two sons, James and Jesus. This hope, and it was more hope than anything else, now seems to be dashed by serious problems with the nature and dating of the second part of the box's inscription, that referring to Jesus, which is likely to be what is termed a "pious fraud". Now an inscribed stone tablet, hailed as evidence for the existence of Solomon's Temple, seems to be less than it first appeared. Like the ossuary the provenance of the tablet is not known - which immediately detracts from its historical value - artifacts that surface in the antiquities market in the way of these two items lack the vital context needed to make proper sense of them. The initial impression that the inscription on the tablet was independent evidence of events described in the Book of Kings now seems to be more than a little shaky. Some of the phrases are anachronistic and seem to derive from modern Hebrew and not from the time of of the Jewish King Joash, 2,800 years ago. Also there are similarities to an authentic inscription on the Mesha Stele, which at least one expert deems to be indicative of twentieth century copying. Another academic has dismissed the tablet, claiming the lettering thereon is inconsistent in date, veering from 9th century BCE Hebrew to later 7th century BCE Aramaic and Phoenician. When artifacts such as the tablet and the ossuary seem to confirm the bible tales they answer a deep need for proof of some people's religious beliefs and a tremendous amount of emotional capital is invested in them - sadly this does no more than contribute a lot of sound and fury to any debate on their authenticity and precious little light. Despite the supposed power of blind faith many folk still crave some solid evidence - which has yet to appear.
On a somewhat related note the "Black Sea Flood was Noah's deluge" school of thought seems to have taken a knock. It has been suggested that  about 7500 years ago the Black Sea filled rapidly in a cataclysmic flood and that the memory of this gave rise to the Noah story. Why just Noah is an obvious question, perhaps it is Judaeo-Christian bias, but what about Deucalion and Utnapishtim? Now the whole Black Sea theory is being challenged by an international team of scientists, although the proponents of the flood are sticking to their guns.
Psychic Central Spam  As anyone who has an email account knows all too well the plague of spam is worse than ever - masses of unsolicited and often offensive emails land in your inbox every day. Apart from the tedium of deleting the trash the sheer volume of these unwanted messages clogs up networks worldwide inconveniencing everyone. 80 receives a fair amount of spam, some the usual random stuff and some targeted by those disenchanted for some unfathomable reason by the content of the 80 web pages. 80 is often signed up for newsletters, gay chat sites and other services. A recent unsolicited email came from perry47@yahoo.com (looks like a disposable address) on behalf of www.psychicscentral.com. They obviously induge in the practise of sending out software robots, "bots" to harvest email addresses to which they then send their messages. This usually happens without any intelligent intervention as the text of the spam makes clear.....
"My name is Perry.  I am the Webmaster of Psychics Central.  I ran into your website by accident.  I browsed your site, viewed some of the content and links and loved what you guys have created.  The main reason I am sending you this E-Mail is to ask if you would be kind enough to put a link of our site on to your site.  Our website is www.psychicscentral.com .  It is a fun site that is dedicated to various topics relating to metaphysics, psychic ability and astrology.  I thought the link to our site might be a nice little addition to provide to your visitors and your site would be a nice one for my visitors. "
Anyone who has actually read any of 80's opinions will know that Perry is either a pseudonym for a spambot or a complete idiot - and sending unsolicited mail of this type is one sure way of attracting the wrong kind of attention from 80, who has zero tolerance of spambots or Psychic Central's putative webmaster/knucklehead, Perry Liu.
As for Psychic Central this is just another sad little page full of the usual psychic trash complete with cheesy background music. Here, read the rest of their spam message......
"We are building the site for people of various backgrounds and depth in study to discuss this topic.  There's a lot of excitement here and our traffic has been growing at the rate of 10% daily.  Currently, we are kicking off the site by finding some "free psychic reading deals" from top-rated psychics on the Internet.  As time progresses, we will expand our site by adding more features and programs.  These will include various horoscopes, psychic content, games and discussion forums for people to interact.
We loved to be able to have our site linked to your site.  If there is anything that you would like us to do for you (i.e. providing a link of your site on our site or any other request), please do not hesitate to let us know. "
Yes, Perry, 80 has a request - if you must peddle your twaddle go find a willing audience and stop bothering other folk with your poor attempt at advertising. One phrase sums up your current strategy - ineffective and deeply stupid.
On the subject of spam of all sorts and a hilarious way of responding to it take a look at this page - wonderfully funny stuff from Jonathan Land.
Number Nuts  In running a check on search engines and how The View from Number 80 is listed, a little gem came to light. Part of a site dedicated to the pointless exercise known as numerology, "the study of the occult meanings of numbers and their influence on human life." this page is devoted to - Number 80! Full of non-information of an anally-retentive kind you learn such stupefying facts as the number 80 is mentioned 16 times in the bible. So what - did someone actually sit down and wade through the "good book" totting up the eighties? The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the site's creator, one S. Desrosiers, badly needs to get out more. Here is the last word on the symbolism of Number 80.....
this number "represents the karmic liberation for the whole of the creatures of Cosmos, or the community of the initiate disengaged of the fate of reincarnations, the communion of Saints or the Great White Lodge ".
So now you know.......
Miscellany  Here 80 would like to thank Charles H. Bennett of IBM Research for the following pages which managed to destroy any kind of productivity for an extended period and caused more than a little rib pain occasioned by wild laughter. This first page purports to be from The Institute of Holistic Computer Wellness with invaluable advice for the New Age computer user with sections on Computer Homeopathy, Astrological System Analysis, Bad Vibe Filters and more. Next up is an ad for Minuteman Pizza "The doomsday technology that kept the Cold War cold has now been put to a more wholesome use - delivering fresh hot pizza anywhere in the world in about 20 minutes." via ICBM! Lastly is a page devoted to the lifestyle diet called Mineralarianism whose basis is thus "The Mineralarians are an international association of people, diverse in other respects, who share the common determination to subsist on foods of mineral origin, thereby sparing our fellow beings the victimization that has been their lot, at our hands for the last million years, and before that at the claws and jaws of previously dominant species. " Great stuff!
 
Go along to this page from the BBC and take the survey to see what percentage of respondents believe UFOs are alien spacecraft - but don't let it depress you too much - at least not until you have visited the BBC's Ghostcam - has the dear old Beeb completely lost it?
 
Perhaps they should take a lesson from the T-Files which uncompromisingly nails its colors to the mast
"The Net is a huge library of bullshit, lies, stupidity and nonsense. And all the shelves have been toppled and the books are scattered on the floor. There are those who believe that the earth is flat; that a birth date means more than an excuse for presents; that aliens are not only taking jobs no other American wants, but are also performing anal probes on hapless kidnap victims (looking for their brains, no doubt), and, of course, that the "X-Files" is a documentary. But the truth is out there among the conspiracy freaks, naive self-deceivers, medical quacks, magical thinkers, needy believers and habitual liars. Yes, the truth is out there. It's just damn hard to find."
Luckily the T-Files tries to redress the balance with a very comprehensive list of useful links of a rational and skeptical nature - a place to lose more than a few hours - recommended.
 
Yet more highly useful categorized links are available here from Jim Lippard's Skeptical Information Links - from Astrology to Ufology - recommended.
Quotes
 
"Poetry is what gets lost in translation." Robert Frost
 
"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves." William Shakespeare
 
"Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same." George Bernard Shaw
 
"The days of the digital watch are numbered." Tom Stoppard
 
"Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." Lily Tomlin (one for the postmodernists)
 
"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of space of which I am ignorant, and which knows me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there, why now rather than then." Blaise Pascal
 

         

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