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Rossi's NASA Test Fails to Launch (E-Cat)
New Energy Times ^ | 2/10/2012 | Steven B. Krivit

Posted on 02/10/2012 4:47:33 PM PST by Johnny B.

Andrea Rossi, an Italian man who claims to have invented a practical low-energy nuclear reaction device, will not have his device tested and evaluated by NASA. In the past year, Rossi has had mixed success in gaining support at two NASA laboratories: Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

(Excerpt) Read more at newenergytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: coldfusion; ecat; lenr; rossi
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To: exDemMom

“Smoke detectors contain about a millicurie of Americium.”

Sure, but even the manufacturers must be licensed to produce such devices and are regulated as to their manufacture. That smoke detector company has loads of red tape to cut through to produce and bring their products to market.


61 posted on 02/11/2012 11:51:08 AM PST by CodeToad (NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!!!)
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To: exDemMom
Your last point ~ fake masters of philosophy ~ has been discussed endlessly on FR. There are two questions here ~ one involved the claim he had gotten a diploma mill degree. The other question was what his undergraduate degree from an Italian university actually meant.

That turned out to be fairly complex considering the fact the Italian universities had invented degree names centuries ago ~ so they didn't translate exactly into things comprehensible to Americans.

And you know what that meant ~ that if it didn't meet our expectations and standards it was simply more disaggregated scheiss.

The agreed upon standard to discuss his degrees is to name the degree, reference an article, and provide your own translation.

62 posted on 02/11/2012 11:57:07 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: CodeToad
CODE, you forgot the most important item ~ the smoke detectors have a WARNING LABEL on them and there's a regulatory cite so you can go right to the CFR to see what the deal is.

You don't find labels like that on just anything.

Focardi has laboratory privileges at a university which has everything Italy requires in the way of radiation controls. The US Federal government does not regulate that lab.

Rossi has been working with Focardi all along IN ITALIA.

63 posted on 02/11/2012 12:01:05 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
Arch criminal? Na, just a guy with a hustle. He gets burned and goes on to the next three card monte game.

Rossi’s sales pitch is the whole of what he is offering. It defines the “e-cat” and it is that sales pitch that has produced the coterie of true believers.

An Italian with or without a visa, who cares? But with a totally “green” energy source? He could be Vlad, the Impaler.

As far as this “investigation” goes you have Rossi and the newspapers, neither of which is trustworthy, but they do agree Rossi was in the slammer.

Flip a coin, there's your “investigation”, unless of course someone with personal knowledge chimes in and they've had plenty of opportunity to do so.

Na, the e-cat is the story and Rossi a prop.

64 posted on 02/11/2012 12:43:33 PM PST by count-your-change (You don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: count-your-change
Arch criminal ~ YES!

When you go back to a guy's criminal record (neglecting to note he was eventually found not guilty) you are, in fact, trying to portray him as an arch criminal.

It's much easier to prove he has business entanglements with people with ties to the Obama Energy Department ~

If you want to talk about opportunities for crime, there you have it. Your approach is rather like complaining about somebody's failure to complete a stop at an intersection while overlooking the fact he's been burning down houses on his way out of town.

65 posted on 02/11/2012 12:57:16 PM PST by muawiyah
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66 posted on 02/11/2012 1:00:11 PM PST by TheOldLady (FReepmail me to get ON or OFF the ZOT LIGHTNING ping list)
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To: muawiyah
In previous Rossi threads, I've actually discussed his (fake) degree from U of Milan, with links to various supporting evidence, at some length.

Here's the link to the supposed letter supposedly confirming the supposed degree.

You tell me why:

Unfortunately, since knowing French and Spanish don't give me a good feel for Italian, I can't really translate the name of the degree. But, I can run it through a machine translator, and I have seen an Italian comment about it in a forum. As far as I can tell, "Dottore Magistrale in Filosofia" translates as "Master's Degree in Philosophy." Another glaring discrepancy is within the text of the letter itself (which my Spanish and French *do* allow me to understand): it says that the degree was awarded with a vote of 100 out of 100--but that's meaningless. If you read up on the Italian university system, you see that a jury of (IIRC) three faculty vote on whether a student has completed graduation requirements for the advanced degrees. So, what are the 100 votes? There is also an entrance exam to get into advanced degree programs; I believe it is graded on a scale of 100, but NO student ever seems to get above about 70 on it (the university publically posts scores). So, Rossi looked at various university procedural documents, put something together that sounded good (wow, 100 out of 100 votes is really impressive!), and passed it off as evidence that he attended university?

One impression I get from everything I have read about Rossi is that he's a gifted con man, but he's not really all that intelligent. He completely misses the details that would make his scam look genuine (for instance, having the font size consistent throughout the supposed degree letter). Well... maybe he deliberately leaves obvious discrepancies, because it gives him some kind of thrill to make his scam so obvious and still hoodwink people.

67 posted on 02/11/2012 1:39:20 PM PST by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: muawiyah
When you go back to a guy's criminal record (neglecting to note he was eventually found not guilty) you are, in fact, trying to portray him as an arch criminal.
First of all, not an "arch criminal". Just a typical con man.

Second of all, why do you continue to perpetrate Rossi's lies about his criminal record? He was acquitted of the "toxic waste" charges from Dragon Petrol, there were a number of other, unrelated fraud charges for which he was not acquitted. In particular, his 8-year conviction in 2000 for bankruptcy fraud was never overturned.

68 posted on 02/11/2012 1:45:17 PM PST by Johnny B.
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To: muawiyah
Rossi has been working with Focardi all along IN ITALIA.
Actually, they don't appear to have been working all that closely.

In THIS interview, Focardi (using Rossi as a translator) says that his involvement was with "safety" issues, such as calculating how much shielding it would need (7:45). Rossi adds that Focardi "doesn't know how the reactor is built." (11:00)

69 posted on 02/11/2012 1:58:01 PM PST by Johnny B.
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To: exDemMom
The "letter" is the way it's done (at that time anyway). This dude isn't a little kid, and the Italian university system has been adjusted a bit to meet EU standards. You have to go back to the time when he got the degree to figure it out. What the requirements are today probably weren't the requirements then.

A question for you, though ~ why do some schools still issue Quarter Hours? Do you know how nutso that is? We went through this several times right down to using google translate and pulling up all the alternatives.

There are articles on the net about university degree titles in Italy that conform to what you see in any of the documents Rossi has displayed.

Give you a clue about "Master" when it comes to degree titles, I have one that says I am a Master Planner. It was issued by a well known School of Architecture in Virginia. The credit hour requirement is about double that of a Masters issued by the College of Arts and Sciences. Add in the project work and it's just this side of the sort of degree of difficulty you expect for a doctorate in many other fields.

You can't take A&S standards in the US and lay them down as a hard and fast guide for Engineering, Architecture, or Religion (the other traditional medieval fields of study).

In Italy it's worse because they invented a lot of this stuff centuries ago and then changed it.

For most of their degrees issued 35 years ago you'd ask for a letter of verification ~ rather like asking for a copy of a transcript here.

Now, your questions:

You tell me why: There are changes in font size throughout the letter.

Well, it's typed/printed on a letter head, so that gives you two different fonts right off the bat. The font selected looks like a proportional spaced Helvetica ~ which matches the letterhead font (but not exactly the same).

A non-right justified letter has variable spacing.

You are looking for a QUAD LEFT/QUAD RIGHT situation typically found in advertising or newspaper columns ~ where you have both proportional spacing and right and left justification. Variable spacing is commonly found in that sort of setup. I don't see anything unusual about that other than it can look tacky if you're used to the sort of columns you find in magazines and newspapers.

The date format changes throughout the letter.

The date following "Milano" spells out the month. This document was passed on to someone to sign who preferred to do it that way. It got dated in his office. Then he signed it. The other two dates were done at the same time albeit in slightly different size ~ and that may be an artifact of the scanner used to copy Rossi's original.

And why Rossi doesn't actually have a certificate of graduation instead of a fishy letter to show off.

Now, for the last question ~ the university would need to answer that. My brother and his wife didn't get their certificate of graduation (diploma) from Indiana University since their ceremony was bumped off the schedule by Communist sponsored antiwar riots. They got them more than 20 years later ~ and were still POd at the rioters.

If you know anybody who knows anyone who interfered in that graduation I know they would pay good money to watch that person skinned alive.

70 posted on 02/11/2012 2:09:40 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Johnny B.
Did you realize you had your answer right there ~ Focardi computed shielding needed for the type of radiation to be encountered.

Your question started with radiation as the issue ~ so it was. That's what Focardi does.

NOTE There are other articles on the net about Focardi. He's been involved in LENR a long time.

Don't give us mysteries to solve where you already know the answers.

71 posted on 02/11/2012 2:12:36 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Johnny B.

We’ve all gone over that before ~ show us the URL.


72 posted on 02/11/2012 2:13:59 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Johnny B.
Just a clue for you ~ the legal counsel for AARP would be more like a "real con man" than just about anyone you'd ever meet. Marian Wright Edelman, at the Children's Defense Fund is one of the worst I ever encountered. Then there's former Governor Spitzer and his wife ~ those two had a deal going. All those charities he was beating up on had been in competition with charities his wife favored. That's how he kept in her good graces (while he was consorting with his ladies of the night).

Those are conmen ~ Rossi isn't anywhere in their league.

73 posted on 02/11/2012 2:26:34 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
We’ve all gone over that before ~ show us the URL.
Yes, we've gone over it before. You refuse to read and comprehend the information.

THIS article from 2004 (original Italian HERE) states:

Rossi was finally sanctioned only for minor events related to non-compliance that had obtained permission for the disposal of waste.
It then goes on to say:
On appeal, the process still hangs for bankruptcy due to the collapse of Omar, the company that took over from Dragon Petrol refinery Lacchiarella in which the waste had to be distilled: for this process, in 2000 Andrea Smith was convicted by the summary Gup Milan to eight years in prison.
He was convicted on bankruptcy charges in 2000 and sentenced to 8 years in prison. In 2004, he was acquitted on the Dragon Petrol charges, but the 8-year conviction was still in place.

You have made a lot of unsubstantiated claims supporting Rossi, without ever showing your sources (assuming you aren't just making things up). Now it's your turn. Show us the URL of any actual evidence in support of your claims.

(P.S. Isn't it about time for you to try to drag the North Koreans into the discussion, as you have so many times in the past?)

74 posted on 02/11/2012 2:40:31 PM PST by Johnny B.
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To: muawiyah

I never heard about the house burnng. When did that happen?


75 posted on 02/11/2012 2:44:16 PM PST by count-your-change (You don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: muawiyah

“Rossi has been working with Focardi all along IN ITALIA”

Which is why the criminal has registered offices in Miami Beach, Forlida??? Yeah, right.

“ITALIA”

Except the country is “Italy”, not “Italia”. If you knew what “Italia” meant you wouldn’t have used it.


76 posted on 02/11/2012 3:05:32 PM PST by CodeToad (NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!!!)
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To: muawiyah
Hey, I think the Knox girl was innocent ~ the Italian press didn't and they still don't.
Wow! What a silly argument.

None of the statements I've culled from the newspapers had anything to do with anyone's opinion about anything.

I'm not aware that any Italian newspapers who lied about whether the trial ended in a conviction or not. They didn't lie about the length of any prison sentence.

Those are the types of facts they reported about Rossi, and those were the the types of facts I collected here.

77 posted on 02/11/2012 3:41:30 PM PST by Johnny B.
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To: muawiyah
The "letter" is the way it's done (at that time anyway). This dude isn't a little kid, and the Italian university system has been adjusted a bit to meet EU standards. You have to go back to the time when he got the degree to figure it out. What the requirements are today probably weren't the requirements then.

A question for you, though ~ why do some schools still issue Quarter Hours? Do you know how nutso that is? We went through this several times right down to using google translate and pulling up all the alternatives.

That "letter" was printed almost exactly a year ago. Regardless of how things were done on his supposed graduation date in 1975, I expect the letter format to match that of a modern computer generated letter. I also would expect a graduation certificate--I'm fairly certain those have ALWAYS been issued upon graduation.

I fail to see the relevance of U.S. university semester/quarter differences in a discussion of Italian universities.

There are articles on the net about university degree titles in Italy that conform to what you see in any of the documents Rossi has displayed.

Give you a clue about "Master" when it comes to degree titles, I have one that says I am a Master Planner. It was issued by a well known School of Architecture in Virginia. The credit hour requirement is about double that of a Masters issued by the College of Arts and Sciences. Add in the project work and it's just this side of the sort of degree of difficulty you expect for a doctorate in many other fields.

I've read many of those articles, and they pretty much confirm: a Master's degree in Italy is still a Master's degree. Hmm.

From my experience getting a Ph.D., I have NEVER seen a Master's program where the work was as rigorous as that of a Doctoral program. Furthermore, Rossi's alleged Master's degree isn't even in a science--it's in philosophy. There is no way I would consider a master's in philosophy as even remotely resembling a doctorate in physics. And that's the kind of degree Rossi would have to have if he had genuinely done the kind of research he would have us believe he had done to develop the eCat.

You can't take A&S standards in the US and lay them down as a hard and fast guide for Engineering, Architecture, or Religion (the other traditional medieval fields of study).

In Italy it's worse because they invented a lot of this stuff centuries ago and then changed it.

For most of their degrees issued 35 years ago you'd ask for a letter of verification ~ rather like asking for a copy of a transcript here.

Physics 35 years ago was still physics. The principles of engineering may have been refined since then, but the basic techniques probably haven't changed much at all. As for philosophy--it was all existentialist mumbo-jumbo 35 years ago, and it remains existentialist mumbo-jumbo today. Amazing. Even if all Rossi wanted to show is a letter of verification (and not a certificate or transcript), that letter *still* has too many discrepancies to be taken as genuine.

Now, your questions:

You tell me why: There are changes in font size throughout the letter.

Well, it's typed/printed on a letter head, so that gives you two different fonts right off the bat. The font selected looks like a proportional spaced Helvetica ~ which matches the letterhead font (but not exactly the same).

Look carefully at the letter. I'm not referring to the letter-head, which may have been pre-printed, or may have been supplied as an image that the person generating the letter would have pasted at the top of their document. Specifically, look at the body of the letter, where it changes from a 10 point font to a 12 point font about 1/3 of the way into the second line. There really isn't a reason for that (unless, as I suspect, lines were cut and pasted from two or three different letters, à la Photoshop).

A non-right justified letter has variable spacing.

You are looking for a QUAD LEFT/QUAD RIGHT situation typically found in advertising or newspaper columns ~ where you have both proportional spacing and right and left justification. Variable spacing is commonly found in that sort of setup. I don't see anything unusual about that other than it can look tacky if you're used to the sort of columns you find in magazines and newspapers.

I expect variable spacing when a document is right justified. I expect single spacing when a document is NOT right justified. What I'm seeing in that letter is a document that is NOT right justified, but has variable spacing. That makes no sense.

The date format changes throughout the letter.

The date following "Milano" spells out the month. This document was passed on to someone to sign who preferred to do it that way. It got dated in his office. Then he signed it. The other two dates were done at the same time albeit in slightly different size ~ and that may be an artifact of the scanner used to copy Rossi's original.

Nice try, but no. Since the entire letter was generated on 14 February 2011, the dates should be consistent throughout. The person signing it would have received it already dated. There is no scanned copy of a letter from 1975. Had that been a copy of an actual 1975 document, I'd expect the background to have the little black spots and so forth that are present on copies. Also, on a copy, the person signing the letter would have probably stamped a signature block, then signed it. The only stamp on that letter is the blue university seal below the text.

I'll add here that I tried to verify that Filomena Cicora is the U of Milan humanities office secretary; unfortunately, I could not find that information. The university does not list administrative staff names where the public can access them.

And why Rossi doesn't actually have a certificate of graduation instead of a fishy letter to show off.

Now, for the last question ~ the university would need to answer that. My brother and his wife didn't get their certificate of graduation (diploma) from Indiana University since their ceremony was bumped off the schedule by Communist sponsored antiwar riots. They got them more than 20 years later ~ and were still POd at the rioters.

The simple answer here is that Rossi never got one because he never actually graduated from U of Milan (or any other university). Had he graduated (from anywhere), he'd treat that certificate just like all university graduates do: it would be framed and protected as a prize possession. He'd show *it* off instead of a bogus letter. Heck, he doesn't even show off his diploma mill certificate--could it be that he didn't even manage to get a diploma mill degree, either?

I notice you didn't come up with an explanation of my other criticism: that Rossi seems to be using the score of an entrance exam as the vote of a jury convened to decide if students have met graduation requirements.

If you know anybody who knows anyone who interfered in that graduation I know they would pay good money to watch that person skinned alive.

No, sorry, I don't know anyone in Indiana.

78 posted on 02/11/2012 3:42:05 PM PST by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: count-your-change
I never heard about the house burnng. When did that happen?
Maybe he was referring to Rossi's New Hampshire factory, which conveniently burned down when he was unable to get the Thermoelectric converter he promised the Army to work.

That was just before he took a brief vacation back to Italy, where he was arrested as a fugitive, and sentenced to 8 years in prison for a bankruptcy fraud conviction.

79 posted on 02/11/2012 3:43:57 PM PST by Johnny B.
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To: exDemMom
The 10 to 12, and back to 10 point change is about what one of those small scanners that tracks a bar across a document would give you.

Typically you'd do that to capture the text, not to capture the image. Then you'd convert the text to something more readable for later printing.

There's nothing at all unusual about what you are seeing in that scanned image ~

80 posted on 02/11/2012 3:47:48 PM PST by muawiyah
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