How to promote your invention on the web in a few easy steps

This text describes the pattern I have observed in several cases of scientific hoaxes. The Web has become enormous and people are literally drowning in information. In this chaotic bombardment, sometimes it is hard to separate scams from real science. So, discerning a suspicious pattern may help you to judge. I am not explicitly naming any specific scam here, mainly to avoid giving scammers a resonance they don't deserve. However, if you follow subjects such as free energy, cold fusion, miracle cures, instant-riches financial schemes, and the like, you'll have no problems in linking this text to real life examples.


Step 1. Identify a suitable scientific field. You know that science can do a lot of things but, so far, it has not been able to cure cancer, produce free energy, predict earthquakes, make everyone rich, and things like that. It is here that frustration is building up with the public and it is here that you'll find your chance. You must plan your invention as something that will solve one (or even more than one!) of these great problems.

Step 2. Prepare your invention in such a way that it will look as close as possible to the way the public perceives science. If it is a device, it will have wires and pipes attached. If it is a cure of something, it will be operated by people wearing a white lab coats. If it is software or a financial scheme, it will be embedded in a slick web site. You don't need to be a scientist or an engineer to do that, but if you look like one, it will help a lot. Also, buying a title from a diploma factory may turn out to be a wise investment.

Step 3. Go public on the web, and do that with a bang. That's a step which will cost you some money because you'll have to hire PR professionals to promote your site, your press releases, as well as your person. But it is money well spent. The PR firm will advise you on how to promote your invention on the web using SEO (search engine optimization). They will tell you how to create fake "spontaneous" web sites discussing your invention. They will also tell you that you shouldn't shy away from the most farfetched claims you can think of: cancer cures, rejuvenation, space travel, energy at zero cost; these are just examples. The more outlandish your claims will be, the more likely it is that they will spread.

Step 4. Find your testimonials. Journalists are your primary objective. They are always desperately seeking for news to publish and it takes very little to get them to play to your tune: best of all is to invite them to a demonstration, paying their expenses and offering them dinner. Some of them will remain skeptical, but they will speak of your invention and that's what counts. You may even be able to co-opt university professors and other professionals as testimonials to promote your invention. Many of them are strapped for cash and desperately in search of notoriety. Then, of course, if your invention has something to do with medicine, you'll line up patients extolling the merits of your miracle cure. Here, you'll find that the "placebo effect" works wonders in your favor and it will be easy to find people who will genuinely believe to have been cured by you and who will declare that in public at no cost for you. Finally, if you hint that your invention has been sponsored by the CIA, the FBI or whatever shady agency you can tell of, that will help and it doesn't need to have any factual basis: it is a question of secrecy, you know?

Step 5. Manage the reaction. Now a good number of serious professionals in the field you have chosen, will feel that it is their duty to demonstrate that your invention cannot work and they will endeavor to explain why. They are playing in your hands: journalists and bloggers love controversy and the debate will make the interest in your invention skyrocket. At this point, you'll use the criticism you received as proof that you are the victim of a conspiracy from the powers that be who are attempting to deny to humankind the benefits of your invention. You'll react to all criticism you receive assuming that it is generated by personal hate against you and by the vilest of venal motives and that, of course, justifies your reaction against them. Threats of lawsuits turn out to be very effective in intimidating your critics. But it is cheaper and more effective to use personal insult and threats. Have no fear! What can you lose? Do you really think that university professors will sue you because you said that they are incompetent idiots?

Step 6. Create your group of faithful followers. At this point, your action should have generated so much interest that a group of people sufficiently deluded and desperate will have been turned into true believers. Some of them will be so faithful that they will create web sites, mailing lists, discussion forums and more.  They will be doing for free the job you have been paying professionals to do, so far and that will include the work of insulting and denigrating your critics. Isn't that great?

Step 7. Proceed to reap the monetary benefits of your invention. At this stage,  many of your critics will have been intimidated or simply will have lost interest in the whole story. Now you look like the winner of the debate and you can sell your patent, or maybe you'll sell licenses or maybe you'll have plenty of patients for your miracle cure; whatever. You only have to avoid making any verifiable claim about your invention (you may hint it is because of the need of secrecy) and make sure that it doesn't actually harm people. If you are careful enough, that will make it extremely unlikely that anyone will sue you to get their money back, later on. Besides, nobody wants to let the whole world know that they have been conned by you. 

Step 8. Repeat. Despite the great brouhaha generated by your action of promotion, you'll discover that, if you let some years pass, the public will have completely forgotten about you and your invention. So, you can restart with a different invention or with the same one, just with minor modifications. Go back to step 1.

Let's pray for rain!

The sign says "Let's pray for rain" and is taped to the door of the entrance of the sanctuary of Madonna del Sasso (Our Lady of the Rock), not far from Florence, Italy.

The drought in Italy is so bad that we can only pray for some rain, which doesn't seem to be coming, anyway. As an example of how bad it is, I had never seen figs drying on their branch, but this year it is happening. Look:

More pictures of the drought in the countryside can be found at this link.

Now, why this terrible (I'd say "Biblic") drought? Well, it is an ongoing phenomenon, clearly related to climate change. Look at this image from NOAA (source).

Look at the Mediterranean Region: it is predicted to be the most affected by drought in the whole world. So, what we are seeing today is just a prelude of something much worse that could develop in the coming years and decades.

Now we are reduced to pray for rain and hope that the Good Lord will perform a miracle for us. But we cannot say we hadn't been warned.

The King's Mountain

The southern side of the Mugnone Valley, in Tuscany. The narrow passage that you see between the two hills in the background marks the road to the central plains of Italy, toward Rome. It is here that, in 406 A.D., the Roman Army stopped the invading Goths in a memorable battle that lasted a few days. On Aug 23 of that year,  Radagaisus, King of the Goths, was captured and executed on the hill that today takes the name of MonteReggi ("Mons Regis", the King's Mountain)

If you visit the Mugnone Valley, near the city of Fiesole, in Italy, you'll see a quiet place, mainly inhabited by people who commute everyday to Florence, just a few km away. But you may also note how the hills at the southern side of the valley mark the last natural obstacle for those who follow the road that goes through the Appennino mountains and leads to the central plains of Italy. Those hills have played the role of a line of defense more than once in history. Today, August 23rd, is the anniversary of the final act of the "battle of Faesulae" that raged there for a few days in the year 406 A.D. and that saw the attempt of the Goths to reach Rome stopped by a Roman Army.

In those years, Rome was entering what was to be the last century of the Western Roman Empire. The Roman society was experiencing a new phase of decline and collapse that led, among other things, to the loss of the fortifications that had protected the Empire's territory for centuries. Then, the peoples of the Eastern Regions, whom the Romans called "Barbarians," found that the road to to the Empire's territories was open for them. Entire populations moved onward and, in 406 A.D. the Goths, led by their King, Radagaisus, were marching South with the objective of conquering Rome.

The task of stopping the Goths fell on Flavius Stilicho, magister militum of the armies of the West and himself of Barbarian origin. He was acting on behalf of Emperor Honorius who, in the meantime, did nothing but hiding in Ravenna, protected by the marshes surrounding the city. In Gibbon's words (chapter 30 of "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire")

..... such was the feeble and exhausted state of the empire, that it was impossible to restore the fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous effort, the invasion of the Germans. The hopes of the vigilant minister of Honorius were confined to the defence of Italy. He once more abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed the new levies, which were rigorously exacted, and pusillanimously eluded; employed the most efficacious means to arrest, or allure, the deserters; and offered the gift of freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who would enlist

We don't have many details on how exactly the battle went, but it seems that the Goths first besieged Florence, then were forced to retreat and finally were trapped in the Mugnone valley; blocked by the fortifications built around the city of Faesulae.  Gibbon tells us (chapter 30) that:

Conscious that he (Stilicho) commanded the last army of the republic, his prudence would not expose it, in the open field, to the headstrong fury of the Germans. The method of surrounding the enemy with strong lines of circumvallation, which he had twice employed against the Gothic king, was repeated on a larger scale, and with more considerable effect.

Surrounded, the Goths had no escape. The Romans and their Hunnic allies had turned the valley into a killing zone. After a few days of battle, they surrendered in great numbers, so many that the slave market is said to have collapsed for a brief period. King Radagaisus himself was captured and beheaded, putting an end forever to his attempt of conquering Rome.

That was not to be the last time that the Romans could defeat an army of invading barbarians. But each victory left Rome a little weaker and closer to the final collapse. The battle of Faesulae was not an exception: it was a great victory that brought nothing but disaster to the Romans. Just two years later, in 408 A.D., almost on the same date when Radagaisus had been executed (Aug 22), Stilicho was betrayed, captured and beheaded in Ravenna at the orders of Emperor Honorius. Being a general is always a dangerous job but, apparently, being a successful general is even more dangerous if you have to deal with a suspicious and tyrannical Emperor. Without Stilicho, the Roman army melted away, leaving Italy defenseless. A couple of years later, in 410 A.D., Rome was to fall to another Gothic King, Alaric. Rome survived this event, but it was another step along the way that would lead the Western Empire to its final demise with the last decades of the 5th century A.D.

Of those remote times, little more than a few lines in history books remain. But, in the Mugnone Valley, you can still find a hill that takes the name of Montereggi, from the Latin "Mons Regis", the King's Mountain. It is the place where, it is said, King Radagaisus was beheaded. We can still walk there and find a small Christian church surrounded by cypress trees. There is also a pile of stones with a sign that says "Ave crux, spes nostra" (Hail, cross, our hope). We have no reason to believe that it was the exact point where the king was beheaded, but surely it is a suggestive place. 

Perhaps another echo of this ancient battle is the old legend that has that in the early times of the city of Florence, a king named "Fiorino" defended the city from the Etruscans of Faesulae and was killed in battle. It is said that the blood of king Fiorino turned red the irises flowering in the fields and that was the origin of the symbol of Florence, the red fleur de lys.

It is just a legend and surely no king with that name ever ruled Florence. But the links with the historical fate of King Radagaisus are evident and the legend might well be a garbled rendition of the ancient battle of Faesulae. After all, many of the defeated Goths must have remained in the area around the valley, either as slaves or fugitives. A little of their blood may well still be with us, today.



Image of Montereggi taken on Aug 22nd 2012, showing also your modest author, Ugo Bardi. More pictures of the city of Fiesole can be found at my blog "Foto di Fiesole"

For more information about the tumultuous 5th century and the characters of the time, you can give a look at my article on Empress Galla Placidia "Chemistry of an Empire"

Post-peak woodwork

The modest me admiring a wooden shack in the village of Valboncione, Italy. I already placed on line a picture of the village and of some of the local dwellers.

Building things by yourself, especially with leftover material, has this air of post-peak self-reliance. But, often, that supposes the existence of industrially made products. When you need wood, for instance, you can get planks or beams from a store or, more in a post-peak style, you use material taken from discarded furniture. But in both cases, the wood you use has been industrially processed.

Suppose, instead, that you live in a remote village in the mountains, a place like  Valboncione, in Italy. Up to not so long ago, clearly, they didn't have access to industrially processed wood. Still, they needed to build shacks and they managed to do that with what they had. The results are remarkable, in a sense, although not exactly the kind of place where you can find shelter from a gust of cold wind!

There are several of these shacks in the village; all built in the same way and none can be older than a few decades - they couldn't possibly have lasted more than that. They way they were made is amazing: look at how all sorts of beams and planks have been joined together. It looks like all the elements in wood were made by hand, one by one.

And look at how the hinges for one of the doors were made:

If this is not post-peak, what is?

Old ladies of the Appennino Mountains

Two old ladies having a relaxed time in the small town of Valboncione, in the Appennino mountains, in Italy. Both are in their 80s and very friendly towards foreigners (like me) visiting their village.

They told me that they live there year-round but that, in winter, the whole village has only 4 inhabitants! When I asked them if they have Internet in the village, they said that they had heard of it, but that they had no idea of what it was. They seem to be perfectly prepared for the post-peak world!

Here are a couple of pictures from the Web, just to give you some idea of what kind of place Valboncione is

above: from scmlink.it

Above from http://www.capresemichelangelo.net/storia/

You can find pictures of other old ladies of the Appennino on Cassandra's legacy at this link.  

Very nice pictures and stories of travels in Italy in August can be found in the blog "Italian Slow Walks" by "SantaTatiana"

46 bats in the bat box

When my friend Filippo told me that he had 46 bats in his bat box; I didn't want to believe it. Well, I went there and I counted them as they came out of the box. Unbelievable, but true. I couldn't arrive to 46, but surely there are more than 40 bats in there. 

It is a great satisfaction, because that bat box I made with my hands and wood from discarded furniture.

Above, you can see one of the bats, as well as the bat box on the right. It has been difficult to take a picture; the little beasts move fast and they appear only in near darkness. But I managed to catch one. You can see it enlarged below. It is a real bat!

 

So, despite pollution, degradation and urbanization, the ecosystem still manages to regain its spaces when there is a chance. 

This post is translated and adapted from my blog "Images of Fiesole"

The future on the back of a paper mat

Photo courtesy of Pietro Cambi.


A glass of wine and the back of a paper mat with the schemes of a circuit for a new BMS (battery management system). A few days ago, in Italy, a small group of people met in a restaurant to discuss how to develop new technologies for renewables and electric mobility. There is still hope of a transition to a sustainable world.