I think there’s a 4th option in BrainGlutton’s original list. Just keep going. Why does the scam have to be to disappear one night with a suitcase full of cash? Why not just keep operating, and every few months put out a new list of excuses for why they can’t get a demonstration working? There’s always some new problem, some “scientist” who is too closed-minded and hard-hearted, some government bureaucrat who can’t see beyond his cubicle wallls. And there’s always a new crop of suckers who have too much money and too little sense, and operations like this correct that imbalance.
I believe the chances of actually finding out anything about the device at that demo are roughly equivalent to the chances that it works as advertised.
Its an important part of the Starwars defense system.
“No, see, the triple parallel plot at the end of Phantom Menace is exactly like the triple parallel plot at the end of Jedi! It’s like an echo, man! And come on, you can’t tell me the pod race wasn’t cool. What? Well, see, the Midichlorians were in it from the beginning! Just because they didn’t say so exactly doesn’t mean they weren’t, y’know, layering in the themes! See, Ben says it’s an energy field that surrounds us and binds the galaxy together. Midichlorians could do that. You have like electricity in you right now. If there were like a billion of you, you could totally make an energy field, and, like, bind. And Jake Lloyd’s performance was supposed to be like that, they did it that way on purpose…”
Okay, yeah, I can see how perpetual motion and bottomless energy sources could come in handy when defending Star Wars…
If I was God, I’d fuck with people like this all the time. Someone would miraculously discover a process that violates all sorts of scientific knowledge, and get excited and go show it to everyone in a grand opening for the whole world to watch.
Then, right before the unveiling, it would just stop working. Haha, sucker.
>some elaborate scheme of getting water back up to the top of a hydroelectric dam
Nice. This didn’t involve weather or the sun, by any chance, did it?
Their offices are not far from here. Maybe I should knock into them and ask them can I have a look at the device.
That’s the principle on which much vaporware in the software industry is still going strong (cough Duke Nukem cough).
Yes, you do that.
May Og have mercy on your soul.
The best joke I’ve heard about Duke Nukem is that NASA has proposed, funded, built, launched, and finished a mission to Mars in the time that DNF has been in development. 
I remember a short story about the diussappearing planet Minerva. Apparently, the almighty removed it for renovations and didn’t want people flipping out while it was gone, so decreed everyone forget about it. Except this one guy…
You can laugh, but I actually read a list of “The Best PC Games of 2007” the other day that included Duke Nukem Forever, and raved about how great it was going to be. This is a game that probably isn’t even being worked on anymore, and people are STILL fooled.
So they’re saying that the magnetic field is mathematically nonconservative. That discovery alone would win them a Nobel Prize, because the magnetic field is universally considered to be conservative.
From reading their other background info., I believe they’re saying that they’ve discovered a discrepancy in the way that magnetic fields behave when they are acted upon at high speeds vs. low speeds. In other words, when you push two repelling magnets (same poles) towards each other, they force each other apart. But they claim to have measured a difference in the energy output of this repulsion based upon whether the magnets are forced together quickly or slowly. The mechanical analogy would be that if you lifted a one-pound weight one foot off the ground in 2 seconds, it would wind up with more potential energy than if you lifted a one-pound weight one foot off the ground in 10 seconds. Clever engineering could then turn this surplus into an ongoing mechanical cycle.
They have said that they found the alleged discrepancy only because of the advanced level of lab equipment (the precision) that is now widely available to small companies such as theirs; 20 years ago, a company like theirs would have dismissed the discrepancy as measurement error. (Which makes me inclined to believe that it is measurement error.)
Where did you find it?
If I were God, I’d have it work, all the way through the discovery and verification and demonstration and commercialisation phases, right up until it was in full production. Then. poof! I pull the plug, and physics changes. 
This site ( http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/ ) has some (not-bias-free) coverage of Steorn, including transcripts of various online chats with the Steorn principals and links to some cellphone-shot YouTube videos of the Steorn CEO giving a recent powerpoint presentation at a university in Dublin.
Elsewhere they have claimed 400% efficiency. Which makes me inclined to believe the whole thing is bullshit.
I think a good question is: do they have a working model right now?
If so, why isn’t it already patented and details published for peer review?
If not, then why do they think they have made such an astonishing breakthrough?