unforum

[Henchman]

Hadn't checked up on this in awhile, Steorn has over 66 thousand registered scientists.. quite a bit more than the 3000 posted above.

I have to say, looking at this for the first time in weeks, I still have the same feeling I had the first time I visited the site. There is absolutely no way this is a legitimate scientific website. Its way too well designed. Way too polished. Polls on the front page? "The Challenge"? "Register now and be the first to recieve the results"? No way. That stuff screams not-scientific. Even having a "have your say" link on the front page is weird. Why such a desire to get people involved and talking about the site. Screams viral to me.

Also, that pie chart pdf posted above is Very interesting. It looks like it was made by a third grader in MS paint... Very different from everything else steorn has put out. I read your post before I looked at the pdf, but having done so, the trains do look a little odd.

I have to disagree about the simple and shiny approach used for top level folks. The website and the economist add are simple and shiny... and much more polished than that pie chart. If you had the choice of between using the designers behind the website/magazine ad or the brains behind the pie chart... its an obvious choice. I would be embarassed to use that graphic. And there is no reason they would have to rush to make something like that. Everyone already knows what free energy could be used for.

Long post, sorry. Last thing: Every time I read any of the major forum topics on steorn.com (or the posts on steornwatch.com for that matter) they seem bogus. Often times the initial topic writer sounds weird, as do the first several replies. Then regular people start writing. Its hard to put my finger on. They are far more gramatically correct than the average web post, they are always very polite, and they are often subtly proding the conversation in a certain direction. Has anyone else noticed this?

[Henchman]

one other thing about that pie chart pdf. Two thing actually. First, Its very pixely, very low resolution. That is almost always a big no-no in graphic design unless you are particularly going for a pixely look. Just looks sloppy here.

And "temporary remote applications?" with a movie camera and a spotlight? What the hell is that?

I just noticed one other thing! (this is driving me crazy) The pictures on some of the pages on steorn.com have changed. I can no longer find the honeycomb which previously got people thinking ilovebees. Some of the others are different too. The downloads page particularly: Three people standing around a big column thing. It looks like a stone room and is definitely a drawing or computer render rather than a photograph. Weird when all the other pages have high-resolution photographs?

[creatureattack]

suspicion grows...

[Rolerbe]

The whole thing certainly seems bogus, but ARG or just bogosity?

One argument against is that its taking too long to set a specific challenge to attack for the 'players'. OTOH, one of the issues facing all ARG's is spending the great (and labor time consuming to create) content before a sufficient player base has been amassed. If this is an ARG, they will have done a pretty good job of letting the buzz build.

[DrBunker]

[creatureattack]

images

[josh809]

hey... i'm new to this board (this is my first post) but i've been following this thread since the begining and i'm very interested.
anyway about the patterns...

it is interesting that they all (or most) are swirls... but this can be attributed by the technology itself which if i understand correctly involves an electron moving in a cirlcle gaining energy. however... they do all seem to have a beach feeling to them... especialy with the water and the hand prints and such... anyone else agree?

[Henchman]

You are right DrBunker, my mistake.

As far as the water/spiral theme, from a graphic design theme, its not too strange. If your company logo is a spiral then it makes good design sense to reference that shape in your imagery. A subtle reminder of your logo. Lots of companies do this.

But of course they aren't all spirals, and the one with the people stands out particularly. First because there are people, which isnt seen in any other images (except the handprints in the sand), Second because its not a high resolution photograph like the others. And maybe as a third point the three people are looking at something in the middle of the image that isnt really clear. Some kind of pillar thing. What does that have to do with anything?

About the changes, the site has been changing over time. Particularly it changed right a lot at the beginning. If you read through all the pages of this post there were things that were found by enterprising individuals that were quickly locked away. April fools day dates, images where mouseovers reveal emails, etc. These things were quickly removed from public view.

There could be two reasons for this. These are legitimate files for a legitimate company, they were removed for perfectly reasonable and understandable privacy reasons.

Second possibility, which I think is more interesting, goes like this: Some of these things appear to have been changed shortly after being posted on this board. That suggests that someone at Steorn is monitoring the ARG community... which is odd for a legit company. Possibly they were removed because they gave too much away too fast? This might also explain why the game hasn't advanced much. Is it possible that people dug too deep too quick and so Steorn shut everything down while they came up with an alternative begining to the game? Of course, the countdown clock for registration was ticking throughout, which argues against this.

Two other thoughts, from looking at the site again. The homepage poll about trusting the panel of 12: 82% say they would trust the panel and only 18% said they wouldnt trust 12 people picked in secret to perform a secret study? I call BS. Its been my experience that the internet is far more skeptical than that. Even their own boards are more skeptical than that.

Lastly, has anyone tried registering in the press section and logging into the press area? Might be interesting...

[Arkaham]

I tried to get a press membership. Wrote them saying I was a journalist on a foreign paper.

No answer. Maybe I was too serious and they took me for a real journalist.

[josh809]

It was interesting...
i thought i'd just stare at the homepage for steorn... and the one thing that popped out at me was the quote by George Bernard Shaw... "All great truths begin as blasphemies." I thought this was somewhat strange and could be a lead so i did a search of quotes for good ol' George
and oddly enough came up with this as one of his quotes.

"When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth."

if it doesn't mean anything it is quite ironic.

anyone know anything about the man and why steorn would choose his quote?

[josh809]

Did some more research found out george was born in dublin ireland...

very interesting.

[creatureattack]

press packs

[creatureattack]

on languages

[Arkaham]

Re: on languages

[GuyIncognito]

Re: on languages