The best part about perpetual-motion inventor types is that they're often really wordy people.
Today's subject is taking April, May, and part of June to build a "Perpetual Motion Generator." He's got loads of ranty (and markedly racist) sideshow stuff all over the rest of his website, but the real attraction is his 1996-era blog detailing the construction of this Generator, which apparently includes five drill bits stuck through a piece of plywood stuffed into a dismembered bicycle wheel. Get ready for June 20, when he's promised to unveil the ... whatever it is.
Courtesy engadget.
I'm reading the comments on engadget and people just don't seem to get it. Many of these skeptics seem to have this impression that come June 20th everything for Archer Quinn, genius inventor, will come crashing down as he confronts reality and we'll be able to enjoy it popcorn in hand. If only that were the case.
Quinn is a deluded egomaniac and liar. But however much he claims to have "kicked Newton's Ass" there must exist on some level of his consciousness a mechanism that is aware that he is totally full of shit and that works furiously to prevent his the extreme amount of bullshit he generates from ever derailing him. Many techniques must be employed to mask his own bombastic idiocy from himself, but his preferred defense mechanism is the simply the generation of even more bullshit (accounting for his extreme verbosity) which he excretes to confuse his readers, much like the squid excretes ink. This defense mechanism must be exquisite for him to even be able to sustain his life charade. On some level Archer Quinn knows exactly what he's going to do come June 20th: lie, just like he always does. And it's going to be a boring, infuriating lie, not a fun one. And it's likely going to sound like this: his invention was a stunning success -- so successful that Arabs/Asians/Australian Nazi Party power structure is actively threatening him just enough to suppress him from posting the specifics of his now-verified brilliant ideas on the web but not quite enough to stop him from exposing this suppression in egotistical racist rants on his blog.
So if anybody is expecting any admissions of misunderstanding or mea culpas, you will be disappointed. If this guy had any capacity for that, it would already have happened a long time ago.
Lastly, this blog comment could not be complete without dryly noting that "genius" Archer Quinn obtained his name from protagonists of 2nd rate sci-fi shows on UPN.
I totally agree. Whether he's conscious of his own bullshit factor is merely a question of how clever he is.
And even if not, I can absolutely see how his brain could turn him into a raving lunatic. I imagine the inner dialog goes something like this:
I'm not a particularly well-known guy. I'm good with my hands, but I'm just not remarkable. I'm known as a little nutty and I like what little attention that brings. Being completely normal does nothing for me since I would lose what remaining novelty I've got. So if I crank up the paranoia factor and start making ludicrous claims, the worst that will happen is that I'll be a little crazier than before, but I'll have picked up the respect and interest of a whole boatload of bonafide crazies in the process. If it's a choice between King of the Crazies and King of Nothing, sign me up at the looney bin!
Or something like that.
Also, are you sure you've got the right Quinn?
--D
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Archer Quinn appears to easily make more extreme claims than his evidence can justify. It infuriates me when when people 1) are boldface liars or 2) make ludicrous claims were the skeptic has to explain why the 'claim' is false rather than the believer proving the 'claim' is true.
He's there for your amusement. Try to enjoy!
Get yer tickets, June 20, 2008 Archer Quinn Challenges Newton's Ass! Stay afterwards for the MONSTER TRUCK MASH!
SUNDAY SUNDAY SOMEDAY?