Harris's short C81 summary useful.

Aside from the Maxim jabs, Harris's overview is good.

D: In her blog recently, Melody Maxim made an interesting post entitled "The Truth and Bigger Pictures", and ended it with the following:
"I'm beginning to think there is a bigger picture of corruption here. I just can't figure out the purpose. Do Kent and Faloon really think their money pit at SA, supported by the research at CCR, is going to provide them, personally, with good cryopreservations? I have an extremely hard time believing this. It's not making money, it's not making progress, so what is it all for?"

COMMENT: Well, all this is based on the premise that SA is not making progress. And that they are somehow trying to hide their deficiencies from those who fund them, and that those who fund them have no idea what SA is doing. All of which should pretty much have been disposed of with this last suspension report, which is presented warts and all, as promised. Saul Kent and Bill Faloon know what's in it and they and others have been laboring to correct the errors made. However, as it stands, this last SA case was a good demonstration of a rapid long distance cryonics standby and deployment (9 hours from call to take-off), followed by a good cool down (-30 C, to 6 C, by 4.5 hours after arrest, despite a legally mandated transport to a funeral home), followed by attainment of a vitrifiable concentration of cryoprotectant in both brain hemispheres, in a man who had died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage (major credit here to Cryonics Institute, but let me observe that nobody vitrifies a clotted brain, so that's a team effort). All in all, I've seen much worse performance by organizations in the business for decades, and/or headed by people with decades of cryonics experience.

As compared with an absolute standard, very many cases in cryonics, for one reason or another, have had to cool by simple ice-conduction cooling of the head. This takes a minimum of 8 hours to get to 6 C at the center of the brain, and usually more like 9 or 10 hours. If you calculate "warm-minutes" equivalent times for the two methods (which I'll do and present here in a bit), the factor between active cooling and passive cooling grows even larger.

Finally, in assuming that SA is making no progress, Melody is essentially assuming that all SA progress is written up in reports, which are sent directly to her. I am afraid this is not the case, and I’m mystified in why she should think she is privy to SA progress. In fact, SA has made very substantial progress in a number of areas since Melody was there, and I will be reporting some of it at the Alcor conference in October. Make your reservations now if you want to hear it. Otherwise, please refrain from speculating in ignorance. [+]