THE NOTORIOUS MS ELIZABETH HOLMES: Part 2

A lot more happening in Brazil:

• On Sunday, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva beat Flavio Bolsonaro for the presidency, 51.79% to 48.21%
• Flavio was favored, and the victory of Lula for his fourth presidency, was a shock to the system.
• Flavio, who is a Senator, was immune from prosecution until February when his term will expire.  So he left the country.
• His father, Jair Bolsonaro, also left the country after the loss of his 2022 presidential election. But Jair eventually returned and was given a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup.  He is still serving this sentence, but currently at home because of "health" issues.
• Thus, it's no surprise that Flavio escaped, probably to the USA.  This story is just developing.

• 
  The USA, so far, has been relatively peaceful about the fate of former presidents.  South Korea, for example, has tried and judged guilty 4 out the past 6 presidents.  Going back to Syngman Rhee in 1948, becoming president there has been an adventurous challenge.

Today is a holiday in Israel for their Knesset elections.  Also, public transport is free.  Polls are closing as I type this sentence.  When will we know if Benjamin Netanyahu continues as prime minister?

• Certainly not over the next 24 hours.
• Israelis vote for parties and not candidates.  So who eventually become Knesset members?  Read this.
• No party will win anywhere close to 61 seats, the number to gain a majority in this unicameral legislative body.

• 
  So coalitions will form.
• If no majority can be reached over the next few months, the process begins again with new Knesset elections.
• In the meantime, Netanyahu's government would remain as a caretaker, but no major policy changes can be made.
• So how long will Netanyahu remain as prime minister?  As short as a few days to form a coalition to replace him.  Or for a long time to come.

The life of Elizabeth Holmes began with her life and the formation of Theranos.   Part 2 goes into the unraveling of Theranos, her new family and various films and documentaries that were produced.

• Clearly, she and her company misrepresented the truth, or outright lied.  Watch this video about her secrets.
• At its height in 2015, Theranos had more than 800 employees.

• 
  Early in 2017, she met William "Billy" Evans, who was then 25.  
• She was 34.
• Never actually got married.
• Gave birth to son William in in 2021 and daughter Invicta in 2023.

• Company began dissolving in 2018.
• Also that year, Holmes and Sunny Balwani were indicted of fraud and conspiracy.

• Trial date set for 2021, but the Covid Pandemic delayed the prosecution.
• In 2022, the jury found Holmes guilty on four counts related to defrauding investors.
• Holmes was sentenced to 11.25 years in federal prison, and ordered her and Balwani to pay $452 million in restitution to victims of their fraud.

• 
  A little more than a month before she was to report to jail, she opened their home to Nathan Fielder for the documentary, You Can See Everything.  Three years later in October of 2026, the production was released.
• 
  She was incarcerated at Federal Prison Camp, Bryan, Texas in November 2022, and report to prison on 20May2023.
• She began a campaign for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump in December 2025.
• She was approved to transfer to a halfway house in Austin, Texas on 23August2027.

I identify with Elizabeth Holmes in more than just our being students in the chemical department at Stanford.

• We both have magnificent obsessions.
• Hers is a rather reasonable vision to feature one drop of blood to revolution healthcare.
• Mine are too ahead of the times and rather grandiose.
• In the 70's I worked at the NASA Ames Research Center on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.  Here is a recent posting on my time there.  Helped Carl Sagan gain first funding for SETI.

• 
  Also in the mid 70's I worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion.  Commercial fusion was 50 years in the future then.  Today, I think still 50 years away, although the private sector's entrance into the effort could shorten that period.

• 
  A few years later in 1980, while working in the U.S. Senate I drafted the original hydrogen bill that became law.  I think the Hydrogen Society is also 50 years in the future, although Google AI does not agree with me:

The global transition toward a "hydrogen society" is actively unfolding today rather than standing 50 years away, driven by national decarbonization goals targeting 2050. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

• 
  I even dabbled into Global Peace for Humaniy.  Read my Huffington Post article on The 10% Simple Solution to Peace.
• From as back as 1990 to recently, I had a dream about the Blue Revolution, and led an international quest to develop the program.

• 
  2012:  My talk at the San Francisco Seasteading Conference.
• 2019:  Seasteading podcast.
• 2021:  TEDx talk--The Time for the Blue Revolution is Now.
• In particular, I was searching for $150 million to build an ocean platform to develop this system.
• As governments and companies don't provide funds for this type of effort, I failed at find that enlightened billionaire.

• 
  I was impressed at her ability to gain so much funding.
• I did secure $25 million from the U.S. and Japanese governments to build an open-cycle OTEC facility at the Natural Laboratory of Hawaii Authority on the Big Island
• Another $25 million to test the conversion of bagasse, (sugar cane fiber) into methanol.
• As a university person, we transition a technology into the future, and don't need to commercialize anything.  
• 
  What was lacking in this paradigm was a transition organization to transfer university developments into the marketplace.  I thus had a hand in creating the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research to handle this process.

• 
  If the Blue Revolution had succeeded, that would have placed me in the arena of Elizabeth Holmes.  Maybe I should feel fortunate about failing.  I am not in jail.

To write this two-part posting, I first watched three productions.

• 
  In May 2018, author John Carreyrou released the book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, describing the life of Holmes and the inner workings of Theranos.^[154]   The film was ready to go with Jennifer Lawrence as the lead actress.  However, she dropped out because she thought Amanda Seyfried's Emmy-winning performance was brilliant and didn't need to be redone.

• 
  That was for background, I first began to watch The Dropout, which had premiered on Hulu on 3March2022.  

• 
  Eight episodes.  
• Rotten Tomatoes scores of 90/83.
• Seyfried did such good acting that I began to hate her, the actress.
• Sort of reminds me of Peter Lorre as the serial killer of young children.
• The person, Elizabeth Holmes, seemed "nicer" as a human being.

• 
  In March 18, 2019, HBO premiered the documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, a two-hour documentary film first shown at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2019. It portrays the claims and promises made by Holmes in the last years of Theranos and how ultimately the company was brought down by the weight of many falsehoods. The documentary ends in 2018, with Holmes and Balwani indicted for multiple crimes.  Rotten Tomatoes scores of 78/74.

• 
  On 16October22026, the film You Can See Everything was released.  Long, 2 hours and 54 minutes.
• Rotten Tomatoes, 98/96.
• Thirty-four days before she's sent to prison, Elizabeth Holmes invited a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss.
• So in came Nathan Fielder, co-producer with Lance Oppenheim.
• The first half was okay, featuring Holmes.

• 
  After she left for prison, the second half focused on Billy Evans (Holmes' partner who is with the two children) and Amanda Seyfried.  According to Fielder:  he recruited Seyfried because he needed an actor to reenact real-life interactions with Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, that Fielder and the crew could not legally or practically capture on camera.
• I found the second half to be be confusing, plus utterly boring.  I guess I'm one of the few exceptions.  Or perhaps, I got tired of the subject matter.  Only after reading the Wikipedia version of this film did I better understand what was happening.

I close with the latest on Typhoon In-Fa.  Yesterday, was up to 130 MPH and headed for Japan.  Today, weakened to 120, then went back up to 130 MPH.  The good news for Japan:  not headed there, nor Okinawa, anymore.  The projection now is that there will be a sudden shift in two days towards the ocean space between Taiwan and the Philippines.  However, looks like there will be a weakening.  Still too early to see what will actually happen.

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