Conning investors is quite different from making an actual go at a business. What is the difference? The difference is that when you invite investors to inves

Conning investors is quite different from making an actual go at a business. What is the difference? The difference is that when you invite investors to invest in your new location-based social network for morticians and coroners (or whatever the fsck), you are making an actual go at a business. Whereas when you invite investors to invest in your new programming language, you are conning investors. Conning the government means making flagrantly bogus and absurd claims in your grant applications. Please bear in mind that all your competitors will be doing this. If you don't intend to play by the same rules, you need some other way of stabbing your competitors in the back before the finish line. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I am descended from a long line of Beltway bandits. I recognize the patterns and practices of the tribe at once. Indeed I recognized it in my first week at Berkeley, when they sat us down and gave us the basic lecture on what it means to have a career in "science" today. I believe the numbers given were that half of us first-year grad students would finish, half of those would find teaching jobs, and those who found teaching jobs would be dividing their time three ways: 1/3 teaching, 1/3 research, 1/3 grantwriting. I found this broadly credible and still do. So, that's only 1/3 of your day spent as a professional liar (and/or backstabber). You might as well try to spend only 1/3 of your day as a professional crackhead, whore, etc. But hey, it's worth a try. As for trolling - absolutely! Laugh while you can, monkey-boy...