But I'd need some suspicion of some type of coverup first. From why I've seen the NIST reports are a perfectly plausible explanation of what happened.
Lee tells us they are not. He laughs at how ridiculous the idea is. He says you don't have to be a genius to see it's wrong. Yet he's totally unable to explain why. He refuses to produce any numbers that disagree with the official story, just claims it's wrong.
That, I find vastly more suspicious.
I've gone all round the houses with you, M, on various elements of the argument here, and neither of us is changing our mind. I don't want to spend ages more chasing tails always just out of reach.
The reason I laugh at some of the explanations is that they are laughable. Such contortions of logic are really not necessary.
Wtc 7 was 'really a building within a building' (what does that mean?), it collapsed internally first, then the 'skin' fell - here look at this computer model - just like that....where the hell is Occam? You forgot to mention that after all that 'internal bit fell first', 'skin' after - it looked exactly like a controlled demolition. It appears obvious to me that the whole deal was done backwards - we saw what we saw - as did everyone else - and then, avoiding the most likely explanation, Nist went on to create a model which fitted what was observed as closely as they could, neglecting to share vital information relating to how they reached their conclusion. In fact, not 'neglecting to share', but proactively denying access to the critical input. Yes, I laugh because it's laughable. And also to make a point: that it's not so difficult to see that something is wrong with the explanation, no need for round the houses arguments, just a bit of nous and a pair of decent eyeballs required.
Were the buildings up to code? Ofcourse they were, they were way beyond the minimum. The only possibility they weren't would be in the actual qualities of the make-up of the structural elements themselves - and I haven't seen anything to suggest that wasn't the case. Builders, architects and engineers simply do not take those kind of chances - and that goes double for such a visible, prestigious construction project as wtc. It's a non-starter.
On simulations:
It would probably take me at least a year of nearly full time work to do. Then all I would have would be a model that people would pick at for the next ten years saying I fudged the numbers somehow.
Well - there's your answer why I wouldn't do it, even if I had the equipment. My design softwear and two design computers would struggle a bit with that. Not to mention the lack of data to input - it would be so much easier if Nist would just release their input figures and then they could be checked to see if they are viable or not.
And you know, the release of performance data of commonly used building materials cannot 'jeopardize public safety'. Like I said before - it's the opposite - if Nist are right then they must release the data so engineers can see what happened and make design adjustments, or the same thing could happen again - if no-one gets to see the reasons, then how can adjustments be made? That really could 'jeopardize public safety'. It's a no-brainer.
You mentioned that maybe people could see where to place bombs, if such data were released. But who needs bombs? Just start a fire. The potential 'bomb placing' argument is just a red herring, it's not a valid reason because if someone were committed enough to go to those lengths, surely they could acquire the target building plans and hire an engineer to point them at the right spot. Moot point, anyway, as all you need is a few fires and it comes straight down a few hours later.