Never understood how birds are the only remaining dinosaurs... wonder what made dinos so vulnerable to this event, where many other large species (crocs, turtles, fish, etc) survive to this day. One might think that some small dinosaurs, or aquatic/marine species would have found a niche on some continent. Population bottleneck, I guess. Imagine if no dinosaurs at all had survived... maybe we'd have a lot more large insects and bats species filling the skies.

This. Nuclear has its risks, but they are relatively localized. The impending doom of AGM should be pushing us towards nuclear. But... paranoia.

That's what IH is doing now. They don't care if you, or anyone, believes them. When you see this in the 6-o'clock news, it won't be that scientists celebrate that they've reproduced Rossi's results. It will be a blue-chip client disclosing that they've been using the device successfully for several months or more. Or that one of the things has blown up because accepted theory for LENR is still lacking.

And/or medium-sized drones carrying Velveeta and beer!

So we have an eco-friendly design to be built on illustrated beachfront that will likely be eroded into nothingness within the next couple decades. All the resources placed into its construction will be utterly wasted. Not very eco-friendly.

Take your argument to its logical conclusion... $200 -> $15 -> 1 cent. How about lowering the price to the cost of an aspirin. Which would likely be the actual per-dose cost of many addictive substances, absent prohibition. Or take alcohol - widespread addiction/abuse, but very few people robbing the Walgreens for a dose of MD 20/20.

I would pick a Ford over either in terms of reliability, cost of ownership, and value. Well, perhaps give Mercedes the edge on reliability. However, I do agree it's sad that America lacks industrial capacity in the areas mentioned. Probably has something to do with complete lack of industrial policy (other than prison industrial complex and defense industrial complex).

That's cool that you are attending tech social events and such. But ultimately "you're doing it wrong" (or they are). OMG we can't get someone with 5 years mongodb experience at $140K. Rather than attending more events, the effective approach is likely to try advertising the position at 1.25X the compensation level every few months. It works. Someone *will* leave their current position for something better. But not at like 5 or 10 % more because they like you. That being said, perhaps just wait a few months. The pendulum will swing the other way, and desperation will happen eventually. It's been a long, happy run, and I fear that the economy may cycle down prior to our reaching astronomical IT consulting fees seen circa 2000. Adjusted for inflation we're not even close.

Computer Shopper! I remember it well.

Good luck with that. If anyone ever succeeds in LENR, the only convincing evidence will be a working industrial plant. Nobody in their right mind would release sufficient details to fully replicate before that... this would be a world-changing discovery of incalculable value. Trade secret at all costs.

Have you read the report? Power input was monitored. At this stage, either this is the most elaborate scientific/engineering hoax in history, or he's stumbled upon something novel. It happens. Unfortunately, the exact inner workings (fuel composition, ...) are being protected as a trade secret.

A shock would be better. Negative reinforcement. Think doggie training collar.

Approaching this empirically, with a couple of 50-year intervals:
1912-1962 general relativity, discovery of DNA, yada yada
1963-2013 quantum chromodynamics, I grant you that... and supersymmetry or some such shit, various biotech engineering feats working out the details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries#20th_century
There does seem to be a trend towards application of established theories (essentially an engineering exercise) as opposed to new fundamental discoveries.

Wow, just wow. Judge much? So every 35+ member of society should be "making executive decisions", and is otherwise a child in your absurd metaphor? Go back to reading Rand.