I didn't see anything in the article to suggest that the reactor has actually successfully produced a fusion reaction. I'm not talking about net power gain. I mean I didn't read anything to suggest that they've even induced fusion in the reactor at all. The off the shelf permanent magnets don't seem to have enough power to actually confine plasma to fusion temperatures. I'm pretty sure the only thing this "reactor" has done is show that the magnetic field they've generated is actually consistent with with their mathematical models, meaning it's not actually a reactor at all as there is no reaction taking place inside it.

The reason electromagnets, usually superconducting magnets, are used in fusion devices is that permanent magnets simply can't generate enough Teslas of magnetic flux to confine a plasma of fusion temperatures. Proving that you can make a quasisymetrical field with permanent magnets for a fusion reactor is pointless if you can't make permanent magnets with enough strength to hit net energy gain in a fusion reaction. This is maybe an interesting theoretical paper and a good thesis project for some grad students or post-docs, but it's not really advancing fusion power research.

"Startup" is tech industry speak for "hasn't had a profitable quarter or an IPO, yet."

Whatever he announces, there will not actually be a robotaxi that follows.

FMRI is much lower resolution, both spatially and temporally. You can't detect fine structural damage in the brain with it. CTE, for example, doesn't show up under FMRI. In fact, you'd need NMRI or a PET scan to have any hope of detecting anomalous structures at all, let alone make a diagnosis. For most such fine structural damage, the only way to make a diagnosis is by post mortem biopsy of the brain tissue.

Because decriminalization isn't the same thing as legalization.

Three points to show this company is just an elaborate scam.

1) Helium-3 isn't common on the Moon. It's more common there than on Earth, but there's still not actually a lot of it.

2) Helium-3 on the Moon isn't concentrated. There are no veins of it or areas of greater concentration. Which means you have to do massive strip mining to get enough of the stuff to be worthwhile. The concentration of He-3 is 3) Helium-3 isn't useful for any industrial process. It's useful scientifically, but for the amounts needed for research it's cheaper and easier to simply transmute deuterium into tritium and then age the tritium in containers to produce He-3 than it is to mine He-3 from the Moon.

The point of mining He-3 from the Moon is supposed to be to fuel D-He3 fusion reactors. Those don't exist. D-T fusion happens at much lower temperatures and confinement times than D-He3 fusion and produces more net energy per fusion event. That's why all focus of fusion research on Earth is for D-T fusion. There's no reason to mine He-3 from the Moon when we don't have reactors that can even use it. Hell, breakeven fusion power hasn't even been demonstrated!

No, you'd need a sub-critical fast reactor for that. Basically a fast reactor with an external neutron source. You could use D-T fusion as the neutron source, though.

It's why cities in the 20th C. had higher crime rates than the rural countryside. That's something that wasn't true for most of human history and hasn't been true in the 21st C.

And that's why Reagan got elected. No, I'm not joking. By the 80s, the median voter was born, and thus experienced the earliest stages of brain development, after TEL was popularized as a fuel additive and thus had increased lead exposure rates. Lead exposure during brain development damages executive functioning. It makes people less able to resist instant gratification even when delayed gratification would lead to a greater payoff. It makes abstract reasoning more difficult which means you have a worse theory of mind. You have a harder time imagining the thoughts and feelings of someone of a different socio-economic background than yourself. It also means you can only understand concrete and direct reactions to stimulus rather than abstract but frequently more effective reactions. Meaning, you are primed to believe neo-conservative dogma that started being a major political voting bloc in the late 70s and early 80s. The banning of TEL under the Clean Air Act 40 years ago is currently coinciding with a rather significant demographic shift away from the neocon Republicans. It's why Republicans have won the popular vote only one time in the last 30 years.

Again, you're making assumptions not supported by the text. My logic doesn't have to be perfect to point out your (note the proper possessive spelling) logical fallacies. Mostly owing to the fact of how glaring they are.

Just because your wild and unfounded assumptions about my ideological underpinnings are off the mark doesn't mean I believe in nothing. It just means you're being irrational.

This isn't Uno and you don't have a Reverse card. I gave the simple, technical definition of capitalism. Lots of different systems qualify as capitalism. Just because you're upset that the relatively stable forms of capitalism that tend to persist aren't your preferred form of capitalism doesn't make them any less capitalism.

I made no critique of capitalism. I proffered no policy suggestions. I made no preferences known whatsoever. Though I will point out the irony that your solution to the current state of capitalism was an inherently socialist policy and then you got mad at me pointing out your No True Scotsman diatribe as fallacious thinking and you responded with a strawman and a thinly veiled ad hominen. All I did was point out the logical fallacy underlying your post. If you don't like that, don't get mad at me. Simply think and act in a more rational manner.

That's not capitalism. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production and it's operation for private gain. That the mode capitalist systems tend to settle in isn't your preferred form of capitalism doesn't change the fact that it's still capitalism.

No, it won't. I'm so old I actually ran Linspire back when it was still called Lindows. And way back then they were writing articles just like this. And the numbers haven't really changed. They've just fluctuated a little bit.

I'm not saying a lot of people don't run Linux on their PCs. There are plenty of weird nerds in the world. But they're the same people who bought Zunes and Occuluses and smart watches. They buy tech as a status symbol rather than something to use. And not even cool status symbols! If you wanted that, you'd just buy Apple.

It costs money to build an electric train network. But at the end of it, you have an electric train network. The end of all the money spent on self-driving vehicles is a bunch of bankruptcies, evaporated wealth, and a possible recession. It's your basic AM/FM problem. One of these things is real. The other is simply not.

It reminds me of a joke. A VP is waiting for the elevator. A janitor walks by. A few pleasantries are passed. The VP starts to brag about his new six billion dollar project he's leading. The janitor nods and says, "That's way too much money for that project. I could do it for six million."

The VP scoffs and asks the janitor how he would manage that. The janitor says, "Easy, you pay me six million dollars. I fuck off to a tropical island and drink cocktails on the beach all day. After six months, I come back and tell you it can't be done."

The VP laughs and gets on his elevator. Six months later, he runs into the janitor again.

"I should have just paid you the six million. It would have saved a fortune."

Call me when it hits double digits. Otherwise, it's not even noteworthy.