I am beginning to be wary of systemd, but no. I am talking about anal-retentive policy wonks who believe they only make the distribution for themselves and have (perhaps without intending to) systematically marginalized Debiian and made the project a whore to Ubuntu.

There is a certain contingent in Debian that is not good for the project, IMO. I would like to see which side of a fork they are on, and pick tthe other.

I don't often use OSX, but I'm a little mortified that the system font is dictated by the whims of Apple, instead of being selectable by the user. When I install Windows, one of the first things I do is to change the system fonts. In KDE I used to, but now I'm happy with the defaults. But it never occurred to me that there might be a modern OS that doesn't give you this option!

Not all of them are unwilling to respond to such requests, but those who are willing to show everything that is going on usually don't make fantastic claims either. For them, it is just another interesting physics experiment that may show some additional insights as to how the universe is made. Anybody who tells you that it is anything else is likely a fraud or just wrapped up in conspiracy theories.

The only way they are going to go to a patent clerk is with a functioning device... and there is no point for a patent if it doesn't have net energy production or at least produces more neutrons than a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor (which is used BTW for some medical therapy and research purposes where a neutron source is needed).

No, that is what I tell the 6 digit UIDs to do.

Only when reading Slashdot on a Tesla Model S.

Yes, that is possible. So is watching porn videos...not that it would be distracting or anything for the driver.

But you can buy a 100 year old Baker Electric..... with original batteries that still work!

The problem is all of the money that is thrown about with fusion, and the presumed idea that you can use it to figuratively print money with unlimited amounts of energy and (claimed) low capital costs. These are folks who think that the Mr. Fusion device in "Back to the Future" was real and not just some Hollywood prop.

There is a whole bunch of interesting things that could be investigated with cold fusion theories even if it wasn't producing commercially viable levels of energy. Unfortunately, that thirst for the money and inflating numbers or even simply making stuff up to justify their research seems to be the name of the game at the moment.

It is also driven into the hinterlands of science where peer review is discouraged and further taints the topic when total frauds can't be distinguished.

Not all cold fusion people hide from the neutrons. Some of them even claim detected neutrons, at least in small quantities. Those who are more practical about such issues, however, don't claim to have a commercially viable device and only assert it is a passing curiosity to play with perhaps an interesting physical phenomena to study and a place to sink huge amounts of money with almost nothing in return. Since physics journals won't even take papers on the topic any more, throwing money at the concept won't even produce PhDs as a by-product.

The hope was to use airships as a viable carrier platform, something that was even experimented with on several occasions. The largest problem was recapturing the airplanes once they were launched though.

The rough weather was definitely a problem for the Akron-class airships, but it was something that could be solved if it was required. Larger airplanes, particularly following the development of jet engines, pretty much killed the need for such vehicles though. Using an airship for launching and recovering jet fighters was also way over the top, and the single propeller bi-planes that could be mounted on these airships were obsolete even before World War II started. Similarly, the jet airplanes were much more maneuverable and flexible than airships even for scouting missions, thus no actual need remained.

The crashes were also a problem, but there were crashes and numerous deaths with other forms of aviation, including sea-based carriers. If anything, the airships were safer, but there are now a dozen carriers used by the U.S. Navy and no airships because the carriers can perform multiple missions and the airships can do none of them. It really is that simple.

I wonder what the bet would be that there would be no stories about Cold Fusion on Slashdot in the year 2024?

Almost certain that somebody like Andreas Rossi is going to come out of the woodwork and come up with some other perpetual motion machine based upon "cold fusion" between now and then, likely even in the year 2024.

My hope is that somehow either ITAR, the Polywell, or something else finally is successful enough that practical fusion is possible. Unfortunately I'd be willing to offer the same deal of paying me $1 for a commercially viable fusion device if it doesn't exist and I'll pay you $10k if it does. I won't even bother with the "cold" part.... Lockheed-Martin not withstanding.

It isn't the first time that some scientific experiments were not always reproduced in independent experiments.

One particular early experiment in electricity showed how a magnetically charged needle would move when put in a field caused by a coiled wire and have that needle change orientation. You would think this is a no-brainer and even something taught in junior high schools today.

Unfortunately this experiment was done by researchers who had their labs and lecture rooms oriented so the field was oriented north and south and didn't deflect the needle yet in other places it would work... simply because they weren't taking into consideration the Earth's magnetic field and that the direction of the experiment was thus an important factor.

I could give other examples, but sometimes experiments can't be repeated simply because not all of the variables have been addressed either by the original researcher or by the subsequent follow up experiments.

I could cite examples of Muon-catalyzed fusion (something that has ample experimental evidence) where some of the principles of "cold fusion" can indeed take place. Palladium crystals are also very famous for their absorption of Hydrogen atoms.

Based upon some physical experiments I've seen myself, there seems to be some actual fusion activity taking place in these crystals that could be called "cold fusion", at least in terms of detecting neutrons and some possible secondary detections of that activity. Those who think it could provide a practical source of power on the other hand are folks that I personally think are full of BS and just hyping things up for their own funding. You can even build a more practical "hot fusion" reactor that fits on your desk for a modest amount of money to produce even more verifiable reactions by simply building a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor, but I digress on that point. The main issue isn't if cold-fusion takes place (it does), but those who claim to have found a way to make it practical for power production.

You can have extremely local high density pressures where it is presumed that somehow two or more Hydrogen atoms are confined in a crystal matrix of multiple other atoms to create a state where fusion has a measurable probability of occurring. That at least is the theory behind how it works. The trick is to be able to open that door into that little pocket, just a few atoms at a time, and then close it up again to make the fusion take place. It could be Buckyballs, Palladium, or some other substance but it is some pretty wicked nanoengineering in order to get this to work. This is also why it is hard to replicate or even to make in the first place.

The problem with major physics journals is that so many frauds and perhaps just misguided fans have submitted papers that they simply don't have time to sift through them to find any real science on the topic any more.... other than perhaps minor tweaks of existing papers that were around before the Pons & Fleishman fiasco.

This is actually two bets, isn't it? One is that I live to be 93. Not terribly likely.

OK, you're on. Not that $10,000 is likely to be worth as much in 2050.

Make it 2050 and I'll offer you $10 instead of $1. Nothing gets commercialized in 10 years, not even the soundest of science. It took more than 50 years to commercialize the laser after Einstein figured out stimulated emission. Cold fusion isn't even theoretically sketched out. Of course it won't be commercial in 10 years, but neither will anything else that is not in the prototype stage today.