Of course energy has momentum. Photons, in particular, have momentum. That's why there's nothing strange about the experiment as you describe it - you increase the momentum of your rocket, but that increase is exactly counterbalanced by the momentum of the emitted photon. And when that photon hits something eventually, it will transmit its momentum to that thing etc. Overall, momentum is conserved, not just "right now", but at any future point. This doesn't seem to be the case with this engine.

I assume the question was rather whether acceleration (i.e. force) scales linearly with power input. In the experiment, it did not.

The acceleration graph is definitely not linear. They have tried to model the relation so far, and if it holds, then it will peak at about 1 newton per watt, which is insane if it really works that way - forget ion thrusters, we could throw away the car engines!

The "intended environment" is not necessarily space. If it produces thrust (which it does, since that's what they are measuring), it doesn't matter where it does that, it's still useful work that can be tapped.

"They" are many different people here. The experiment has been reproduced by, what, five different teams all across the world by now? As I understand, only the guy with the original idea is making outlandish claims; everyone else is just trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

One observation that the other teams did make is that the observed output seems to be scaling nonlinearly with input, which implies that there's a peak of efficiency. They have a model that tries to guess what that is, which seems to be consistent with the results to date. If that model is right, the peak efficiency is very high - high enough for practical uses not just in space. That is speculation, of course, but it's strictly fact-driven (and comes with a very big "if" - if the engine actually works by itself).

The rest of it is the usual journalist pop sci.

A good thing then that one of the pieces of Atom that this replaces is the editor ...

Like GP said, it's a fork with significant changes. The editor is replaced entirely, and then there's the whole .NET integration story.

"Tesla’s selling price to installers is $3500 for 10kWh and $3000 for 7kWh. (Price excludes inverter and installation.) "

They specifically point out that the $3.5k price tag does NOT include the inverter and installation costs.

You realize that there are places in US that don't need AC most of the time, and don't use electricity for heating?

"As late as last year, I remember Net Neutrality being a libertarian free market concept"

All I've ever seen about it is Left-wingers saying we must have it. I've gathered that it's about getting government to interfere with the free market, by telling carriers that they can't charge more for premium levels of service.

BTW, from just seeing your side of the conversation I'd have to guess that you were talking with fustawhatever. Because while DR tries to confound and confuse Conservatives by saying everything that's up is down and vice-versa, fusta's trademarked tactic against Righties as I recall is to pelt with accusations (none of which s/he can hold up, of course). I guess the idea is to take you off your game and from thinking clearly about the issues to thinking about how on earth someone could accuse you of such things and how you can explain that they're not true. (Hey, I never said it wasn't a brilliant tactic!)

"that thing which to the Left is like sunlight to a vampire: the truth."

What Conservatives hate the most in political discussion is when the other side lies about them. What Leftists hate the most is when the other side tells the truth about them.

(And it's not inherently this way, as the Left *could* try with honest persuasion to compete in the arena of ideas. And therefore someone telling the truth about them wouldn't be a liability.)

(Wow, I'm way behind on what's been going on here.)

From one of those FA's:
“I used to support the police, to believe they were here to protect us."

Yo tambien. Now I see them as any other government employee.

Which reminds me, I need to unaffiliate from the GOP in my California voter registration.

p.s. nationalreview.com can suck a fat one; I'm never visting that site again.

If the problem is that the Argentine currency is unstable... well then Bitcoin is the WRONG answer. It is exceedingly unstable, it would be unstable even for a stock, never mind a currency, it moves like a thinly traded penny stock. So trying to use it for some kind of stability is just about the dumbest thing you can do.

To me, this seems like more Bitvertisement by which ever of Slashdot's editors is heavily invested in them and trying to drum up interest.