So you have created a customized for for yourself? In what way does that qualify as a "distro"? Oh, right, it does not.

15 years ago, it was possible. Not anymore. And even 15 years ago, it took quite a bit of time and work. I will look into contributing to Devuan or Gentoo when that becomes the only viable options to remain systemd-free.

It would be very hard to hide backdoors in SELinux. The only thing they could do there is making the configuration interface complicated enough that many people will make mistakes. And they have done that beautifully. Same way IPSec was sabotaged. Come to think of it, that strategy is at least in part what makes systemd highly problematic.

Excellent example.

That tired old lie again. Building a distro is a lot of work and far more than any one person can do today. The disingenuity of the systemd cult is staggering.

Good point. Could also be source of errors. Maybe they have thrust from cell-signal reflection.

As there is still zero independent verification (the data needed for it has not been published), it is still right in crackpot territory. No, the other 2 groups that claim to see a similar effect do not count, as they are doing different experiments. Verification must come from other, independent groups repeating the _same_ experiment. That has not happened at all. Scientific standards are this high because lower standards have proven to _not_ work, time and again because people are good at kidding themselves.

That is utter BS. If it is a measurement error, it will likely scale with energy. Hence it is very important to make that experiment. That they are not already tells you enough about the scientific skills (or rather their absence) of the people doing these experiments. The Forbes article is right on the mark. Caveat: I am a scientist.

Actually, 3 groups have done 3 different experiments that showed some minuscule effect. AFAIK, none of these experiments have been independently verified.

If history is any indication, that is more like 0.01% revolutionary breakthrough, 10% so far unknown or not well-known material-sciences (or the like) effect that does not violate physics, 90% scam or measurement error. Estimates like yours that are far, far off from reality are why this stuff gets attention despite missing all reasonable scientific validation.

Indeed. The cold-fusion guys, mistaken as they may have been, at least published what was needed to reproduce. They were really off, but they did the scientifically sound thing to do. Remember the FTL particles from CERN a while back? These people also did it right: They published everything, said "we cannot explain this, please help" and continued to be careful and skeptic. Turned out to be a faulty connector.

None of that sound scientific approach is present here, so the cold fusion "debacle" was handled right on the scientific side. This thing here is not and nothing of the published results deserves much trust at this time.

You do, with not even the standard validation for normal results being there for 2. As 2. is a really extraordinary claim, it needs far more than the standard validation (peer review in a respected journal), it needs independent reproduction by several teams, increasing of the effect to be sure it is not a measurement error by at least a factor of 10, research into the measurement set-up to make sure it is not faulty, etc. Instead it has one excitable guy at NASA making claims.

Plausible. Besides a simple measurement error (would not be the first time and the measurement is close enough to the margin of error that the margin of error may actually be at fault), something being actually thrust away from the device is the next likely explanation. There are others, like attraction due to a charge, for example. Remember that they pipe in a lot of energy (100W) and get a thrust in return that is extremely small. Even the tiniest bit of leakage, e.g. by a tiny fault in the material or by some yet unknown effect in the metal used could cause the observed effect.

So while it is unscientific to say "impossible", the current evaluation of any competent scientist is "exceptionally unlikely and things like peer-review and independent reproduction are missing, hence likely wrong". Also remember that the person working on this at NASA has a history of grand claims that do not work out. The classical combination for self-delusion is there. Unless they strengthen up their claims a lot, this is not even news.

You mean the whole 5 people on the technical committee that voted it in? Or the less than 10 people that maintain it?