Fusion power research is being funded at least $20 billion/year worldwide, and has been for over 20 years. If you can point to some concrete areas where more cash would help?

sPh

Yeah, I'm always excited about garage experimenters running a 500 MW neutron source away from the heavy hand of the government.

Darn. Just this once I was hoping to be one of the Kool Kids.

sPh

" If JET can reach break-even point, there’s a very good chance that the massive ITER reactor currently being built in France will be able to obtain the holy grail of everlasting green power generation: self-sustaining fusion.

Dozens and dozens of journal summaries with that miraculous word 'if'

sPh

Did I miss the part where the human race had a miraculous breakthrough in fusion technology? Even setting aside the expected issues with neutron radiation (sorry, no Mr. Fusion Home Energy Kit) there isn't any fusion technology today that is even close to breakeven on an experimental basis. As for commercial operations...

Dictionaries typically have a list of definitions for a word ;-)

transitive verb:
3: to apply the principles of scientific management to (as an industry or its operations) for a desired result (as increased efficiency)

Valid points. Can't help but note the same group is out downmodding any comment pointing this out.

sPh

- - - - - but in the US most plant upgrades have been denied permits by the feds because of work done by organizations like [organization parent poster doesn't like] - - - -

Nuclear power plants in the United States with operating licenses undergo a continuous process of upgrade and modification, will continue to do so throughout their operating life, and in some cases continue to receive upgrades after retirement if in safestore mode. Over the last 20 years enormous effort has gone into simplifying and rationalizing the designs of the post-TMI era, standardizing operations, and improving backup systems. A current challenge is replacing the 1960s/70s era control and instrumentation systems which, while rugged and highly reliable, cannot be maintained as there are no longer sources of spare parts, with modern C&I systems. All while avoiding the fragility and instability of COTS electronics.

It is true that the finance world on Wall Street has made it difficult to begin new from-scratch nuclear plants in the US (although a few are currently underway) due to serious doubts about ROI during the financed lifetime, but that's another issue entirely.

sPh

Based on some of the articles I have read, Google has thrown a lot of resources at the problem and now have hashes that are capable of identifying certain photos even if they have filename changes, resolution changes, and and so on.

It does not sound like too difficult of a problem - instead of relying on SHA5 file hash, run an it through a program that gives you an array of what the image would look like when displayed and then hash that. Use some margin of error to take into account compression, etc. and you could say with some confidence that one file is the image in question, even if the original JPEG is now a half-resolution GIF.

Of course having the resources to run that on every single image that goes through Gmail's servers is another issue entirely.

- - - - - In the absence of regulation, a customer who has been wronged has the ability only to sue with regard to his own personal case, and that prospect doesn't trouble companies: - - - -

Actually, the consumer of the non-regulated service will find that he has signed a binding agreement to settle all disputes in arbitration, using an arbitrator selected by the provider, with no recourse to the courts.

sPh

Guess what percentage of arbitrator awards are in favor of the party that selected them?...

There exist ERP systems for small, mid-sized, and enterprise-sized companies with corresponding scope, size, and complexity. The OP's business sounds as if it is large enough (plus multinational) to justify an enterprise-grade system, but e.g. an implementation of Visual Manufacturing(tm) for a small-medium engineer-to-order or make-to-stock company is well within the ability of a 1-3 person staff to understand and manage.

sPh

Agreed - every complaint about self-driving cars has been for the migration time when there are both autonomous and human-driven vehicles on the roads.

When you take human drivers out of the equation, and autonomous vehicles are the norm, utilizing things like mesh networks to keep other nearby vehicles informed, all of the complaints suddenly disappear.

Autonomous cars might wait at lights longer, and stop for more yellow lights, but imagine a line of vehicles stopped at a light all accelerating at the exact same moment and rate. Imagine vehicles re-routing around an accident with correct ratios going to alternate routes so no one alternate route gets slammed, leaving other routes empty.

I worked retail for a long time, including an Apple Store. I cannot remember the policies at Apple when I was working there, but most places will not take a verbal approval code.

If the person on the other end of the phone (generally you get to them by calling the 800 number on the back of the card) has the ability to run the transaction, they have the ability to clear whatever prevented the card from going through the first time. They would have to - they have to clear the hurdle before they can run the transaction themselves.

So policy at most places is that the telephone operator clears the issue (usually it is a daily spending limit that card issuers never mention) and then the store runs the card again. There was no procedure for manually entering a verbal approval code.

My memory of Apple Retail (this was '04-'06), however, is that they had almost every contingency covered. The POS machines all had USB modems attached so that in case the Internet went down at the store, credit cards could still be processed. We even had the old CH-CHUNK imprint devices when everything went pear-shaped. I do seem to remember having the ability to enter a manual authorization code for a credit card transaction. It is Apple Retail - there are supposed to be no hurdles keeping a Specialist from keeping a customer happy.

That's not faking delivery though. The data is actually being delivered, just from a different source. I don't give a shit where the data comes from our how it gets to me*, I care about how fast my page loads.

* except for the handful of times per month I do something sensitive, like online banking, but that's all encrypted.