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Comment Re:We put all our eggs into the ITER basket. (Score 1) 305

You are barking up the wrong tree.

Of course there is no conspiracy and I very much appreciate that Jeff Bezos invests into General Fusion.

What I find problematic is that ITER crowds out other fusion research due to its cost overuns. For instance there are now only 1 1 1/2 positions allocated to the Shiva star device (a machine GF could put to good use for plasma compression experiments). This is just enough money to prevent a mothballing of the machine, but not enough to actually get some research done.

This is not conspiracy but just how the world works. As ITER absorbs more money the overall public budget doesn't grow, and government is too inflexible to allow for private partnership (especially with, god forbid, a Canadian company).

Comment Re:We put all our eggs into the ITER basket. (Score 1) 305

No one, and I mean no one, expects the Polywell will escape the Ritter issues.

Except those who continue working on it. Cusp confinement has been theorized but to my knowledge never experimentally confirmed until these results came in. They may very well be overoptimistic with regards to having any chance in approaching thermalization in the center of their reactor, but given that they now have an experiment going with fairly decent confinement it seems warranted to establish to what extend Ritter's concern will haunt this design.

Plasma dynamics are very difficult to model and while Ritter's conjecture is plausible it nevertheless makes some assumptions that may not hold in the actual experiment.

You may call this hand waving, but the best way to establish this is an actual experiment. This, after all, is also the way that science works.

Comment Re:We put all our eggs into the ITER basket. (Score 1) 305

With regards to the Polywell design you clearly either have not read this paper, or must think they made up their results.

As to General Fusion, they are hardly the only ones looking into magnetized target fusion (just the most ambitious ones) - so I fail to see how you comment even applies there.

Comment We put all our eggs into the ITER basket. (Score 1) 305

Other interesting and scientifically sound approaches are limping along on pitiful drips of venture money e.g. General Fusion.

And while some public money goes into Polywell research, it's produced on a dime when compared to ITER.

Don't mean to knock the work that's done to advance the Tokamak design, but it shouldn't be the only game in town.

Comment Re:better than what we have now (Score 1) 249

Look, as somebody who lives in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) I've followed this story very closely as soon as it broke. There needs to be corrections and consequences imposed by the provincial government.

This only happens when this story is kept in the forefront and MPs feel this is something their riding cares about.

It's really local politics 101. Presumably you are American and think your broken barely democratic system represents how things work anywhere in the world. Thankfully it doesn't.

Comment Re:better than what we have now (Score 1) 249

Yeah, right.

Obviously you have some problems grasping the concept that in a complex urban society is not only the (none-)care-givers that are involved.

This child's death could have been entirely avoidable if the system hadn't completely failed him.

This statue, as well as this faux controversy, helps to keep the story in the fore-front, and that is an entirely good thing.

Comment Re:better than what we have now (Score 1) 249

And what believes and desires would that be, pray tell?

The death of this child touched many people here in the GTA, and trying to ensure he is not forgotten is nothing but a valiant attempt to ensure it doesn't happen again.

If you cannot relate to this, then search the Internet for your misplaced humanity. Maybe reading up on the case would help.

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