I did some work on software used for a corrosion inspection system. The basic idea is that any medium travelling through a pipe corrodes the pipe at a measureable rate. Pipelines have procedures in place to monitor corrosion over time with special attention given to "weak links". There is a lot of careful engineering that goes into building and maintaining a pipeline.

Regarding setting conditions for running a pipeline through a sensitive area:
A review of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline approved the proposal in principle with 209 conditions.
But the public's reaction proves that, for some people, no amount of protection will ever be enough.

I am very concerned that the opposition to pipelines will result in more of these kind of accidents.
It seems to me, from following the Lac Megantic disaster, that the safety protocols on rail lines needs some review.

Estimating continues to be the bane of my existence.
But the most lost I every was involved trying to estimate a full database data conversion process from an old non-rdbms system.
"Oh but our data is clean", they said.
I spent over a week just fixing / coding for bad date formats.
I asked a senior guy for advice. He suggested something similar:

Come up with a number. Multiple by an arbitrary single digit. Double it. Double it again.

Eventually I learned not to fix bid data conversion. Ever.

I agree that fusion power has been 20 years off for at least 60 years now.
We have known the basic principles for a long time so how hard can it be, right?
You just mash some atoms together until they fuse. After lunch we will tackle time travel.

What makes this different is the international consortium of government funding of the project to the tune of $30 BILLION.
Call me naive, but I believe this is going to happen. On time and on budget, well, that is a different question.

Yes, Fantec was approached in an effort to work it out.
Their initial reaction was to deny everything.
When confronted with undeniable proof, they simply blamed a contractor and said that they were not responsible.
...at least, that's what the articles I read reported.
At that point, what options are left?

Ah, I remember my 20s.
I wish I could find that comic. Something like:
Just out of university: "I'm going to change the world!"
After one year at first job in your field: "I'm going to change this company!"
After ten years: "I'm going to change the coffee!"

Gah! I'm out of mod points!

cx_Freeze works for 2.x as well.

You joke but I remember (years ago) seeing an email from a user who took offense at receiving an automated message from an mail "daemon". He didn't want to receive any further emails from evil automatons. sigh.