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Comment Re:Biden will find... (Score 1) 162

Since there's never full agreement about what constitutes "science" this is just a way to legitimize what scientists call "selecting from random data" whatever outcome is desired.

Note, government investigating itself (partisan or not) tends to turn out like say, Fast and Furious investigation. I investigated myself and of course did nothing wrong. Sorry about the dead guys.

And no one ever goes to jail, no matter how much proof they broke laws is available.
Law for thee but not for we - usually a big sign that your empire, if not the whole civilization, is just about over.

Comment Re:Even if that thing works (Score 3, Informative) 118

If it works, the neutron flux it makes will destroy the magnets via dislocations in the lattices. Fusion creates many more neutrons per joule of generated energy than fission. If DT is used as fuel instead of DD, the neutrons are higher energy yet.
Basically, the thing will take itself apart if it does work.
MIT and a few others noticed the b^4 relation and how smaller could be better. When you ask them about this, they say they'll just put a feet thick lithium blanket in there to absorb most of the neutrons.
Which negates any possible advantage of size, since now the magnets have to be big again to be outside that blanket. Clever hand-waving indeed.

You might google things like Wigner energy, hydrogen embrittlement, neutron dislocation effects, and the suspicion that this kind of thing contributed to the Windscale disaster.

Very roughly - 1 fission yields around 200 MeV of energy. 1 fusion yields 3.5 MeV if DD, or ~ 16 MeV if DT. So, lots more neutrons per output joule, and FWIW, most of them are going faster than the spectrum of ones from fission.

Comment Re:Eric Rosen (Score 1) 40

And of course Magnus (World champ) and a number of others. I really enjoy how they are all "characters" - these aren't boring personalities in the least. And it's generally non political - I can enjoy almost all of the play without some BS getting my blood pressure up. What a relief from being bombarded by the actions of morons, and the even worse morons who think they know what's driving the first set and report on it as "confirmed by (nonexistent) anonymous sources familiar with the matter"!
As is usually the case - the best don't brag - they show the cash, don't need the flash so much.

"Oh no, my queen!". Some here will know that quote, the awesome delivery and what it means...(ER)

Comment Think of it as game play... (Score 2) 39

I've been using it the past few years for my now-simple filings. You can make it fun -
Almost every single question on every page is some sort of dark pattern UI trick to get you to invoke something you pay for. It's quite a maze, and a deliciously tricky one.
They haven't caught me yet. Maybe I have the correct amount of cynicism and skepticism for this game, I seem to be able to play it at the top level.
However, yeah - they're dirty as hell, there's no way most people wouldn't slip up somewhere and invoke a charge. Even for me - it takes longer to see through all the tricks, backing up fairly often, to avoid them, and darnit - I'm GOOD at this - I started coding when the PDP-8 was kind of a new thing.

TL;DR - you can get it done free, but it's worth less than you pay, it's a lot of effort. It's only fun if you think of it the right way,

Comment Re:Does it matter? (Score 4, Informative) 367

So, are we shooting for Wiemar, Zimbabwe, Venezuela? Printing money for UBI doesn't print real goods, and more bucks for the same or fewer real things means inflation. At the scale where UBI is really enough to be basic, that's hyperinflation, and we've already seen how that one goes.

Greed isn't limited to big corporations or even grandma's pension fund, and in fact springs from individual greed. Inflation is a stealth tax on all, and especially those who have been responsible till now as it destroys the value of their savings.

Comment Re:I call BS (Score 1) 57

Pass through price gouging even WITH the extreme delays now...Several food things I regularly ordered have been marked up over 400% in some cases. There may have been a hidden vendor switch in there - but the effect is that if you "buy again"...the price went up dramatically. There's a whole lot of "no longer available" as well, not sure where the responsibility lies on that one.

Comment Academia (Score 1, Insightful) 99

I think of things like this whenever someone questions the validity of something because "you don't have a degree in ...".
It's been obvious for a long time that you can collect that piece of paper without owning common sense or much general knowledge.

Guy didn't understand that logic inverters exist?

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