Re:Los Alamos folks are definitely... odd... (Score 0)

I worked at LANL for one full semester and one summer in the 90's. My impression was there were many interesting people (many odd people) there working on interesting research. It was more like a university than a government institution - everyone submitting proposals to win grants to do research to pay the bills, but no teaching. And it's a very nice place to live, right next to a huge state park on one side, another park on the other side, and funky Santa Fe down "the hill". Skiing in the winter, hiking in the summer. It could easily be converted into a ski-resort if the US gov doesn't want it anymore. What has surprized me is, given all this cool research, there doesn't seem to be much private industry that has taken root around the lab? The whole lab used to be govenment property accessible only to those with badges, so this wasn't possibly in the past... But now that things have opened up, I expected to hear more about spin-offs from the research done at LANL popping up as private companies around the lab, like at MIT or the NC research triangle? My only guess is that LANL is just too remote. I think if LANL was located in Albuquerque where it could be closer affiated with Univ. NM, or in some other large metropolitan area, it could do more to provide assistance and interaction with private industry. The LANL location was choosen originally for isolation and ability to secure the perimiter around the site. With its new mission in mind, this location doesn't work anymore.