The original plans to achieve Earthly fusion is to use magnetic fields to trap very hot plasmas (i.e. Sun on Earth), which was said to be about as easy as "holding water with rubberbands." Given the amount of theoretical and experimental resources thrown in to this effort, containment type fusion was said to be "about 20 years away" for the past half century. Makes you wonder how some of these lines that made into the news were optimistically penned by scientists to get funding. And yes, the same thought processes still goes on now.

Now with laser the scientists are (probably) hoping to achieve localized fusion within otherwise cooler plasma, so the rubberband would be holding ice slush instead of water, and hopefully see some neutron bursts as evidence of fusion to justify this round of funding. While I'm sure the people who provide the money knows what they're doing, but they also have the job to promote energy studies and at some point you wonder if they're not just rubber-stamping the thing so they look like they're doing something (people upstairs wants some fusion studies, have money set aside, and they need to go somewhere). But for the general public the news conveniently ignores two well established facts.

a) lasers are know to be incredibly inefficient, especially as they become more powerful.

b) the whole point of energy study is to somehow get more out of what you put in. And even if sustainable and meaningful (like hot enough to boil water industrially) fusion is achieved, [breakeven] is still "twenty years away." ... and so

c) lots of green energy money's on the table, and everyone will say anything to get some of that.

d) (my personal fav. is algae petro, it's only 10 years away)

Isn't really about Apple vs. Microsoft, or which one has greater "intrinsic value" and whether that justifies the price difference. There's no such thing as "intrinsic value", only "perceived value": things are worth exactly how much people are willing to pay for them, and perceived values differ among individuals. Otherwise if things are all sold like commodities we wouldn't have a demand curve, only a demand step. Everyday people are willing to pay more (if circumstances allow) for essentially the same thing. Why (with apologies to this grossly stereotyped and possibly offensive example) Italian cars > German cars > Japanese cars > American cars > Korean cars > somewhere else cars, where differences in essential function of getting from pt. A to B safely are negligible. One wonders what kind of gas Mr. Ballmer's would put in his car? 87 or 91?

Intrinsic value to perceived value is like F=m*a is to nature. Useful at times, but isn't the real thing.

Perhaps a CEO of a multinational company should urge his business to build up its brand's perceived value to competitiveness, instead of mocking the potential customer base for their "overpaying for commodities". If I'm a stock holder of that company I'd be really concerned about the long term vision of its most important employee.

The "grass root horse" is in fact yet another example of the "shanjai" cultural phenomenon in China. Shanjai literally translates to "mountain fort" which in old days were where bandits or rebels retreat in deep mountains out of reach of law or even military. In turbulent times these forts could reach tens of thousands in size and often became seeds of revolutions.

That said, today's "shanjai" takes on a tongue-in-cheek meaning. Originally used to describe brandname knockoffs - i.e. "Your LV bag looks like a shanjai product." - the word started out with a narrow sense of "imitation by wanna-be's not as good as the originals." But as the Net usage in China expands along with an unprecedented opportunity for individual expressions (within the realm of the censors), "shanjai" takes on the broader and positive meanings: DIY, Guerrilla, Garage, if-you-can-I-can-too, small-taking-on-big. There were shanjai Chinese New Year TV Specials (non-mainstream talents netstreamed live against Central TV's broadcast), shajai panda (painted dog), shanjai NASA (really).

Part of shanjai culture, because it's so tongue-in-cheek, is to protest the establishment without getting into trouble. And unlike the Tienanmen time, this time there seems no urgency for a bloody revolution. So while China lags the West in freedom and quality of life in absolute terms, its dF/dt, dL/dt > 0 and that's what matters to many, at least for now. Nonetheless the shanjai culture is growing and sewing the seeds of revolution for the next generation of Chinese. Grass Mud Horse is an animal Gandhi would be proud.