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Comment Re:No 1st amendment (Score 1) 153

This is no different than requiring the manufacturer to include a warning about the stove tipping over if there is no anti-tipping bracket installed. Consumers are being warned of the issue.

If they're going to whine about this, might as well whine about every other warning they are required to provide with their product.

Ah, my favorite among such is the warning from a hair drier I bought some years ago. It said: "do not use while sleeping."

Comment Re:Meanwhile... (Score 4, Informative) 40

If it is already paid for, why would it need further funding?

I can't tell if you're being intentionally dense or not, so I'll err on the side of naivete. The construction and operational validation has been paid for, which is the largest part of the cost. The ongoing costs are things like salaries, materials and supplies for subsequent operation, maintenance, and improvements, which are far smaller.

There is no scientist I have ever met who thought LIGO was, in the end, a poor choice of investment of national research funds. There were plenty prior to its stunning first detection (myself included) who thought they were chasing ghosts, but all of those doubters have been converted. The important thing to understand is that LIGO's contributions weren't just detection of a black hole merger (in itself, a hugely important event because it demonstrated the hypothesized existence of gravitational waves), but the establishment of a new field of astronomy based on gravitation, an entirely new means to observe the universe that provides information previously completely unobtainable. Our eyes have been opened where we were previously blind, and the ongoing results are, and continue to be, astounding.

There's a nice fact sheet summary at: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/s...

Comment Re:They can hide anything in the SEC reports, now (Score 1) 46

Indeed, I fully agree. The funny thing is, monthly numbers would help us move away from the distortions of the quarterly cycle. If key data reporting becomes frequent enough, you can't get into a cycle of "do adverse-numbers stuff early in the quarter and then cram positive-numbers stuff into the end of the quarter". You have to - *gasp* - just run your business normally.

Some businesses could still manage to switch to a monthly cycle, but anyone who deals significantly in transoceanic feedstocks/parts/goods shipments won't be able to.

Comment Re:It's difficult to believe (Score 2) 144

BLS numbers aren't some sort of dark art. They're literally just the compiled numbers reported by companies. Numbers are what they are. To fight against jobs numbers is to fight against reality.

People get confused by the existence of revisions. The problem is that not all data gets reported in a timely manner. When late data comes in, it causes revisions to the earlier reported numbers, either up or down.

Firing the head of the BLS because you don't like what numbers US companies reported is just insane Banana Republic-level nonsense.

Comment Re:It's difficult to believe (Score 4, Informative) 144

Yes, he fired the same person who was ultimately responsible for putting out crap numbers.

US reporting has always been the gold standard. Nobody has accused the BLS of "crap numbers" until Trump decided he didn't like them. It's is so way outside the norms it doesn't even resemble something that could conceivably happen in the US; this is banana republic-level stuff.

Comment Re:I'm surprised! (Score 3, Interesting) 60

I've been using it to write grant applications, and I share your opinion. It frequently makes mistakes (and 5 is worse in many ways than 4o). While it can certainly be used to create a rough draft of a document, the result is similar to what you would expect from a junior associate, with the same kinds of mistakes that create an, "OMG, no," response in the reader when it starts to make things up.

There was a lot of talk about how rapidly it would accelerate in performance. That progress seems to have stalled this year. I have a hard time thinking that we've started to see the ultimate asymptote of performance, but it seems like we've hit a region where the easy, early gains have all been made.

Comment Re: Can be paired with other energy sources (Re:He (Score 1) 82

Integrated thermal stores with nuclear is more difficult (limited temperatures and limited dT on storage = big storage needed with lots of heat exchange surface area), but if they can make it economical, it could be a game changer for nuclear's problematic economics. The ability of nuclear to switch from baseload (not matching the demand curve, let alone the curve of really-cheap renewables) to load-following and even peaking could make the mean sale value of its electricity much higher, and make it much more useful as a compliment to renewables.

Comment Re:Use in warmer climates (Score 1) 82

The mean July maximum temperature in Helsinki is 27,1C (80,8F), and the record is 33,2C (91,8F). Combine this with the fact that the interiors of large buildings accumulate internal heat. Cooling is of utility. Let alone for industry (most industry is fine with cooling with ambient water temperatures, but some needs cooling beyond that).

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