It's not our wildest dreams of fusion power realized, but the National Ignition Facility's break-even achievement lays the groundwork for future careers in fusion-related science -- research jobs created in the grand old USA (these fusion-related jobs are more and more being created across the pond, in Europe). As a physics graduate student studying intense laser-plasma interactions, I am keenly aware of the science funding situation. Truly, this is wonderful news!

Sorry, fellow slashdotter, but I couldn't let this one slide. Is physics then a mere specialization of engineering?

Mathematics seeks to be descriptive of universal truths. An integer, for example, is a mathematical concept, not an algorithm. Algorithms are a part of both math and programming, but math is not programming.

There's a cool trick called "background subtraction" that lets you watch only the pixels that are changing in a video. For an example, check out this open source software: Scene.