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Brian H wrote: You’d better hope it’s not bankrupt.
…
That’s “progressive” rhetoric that is nothing more than a ludicrous, egregious, gratuitous, but politically useful insult.

Whatever. Some people take a lot of convincing.

Actually, I’m hoping for and counting on the US going bankrupt and the dollar collapsing.

Got silver?

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JimmyT wrote: It never ends folks.

I believe it will be ending quite soon. The US empire is bankrupt. Only a global superpower can enforce draconian politically motivated anti-progress measures.

Without that global superpower, it becomes a matter of herding cats. The country that adopts useful technology soonest will get ahead, and stay ahead.

The glory days are ahead of us. And not too far ahead, at that.

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Aeronaut wrote: Sorry, I have no idea what the French retort means. I know some Spanish…

It means, “Eat shit!”

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Rezwan wrote: I do like the idea of exploring human importance to nature, and building on that portfolio. The partnership angle. For example, we can prove our worth by developing asteroid deflecting skills and increasing habitat and diversity, which would be in the other critters’ self interest.

This is an interesting topic.

For me, the best thing humans can do is simply expand outward from earth. Colonize other planets, have spinning space based living environments, travel to other stars.

And every step of the way, carry a rich variety of earth’s lifeforms along for the ride. What a great way for humans to pay back all they’ve taken from nature.

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Brian H wrote: As for the map, the US Southwest has already demonstrated that its “suitability” for solar is purely an illusion; those nasty shadowy panels disrupt the ecosystem too much even for Death Valley to tolerate them! It’s been proven in court! 😆 😆

Do you have a link that discusses this, or can you elaborate any? It’s hard to imagine there is anything there that can be harmed by the presence of solar panels.

Now windfarms — I’ve heard the argument that those big spinning blades kill a lot of birds…

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Rezwan wrote: If people disappear – like the rapture comes or a unique to humans virus – and there’s no one around to maintain things, all our artifacts and impacts will just get swallowed back by nature. Most of this happens in 500 years, and, except for deserts where things don’t rot, by a few thousand years (NOTHING in geological time, or even natural history time) there won’t be a trace of us.

Amazingly perceptive post.

Humans are important only to humans. The universe doesn’t care a bit about us.

Also as it turns out, if humans are the only conscious life on earth, then we’re the only thing capable of appreciating any life at all. With humans out of the picture, if the sun goes nova and earth is boiled, no other conscious being would know or care.

What I’m saying is that the value of all life on earth is an outcome of humanity itself. Humanity is in a position to affect all life on earth, but it’s the only thing capable of even appreciating that life.

I hate tree hugging environmentalists, with their holier than thou attitude. It’s like to them nothing would be better than for humans to be removed from the equation. But without those humans, who is left to perceive the beauty? I don’t trust any big mass movements, particularly Al Gore’s kind. I think they’re just after power and control. The environment is just a Convenient Excuse.

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Rezwan wrote: Hmmm. Another “usability” issue.

http://www.xkcd.com has an effective approach, I think. The main page has the new comics that appear Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then the forums area has a discussion forum specific to each new comic as it comes out. So everyone knows exactly where to go to comment on a new comic.

I’ve always liked forums better than comments areas, there are more options, as you say.

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Rezwan wrote: Note, the book hasn’t been peer reviewed.

Even better.

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Rezwan wrote: you don’t actually follow the website, just the forums. Is that correct?

My links to get to focus fusion link directly to the forums, not the main page. I also don’t make use of RSS, I’m a bit behind the times.

I guess I’ve always assumed that any newsworthy updates would appear in the “News” area of the forums also.

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Rezwan wrote: The story (per Andy Kessler, “How We Got Here”)

That looks like an interesting book, I ordered a used copy on Amazon. Thanks for the tip.

The “Look Inside!” pages remind me of James Burke’s Connections.

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Rezwan wrote: Thanks, Belbear. Good assessment of the situation.

I guess it does make sense. But it is anti-climactic nevertheless.

Thanks all for responding.

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Aeronaut wrote: https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/lpp_press_release/

Thanks!

Any analysis of the test? Was any fusion achieved? Any x-rays produced?

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Rezwan wrote: So, I have a number of fantasies of alternative futures and landscapes. None of these is very viable in the current limited resources paradigm where everyone’s struggling to make ends meet and being all miserly with each other.

I like the Jetsons style house. You have these human habitations rise up like mushrooms from the ground. Leave the ground to the non-human life. Humans live 200 feet up in the air, in unused space. They ride the elevator down and experience nature.

Food grown hydroponically inside each dwelling. Flying cars carry you from house to house if you want to visit friends.

Freeways, roads, old cities — these all get abandoned. Maybe have a few big stadiums for sporting events.

There’s no shortage of living space on earth. Not yet, anyway.

-Dave

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lending wrote: Do they consume less energy than florescent lamps.

FTA:

The panels are lighter, brighter and more efficient than incandescent lights and are expected, with further engineering, to approach or surpass the efficiency of fluorescent lighting.

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Lerner wrote: The difference is fuel and temperature. The sun uses pure hydrogen–that’s a great fuel if you want something to burn nice and slow for 10 billion years. But on Earth, we need energy a lot quciker, so we use fuels that burn much quicker. Second, the temperature in the center of the sun is 10 million degrees.Tokamak are at 400 million degrees and focus fusion is at billions of degrees.

Thanks — that makes a lot of sense. I guess my intuition as to how hot it is inside the sun was the problem. It’s relatively cool in there, so the rate of fusion is actually much lower. Your answer explains why H-Bombs work also, they are probably highly concentrated deuterium or tritium which fuse much faster.

-Dave

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