[Ivy Matt]

Warwick wrote: As Ivy Matt points out, the only case of “upside-down logo” that will spring to mind for most people is the Nazi swastika. In other words, inverted peace symbol means war – you can’t expect most to know the backstory about the CND logo creator. Everyone knows the Nazi / peace swastika thing.

I’m not quite sure I understand. I was concerned that an upside-down peace logo would automatically be interpreted as a war logo, and I think that’s something most of us don’t want associated with Focus Fusion—even someone with a nick like “Ivy Matt”. 😉

However, I don’t recall saying anything about the swastika. Thanks to this discussion, I suddenly realized that an inverted right-facing swastika is also a left-facing swastika, but I think most people would think of a left-facing swastika as a right-facing swastika flipped on the vertical, rather than horizontal, axis. I am aware of the argument (favoring the continued use of the left-facing swastika by Hindus and Buddhists) that the left-facing swastika is a symbol of “good” while the right-facing swastika is a symbol of “evil”, but I regard that as a specious argument made up after the fact. I am unaware of any evidence that the orientation of the swastika ever meant anything prior to the adoption of the right-facing swastika by the Nazis. A better argument, in my opinion, is that the swastika was in use with a generally positive meaning for thousands of years before anybody ever heard of Adolf Hitler. At any rate, I’m not sure this left-facing swastika = “good” argument is widely known in the West.

I did refer to a different symbol appropriated by the Nazis earlier in this thread, but it’s one much less widely known. It’s a rune—or pair of runes—used on the graves of SS members. Both runes occur in the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (ca. AD 400) and the Norse Younger Futhark (ca. AD 800), with different pronunciations, but the Nazis probably adopted them directly from Guido von Lists mystic and quasi-historical system of Armanen runes (AD 1902), where they occur as runes #15 and #16. The similarity with the peace symbol is obvious. On SS graves the upward-branching rune was the “life” or “birth” rune and the downward branching rune was the “death” rune. There was also a panzer division that used the “death” rune enclosed in a circle, which is indistinguishable from the well-known peace symbol.

While I’m explaining myself, if anyone wondered what I meant by that “unilateral disarmament” quip a page or two back, I was simply interpreting the upside-down peace symbol as a semaphore—like how the peace symbol was supposedly derived—and then coming up with a suitable expansion for “UD”.

Mass appeal: I’m generally in agreement here. A symbol is just a symbol, not the thing itself, and there’s nothing about the DPF, from what I can see, that is inherently objectionable to any more-or-less mainstream political ideology. I don’t think the peace symbol, however oriented, would be much of a stumbling block to anyone who is sufficiently interested in the technology. However, if the FFS wants something more neutral, I’m wondering why they didn’t just use the “energy burst” form of the logo on the website, while reserving the peace symbol for more specialized uses. No need to come up with something new.

Religion: I assume the Wormwood example was designed to show how someone could give anything a non-neutral interpretation. I think a much more likely interpretation of the star (even in a different season) is the Star of Bethlehem, but given the numerous flags that have one or more stars on them, I’d say a star is pretty generic—a five-pointed star at least. I’m not sure what special meaning an eight-pointed star could have.

[Ivy Matt]

The only reason I brought up the Pulitzer Prize is because The Soul of a New Machine won it—deservedly, in my opinion. It was Tracy Kidder’s second full-length book. His first full-length book was a critical flop. Perhaps I should write a flop before I try my hand at something fusion-related. 😉

I’m afraid I don’t know much about publishing, less about marketing, but isn’t a 20% click through rate highly optimistic?

Sorry for drawing things a bit off-topic, but while I’m talking about books, has anyone else heard of The Green Flame? It looks like it could be fascinating and useful, if a bit pessimistic regarding the handling of boranes. Unfortunately, it’s out of print, and it currently goes for $145 used on Amazon.

[Ivy Matt]

If I were an indie film director I would jump at the chance to film the LPP story. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be the story of the century, it has enough twists and turns, triumphs and disappointments, and even controversy (BBNH; the A&M paper) to make for a good science story. (Not that I feel that controversy is essential, but when you’ve got it, you might as well mention it.) Of course, it would have been best to begin filming a year or two ago. That said, in the absence of a full-time documentary crew, I think Rezwan, Aaron, and Derek have done a pretty good job documenting the story.

However, even if there’s no professionally edited as-it-happens documentary forthcoming, I’d still like to see something sort of like The Soul of a New Machine written for an innovative confinement concept. I guess that’s more up my alley, although I’ve never published anything, let alone won a Pulitzer Prize. ;-P

[Ivy Matt]

Is the the effect of the axial field coil relevant to these simulations? Does Lee’s model account for it? And do LPP’s simulations using Lee’s program take it into account?

[Ivy Matt]

I don’t live in Viridian’s present market, but I do live in a state with deregulated electricity, so it could become part of Viridian’s market in the near future. I also tend to overthink things, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’d end up against it. However, I do have the same concerns as the other Matt, and one more, which I haven’t seen openly stated so far: Does anyone else think this company’s business model might be some sort of pyramid scheme?

[Ivy Matt]

And a nice yellow cake for dessert. Happy Thanksgiving all!

[Ivy Matt]

DerekShannon wrote: Breakeven is not a requirement to act as a D-D neutron source

Indeed.

[Ivy Matt]

That would be a public-private funding possibility. I see a lot of talk about enacting policies and supporting the usual green buzzwords, but nothing about how much is actually going to be spent on exactly what. I suppose that will come in later press releases. I don’t see anything at all about nuclear fusion and, while it can probably be described as “clean” and “green” (depending on what one means by that), it’s technically not a renewable form of energy. Still, if this R20 group is not of the opinion that “fusion is too far away; we have to act now“, then it might be worth contacting them. If nothing else, you will probably get a chance to dispel a few misconceptions.

[Ivy Matt]

Well, we’ve got at least eight years to provide an alternative to these guys.

[Ivy Matt]

Don’t laugh, but my favorite part was that bit about the new lens. I’m looking forward to seeing images with 30-micron resolution.

I hope the new spark plug design holds up. I’m wondering how much “new engineering” is coming out of this experiment.

Good to see that X-Scan looks viable. Hopefully scientific (or wall-plug efficiency) breakeven will be demonstrated before X-Scan production begins, but if not, another source of revenue is always a good thing to have. I wonder if typical ion energies can be inferred from X-ray energies…

[Ivy Matt]

In a recent interview conducted by TIME, Stephen Hawking talks briefly about Einstein, relativity, and black holes:

The field equations of his theory of relativity imply that a large star or cloud of gas would collapse in on itself and form a black hole. Einstein was aware of this but somehow managed to convince himself that something like an explosion would always occur to throw off mass and prevent the formation of a black hole. What if there was no explosion?

He also mentions fusion power as a scientific advancement he’d like to see in his lifetime. 🙂

[Ivy Matt]

Rezwan, please move this thread to the Noise, ZPE, AGW etc forum.

[Ivy Matt]

jamesr wrote: I don’t mean to be harsh, but can an admin move this thread to the Noise & ZPE category.

What, this one and not the other topic I started?

[Ivy Matt]

In my opinion, it’s always a good thing for ideas to move past the conceptual stage to the experimental stage. So, good luck! I must confess, though, I’m not sure I understand what purpose the Jacob’s ladder serves.

[Ivy Matt]

And if you can’t hack fusion, there’s always X-Scan as a backup plan. ;-P

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