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I would hate to think that the real OTT were to come to an end.

Not that what I think matters...Reality will let us know when we get this right, it'll be obvious.
I think that magnetic confinement of thermal plasma isn't the way at all, personally. Random thermal motion is not the best way to create collisions that are forceful enough to overcome the Coulomb repulsion long enough for tunneling into fusion to occur. There's a long list of issues with magnetic confinement, whichever topology is used for that. H fields still only turn charged particles with a normal (90 degree) force, and thinking that we can macroscopically twist and turn the field so as to effectively confuse charged particles is kinda wishful thinking (in my opinion, of course - I realize I'm in danger of committing a Rutherford and saying they're talking moonshine).
It's a simplistic attempt to duplicate the sun by using magnets instead of gravity. The thing is, the sun is a pretty lousy reactor (lucky for us because it and we are still here and so on). Many from "the bad astronomer" to wikipedia and various fusion info sources show the sun as very wimpy per CC. http://www.echochamber.me/view...
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An approach that brings together the reactants in a coherent way - think bullets colliding - looks a heck of a lot more energy-efficient in terms of the effective "activation energy" and a few people I know are working that with if not "threshold of gain" success, darn good compared to when no one was trying that angle. Non-thermal looks very promising at least to me, and almost no money or effort has gone into it - what has, has paid off handsomely in good reaction rates, and at least low energy in per successful reaction for the ones that are "aimed right" - which is only now possible as more precise things are now being made. Remember it isn't the temperature of a bullet that defines its ability or total energy. Doesn't matter if it's cold, just that it's moving fast on a desired vector.
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The trouble is, the people who hand out the money aren't scientists, and the scientists getting the money are politicians themselves these days - it's an art to get a grant, and some people are good at it, maybe not caring if they're really on to something good or not. Tenure, the nice corner office with the hot secretary, power, all corrupt even scientists and sometimes without them realizing it. Which is why I made my dough another way (engineering, VoIP, digital audio) and am using it to follow my own nose re fusion. Seems like it's the only way that can work. So, I'll put it on whip...

I like the XKCD foras. People have insightful discussion about interesting topics. This subject is long and complicated and a lot of things need consideration. Here are two links for people wanting to go a bit more in depth (be warned : the first is a 20 pages discussion, the second one is a 2 pages discussion forking from the first) :
Let's talk about energy production
ICE, Hybrid, and EV: A discussion of the merits

I like the XKCD foras. People have insightful discussion about interesting topics. This subject is long and complicated and a lot of things need consideration. Here are two links for people wanting to go a bit more in depth (be warned : the first is a 20 pages discussion, the second one is a 2 pages discussion forking from the first) :
Let's talk about energy production
ICE, Hybrid, and EV: A discussion of the merits

Interestingly, there is a Love, Sex, and Relationships section of the XKCD forums. You'll find all manner of geek-related love and sex advice there, and if you have questions, you can ask and (generally) not be judged harshly.

Back in the 1940's one petabyte would have weigh a whole lot more. Those Delay line memories consisting of tubes filled with mercury seems a bit...bulky.
http://echochamber.me/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=15611
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kignGE77l_I

Take a look at the XKCD forums. It's not exactly what you're looking for, but it's close.

The xkcd forum users actually registered and recreated those tweets on the comic: listing.