I prefer to remain optimistic. Maybe they really have found a method to extract energy from the vacuum of space in order to accomplish these reactions. Who knows
It'd sure be nice if these amazing stories actually panned out for once.
It would be so awesome if this group figured out a way to break those nasty water molecules with less energy than you get from burning hydrogen.
I won't believe it until I see it. Still, best of luck to them. Anything that breaks the current rules is good and opens up a whole new world of possibilities. It's how science has operated for hundreds of years. If a new discovery breaks the rules, modify the rules accordingly.
Is it because he doesn't cater exclusively to billion-dollar oil companies?
Is it because he doesn't encourage torture and illegal detainment?
Medicaid is not universal healthcare.
Okay, so this reply will go unread by you, anonymous coward, but I still considered it a good idea to point out that you're a moron. I could go on and on about how ridiculous you look, but you really did that to yourself.
Have you ever ridden on a German train? THAT'S a shining example of great public transit infrastructure.
Trains are much more efficient than planes. They take longer, but to transport an equal number of people by train is significantly cheaper than to transport them by plane. Train companies should be making enormous, ridiculous profits. Instead, our rail system has fallen into disrepair and the train companies don't have enough funds to upgrade anything BECAUSE the rail system has fallen into disrepair (ie fewer people ride, reducing ticket sales).
We Americans do a lot of things right, but we also do a lot of things wrong. The lack of a good national public transit system is one thing that we have seriously fucked up. I won't even get started on our retarded health care system... it's pathetic that the world's most powerful nation can't afford to provide its people with decent public transportation and health care options.
What's really sad is that so few corporations are willing to take a chance on something like this. The up front investment is ENORMOUS with no guarantee of a profit return. This isn't Japan, where the rail is essentially the only way to get around. It costs much more to build a rail from city to city here than it does in Japan; it's a simple matter of scale. It's the same reason that people like to give a pass to the telecomm companies; the USA has a lot more land area, so it's too darned difficult to upgrade broadband speeds! Yeah...
If the government doesn't do it, who will? The government has solved many big problems in the past (we went to the god damn moon, didn't we?)
Most of them have already left for CERN. The LHC turns on in August.
What the politicians in the US don't understand is that the scientists will go where the money is. If there is no funding for science, then they'll leave for a country where there is funding. It's that simple. If we want to remain at the leading edge of scientific research, then we need to increase scientific funding.
This is one of those rare problems that CAN be solved by throwing more money at it.
1) The Democrats have a very, very slim majority. This is usually not enough to get anything done because the party is full of people who wear a (D) but are truly (R) in spirit.
2) Many of the Democrats opposed the science budget cuts. Many Republicans supported it. Both parties share blame here. You should actually investigate this for yourself. Do some research before you open your mouth next time.
3) The funding cut was a purely political move. Both sides wanted it because it makes BOTH sides look bad. This wasn't done by the Democrats, it was done by DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS!
4) Most PhD holders (ie the physicists working in these labs) are themselves DEMOCRATS. More Democrats see the good in doing scientific research. More Democrats support it.
Politicians - working together to better screw you.
Placing the blame on a single party is meaningless and stupid. It makes you look like a moron.
That is EXACTLY why we should be funding places like Fermilab! If we took the money required to build a single F-22 and increased Fermilab's budget, everyone in the US (and the world) would see a far greater return on that investment. (A single F-22 costs $138 billion FYI)
The government isn't a charity. You are correct. This is why we should stop letting corrupt agencies like DARPA go delinquent on contracts and rip us off all the time. If anything, we should be cutting the Department of Defense's budget! Their book keeping is the worst in the history of any government on Earth!
$320 million is a drop in the bucket for the US govt. You DO know that we're talking about less than 0.3% of the budget, right?
Their books are kept fairly tight. I can assure you this, having dealt with Fermilab in the past. It costs a lot of money to run scientific laboratories. And it's worth every penny.
Only a complete moron would believe that the Democrats are fully responsible for the significant funding cuts to science this year.
BOTH parties are to blame. If you really dislike this, write letters to your Congressmen! Don't sit around in slashdot blaming one party or the other, THEY BOTH SCREWED UP.
The Democrats are barely in control, and you have to remember that a few of the Congressmen wear a (D) in name only. If you know anything about politics you'd already know that... politicians are all two-faced.
Bush gave a funding ultimatum to Congress. Basically, we would have faced a guaranteed full year of a stubborn president shooting down everything coming out of Congress.
Congress countered by slashing budgets on programs that the current executive branch clearly doesn't care about.
You can blame the Democrats, or you can blame the Republicans. Ultimately they both share some of the blame here. Most politicians are useless things that only look out for themselves.
Why is it that every time some crazy, groundbreaking experiment gets released on slashdot, everyone claims that the inventor can't publish in a scientific journal because the experiment is JUST TOO AWESOME?
Most of the physicists I know are highly optimistic. I personally know two physicists working on ITER. They would LOVE to hear about a cold fusion project.
It's called cautious optimism. I'm not going to get all worked up over an experiment that may have been a hoax or simply misunderstood. The scientific community has published false results several times in the past, including two different magnetic monopole findings, anti-gravity experiments, and other cold fusion experiments that all were either impossible to reproduce or had fabricated data.
If this researcher has a working cold fusion reactor, then he should be able to reproduce the experiment. He would easily be published then. I can think of at least a dozen researchers off the top of my head that would be interested in his results, if they're real.
How do other ground-breaking scientific results get published? Have you ever stopped to think about that? Why is it that real scientific discoveries, some which are amazing and challenge our fundamental understanding of the universe, are so much more easily published? If scientists are so skeptical and closed-minded, how is it that we can come up with something so F'd up as string theory? How about quantum causal dynamics?
Again, if these results are real, they will be published. It's actually a lot easier to get published than you'd think. All you need to do is write your paper with the correct formatting, provide a thoughtful abstract (most important thing), and include meaningful graphs of your data. You won't publish if you only have one data point, like this guy. If he can do it a few more times, then we'll have something.
It has been a bad agricultural year for many countries. China has been hit hard.
There is not a WORLD food shortage (the US already produces enough food yearly to feed the world), but some regions are definitely hurting, and this definitely increases prices. Less supply + same demand = higher prices. Supply is definitely driving at least a significant portion of the price change.
Speaking of the US agricultural system, we need to do away with the sugar tariffs and corn subsidies. We have a great agricultural system, but most of it is augmented by taxpayer dollars. We pay some farmers to not farm. We pay some farmers to let fields rot. This is not what I'd call a free market situation.
If it's a bad idea, not many people will buy it. It's that simple.
Ethanol doesn't work to lower the carbon deficit because we transport the materials with gasoline. What happens when we transport ethanol using ethanol-powered vehicles? I'm sure you can at least guess at the right answer.
Overall ethanol is not the cure to any of our problems, but it is a temporary step in the right direction. Every person that buys this thing is losing money in the long run but is making a small difference in the world. Less dependence on oil is a good thing no matter how you slice it.
Maybe this isn't the best solution. Hell, maybe it's not even a good solution. It does have some benefits that have to be considered. We should be investigating alternative fuels from many different angles, and this is one of them. Electric cars are another, just like solar power, wind power, etc.
There's no need to come down hard on technology that is trying to better society. Why is everyone always so afraid of change? If it's a bad idea, no one is going to buy it. No one is forcing YOU to buy one, so stop crapping all over the people making these things.
If Metallica releases some good music on their next album and it's being distributed online, then I'll consider buying it. I never buy CDs anymore anyway, digital media is the way to go. Online distribution is here.
We (as people) are better off forgiving those who are correcting their past mistakes. Maybe the RIAA will eventually notice the correct way to act when facing new technology.
That's precisely what it is; we see politicians from both parties being bought and sold every day, and we all act so surprised when they agree with the lobbyists who are employing... oops, I mean "funding" them.
Cheney was paid million by the oil companies, but nooooo, he can't possibly be in their pocket. How can people be so naive?
It's a democratic republic. We vote for some laws sometimes. We vote for representatives sometimes.
I don't know why we lack more than two real political parties, it has always been a mystery to me how we're the only "free" modern nation with only two political parties.
The Dem politicians only hate violence when the children are exposed to it. Republicans hate ALL boobies. If you'll notice, there is infinitely more violence on television than there are boobies. The Dems seem to accept the TV rating system as a suitable way to "prevent" kids from violent exposure.
The weird thing is that the Republicans usually come out of the woodwork and try to censor violence (particularly in games today, but before that it was music, movies and TV) whenever there's a school shooting. The Democrats are right there too, but it's funny how you suggested that the Republicans don't to censor violence as much when they really do.
Slashdot Mirror
And a few decades before that, people claimed it was impossible to exceed the speed of sound.
(I like that one a lot better)
I prefer to remain optimistic. Maybe they really have found a method to extract energy from the vacuum of space in order to accomplish these reactions. Who knows
It'd sure be nice if these amazing stories actually panned out for once.
It would be so awesome if this group figured out a way to break those nasty water molecules with less energy than you get from burning hydrogen.
I won't believe it until I see it. Still, best of luck to them. Anything that breaks the current rules is good and opens up a whole new world of possibilities. It's how science has operated for hundreds of years. If a new discovery breaks the rules, modify the rules accordingly.
Is it because he doesn't cater exclusively to billion-dollar oil companies?
Is it because he doesn't encourage torture and illegal detainment?
Medicaid is not universal healthcare.
Okay, so this reply will go unread by you, anonymous coward, but I still considered it a good idea to point out that you're a moron. I could go on and on about how ridiculous you look, but you really did that to yourself.
Those oil companies you're so keen on protecting are the ones not drilling down there.
Have you ever ridden on a German train? THAT'S a shining example of great public transit infrastructure.
Trains are much more efficient than planes. They take longer, but to transport an equal number of people by train is significantly cheaper than to transport them by plane. Train companies should be making enormous, ridiculous profits. Instead, our rail system has fallen into disrepair and the train companies don't have enough funds to upgrade anything BECAUSE the rail system has fallen into disrepair (ie fewer people ride, reducing ticket sales).
We Americans do a lot of things right, but we also do a lot of things wrong. The lack of a good national public transit system is one thing that we have seriously fucked up. I won't even get started on our retarded health care system... it's pathetic that the world's most powerful nation can't afford to provide its people with decent public transportation and health care options.
What's really sad is that so few corporations are willing to take a chance on something like this. The up front investment is ENORMOUS with no guarantee of a profit return. This isn't Japan, where the rail is essentially the only way to get around. It costs much more to build a rail from city to city here than it does in Japan; it's a simple matter of scale. It's the same reason that people like to give a pass to the telecomm companies; the USA has a lot more land area, so it's too darned difficult to upgrade broadband speeds! Yeah...
If the government doesn't do it, who will? The government has solved many big problems in the past (we went to the god damn moon, didn't we?)
Lottery != Las Vegas. When I went there I didn't even gamble...
:P
If we had a better theatre scene in California... we always get some of the good shows, but all of the best shows are in New York or Las Vegas.
If California legalized prostitution we might have something
We need a better train system here. I'm still surprised that there isn't some sort of express train running along each coast.
It's ridiculous that I can't get a reasonably priced train ticket from LA to Tucson (a rail hub in southern AZ).
Most of them have already left for CERN. The LHC turns on in August.
What the politicians in the US don't understand is that the scientists will go where the money is. If there is no funding for science, then they'll leave for a country where there is funding. It's that simple. If we want to remain at the leading edge of scientific research, then we need to increase scientific funding.
This is one of those rare problems that CAN be solved by throwing more money at it.
How can you be so blinded to that fact?
1) The Democrats have a very, very slim majority. This is usually not enough to get anything done because the party is full of people who wear a (D) but are truly (R) in spirit.
2) Many of the Democrats opposed the science budget cuts. Many Republicans supported it. Both parties share blame here. You should actually investigate this for yourself. Do some research before you open your mouth next time.
3) The funding cut was a purely political move. Both sides wanted it because it makes BOTH sides look bad. This wasn't done by the Democrats, it was done by DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS!
4) Most PhD holders (ie the physicists working in these labs) are themselves DEMOCRATS. More Democrats see the good in doing scientific research. More Democrats support it.
Politicians - working together to better screw you.
Placing the blame on a single party is meaningless and stupid. It makes you look like a moron.
That is EXACTLY why we should be funding places like Fermilab! If we took the money required to build a single F-22 and increased Fermilab's budget, everyone in the US (and the world) would see a far greater return on that investment. (A single F-22 costs $138 billion FYI)
The government isn't a charity. You are correct. This is why we should stop letting corrupt agencies like DARPA go delinquent on contracts and rip us off all the time. If anything, we should be cutting the Department of Defense's budget! Their book keeping is the worst in the history of any government on Earth!
$320 million is a drop in the bucket for the US govt. You DO know that we're talking about less than 0.3% of the budget, right?
Their books are kept fairly tight. I can assure you this, having dealt with Fermilab in the past. It costs a lot of money to run scientific laboratories. And it's worth every penny.
Every field of science gives back to society in one way or another.
We've built 26km of superconductor for the first time thanks to the engineering teams at CERN.
People like you are ignorant. You fail to realize that science for the sake of science often brings more benefits to society than focused research.
Medical imaging devices
Cancer treatments
ANYTHING that uses lasers
Instruments that go to higher precision than ever before in EVERY field
High energy physics experiments have given us numerous benefits beyond answering basic scientific questions.
If people like you were always in charge, we'd still be in the dark ages.
Only a complete moron would believe that the Democrats are fully responsible for the significant funding cuts to science this year.
BOTH parties are to blame. If you really dislike this, write letters to your Congressmen! Don't sit around in slashdot blaming one party or the other, THEY BOTH SCREWED UP.
The Democrats are barely in control, and you have to remember that a few of the Congressmen wear a (D) in name only. If you know anything about politics you'd already know that... politicians are all two-faced.
Bush gave a funding ultimatum to Congress. Basically, we would have faced a guaranteed full year of a stubborn president shooting down everything coming out of Congress.
Congress countered by slashing budgets on programs that the current executive branch clearly doesn't care about.
You can blame the Democrats, or you can blame the Republicans. Ultimately they both share some of the blame here. Most politicians are useless things that only look out for themselves.
Why is it that every time some crazy, groundbreaking experiment gets released on slashdot, everyone claims that the inventor can't publish in a scientific journal because the experiment is JUST TOO AWESOME?
Most of the physicists I know are highly optimistic. I personally know two physicists working on ITER. They would LOVE to hear about a cold fusion project.
It's called cautious optimism. I'm not going to get all worked up over an experiment that may have been a hoax or simply misunderstood. The scientific community has published false results several times in the past, including two different magnetic monopole findings, anti-gravity experiments, and other cold fusion experiments that all were either impossible to reproduce or had fabricated data.
If this researcher has a working cold fusion reactor, then he should be able to reproduce the experiment. He would easily be published then. I can think of at least a dozen researchers off the top of my head that would be interested in his results, if they're real.
How do other ground-breaking scientific results get published? Have you ever stopped to think about that? Why is it that real scientific discoveries, some which are amazing and challenge our fundamental understanding of the universe, are so much more easily published? If scientists are so skeptical and closed-minded, how is it that we can come up with something so F'd up as string theory? How about quantum causal dynamics?
Again, if these results are real, they will be published. It's actually a lot easier to get published than you'd think. All you need to do is write your paper with the correct formatting, provide a thoughtful abstract (most important thing), and include meaningful graphs of your data. You won't publish if you only have one data point, like this guy. If he can do it a few more times, then we'll have something.
If I go in expecting the 4th Indiana Jones movie to suck, then at least I won't feel disappointed.
There's a mission that actually REQUIRES you to drive drunk (you have to bring the stupid army guy to a hospital because his moonshine exploded).
MADD is full of retards apparently. We've gone over this a million times. Bad video game behavior does not translate into bad behavior in real life.
I've read plenty of BOOKS and seen plenty of MOVIES and TELEVISION where characters drove while drunk. How about doing something about those?
It has been a bad agricultural year for many countries. China has been hit hard.
There is not a WORLD food shortage (the US already produces enough food yearly to feed the world), but some regions are definitely hurting, and this definitely increases prices. Less supply + same demand = higher prices. Supply is definitely driving at least a significant portion of the price change.
Speaking of the US agricultural system, we need to do away with the sugar tariffs and corn subsidies. We have a great agricultural system, but most of it is augmented by taxpayer dollars. We pay some farmers to not farm. We pay some farmers to let fields rot. This is not what I'd call a free market situation.
If it's a bad idea, not many people will buy it. It's that simple.
Ethanol doesn't work to lower the carbon deficit because we transport the materials with gasoline. What happens when we transport ethanol using ethanol-powered vehicles? I'm sure you can at least guess at the right answer.
Overall ethanol is not the cure to any of our problems, but it is a temporary step in the right direction. Every person that buys this thing is losing money in the long run but is making a small difference in the world. Less dependence on oil is a good thing no matter how you slice it.
Maybe this isn't the best solution. Hell, maybe it's not even a good solution. It does have some benefits that have to be considered. We should be investigating alternative fuels from many different angles, and this is one of them. Electric cars are another, just like solar power, wind power, etc.
There's no need to come down hard on technology that is trying to better society. Why is everyone always so afraid of change? If it's a bad idea, no one is going to buy it. No one is forcing YOU to buy one, so stop crapping all over the people making these things.
If Metallica releases some good music on their next album and it's being distributed online, then I'll consider buying it. I never buy CDs anymore anyway, digital media is the way to go. Online distribution is here.
We (as people) are better off forgiving those who are correcting their past mistakes. Maybe the RIAA will eventually notice the correct way to act when facing new technology.
That's precisely what it is; we see politicians from both parties being bought and sold every day, and we all act so surprised when they agree with the lobbyists who are employing... oops, I mean "funding" them.
Cheney was paid million by the oil companies, but nooooo, he can't possibly be in their pocket. How can people be so naive?
It's a democratic republic. We vote for some laws sometimes. We vote for representatives sometimes.
I don't know why we lack more than two real political parties, it has always been a mystery to me how we're the only "free" modern nation with only two political parties.
The Dem politicians only hate violence when the children are exposed to it. Republicans hate ALL boobies. If you'll notice, there is infinitely more violence on television than there are boobies. The Dems seem to accept the TV rating system as a suitable way to "prevent" kids from violent exposure.
The weird thing is that the Republicans usually come out of the woodwork and try to censor violence (particularly in games today, but before that it was music, movies and TV) whenever there's a school shooting. The Democrats are right there too, but it's funny how you suggested that the Republicans don't to censor violence as much when they really do.