I can tell you from personal references that have BEEN In Iraq that what you read in the popular Press is WRONG. The press is reporting ANY bad news that they can. Iraqi's were in bad shape, the WAS no health care Saddam was siphoning all the money away.
As far as foreign ownership of oil, that's total BS, Iraq's own president has said as much. I see the typical liberal trick of only reporting PART of the news..here is the FULL context from http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/article.print?id=2623..."The new policy also allows for 100 percent foreign ownership of all industries except for oil, which will remain under government control for the time being"., Notice the policy says ALLOW, not WILL. Iraqi's can buy Iraqi companies, and many ex-pat Iraqis are working on doing just that.
Nice try, but you should check the return code from malloc(). If it is -1 then there is a problem and you don't need to do the If statement. A lot of times the trouble comes not when allocating memory but when using a pointer to WRITE to memory. It's a C programmer trick to set up a pointer to a block of size X and write to it via the pointer, of course if you lose track of the pointer address you can easily go too far. Common errors are off by one in the count, assuming you are writing 8/16/32 bits without checking the underlying data type first, or just writing to whatever address the pointer says w/o checking that *p > MAX_MEMORY_ADDRESS. These are errors a beginner programmer would make, and from the looks of how common these errors are in Windows that is the type of folks MS uses. It also says to me that they don't use any sort of Automated Code Analysis tools which can catch these sorts of errors. Or maybe they don't do any indpendant QA at all? It's pretty pathetic when the worlds most popular software is made by a company that probably doesn't meet SEI Level 2 criteria. I only wish that the laws allowed someone to sue for lost time/income from the "basic" errors that shouldn't have been present.
OhmyGawd, that crap rates a 5 as Insightful? It's a pack of lies. Probably written by someone who had some deal going under the table with Saddam. There are some many errors its hard to define them all. "health care"? Yea, if you were a party member, "education"- indoctination since Saddam was the only person ever allowed to be discussed. Rebuild the ancient wonders? LOL..he built himself dozens of palaces. "Peaceful, bloodless transition"..so damn funny...tell me ANY dictatorship that has been overthrown without any blood being shed. "theft of Iraq resources"..Bullshit. Iraq owns it's oil and sells it to whomever pulls up to the terminal at Basra. The US companies aren't doing anything except possibly infrastructure work to IMPROVE the flow of oil. I also see you forgot to mention the EU nations eagerly sucking up the black market oil during the "oil for food" days. Things in Iraq are certainly not rosy, but the are going to have elections, women can vote, kids can learn about the rest of world in school, and money from oil is staying in Iraq. 90% of the problems are being caused by EXTERNAL NON-IRAQI Muslim fundamentalists who want a theocracy. The everyday Iraqis don't. And the US being a "Christian" country has not a thing to do with Iraq. In fact Iraq itself has a large number of Chrisatians that were there BEFORE the "invasion". Capitalism was allowed under Saddam, he just got his cut. This is not the typical liberal anti-Bush diatribe, it's the rambling nonsense of an outright idiot.
Go ahead, Mod me -1 Flamebait, I have Karma to spare.
Yes, thats the POLICY..I said the pricing MODEL which must conform to the policy. It looks like Appendix A might be the place where the pricing Models are at. Also, if there are multiple "acceptable" models, then can I use the one that gives the lowest price? I see LOTS of wiggle room in the statments in the FAQ. I'm sure those gaps will be closed over time:( Or better yet, Congress overrules the whole darn thing!
Say you were granting $10,000 in options that might have been for 1,000 shares, now companies will be more likely to grant 50 shares of stock (worth the same $10,000), but to the company the stock has considerably less dilution associated with it. The end of the accounting trickery (options have zero income statement effect, but stock grants have considerable effect) will bring about this change.....
I don't see companies moving to Grants. Options were used as a management motivation tool to encourage employees to help make the company more profitable via thier labors. If that happend the stock options came above water and the vested shares could be sold at a profit. Giving grants is more like an immediate reward, and it really DOES have costs in the period issued. I suppose they could restrict the sale of Granted Stock but the stock still belongs to the employee and they are now officially stockholders not stockholders to be as with options. Bottom line, I don't think we'll see more grants, but we will see less options and a move back to traditional cash compensation. That's NOT a bad thing IMHO.
FASB hasn't determined the guidelines for pricing the options, so who knows if they will stick to Black-Shcoles or go with some other valuation of thier own. Around 40% of the companies that issue options to employees already expense them. Also, the companies I worked for that granted options disallowed you to sell the options on the Options Market (after you vest). So, there really isn't access to a Market so Market price is kind of an academic exercise. You must buy and resell the stock to make your money.
Options DO have value to the FIRM, they will be expensed at the Market closing price of the stock on the day issued. If the company had sold that stock to Joe Public, they would have recorded the revenue, giving it to Joe Employee means they gave away something with value thus an Expense in Accounting terms. Joe Employees doesn't record any loss/gain until the options vest and are exercised. I'll have to read the rules but i hope FASB will let the companies expense the options as they vest not at the time they are given, and if the options never vest they are never expensed.
However, what the FASB rules say and what the IRS rule say can be different. I don't think the IRS has ruled on this area yet, they were seeing if FASB could work it out and maybe jump on that. And yes, companies DO pay taxes, but it's at a fixed rate. They however get lots of tax deductions you and I can't get.
I suspect you will start seeing some funky statements in earnings reports like you mention. I think the Stock Analysts will ignore it, as Earnings are only 1 component of what they measure to "estimate" the stock price. Cash Flow (which options do not affect) is a better measure of how strong a company is for the future.
By the way, I don't think the rank and file techie options are driving this FASB statement, it's more the massive options given to the techie (and other) EXECUTIVES that they are concerned with.
You are forgetting the bombings in Spain, and at the Moscow Theater (OK, Russia is not the EU).
None Before? Ha, Ha, Ha..Before the train station bombs in Spain there were many attacks all over Europe by terrorists groups, you don't remember the Bologna train station bombing in 1980, and another in 1988? Don't forget the Ricin poisoning ring in the UK busted by Scotland Yard and there have been some bombings in Turkey recently too (not sure if they are EU now?).
Also, the IRA is a terrorist group and they committed many bombings in the 1990's. You must be too young to recall those days.
If you have no bombings for a year, they have "paused". Until you get rid of those organizations that perform the bombings they will never stop.
Wrong! Risk prevention is measured on two axes: Probability of Occurence and Impact of Occurence. Then you determine when to draw the line between prevention and mitigation.
You might not think that losing 50K or more folks due to a terriorst attack might not be that bad, but I'll lay odds the rest of the population in the USA does NOT feel that way.
The EU (other than the UK) has dealt with terrorist attacks by "turning the other cheek" and negotiating. Have the attacks stopped? Nope!!! The US decided to eliminate the den of terrorists and the attacks have stopped!
I'm all for not wasting money, but I think the results speak for themselves, the money so far has been well spent. Also remember that Homeland Security is a new Agency and it's full of civil service employees and the associated costs of those. There is no CHEAP solution. Perhaps things can be more efficient, but I don't think any of us on/. have the visibility and knowledge to know where money is wasted.
So, you are willing to risk a suitcase nuke going off in YOUR City (assuming you are an American)? That might kill close to 50K people and render the city uninhabitable for many 1000's more.
9/11 was only the start, many more attacks have been planned and have been stopped.
Making the nation safe from enemies FOREIGN and DOMESTIC is part of the sworn duty of the president. In fact it's in the oath of office. I really get tired of simple minded folks who think the solution is to do nothing simply because doing something might make them a tiny bit uncomfortable in some way. Your arguments on DUI are a nice Red Herring..not useful to the discussion at all.
I hope they do, then they would be in clear violation of the settlement agreement to end the Anti-Trust suit. IIRC, M$ had to DECOUPLE the O/S and IE as part of the terms, as well as not requiring mfgs to install Windows on all PCs they sell. Of course, this all assumes the Gov't will enforce the terms of the settlement.
I wasn't being rude. I was making my point strongly. If I was being rude I would have called you names. That's the/. way!:)
As long as you can get it in the right format for the player it does not care where it came from. The possibility of you having an "illegal source" of the music is what all the fussing is about.
CD's probably will go the way of 8-Tracks, there is always a better medium it seems.
The region system on DVDs was a primitive copy protect mechanism. It's actually worked pretty good.
The only possible area of applicability is #6, and most of the terrorists that have been detained are NOT been inhabitants and do not "carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". Before someone says #1 applies the terrorists in no sense of the word " Party to the conflict ".
You can bitch and moan about this all you want but it's pretty straightforward in meaning. In fact the GC was never INTENDED to deal with terrorists, it came into being after WWI.
Also, just because a nation signed up the the GC does not mean they have to live by it. There really aren't a lot of repercussions. Mybe a war crimes trial at the Hauge before an International court, assuming they can find the abusers and extradict them. Even then they better have a LOT of evidence.
I also noticed how one respondant ignores the fact that other nations don't treat terrorists any better or apply the GC either.
I was IMPLYING future music to be published has the POTENTIAL to be required to have a DRM in the format that MUST be there, and the players MUST recognize it or not play the music. I'm just hypothesizing based on what I see happening in the marketplace. I'm looking at the much bigger picture than what happens with the iPod.
There is a huge installed base of players that don't handle DRM, and I'm not sure if a) going to DRM is a sure way to piss these folks off when the players don't work on newer music or b) an opportunity to sell DRM capable players to them. It's kinda like DVDs, there is a format that will play in some Regions of the world and not in others, your DVD player must handle the format for YOUR region or ALL regions. ALL region DVD players are much more expensive. Portable music players could head down that path in that the old players only handle the music with the "non-DRM" format and DRM format requires new players or a clever work around. It's going to be a war and it's really just starting, and I see no end and no clear winner.
Enemy combatants are protected by the Geneva Convention. But they must be cleared identified as belonging to a sanctioned military unit of a recognized nation. Terrorists such as Al-Queada don't fall into those categories.
Even though the Geneva Convention is not applied these detainees are treated well compared to how they would be treated by other nations.
Everyone is missing the point. Apple does not OWN the music or the copyrights. If the "Powers That Be" in the music business (or the Governement) decide that DRM is the way to go and someone like Microsoft jumps into the mix as a proponent then it'll happen. I don't want it to happen, I think there are better solutions and going to DRM would remove a lot of user options, just saying things are trending that way. Regardless of the tools or the format the DRM would be needed.
Formats evolve and markets evolve, Apple isn't going to stand still and lose this market, they'll adapt to the conditions imposed. After all it's only a firmware change to the iPod, or perhaps even better (for Apple) is the old iPods no longer work on new music so you have to buy a new one! I don't think Apple is going to want to go against the law even if it makes the users very happy.
Of course as soon as DRMs come to pass someone will invent a way around them. The "war" on DRM isn't going to be won be either side for a long time. Hymn is just a small skirmish in the war.
For now there is no reason. But I bet soon if not already the iPod will check to make sure the DRM signature is in the file. No Sig, No Music. Hacking the right DRM INTO a music file is a lot harder than hacking it out especially if they use encryption.
That's not funny..Should be modded insightful. The concept of "eating your own dog food" is actually a very good way of testing products prior to external release. Cisco does exactly this same thing. The QUALITY of the iternal testing must be lacking at MS (or the exec you mention was full of crap) since to many bugs seem to make it into the final product. The theory is fine, the application of it seems weak in Micrsoft's case.
True, but it's only an Alpha emitter so it can be stopped by clothing, paper, etc. It's not like someone would be ingesting huge amounts of this simply by breathing even living next door to a coal plant.
I wish I had Mod Points today..Very good combo!! You better copyright the script before Hollywood (Or Bollywood) steals it! But it's gotta have a catchy title too. Thats the hard part...
"A 1000 megawatt light water nuclear plant of the type used in the USA uses about 25 tons of uranium a year."
True, but since we only get 35% efficiency in a light water reactor, there is room for improvement. There are more efficent designs available.
Of the 5.2 tons of Uranium only at most 3.5% of it would be the radioactive isotope (U-235) and of the 12.8 tons of Thorium only a tiny amount is the radioactive isotope. One thing about Thorium is it is really a better fuel that Uranium.
"explosive bond"? That doesn't sound like the bonds I recall in Chemistry. IIRC, tightly bonded atoms such as Carbon-Carbon double and triple bonds release lots of energy when broken but it is released as heat not something that "shoves" other molecules. Sure, the hotter the gas/liquid the faster the molecules move but that's not the same as what I hear you saying. So, want to explain?
We are pretty darn good at Molecular manufacturing, that's essentially what is done to make semiconductors and some drugs. Or are you talking about moving individual atoms? Some molecules are just not possible given the laws of physics and chemistry.
When it costs $6B to build the Fusion Plant, someone somewhere is going to want to get that money back. If it ever becomes private enterrpise, stockholders will certainly want the money back! Fission power was supposed to be cheap too, and after the Government got finished with the regulations, as well as the waste issues that are still occuring it became too expensive to build. I wonder if the same thing might happen with Fusion as there are safety and waste issues. Another factor is the electric utilities don't have the capital to build fusion plants at the current cost, and I sure don't want the Government handling my electricity! Technology can cause some very difficult political situations to arise, and sometimes those kill the technology:(
The new Chinese State sponsored Birth Control plan is to give everyone a ThinkPad. Now we know the REAL reason they were so interested in buying IBMs laptop division.;)
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I can tell you from personal references that have BEEN In Iraq that what you read in the popular Press is WRONG. The press is reporting ANY bad news that they can. Iraqi's were in bad shape, the WAS no health care Saddam was siphoning all the money away. As far as foreign ownership of oil, that's total BS, Iraq's own president has said as much. I see the typical liberal trick of only reporting PART of the news..here is the FULL context from http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/article.print?id=2623.. ."The new policy also allows for 100 percent foreign ownership of all industries except for oil, which will remain under government control for the time being"., Notice the policy says ALLOW, not WILL. Iraqi's can buy Iraqi companies, and many ex-pat Iraqis are working on doing just that.
Nice try, but you should check the return code from malloc(). If it is -1 then there is a problem and you don't need to do the If statement. A lot of times the trouble comes not when allocating memory but when using a pointer to WRITE to memory. It's a C programmer trick to set up a pointer to a block of size X and write to it via the pointer, of course if you lose track of the pointer address you can easily go too far. Common errors are off by one in the count, assuming you are writing 8/16/32 bits without checking the underlying data type first,
or just writing to whatever address the pointer says w/o checking that *p > MAX_MEMORY_ADDRESS. These are errors a beginner programmer would make, and from the looks of how common these errors are in Windows that is the type of folks MS uses. It also says to me that they don't use any sort of Automated Code Analysis tools which can catch these sorts of errors. Or maybe they don't do any indpendant QA at all? It's pretty pathetic when the worlds most popular software is made by a company that probably doesn't meet SEI Level 2 criteria. I only wish that the laws allowed someone to sue for lost time/income from the "basic" errors that shouldn't have been present.
OhmyGawd, that crap rates a 5 as Insightful? It's a pack of lies. Probably written by someone who had some deal going under the table with Saddam. There are some many errors its hard to define them all. "health care"? Yea, if you were a party member, "education"- indoctination since Saddam was the only person ever allowed to be discussed. Rebuild the ancient wonders? LOL..he built himself dozens of palaces. "Peaceful, bloodless transition"..so damn funny...tell me ANY dictatorship that has been overthrown without any blood being shed. "theft of Iraq resources"..Bullshit. Iraq owns it's oil and sells it to whomever pulls up to the terminal at Basra. The US companies aren't doing anything except possibly infrastructure work to IMPROVE the flow of oil. I also see you forgot to mention the EU nations eagerly sucking up the black market oil during the "oil for food" days.
Things in Iraq are certainly not rosy, but the are going to have elections, women can vote, kids can learn about the rest of world in school, and money from oil is staying in Iraq. 90% of the problems are being caused by EXTERNAL NON-IRAQI Muslim fundamentalists who want a theocracy. The everyday Iraqis don't. And the US being a "Christian" country has not a thing to do with Iraq. In fact Iraq itself has a large number of Chrisatians that were there BEFORE the "invasion". Capitalism was allowed under Saddam, he just got his cut. This is not the typical liberal anti-Bush diatribe, it's the rambling nonsense of an outright idiot.
Go ahead, Mod me -1 Flamebait, I have Karma to spare.
Yes, thats the POLICY..I said the pricing MODEL which must conform to the policy. It looks like Appendix A might be the place where the pricing Models are at. Also, if there are multiple "acceptable" models, then can I use the one that gives the lowest price? I see LOTS of wiggle room in the statments in the FAQ. I'm sure those gaps will be closed over time :( Or better yet, Congress overrules the whole darn thing!
Say you were granting $10,000 in options that might have been for 1,000 shares, now companies will be more likely to grant 50 shares of stock (worth the same $10,000), but to the company the stock has considerably less dilution associated with it. The end of the accounting trickery (options have zero income statement effect, but stock grants have considerable effect) will bring about this change.....
I don't see companies moving to Grants. Options were used as a management motivation tool to encourage employees to help make the company more profitable via thier labors. If that happend the stock options came above water and the vested shares could be sold at a profit. Giving grants is more like an immediate reward, and it really DOES have costs in the period issued. I suppose they could restrict the sale of Granted Stock but the stock still belongs to the employee and they are now officially stockholders not stockholders to be as with options. Bottom line, I don't think we'll see more grants, but we will see less options and a move back to traditional cash compensation. That's NOT a bad thing IMHO.
FASB hasn't determined the guidelines for pricing the options, so who knows if they will stick to Black-Shcoles or go with some other valuation of thier own. Around 40% of the companies that issue options to employees already expense them. Also, the companies I worked for that granted options disallowed you to sell the options on the Options Market (after you vest). So, there really isn't access to a Market so Market price is kind of an academic exercise. You must buy and resell the stock to make your money.
Options DO have value to the FIRM, they will be expensed at the Market closing price of the stock on the day issued. If the company had sold that stock to Joe Public, they would have recorded the revenue, giving it to Joe Employee means they gave away something with value thus an Expense in Accounting terms. Joe Employees doesn't record any loss/gain until the options vest and are exercised. I'll have to read the rules but i hope FASB will let the companies expense the options as they vest not at the time they are given, and if the options never vest they are never expensed.
However, what the FASB rules say and what the IRS rule say can be different. I don't think the IRS has ruled on this area yet, they were seeing if FASB could work it out and maybe jump on that. And yes, companies DO pay taxes, but it's at a fixed rate. They however get lots of tax deductions you and I can't get.
I suspect you will start seeing some funky statements in earnings reports like you mention. I think the Stock Analysts will ignore it, as Earnings are only 1 component of what they measure to "estimate" the stock price. Cash Flow (which options do not affect) is a better measure of how strong a company is for the future.
By the way, I don't think the rank and file techie options are driving this FASB statement, it's more the massive options given to the techie (and other) EXECUTIVES that they are concerned with.
You are forgetting the bombings in Spain, and at the Moscow Theater (OK, Russia is not the EU). None Before? Ha, Ha, Ha..Before the train station bombs in Spain there were many attacks all over Europe by terrorists groups, you don't remember the Bologna train station bombing in 1980, and another in 1988? Don't forget the Ricin poisoning ring in the UK busted by Scotland Yard and there have been some bombings in Turkey recently too (not sure if they are EU now?). Also, the IRA is a terrorist group and they committed many bombings in the 1990's. You must be too young to recall those days. If you have no bombings for a year, they have "paused". Until you get rid of those organizations that perform the bombings they will never stop.
Wrong! Risk prevention is measured on two axes: Probability of Occurence and Impact of Occurence. Then you determine when to draw the line between prevention and mitigation. You might not think that losing 50K or more folks due to a terriorst attack might not be that bad, but I'll lay odds the rest of the population in the USA does NOT feel that way. The EU (other than the UK) has dealt with terrorist attacks by "turning the other cheek" and negotiating. Have the attacks stopped? Nope!!! The US decided to eliminate the den of terrorists and the attacks have stopped! I'm all for not wasting money, but I think the results speak for themselves, the money so far has been well spent. Also remember that Homeland Security is a new Agency and it's full of civil service employees and the associated costs of those. There is no CHEAP solution. Perhaps things can be more efficient, but I don't think any of us on /. have the visibility and knowledge to know where money is wasted.
So, you are willing to risk a suitcase nuke going off in YOUR City (assuming you are an American)? That might kill close to 50K people and render the city uninhabitable for many 1000's more. 9/11 was only the start, many more attacks have been planned and have been stopped. Making the nation safe from enemies FOREIGN and DOMESTIC is part of the sworn duty of the president. In fact it's in the oath of office. I really get tired of simple minded folks who think the solution is to do nothing simply because doing something might make them a tiny bit uncomfortable in some way. Your arguments on DUI are a nice Red Herring..not useful to the discussion at all.
Read the very bottom of Page 2 of the NYT Ad. There you will find your answer.
I hope they do, then they would be in clear violation of the settlement agreement to end the Anti-Trust suit. IIRC, M$ had to DECOUPLE the O/S and IE as part of the terms, as well as not requiring mfgs to install Windows on all PCs they sell. Of course, this all assumes the Gov't will enforce the terms of the settlement.
I wasn't being rude. I was making my point strongly. If I was being rude I would have called you names. That's the /. way! :)
As long as you can get it in the right format for the player it does not care where it came from. The possibility of you having an "illegal source" of the music is what all the fussing is about.
CD's probably will go the way of 8-Tracks, there is always a better medium it seems.
The region system on DVDs was a primitive copy protect mechanism. It's actually worked pretty good.
Thanks for posting the relevant sections.
The only possible area of applicability is #6, and most of the terrorists that have been detained are NOT been inhabitants and do not "carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". Before someone says #1 applies the terrorists in no sense of the word " Party to the conflict ".
You can bitch and moan about this all you want but it's pretty straightforward in meaning. In fact the GC was never INTENDED to deal with terrorists, it came into being after WWI.
Also, just because a nation signed up the the GC does not mean they have to live by it. There really aren't a lot of repercussions. Mybe a war crimes trial at the Hauge before an International court, assuming they can find the abusers and extradict them. Even then they better have a LOT of evidence.
I also noticed how one respondant ignores the fact that other nations don't treat terrorists any better or apply the GC either.
I was IMPLYING future music to be published has the POTENTIAL to be required to have a DRM in the format that MUST be there, and the players MUST recognize it or not play the music. I'm just hypothesizing based on what I see happening in the marketplace. I'm looking at the much bigger picture than what happens with the iPod.
There is a huge installed base of players that don't handle DRM, and I'm not sure if a) going to DRM is a sure way to piss these folks off when the players don't work on newer music or b) an opportunity to sell DRM capable players to them. It's kinda like DVDs, there is a format that will play in some Regions of the world and not in others, your DVD player must handle the format for YOUR region or ALL regions. ALL region DVD players are much more expensive. Portable music players could head down that path in that the old players only handle the music with the "non-DRM" format and DRM format requires new players or a clever work around. It's going to be a war and it's really just starting, and I see no end and no clear winner.
Enemy combatants are protected by the Geneva Convention. But they must be cleared identified as belonging to a sanctioned military unit of a recognized nation. Terrorists such as Al-Queada don't fall into those categories. Even though the Geneva Convention is not applied these detainees are treated well compared to how they would be treated by other nations.
Everyone is missing the point. Apple does not OWN the music or the copyrights. If the "Powers That Be" in the music business (or the Governement) decide that DRM is the way to go and someone like Microsoft jumps into the mix as a proponent then it'll happen. I don't want it to happen, I think there are better solutions and going to DRM would remove a lot of user options, just saying things are trending that way. Regardless of the tools or the format the DRM would be needed. Formats evolve and markets evolve, Apple isn't going to stand still and lose this market, they'll adapt to the conditions imposed. After all it's only a firmware change to the iPod, or perhaps even better (for Apple) is the old iPods no longer work on new music so you have to buy a new one! I don't think Apple is going to want to go against the law even if it makes the users very happy. Of course as soon as DRMs come to pass someone will invent a way around them. The "war" on DRM isn't going to be won be either side for a long time. Hymn is just a small skirmish in the war.
For now there is no reason. But I bet soon if not already the iPod will check to make sure the DRM signature is in the file. No Sig, No Music. Hacking the right DRM INTO a music file is a lot harder than hacking it out especially if they use encryption.
That's not funny..Should be modded insightful. The concept of "eating your own dog food" is actually a very good way of testing products prior to external release. Cisco does exactly this same thing. The QUALITY of the iternal testing must be lacking at MS (or the exec you mention was full of crap) since to many bugs seem to make it into the final product. The theory is fine, the application of it seems weak in Micrsoft's case.
True, but it's only an Alpha emitter so it can be stopped by clothing, paper, etc. It's not like someone would be ingesting huge amounts of this simply by breathing even living next door to a coal plant.
I wish I had Mod Points today..Very good combo!! You better copyright the script before Hollywood (Or Bollywood) steals it! But it's gotta have a catchy title too. Thats the hard part...
"A 1000 megawatt light water nuclear plant of the type used in the USA uses about 25 tons of uranium a year." True, but since we only get 35% efficiency in a light water reactor, there is room for improvement. There are more efficent designs available. Of the 5.2 tons of Uranium only at most 3.5% of it would be the radioactive isotope (U-235) and of the 12.8 tons of Thorium only a tiny amount is the radioactive isotope. One thing about Thorium is it is really a better fuel that Uranium.
"explosive bond"? That doesn't sound like the bonds I recall in Chemistry. IIRC, tightly bonded atoms such as Carbon-Carbon double and triple bonds release lots of energy when broken but it is released as heat not something that "shoves" other molecules. Sure, the hotter the gas/liquid the faster the molecules move but that's not the same as what I hear you saying. So, want to explain? We are pretty darn good at Molecular manufacturing, that's essentially what is done to make semiconductors and some drugs. Or are you talking about moving individual atoms? Some molecules are just not possible given the laws of physics and chemistry.
When it costs $6B to build the Fusion Plant, someone somewhere is going to want to get that money back. If it ever becomes private enterrpise, stockholders will certainly want the money back! Fission power was supposed to be cheap too, and after the Government got finished with the regulations, as well as the waste issues that are still occuring it became too expensive to build. I wonder if the same thing might happen with Fusion as there are safety and waste issues. Another factor is the electric utilities don't have the capital to build fusion plants at the current cost, and I sure don't want the Government handling my electricity! Technology can cause some very difficult political situations to arise, and sometimes those kill the technology :(
The new Chinese State sponsored Birth Control plan is to give everyone a ThinkPad. Now we know the REAL reason they were so interested in buying IBMs laptop division. ;)