There is a very reasonable explanation for this: If we are a topic of research for them, they could have simply stopped studying us in the same way

Take our own science for example. We pull out of studies when the funding dries up. Maybe the aliens’ government grant ran out. Or, perhaps they have a policy of avoiding interference with the subjects. They could have changed methodology in response to the threat of high resolution recording equipment

Yeah there is a reason why plane spotters use 400+mm lenses

For the longest time, Reddit allowed some of the most toxic, explicitly hateful, communities out there. It continued to grow very quickly under those circumstances. Furthermore, the more moderate communities continued to exist. It wasn’t until later, when they were trying to monetize, that Reddit started cracking down on the allowed content.

As much as I disagreed with those communities, I think Reddit was a better place when the admin had a looser hand on which communities could it could not exist

What do you think carbon steel is made from?

Cast iron and steel are largely similar materials, cast iron just has the carbon precipitated out of solution instead of trapped in a crystalline structure

Only if we value safety and convenience over freedom.

Personally, I’ll take the freedom.

If you think that’s a satisfactory replacement for the average person you don’t know much about motorsports. The costs alone are outside the reach of most people.

It certainly has the potential to be. Remember most of the costs related to fission are safety measures, plant decommissioning, and waste disposal. If we merely had to operate the reactor without concern for those issues, fission would be incredibly cheap. The fuel costs and basic technical requirements to operate a reactor are trivial in comparison.

Fusion produced 4x more energy per mass of fuel compared to fission, isn’t at risk of meltdown, and has the potential to produce negligible radioactive byproducts. In addition, it outputs helium which is an important and finite strategic resource.

Even if the cost of fuel goes up dramatically compared to uranium reactors, it might still outperform nuclear in a big way. However, sourcing He-3 from the moon might be a lot cheaper than you think. My day job is related to space resource utilization. Transporting resources off the surface of the moon could be quite economical once we reach a sufficient level of development.

The usual joke is that fusion is always “30 years away”, not 10. The reason is that fusion projects have historically faced an issue where funding is chronically below predictions

However, this past decade is seeing a number of promising changes that make fusion seem much closer than it ever has. Lawrence Livermore managed to produce net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the first time. Fusion startups are receiving historical levels of VC funding. ITER is expected to produce as much as ten times as much energy as used to start the reaction. The rise of private space infrastructure is making helium-3 mining on the moon more possible than ever before.

Even that is meaningless because the vehicle you put a battery in is as important or moreso than the battery.

Aptera has a claimed 1,000+ mile range with a 100 kWh lithium battery. Meanwhile, the Rivian R1S has a claimed 270 mile range when equipped with a 106 kWh battery.

The main difference is that the Aptera is a light and aerodynamic car built for maximum efficiency instead of a 6,000 lb pickup truck. Any battery can boast amazing numbers if you are flexible enough with the use case.

I find it funny this comment got upvoted more than mine. I am a guidance engineer that worked at NASA on lunar lander programs, it’s literally my job to be an expert in this stuff. Modern computing has reduced propellant usage a bit and improved targeting accuracy, but we have had usable solutions to this problem since the 60s.

Atmosphere makes the problem MUCH harder because the dynamics are far more complicated and the uncertainties are higher.

Yes but a moon landing is fundamentally easier in most respects, while using substantially similar technology, than landing a rocket booster on earth or a rover on mars.

Landing on the moon is, as far as it can be, trivial for a group like NASA. It’s much more challenging for a small private company like Intuitive that has never built a lander before.

Sounds like they should let the kids choose whether they want to you outside or stay in based on whether or not they feel cold

Forcing kids to bring coats is weird to me

Maybe it’s different elsewhere, but I was born into a relatively cold+wet climate and moved to San Diego in elementary school. I didn’t bring a coat because it made me hot, I was acclimated to colder weather, and I didn’t want to carry it around.

They refused to let me go outside for recess for weeks because I didn’t bring a coat and refused to wear one from the lost and found. Finally, one day, they sent me to the principal’s office and called my mom in for a chat to discuss my misbehaving.

My mom’s response was, “You called me in from work for THIS?! If he’s not cold, he’s not cold! He has warm clothing at home. He’s capable of deciding whether or not he would be more comfortable with a jacket on. Let him go outside and leave me alone”

It’s a very effective medicine, though. For example, in small doses it’s more effective than adderall or Ritalin for ADHD. It’s less common than either of those drugs because there is a higher abuse potential, but there is nothing really wrong with it either.

The key here is small doses taken orally. Taking it in a medical context is a very different animal than recreational methamphetamine.

Energy storage of solar is promising to be cheaper than nuclear

Nuclear powerplants are very, very expensive when you amortize the commissioning and decommissioning costs into the lifetime expenses. There have been repeated attempts to encourage fission adoption over the last 20 years and almost no new plants are being made because the economics just don’t work.

… what do you think the green energy sector is doing?

There is orders of magnitude more funding being sunk into rolling out existing green energy tech than in researching fusion. This money isn’t going towards fission reactors because they aren’t economically viable when compared to other forms of green energy like wind and solar.

The reason fusion is always 30 years away is because that statement is always accompanied with the subtext of 30 years at the current funding rate. Funding consistently decreased for decades as optimism in the tech fades.

However, this decade will be marked with a number of breakthroughs. Last year we achieved the first net energy gain from fusion ever, there are a number of fairly well funded startups with very promising tech, and ITER will be the closest we have ever gotten to a real working fusion plant with (hopefully) large scale net energy

Now is precisely the right the time to increase funding to fusion to push us over the hump into usable power production

The onion did a bit about ten years ago on the Palestine-Israel conflict, reporting:

“Israeli and Palestine leaders have shown they see eye to eye in nearly every facet of the proposed solution, including such provisions as: seizing all territory, watching the opposition burn in righteous fire, and building a unified nation on the corpses of their enemy. Yet, they still haven’t come any closer to putting a stop to the conflict”

Kind of sums it up.

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When I was in government my work life balance coming into the office two days a week was better than now when I am working full time WFH in private industry, so I guess that’s very subjective.

At NASA they regularly told us, “the rocket won’t crash if you clock out at 40 hours. Go home to your families.” A lot of government positions you could literally just check out and sleep all day for weeks at a time and nobody will even notice.