The way this fusion reaction was produced is relatively unlikely to yield usable power any time soon. My understanding is that they used an absurd amount of energy and material to fire extremely powerful lasers for a very short time at a very small target to produce a small amount of energy that they couldn’t actually…

No, I actually do think it’s ok to complain about an inherently undemocratic system making decisions for everyone based on the whims of the handful of people that have the most time on their hands to show up to meetings. It’s also why I think mandatory public comment for a lot of local government issues is also…

You know that not all disabilities are visible, and not everyone who uses a wheelchair needs to use a wheelchair at all times right?

I think the pandemic hit them especially hard on the margins. I don’t have anything but anecdotes to back this up, but IMO they’ve definitely lost some competitive advantages which used to make them my go-to. I still fly them plenty but you’re right, their prices and timeliness have suffered.

I really like Southwest as well and I don’t understand the haters. Unless you’ve got high level status, are rich, or lucky, pretty much every carrier these days is just operating a bus that flies. At least Southwest doesn’t nickel-and-dime you for the privilege, and is relatively humane about their booking policies.

Most of Southwest’s flights are sub 4 hour trips though. They only fly 737s, transcontinental flights are about as far as they’ll go. Even then AFAIK Southwest doesn’t run a lot of transcontinental flights.

If I were The Rock I would take this as an opportunity to find a weird supporting role I know I could crush in some small-to-mid-budget dramedy, especially if it’s a little bit self-effacing. But he won’t do it for exactly the reason he should: he’s too obsessed with his brand. I think everybody, him included,…

I think it’s about The Rock doing more brand management and Disney figuring as long as they don’t put too much money in they can probably turn an easy profit. Black Adam tanked and The Rock’s reputation took a huge hit at the same time. He might be either pivoting to more family-friendly stuff, just hiding out in a…

I’m no expert so someone else who is feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. But I think this is overstating the case for “cover rights” quite a bit. The parts of the work Al copies absolutely are protected, sometimes under multiple copyrights. Individual recordings have copyrights, as well as compositions, as well as…

So obviously this is all very nuanced, and it wasn’t my intent to overstate the case for parody. The fundamental problem with fair use is that it’s generally a very ambiguous legal concept, and there are relatively few legal decisions on it. It benefits big IP holders for fair use to remain somewhat ambiguous; they’re…

For once I agree with an IP take on the internet. This is a parody, as EEAAO uses both the original movie and the original movie’s premise to comment, in part, on the original movie and original movie’s premise.

See, I think this does misread TLJ a little. One of its themse is the tension between the past and the present. The point of the movie isn’t that you should ditch the past or that you should embrace it. From my view the movie takes the position that not only shouldn’t you do either, but you can’t do either, because…

Frankly I think it’s easily one of the best blockbuster films of the 21st century so far.

This is one of the best autopsies of why TLJ is great and also why self-proclaimed Star Wars fans lost their absolute minds over it. It’s a recapitulation of the core themes of Star Wars and a repudiation of its trappings. But fans just want the trappings, which were always in tension with the themes. Add to this the…

The point is that he didn’t kill Ben Solo, and he’s ashamed he was ever tempted to. This is perfectly in line with the Luke we know, who was frequently tempted to act violently out of fear. As in his final fight with Vader, in a moment of weakness he walked right up to the point of no return before pulling himself…

People do things they regret and decide to fuck off rather than deal with the fallout from those regrettable choices all the time. There’s truly nothing about Luke’s character in the OT that tells me he wouldn’t, under any circumstances, fall prey to the same foibles many others have.

The hydrogen isotopes used for the reactions are isotopes. Which means they have neutrons, unlike regular hydrogen. That’s what deuterium and tritium are: hydrogens with 1 and 2 neutrons, respectively.

There have been pretty consistent rumors from inside Tesla and especially SpaceX that managing Elon (placating him, distracting him, generally keeping him from fucking up the day-to-day operations) was a huge portion of several peoples’ jobs and a massive waste of resources. At this point those rumors seem all but…

I’d argue Glenn was always bad, he just happened to be on the right side of a few very specific issues that also happened to make him very famous.

Sure, but my point is that massive changes to our urban landscape are possible and can happen within a handful of years if we get the willpower necessary to make it happen. Now is a great time to try. As we see increasing urbanization, including a lot of reverse flight from suburbs back into urban cores, now would be…