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Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:18 pm
by chrismb
pfrit wrote: The only two reasons that I have not done so is that I am lazy and it strikes me as somewhat tacky.
I can't be bothered because I feel can largely anticipate the tehcnical reply (even if one was forthcoming): I reckon it is very very little more than is already in the public domain.

Not sure what you mean by 'tacky' - d'you mean like being a 'troublesome' taxpayer who asks where their money is going? Real tacky!! Polywell money is US tax money, not mine. (I already give the recipients of my UK tax money plenty to choke on over their lunchtime 'fully-funded' caviar and champagne. Local govt., national govt. police, &c.... I don't really have the time, but someone's gotta remind them what the words 'master' and 'servant' mean because the general-unwashed seem to kowtow to their 'Authorities' every whim in the Western world these days, mainly out of fear of some form of administrative [or other?] retribution, it seems. Have a bit of back bone! Go on! Be tacky and ask what your money is being used for!!!)

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:50 pm
by dnavas
D Tibbets wrote:...which now would be 13-19 months, not that I'm counting. :wink:
Of course not, that would be ridiculous.

That's what the HTML countdown page is for!

-Dave

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:19 am
by pfrit
chrismb wrote:
pfrit wrote: The only two reasons that I have not done so is that I am lazy and it strikes me as somewhat tacky.
I can't be bothered because I feel can largely anticipate the tehcnical reply (even if one was forthcoming): I reckon it is very very little more than is already in the public domain.

Not sure what you mean by 'tacky' - d'you mean like being a 'troublesome' taxpayer who asks where their money is going? Real tacky!! Polywell money is US tax money, not mine. (I already give the recipients of my UK tax money plenty to choke on over their lunchtime 'fully-funded' caviar and champagne. Local govt., national govt. police, &c.... I don't really have the time, but someone's gotta remind them what the words 'master' and 'servant' mean because the general-unwashed seem to kowtow to their 'Authorities' every whim in the Western world these days, mainly out of fear of some form of administrative [or other?] retribution, it seems. Have a bit of back bone! Go on! Be tacky and ask what your money is being used for!!!)
By tacky I mean, i wanna know what you guys are doing because I'm a nebsh*t. Its not my business and if they wanted to tell me they would. As far as being a taxpayer, that only holds up if I sent out foia requests for many projects and I was interested in tracking down government waste. Nothing wrong with that, except again I am lazy. I am just curious about this one project and bugging them to tell me because my curiosity is soooooo important is just a little tacky. That's just me. Anyone here who has more invested than just idle curiosity or who doesn't mind being a nebsh*t, go ahead and submit a request. It's your right.

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 1:00 pm
by Torulf2
British (and Swedish) tax payers, pays for ITER.

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 2:08 pm
by chrismb
Torulf2 wrote:British (and Swedish) tax payers, pays for ITER.
Exactly. And when you ask, you get answers, and when you look, you find published results....

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 2:17 pm
by MSimon
chrismb wrote:
Torulf2 wrote:British (and Swedish) tax payers, pays for ITER.
Exactly. And when you ask, you get answers, and when you look, you find published results....
I suppose you could convince them to work on Polywell as a hedge.

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:07 pm
by TallDave
A FOIA request will almost certainly be denied.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of ... ed_States)
However, there are nine exemptions, ranging from a withholding “specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy” and “trade secrets”
Torulf2 wrote:
British (and Swedish) tax payers, pays for ITER.

Exactly. And when you ask, you get answers, and when you look, you find published results....
Because there's an international agreement on disclosure, which in turn is because ITER is worthless, commercially and militarily speaking. Polywell would be extremely useful on both counts if it panned out.
or maybe no-one wants to actually know the answer!?
I can only roll my eyes at this. Most everyone here would sacrifice valuable body parts for a peek at the data, good or bad.

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:26 pm
by pfrit
TallDave wrote:A FOIA request will almost certainly be denied.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of ... ed_States)
However, there are nine exemptions, ranging from a withholding “specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy” and “trade secrets”
Actually, I specifically stated correspondance. That is usually released, though often heavily redacted. These would be letters between the Navy and EMC2 and possibly the review board. As I said, you may get more, but I do not think you will be outright denied, assuming you make a suitably broad request.

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:55 pm
by Munchausen
Torulf2 wrote:British (and Swedish) tax payers, pays for ITER.
As I understand it, the swedish committment to fusion research is generally lukewarm. The fission field has been mothballed for a long time but has now regained some funding with the ultimate purpose of expanding nuclear power.

If the elections next year result in a left wing government even that effort is at risk.

There is going to be no serious swedish government money going into odd fusion power projects.

Unless someone proves that stone to stone adds up to a wall, the earth is round, the sky is blue and the grass is green. To some hideous old fart that makes Art Carlson look like Cinderella.

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:51 pm
by chrismb
Munchausen wrote: the sky is blue
That's just an optical illusion. A bit like the Sun is green, but the eye can't see green so it just 'makes it up' (if it doesn't see much red or blue but sees alot of light then the brain decides it's probably looking at green. The thing is, if you look at the sun, all colours become flooded out so the brain can't tell if it's green or not so just decides on 'white' instead.)

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:54 pm
by Aero
This is the NEWS forum topic "Visit to Helion Energy Lab" and it is really starting to drift.

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 9:40 pm
by chrismb
How about a new rule for the boards - a thread can be permitted to drift, but only after 3 pages. Threads with 25 pages in can't be properly followed anyway, so they become 'consequent dialogue' following the topic after a few pages anyway. Just a thought - nothing is ever written in stone - even the 11 commandments!

Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 10:25 pm
by MSimon
chrismb wrote:How about a new rule for the boards - a thread can be permitted to drift, but only after 3 pages. Threads with 25 pages in can't be properly followed anyway, so they become 'consequent dialogue' following the topic after a few pages anyway. Just a thought - nothing is ever written in stone - even the 11 commandments!
A few more posts on this page and the drift can commence.

Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 12:36 am
by choff
I recall an article on the green flash of sunset years ago.

Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:06 pm
by TallDave
pfrit wrote:
TallDave wrote:A FOIA request will almost certainly be denied.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of ... ed_States)
However, there are nine exemptions, ranging from a withholding “specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy” and “trade secrets”
Actually, I specifically stated correspondance. That is usually released, though often heavily redacted. These would be letters between the Navy and EMC2 and possibly the review board. As I said, you may get more, but I do not think you will be outright denied, assuming you make a suitably broad request.
It's possible, I suppose. My understanding is FOIA requests regarding military tech typically get no more than a form letter response, but I could be wrong.