It is an important milestone. But to have a commercially viable fusion reactor, you'll need a factor of 50-100 more energy out than in to make up for inefficiencies in electricity generation using this kind of scheme.

The real story here is that this facility allows the US to do nuclear weapons research without violating the nuclear test ban treaty. If the goal was to develop a commercially viable fusion reactor, the $3,500,000,000 spent so far could have been put into projects geared towards small scale fusion experiments investigating novel confinement schemes.

Like the one I was working on, http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP07/Event/71002 whose funding has since been cut and has been mothballed.

Or blatant tax avoidance and disregard for building code and hotel regulations is a matter of importance for the state of New York. It may seem all outdated to us global internet citizens, but a lot of those old-fashioned real-world rules evolved because there was a problem. That's not to say that all rules in their current incarnation are sensible and well applicable to the current state of affairs, but participation in the law system is not voluntary - you don't get to opt out just because you think it's unjust.

Good. I know that Chesky is trying to pretend that this is about people who occasionally share their homes, but that's bullshit. There are a lot of people who are stuck living next to illegal, untaxed hotels because one of their neighbors AirBNBs their place full time.

I know that a lot of people on this site think that if you add the words 'on the internet' you should be exempt from all regulation and taxation, but that's just not how the world works.

I hope that the people who've been profiting from the lack of enforcement are forced to play on a level playing field.

Disclaimer: my experience with NYC AirBNBs have been incredibly negative, including people listing with fake names, revealing that they'd given fake addresses at the last minute (when it was already too late to change plans), showing deceptive photos, and giving false descriptions.

I'm replying to this one only because it is on the top; I am not singling the author out in any way.

This is all so foreign to me. I moved to SV 2 years ago, and I am 47. Y'all are in such a bubble. Every day the recruitment ads state 'change the world - join our social dog teeth brushing cloud service'. I'm only very slightly joking, merely to avoid calling out the actual companies and services. You know what changes the world? Dialysis machines. Microprocessors. Crash avoidance systems. Artificial hearts. More efficient aircraft. Factory automation.

My point is that it takes experience and time to build something important and large. You can't 'move fast and break things' if you are writing an accounting package or code for a chemical reaction chamber. You don't 'pivot' into a new $1B investment in new microprocessor.

Sure, if you are starting up the social dog teeth cleaning service you probably don't need much more than a few 20 somethings willing to kludge together 10 different half baked components (full stack developers!), and there is no point to knocking that kind of environment - I'm sure it is very cost effective. But I see this kind of thinking and lack of planning leaking into other businesses and ideas. I look at job ads for very difficult undertakings using the SV buzzwords of the day - pivot, agile, and so on, and my neuron starts throbbing.

Moreover, I rather worry about all the people coming up in the bubble, thinking it is bedrock reality. I may be wrong, but I suspect the world's appetite for social X services is small. No, I don't suspect it, I know it. Things like microprocessors, thermostats, smart Tvs, graphics cards, dialysis machines, car entertainment systems, accounting packages, factory floor software, and so much more are the engines of our economy. And I see so many posters on HN that I would never hire for a job that required engineering and planning. They don't have the skills, they aren't learning the skills, and when they are 30-35 all they will know how to do is 'program by magic' - change things until it works. Ya, no, you can't work on my flight computer.

This is probably just personal, but there is a very sour taste in my mouth whenever I hear about 'pivots' and 'exits'. I get why they are important in some HN type companies. But our world is truly built on products that require forethought ('move fast, break things' - new motto of Boeing? Not so much), planning, solid engineering, and great technical skill. I wonder why so many 20 somethings pour their talents in lives in something that will be discarded in a month when their myopic 'leader' goes chasing after the latest shiny thing to catch his eye (which is, IMO, the usual reason for a 'pivot'). I guess it pays well. I wish they were working on a better JIT, a lower wattage cpu, or what have you. I wonder at their job prospects when they are 35, have a family, don't have time to go back to school to learn calculus or what have you, and didn't 'hit' and make fuck you money. And I wish founders would actually do a market survey before launching the 5th dog teeth cleaning service in the same tiny geographic area. So many postmortems on here are truly head scratching. You didn't realize that this tiny pocket of under-served market, which is of keen and relevant interest to dozens of companies all around you, maybe, just maybe, has huge barriers to entry or scaling, and that every other company already explored it and wrote it off as unprofitable? Everyone but you is leaving money on the table? Hmmm.

Sorry, I am just having a 'wow, the silicon valley bubble sure is weird' moment. And I'm old, and cranky. Get off my lawn. But seriously, be very, very careful about taking the ideas and lessons from some tiny start up and trying to apply it to anything outside of that very odd, self-referential world.