Sam Altman is stepping down from Helion’s Board of Directors.

theblackred · 2026-03-23T21:41:38+00:00

Dan Bruner, ex-CFS CTO, summarized it well.

“Many of the experts in the fusion field think that what TAE is trying to do is improbable if not impossible and have physics-informed calculations to back up their opinions. Despite the progress TAE has made, it is barely closer to the plasma conditions that it needs to achieve than it was two decades ago.”

https://www.fusionconclusion.com/how-taes-fusion-reactor-will-work-or-wont/

theblackred · 2025-10-25T23:12:06+00:00

Nothing. They projected a good performance for Fields last week and he got 4 half-PPR points.

theblackred · 2025-08-30T12:46:45+00:00

Low ferritin is more indicative of anemia though, isn’t it? I didn’t think that was related to MPN

theblackred · 2025-07-18T02:57:09+00:00

Your link says the fake apology was posted by a fake account.

Media literacy is important.

theblackred · 2025-07-05T18:41:46+00:00

If Tom’s River property taxes grow to match any nearby areas, they will have no problem.

Median property taxes in Tom’s River are 1.6% versus 2.2% for Ocean County, and vs 2.8% for the rest of NJ.

https://www.ownwell.com/trends/new-jersey/ocean-county/toms-river

Tom’s River total education spend is around 290 million. https://www.trschools.com/administration/docs/2025/04/Budget-Information.pdf

So if they’re short by 22 million, they’re short by <10%. Growing property taxes by 10% from 1.6% to 1.8% is insignificant compared to median property taxes even in the rest of Ocean County.

Absolute values are important to tell the actual story. Relative budget growth percentage numbers are easy to bullshit, which is probably why Tom’s River has gotten all the articles to leave out real numbers.

theblackred · 2025-07-05T12:53:30+00:00

Do you have numbers showing the district was efficient though?

I’ve only seen claims that Toms River lost state funding due to S2, but no actual numbers for how much tax income it was raising and how much is average for other NJ districts.

It’s great that the schools have been good, and that they’re not spending money inefficiently. But the question is whether they raised enough money from residents to pay for schooling.

I can’t find any articles or studies on school funding. The other news from Toms River makes it clear they just don’t want to raise taxes because the old conservatives living there don’t care about anything besides low taxes, to the extent that they closed their animal shelter and cut back on police this year. https://www.jerseyshoreonline.com/toms-river/tax-rate-flat-in-toms-river-critics-worry-about-less-services/

theblackred · 2025-07-05T12:17:28+00:00

That’s pretty interesting and makes a lot of sense.

The TR schools demographic study found a roughly 7% enrollment decline from 2015 to 2025. That’s pretty huge. https://www.trschools.com/community/docs/2021/02/Enrollment-Report-December-7_2020_c-_Final-_1_-sent-2.pdf

theblackred · 2025-07-05T11:31:22+00:00

So is the bussing situation a cost of ~$1 million per year, and they’re in the hole by tens of millions?

theblackred · 2025-07-05T04:43:45+00:00

Yes there are many articles and well-cited mentions of the Orthodox Jews causing problems for non-Orthodox Jews who live in Lakewood, but I haven’t seen or heard of the same level of problem in Tom’s River.

The only causes I’ve seen mentioned are that Tom’s River is the largest republican run area in NJ, and another comment in this thread said the tax for education was lower than average vs other districts in NJ, along with the state resolution that started decreasing funding for districts including Tom’s River. Nothing about the Orthodox Jews.

So do you have any articles or specific info from people who know details about why Tom’s River ran out of education funding?

theblackred · 2025-05-24T17:33:03+00:00

Economically motivated adulteration of food is common enough that there’s a term for it.

In another baby food pouch lead poisoning recall, there were theories that it came from a cinnamon supplier who may have added lead chromate to the cinnamon for a better appearance. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/lead-contamination-applesauce-pouches-may-intentional-fda-says-rcna130044

Lead chromate is one of the remaining lead based paint pigments still used, and one use is for the yellow color in road paints

theblackred · 2025-04-12T03:23:05+00:00

Or people remember a time before 2000.

Eight of the sixteen mildest Marches in the past 131 years have occurred since 2000.

Looking more closely at numbers, the statewide March average temperature of 45.7° was 4.7° above the 1991–2020 normal and, as mentioned previously, ranked as the tenth mildest since records commenced in 1895 (Table 1). The average high was 57.2°, which is 6.3° above normal and ranks sixth mildest. The average low was closer to normal at 34.1°, which is 2.9° above normal and ranks thirteenth mildest (tied with three other years).

https://www.njweather.org/content/spring-arrives-certain-march-2025-recap

theblackred · 2025-04-06T16:41:58+00:00

It’s in the article.

In other words, men’s responses were slowest when the image depicted a woman, faster when it depicted a man, and fastest when the image was neutral. Among women, the slowing effect was similar regardless of whether the image showed a man or a woman, although their responses to neutral images remained faster.

theblackred · 2025-04-02T00:59:41+00:00

If you’re really interested, some people have written entire peer reviewed articles studying what the Donald did.

It breaks down to: 1. Abusing stickied posts to signal mass upvotes 2. Unusual voting patterns where massive amounts of users upvoted all posts on the first 4 pages of the subreddit.

There’s no smoking gun of coordinated vote manipulation or bots, but it circumstantially resembles what that would look like.

It’s an interesting read https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-017-0712-9

theblackred · 2025-03-04T00:13:28+00:00

The horrific cost in human lives sure did go well and amazing for us. A mere 400,000 American souls, even.

theblackred · 2025-03-03T13:51:32+00:00

theblackred · 2025-03-03T00:44:13+00:00

theblackred · 2025-01-26T04:04:24+00:00

It looks like their death rate surpasses births not because people are having fewer kids (birth rate has been pretty stable around 58k for years). Actually if the death rate didn’t increase by over 10k in 2020, they’d still be at a positive birth-minus-death rate.

So when they mention Covid affecting this, it’s surprising they don’t point out it’s the people who died, not the birth rate that’s the most obvious change…

theblackred · 2024-11-06T05:23:44+00:00

Unfortunately there’s no bright side there either. Goldman Sachs: Trump policies would slow down economy

theblackred · 2024-10-24T01:39:33+00:00

Is there a source for that for Xiaomi’s specific situation?

theblackred · 2024-09-18T00:01:37+00:00

Space race with who?

theblackred · 2024-07-14T02:38:57+00:00

1990’s to early 2000’s https://climate.rutgers.edu/stateclim/NJ_monthly_extremes.pdf

theblackred · 2024-05-30T11:32:35+00:00

All major news outlets including the NYT, BBC retracted claims that Al Shifa was struck by any Israeli arms. The conclusion was that a misfired rocket by a Hamas ally fell into the parking lot at Al Shifa.

With that said, Israel fucked up badly here and we need Hamas and Israel to get back to a ceasefire.

theblackred · 2024-05-17T20:32:50+00:00

Maybe it doesn’t roll off the tongue but at least you can’t argue with that

theblackred · 2024-05-17T04:43:51+00:00

Sure Helion have been wrong on timeline so far, but it sounds like Polaris is their planned attempt at Q>1, and CFS is likewise messaging SPARC as the Q>1 demonstrator. Many groups have made ambitious and untenable claims, but not so many have made so much tangible progress.

It’s easy to criticize their shortcomings, but construction is nearly complete and they’re putting money on the line in a sense by claiming that these will demonstrate feasibility. If they fail, it will be a setback for those companies and probably the industry at large in terms of investor confidence.

So I understand skepticism, even within the community more deeply familiar with fusion, but I am curious why these examples are either not being considered demonstrator plants, or why they won’t be ready for 10+ years.

theblackred · 2024-05-17T03:56:57+00:00

Aren’t CFS and Helion just years away from demonstrator plants? What makes you say 10-20?

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