That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
Germany - where politicians are sane enough to be allowed to press buttons.
German Chancellor fires hydrogen plasma with the push of a button
Angela Merkel has witnessed the first hydrogen plasma being created by the Wendelstein 7-X fusion reactor experiment as part of Germany's push to take the lead in future power generation. Chancellor Mutti, as the ex-research scientist is known by the German electorate, fired up the device – which then fired a two-megawatt …
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Wednesday 3rd February 2016 21:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
Germany - where politicians are sane enough to be allowed to press buttons.
But a bit pointless because the German public will be easily stirred up by the Greens, and it can join fission reactors on the "we're scared, take it away now" list.
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Wednesday 3rd February 2016 22:20 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
Well, she has a magna cum laude PhD in physics* (Dr. rer.-nat.) and isn't related to Douglas Fargo, so she's good to go re pressing buttons.
* 1986: "Untersuchung des Mechanismus von Zerfallsreaktionen mit einfachem Bindungsbruch und Berechnung ihrer Geschwindigkeitskonstanten auf der Grundlage quantenchemischer und statistischer Methoden"
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Thursday 4th February 2016 10:02 GMT DJO
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
You're right, the country has lost its quaint character since Thatcher defeated the unions. No longer are homes lit by candle-light for half of the week.
Before Thatcher it took one average salary to be able to afford to buy one average house, after Thatcher it took 4 to 5 average salaries to be able to afford one average house. The knock-on effect of house price inflation is felt throughout the economy and Thatcher was almost completely responsible for it. (She allowed Building Societies to run Estate Agencies which was previously not allowed due to the obvious conflict of interest, this caused the first rocketing of house prices)
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Thursday 4th February 2016 10:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
"Before Thatcher it took one average salary to be able to afford to buy one average house, after Thatcher it took 4 to 5 average salaries to be able to afford one average house."
Its called supply and demand. Look it up. And since labour let in 4 million immigrants who all needed somewhere to live, please explain how that helped house and rent prices?
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This post has been deleted by its author
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Thursday 4th February 2016 10:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
"We had one who was an industrial chemist and we're still suffering from the damage she caused."
FFS are people really still trotting out this lefty scapegoat? Get over it. Thatcher left power TWENTY SIX YEARS ago. We had THIRTEEN years of a Labour government who had more than enough time to sort out any issues. They didn't - they fucked the economy even more. So GTFU and stop blaming a dead woman for the Labour partys fuckups in the late 90s and 2000s.
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Thursday 4th February 2016 11:09 GMT AndrueC
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
FFS are people really still trotting out this lefty scapegoat? Get over it. Thatcher left power TWENTY SIX YEARS ago.
Exactly. It's a smokescreen. It complete hides the appalling policies of Pitt the Younger. That man should be vilified for the ongoing harm he caused this country!
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Thursday 4th February 2016 21:11 GMT x 7
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
"the appalling policies of Pitt the Younger. "
Yes, my ancestral village has a pond named after him, which he pushed the local landowner into making. That valley has never been the same again. Appalling waste of good farmland (though it used to be a good source of ice for storing food - shame the global warming kicked in a couple of hundred years ago)
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Thursday 4th February 2016 12:16 GMT Cuddles
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
"So GTFU and stop blaming a dead woman for the Labour partys fuckups in the late 90s and 2000s."
It's not an "us or them" situation. It's entirely possible to blame said dead woman for her fuckups while also blaming the following Labour government for their own, independent fuckups. And blaming subsequent Labour, Tory and coalition governments for all of theirs. Just because someone dislikes Thatcher doesn't mean they're some rabid fanboy who thinks Labour can do no wrong.
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Thursday 4th February 2016 14:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
"Just because someone dislikes Thatcher doesn't mean they're some rabid fanboy who thinks Labour can do no wrong."
True. But any changes thatcher (and major) made could have been reversed by 13 years of a labour government if they'd wanted to. They didn't. In fact they arguably made things even worse - Hospital PFIs anyone? A policy of such breathtaking stupidity that even the monster raving looneys would probably have discarded it as being too crazy.
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Friday 5th February 2016 01:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
There are those who would say it's perfectly reasonable to blame Mrs T for the mistakes of New Labour, since - it is argued by some - Blair and Brown were just continuing the Thatcherite project. Just like the current shower...
If you're a real Lefty, you know it's been quite a long time since the UK has had a genuinely left-wing government - the last one got voted out in 1951.
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Thursday 4th February 2016 11:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
"All those PPEs don't seem to result in a non-sociopathic Cabinet."
PPE was invented at Oxford to replace Greats - the study of the classics which ensured you had the best education money could buy - from the 1st century AD.
Politics - keeping our class in power
Philosophy - why it is right that we run the country
Economics - how to ensure we get all the money.
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Thursday 4th February 2016 13:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
The problem is AC, that Politics have become much more important to most readers than the odd Science article. Politics has more effect on our immediate futures. Merkel is using this announcement politically to make her look better than she really is.
There are too many people concerned about politics to contain the fervor; regardless of how so many wish to cram the genie back in the bottle and silence dissenting opinion. This is the case on almost every forum I have visited. It is not limited to the Register.
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Thursday 4th February 2016 00:58 GMT joed
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
I could you bring number of historical examples to the contrary (this in regard to sanity being particual virtue of German politicians).
BTW, when she pressed that button I bet she was hoping to execute nuclear option against EPA harassing VAG;)
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Thursday 4th February 2016 07:04 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
Yesss... you know the world has gone mad when you have German, sane and politician in one sentence.
Dunno, but the first thing that came to my mind was: "Now Witness the Firepower of this fully Armed and Operational Battle Station"
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Thursday 4th February 2016 13:11 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
> Given the chaos Merkel has caused in europe in the last few months
To be fair to her, she's teetering on the usual politician seesaw: "Do the right thing" vs "get re-elected". Her's seems slightly more tilted to the "do the right thing[1]" than a lot of other politicians..
[1] albeit a "do the right thing" from a German perspective but you can't have everything..
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Thursday 4th February 2016 14:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's Bundeskanzlerin Frau Doktor Angela Merkel to you
"[1] albeit a "do the right thing" from a German perspective but you can't have everything.."
"Do the right thing" seems to translate into german as "Yet more WW2 guilt assuaging self flaggelation except this time lets whip the rest of europe as well as ourselves". I don't believe in Sins of the Father and I'm getting a bit sick of the elderly generation in europe trying to push inherited guilt onto the young. You have to be over 70 years old to have even been alive during WW2 and all the people responsible for it are long dead. Time to move on.
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Wednesday 3rd February 2016 20:51 GMT ZSn
magnetic coils
A stellarator also uses 'magnetic coils to keep the plasma from burning its way out of the reaction chamber'. It's just that they aren't cylindrically symmetric the same way that a Tokamak is. The big problem with stellarators is that the 'bends' in the plasma containment vessel have to be very well designed and machined to ensure that there aren't points where there is a higher transport of the plasma across the field lines and thus a lower containment time. That said the ability to work continuously is a big plus.
Though 80 million sounds a lot, it's only about 7KeV, which isn't that much compared to what a fully functional burning plasma needs to achieve (perhaps stellarators can run lower, I'm too rusty to remember that though).
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Wednesday 3rd February 2016 21:07 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
Re: magnetic coils
Even looking at the diagram of the Stellarator it's hard to picture - no wonder it's taken until now to be able to run the models to design the fields.
And all this for the price of a couple of community catalyst catapults for a Shoreditch web design imagineering exercise.
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Wednesday 3rd February 2016 20:54 GMT Destroy All Monsters
"Wendelstein 7-X"
With that kind of Perry Rhodan styled naming, this MUSS SEIN EIN success!
Did the assembled button-pushing politicians carry rayguns and wear spacesuits of zany design?
Bum icon because 1) A tear for the outrageously fascistic storytelling of my youth and 2) That photo vaguely looks like there is a homeless person in the plasma chamber
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Thursday 4th February 2016 13:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan
In Brazil we got up issue 536, IIRC. Issues 200-299 were really interesting.
Sometimes I think about getting some digital versions available online (if you catch my drift) and running through Google Translate, but I think I will be so disappointed...
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
