You can do that?

Headline: Web developer builds nuclear reactor in Brooklyn warehouse

It sounds like the premise of an especially geeky comic book: Web developer by day, trailblazing nuclear engineer by night.

Mark Suppes is a Web developer for the fashion house Gucci, but in his off-hours, he tinkers with his homemade nuclear-fusion reactor in a Brooklyn warehouse, unknown to his neighbors.

Note: that’s fusion, not fission. The nuclear power plants that actually supply us with some of our electricity use fission. Fusion is far cleaner and safer, but has never been made to actually work, as much as we’d all love to see it.

It’s just funny. In a world where local governments are banning Happy Meals; where a hat with tiny plastic soldiers glued onto it is deemed dangerous; where everything from bacon to ballpoint pens become potential targets of “health and safety” regulations…you can build your own fusion reactor.

Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t, of course. It’s just counterintuitive.