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... eBook delivery, where they had to conspire with 5 other companies ...

Yes, Apple conspired with five companies. However, those companies were their suppliers, not their competitors. It was not the size of those five companies that made it an antitrust violation, but rather the fact that Apple caused an illegal horizontal price fixing to occur. Notice that this was found to be illegal without any consideration of whether Apple is or is not a monopoly. In fact, you will notice that the word "monopoly" doesn't even appear in the court decision except for a passing mention of the word in the context of copyright providing publishers with an inherent monopoly on their own content (which goes without saying).

So as I said, Apple is large enough to have an effect on the market sufficient for antitrust laws to kick in, because as I said before, antitrust law violations do not require a monopoly or even a near-monopoly.

Second, you're assuming a fungibility of goods across ecosystems that does not exist. As an iOS user, I cannot simply download the Android version of the app and run it on my phone. Instead, I have to spend several hundred dollars on new hardware, and replace all of my existing software, which could potentially cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars more.

Nothing to do with anti trust at all. Your choice to buy an iPhone doesn't factor into anything.

Actually, yes it does. You see, the iOS App Store is what is known in antitrust law as "tying". Apple explicitly prevents you from being able to buy apps for their devices except through them. This could be held to be per se illegal, as the purchase of an iPhone is essentially conditional on purchasing apps for it exclusively through Apple, but that's a somewhat challenging legal argument to make, as it would only be illegal if Apple had either a monopoly or a substantial amount of control over the app market as a whole. However, the cost of switching from one operating system to another does impact their control over the app market, so in that context, customers' choice to buy an iPhone could, in fact, factor into any decision about whether Apple has sufficient control over the market.

Secondarily, if Apple can exert sufficient influence on, for example, the market for streaming audio subscriptions, it can potentially be held unlawful under the rule of reason. That also does not require a monopoly. It merely requires the contract (in this case, the development agreement) to be a restraint of trade (and requiring the use of their payment service instead of a competitor most certainly is) that significantly impacts the viability of a market. And again, in that context, the cost of changing operating systems does factor in to how likely customers are to switch to Android to gain access to services like Spotify if Apple makes it impractical for them to continue doing business on iOS. So again, it could factor in.

Now I know you're an idiot or a poe's law troll. CNet had to start adding malware to its downloads in order to make money.

Dude. I never said that CNet's site was the epitome of quality. I just said that other review sites do exist, and that there's nothing magical about Apple's ability to provide that service. If Apple hadn't done it for their mobile devices, somebody else inevitably would have, because inherent to the nature of the Internet is a rule that if there's a need, someone will eventually fill it.

If there is a space race presently here on Earth it is to develop energy from Thorium --- specifically the LFTR as envisioned by Weinberg, but also the various other approaches such as fission U-233 burners and denatured molten salt reactors.

Major players include,
The United States who developed the technology, then shelved it. Now a handful of individuals and small companies are struggling to attract the attention of investors. Canada, as our closest ally in LFTR. India whose interest in Thorium has been mainly asa solid fuel (moot so long as uranium if plentiful). And China which is going all-out and is on track to beat us to a working prototype. That's the only real 'space race' going on today. Nothing else is as game-changing.

This is the paragraph where I list all the good things about wind and solar as base load energy sources. Paragraph ends.

Imagine you're running for President of the United States, and you receive this letter . Might it help inspire you to declare complete energy independence as a goal, and a concerted effort to jump-start manufacturing and steel production within the country?

Say you're a state senator and you receive this letter. You know your state is 'rich' in untapped natural gas right now, though in the long term it will require increasingly aggressive means to extract it, with untold consequences and uncertain ends down the road. Would you glimpse an better future in this path?

Imagine you are a multinational oil exploration and services industry player, and you receive this letter . On the day it arrives your stock is climbing towards $70 and you don't have a care in the world. Though you may recognize there is a viable technology described here, it's very different from what your corporation specializes in. Could something like this be the perfect hedge for the future?

We'll see. The letters are in their hands.

If there is a space race presently here on Earth it is to develop energy from Thorium --- specifically the LFTR as envisioned by Weinberg, but also the various other approaches such as fission U-233 burners and denatured molten salt reactors.

Major players include,
The United States who developed the technology, then shelved it. Now a handful of individuals and small companies are struggling to attract the attention of investors. Canada, as our closest ally in LFTR. India whose interest in Thorium has been mainly asa solid fuel (moot so long as uranium if plentiful). And China which is going all-out and is on track to beat us to a working prototype. That's the only real 'space race' going on today. Nothing else is as game-changing.

This is the paragraph where I list all the good things about wind and solar as base load energy sources. Paragraph ends.

Imagine you're running for President of the United States, and you receive this letter . Might it help inspire you to declare complete energy independence as a goal, and a concerted effort to jump-start manufacturing and steel production within the country?

Say you're a state senator and you receive this letter. You know your state is 'rich' in untapped natural gas right now, though in the long term it will require increasingly aggressive means to extract it, with untold consequences and uncertain ends down the road. Would you glimpse an better future in this path?

Imagine you are a multinational oil exploration and services industry player, and you receive this letter . On the day it arrives your stock is climbing towards $70 and you don't have a care in the world. Though you may recognize there is a viable technology described here, it's very different from what your corporation specializes in. Could something like this be the perfect hedge for the future?

We'll see. The letters are in their hands.

If there is a space race presently here on Earth it is to develop energy from Thorium --- specifically the LFTR as envisioned by Weinberg, but also the various other approaches such as fission U-233 burners and denatured molten salt reactors.

Major players include,
The United States who developed the technology, then shelved it. Now a handful of individuals and small companies are struggling to attract the attention of investors. Canada, as our closest ally in LFTR. India whose interest in Thorium has been mainly asa solid fuel (moot so long as uranium if plentiful). And China which is going all-out and is on track to beat us to a working prototype. That's the only real 'space race' going on today. Nothing else is as game-changing.

This is the paragraph where I list all the good things about wind and solar as base load energy sources. Paragraph ends.

Imagine you're running for President of the United States, and you receive this letter . Might it help inspire you to declare complete energy independence as a goal, and a concerted effort to jump-start manufacturing and steel production within the country?

Say you're a state senator and you receive this letter. You know your state is 'rich' in untapped natural gas right now, though in the long term it will require increasingly aggressive means to extract it, with untold consequences and uncertain ends down the road. Would you glimpse an better future in this path?

Imagine you are a multinational oil exploration and services industry player, and you receive this letter . On the day it arrives your stock is climbing towards $70 and you don't have a care in the world. Though you may recognize there is a viable technology described here, it's very different from what your corporation specializes in. Could something like this be the perfect hedge for the future?

We'll see. The letters are in their hands.

What? Ermm...you lost me there.

The companies aren't really paying anything, but virtual money for virtual workers?

My dear sir, if you make everything virtual, the only thing you'll get out of it is virtual foodstamps for virtual food and you'll only stay virtually alive on those.

But maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say. In any case, if that virtual money IS going to affect their profit (aka, it are considered real costs), then my above counter will still be true, and they'll be outcompeted by other firms not having 'replaced' any workers. If it has no effect or influence on their profits whatsoever, then why bother with such a scheme? You'd be better of by letting virtually everyone virtually pay virtually any amount you like.

In that case it reminds me a bit of this story: https://www.scribd.com/doc/710...

It was stupid legislation crafted by profoundly ignorant people.

You misspelled "malicious" there, sport. Both of these winners have been a cancer on The People from the beginning.

Malicious indeed dp, according to the draft of the Bill if it had passed so too would the meta-data rentention provisions casually obscured in the definition of "DATA" in Sec 4.5 to include "COMMUNICATIONS IDENTIFYING INFORMATION" defined in Sec 4.1.A-C.

Section 4.1 defined that to be "dialing, routing, adressing, switching, signaling, processing, transmitting and other data that", (A) was *not* the contents of the communication, (B) identifies the origin, destination, time, date, duration, termination or status of each communication generated, received or controlled by a user and (C - here is the kick in the balls) includes (C.i) public, local and source addressing including (C.i.I) local and public IP address, (C.i.II) static or dynamic ports. (C.ii) MAC, IMIE and network service identifiers used by each party, (C.iii) Service address identifiers used by each party (C.iv) QOS, packet size (C.v) all co-ordinated to UTC.

I doubt this is the last you have seen of an attempt to pass a meta-data retention Bill as there were simply no discussion about these provisions in this bill that I saw.

Basically, Oracle is presupposing that it owns a language, so any use of that language's lexicon and grammar is theirs to control-- and assert that they get this power through copyright.

Here you are wrong, notice carefully the fine distinction, Oracle never claimed to own the Java language (so all those people thinking this case might settle the questions of languages being copyrighted were wrong), in fact, they admitted that they gave the language away. Instead, they claimed to own the Java standard library, and those packages are what this case is about.

This is a tricky area legally-- Copyright is not the appropriate vehicle for this kind of intellectual property. (Patents are the appropriate vehicle.)

The appellate court addressed (briefly) the question of patents vs copyright in their decision. You should read the decision, I think you might enjoy it.

I'd mod you up as informative (fascinating link - thank you) except I can't resist replying.

Here are the instructions that were given to the jury. They are dense and difficult to understand; it would have taken me a day or so to really get a good understanding of them and how they apply to the case. I don't think the jurors tried to understand them, given how quickly they finished.

The instructions are lengthy, but well written and not at all hard to follow or understand. It took me just over half an hour to read them in their entirety, and at the end of that time I felt I had a fairly thorough understanding of what was being asked. If I'd been present (as a juror) for the case proceedings I'd be confident I could make a fairly rapid decision as to guilt or innocence ... well, as to whether Google's use "of the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of 37 Java API packages" in question was infringing or fair use.

My guess is the jurors opened the source code to Android, saw how big it is, then opened the source code to the Java APIs, saw it was very small in comparison, and said, "ok, it's so small that it's surely fair use" (we know that the jury spent a lot of time trying to look at the source code).

My guess is that the jury got as far as "The pertinent Android versions are: ... Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice CreamSandwich, Jelly Bean, Kit-Kat, Lollipop, and Marshmallow" and started salivating. Nothing named like the above could possibly be infringing or bad (except for your GI) ergo Google's use of Java (Mmmmm, coffee and donuts and icecream) was fair use. Case closed!

Oracle now has an uphill fight on their hands.

Indeed.

The Judge generally weighs the jury's ruling pretty strongly. I honestly thought the jury would rule against google

Here are the instructions that were given to the jury. They are dense and difficult to understand; it would have taken me a day or so to really get a good understanding of them and how they apply to the case. I don't think the jurors tried to understand them, given how quickly they finished.

My guess is the jurors opened the source code to Android, saw how big it is, then opened the source code to the Java APIs, saw it was very small in comparison, and said, "ok, it's so small that it's surely fair use" (we know that the jury spent a lot of time trying to look at the source code).

The idea that Obama has been "reasonable" I find downright laughable.

I don't blame him for the things he tried to do and didn't.

It's what you seem to think are the "little" things, regardless of how his administration brought them about: a huge increase in mass surveillance, foreign policy seemingly designed to aid the enemy, and... how many crimes? That we know of?

Let's see. There was Clapper lying to Congress, Lerner lying to Congress, Holder lying to Congress, McCarthy lying to Congress, Holder in Fast and Furious, oh... and now a Federal judge has caught DOJ attorneys lying about the government letting in 100,000 (!!!) immigrants it never had any lawful authority to let in, and knew it.

That's just off the top of my head. How many other broken laws and Constitutional violations can we find if we really look? ALL of those people lying to Congress were direct employees of Barack Obama. He appointed them, he told them what to do. That's his job.

Let's not forget bombing whole families from drones, in violation of both U.S. and International law.

Maybe you don't think that's doing a lot. I do. And that's only a fraction of it... just SOME OF the things we've caught them at.

and likely didn't even know.

Really?

Wanna ask the judge? Why not read his ruling... which in the end is TFA

Here is just one juicy bit:

It has admitted that the lawyers who made these statements had knowledge of the truth when they made these misstatements. The DOJ’s only explanation has been that its lawyers either “lost focus” or that the “fact[s] receded in memory or awareness.”

It seems he disagrees with you.

He's punishing essentially innocent people assigned to the case.

Again, false.

It appears he has gone as far to bar any of the lawyers who have given false testimony in his court room from ever arguing in his court room again (given he can't disbar them himself)... it's punishment to ensure that future lawyers who come before him from the DoJ (or to courts in the states which make up this case) are reminded of the importance of ethics when acting as a lawyer?

Currently, I am on the receiving end of what I consider to a nuisance lawsuit. Someone went to the same school years ago as I was working on a graduate degree became upset because I called him an "ass", "fool", and an "embarrassment" when he set up a conference where he invites a speaker who was expressing that society had a runaway problem with witches.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/287...

The complaint is a train wreck, and I made a point of publishing it in several locations. The plaintiff had a fit and has been attempting to have them taken down. Fortunately, these are public documents and he has had limited success in these efforts. The amended complaint was served to me almost a year ago, and it quickly became clear that the plaintiff does not want the case to go to any type of decision, instead he is delaying over and over again (still waiting to hearing on a motion to dismiss submitted 10 months ago).

While I would love to have my day in court so that this mess can finally be put to bed, I do find some comfort while I wait to be able to show others the details of the 'claims' being made against me (and the school, plus a dozen or so other individuals).

You underestimate the power of politically-driven stupidity. In this case of the right-wing flavor, but the left are not much better. Here's an example:

Politically biased news example: http://onenewsnow.com/pro-life...

A child experiences a medical emergency, things go south, he is left brain dead. The hospital urges disconnection of life support, but the parents remain in understandable denial - can't really blame them for that. They are soon aided by a pro-life pressure group, the PJI. The group then uses the standard legal practice of expert-shopping, finding a doctor who will support their case, and turn to Dr. Paul Byrne. He has testified that the child is alive, even though he has never even seen the child in person, and coincidentally happens to be president of the Life Guardian Foundation and an active campaigner against the concept of brain death - which he believes to be something "concocted by transplant physicians and their allies who wanted to enlarge the donor pool by including patients who are really not dead."

That's the great thing about expert testimony in legal cases: If a thousand doctors say you are wrong, and one doctor says you are right, you can go with the one. Works for finding people to testify before Congress too.

Full legal details: https://www.scribd.com/embeds/...

All this serves to illustrate the broader point: There is a substantial association of pressure groups, desperate parents, religious organisations and Dr Byrne who reject the idea of brain death. They believe that there is always, always hope - even if the hope is of the supernatural variety, the possibility of divine intervention remains if they can just pray hard enough. This research is going to be processed through the spin machine and, when it comes out the other side, it's going to appear on onenewsnow, lifesitenews, and eventually the more mainstream places like Fox as 'scientific proof' that there is no such thing as brain death and it's all a conspiracy made up by hospitals so they can execute unprofitable patients or harvest more organs for transplant.

"Techno-elites"? By that you mean "experts in their given field", like people who have written papers, books, actual security algorithms, etc? Those "techno-elites"? You'll forgive me, but are we seriously expected to dismiss their evaluation of a given piece of legislation, when this is what they do? That's a nice little ad hominem yourself, in case you weren't aware.

Feinstein et al have proposed a new federal law. So you'll forgive me when I don't really care about listening to them try to spin it or talk about their intentions, because what matters is what is actually written in the bill.

Being "ignorant" regarding a particularly complex topic like encryption and security isn't a personal insult. It means you're not fully versed on that particular topic, and it can be easily fixed by *learning*. You're reacting as though someone someone called Feinstein (whom it sounds like you admire and/or support and seem to be instinctively defending) "stupid", which is not the same thing. Now, if a lawmaker find herself ignorant regarding a certain topic, and tries to create and pass a law without seeking and applying the best advice from experts in that field, then... well...

Nope, they've not been compensated. At least according to the court transcripts:

THE COURT: Look, your language doesn't invoke the All Writs Act, I get that, but in terms of the burden, first, you haven't challenged it and you still haven't explained why not. Second, you provided language for reasons I understand about consistency, but you also did not say anything about burdens beyond the immediate expense.
If you are saying we want to craft language that is going to say here's exactly what we have to do, you require, if I'm not mistaken -- I don't have the language in front of me. Do you require compensation?

MR. ZWILLINGER: No, we've never required compensation.

THE COURT: But you can, and you don't do anything about that.
I mean, the point is well taken that Apple is a pretty darn big company, maybe they don't care so much about the costs of these 70 things in the big picture. It just seems to me that there's a dog that didn't bark here.

MR. ZWILLINGER: I think the way to address this, Your Honor, is the following.
Right now, Apple is aware that customer data is under siege from a variety of different directions. Never has the privacy and security of customer data been as important as it is now. And, in fact, Apple built an operating system which is why we're only talking here about IOS 7 systems, operating systems IOS 8 and IOS 9, that puts Apple in a position where it cannot do this, that is, going forward with 390 percent of the devices involved, Apple cannot perform these services. So, Apple has taken itself out of the middle of being in a position where it can be used as an attack vector or in any way to compromise the security and privacy of customer devices.
So, when the court asks Apple today does the All Writs Act provide authority to force it to do this, Apple says no, it does not, because what we are being forced to do is expert forensic services, we're being forced to become an agent of law enforcement and we cannot be forced to do that with our old devices or with our new devices.

The 390 percent thing is weird, but that's what's in the transcript.

Full Transcript: http://www.scribd.com/doc/296323783/102615-Apple

Here's a good write up: http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/... Here's the actual text: https://www.scribd.com/embeds/...

You'll see a lot of familiar names.

Here is how much each senator was paid by each backer for fast tracking.

Here's a Hillary specific one about donations to her campaign, since it came up early in the search.

The first 2 charts I found linked in this excellent Guardian story.

Some key excerpts:

Using data from the Federal Election Commission, this chart shows all donations that corporate members of the US Business Coalition for TPP made to US Senate campaigns between January and March 2015, when fast-tracking the TPP was being debated in the Senate:

- Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 "yea" votes.
- The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.
- The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.

The amounts given rise dramatically when looking at how much each senator running for re-election received.

First of all you did not link the motion. You linked the order. Those are two separate things. Second, you failed to understand legal procedure. Here are the series of events in this case.

1. FBI files ex parte motion to order Apple to assist them. Again ex parte means that Apple could not comply or submit a brief objecting to the order.
2. Judge grants order same day.
3. Apple makes public statements about order.
4. FBI files motion to compel.
5. Apple files motion to vacate the order.

In Apple's motion: "And more importantly, by invoking “terrorism” and moving ex parte behind closed courtroom doors, the government sought to cut off debate and circumvent thoughtful analysis." Please explain how the original motion was not ex parte.

Since nobody has come up with a final solution to the waste problem, the costs are infinite.

Could I say, "Until we come up with a solution to the wind-doesn't-blow-all-the-time problem or the ice-storms-can-fuck-em-up-completely problem... the costs are infinite?

Half of the 'final solution' is to fast-burn all the old waste and make energy from it.
The waste will sit there patiently until we can do this.
The other half of the 'final solution' is a new generation of reactors that do not generate long-lived waste.
The basic concept for this was developed 60 years ago by Weinberg.
In the world I live in we consider these to be problems to solve.
What kind of world do you live in??

Discussing energy topics in these forums is beginning to feel like trying to explain to Elmo why he can't have Christmas every day . "But Santa Claus, Elmo wants Christmas every day! Santa gave Elmo three wishes. They're Elmo's wishes! And Elmo wished for Christmas every day!" Elmo wished for wind and solar power, he thinks the storage problem will solve itself with GrapheneOrSomethingSomehow(tm), Elmo thinks fusion is tomorrow, Elmo wants hydropower in Arizona, Elmo wants to place an iron cap over Yellowstone.

And Elmo hates nuclear energy --- because his parents hate it --- or because they don't. Elmo has not researched the matter.

___
Please see Thorium Remix, collected rants on Slashdot and these letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

Since nobody has come up with a final solution to the waste problem, the costs are infinite.

Could I say, "Until we come up with a solution to the wind-doesn't-blow-all-the-time problem or the ice-storms-can-fuck-em-up-completely problem... the costs are infinite?

Half of the 'final solution' is to fast-burn all the old waste and make energy from it.
The waste will sit there patiently until we can do this.
The other half of the 'final solution' is a new generation of reactors that do not generate long-lived waste.
The basic concept for this was developed 60 years ago by Weinberg.
In the world I live in we consider these to be problems to solve.
What kind of world do you live in??

Discussing energy topics in these forums is beginning to feel like trying to explain to Elmo why he can't have Christmas every day . "But Santa Claus, Elmo wants Christmas every day! Santa gave Elmo three wishes. They're Elmo's wishes! And Elmo wished for Christmas every day!" Elmo wished for wind and solar power, he thinks the storage problem will solve itself with GrapheneOrSomethingSomehow(tm), Elmo thinks fusion is tomorrow, Elmo wants hydropower in Arizona, Elmo wants to place an iron cap over Yellowstone.

And Elmo hates nuclear energy --- because his parents hate it --- or because they don't. Elmo has not researched the matter.

___
Please see Thorium Remix, collected rants on Slashdot and these letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

Since nobody has come up with a final solution to the waste problem, the costs are infinite.

Could I say, "Until we come up with a solution to the wind-doesn't-blow-all-the-time problem or the ice-storms-can-fuck-em-up-completely problem... the costs are infinite?

Half of the 'final solution' is to fast-burn all the old waste and make energy from it.
The waste will sit there patiently until we can do this.
The other half of the 'final solution' is a new generation of reactors that do not generate long-lived waste.
The basic concept for this was developed 60 years ago by Weinberg.
In the world I live in we consider these to be problems to solve.
What kind of world do you live in??

Discussing energy topics in these forums is beginning to feel like trying to explain to Elmo why he can't have Christmas every day . "But Santa Claus, Elmo wants Christmas every day! Santa gave Elmo three wishes. They're Elmo's wishes! And Elmo wished for Christmas every day!" Elmo wished for wind and solar power, he thinks the storage problem will solve itself with GrapheneOrSomethingSomehow(tm), Elmo thinks fusion is tomorrow, Elmo wants hydropower in Arizona, Elmo wants to place an iron cap over Yellowstone.

And Elmo hates nuclear energy --- because his parents hate it --- or because they don't. Elmo has not researched the matter.

___
Please see Thorium Remix, collected rants on Slashdot and these letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

I've heard that you can concentrate, extract, and use actinides in what we currently consider spent fuel. How, physically, is that done?

Take a look at this collection of slides by Gus Merwin. You'll find some of your better search terms like there like 'transmutation' (better add 'nuclear' or you might slide into the occult). And an good overview of processing methods and current spent inventories.

When you have long-lived actinides in your spent fuel --- the battle to keep costs down or make energy from them in today's thermal spectrum reactors has already been lost. We've known this all along, it's one of the little reasons the US invested heavily in fast breeders, weapons production being the big reason. Current methods involve separating out plutonium and unburnt uranium into MOX (mixed oxide) fuel for re-use, which reduces most waste volume but the actinides are still there. To deal with them completely you need to hit them with 'fast' neutrons from a fission breeder, maybe making energy while doing so --- splitting them into even nastier (but short lived) or final inert products. You can wind up with something that's walk-away safe in, say, 40 years. The atom stewards of the Cold War said, "Yeah it's a problem. Fast breeders will solve it." Then fast breeders in the US started to shut down after a few years of making weapons, they never got around to burning commercial waste. They said, "Yeah it's a problem. Underground storage will solve it." Then the US Gub'mint failed to deliver on that promise too.

The best way to manage long-lived actinides is to manage not to produce them in the first place. Alvin Weinberg knew this in the 1950s and ultimately sacrificed the remainder of his career in an attempt to convince others this was the way. Weinberg's basic design for a two-fluid LFTR which breeds uranium from thorium and actively processes its fluid to keep long-lived actinides from forming is still the most exciting and viable option for a nuclear future in the opinion of myself and many others. Almost 100% burn in the thermal spectrum, and an extremely small waste volume that is walk-away safe in ~300 years.

___
Please see Thorium Remix, my collected rants on Slashdot and these letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

I've heard that you can concentrate, extract, and use actinides in what we currently consider spent fuel. How, physically, is that done?

Take a look at this collection of slides by Gus Merwin. You'll find some of your better search terms like there like 'transmutation' (better add 'nuclear' or you might slide into the occult). And an good overview of processing methods and current spent inventories.

When you have long-lived actinides in your spent fuel --- the battle to keep costs down or make energy from them in today's thermal spectrum reactors has already been lost. We've known this all along, it's one of the little reasons the US invested heavily in fast breeders, weapons production being the big reason. Current methods involve separating out plutonium and unburnt uranium into MOX (mixed oxide) fuel for re-use, which reduces most waste volume but the actinides are still there. To deal with them completely you need to hit them with 'fast' neutrons from a fission breeder, maybe making energy while doing so --- splitting them into even nastier (but short lived) or final inert products. You can wind up with something that's walk-away safe in, say, 40 years. The atom stewards of the Cold War said, "Yeah it's a problem. Fast breeders will solve it." Then fast breeders in the US started to shut down after a few years of making weapons, they never got around to burning commercial waste. They said, "Yeah it's a problem. Underground storage will solve it." Then the US Gub'mint failed to deliver on that promise too.

The best way to manage long-lived actinides is to manage not to produce them in the first place. Alvin Weinberg knew this in the 1950s and ultimately sacrificed the remainder of his career in an attempt to convince others this was the way. Weinberg's basic design for a two-fluid LFTR which breeds uranium from thorium and actively processes its fluid to keep long-lived actinides from forming is still the most exciting and viable option for a nuclear future in the opinion of myself and many others. Almost 100% burn in the thermal spectrum, and an extremely small waste volume that is walk-away safe in ~300 years.

___
Please see Thorium Remix, my collected rants on Slashdot and these letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

I've heard that you can concentrate, extract, and use actinides in what we currently consider spent fuel. How, physically, is that done?

Take a look at this collection of slides by Gus Merwin. You'll find some of your better search terms like there like 'transmutation' (better add 'nuclear' or you might slide into the occult). And an good overview of processing methods and current spent inventories.

When you have long-lived actinides in your spent fuel --- the battle to keep costs down or make energy from them in today's thermal spectrum reactors has already been lost. We've known this all along, it's one of the little reasons the US invested heavily in fast breeders, weapons production being the big reason. Current methods involve separating out plutonium and unburnt uranium into MOX (mixed oxide) fuel for re-use, which reduces most waste volume but the actinides are still there. To deal with them completely you need to hit them with 'fast' neutrons from a fission breeder, maybe making energy while doing so --- splitting them into even nastier (but short lived) or final inert products. You can wind up with something that's walk-away safe in, say, 40 years. The atom stewards of the Cold War said, "Yeah it's a problem. Fast breeders will solve it." Then fast breeders in the US started to shut down after a few years of making weapons, they never got around to burning commercial waste. They said, "Yeah it's a problem. Underground storage will solve it." Then the US Gub'mint failed to deliver on that promise too.

The best way to manage long-lived actinides is to manage not to produce them in the first place. Alvin Weinberg knew this in the 1950s and ultimately sacrificed the remainder of his career in an attempt to convince others this was the way. Weinberg's basic design for a two-fluid LFTR which breeds uranium from thorium and actively processes its fluid to keep long-lived actinides from forming is still the most exciting and viable option for a nuclear future in the opinion of myself and many others. Almost 100% burn in the thermal spectrum, and an extremely small waste volume that is walk-away safe in ~300 years.

___
Please see Thorium Remix, my collected rants on Slashdot and these letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

The court order specifically specifies that:

Apple's reasonable technical assistance may include, but is not limited to: providing the FBI with a signed iPhone Software file, recovery bundle, or other Software Image File ("SIF") that can be loaded onto the SUBJECT DEVICE. The SIF will load and run from Random Access Memory ("RAM") and will not modify the iOS on the actual phone, the user partition or system partition on the device's flash memory.

So, an ordinary install of a crippled version of iOS would not meet the requirements anyway.

You are talking about someone with PTSD.

Is that any different than your example with the dog? Or someone who's been raped, assaulted, or experienced some other traumatic event? If so, why is it appropriate to label some potential triggers and not others? Who gets to decide what does and doesn't make the cut? The same goes for safe spaces. You can't use it outside of a specific professional setting without abuse or you get someone who decides that they're "triggered" by Muslims because of their own irrational fears and that their store is now a "safe space" where Muslims are not allowed. Even if someone legitimately believed all of that, it's still a horrible outcome when viewed objectively.

The problem is that the people who want all the trigger warnings are the same people who have no training and want to use them to actively avoid any exposure or to wield them like a club in order to effectively censor those things that they do not like.They want to live in a bubble walled off from the rest of the world and are demanding them everyone else accommodate their demands. If someone has had such a traumatic experience that they can't function in regular society, they need help and probably shouldn't be going to university until they can get to a healthier place. If something makes a person uncomfortable, they should seek the kind of professional help to get them beyond their past experiences. Demanding that anything which gives them discomfort be removed is ripe for abuse and history has shown no shortage of moralist busybodies who do exactly that.

Suggesting that the people at university who are clamoring for trigger warnings or safe spaces are using these appropriately is deluding yourself beyond all credibility. One group of students even published such in a list of demands that they presented to the administration. They directly state a demand for exclusive safe spaces on campus, which would be racially segregated. The idiots making these demands aren't using trigger warnings or safe spaces in the clinical and professional manner in which they might be helpful. Even in the case where individuals want (and it might even be a good idea to have) a private setting to discuss something, that does not entitle them to use public property and demand it be treated as a safe space where dissenting opinion is prohibited. Even less so in an institution where the youth of the world should be having their ideas challenged.

Oh let's do it! Let's harness the wind and crack the storage problem and lay thousands of miles of connecting feeders and create shell companies that live off of subsidies and hammer consumers for long term investments to build massive machines in the most hostile, corrosive environment amortized over 30 years that need major maintenance and replacement parts in 10! Let's Suck 'Em dry!

We really need to build one of these things, because we can, and the first one should be special. To showcase the idea that offshore wind can run a whole continent from miles away, let's run the wires all the way to Toad Suck, Arkansas in (Perry County). With a population of ~10,000 the turbine's peak 50MW should be able to handle the pumps in the water treatment and distribution plant and the sewer plant for a few hours a day, with maybe a thousand or so watts left over for each resident. They'll be able to run their whole houses on one outlet and one circuit breaker because there won't be much left over. They'd better have natural gas or plenty of firewood for Winter heating.

The residents of Toad Suck are hardy folk who'd gladly participate in this experiment. Maybe they could even put up fake 'charging stations' so yuppie tourists arriving in electric cars to catch a glimpse of the community of the future can have the juice sucked right out of them, so Toad Suck can run their pumps for a couple minutes more every day.

Oh wait--- you thought this megalith was going to power your own city or sprawling suburb and ensure a bright and prosperous energy future for your kinfolk? That's funny. Not this one, not so fast. There's maybe around ten thousand of them left to build out there in the ocean before the great project is scrapped, as the last vestige of this great country has been laid waste by famine, revolution and debt to foreign manufacturers. The next one we build will power neighboring Conway County Arkansas to the North of Toad Suck. It's a better fit for this experiment because with a population of ~20,000, double that of Perry, we can determine whether a modern community can get by with only half the energy capacity of Toad Suck. The folks in Conway will be casting envious eyes towards Perry, with their one house with Xmas lights per block. Conway will be almost entirely dark at night, gotta run those pumps! Good time to invest in sustainable whale-oil futures!

Or we could build small self contained buildings protected from the elements close to where the energy is needed, that just produce gigawatt-years of electricity from a few tons of barely-radioactive Thorium seed fuel that can be stored in a single room.

___
Please see Thorium Remix and my own letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

Oh let's do it! Let's harness the wind and crack the storage problem and lay thousands of miles of connecting feeders and create shell companies that live off of subsidies and hammer consumers for long term investments to build massive machines in the most hostile, corrosive environment amortized over 30 years that need major maintenance and replacement parts in 10! Let's Suck 'Em dry!

We really need to build one of these things, because we can, and the first one should be special. To showcase the idea that offshore wind can run a whole continent from miles away, let's run the wires all the way to Toad Suck, Arkansas in (Perry County). With a population of ~10,000 the turbine's peak 50MW should be able to handle the pumps in the water treatment and distribution plant and the sewer plant for a few hours a day, with maybe a thousand or so watts left over for each resident. They'll be able to run their whole houses on one outlet and one circuit breaker because there won't be much left over. They'd better have natural gas or plenty of firewood for Winter heating.

The residents of Toad Suck are hardy folk who'd gladly participate in this experiment. Maybe they could even put up fake 'charging stations' so yuppie tourists arriving in electric cars to catch a glimpse of the community of the future can have the juice sucked right out of them, so Toad Suck can run their pumps for a couple minutes more every day.

Oh wait--- you thought this megalith was going to power your own city or sprawling suburb and ensure a bright and prosperous energy future for your kinfolk? That's funny. Not this one, not so fast. There's maybe around ten thousand of them left to build out there in the ocean before the great project is scrapped, as the last vestige of this great country has been laid waste by famine, revolution and debt to foreign manufacturers. The next one we build will power neighboring Conway County Arkansas to the North of Toad Suck. It's a better fit for this experiment because with a population of ~20,000, double that of Perry, we can determine whether a modern community can get by with only half the energy capacity of Toad Suck. The folks in Conway will be casting envious eyes towards Perry, with their one house with Xmas lights per block. Conway will be almost entirely dark at night, gotta run those pumps! Good time to invest in sustainable whale-oil futures!

Or we could build small self contained buildings protected from the elements close to where the energy is needed, that just produce gigawatt-years of electricity from a few tons of barely-radioactive Thorium seed fuel that can be stored in a single room.

___
Please see Thorium Remix and my own letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

Never rely on an agenda-driven propaganda site you agree with for ammunition in an argument. Let me show you a better way:

Here's a left-wing-friendly UN report

that you should read which comes from a source that a lefty like you will even think is credible.

What that oft-cited garbage propaganda map you pointed to attempts to do is confuse many people by disguising many other things as "gun violence" in order to fuel an anti-Constitutional agenda to disarm citizens - a long-time fantasy goal of leftists. If you read the UN report I linked to, you will discover that even left wing globalist wackjobs admit that the murder rates are FAR higher in many places with much tighter gun control and that most "mass shootings" in the Americas (and, yes, that includes the US) are gang and drug crimes. Indeed, the recent mass shooting in California was an act of terrorism. What anybody with a brain and who pays attention to the news knows is that drug, gang, and terrorist violence (which is all already illegal) while often performed with (often already illegal) guns simply moved to bombs, knives, poisons, and clubs when guns are not available. This is how the murder rates are so high in so-called "gun free" places.

If you subtract terrorism, and drug and gang shootings (which usually occur in big cities with many gun control laws and run by liberal Democrats), the US has a remarkably LOW murder rate relative to the rest of the planet, and all the more remarkably given the number of diverse cultures present.

Yeah, otherwise known as a "software patent". It's worth clarifying what a software patent is not, the better to understand what it is and why it's so pernicious and why they're banned (yes, they are) in the EU and pretty much everywhere else in the world except AU. and JP.

Software patents are not patents on specific ways for causing a machine to perform a useful function. That type of IP is the IP we call "copyright". Copyright does prevent your code, your (virtual) machine, from being ripped off.

So with copyright you're not issued a patent on the concept of any wheel, you're issued a patent on your wheel's unique and specific implementation. If you stop and think about it, it's a really amazing how well copyright serves as the natural vehicle for IP in the computer industry. You cannot just steal another person's original work. Stealing includes *near copying with just a few things changed*. You have to find a relatively original way to achieve the same effect, but the *idea* of what you're doing is not patentable. Copyright naturally delivers all that to computer IP.

Software patents are patents on all ways to cause a machine to perform a generally describable function. It's not the specific implementation performing the useful function that is being protected- it's the ability to achieve the same ends in any way whatsoever.

So like the RIM patent debacle, this patent covers things unbelievably abstract and covers things like this:

http://torrentfreak.com/images...

For people who don't follow links, it's a picture of little labeled boxes representing computers, with arrows being drawn between the little boxes to signify what info gets passed between what computers and when. That's what they're patenting. That's what the patent in the 750 million dollar RIM/NTP case did- took THIS info out of a data base NOW and sent it to THAT computer who did THIS with that info.

That's right folks, we are patenting flowcharts. Read it and weep-

https://www.scribd.com/doc/294...

This is exactly why in the EU computer-related inventions must control some physical, industrial process and then only that physical industrial process is patented, not the code which drives it. Otherwise you're patenting processes defined by flowcharts. You're patenting results. You're patenting ideas.

We know for a fact we don't need these patents for software to progress and for companies to becomes powerful, even monopolistically so, since prior to 1987-1990 or so very few software patents were permitted. Yet we had the invention of EVERYTHING and we had gigantic corporations reaping huge profits also.

This is about regulatory capture and the corporate coffers it fills (with what would have otherwise been your money).

https://news.vice.com/article/...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

They haven't stopped a single one, because according to their own "intelligence", there hasn't been a single real threat against domestic flights. But that's SSI (aka "fake classified"; 49 USC 114(r)). It was leaked when TSA fucked up by publicly filing Corbett's sealed brief.

Compare:
Redacted
Unredacred

See also:
House oversight hearing
Joint staff report

They haven't stopped a single one, because according to their own "intelligence", there hasn't been a single real threat against domestic flights. But that's SSI (aka "fake classified"; 49 USC 114(r)). It was leaked when TSA fucked up by publicly filing Corbett's sealed brief.

Compare:
Redacted
Unredacred

See also:
House oversight hearing
Joint staff report

If we were to snatch the screen-writers out-of-time, they'd be surprised that the world has changed so little

http://www.scribd.com/doc/1356...

If that's how Pokemon Int'l treats its fans

Ramar Larkin Jones isn't a "fan" - he's a event organizer who was running a Pokemon themed event for which he was selling tickets. The selling tickets parts got left out of the linked article somehow - I wonder why. (Actually, I don't need to wonder - the article is slanted all to hell and back.)

As it's been taken down: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2741...

*pauses briefly*

...Shit, that kind of makes sense.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2733...

WELP.

I wonder if these items are available from the physible section of torrent tracking sites?

https://thepiratebay.mn/browse/605/0/7/0

DD response to the attack on the first amendment by the state department- http://www.scribd.com/doc/2699...

Oh, but right.., it's NOOCOOLAR POWAH! It must mean a near-miss meltdown and a cover up! I'll get my potassium iodide pills and my tinfoil hat and make some popcorn.

Ha ha! It is little use pointing out that a transformer exploded and a power plant shut down quickly and safely because it was unable to push its load into the grid. Reading between the lines, it does look like an item that floated to the top because of the word 'nuclear'. Stations trip all the time.

There is nothing comfortable and socially appealing about opposing nuclear power, unless you are shrilly terrified about full-fallout nuclear bomby Armageddon as portrayed in countless movies, or honestly believe that barely measurable traces of cesium in fish is an impending extinction event for the fish, or for us. Perhaps you fear to go down to the basement, where you will breathe in molecules of radioactive radon gas. One should be far more concerned about traces of pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, pesticide and fertilizer runoff, or (if you lived in the 60s, problem dealt with) lead from gasoline. Or even land erosion from human development!

I think people tend to be more pragmatic than that. A lot of it is just noise to be cool, like the muttered remarks heard around the schoolyard. There are folks who find it fun to drop the same nuclear zingers time after time. And I think they are some of the same folks promoting wind and solar. You have to realize that in the end the joke's on you.

Solar and wind energy solutions are like the throw-pillows of civilization. They are cuddly, come in lots of fun shapes and colors and you can hug them like little trees... but when all is said and done they will be unable to provide a meaningful level of lumbar support. Your time rearranging them is wasted. It's wasted because despite the excitement of the solar bubble, the base load generation challenge will be ultimately solved with coal, natural gas or nuclear energy. And the people who are pushing for coal and natural gas (yes they do exist but seldom post here), or are just afraid of nuclear energy, want you to be afraid of nuclear energy too. Join the club, right?

When the best ways to propagate myths are with dumb jokes, it's not funny.

To all the folks out there who rail on about nuclear: If you must fear something, fear the use of coal. Because that is what we in North America will be drawn completely into when (not if) natural gas declines. Even as she builds out coal plants China is becoming concerned about sulfuric aerosols from coal burning. We are not as much concerned because our emission controls are better and continental air circulation is better., which seems to keep the problem at a more comfortable distance.

Learn more! Read about the grid! [Gardner, dissertation] A Wide Area Perspective on Power System Operation and Dynamics is a good read on the challenges of operating a resonant grid.

Perfecting wind and solar is worthy on small scale to serve individuals and small communities. But it cannot clothe and feed them like an industrial society does. In the background the pursuit of BIG solutions (so called base load) that can power factories and water treatment plants is essential.
___
See Thorium Remix and my letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

Oh, but right.., it's NOOCOOLAR POWAH! It must mean a near-miss meltdown and a cover up! I'll get my potassium iodide pills and my tinfoil hat and make some popcorn.

Ha ha! It is little use pointing out that a transformer exploded and a power plant shut down quickly and safely because it was unable to push its load into the grid. Reading between the lines, it does look like an item that floated to the top because of the word 'nuclear'. Stations trip all the time.

There is nothing comfortable and socially appealing about opposing nuclear power, unless you are shrilly terrified about full-fallout nuclear bomby Armageddon as portrayed in countless movies, or honestly believe that barely measurable traces of cesium in fish is an impending extinction event for the fish, or for us. Perhaps you fear to go down to the basement, where you will breathe in molecules of radioactive radon gas. One should be far more concerned about traces of pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, pesticide and fertilizer runoff, or (if you lived in the 60s, problem dealt with) lead from gasoline. Or even land erosion from human development!

I think people tend to be more pragmatic than that. A lot of it is just noise to be cool, like the muttered remarks heard around the schoolyard. There are folks who find it fun to drop the same nuclear zingers time after time. And I think they are some of the same folks promoting wind and solar. You have to realize that in the end the joke's on you.

Solar and wind energy solutions are like the throw-pillows of civilization. They are cuddly, come in lots of fun shapes and colors and you can hug them like little trees... but when all is said and done they will be unable to provide a meaningful level of lumbar support. Your time rearranging them is wasted. It's wasted because despite the excitement of the solar bubble, the base load generation challenge will be ultimately solved with coal, natural gas or nuclear energy. And the people who are pushing for coal and natural gas (yes they do exist but seldom post here), or are just afraid of nuclear energy, want you to be afraid of nuclear energy too. Join the club, right?

When the best ways to propagate myths are with dumb jokes, it's not funny.

To all the folks out there who rail on about nuclear: If you must fear something, fear the use of coal. Because that is what we in North America will be drawn completely into when (not if) natural gas declines. Even as she builds out coal plants China is becoming concerned about sulfuric aerosols from coal burning. We are not as much concerned because our emission controls are better and continental air circulation is better., which seems to keep the problem at a more comfortable distance.

Learn more! Read about the grid! [Gardner, dissertation] A Wide Area Perspective on Power System Operation and Dynamics is a good read on the challenges of operating a resonant grid.

Perfecting wind and solar is worthy on small scale to serve individuals and small communities. But it cannot clothe and feed them like an industrial society does. In the background the pursuit of BIG solutions (so called base load) that can power factories and water treatment plants is essential.
___
See Thorium Remix and my letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

As posted by the Washington Post to Scribd. Since my submission was rejected.

The rules start on page 283.

Capacity' factor is a word that is only used in the climate denier scene and recently by marketing droids.

It is not a performance measure.

Capacity Factor is a standard industry measure that has been used for quite some time. Here is an ANSI/IEEE standard from way back in 1987 which clearly defines Capacity Factor under Performance Indexes. You cannot deny this unless you are an utter fool.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/1688...

Unfortunately, you will still deny it, and continue with your willful ignorance. For that reason I will no longer read any of your replies, but I might just keep reminding you of your ignorant contention.

Capacity' factor is a word that is only used in the climate denier scene and recently by marketing droids.

It is not a performance measure.

Capacity Factor is a standard industry measure that has been used for quite some time. Here is an ANSI/IEEE standard from way back in 1987 which clearly defines Capacity Factor under Performance Indexes. You cannot deny this unless you are an utter fool.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/1688...

Unfortunately, you will still deny it, and continue with your willful ignorance. For that reason I will no longer read any of your replies, but I might just keep reminding you of your ignorant contention.

Actually we can not do _anything_ with the _depleted_ uranium as it is not useable in a fission reactor.

That is like saying we'll never get beyond the nuclear bronze age (thermal spectrum). We already have, fast breeders can output enriched product even from low-yield inputs like depleted uranium, though the reactor is expensive and dangerous and fun to operate, like a fine sports car.

But the GP poster was obviously referring not to depleted uranium, but spent irradiated fuel stockpiled from conventional reactors which contains significant amounts of unburned fissile. You probably knew that but forgot to point it out. Glad to be of assistance. Aside from re-enrichment, fuel-diverse Thorium breeders or even burners could use fission reactor waste 'as-is'.

why it is "sitting around" at the first place?

Short answer: Shoddy thinking, broken promises and irrational fear.

Longer answer: a brief history of nuclear fear in the United States

___
Please see Thorium Remix and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

Actually we can not do _anything_ with the _depleted_ uranium as it is not useable in a fission reactor.

That is like saying we'll never get beyond the nuclear bronze age (thermal spectrum). We already have, fast breeders can output enriched product even from low-yield inputs like depleted uranium, though the reactor is expensive and dangerous and fun to operate, like a fine sports car.

But the GP poster was obviously referring not to depleted uranium, but spent irradiated fuel stockpiled from conventional reactors which contains significant amounts of unburned fissile. You probably knew that but forgot to point it out. Glad to be of assistance. Aside from re-enrichment, fuel-diverse Thorium breeders or even burners could use fission reactor waste 'as-is'.

why it is "sitting around" at the first place?

Short answer: Shoddy thinking, broken promises and irrational fear.

Longer answer: a brief history of nuclear fear in the United States

___
Please see Thorium Remix and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

Actually we can not do _anything_ with the _depleted_ uranium as it is not useable in a fission reactor.

That is like saying we'll never get beyond the nuclear bronze age (thermal spectrum). We already have, fast breeders can output enriched product even from low-yield inputs like depleted uranium, though the reactor is expensive and dangerous and fun to operate, like a fine sports car.

But the GP poster was obviously referring not to depleted uranium, but spent irradiated fuel stockpiled from conventional reactors which contains significant amounts of unburned fissile. You probably knew that but forgot to point it out. Glad to be of assistance. Aside from re-enrichment, fuel-diverse Thorium breeders or even burners could use fission reactor waste 'as-is'.

why it is "sitting around" at the first place?

Short answer: Shoddy thinking, broken promises and irrational fear.

Longer answer: a brief history of nuclear fear in the United States

___
Please see Thorium Remix and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

Hopefully they have made themselves aware of the most recent ATF ruling.

ATF Ruling 2015 1 Manufacturing and Gunsmithing - http://www.scribd.com/doc/2517...

Any person (including any corporation or other legal entity) engaged in the business of performing machining, molding, casting, forging, printing (additive manufacturing) or other manufacturing process to create a firearm frame or receiver, or to make a frame or receiver suitable for use as part of a “weapon which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive,” i.e., a “firearm,” must be licensed as a manufacturer under the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA); identify (mark) any such firearm; and maintain required manufacturer’s records. A business (including an association or society) may not avoid the manufacturing license, marking, and recordkeeping requirements of the GCA by allowing persons to perform manufacturing processes on firearms (including frames or receivers) using machinery or equipment under its dominion and control where that business controls access to, and use of, such machinery or equipment. ATF Ruling 2010-10 is hereby clarified.

DHS NCIC spread of FBI Flash warning

Sure, a few trees would help. But do you want to twerk around and do a dinky bit of dis and a little of dat, of do you want to get the job done?

We're not lost lambs in the field trudging around looking for tender shoots of clover and going "Baaaa!" when we cannot find any. We are human sheep! We harnessed and domesticated clover, made it grow in rows where it is sucked into great machines and stored in tanks and all we do is stick our muzzles into clover dispensers and glorious compacted clover product shoots into our mouths! Then we spill hot clover juice on our lap and we SUE!

We can do the same for energy, because that's really all that matters, finding new and better sources. With a grand surplus of energy anything becomes possible. Want to absorb 50 POUNDS of carbon a year? Plant a tree. Want to absorb several TONS of carbon per day? Then build a single carbon sequestration plant on the edge of town. Why are people on a technological forum discussing planting trees to solve a simple problem of chemistry and applied industry?

You should be ashamed of yourselves!

I see folks advocating solutions like re-terraforming the Earth with invasive monocultures to make fuel, sequester CO2 or perhaps just to annoy the locals, because everyone on Earth is presently surrounded by plant species they cherish and are evolved to their own area. Or by proposing efforts that might get off the ground in a miniscule way and doing practically nothing, people are just pushing walk-away solutions for salving their conscience.

1. develop and scale a massive, reliable source of carbon-nuetral energy
2. do anything you want with it, including capturing CO2
3. If you make synfuel with captured CO2, at least you break even when it burns.

If you're proposing wind and solar as that energy source, you may as well start planting trees. For all the good it will do. And there's only one possible source of energy that could scale and meet these challenges:

Thorium has become sort of a in-joke around here and suggesting anything besides wind and solar tends to get a flood of Beavis and Butt-head responses. Perhaps we are seeing the human race split into two races --- the Eloi, their numbers few, devolved into wandering berry and leaf eaters as they graze in overgrown fields among the rusted wind turbines and vine-encrusted solar panels... and the Morlocks, proud stewards of mankind's technological heritage as we whiz around in our electric cars powered by clean, boundless energy.

Proud to be a Morlock. That cannibalism thing is just a rumor we spread around to keep them off our lawns.

___
For the straight poop, watch Thorium Remix and see my letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

Sure, a few trees would help. But do you want to twerk around and do a dinky bit of dis and a little of dat, of do you want to get the job done?

We're not lost lambs in the field trudging around looking for tender shoots of clover and going "Baaaa!" when we cannot find any. We are human sheep! We harnessed and domesticated clover, made it grow in rows where it is sucked into great machines and stored in tanks and all we do is stick our muzzles into clover dispensers and glorious compacted clover product shoots into our mouths! Then we spill hot clover juice on our lap and we SUE!

We can do the same for energy, because that's really all that matters, finding new and better sources. With a grand surplus of energy anything becomes possible. Want to absorb 50 POUNDS of carbon a year? Plant a tree. Want to absorb several TONS of carbon per day? Then build a single carbon sequestration plant on the edge of town. Why are people on a technological forum discussing planting trees to solve a simple problem of chemistry and applied industry?

You should be ashamed of yourselves!

I see folks advocating solutions like re-terraforming the Earth with invasive monocultures to make fuel, sequester CO2 or perhaps just to annoy the locals, because everyone on Earth is presently surrounded by plant species they cherish and are evolved to their own area. Or by proposing efforts that might get off the ground in a miniscule way and doing practically nothing, people are just pushing walk-away solutions for salving their conscience.

1. develop and scale a massive, reliable source of carbon-nuetral energy
2. do anything you want with it, including capturing CO2
3. If you make synfuel with captured CO2, at least you break even when it burns.

If you're proposing wind and solar as that energy source, you may as well start planting trees. For all the good it will do. And there's only one possible source of energy that could scale and meet these challenges:

Thorium has become sort of a in-joke around here and suggesting anything besides wind and solar tends to get a flood of Beavis and Butt-head responses. Perhaps we are seeing the human race split into two races --- the Eloi, their numbers few, devolved into wandering berry and leaf eaters as they graze in overgrown fields among the rusted wind turbines and vine-encrusted solar panels... and the Morlocks, proud stewards of mankind's technological heritage as we whiz around in our electric cars powered by clean, boundless energy.

Proud to be a Morlock. That cannibalism thing is just a rumor we spread around to keep them off our lawns.

___
For the straight poop, watch Thorium Remix and see my letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

The biggest hand waving always comes with decommissioning

Okay, I'll wave my hands about and gobble about 'decommissioning'.

People tend to increase over time. Energy use increases over time. Globally we are not even close to providing the whole world with a grid coverage and capacity that provides the comfortable existence we ourselves would not tolerate losing. Every renewable dream has us whizzing around in electric vehicles. But this could come true only if the future is nuclear. The renewable numbers just don't work out, even when you imagine a magical solution to the storage problem, and especially when you include ground transportation.

So where did this 'decommissioning fable' come from? When was it decided --- and by whom --- that ~60 or so years hence there must be a desolate public park at every site chosen for a gigawatt nuclear plant, today?

Suggest to anyone that a water or sewage treatment plant cannot cost what it costs, it must also gather funds to fund its own destruction and demise and people will shake their heads. But this is crazy! The sewage will always flow downhill to here. We're not going to move a water plant, tear the pipes out of the ground and route them somewhere else. Oh, it's soo much different.

But is it really? Who is telling us we will be using less energy in the future? Should we listen to them?

Decommissioning funds gathered for nuclear plants may seem like a great idea, but it has also become an awful idea. It does not make nuclear energy any safer. It has promoted technological sloth, dissuaded investors from supporting (and injecting R&D to improve) the only clean base load energy source on the table. It has handicapped nuclear from being THE cheapest source of energy. It has enabled the most short-sighted and fuck-stupid forms of corporate vandalism. This is because when anyone owns or acquires an aging nuclear plant, they are faced with a choice --- whether to re-invest and re-structure to replace aging components, as they would for any other source, or trigger its destruction and unlock the magic chest of decommission funding. Getting a little kick to the balance sheet by rendering a productive energy source into a blight on the landscape, something intentionally broken that cannot be fixed.

Such as the Kewaunee Power Station which went offline in 2013 despite that it is in good condition, has maintained a healthy balance sheet, perfect safety record, operating license extended to 2033 and had six months' fuel left in the reactor. All because Dominion is riding the natural gas 'glut' at this brief moment in time. When the glut peaks out Dominion will invest in some other, dirtier short-term solution.

We should be upgrading these plants and taking them to the next level as we do with every other utility. Given the gigawatt-year track record they have demonstrated It is ludicrous to assume that any nuclear plant operating today deserves to be destroyed rather than upgraded. There are too few of them and they are too precious.

Do not feed the vultures.

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Please see Thorium Remix and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security