Slashdot Mirror
The Perfect Plate for the Nuclear Family Car
In what must be a dream come true for some, Nevada has approved a License Plate commemorating the Test Site and the connections Nevada enjoys with Nuclear weapons in the United States. The Associated Press article on the subject notes that a lot of people are up in arms about the new design, as Nevada is embroiled in controversy over the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility. The license features an atom. a mushroom cloud as the background and the equation E=mc2 on the plate.
I was unable to find a picture of the plate on the web (I saw it in my morning paper). I'm sure a picture must be on the web somewhere. I'll leave it to slashdotters to suggest the best personalized lettering for the plate. My entry: DUKNCVR?
This is a disaster waiting to happen...
Anyone have a photo of the new plate?
The shareholder is always right.
since the test site is bigger than Rhode Island, and we let *them* have their own liscence plates....
CNN has one here.
Shh.
Here is the story on CNN, complete with a picture.
Enjoy =)
-Berj
First, at the time the testing went on it was a great feat to have accomplished. Now, after the recent graphs showing exactly how much radiation is centered in that area and how much has spread across the rest of the nation I don't see how you could possibly be proud of this.
Second, how can we be proud of creating a weapon that caused such destruction and left our country (and the world) on the edge of destruction for nearly 50 fucking years (and currently, moving closer to the edge than ever before).
Third, shouldn't the license plate feature the rushing fire-storm, both flash and radiation burns, sickness, and cancer?
What do I know though, I have not been infiltrated by as much radiation as those crazy license plate designers in NV.
To commemorate this on a license plate is very strange.
...is truly the only state that deserves such a license plate.
The Trinity Site on white sands missile range.
Just because there were nuclear tests in nevada, should they get a license plate featuring a nuclear blast? I think NOT!
CNN has a story about it, with a (somewhat decent) picture.
Makes me want to move to Nevada just so I can put these on my car. Too bad it's not a Delorean with a Mr. Fusion.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
The only truly appropriate custom ID for such a plate:
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
If you didn't mind sharing the area with lots of venomous creatures, nasty non-venomous creatures, aliens, secret government projects and a handful of radioactive yokels, it wouldn't be a bad place to live if you liked the heat. Front row seats to any nuclear accident that may occur in the area. Tickets go on sale now, call your local Ticketmaster for details.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
to have his most recognizable work put on a licence plate celebrating nuclear weapons - which he came to oppose.
Here's a shot of the plate... looks like an explosion out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon or something.
Also, if anyone's interested, here's the cached version of a supposedly related design contest for the plate. Sounds like they had virtually no requirements except for size. Neato.
Wow, must be a slow news day on the ole /. But hey I'll bite anyway. I'm not surprised that members of the general public are all up in arms about it. My neighbor across the street works for NASA and he's a scientist working on the idea of nuclear propulsion in space. Their real task now is figuring out how to safely and efficiently get such an enormous reactor into space. Anyway his license plate is an MIT plate (my state has plates for almost any university that has an alumni association that can rustle up however many signatures you need) customized as "SPCNUKE" He's always getting honked at, cut off, sworn at and lectured by the obligatory mother with three kids in the grocery store parking lot. Seems everyone thinks that his project is really about one of two things. 1) How to get nuclear weapons into space. Or 2) Failing that, how to dump all our nuclear waste into outerspace.
I've asked if he's ever considered changing the plate and he said no, he kind of likes the reactions he gets from people. (Lack of attention in grade school, perhaps?)
Hey....I always knew there was something just a little bit 'odd' about those folks...
As I see it, the real problem is that when it comes to something people don't understand that sometimes has the ability to maim or kill them they don't want to take the time to learn more about it. They want it banned, damnit, banned! Out of my children's face!!!
When I see one of these plates crusing down the road I probably won't give it a second look, it's just too bad people can't see the larger issue (or more often, the lack of one) sometimes.
(See Nevada License Plates)
On the other hand, you'd have to get the Legislature's approval...
I wonder, should Ukrainian (for Chernobyl) and Japanese (for Hiroshima) license plates feature a similar design?
I am a genius; therefore, you suck.
I propose the skyline-licence-plate. And as a primer, it should come in two kinds. On front of the car it pictures the New York skyline before september 11th, on the back you get the same picture, but without the WTC.
why don't they have some skank in a garter belt
rinding an mx missile against the backdrop of a red, orange and purple mushroom cloud?
so much more apropos.
Nevada has at least 5 or 6 different license plate styles - just like California and various other states. Basically you pay more for one of these "themed" plates and part of the proceeds get donated to the cause. People like the idea bucause your talking about $50-$100 *extra* for a set of these themed plates. If you don't like the idea of the 'Nuclear' plates then get standard plates, or the Tahoe plates, or the Art for Kids plates, or the Firefighter plates or......
Its just another revenue stream for this historical society - if enough geeks in Nevada banded together you could get some moronic "Slashdot.org Society" plates if you wanted. These plates neither support or oppose Nevadas desire to have Nuclear waste in the state. Its JUST a license plate!
-
aphex
I Steal Music!
I was reading about this last night there...
Of course, Fark's comments section sucks compared to /. - you can't browse at +3 like I do, for example.
If you've ever strolled through /. at 0 or -1, you'll get a good idea of what fark's comment section is like. (egads!)
Probably OT, though...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Come to think of it, maybe a mushroom cloud is the best thing to come out of Nevada. Never mind...
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
The real interesting plate will be the one Nedava's DMV will make celebrating prostitution; I would love to see that plate. It would probally cut down on road rage too!
You know who I think is crazy? All my ex-girlfriends!
Let's see, off the top of my head:
- New Hampshire - Live Free or Die. Luckily this resonates strongly
on both sides of the aisle.
- District of Colubmia - Taxation without Representation. Makes a point, does so with historical relevance, yet the possibility of a DC vote in congress is hated and despised by the majority of congress - who are forced to view it every day
:-)
Excising the Manhattan Project and the Cold War from history is something I'm sure that a certain fraction of the world would like to do. But face it, millions of Japanase civilians and probably a million US serviceman would've died if the conventional war had continued. If Nevada wants to take pride in this, it's fine by me.So if Nevada wants to be proud of their history instead of ashamed of it, more power to them.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
More than 100,000 workers helped develop the nation's nuclear arsenal in Nevada, and more than 800 fell ill for their efforts.
If they're talking about the legacy of the Test Site, I don't think they should use a mushroom cloud unless they show what it did to the people who live here and worked out there,
Do they glow in the dark?
Maybe it's actually a hidden agenda campaign, trying to rally support for simply nuking Nevada off the map, and all it's sinful habits (guns, gambling)
(kidding)
Its amusing that people are opposed to nuclear waste in outer space...after all, the mass of all nuclear waste in the sun is probably greater than the mass of everything on earth. For that matter, the mass of radioactive materials on earth is probably orders of magnitude greater than all the radioactive materials mined/produced/enhanced by human beings.
Only idiots are fundamentally morally opposed to radioactive material or its production. The only rational basis on which to oppose it is safety. Not that this is a trivial basis =)
- Virginia NRA
- Virginia Tobacco
Light me up.Nevada Test Site: perverting Einstein's discoveries for the purpose of killing humyn beings for over 50 years!
I doubt there has been (or could ever be) enough time for this to be tactful or even mildly humerous.
Of all the things to be proud of....
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
I found this page at Nevada's DMV sites. Doesn't have the nuke one, but it has others:
c . icenseplates.ap/story.nevada.license.ap.jpg
http://nevadadmv.state.nv.us/platesmain.htm
Someone else posted the new nuke one:
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2002/ALLPOLITICS/04/26/atomi
You are aware the "Nuclear Family" has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, right?
Just checking.
± 29 dB
Mushroom cloud license plate to be tested
they're as big a part of NV history as big ass bombs
I like it, it's unique and different. I'm sure some flakes will object, citing the evils of nuclear weapons, power, etc. But it was a big part of their past and they deserve to celebrate it if they so choose. There ARE other plates available in that state for those who dislike this one. Besides, any time someone can pull-off something like this that annoys the nancy liberals of the world, I feel like there is hope for humanity after all. Ironic considering the subject material, eh?
Does that mean we'll have to wear nuclear suits to go to defcon this year? :-)
It's not even so much the storage of nuclear waste in the Yucca mountain are that annoys many - but rather the transportation of the material across the U.S.
The current proposals to move said waste involve using barges across many waterways including the Great Lakes.
Not only that, but a new transportation would be starting every four hours, using trucks that haven't even finished the design stage yet, designed each to move at only an average of 20-30 miles an hour, carrying 75 or 125 tons at a time
Not that storing the material in one central area isn't a good idea - but moving it in this manner may be more dangerous than anything we've ever encountered with nuclear material - especially the responsibility is handed over to the private sector.
Ryan Fenton
Sure.. Nukes are bad... But you can argue that they are the best thing that happened to us and that its the Nukes themselves that saved human race from ultimate destruction.. How?? You could argue that nukes serve as deterrent that keeps all the major world powers from going into the war.. think about it.. Without Nukes to serve as deterrent US and Russia would have probably went into a war that would have costed millions of lives.. So as bad as they are, you could argue that nukes brought STABILITY since no country is willing to risk complete destruction.. So when u look at the nukes as pacifying factor in world today then really it does not seem as bad. Few times Nukes have been used in Japan probably prevented an all out ground war between Japanese and Americans that could have resulted in far greater number of casualties then it was the case in Hiroshima and Ogasaki..
One could probably make a case that gasoline-powered automobiles have had much more devastating negative effects on the world than nuclear weapons and nuclear energy put together: pollution, global warming, urban decay, and so on. If you buy that argument, then it's denigrating to nuclear testing to depict it on an auto license plate.
Any dissnet at the state level is going to be overridden at the federal level. Yucca Mountain is a done deal.
Big deal, my license plate features a lot of atoms. ;)
I'm a huge licene plate fan...here in Ohio...I've assisted with several license plate projects.
/. crowd, I submit an article, written last year, in which I half seriously proposed another plate for the great state of Ohio. Any Ohioans out there wishing to help me...please send me an email.
For the amusement of the
___________________
Every time I see a bumper sticker or a t-shirt that says, "Don't mess with Texas" I find myself snickering. It's not that I do not like Texans, on the contrary, I've met a bunch of them, and they are quite an independent lot. (A Texan I know, in protest of his local school taxes, intends to pay his property tax in person with 63,000 nickels. It's that type of ballsy bravado that does Texas, and America for that matter, proud.) Regrettably, most Texans these days are just as milquetoasty as people from any other state.
But Texans do make a good marketing campaign. The Alamo has become a fantastic tourist trap in spite of being a horrific military failure. We Ohioans have much to learn about marketing our own state.
A great example of this is our license plates. Finally, with the introduction of the new Bicentennial Plate on October 1, we can actually put a halfway nice looking license plate on our cars. However, it is still encumbered by the "Birthplace of Aviation" slogan. The problem is, another state claims to be the birthplace of aviation, and they're doing a better job marketing it. (The North Carolina plate is a more elegant salute to the Wright Brothers than our half-ass'd slogan.) Unfortunately, the slogan on the plates is state law, and will require action by the state legislature to change (and that is akin to an act of God.)
Perhaps we should go into our history books and find something of consequence to feature on a special plate--something which encapsulates Ohio, its people and its history. You wouldn't need to look far, because Lancaster's own Gen. William T. Sherman blessed Ohio history with the type of achievement over which other states regularly drool.
In November 1864, he burned Atlanta down.
In commemoration of this event, work should begin immediately on a special license plate devoted to this incident in history.
First, we must find an appropriate tagline and graphic. If we choose a graphic that's, say, a little building burning, then a good tagline may be "Sherman burning Atlanta --Nov. 1864." I guess the plate could be devoted to General Sherman himself, with a little picture of him and the tagline "Gen. Sherman--the man who burned down Atlanta."
I am however much more in love with a tagline saying, "Don't mess with Ohio or we'll burn down Atlanta...again." (Consider the new tagline a swipe not at Georgia, but at Texas--I mean, what have they ever burned down?) I think that nicely summarizes this feat in Ohio history, in addition to describing the feistiness that Ohioans should be known for. (Admittedly burning Atlanta down today would require a lot of work--its metropolitan area now extends into Tennessee and Florida.)
There is precedence for acridity on license plates. New Hampshire started it all with "Live Free or Die"--homage to our Revolutionary roots. Washington DC's new plates are emblazoned with "No Taxation without Representation"--another commemoration of America's Revolutionary history, not to mention the District's unique political situation. Even "Birthplace of Aviation" is a passive-aggressive swipe at North Carolina. Not all Ohioans may wish to have the Sherman plate; some may wish to drive south of Covington, Kentucky. But for those who do, I don't see why "Don't mess with Ohio or we'll burn down Atlanta...again" cannot be issued to the proud Ohioan interested in memorializing our state, and our nation's, history.
To the critics who say that license plates are meant only for vehicle identification purposes, my response is that special plates are doing an adequate job identifying vehicles. However, they are a medium for so much more. Pennsylvania's ex-Governor Tom Ridge said that license plates are moving billboards for a state. Ohio must learn to leverage this advertising space in its favor in order to establish a unique state identity. The new Bicentennial plate is a start.
A petition must be circulated to collect 1000 names, addresses and current plate numbers of individuals willing to buy the plate when it is introduced. Contact me if you're interested in helping get the petition started.
I agree with you and would like to add that license plates don't have to symbolize some proud moment or accomplishment. I see a lot of comments here along the lines of "can't Nevada find something else to be proud of?" Pride is irrelevant. The tests are something that happened and involved their state. It's a piece of history. Therefore it's worth putting on a license plate. There's a lot of postal stamps that simply represent history without trying to make some kind of "pride" statement.
And the fact that the opposition to the license plates seems to love citing the current Yucca Mountain plan is annoying to me. That's confusing two different issues. If you're against nuclear weapons, fine. If you're against nuclear energy and the waste produced, fine. But don't start mixing the two issues. I understand that many of the people against the weapons are against the storage facility as well. But the plates commerate the weapons and the testing -- not nuclear energy. The objectors should keep their objections focused on the correct issue. To not do so muddles their argument and allows people (such as myself) to dismiss them as uninformed anti-nuke-reactionists.
GMD
watch this
My father spent several years at the test site, both as a soldier and civilian. He witnessed dozens of above-ground tests (in Nevada and the Pacific) and has fond memories of his experiences. My parents recently moved back to Nevada and I just showed the new plate to my father. His immediate reaction was "I want one!"
I'd have mine say: "MPAARLS". I'd kick ass, like unicorns.
American Ground Zero by Carole Gallagher
She set out to debunk the allegations of high illness rates associated with the Manhattan Engineering District.
She instead wrote a book about the "downwinders." Extremely sobering, even heartbreaking.
I must say that I am disappointed with all these people who have lined up to protest the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Storage Facility. The Yucca Mountain facility is completely safe. It is 1,200 feet underground, which provides ample shelter against bombs, acid rain, sandstorms, airplanes, and runaway trains (!?). It is even 800 feet above the water table so there is no chance of water contamination. Having all the nuclear waste in one place is easier to guard than having it in 50 different locations all around the country. The containers that waste is stored in are also safe, they are designed to withstand a semi collision at highway speeds. Transport of the waste? Well, let's just say you won't get anywhere near with 4 (yes, FOUR) AH-64 Apache helicopters nearby the truck. And where else would we bury this waste, Oak Ridge (sorry Tenneseans)? Although the mushroom cloud on the license plate may be out of line and in bad taste, suggesting we still have EXPLOSIVE waste in storage, the Yucca Mountain Storage Facility is one of the better ideas that our government has had. With a bit of education, maybe people will think better of it.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
I can envision California's new license plate: California: Blackout Capital of the world
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Well, good thing we nuked them til they started glowing! I hear those surrender talks leave millions dead and even more crippled for life!
Here in Michigan the license plate used to say "Winter Wonderland". A constant reminder as to how our weather sucks. To me this would be like Florida having a plate that said "Hurricane Target"
http://www.kubuntu.org/
all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
Damn right. I have absolutely no problem with us killing anyone who gets in the way of our national interest. Don't like it? Too f'ing bad. We are the United States of America. We have the moral authority to declare what is right and what is wrong, therefore we will act to make the world the way we think it should be.
Or to put it another way, there is no other country in the world that can be trusted to the have the power that the US has. Most other countries are either 1) sniveling cowards who run to us when anything needs to get done (privately), but then criticizes us the next day (publically), or 2) insane such that the US has kick their ass every now and then to keep them in line.
Thank God the United States has the power in the world.
"Nevada being Nevada, this is a unique subject," said Rick Bibbero, 55, a real estate agent who won $500 with his design for the license tag.
What kind of person is original, and creative enough to think up i design for Nevada incorporating a mushroom cloud and an atom? He is, in my opinion, a genius of einstinien proportions. No, if it was me, i would of designed something crap like i dunno - a picture of someone with their skin burnt off. or maybe a small child dieing of radiation sickness and choking on their own vomit.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I don't think it's fair to associate Albert Einstein's theory of relativity with a mushroom cloud. The theory and Einstein himself were about advancing the state of human knowledge, not destroying it. It was even Einstein himself who made the famous quote, ""I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Just so I can get one of these plates, with "DUKNCVR" on it. :-)
~Philly
So I see I'm not the only one who wants that...
Maybe they should sell replica plates with that on it to anyone, whether they live in Nevada or not-- like those ones from Universal Studios that read "OUTATIME" like the one on the DeLorean in Back to the Future.
~Philly
I think that Schrodingers equation would be better suited for this. I mean, E=mc^2 is really pretty general and doesnt look anywhere near as cool as Schrodingers.
Plus, all the psi's / phi's or whatever symbol you learned with look a hell of a lot cooler.
I live in Central WA right near the Hanford Nuclear Facility. This reminds me of a High School in the near by town of Richland. Their school sports name is the "Richland Bombers" and their logo is an R with a mushroom cloud behind it. Strange enough, I've never heard anyone mention complaints about it, in fact I'm not sure if people even realize the significance of it. Though a college here who's mascot was an "Indian" (native american) was forced to change their logo and mascot because it was deemed too offensive, go figure.
-Alex
Nevada: First in...First Out
call me stupid, but what does this stand for? (DUKNCVR)?
stuff
Parts of Nevada are quite beautiful. I go to Black Rock City every year, and enjoy views like this and this and this (the last is Pyramid Lake, about 50 miles south of BRC). Anyone who claims that Nevada is a wasteland is just fucking wrong - it's well worth the visit for the scenery alone.
sulli
RTFJ.
Here in Florida, we have a "Choose Life" plate...
I wonder what interesting license plates have been shot down because people didn't like them.
In Colorado, there was an attempt to get a plate made that said "Respect Life", with a columbine on it. It was shot down by the abortion lobby.
Twenties Retirement
-- Bob
You say:
... let them keep the Emperor.
"But face it, millions of Japanase civilians and probably a million US serviceman would've died if the conventional war had continued."
Fact is, the Japanese had already asked for peace before we dropped the Bomb(s). They asked for one condition: that they get to keep the Emperor as a Japanese institution. If we had granted that one condition, they would have surrendered, bombs or no bombs.
But we held out for unconditional surrender. Afterwards, we