1. Reliability. For any nuclear power plant of any design, the key to reliability is ensuring its structures, systems, and components (SSCs) are by themselves reliable (a chain only being as strong as its weakest link), and more importantly, qualified to meet rigorous standards during harsh (i.e., accident) operating conditions. In the U.S., the Maintenance Rule (10CFR 50.65) requires that reliability and unavailability records be always available for NRC audit. This is a big factor in why US plants have astronomical production records compared to even 10 years ago. Simply put, using proven components is a Good Thing(TM).
2. Radiation material release. Dilution is the solution to pollution. The risk of cancers (thyroid, bone) is already conservatively overestimated by using current methods, and conservative standards ensure these risks are further minimized. And let's be clear on this: any operating nuclear power plant periodically performs a controlled release of radioactive material into the environment during the course of its operation. These releases ensure that the activity levels are low, the wind is going in a proper direction, and that once diluted, are inconsequential with regard to risk. I'd like to say nuclear is pollution-free, but it I would be lying. But the nature and level of that pollution's release is tightly controlled so as to be safe.
You are absolutely correct about the effects of human intervention: if the machine was left alone, TMI-1's core collapse would not have occurred (operations belatedly closed off the source of the initial primary coolant loss - a stuck-open valve - but it also closed off the core's cooling path, which was through this valve); Chernobyl's catastrophic reactivity/steam explosion would not have occurred if operators did not conduct an ill-conceived experiment to maximize production.
Modern Western designs incorporate a great deal of lessons learned from the past. They incorporate a great deal of redundancy, or have features that allow an operator a great deal of time to take action, in case of an emergency.
One other thought: I'll call these "barge" nukes - are not a new concept. They were conceived in the 60's, and several US nukes in operation today were originally intended to be on barges, towed to a transmission site, and operated from there. Typically, these units had small containment volumes, which necessitated the invention of ice condenser systems to absorb the energy from a loss of coolant accident. The barge thing didn't fly, but these plants currently operate on land, but retain the ice condenser feature. Nice cold containments.
After Time Warner became Bright House, no caps - and this is when I started running some BF1942 / Desert Combat servers (with bots). I think the throughput was about 6 GB/month, all told. Up / Down was consistently 321 kbps/ 5 Mbps.
Now in Central Virginia:
Adelphia did not have any caps - but their download speeds were well below Bright House's, maybe 3 Mbps on a good day. Fuggetaboutit if it rained (for some reason).
Comcast bought Adelphia and still no caps so far. Speeds vary widely: I've clocked as high as 15 Mbps down early in the morning to Speakeasy's Seattle server, to as low as 5 Mbps during peak hours. Upload consistent at about 356kbps. No caps... yet.
Seriously, the situation surrounding the GPL has strong parallels with that of critical portions of the Code of Federal Regulations governing nuclear power (10CFR Part 50)... 10 years ago.
Even with a seemingly simple set of conditions (i.e., the license terms), someone will figure out a nuance or caveat that will challenge the conventional interpretation, and gum up the works for everyone else. Regulations (or licenses) are principally legal matters, and as such, precedents and case studies are key to understanding the bounds of their tenets.
Here's what we use in the nuclear industry to clear the air - as much as can be achieved, anyway. An industry group, like the Electric Power Research Institute or Nuclear Energy Institute, develops a guidance document that defines key terms, and most importantly, illustrates and amplifies the tenets of the regulation. These illustrations include case studies and examples that challenge the rule well beyond the obvious application. Ultimately, such a document may get accepted or endorsed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a Regulatory Guide or other guidance document.
The parallels here are that:
There is an industry group involved: the FSF (and perhaps others);
A FAQ has been or (is being) developed for the new GPL. However, from what I've seen, the FAQ may not be comprehensive enough. There are examples, but I don't know that they are that challenging;
As technology and understanding of the license (or regulation) evolves, there will eventually be new gray areas discovered. This is true in both fields;
Where the situational similarity fails is that there is no overarching authority to endorse (or deny) the final version of the GPL. So the best that could be accomplished really would be to have a rigorous FAQ or guidance document as possible - one that anticipates the future as best as its preparers can.
Nice sentiments, but there are some questions that arise...
It is important to note that though Speakeasy will now be a wholly owned subsidiary of Best Buy, we will continue to operate as a standalone, independent operating division with headquarters in Seattle.
Ok, but for how long? More often than not, mergers or acquisitions end up with the old management getting replaced over a period of time by new management, who often want to make their mark... often to the detriment of customers and/or employees.
A product offering such as VoIP, which has immediate compelling appeal to most SBs based on cost savings and simplicity, is an attractive value proposition that allows Best Buy to round out its solutions menu for small businesses.
In light of the recent enjoinder against Vonage, will BestBuy find itself in a similar situation with SpeakEasy's VOIP tech? If so, will this dilute SpeakEasy's value to BestBuy? And what could the consequences be?
I just hope this turns out well for the SpeakEasy employees, and customers who decide to stick with them (for the near-term anyway).
I am glad to hear you don't dodge the duty - the poster I was replying to seems to denigrate people who do not somehow weasel their way out of it. Indeed, attorneys are hesitant to allow technically-oriented folk, such as engineers (I are one o'those), onto their juries. 'Tis a shame, but it's supposedly done in the name of ensuring objectivity and (ideally) an unbiased jury.
...technical cases decided by 12 ordinary citizens too stupid to get out of jury duty.
Perhaps this is why juries are the way they are. The "smart" people shirked their duty to serve, and thus could not affect the outcome of the trial. And Slashdot readers being as smart as they are, now complain about said outcome.
What would be more telling than this judgement is whatever (if any) patent expert opinion was offered at trial. If Vonage's counsel could not present a valid and comprehensible (remember, we're talking about a "stupid" jury here) expert argument on the alleged patent infringements, then this result should not be surprising.
Presaged a good bit of the current crises, as the backdrop of a struggle between one man's desire to effect his version of utopia (with its incredible consequences... gray skin anyone?), and the protagonist's attempts to counter it, and just leave things be.
It is set approximately 30 years in the future, relative to when the book was first published, and overpopulation, famine, malnutrition, global warming, urban blight, and massive wars in the Middle East are a commonplace.
...the occurrence of a cover-up. That's inexcusable. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) would be all over Hokuriku's and Shika station's ass for that.
However, it sounds like what really happened was a subcritical multiplication, wherein fission does occur, but does not quite achieve a self-sustaining rate. The event could have been initiated any number of things; for a boiling water reactor, it could have been control rod misposition. Hence, the blurb about only increasing power by less than 1%. There is a standard requirement that when shutdown, a nuclear reactor will have sufficient negative reactivity to ensure that a recriticality does not occur.
Further, because of the self-regulating (self-shutdown) aspects of non-Soviet (i.e., Western, including Japanese) reactor designs, the consequences of this event are minor: no radiation releases, maybe some minor fuel cladding degradation, at worst, elevated isotope levels in the reactor coolant.
On further reflection, my only caveat to the above was that it appears the unit was in a refueling outage - so a manual operator action was required to ensure no further criticality. I think the statement about an automatic shutdown system failure could be misleading; in a refueling condition, such systems may not be in service at all.
I'd be interested in the deeper technical details when they come out. More on the Shika (also Shiga) reactor
here.
About 20 years ago, during one of my summer stints at Washington Park Zoo in Portland, OR, we were told by our supervisors to wash our wrists in cold water to stave off the effects of heat exhaustion (yes, it did get hot and dry in Oregon). I can attest to its effectiveness, having been relegated to trash pick-up and trash liner replacement duty (it was a rotational assignment) several times during the summer. It definitely has an envigorating effect...try it between workout sets.
Legal and other expenses incurred in connection with the Company's litigation were $654,000 for the first quarter of fiscal year 2007, which was down significantly from costs of $4,010,000 for the comparable quarter of the prior year and down from costs of $2,220,000 for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2006. Because of the unique and unpredictable nature of the Company's litigation, the occurrence and timing of litigation-related expenses is difficult to predict, and will be difficult to predict in the future. While the Company expects to continue to incur legal expenses related to its ongoing litigation during the 2007 fiscal year, the Company's expectation is that those expenses will be less than they were for the 2006 fiscal year.
Perhaps they see the light at the end of the tunnel... and it's a train coming at them.
No warp drive, no artificial gravity, no sub-space communication... but does assume advanced reproductive methods, useful (and non-rebellious) AI/robots, and presages a clash of cultures. Very strongly libertarian-leaning, and hard to put down.
His Giants series carries similar themes, but goes further to posit the mechanics of faster-than-light travel, how our moon and asteroid belt were created, with some von Daniken-esque elements thrown in as well. Higlhy entertaining.
Like some (maybe most) corporations, they probably have a hardware life cycle. It could be that, like where I used to work, the XP rollout was done on Celerons (well at least they were Socket 478). Instead of having to upgrade hardware to the semi-bleeding edge because of Vista, the FAA may be opting to go low-end, hence the seeming interest in a thin-client strategy. This is a smart move for them to look ahead; for budgeting purposes, and the possible downward effect the effort will have on Vista prices.
...the title and blurb make it seem like Indonesia is doing an evil thing (government + IP + $ + big pharma = EVIL!!!!)
But from TFA:
"A Baxter [the pharma company involved] spokeswoman said the company had not asked Indonesia to stop cooperating with the W.H.O. She added that the agreement under negotiation would not give it exclusive access to Indonesian strains."
So there is no dark conspiracy between Indonesia and Baxter. Indonesia would like some compensation for the samples they provide, which is understandable. The W.H.O will not be left out.
What kind of dumbass would assume an airliner = kamikaze weapon?
Remember, this is Boston we're talking about here - the origination point for United Airlines and American Airlines flights 175 and 11, respectively. The officials' caution and reaction (or overreaction) can be forgiven.
However, slap the kids on the wrist for whatever ordinance infraction (no permits, whatever) they incurred and let 'em out; and there's no need to make examples of them to any further degree. The kids got their press, and hopefully have learned something about consequences by spending time in the clink. This spectacle must end.
I think I know what you're trying to say - but what you hoped were your illustrative points are not well-supported. I do agree with your thought on the existence of 'filters,' which, rightly or wrongly, have since eroded once ease-of-use became a more widespread attribute of software design (OSs or other).
However, your statement about Windows is an opinion ("...mediocre at best."), and that's about it. Additionally, your denigration of the casual user as the source of net pollution really has little to do with the profit motive - even if there were still 'filters' in place, even the highly skilled, educated, or informed user can still put out such pollution.
Finally, on this point,
Because the true point of the internet (free exchange of information, ideas, collaboration on culturally and globally beneficial non-profit projects) was lost.
This was an idealized goal of the net, whose real roots lay in network survivability following a nuclear attack of the continental United States. I do not agree that what you consider the 'true point' was lost. On the contrary, the web as it exists enables that point very well by amplifying the tiniest voice - and allows others to respond, ignore, or counter that voice. Yes, there's noise, but there's signal too.
In spite of all that, FWIW, I would not have modded you as a Troll.
Slashdot Mirror
To address your risk points:
1. Reliability. For any nuclear power plant of any design, the key to reliability is ensuring its structures, systems, and components (SSCs) are by themselves reliable (a chain only being as strong as its weakest link), and more importantly, qualified to meet rigorous standards during harsh (i.e., accident) operating conditions. In the U.S., the Maintenance Rule (10CFR 50.65) requires that reliability and unavailability records be always available for NRC audit. This is a big factor in why US plants have astronomical production records compared to even 10 years ago. Simply put, using proven components is a Good Thing(TM).
2. Radiation material release. Dilution is the solution to pollution. The risk of cancers (thyroid, bone) is already conservatively overestimated by using current methods, and conservative standards ensure these risks are further minimized. And let's be clear on this: any operating nuclear power plant periodically performs a controlled release of radioactive material into the environment during the course of its operation. These releases ensure that the activity levels are low, the wind is going in a proper direction, and that once diluted, are inconsequential with regard to risk. I'd like to say nuclear is pollution-free, but it I would be lying. But the nature and level of that pollution's release is tightly controlled so as to be safe.
You are absolutely correct about the effects of human intervention: if the machine was left alone, TMI-1's core collapse would not have occurred (operations belatedly closed off the source of the initial primary coolant loss - a stuck-open valve - but it also closed off the core's cooling path, which was through this valve); Chernobyl's catastrophic reactivity/steam explosion would not have occurred if operators did not conduct an ill-conceived experiment to maximize production.
Modern Western designs incorporate a great deal of lessons learned from the past. They incorporate a great deal of redundancy, or have features that allow an operator a great deal of time to take action, in case of an emergency.
One other thought: I'll call these "barge" nukes - are not a new concept. They were conceived in the 60's, and several US nukes in operation today were originally intended to be on barges, towed to a transmission site, and operated from there. Typically, these units had small containment volumes, which necessitated the invention of ice condenser systems to absorb the energy from a loss of coolant accident. The barge thing didn't fly, but these plants currently operate on land, but retain the ice condenser feature. Nice cold containments.
FIOS was going to be in the Tampa Bay area (I think even up to New Port richey) starting in 2005. Might want to look into it.
Whilst in the Tampa Bay area:
Time Warner Cable did not have any caps...
After Time Warner became Bright House, no caps - and this is when I started running some BF1942 / Desert Combat servers (with bots). I think the throughput was about 6 GB/month, all told. Up / Down was consistently 321 kbps/ 5 Mbps.
Now in Central Virginia:
Adelphia did not have any caps - but their download speeds were well below Bright House's, maybe 3 Mbps on a good day. Fuggetaboutit if it rained (for some reason).
Comcast bought Adelphia and still no caps so far. Speeds vary widely: I've clocked as high as 15 Mbps down early in the morning to Speakeasy's Seattle server, to as low as 5 Mbps during peak hours. Upload consistent at about 356kbps. No caps... yet.
Even with a seemingly simple set of conditions (i.e., the license terms), someone will figure out a nuance or caveat that will challenge the conventional interpretation, and gum up the works for everyone else. Regulations (or licenses) are principally legal matters, and as such, precedents and case studies are key to understanding the bounds of their tenets.
Here's what we use in the nuclear industry to clear the air - as much as can be achieved, anyway. An industry group, like the Electric Power Research Institute or Nuclear Energy Institute, develops a guidance document that defines key terms, and most importantly, illustrates and amplifies the tenets of the regulation. These illustrations include case studies and examples that challenge the rule well beyond the obvious application. Ultimately, such a document may get accepted or endorsed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a Regulatory Guide or other guidance document.
The parallels here are that:
- As technology and understanding of the license (or regulation) evolves, there will eventually be new gray areas discovered. This is true in both fields;
Where the situational similarity fails is that there is no overarching authority to endorse (or deny) the final version of the GPL. So the best that could be accomplished really would be to have a rigorous FAQ or guidance document as possible - one that anticipates the future as best as its preparers can.Nice sentiments, but there are some questions that arise...
It is important to note that though Speakeasy will now be a wholly owned subsidiary of Best Buy, we will continue to operate as a standalone, independent operating division with headquarters in Seattle.
Ok, but for how long? More often than not, mergers or acquisitions end up with the old management getting replaced over a period of time by new management, who often want to make their mark... often to the detriment of customers and/or employees.
A product offering such as VoIP, which has immediate compelling appeal to most SBs based on cost savings and simplicity, is an attractive value proposition that allows Best Buy to round out its solutions menu for small businesses.
In light of the recent enjoinder against Vonage, will BestBuy find itself in a similar situation with SpeakEasy's VOIP tech? If so, will this dilute SpeakEasy's value to BestBuy? And what could the consequences be?
I just hope this turns out well for the SpeakEasy employees, and customers who decide to stick with them (for the near-term anyway).
I am glad to hear you don't dodge the duty - the poster I was replying to seems to denigrate people who do not somehow weasel their way out of it. Indeed, attorneys are hesitant to allow technically-oriented folk, such as engineers (I are one o'those), onto their juries. 'Tis a shame, but it's supposedly done in the name of ensuring objectivity and (ideally) an unbiased jury.
...technical cases decided by 12 ordinary citizens too stupid to get out of jury duty.
Perhaps this is why juries are the way they are. The "smart" people shirked their duty to serve, and thus could not affect the outcome of the trial. And Slashdot readers being as smart as they are, now complain about said outcome.
What would be more telling than this judgement is whatever (if any) patent expert opinion was offered at trial. If Vonage's counsel could not present a valid and comprehensible (remember, we're talking about a "stupid" jury here) expert argument on the alleged patent infringements, then this result should not be surprising.
...the classic:
The Lathe of Heaven
Presaged a good bit of the current crises, as the backdrop of a struggle between one man's desire to effect his version of utopia (with its incredible consequences... gray skin anyone?), and the protagonist's attempts to counter it, and just leave things be.
It is set approximately 30 years in the future, relative to when the book was first published, and overpopulation, famine, malnutrition, global warming, urban blight, and massive wars in the Middle East are a commonplace.
...the occurrence of a cover-up. That's inexcusable. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) would be all over Hokuriku's and Shika station's ass for that.
However, it sounds like what really happened was a subcritical multiplication, wherein fission does occur, but does not quite achieve a self-sustaining rate. The event could have been initiated any number of things; for a boiling water reactor, it could have been control rod misposition. Hence, the blurb about only increasing power by less than 1%. There is a standard requirement that when shutdown, a nuclear reactor will have sufficient negative reactivity to ensure that a recriticality does not occur.
Further, because of the self-regulating (self-shutdown) aspects of non-Soviet (i.e., Western, including Japanese) reactor designs, the consequences of this event are minor: no radiation releases, maybe some minor fuel cladding degradation, at worst, elevated isotope levels in the reactor coolant.
On further reflection, my only caveat to the above was that it appears the unit was in a refueling outage - so a manual operator action was required to ensure no further criticality. I think the statement about an automatic shutdown system failure could be misleading; in a refueling condition, such systems may not be in service at all.
I'd be interested in the deeper technical details when they come out. More on the Shika (also Shiga) reactor here.
About 20 years ago, during one of my summer stints at Washington Park Zoo in Portland, OR, we were told by our supervisors to wash our wrists in cold water to stave off the effects of heat exhaustion (yes, it did get hot and dry in Oregon). I can attest to its effectiveness, having been relegated to trash pick-up and trash liner replacement duty (it was a rotational assignment) several times during the summer. It definitely has an envigorating effect...try it between workout sets.
From SCO's own March 1 PR
Legal and other expenses incurred in connection with the Company's litigation were $654,000 for the first quarter of fiscal year 2007, which was down significantly from costs of $4,010,000 for the comparable quarter of the prior year and down from costs of $2,220,000 for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2006. Because of the unique and unpredictable nature of the Company's litigation, the occurrence and timing of litigation-related expenses is difficult to predict, and will be difficult to predict in the future. While the Company expects to continue to incur legal expenses related to its ongoing litigation during the 2007 fiscal year, the Company's expectation is that those expenses will be less than they were for the 2006 fiscal year.
Perhaps they see the light at the end of the tunnel... and it's a train coming at them.
That's what it sounds like to me.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page
Voyage from Yesteryear.
No warp drive, no artificial gravity, no sub-space communication... but does assume advanced reproductive methods, useful (and non-rebellious) AI/robots, and presages a clash of cultures. Very strongly libertarian-leaning, and hard to put down.
His Giants series carries similar themes, but goes further to posit the mechanics of faster-than-light travel, how our moon and asteroid belt were created, with some von Daniken-esque elements thrown in as well. Higlhy entertaining.
Like some (maybe most) corporations, they probably have a hardware life cycle. It could be that, like where I used to work, the XP rollout was done on Celerons (well at least they were Socket 478). Instead of having to upgrade hardware to the semi-bleeding edge because of Vista, the FAA may be opting to go low-end, hence the seeming interest in a thin-client strategy. This is a smart move for them to look ahead; for budgeting purposes, and the possible downward effect the effort will have on Vista prices.
...in Nantucket Sound, off Martha's Vineyard.
...the title and blurb make it seem like Indonesia is doing an evil thing (government + IP + $ + big pharma = EVIL!!!!)
But from TFA:
"A Baxter [the pharma company involved] spokeswoman said the company had not asked Indonesia to stop cooperating with the W.H.O. She added that the agreement under negotiation would not give it exclusive access to Indonesian strains."
So there is no dark conspiracy between Indonesia and Baxter. Indonesia would like some compensation for the samples they provide, which is understandable. The W.H.O will not be left out.
What kind of dumbass would assume an airliner = kamikaze weapon?
Remember, this is Boston we're talking about here - the origination point for United Airlines and American Airlines flights 175 and 11, respectively. The officials' caution and reaction (or overreaction) can be forgiven.
However, slap the kids on the wrist for whatever ordinance infraction (no permits, whatever) they incurred and let 'em out; and there's no need to make examples of them to any further degree. The kids got their press, and hopefully have learned something about consequences by spending time in the clink. This spectacle must end.
I refuse to pay for something I don't own.
LOL - I read that and thought: "So everything you own is stolen?"
I think what you meant was "I refuse to pay for something I will not own after paying for it."
I think I know what you're trying to say - but what you hoped were your illustrative points are not well-supported. I do agree with your thought on the existence of 'filters,' which, rightly or wrongly, have since eroded once ease-of-use became a more widespread attribute of software design (OSs or other).
However, your statement about Windows is an opinion ("...mediocre at best."), and that's about it. Additionally, your denigration of the casual user as the source of net pollution really has little to do with the profit motive - even if there were still 'filters' in place, even the highly skilled, educated, or informed user can still put out such pollution.
Finally, on this point,
Because the true point of the internet (free exchange of information, ideas, collaboration on culturally and globally beneficial non-profit projects) was lost.
This was an idealized goal of the net, whose real roots lay in network survivability following a nuclear attack of the continental United States. I do not agree that what you consider the 'true point' was lost. On the contrary, the web as it exists enables that point very well by amplifying the tiniest voice - and allows others to respond, ignore, or counter that voice. Yes, there's noise, but there's signal too.
In spite of all that, FWIW, I would not have modded you as a Troll.