You've got a point, but that's only done to produce bigger explosions, which is not what you want on a vehicle engine. Particularly since the working fusion reaction has to be set off by a fission explosion. (Boeing is talking about Lasers, but, at least effectively, we don't have that working.)
Sorry, I was speaking loosely several posts up the thread. We actually *DO* have fusion reactors. They're too heavy to carry on a ship, and they require more power than they produce. And they've got many othe problems. So I summarized it as "We don't have fusion reactors", but I should have remembered where I was posting.
Mmmph. Ok, I need to rethink that. But some liquid Helium *is* a superconductor of heat (I'm not sure that true of all allotropes). So perhaps there are others.
I don't even believe the intent is real. This looks like a truly stupid idea, even if you could get the technology to work. (If you've got a nice fusion reaction for your engine, why mess everything up by irradiating U238 with neutrons. It's make enough plutonium to be refined into something dangerous, but not enough to use directly.)
Sorry, but this doesn't sound as workable a the Orion project to me. And it seems to be a different concept.
P.S.: Our fusion weapons use fission as an ignition system, not the other way around. You can, of course, then use the fusion to create a larger fission explosion, but that's not the way to build a working engine.
If you want to absorb neutrons you use parafin, not u238. U238 is quite picky about the neutron energies it will absorb, and the rest pass right through. Hydrogen (as in parafin) is a lot more willing to accept different energies. So if you wanted to use neutrons from a fusion reaction to energize U238 you'd probably need to run it through a moderator...probably either graphite (think Chernobyl) or heavy water.
That doesn't sound like a good airplane engine to me.
Elemental tritium would certainly not be spread over any crash site, not unless it was carefully packaged. Otherwise it would head directly for space.
Secondary radiation, however, is a different matter. And someone said that the fusion was only a source of neutorns to enhance fission. (That seems like a pretty wierd idea, since we don't currently have fusion working.)
You (and possibly the article) are making an improper distinction. Anyone who breaks into my computer or my putatively secure communications is a bad guy, whether they work for some government or other or not. And it doesn't matter which government. And, no, even if they had a warrant that wouldn't mean they weren't a bad guy, it would just mean they might not be operating illegally.
Carbon nanotubes can be either conductors, insulators, or both (depending on direction).
If you're going into 3-D construction, what you need are superconductors of heat to embed into the chip with connections to outside. (Yeah, reducing internal resistance also helps.) Interestingly, most superconductors of electricity are also superconductors of heat...so what you need are high temperature superconductors, where high temperature means something around 100C. I've seen claims that graphene is a superconductor (in some configurations), but I don't believe them. Perhaps black phosphorus is. Or something else.
Of coure private companies should be allowed to investigate their failures. They just shouldn't have an exclusive right to do so. They pay for their investigation, the government pays for it's investigation, any other involved parties pay for their investigation. The data isn't kept secret. (Not being secret doesn't mean that what it means will be obvious, hence the plausibility of multiple investigations.)
If the police weren't, essentially, given a blank check then I'd say you had a point. Unfortunately, in a lot of places a policeman shooting someone in the back AND BEING CAUGHT isn't even cause for a reprimand.
I'm not really convinced the prison reforms anyone. The evidence seems rather the opposite.
Also, from what I've read changed behavior is more closely related to certainty of being caught than to severity of punishment. Severe punishment just makes victims feel better, and uninvolved people feel self-righteous.
So make "swatting" require positive identification. Something that actually serves are reasonable identifation of the person placing the call. And be quite skeptical of anyone calling from a place where they cannot readily be extradited. A different state should require more evidence than local, and a different country a lot more evidence. The current system seems to be "an attractive nuisance".
OTOH, you also need a real punishment, but something that won't ruin his life. My temptation is to first confiscate all his electronics, games, passwords, etc. and forbid his owning a credit card or bank account or phone, or anyone from supplying him with such for 4 years and also to recommend tatooing "asshole" across his forehead in large letters with ink that fades about 50%/year, but that second part is probably not a useful reaction. What, however, is?
OTOH, if he were an adult I'd feel a much harsher punishment was appropriate.
War is a really stupid card game that I used to occasionally play with my sister when we were really bored. (If you don't know it, don't bother. Even an 8 year old thought it was stupid and pointless.)
There is no such thing as "bullet-proof hardware" except in the sense that some of it would stop a 45 bullet.
Cheaply build hardware fails more often, but *ALL* hardware fails, and you need to plan for it. Ever hear of "RAID"? That's the way all (almost all?) hard disks are built these days. But they still fail. They used to fail more frequently. ("RAID" == "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks").
You are taking an unfair extreme position. And one that's also unnecessary to your point. Free markets not only do not exist, there is no historical record of their ever existing. And there are many good reasons why not. For one thing, they are inhrently unstable, and people quickly develop exclusive groups to fix prices in the absence of regulation. Also to hide information. This was recognized by Adam Smith. It's a pity so many proponents of "Free Market ideology" don't understand the basic principles enunciated by their patron saint.
That said, some of them actually *do* understand when you challenge them on a point, but when they aren't challenged they automatically slip into unreasoned rhetoric.
Almost. There are shades of difference. The US is closer to traditional Fascism. But as you noticed there's a huge similarity. (The socialism tie-in isn't really a feature of fascist ideology, though it was of Nazi-ism, and Mussolini didn't really have anything against the socialism component, so he included it when convenient.)
The US isn't even maintaining it's current infrastructure. It's literally decaying. This isn't at all the same as just "not going through an industrial revolution". The bridges are decaying, the highways are wearing out, the streets are getting potholes. Etc. Now shall we talk about our broadband links, which are not only sub-par, but which are also not being well maintained?
I'm sorry, but the US has a lot of infrastructure maintenance that needs to be done, and isn't, because the funds are diverted to stupid wars with no sensible cause and financial games.
To call them "Communist" is to misunderstand them. It's as bad as calling the US a democracy. We can see how the votes are manipulated, but people still call it a democracy. Similarly, China is not Communist. Even more it's not communist. It is an oligarchic dictatorship, while the US is a Fascist plutocracy. Both have propaganda disguising their actual nature, and both coverings are fairly transparent. (I'm much less sure how to characterize most other governments. Just how should, e.g., Britain be characterized? Most places don't make the levers of power so transparently obvious, but it doesn't appear to matter in practice. In practice what it seems to boild down to is "people in power act to increase centralized control using whatever propaganda is locally convenient".)
Have you looked at what they are calling "Clean up"? I believe that in Britain they actually filled one reactor building (not just the reactor) with cement. I presume they removed the fuel first. And it's still considered a hazerdous area and entry is forbidden to most people. That's not anything I'd call "clean up". And, IIUC, the US hasn't figured out HOW to close down the Hanford reactors, and is threatening to pollute the Columbia river right down through Seattle. If we need to evacuate Seattle that will be a fair inconvenience. There have already been minor leaks.
I'm not really convinced we know HOW to clean up a reactor site. Even cleaning up after a gas station is a real problem.
Doing it for research, with energy output being among the things studied, is something I'd support. The current system, though, is worse than nothing. It's setting up random time bombs all across the country. The older ones are just entering their critical period. The more recent ones weren't designed to last as long. Everything is being pushed to produce more power and last longer than it was designed to do. And there's no way to clean up when you shut them down.
OTOH, I don't expect a "China Syndrome", more many "Fukishima-like" incidents. With an occasional incident as bad as Chernobyl (though not through the same failure mode).
Until we can deal with the waste produced by reactors, they shouldn't be anything much more than research projects. Would a fast-breeded really consume all it's fuel? Perhaps that's the way to go. Perhaps some other design. Don't build twenty of a design that hasn't been well tested through decomissioning and cleanup. (Even then expect that you've missed some major problems, but that's no excuse not to do anything.)
Almost. Clover, beans, etc. cannot fix nitrogen. What they *can* do is host microorganisms that *do* fix nitrogen. But this doesn't happen automatically, and different plants host different fixing organisms, so you need to ensure that the proper host is innoculated with the proper fixer. If you buy plant seed this is usually (not always) already done, but it often comes with a coating of accompanying applied fungicides. Sometimes this is intentionally applied to prevent people from eating the seeds. (Check the history of Morning Glory seeds, I forget whether it was "Heavenly Blue" or "Pearly Gates".) Sometimes it's just because the most effective fungicides are somewhat poisonous.
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Funny, my thought was "And the pig got up and walked away."
( http://www.monologues.co.uk/Co... )
Sorry, but for a moderator you don't want to absorb the neutrons, you want to slow them down. So scratch the boron.
You've got a point, but that's only done to produce bigger explosions, which is not what you want on a vehicle engine. Particularly since the working fusion reaction has to be set off by a fission explosion. (Boeing is talking about Lasers, but, at least effectively, we don't have that working.)
Sorry, I was speaking loosely several posts up the thread. We actually *DO* have fusion reactors. They're too heavy to carry on a ship, and they require more power than they produce. And they've got many othe problems. So I summarized it as "We don't have fusion reactors", but I should have remembered where I was posting.
Mmmph. Ok, I need to rethink that. But some liquid Helium *is* a superconductor of heat (I'm not sure that true of all allotropes). So perhaps there are others.
I don't even believe the intent is real. This looks like a truly stupid idea, even if you could get the technology to work. (If you've got a nice fusion reaction for your engine, why mess everything up by irradiating U238 with neutrons. It's make enough plutonium to be refined into something dangerous, but not enough to use directly.)
Sorry, but this doesn't sound as workable a the Orion project to me. And it seems to be a different concept.
P.S.: Our fusion weapons use fission as an ignition system, not the other way around. You can, of course, then use the fusion to create a larger fission explosion, but that's not the way to build a working engine.
If you want to absorb neutrons you use parafin, not u238. U238 is quite picky about the neutron energies it will absorb, and the rest pass right through. Hydrogen (as in parafin) is a lot more willing to accept different energies. So if you wanted to use neutrons from a fusion reaction to energize U238 you'd probably need to run it through a moderator...probably either graphite (think Chernobyl) or heavy water.
That doesn't sound like a good airplane engine to me.
Elemental tritium would certainly not be spread over any crash site, not unless it was carefully packaged. Otherwise it would head directly for space.
Secondary radiation, however, is a different matter. And someone said that the fusion was only a source of neutorns to enhance fission. (That seems like a pretty wierd idea, since we don't currently have fusion working.)
You (and possibly the article) are making an improper distinction. Anyone who breaks into my computer or my putatively secure communications is a bad guy, whether they work for some government or other or not. And it doesn't matter which government. And, no, even if they had a warrant that wouldn't mean they weren't a bad guy, it would just mean they might not be operating illegally.
Carbon nanotubes can be either conductors, insulators, or both (depending on direction).
If you're going into 3-D construction, what you need are superconductors of heat to embed into the chip with connections to outside. (Yeah, reducing internal resistance also helps.) Interestingly, most superconductors of electricity are also superconductors of heat...so what you need are high temperature superconductors, where high temperature means something around 100C. I've seen claims that graphene is a superconductor (in some configurations), but I don't believe them. Perhaps black phosphorus is. Or something else.
Don't expect to see any of this within 10 years.
Of coure private companies should be allowed to investigate their failures. They just shouldn't have an exclusive right to do so. They pay for their investigation, the government pays for it's investigation, any other involved parties pay for their investigation. The data isn't kept secret. (Not being secret doesn't mean that what it means will be obvious, hence the plausibility of multiple investigations.)
If the police weren't, essentially, given a blank check then I'd say you had a point. Unfortunately, in a lot of places a policeman shooting someone in the back AND BEING CAUGHT isn't even cause for a reprimand.
Yes, but ...
I'm not really convinced the prison reforms anyone. The evidence seems rather the opposite.
Also, from what I've read changed behavior is more closely related to certainty of being caught than to severity of punishment. Severe punishment just makes victims feel better, and uninvolved people feel self-righteous.
So make "swatting" require positive identification. Something that actually serves are reasonable identifation of the person placing the call. And be quite skeptical of anyone calling from a place where they cannot readily be extradited. A different state should require more evidence than local, and a different country a lot more evidence. The current system seems to be "an attractive nuisance".
OTOH, you also need a real punishment, but something that won't ruin his life. My temptation is to first confiscate all his electronics, games, passwords, etc. and forbid his owning a credit card or bank account or phone, or anyone from supplying him with such for 4 years and also to recommend tatooing "asshole" across his forehead in large letters with ink that fades about 50%/year, but that second part is probably not a useful reaction. What, however, is?
OTOH, if he were an adult I'd feel a much harsher punishment was appropriate.
War is a really stupid card game that I used to occasionally play with my sister when we were really bored. (If you don't know it, don't bother. Even an 8 year old thought it was stupid and pointless.)
Yes. That was a bit better than a "tell me three times" system. But there are still failure modes (as you note) which was my point.
Yah. And ever since then they've been a model of ethics and righteous behavior.
Uh huh.
There is no such thing as "bullet-proof hardware" except in the sense that some of it would stop a 45 bullet.
Cheaply build hardware fails more often, but *ALL* hardware fails, and you need to plan for it. Ever hear of "RAID"? That's the way all (almost all?) hard disks are built these days. But they still fail. They used to fail more frequently. ("RAID" == "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks").
You are taking an unfair extreme position. And one that's also unnecessary to your point. Free markets not only do not exist, there is no historical record of their ever existing. And there are many good reasons why not. For one thing, they are inhrently unstable, and people quickly develop exclusive groups to fix prices in the absence of regulation. Also to hide information. This was recognized by Adam Smith. It's a pity so many proponents of "Free Market ideology" don't understand the basic principles enunciated by their patron saint.
That said, some of them actually *do* understand when you challenge them on a point, but when they aren't challenged they automatically slip into unreasoned rhetoric.
Almost. There are shades of difference. The US is closer to traditional Fascism. But as you noticed there's a huge similarity. (The socialism tie-in isn't really a feature of fascist ideology, though it was of Nazi-ism, and Mussolini didn't really have anything against the socialism component, so he included it when convenient.)
The US isn't even maintaining it's current infrastructure. It's literally decaying. This isn't at all the same as just "not going through an industrial revolution". The bridges are decaying, the highways are wearing out, the streets are getting potholes. Etc. Now shall we talk about our broadband links, which are not only sub-par, but which are also not being well maintained?
I'm sorry, but the US has a lot of infrastructure maintenance that needs to be done, and isn't, because the funds are diverted to stupid wars with no sensible cause and financial games.
To call them "Communist" is to misunderstand them. It's as bad as calling the US a democracy. We can see how the votes are manipulated, but people still call it a democracy. Similarly, China is not Communist. Even more it's not communist. It is an oligarchic dictatorship, while the US is a Fascist plutocracy. Both have propaganda disguising their actual nature, and both coverings are fairly transparent. (I'm much less sure how to characterize most other governments. Just how should, e.g., Britain be characterized? Most places don't make the levers of power so transparently obvious, but it doesn't appear to matter in practice. In practice what it seems to boild down to is "people in power act to increase centralized control using whatever propaganda is locally convenient".)
Have you looked at what they are calling "Clean up"? I believe that in Britain they actually filled one reactor building (not just the reactor) with cement. I presume they removed the fuel first. And it's still considered a hazerdous area and entry is forbidden to most people. That's not anything I'd call "clean up". And, IIUC, the US hasn't figured out HOW to close down the Hanford reactors, and is threatening to pollute the Columbia river right down through Seattle. If we need to evacuate Seattle that will be a fair inconvenience. There have already been minor leaks.
I'm not really convinced we know HOW to clean up a reactor site. Even cleaning up after a gas station is a real problem.
Doing it for research, with energy output being among the things studied, is something I'd support. The current system, though, is worse than nothing. It's setting up random time bombs all across the country. The older ones are just entering their critical period. The more recent ones weren't designed to last as long. Everything is being pushed to produce more power and last longer than it was designed to do. And there's no way to clean up when you shut them down.
OTOH, I don't expect a "China Syndrome", more many "Fukishima-like" incidents. With an occasional incident as bad as Chernobyl (though not through the same failure mode).
Until we can deal with the waste produced by reactors, they shouldn't be anything much more than research projects. Would a fast-breeded really consume all it's fuel? Perhaps that's the way to go. Perhaps some other design. Don't build twenty of a design that hasn't been well tested through decomissioning and cleanup. (Even then expect that you've missed some major problems, but that's no excuse not to do anything.)
Almost. Clover, beans, etc. cannot fix nitrogen. What they *can* do is host microorganisms that *do* fix nitrogen. But this doesn't happen automatically, and different plants host different fixing organisms, so you need to ensure that the proper host is innoculated with the proper fixer. If you buy plant seed this is usually (not always) already done, but it often comes with a coating of accompanying applied fungicides. Sometimes this is intentionally applied to prevent people from eating the seeds. (Check the history of Morning Glory seeds, I forget whether it was "Heavenly Blue" or "Pearly Gates".) Sometimes it's just because the most effective fungicides are somewhat poisonous.