In front of the White House, there are a couple of folks in a tent.
They've been there for thirty years, more or less -- they got a parade permit or protest permit at a time when they didn't expire, and by some rule or other have been grandfathered in, and can keep their ANTI-NUCLEAR PROTEST tent there so long as it's continuously occupied. So someone's been in this tent for thirty years, with their signs, condemning any science or engineering that has to do with the atomic nucleus, and equating it all to nuclear war.
Consider that an atomic bomb has a mass of fissible material measured in kilograms, The Average US spent fuel pool has a mass measured in kilotons.
If you don't understand how these things are different then you really ought not to be telling other people about nuclear physics. (And the word is "fissile", not "fissible".)
Chernobyl is not exactly that relevant to reactors in use now.
It was a reactor running without a containment vessel (!), where the reactor operators did essentially what you'd do if you were *trying* to blow it up. Worrying about another Chernobyl is rather like saying "I don't want to ride in a Toyota Corolla because I understand someone fell out of a horseless carriage when it went around a corner", forgetting that since then we have doors with latches on cars.
You may be arrested for that by police who don't know what the law is, but in the US you will have the ACLU rushing to your defense, and you will ultimately not be convicted of a crime.
In China, there is nothing like the ACLU, since the Chinese government sees lawyers who try to actually hold the government to its own laws as threats to be addressed.
Seems like the hydro people are providing a valuable service, though -- they're acting like giant batteries, storing power when there's extra supply, releasing it when there's extra demand.
Of course, I'd like the capability to do that myself. Let the price of residential power fluctuate during the day, and let me do things like over-cool my house during the night (when power is cheap) and let the thermal mass keep it cool during the day. Large organizations already do this; the University of Arizona buys power at night when it's cheaper (for large industrial users), freezes water, and then uses that ice to drive part of their cooling system during the day. Once plug-in hybrids become more common this will be an even bigger demand-leveling effect -- people would program their cars to do things like "Charge the battery only when the price of power falls below X cents/kWh" or even "Drain the battery and sell the power back to the grid if the price of power is above Y cents/kWh".
They do, but only because nuclear plants release essentially zero. While this is a good argument in favor of nuclear power, it's not exactly a resounding blow to coal, either.
That said: people don't seem to care about the (very strong) arguments against coal power regarding climate change and the environmental damage on both the mining and burning ends. Once upon a time I was idealistic and believed in rhetorical rigor, and would have criticized saying "Coal is a radiation hazard! RUN AWAY!" to the voters. Now? I'm not so sure.
well, there are "fermions", after Fermi, and "bosons", after Bose, but those are the two classes of particles. There are "gluons", ending in -on, but from English "glue". Then there are the W and Z bosons, which are just letters, and the quarks...
My laptop's discrete GPU is dead (it's one of those Optimus ones, with two GPU's), so I'm in the market for a new one. I was in Best Buy last week looking at their models, and saw one with this weird-looking flashy colorful thing with a bunch of boxes on the screen. "Huh", I thought, "this must be some shiny Best Buy demo software designed to show off the laptops' displays, or something."
I know I and most people do in my field -- computational physics. I want to be able to type "graph the file XYZ" and have it work the same whether I'm on my local machine or ssh'd somewhere else.
I've seen some interstates (I forget which state -- Texas? New Mexico? One of the western ones, anyway) that have periodic "speedo calibration runs" -- a five-mile run with every mile marked to the foot, so you can use a stopwatch to calibrate your speedometer.
Or, perhaps, you could make use of a signaling device to warn drivers of an impending need to stop, and thus make them aware of the time the light will turn red before it actually does so. A third light, perhaps, neither red nor green but of a different color, lit before the light turns red?
Or, perhaps, we should just think harder about what things should be infractions?
I want murders, rapes, robberies, thefts, and the like -- "real crime" -- to be detected efficiently. I don't want "driving 66 mph at 8pm on the I-10 west of Abilene" (the limit is 65 after sunset on a deserted, flat stretch of divided highway) and marijuana infractions to be detected efficiently, not because I'm unhappy with my government when it doesn't stumble once in a while, but because these things shouldn't be against the law.
Quite often when people complain about aggressive enforcement of this or that law, they're not complaining about the enforcement, but that the law shouldn't be around at all. Shackling the police so people can evade punishment for breaking bad laws is a very imperfect solution -- better to just not have them be illegal at all.
I've never gotten one of these tickets or been in a wreck related to them, but I would -- and it ought to be a doozy of a suit, too. Folks ought to get a class action together, etc.
And Atlanta is a special hell -- are you in the Atlanta area? It used to be so much worse than it is now; I grew up in the Southeast, and have very non-fond memories of Malfunction Junction...
The Beltway is a level of hell, honestly. I'm sure that somewhere in the Stygian depths there is a road stuffed with government bureaucrats stuck in traffic.
I agree with you about the "real" interstates, although honestly 85 or even 90 are safe on most of them. West Texas acknowledges this and sets their limit to 80 during the day (but 65 at night, leading to me getting a ticket going 74 on a completely deserted road -- what am I going to do, hit an oil well)
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So I guess these websites need to implement Leisure Suit Larry-style questionnaires to verify people's age, eh?
In front of the White House, there are a couple of folks in a tent.
They've been there for thirty years, more or less -- they got a parade permit or protest permit at a time when they didn't expire, and by some rule or other have been grandfathered in, and can keep their ANTI-NUCLEAR PROTEST tent there so long as it's continuously occupied. So someone's been in this tent for thirty years, with their signs, condemning any science or engineering that has to do with the atomic nucleus, and equating it all to nuclear war.
Consider that an atomic bomb has a mass of fissible material measured in kilograms, The Average US spent fuel pool has a mass measured in kilotons.
If you don't understand how these things are different then you really ought not to be telling other people about nuclear physics. (And the word is "fissile", not "fissible".)
Chernobyl is not exactly that relevant to reactors in use now.
It was a reactor running without a containment vessel (!), where the reactor operators did essentially what you'd do if you were *trying* to blow it up. Worrying about another Chernobyl is rather like saying "I don't want to ride in a Toyota Corolla because I understand someone fell out of a horseless carriage when it went around a corner", forgetting that since then we have doors with latches on cars.
You may be arrested for that by police who don't know what the law is, but in the US you will have the ACLU rushing to your defense, and you will ultimately not be convicted of a crime.
In China, there is nothing like the ACLU, since the Chinese government sees lawyers who try to actually hold the government to its own laws as threats to be addressed.
Ah, thanks.
Seems like the hydro people are providing a valuable service, though -- they're acting like giant batteries, storing power when there's extra supply, releasing it when there's extra demand.
Of course, I'd like the capability to do that myself. Let the price of residential power fluctuate during the day, and let me do things like over-cool my house during the night (when power is cheap) and let the thermal mass keep it cool during the day. Large organizations already do this; the University of Arizona buys power at night when it's cheaper (for large industrial users), freezes water, and then uses that ice to drive part of their cooling system during the day. Once plug-in hybrids become more common this will be an even bigger demand-leveling effect -- people would program their cars to do things like "Charge the battery only when the price of power falls below X cents/kWh" or even "Drain the battery and sell the power back to the grid if the price of power is above Y cents/kWh".
Why can't nuclear power stand alone, out of curiosity?
They do, but only because nuclear plants release essentially zero. While this is a good argument in favor of nuclear power, it's not exactly a resounding blow to coal, either.
That said: people don't seem to care about the (very strong) arguments against coal power regarding climate change and the environmental damage on both the mining and burning ends. Once upon a time I was idealistic and believed in rhetorical rigor, and would have criticized saying "Coal is a radiation hazard! RUN AWAY!" to the voters. Now? I'm not so sure.
How are they awful? I have one in my Galaxy Nexus and it looks fine.
well, there are "fermions", after Fermi, and "bosons", after Bose, but those are the two classes of particles. There are "gluons", ending in -on, but from English "glue". Then there are the W and Z bosons, which are just letters, and the quarks...
My laptop's discrete GPU is dead (it's one of those Optimus ones, with two GPU's), so I'm in the market for a new one. I was in Best Buy last week looking at their models, and saw one with this weird-looking flashy colorful thing with a bunch of boxes on the screen. "Huh", I thought, "this must be some shiny Best Buy demo software designed to show off the laptops' displays, or something."
Nope, it's the damn OS itself!
First and last time I'll ever use Windows 8.
I know I and most people do in my field -- computational physics. I want to be able to type "graph the file XYZ" and have it work the same whether I'm on my local machine or ssh'd somewhere else.
I've seen some interstates (I forget which state -- Texas? New Mexico? One of the western ones, anyway) that have periodic "speedo calibration runs" -- a five-mile run with every mile marked to the foot, so you can use a stopwatch to calibrate your speedometer.
Or, perhaps, you could make use of a signaling device to warn drivers of an impending need to stop, and thus make them aware of the time the light will turn red before it actually does so. A third light, perhaps, neither red nor green but of a different color, lit before the light turns red?
It already is happening.
Some folks wanted to make a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, a story-driven RPG. (Many are very respected names in the games industry.)
So they put together a Kickstarter, and raised a million bucks in something like six hours. Now they're at $2.5M after less than a week.
There are other projects, too. Project Eternity raised close to $4M.
So "Show me yer tits!" "Okay!" is illegal, but "Show me yer tits!" "Gimme a buck first" is not?
Because *that* makes sense.
That's copyright, not patent.
Well, they're out of patent protection, aren't they? So it's not even black-market.
I think the problem comes when a private company depends on the government -- the legal system or otherwise -- to stay in business.
Or, perhaps, we should just think harder about what things should be infractions?
I want murders, rapes, robberies, thefts, and the like -- "real crime" -- to be detected efficiently. I don't want "driving 66 mph at 8pm on the I-10 west of Abilene" (the limit is 65 after sunset on a deserted, flat stretch of divided highway) and marijuana infractions to be detected efficiently, not because I'm unhappy with my government when it doesn't stumble once in a while, but because these things shouldn't be against the law.
Quite often when people complain about aggressive enforcement of this or that law, they're not complaining about the enforcement, but that the law shouldn't be around at all. Shackling the police so people can evade punishment for breaking bad laws is a very imperfect solution -- better to just not have them be illegal at all.
"Plenty" here means about four, and I'm 31. I was driving at a safe speed for all four of those.
Fuck your moralizing -- go sodomize yourself with a cactus coated in habanero sauce, AC.
Then the folks who run the highways will go to the folks who run the speed traps and say "Moar!"
I've never gotten one of these tickets or been in a wreck related to them, but I would -- and it ought to be a doozy of a suit, too. Folks ought to get a class action together, etc.
And Atlanta is a special hell -- are you in the Atlanta area? It used to be so much worse than it is now; I grew up in the Southeast, and have very non-fond memories of Malfunction Junction...
The Beltway is a level of hell, honestly. I'm sure that somewhere in the Stygian depths there is a road stuffed with government bureaucrats stuck in traffic.
I agree with you about the "real" interstates, although honestly 85 or even 90 are safe on most of them. West Texas acknowledges this and sets their limit to 80 during the day (but 65 at night, leading to me getting a ticket going 74 on a completely deserted road -- what am I going to do, hit an oil well)