Thank you all for participating, even those without a clue. This is a long recap of the story and its comments.
When I said "Think of the Survivor Library as a trove of survival skills, a '100-year civilization checkpoint backup' that fits on a hard drive." Some didn't get it, thinking it meant burying the Library and a computer for 100 years for someone to dig up. That is not what I meant.
A collapse event could happen never, next year or tomorrow. It could be a impact of a Near Earth Object we have not catalogued, Yellowstone, a pandemic. A political Orwellian slate-wiper followed by a Chairman Mao-style 'revolution', famine and dark age. Or over time, even some ridiculous consumer movement to phase out paper books and do away with autonomous storage altogether in favor of some 'cloud' that a future despot ruler could centrally edit, revoke or just turn off. Yes, we are that stupid.
Your modern civilization has failed you. It provides for you collectively but, because it was never a real priority, as it stands it cannot provide for itself in a time of disaster. It cannot repair itself. Many steps have been taken over the last hundred years, little things, that enabled life to become a bit easier and better. And in key areas (food, energy, communication, transportation) 'best' paths were chosen exclusively over other paths that were not as desirable, maintainable or as economically feasible (though not impossible). Some of these roads not taken were not merely abandoned. Details of the technology that ours was built upon live on only in old books for which few copies exist, that never made it to the Internet age.
When I say '100 year backup' I mean a knowledge backup you could use tomorrow if you need it, to help ensure that normal people like yourself could, with practice and patience, re-create civilization as it was 100 years ago, as an alternative to sliding completely into a medieval existence --- or worse, a Mad Max scavenger based existence where everyone waits for some 'miracle' reboot that never arrives.
Your modern civilization has failed you. You cannot hope to even gather a scope of knowledge such as contained in this Library, for our modern world. That is because it is bound by non-disclosure, proprietary processes, and to catch a glimpse of it you'd need access to a volume of copyrighted textbooks and industry publications that you, oh best beloved, could particularly never afford. There are few lay introductions to how modern technology is actually made put together, and even if you could find them you will never have access to the 'experts' who understand it.
That is because in a real disaster the relatively few experts of any particular field of modern technology will be just like you, disconnected and fighting for survival. Some will not make it. They have specialized because civilization has permitted them to do so, and together we have built something that is foolishly fragile.
Your communications will be down. You will be walking, bicycling or riding horses again. You will be fighting to obtain food, heat (for most, wood) and supplies. And if you weather all of these challenges you and your kids will be asking, what now?
You are conditioned to think of each of everything that surrounds you as the best that has yet been developed, the finest and ultimate of it kind and most advanced. And in many aspects this is true. You may be conditioned to ignore and dismiss older folks who point out exceptions or sound warnings of vulnerability.
For example, the warning I sounded recently here at Slashdot, The Dismantling of POTS: Bold Move Or Grave Error?. Modern civilization has failed you, young people. Your grandparents (I speak of my own United States) grew up with a wired Plain Old Telephone Service that was engineered so that in small communities or even cities people could communi
The lawful act of stalking "cold fjord" reveals a penchant for gainsaying, short posts and a rolling rally of rebuttal. This can have the effect of people wishing you would just shut up. The post I responded to was more than a 'zinger' and does represent the view of many including some in the military who would gladly take Snowden out in a black op given the chance.
But then again, the lawful act of stalking "TheRealHocusLocus" shows a preponderance of blustery paragraph-rich prose that goes off --- offal at times --- on tangents that do not reconnect with the original topic. People don't wish I would shut up as often because I'm easier to ignore.
Who's to say which extreme style is more effective or necessary? Just glad there are folks out there listening.
The problem is that the Patriot Act creates a limited state of emergency that each president finds very convenient. The result is that the US has morphed into a partial dictatorship.
Concise way to put it but these declarations are easy to challenge on the basis of this or that President. To add to your statement and share responsibility, the people of the United States have failed to challenge the idea of this perpetual state of emergency because they were blindsighted by anger on 9/11, but also because they have not picked up on parallel clues of history such as the Weimar Republic, lulled by Hitler into the dissolution of its own government. Americans (and Congress) have been contented to be governed in a dictatorial manner.
Get rid of the Patriot Act and then only will you be able to regain some measure of limitation of government powers. However, while there are so many medieval crazies running around alternately shouting Hallelujah, Death To The Great Satan and beheading followers and non-believers alike, the Patriot Act will stay.
Rolling back gruesome laws by process of repeal is an appealing idea. Two clear examples are the Eighteenth and Twenty-first amendments and Glass-Stegal. One was cause for a toast. The other is driving us to drink because our economy is toasted.
Prohibition was slapped into place with simple language and it was easy to whack this mole down. But what if... the same result had been achieved by passage of a two-thousand page law that sent tendrils into dozens, hundreds of other laws, modifying language here and there to inject the topic of alcohol into places where it had never been, conflating alcohol with drunkenness though it is not its only cause with even more tendrils branching off into the distance, even bringing into existence two-way relationships with hybrid grafting where some pre-existing thing are now also related to alcohol, and declaring kittens cute, and building a new bridge in Iowa, and other things.
Let a dozen years pass and you find that whole careers and industries have been built around these roots. Other laws have been bound to and around it in careful deliberation or in a partisan frenzy of panic. Anything that does not 'work' has been adjusted by building out exceptions and clarifications. All in all it does not do what it set out to do, but every time anyone suggests that it might be best to roll it back, they are surrounded by an angry crowd of people whose lives now depend on it, and they are holding pictures of --- cute kittens.
Welcome to the 21st Century, when laws over a hundred pages long do not receive the derision, mockery and suspicion they deserve.
I do not see an easy solution to this, unless starting today parents were to start introducing this topic to young children in a stern context. "You need to wash behind your ears or dirt will build up there like special interest clauses in Omnibus Bills." Or "You have to rewrite this essay, it's too long. Are you trying to bury something in it because this is a lame duck session and teachers are in recess for the holidays?" Because it's too easy for 'contempt for the system' to sneak into the system. All it takes is to apply a level of obfuscation that exceeds the level of content. No one will ever call you out on it because they're too ashamed to admit they cannot figure it out.
I see that this story was dropped into the everybody-else-is-watching-duck-dynasty department. I'd better go check out Duck Dynasty to see if something interesting is happening. See ya!
Snowden badly damaged not only US intelligence but also the intelligence services of many of its allies by leaking massive numbers of classified documents as well as causing numerous diplomatic problems. He leaked far, far more than just aspects of operations that might have a civil rights dispute. Snowden is no patriot.
This is a valid and welcome point of view in the discussion. Will you pussies who modded it -1 Troll please stop??
I see 'patriot' as a personal point of view that becomes Patriot-capitalized over time, maybe hundreds of years, usually in some self-serving context. But of course the Founding Fathers were Patriots! Snowden (unlike Assange) has refrained from using his press conduits to leak names which might compromise the safety of individuals involved in covert operations, if he even had access to them. The bulk of the material I've seen is for presentations and slide shows bragging about specific operations and capabilities. I say poo-poo to the arbitrary act of stamping things 'classified' or 'top secret'. Subject matter does count.
If I am shown a slide prepared by some military contractor that gushes about the 'superior kill radius' of their new product I shrug, recognizing that there is a modern context in which such bravado is an accepted practice whether or not it is to my own taste.
If I am shown a slide that indicates that my government has a cavalier attitude to citizens' rights and actively seeks to build out deep taps and communications retention, I get hopping mad. Because they are smart-stupids. Smart in cleverness but stupid in practice and grievous harm. It does not matter the level of cleverness or coolness of the technology. The mere act of building this thing is stupid.
Thus I am grateful for Snowden's revelations and do give him a 'pass'.
I shed crocodile tears for the poor NSA whose operation to listen in on Chancellor Merkel was laid bare. When I recall Merkel's defense of US surveillance practices worldwide, they become crocodile tears of laughter. You can't make this stuff up!
When I read that the Russian government has back-tooled some of its handling procedures for sensitive documents to an earlier era of typewriters and print I think to myself, now that's really clever of them. If only we were as clever...
It is my own opinion that Snowden's exposure of tap capabilities worldwide, such as we have seen, is necessary to establish its capabilities and awaken the American public, prepare them for the coming debate when they (hopefully) might have an opportunity to take a stand against this, stop this. If there was no harm presently being done to US citizens and more evidence of direct malice towards his own country I might revoke that pass. But no, we ARE being screwed, by US. The pass stands.
As to the revelation of 'so-called classified' material, if more sensitive material from the FBI Hoover era had leaked as it happened we could have avoided years of bad road and unlawful harassment, unjustly ruined lives. So much faux-communist in-fact-malfeasance bullshit. Hoover was a loon.
And if the government would strive to protect the value of tyhe dollar with the same verve with which they have attempted to protect their dirty secrets, we'd all be dog-damned rich.
They wouldn't be committing felonies as that would require a violation of law rather than violations of constitutional restrictions against government. The law, constitutional or not, allows the NSA to do what they are doing else a lowly court could shut it all down by a simple low level prosecutor bringing charges to a grand jury.
Which is why no one in Congress can be expected to cast the first stone at the NSA. Whether they are in a position to know of its effectiveness or not, they will shy away in mortal political terror of NSA producing clear evidence that mass surveillance has "kept us safe". Still waiting. Likewise, pure judicial challenges run into stone walls as courts circularly argue over jurisdiction.
Or in the case of Hepting v. AT&Tthe Ninth Circuit committed to a sorry-ass monkey fuck decision where the case was dismissed on the basis of a piece of legislation ('retroactively' granting telecom immunity) that was passed after the case was filed. Pause to reflect on that. Has there ever been a clearer example of dereliction of duty of the judicial branch? Or a clearer admission of guilt by the Government?
That is because the NSA was terrified of Hepting vs. AT&T, more scared than it had ever been. Think of this case as a Pandora's box for them --- in which dozens (if not hundreds) of civilian technicians who had been involved in constructing its backbone taps might be encouraged to come forward to add their own piece to a sketch of NSA's domestic spy apparatus. As they came forward you'd see a map of the USA with taps appearing all over, and that would dispel any rhetoric claiming they did not intend to tap America itself.
And besides --- my own speculation but borne out in several places --- I allege that Hepting vs. AT&T would also have exposed that some technicians building our taps were foreign nationals and foreign corporations under contract to NSA. Countries whose spies we have convicted. Strange bedfellows laid bare. Gathering conversations (not silly metadata) has been portrayed as a high cost of liberty, though in the wrong hands it will subvert liberty. Our challenge is to prove this on three fronts.
We must seek to de-fund the NSA by calling into question the track record of mass surveillance to counter threats as of this day --- today. I draw a line at today because they could be cooking up something for tomorrow...
We must de-construct and demonstrate the motive behind mass surveillance to conclude that its only purpose in the end is to gather blackmail and empower absolute rulers with the tools they need to subvert our system of Government. This is true even if those presently engaged in it have good intentions.
We must defame the NSA and what it has become, the people behind it, the Senators who support it because someone whispered something in their ear --- was it a secret of National Security or was it blackmail? There's the rub --- dismantle it.
I thought it was just me that was was motivated solely by fear and worry
Same here, wasted years daydreaming about success, it's just a form of mental masturbation. Now I cherish my fears and revel in my worries... and gain a small measure of success and satisfaction from the knowledge that perception of reality is reasonably accurate.
Jean Auel's work is literate smut. It's just a Stone Age bodice-ripper. Don't make me quote-mine for proof.
Calling it a 'bodice ripper' is obscene.
Earth's Children series comprises six books, ~1.8 million words altogether.
In Clan of the Cave Bear There is brutal sex without consent. It occurs within the context of a culture that does not require a woman's consent, which is how Auel chose to portray the Neanderthals --- yet it is clear that among the clan brutality is not tolerated. This is essential to the story... and a series of encounters between Jondalar and Ayla appearing throughout the books that are as sensual and vivid as one might expect of a young couple in love, sex done 'right'. The scenes are described in extravagant (if you hate sex you might prefer 'lurid') detail. Auel's writing style is strained a bit during these sex passages only in that there are some repeated words and phrases, the cutest of which is the use of the word nodule.
But the lovers are soon satiated and the story moves on, just as it does in real life. It does not detract in the slightest from the series. Do not expect a 'did this, said this' style where the characters' minds are opaque and clumsily presented. Auel is a masterful writer who jumps skillfully between expressed inner thought, dialogue, and the senses.
But her portrayal of Earth's primordial landscapes and the journey/adventure is the real treasure one will find in these books. An avid reader not only sees through the characters' eyes, even down to the minutiae of making camp, it becomes possible to place yourself there, so well is it described. I loved the way Tolkien describes Ithilien and always wanted to tarry awhile without a burdensome ring quest. For me, Earth's Children recaptured that feeling.
I do not hesitate to recommend these books to any child who is old enough to read them, even the unpleasant explicit content within 'Cave Bear'. We do not live in a perfect world where there is no need to learn of such things, and that book portrays brutish and bully behavior in its complete context of the character's jealousy and malice. Many might consider these to be 'adult' themes, but my position is that they are just themes that children are sure to encounter in their lives. There is no 'right time' to introduce kids to these things only a 'right way'. The author neither glorifies nor apologizes for them. Books like these help prepare children for life.
Sorry to bore you. Back to the sex. Here is a Google search for "Ayla's nodule for your enjoyment and titillation. Now get off my lawn.
We've got to stop with the Neanderthal nonsense...
Right we do. There are just a few pieces of evidence now, but it may be that Neanderthal is actually a distant race that falls within our human specie. If their whole genome diverged from the branch of modern humans ~600,000YA and yet --- if there is additional evidence of interbreeding up to ~50,000YA, and humans from ~50,000YA could interbreed with us today (which I believe is true) --- then I consider it extremely likely that a Neanderthal could breed with a modern human.
And give your children superpowers like X-ray vision.
This is vindication for Jean Auel, whose Earth's Children series of books has popularized this exciting idea for generations of children. As a lay author she has been the lightning-rod target of those who disagree with the hypothesis, and at times her literary critics have even betrayed a tone of indulgent arrogance that just might have been a glimmer of the old Darwinian stuffed shirts, who banished Neanderthal from the human family early on by some of the characteristics that (merely) differentiate races existing today. Central to all of this goofy criticism is the Ayla's hybrid child Durc.
I highly recommend Earth's Children books to all. They are on par with Tolkien in their use of descriptive language, the central characters portray a series of actual humans over time who have made technological discoveries over time. The books are especially fit for children as they imagine the rich and viable human society that we know must have existed long ago, dispelling the silly myths that what we would recognize as civilization is merely a few thousand years old.
I was rushed for time when I wrote that, it didn't come off too well. What I had in mind was from a future where people are being chosen for long term assignments such as a grand tour of the solar system (and part two), extended Mars mission -- or colonization -- where there are qualified volunteers of both genders. There's a lot more to this than sexual liaisons or pair bonding.
The Sex Differences in Psychology is a good read on what has been observed by experiment, there's some physiology in there too. And with any 'delicate' topic, the Wiki talk page for it shows an interesting struggle to identify and manage bias for a topic that is so rich with historical flavor it has its own category of humor.
Sequencing inherited genes has taught us that there's no more than ~0.5% variance among the races of the world. We have leveraged the smallness of that number into a scientifically based bias against racism and prejudice which we apply to classic arguments of "nature vs. nurture?" to stack the deck against "nature" when debating things like intelligence and ability.
This is good. This ~0.5% figure gives us a hard baseline for "humanness" superior to that applied by Phrenologists and early Darwinians. If I have inherited a certain gene that affects skull shape or skin color or susceptibility to a disease, I can expect a noble society NOT to apply judgment from it of inherent ability or potential.
So what about that ~2.5% difference in gene expression between male and female brains? "We are not alone." I mean that in the full Close Encounters aliens-are-among us sense, because when discussing sex-triggered gene expression we're firmly in "nature" territory. Science reveals the existence of an intelligent (yet 'alien') species on this planet. And even though your genes are expressed differently, you both fall within the ~0.5% genetic baseline.
This means "including women equally" in everything that matters in a direct or Monte Carlo 50/50 ratio or a process is NOT like that "gotta strive to ensure that all races are represented" thing. The human race is a successful species because of this working partnership. It is a successful one and we ignore or diminish it at our great peril.
By peril I mean that any enterprise without equal genders by default is ahuman. Not 'inhuman' with its connotation of injustice. Ahuman is "not us", creepy, weird, uncanny valley. I propose the gender coin toss+'merit' --- and not just 'merit' (plus equal action political metric) --- as a way to statistically implement what is our intrinsic nature, impose a system that can be agreed upon that eases us into gender parity as the likely default, but yet does what nature does --- when the toss weighs heavily to one side something new is tried.
Because there may be dynamics of gender interaction (not sex) that are not just necessary to evolve. By excluding gender at times through history we may have been losing ground.
Get everyone to agree that gender's a 'thang', same gender crews, or seriously imbalanced ratio for an extended mission is an unnatural and cruel idea.
Therefore in deference to human nature, a coin toss for gender of each position is performed as the positions are filled.
Mandating equal number of each invites trouble, if a greater portion of applicants are one gender, it injects the meme among the most arrogant of 'which' particular minority gender positions were filled by the 'least' qualified. An equal gender mission also carries another cruel twist: once monogamous pairs form there is unspoken expectation among those remaining that they too will pair up, and the diminishing possibilities lead to a choice-drama. Tabloid fixation on this formula (by participants and those on Earth) would is an unnecessary distraction.
By going coin toss, the mission is guaranteed to result in a mix of humans that everyone can agree is not the direct result of some manipulative policy, prejudice or conspiracy. It would give the participants freedom to form their own bonds (or not) without the sense that they are playing out some 'experiment'.
Canada is hard at work with Thorium molten salt reactors, its greatest simplification, a K.I.S.S. variant of LFTR, the DMSR. Terrestrial Energy Inc, or look up Dr. David LeBlanc.
Here's a Dr. LeBlanc at TEAC5 2013 describing his denatured reactor concept. And an interview on DMSR and the "tube within a tube" simplification of the original reactor experiments, more video links at the end of the interview. He is projecting ~35 metric tons per GWe year, one-sixth of what is used by a pressurized water reactor.
more idealistic LFTR proponents like Dr. Kirk Sorensen
I get that vibe too. As Dr. Sorensen tells it, he learned the deep details of molten salt experiments from a dusty old book. Imagine that --- you make your way through the modern world with a sense of confidence that everything that is worth knowing is part of the curriculum you have been taught --- or at least, there are experts out there, young like yourself, who grasp these things. And then one day you open this dusty yellowed old book and start to glimpse a future, a great future, that could have been but never was. You're asking yourself, why? And you research it further to discover that the rest of the story is kept in a file drawer somewhere, and those who worked on it are now in their 80s and 90s. And they're bitter.
If that happened to me it would be a moving experience. It would shake any confidence I had that our survival as a species was in any way 'assured'. It would coalesce into a keen sense of desperation to carry on this work, realize the dream Weinberg laid out.
Sorensen tells the story so well I actually experienced a touch of it myself. That is why I'd like to see nuclear technology brought up to date and applied so we might have a smooth (and fun!) transition from the age of fossil and steam to something better, and have tons of surplus energy to play with. The DMSR might be a commercial success first, but I believe "Captain Kirk" deserves the chance to realize the two-fluid reactor.
Because the greatest tragedy of all would be if this LFTR renaissance fades and is some day placed into a dusty digital archive, and some keen young student discovers it and finds Dr. Sorensen a bitter old man.
Hey look, I'm a "known renewable troll". Yay, I'm famous!
Pleased to meet ya. Famous myself, though I hardly ever get a -1 Troll. Usually it's an -1 Overrated, which is what meta-mods use when they don't like your face. I have an ugly face.
> First of all, LCoE ignores the cost of integrating intermittent wind and solar into the grid Which is why everyone is building wind and not nuclear, I guess.
Beg to differ here. The real reason we've been building out so much utility-wind these last decades is not that it is a workable solution (never was)... it's not that the folks doing it haven't gotten around to running the numbers yet (some have, that's why natural gas plant manufacturers are the real winners)... it's not even that fossil companies actively support these renewable options because they do not pose any kind of threat (so much for conspiracy theory, it's plain conspiracy fact)... it's simply because nuclear has been kept off the table by a social phenomenon of fear that became rooted in the 'environmentalist' demographic, and that group has been steering the ship. I describe the genesis of this in this adjacent post. Chernobyl may have stirred it further but the fear was already entrenched by 1980.
I believe there will be a time --- soon --- when the emerging generation takes the reins and examines the gigawatt-year track record nuclear plants have demonstrated, even with 'old' designs. If Stewart Brand, a founder of the environmental movement, can re-think this fear, why cannot others? If demonstrated wind output on the grid has taught me anything, it is that you will probably never see a windmill produced by a factory that is powered by windmills. Our fixation with wind has produced some great strides in compact Neodymium designs (Tesla would be proud!) but it has delayed us at a crucial time.
> Read about ThorCon [c4tx.org] for what is possible A device designed by a guy with exactly zero experience in reactor design, worked on as a home project? Right, ok.
This approach is brilliant and deserves more than a one liner --- whether you have the time to work your way through this 69 page summary or not. I have, and though I've never designed a nuclear reactor either, I have boned up on LFTR tech and will try to do it justice...
I can see that he has tacked the heat expansion problems in the reactor head-on by doing something that only a designer of naval ships (and not conventional reactors) might think of --- shrugging off the problem entirely by suspending components. [p.18] "Almost all the vertical expansion is downward. The drain line is hung from the PHX to Pot line and has no direct physical connection to the Can. So this vertical movement is unrestricted and the drain line at Can temperature is free to expand independently of the primary loop."
He's abandoning the Holy Grail of breeding, striving to leverage the proven portions of salt technology into a system that can be built and scale today. [p.16] "ThorCon is a thorium converter, not a breeder. ThorCon requires periodic additions of ïssile fuel. And the ïrst generation ThorCon is not a particularly eïfcient converter. Only about 25% of its power comes from converting thorium to 233U. ThorCon derives its ability to produce power cheaply not from its use of thorium, but from all the other advantages of liquid fuel."
It is easy enough to get a big public outcry for any new nuclear plant, irrespective of its safety.
Yes including pro bono activists who will provide materials, come to your town and help organize opposition. It was not always this way.
First an interesting side trip. Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring introduced Americans to the vision of a dead planet, but it was actually Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book The Population Bomb that really set the stage for doomsday thinking. This bestseller (200 million copies) was not for everyone, but the predictions were vivid and awful. In hindsight, it grossly underestimated our ability to scale agriculture and feed more people over time, and (foolishly) exaggerated the scenario where so-called '3rd world' women living in poverty and hunger will persist in having 5+ children. Hans Rosling demonstrates nicely that it is excess child mortality (not family beliefs) that contributes to this, and once health improves women desire (on average 2-3.5) children.
But if you're an American intellectual in 1968, you would have gotten a sense of foreboding that people would soon overrun the Earth. Mostly dem Indiaafricachina people
The Internet has a lot of tinfoil crap floating around about Club of Rome (and yes they are creepy) but it helps rationally not think of Limits to Growth as some secret Illuminati document. It was merely a widely bestselling book at the time. It even "recommended" the adoption of nuclear energy.
I put recommended in scare-quotes because that's exactly what they did. Let's all turn to page 73. Nuclear will solve CO2... that's great. But then they launch into a warning about waste heat from nuclear plants disrupting aquatic life, which is a purely local and manageable phenomenon, why nuclear plants are sited on rivers not lakes. Swans love it. They then go full frontal thermodynamics on cities themselves as emitters of heat, as if we're living in a Dyson Sphere and this is something we should be worrying about today Interspersed with graphs of ever-escalating nuclear waste. Which --- according to a propaganda rule I call "The Frightened Animals of Bambi's Forest Flee In Terror" -- could never be somehow contained, burned completely, or managed properly (by default!). A bit on industrial and municipal pollution, lead is mentioned, glad that shit was stopped, then... we're off into a evisceration of DDT. Yes, even modern agriculture ills.
It's easy to imagine a young ~35 Jane Fonda scared to death by all this. You have to realize that the popular doomsday bestseller with its Malthusian warnings is a relatively recent phenomenon. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries industrial progress yielded direct and awe-inspiring improvements to life. Go ahead, flick a light on and run water from the tap, flush the toilet. I'll wait. By 1970 in the US this blessed infrastructure had become all but transparent.
Leaving us the time and luxury to live in the present. And develop new ideas such as the ugly brand of environmentalis
That's why LFTR may never find a good backer -- unless we can find a billionaire willing to fund the development on a lark (and to save mankind from our own greed/hatred).
It would take two or more celebrity billionaires coming together who are polar opposites (green+oil, democrat+republican, penguin+polar bear, etc.) coming together and shaking hands under a Thorium banner. It's for the grandchildren, but also good for business. The only 'sustainable' form of wealth creation is to introducing something completely new that changes the game --- by lowering the personal and corporate cost of living.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT Meltdowns at the recent 2014 Thorium Energy Conference
Jim Kennedy is absolutely bleedin' outraged that DOD is 'blocking' the Thorium Bill and handing over rare earth production, parts to China like fucktard traitorous pussies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CARlEac1iuA
All in all it's a great time to be stark raving monkey fuck for Thorium energy. We are completely surrounded by fools -- they cannot possibly escape now.
Well said. Let me risk '-1 Troll' moderation too by saying I agree with almost all of your points.
The problem isn't the disaster but rather Linear no threshold radiation cancer models which were created by deeply anti nuclear weapon scientists desperate to instill fear on governments undergoing nuclear weapons tests.
The Linear no-threshold model needs to be reevaluated, especially the way it is used in statistical tomfoolery to establish a "integer death count" for extremely large populations from doses that can be lost in the noise of background radiation... the official explanation is they were applying the Precautionary Principle to something for which they had no hard data. Some references and angles to LNT in this previous post.
The problem is that the Precautionary Principle requires no cost, courage or conviction to apply, so it will inevitably be used for a mix of pure-caution and evil-manipulative purposes. Anyone who applies it is indemnified from risk. It leads into zero-tolerance policy, codified aversion to risk taking (which has often been the evolutionary and technological jumpstart of the human race). It's one of those features of the human psyche that is also an exploitable bug.
Before I post this I'd better check with my insurance company, it may affect the premiums. Actually the rules may change, I really shouldn't, so I won't. vv[n9v9n[[9[[0n cat on keyboa;klkrd iopw;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
My state of no-nuke Oklahoma is powered by natural gas and coal (which arrives by train), considers itself a nexus of wind power but after decades of investment, hundreds of turbines and probably much more money spent --- net generation of mostly-wind ~809GWh for July is still less than the ~855GWh that would have been generated that month by the single two-reactor Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant. That is... if it had not been the only nuclear plant in the United States cancelled after construction began, in 1982.
Oklahoma sits on the border of the three North American grid interconnects. I have been trying to convince the powers that be and Halliburton Corporate to embrace molten salt research, to no avail so far.
So far every "inherently impossible" to meltdown design has been proven to be susceptible.
Liquid fuels are already 'melted' while in operation, but I do catch your drift, as in runaway catastrophe.
Meltdown with atmospheric release of radioactivity is possible where decay heat comes into contact with water (hydrogen, Fukushima) or graphite (Chernobyl). While the danger of graphite ignition pebble reactors has been posed and disputed, they punt by saying, we'll keep a runaway pebbl;e reactor it contained and starved of oxygen (via inert gas) and it won't be a problem.
My worst case scenario is worse than theirs. My LFTR-killer event involves an explosion powerful enough to destroy the containment vessel and building, in the rain. It would be an awful mess. But the salts would merely solidify and remain bound to the heavy elements mixed in, and aside from some steam which would be barely radioactive (because they only react with water slowly) there would be no need to evacuate the day care center over the ridge as the cleanup begins.
So a LFTR 'disaster' is merely a local mishap. To solve the world's energy problems one could not hope for better.The Thorium video describes the failures at Chernobyl and especially Fukushima in greater detail.
Which leads into Hans Rosling's Child Mortailty, Family Planning & the Environment where it is revealed that in a progressively 'modern' world with low child mortality and family planning (by whatever means) women choose to have fewer children. The United States has achieved a fertility rate matching the replacement rate. To me this means that despite any political, ideological or religious mandates, folks with access to all the modern inconveniences are (naturally) gravitating towards a more stable population. If we could find a way to share our present level of infrastructure with the whole world in a clean and sustainable way, the greatest potential 'threat' of abundance, an over-abundance of people, would be pushed years into the future.
Hope this makes you feel better. Be fruitful and multiply 2.33 times.
What the hell is with the random prepper "saying"? How the fuck does that relate to the rest of TFS?
If you are having difficulty understanding the concept that one must always have a backup plan or spare tool on hand in order to ensure survival... then perhaps you should not be discussing nuclear technology.
Some of the nuance was lost when my submission was edited for the front page. It ended like this,
[referring to the two videos] "Four hours well spent. Saving humanity is worth having at least two eggs in the basket."
This sounds like a fanboy cheerleading. Nothing really informative here just someone saying I support this.
TL;DW eh? Glad you picked up the subtle nuance. When did 'fanboy cheerleading' become an insult? Were your comic book heroes aloof and distant, battling enthusiasm everywhere with snide epithets and apathy-vision?
I'm just glad that the late Dr. Bussard's lecture made it once again onto a Slashdot page. And Thorium Remix for the first time ever. Everyone needs to look into these topics. With attention always on the new even if it is short on substance, hard lectures are always is good to find.
Dr. Brussard was close to seeing the level of Polywell confinement that had eluded him for so many years realized. But in his lecture you will also hear his disappointment at lack of funding for his approach -- he who had championed the Tokamak and helped secure its development could not find support in his twilight years for his own subsequent design. That is why the 2006 Google talk is so important, it should remind us that what may be the right path is often a lonely one. If Polywell pans out, isn't it a shame that Dr. Bussard will not see it.
How similar that is to the tale of Dr. Alvin Weinberg, one of the original inventors of the light water reactor who later became convinced there was a better way, fissile in molten salts at normal atmospheric pressure. He literally pursued it to the end --- his own career's end --- and molten salts were abandoned for no good reason. Thorium Remix tells it better than I.
And thanks to the AC who goes on about commas,,,,,, it really helps.
There is even less chance of Rossi having developed a cold fusion device than there is of Moller successfully building an actual flying car.
Ha ha he he ho ho. Moller does really great brochure. I had a couple of them for years, even made a poster from the pictures. A friend had unsuccessfully tried to gather for a $100k 'pre-order reservation'. At the time I had a strong feeling probably held by many here on fusion... it really should work. Just around the corner... The part within us all that holds on to the dream. "The musicians were poised with their instruments. They were ready to go. It would only be a few seconds now, I wrote."
These days I I've let go of the Moller car and keep arms' length on fusion because because fusion is hard and LFTR is easy and the human race doesn't need to over complicate things when faced with existential threat...
Democrats do this to appease their brand of science deniers, the far left environmentalists who oppose everything and anything nuclear. Note that not all environmentalists are of this type, some are even former deniers who decided to listen to what actual physicists say rather than what far left environmentalist leaders say on the topic of physics.
And Republicans nee 'conservatives' kill Nuclear because despite a ~2.5:1 ratio of conservatives over liberals in super-PAC contributions, which I equate to be what these billionaires consider to be "disposable income"... it is evident that the people they trust to advise them are failing to suggest investments in commercial nuclear technologies, both legacy and new. Perhaps they don't give a hoot about their grandchildren. Perhaps they see the span of fossil fuel decline (amid increasing energy demand) as a time of financial opportunity, and a renaissance of nuclear energy would interfere with vested interests. Perhaps they do not consider the inevitability of global war to secure resources to be a personal expense. Whatever the reason -- I am more likely to believe it is they who could save us, especially if it comes down to investment strategy. Because their position on nuclear energy would be based more on potential reward and applied risk -- especially the lower risks of Molten Salts and other nuclear approaches -- rather than fear.
Virtually limitless energy from a small Thorium mining footprint, ~300 year storage of waste is the best workable idea we have come up with. At present the stall of progress in nuclear energy is a bi-partisan disgrace, an affront to the whole human race.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're in the UK then access to kickass torrents has been blocked thanks to the RIAA and BPI.
(perhaps UK folk can use this alternate torcache link)
too bad you posted AC so you probably won't see this...
Thank you all for participating, even those without a clue.
This is a long recap of the story and its comments.
When I said "Think of the Survivor Library as a trove of survival skills, a '100-year civilization checkpoint backup' that fits on a hard drive." Some didn't get it, thinking it meant burying the Library and a computer for 100 years for someone to dig up. That is not what I meant.
A collapse event could happen never, next year or tomorrow. It could be a impact of a Near Earth Object we have not catalogued, Yellowstone, a pandemic. A political Orwellian slate-wiper followed by a Chairman Mao-style 'revolution', famine and dark age. Or over time, even some ridiculous consumer movement to phase out paper books and do away with autonomous storage altogether in favor of some 'cloud' that a future despot ruler could centrally edit, revoke or just turn off. Yes, we are that stupid.
Your modern civilization has failed you. It provides for you collectively but, because it was never a real priority, as it stands it cannot provide for itself in a time of disaster. It cannot repair itself. Many steps have been taken over the last hundred years, little things, that enabled life to become a bit easier and better. And in key areas (food, energy, communication, transportation) 'best' paths were chosen exclusively over other paths that were not as desirable, maintainable or as economically feasible (though not impossible). Some of these roads not taken were not merely abandoned. Details of the technology that ours was built upon live on only in old books for which few copies exist, that never made it to the Internet age.
When I say '100 year backup' I mean a knowledge backup you could use tomorrow if you need it, to help ensure that normal people like yourself could, with practice and patience, re-create civilization as it was 100 years ago, as an alternative to sliding completely into a medieval existence --- or worse, a Mad Max scavenger based existence where everyone waits for some 'miracle' reboot that never arrives.
Your modern civilization has failed you. You cannot hope to even gather a scope of knowledge such as contained in this Library, for our modern world. That is because it is bound by non-disclosure, proprietary processes, and to catch a glimpse of it you'd need access to a volume of copyrighted textbooks and industry publications that you, oh best beloved, could particularly never afford. There are few lay introductions to how modern technology is actually made put together, and even if you could find them you will never have access to the 'experts' who understand it.
That is because in a real disaster the relatively few experts of any particular field of modern technology will be just like you, disconnected and fighting for survival. Some will not make it. They have specialized because civilization has permitted them to do so, and together we have built something that is foolishly fragile.
Your communications will be down. You will be walking, bicycling or riding horses again. You will be fighting to obtain food, heat (for most, wood) and supplies. And if you weather all of these challenges you and your kids will be asking, what now?
You are conditioned to think of each of everything that surrounds you as the best that has yet been developed, the finest and ultimate of it kind and most advanced. And in many aspects this is true. You may be conditioned to ignore and dismiss older folks who point out exceptions or sound warnings of vulnerability.
For example, the warning I sounded recently here at Slashdot, The Dismantling of POTS: Bold Move Or Grave Error?. Modern civilization has failed you, young people. Your grandparents (I speak of my own United States) grew up with a wired Plain Old Telephone Service that was engineered so that in small communities or even cities people could communi
cold fjord in a nutshell.
The lawful act of stalking "cold fjord" reveals a penchant for gainsaying, short posts and a rolling rally of rebuttal. This can have the effect of people wishing you would just shut up. The post I responded to was more than a 'zinger' and does represent the view of many including some in the military who would gladly take Snowden out in a black op given the chance.
But then again, the lawful act of stalking "TheRealHocusLocus" shows a preponderance of blustery paragraph-rich prose that goes off --- offal at times --- on tangents that do not reconnect with the original topic. People don't wish I would shut up as often because I'm easier to ignore.
Who's to say which extreme style is more effective or necessary? Just glad there are folks out there listening.
Thanks.
The problem is that the Patriot Act creates a limited state of emergency that each president finds very convenient. The result is that the US has morphed into a partial dictatorship.
Concise way to put it but these declarations are easy to challenge on the basis of this or that President. To add to your statement and share responsibility, the people of the United States have failed to challenge the idea of this perpetual state of emergency because they were blindsighted by anger on 9/11, but also because they have not picked up on parallel clues of history such as the Weimar Republic, lulled by Hitler into the dissolution of its own government. Americans (and Congress) have been contented to be governed in a dictatorial manner.
Get rid of the Patriot Act and then only will you be able to regain some measure of limitation of government powers. However, while there are so many medieval crazies running around alternately shouting Hallelujah, Death To The Great Satan and beheading followers and non-believers alike, the Patriot Act will stay.
Rolling back gruesome laws by process of repeal is an appealing idea. Two clear examples are the Eighteenth and Twenty-first amendments and Glass-Stegal. One was cause for a toast. The other is driving us to drink because our economy is toasted.
Prohibition was slapped into place with simple language and it was easy to whack this mole down. But what if... the same result had been achieved by passage of a two-thousand page law that sent tendrils into dozens, hundreds of other laws, modifying language here and there to inject the topic of alcohol into places where it had never been, conflating alcohol with drunkenness though it is not its only cause with even more tendrils branching off into the distance, even bringing into existence two-way relationships with hybrid grafting where some pre-existing thing are now also related to alcohol, and declaring kittens cute, and building a new bridge in Iowa, and other things.
Let a dozen years pass and you find that whole careers and industries have been built around these roots. Other laws have been bound to and around it in careful deliberation or in a partisan frenzy of panic. Anything that does not 'work' has been adjusted by building out exceptions and clarifications. All in all it does not do what it set out to do, but every time anyone suggests that it might be best to roll it back, they are surrounded by an angry crowd of people whose lives now depend on it, and they are holding pictures of --- cute kittens.
Welcome to the 21st Century, when laws over a hundred pages long do not receive the derision, mockery and suspicion they deserve.
I do not see an easy solution to this, unless starting today parents were to start introducing this topic to young children in a stern context. "You need to wash behind your ears or dirt will build up there like special interest clauses in Omnibus Bills." Or "You have to rewrite this essay, it's too long. Are you trying to bury something in it because this is a lame duck session and teachers are in recess for the holidays?" Because it's too easy for 'contempt for the system' to sneak into the system. All it takes is to apply a level of obfuscation that exceeds the level of content. No one will ever call you out on it because they're too ashamed to admit they cannot figure it out.
I see that this story was dropped into the everybody-else-is-watching-duck-dynasty department. I'd better go check out Duck Dynasty to see if something interesting is happening. See ya!
Snowden badly damaged not only US intelligence but also the intelligence services of many of its allies by leaking massive numbers of classified documents as well as causing numerous diplomatic problems. He leaked far, far more than just aspects of operations that might have a civil rights dispute. Snowden is no patriot.
This is a valid and welcome point of view in the discussion. Will you pussies who modded it -1 Troll please stop??
I see 'patriot' as a personal point of view that becomes Patriot-capitalized over time, maybe hundreds of years, usually in some self-serving context. But of course the Founding Fathers were Patriots! Snowden (unlike Assange) has refrained from using his press conduits to leak names which might compromise the safety of individuals involved in covert operations, if he even had access to them. The bulk of the material I've seen is for presentations and slide shows bragging about specific operations and capabilities. I say poo-poo to the arbitrary act of stamping things 'classified' or 'top secret'. Subject matter does count.
If I am shown a slide prepared by some military contractor that gushes about the 'superior kill radius' of their new product I shrug, recognizing that there is a modern context in which such bravado is an accepted practice whether or not it is to my own taste.
If I am shown a slide that indicates that my government has a cavalier attitude to citizens' rights and actively seeks to build out deep taps and communications retention, I get hopping mad. Because they are smart-stupids. Smart in cleverness but stupid in practice and grievous harm. It does not matter the level of cleverness or coolness of the technology. The mere act of building this thing is stupid.
Thus I am grateful for Snowden's revelations and do give him a 'pass'.
I shed crocodile tears for the poor NSA whose operation to listen in on Chancellor Merkel was laid bare. When I recall Merkel's defense of US surveillance practices worldwide, they become crocodile tears of laughter. You can't make this stuff up!
When I read that the Russian government has back-tooled some of its handling procedures for sensitive documents to an earlier era of typewriters and print I think to myself, now that's really clever of them. If only we were as clever...
It is my own opinion that Snowden's exposure of tap capabilities worldwide, such as we have seen, is necessary to establish its capabilities and awaken the American public, prepare them for the coming debate when they (hopefully) might have an opportunity to take a stand against this, stop this. If there was no harm presently being done to US citizens and more evidence of direct malice towards his own country I might revoke that pass. But no, we ARE being screwed, by US. The pass stands.
As to the revelation of 'so-called classified' material, if more sensitive material from the FBI Hoover era had leaked as it happened we could have avoided years of bad road and unlawful harassment, unjustly ruined lives. So much faux-communist in-fact-malfeasance bullshit. Hoover was a loon.
And if the government would strive to protect the value of tyhe dollar with the same verve with which they have attempted to protect their dirty secrets, we'd all be dog-damned rich.
They wouldn't be committing felonies as that would require a violation of law rather than violations of constitutional restrictions against government. The law, constitutional or not, allows the NSA to do what they are doing else a lowly court could shut it all down by a simple low level prosecutor bringing charges to a grand jury.
Which is why no one in Congress can be expected to cast the first stone at the NSA. Whether they are in a position to know of its effectiveness or not, they will shy away in mortal political terror of NSA producing clear evidence that mass surveillance has "kept us safe". Still waiting. Likewise, pure judicial challenges run into stone walls as courts circularly argue over jurisdiction.
Or in the case of Hepting v. AT&T the Ninth Circuit committed to a sorry-ass monkey fuck decision where the case was dismissed on the basis of a piece of legislation ('retroactively' granting telecom immunity) that was passed after the case was filed. Pause to reflect on that. Has there ever been a clearer example of dereliction of duty of the judicial branch? Or a clearer admission of guilt by the Government?
That is because the NSA was terrified of Hepting vs. AT&T, more scared than it had ever been. Think of this case as a Pandora's box for them --- in which dozens (if not hundreds) of civilian technicians who had been involved in constructing its backbone taps might be encouraged to come forward to add their own piece to a sketch of NSA's domestic spy apparatus. As they came forward you'd see a map of the USA with taps appearing all over, and that would dispel any rhetoric claiming they did not intend to tap America itself.
And besides --- my own speculation but borne out in several places --- I allege that Hepting vs. AT&T would also have exposed that some technicians building our taps were foreign nationals and foreign corporations under contract to NSA. Countries whose spies we have convicted. Strange bedfellows laid bare. Gathering conversations (not silly metadata) has been portrayed as a high cost of liberty, though in the wrong hands it will subvert liberty. Our challenge is to prove this on three fronts.
We must seek to de-fund the NSA by calling into question the track record of mass surveillance to counter threats as of this day --- today. I draw a line at today because they could be cooking up something for tomorrow...
We must de-construct and demonstrate the motive behind mass surveillance to conclude that its only purpose in the end is to gather blackmail and empower absolute rulers with the tools they need to subvert our system of Government. This is true even if those presently engaged in it have good intentions.
We must defame the NSA and what it has become, the people behind it, the Senators who support it because someone whispered something in their ear --- was it a secret of National Security or was it blackmail? There's the rub --- dismantle it.
And that Constitution thing. Thar be dragins.
I thought it was just me that was was motivated solely by fear and worry
Same here, wasted years daydreaming about success, it's just a form of mental masturbation. Now I cherish my fears and revel in my worries... and gain a small measure of success and satisfaction from the knowledge that perception of reality is reasonably accurate.
I apply The Power of Positive Thinking by being positive that I will screw up completely unless I think. I'm Not OK, You're Not OK , but that's okay. I don each mask of the Four Temperments (this one comes with music) in turn as I consider any great challenge or problem, but the phlegmatic fits best.
I 'm the sanest person I ever met. Don't get out much.
Jean Auel's work is literate smut. It's just a Stone Age bodice-ripper. Don't make me quote-mine for proof.
Calling it a 'bodice ripper' is obscene.
Earth's Children series comprises six books, ~1.8 million words altogether.
In Clan of the Cave Bear There is brutal sex without consent. It occurs within the context of a culture that does not require a woman's consent, which is how Auel chose to portray the Neanderthals --- yet it is clear that among the clan brutality is not tolerated. This is essential to the story... and a series of encounters between Jondalar and Ayla appearing throughout the books that are as sensual and vivid as one might expect of a young couple in love, sex done 'right'. The scenes are described in extravagant (if you hate sex you might prefer 'lurid') detail. Auel's writing style is strained a bit during these sex passages only in that there are some repeated words and phrases, the cutest of which is the use of the word nodule.
But the lovers are soon satiated and the story moves on, just as it does in real life. It does not detract in the slightest from the series. Do not expect a 'did this, said this' style where the characters' minds are opaque and clumsily presented. Auel is a masterful writer who jumps skillfully between expressed inner thought, dialogue, and the senses.
But her portrayal of Earth's primordial landscapes and the journey/adventure is the real treasure one will find in these books. An avid reader not only sees through the characters' eyes, even down to the minutiae of making camp, it becomes possible to place yourself there, so well is it described. I loved the way Tolkien describes Ithilien and always wanted to tarry awhile without a burdensome ring quest. For me, Earth's Children recaptured that feeling.
I do not hesitate to recommend these books to any child who is old enough to read them, even the unpleasant explicit content within 'Cave Bear'. We do not live in a perfect world where there is no need to learn of such things, and that book portrays brutish and bully behavior in its complete context of the character's jealousy and malice. Many might consider these to be 'adult' themes, but my position is that they are just themes that children are sure to encounter in their lives. There is no 'right time' to introduce kids to these things only a 'right way'. The author neither glorifies nor apologizes for them. Books like these help prepare children for life.
Sorry to bore you. Back to the sex. Here is a Google search for "Ayla's nodule for your enjoyment and titillation. Now get off my lawn.
We've got to stop with the Neanderthal nonsense...
Right we do. There are just a few pieces of evidence now, but it may be that Neanderthal is actually a distant race that falls within our human specie. If their whole genome diverged from the branch of modern humans ~600,000YA and yet --- if there is additional evidence of interbreeding up to ~50,000YA, and humans from ~50,000YA could interbreed with us today (which I believe is true) --- then I consider it extremely likely that a Neanderthal could breed with a modern human.
And give your children superpowers like X-ray vision.
This is vindication for Jean Auel, whose Earth's Children series of books has popularized this exciting idea for generations of children. As a lay author she has been the lightning-rod target of those who disagree with the hypothesis, and at times her literary critics have even betrayed a tone of indulgent arrogance that just might have been a glimmer of the old Darwinian stuffed shirts, who banished Neanderthal from the human family early on by some of the characteristics that (merely) differentiate races existing today. Central to all of this goofy criticism is the Ayla's hybrid child Durc.
I highly recommend Earth's Children books to all. They are on par with Tolkien in their use of descriptive language, the central characters portray a series of actual humans over time who have made technological discoveries over time. The books are especially fit for children as they imagine the rich and viable human society that we know must have existed long ago, dispelling the silly myths that what we would recognize as civilization is merely a few thousand years old.
I was rushed for time when I wrote that, it didn't come off too well. What I had in mind was from a future where people are being chosen for long term assignments such as a grand tour of the solar system (and part two), extended Mars mission -- or colonization -- where there are qualified volunteers of both genders. There's a lot more to this than sexual liaisons or pair bonding.
The Sex Differences in Psychology is a good read on what has been observed by experiment, there's some physiology in there too. And with any 'delicate' topic, the Wiki talk page for it shows an interesting struggle to identify and manage bias for a topic that is so rich with historical flavor it has its own category of humor.
But a most fascinating tangent from the Wiki page is this recent study Widespread sex differences in gene expression and splicing in the adult human brain (Trabzuni et. al 2013), showing "that sex differences in gene expression and splicing are widespread in adult human brain, being detectable in all major brain regions and involving 2.5% of all expressed genes."
Sequencing inherited genes has taught us that there's no more than ~0.5% variance among the races of the world. We have leveraged the smallness of that number into a scientifically based bias against racism and prejudice which we apply to classic arguments of "nature vs. nurture?" to stack the deck against "nature" when debating things like intelligence and ability.
This is good. This ~0.5% figure gives us a hard baseline for "humanness" superior to that applied by Phrenologists and early Darwinians. If I have inherited a certain gene that affects skull shape or skin color or susceptibility to a disease, I can expect a noble society NOT to apply judgment from it of inherent ability or potential.
So what about that ~2.5% difference in gene expression between male and female brains? "We are not alone." I mean that in the full Close Encounters aliens-are-among us sense, because when discussing sex-triggered gene expression we're firmly in "nature" territory. Science reveals the existence of an intelligent (yet 'alien') species on this planet. And even though your genes are expressed differently, you both fall within the ~0.5% genetic baseline.
This means "including women equally" in everything that matters in a direct or Monte Carlo 50/50 ratio or a process is NOT like that "gotta strive to ensure that all races are represented" thing. The human race is a successful species because of this working partnership. It is a successful one and we ignore or diminish it at our great peril.
By peril I mean that any enterprise without equal genders by default is ahuman. Not 'inhuman' with its connotation of injustice. Ahuman is "not us", creepy, weird, uncanny valley. I propose the gender coin toss+'merit' --- and not just 'merit' (plus equal action political metric) --- as a way to statistically implement what is our intrinsic nature, impose a system that can be agreed upon that eases us into gender parity as the likely default, but yet does what nature does --- when the toss weighs heavily to one side something new is tried.
Because there may be dynamics of gender interaction (not sex) that are not just necessary to evolve. By excluding gender at times through history we may have been losing ground.
For something completely different, see Women: How do they do it?
Get everyone to agree that gender's a 'thang', same gender crews, or seriously imbalanced ratio for an extended mission is an unnatural and cruel idea.
Therefore in deference to human nature, a coin toss for gender of each position is performed as the positions are filled.
Mandating equal number of each invites trouble, if a greater portion of applicants are one gender, it injects the meme among the most arrogant of 'which' particular minority gender positions were filled by the 'least' qualified. An equal gender mission also carries another cruel twist: once monogamous pairs form there is unspoken expectation among those remaining that they too will pair up, and the diminishing possibilities lead to a choice-drama. Tabloid fixation on this formula (by participants and those on Earth) would is an unnecessary distraction.
By going coin toss, the mission is guaranteed to result in a mix of humans that everyone can agree is not the direct result of some manipulative policy, prejudice or conspiracy. It would give the participants freedom to form their own bonds (or not) without the sense that they are playing out some 'experiment'.
Canada is hard at work with Thorium molten salt reactors, its greatest simplification, a K.I.S.S. variant of LFTR, the DMSR. Terrestrial Energy Inc, or look up Dr. David LeBlanc.
Here's a Dr. LeBlanc at TEAC5 2013 describing his denatured reactor concept. And an interview on DMSR and the "tube within a tube" simplification of the original reactor experiments, more video links at the end of the interview. He is projecting ~35 metric tons per GWe year, one-sixth of what is used by a pressurized water reactor.
more idealistic LFTR proponents like Dr. Kirk Sorensen
I get that vibe too. As Dr. Sorensen tells it, he learned the deep details of molten salt experiments from a dusty old book. Imagine that --- you make your way through the modern world with a sense of confidence that everything that is worth knowing is part of the curriculum you have been taught --- or at least, there are experts out there, young like yourself, who grasp these things. And then one day you open this dusty yellowed old book and start to glimpse a future, a great future, that could have been but never was. You're asking yourself, why? And you research it further to discover that the rest of the story is kept in a file drawer somewhere, and those who worked on it are now in their 80s and 90s. And they're bitter.
If that happened to me it would be a moving experience. It would shake any confidence I had that our survival as a species was in any way 'assured'. It would coalesce into a keen sense of desperation to carry on this work, realize the dream Weinberg laid out.
Sorensen tells the story so well I actually experienced a touch of it myself. That is why I'd like to see nuclear technology brought up to date and applied so we might have a smooth (and fun!) transition from the age of fossil and steam to something better, and have tons of surplus energy to play with. The DMSR might be a commercial success first, but I believe "Captain Kirk" deserves the chance to realize the two-fluid reactor.
Because the greatest tragedy of all would be if this LFTR renaissance fades and is some day placed into a dusty digital archive, and some keen young student discovers it and finds Dr. Sorensen a bitter old man.
Hey look, I'm a "known renewable troll". Yay, I'm famous!
Pleased to meet ya. Famous myself, though I hardly ever get a -1 Troll. Usually it's an -1 Overrated, which is what meta-mods use when they don't like your face. I have an ugly face.
> First of all, LCoE ignores the cost of integrating intermittent wind and solar into the grid
Which is why everyone is building wind and not nuclear, I guess.
Beg to differ here. The real reason we've been building out so much utility-wind these last decades is not that it is a workable solution (never was)... it's not that the folks doing it haven't gotten around to running the numbers yet (some have, that's why natural gas plant manufacturers are the real winners)... it's not even that fossil companies actively support these renewable options because they do not pose any kind of threat (so much for conspiracy theory, it's plain conspiracy fact)... it's simply because nuclear has been kept off the table by a social phenomenon of fear that became rooted in the 'environmentalist' demographic, and that group has been steering the ship. I describe the genesis of this in this adjacent post. Chernobyl may have stirred it further but the fear was already entrenched by 1980.
I believe there will be a time --- soon --- when the emerging generation takes the reins and examines the gigawatt-year track record nuclear plants have demonstrated, even with 'old' designs. If Stewart Brand, a founder of the environmental movement, can re-think this fear, why cannot others? If demonstrated wind output on the grid has taught me anything, it is that you will probably never see a windmill produced by a factory that is powered by windmills. Our fixation with wind has produced some great strides in compact Neodymium designs (Tesla would be proud!) but it has delayed us at a crucial time.
> Read about ThorCon [c4tx.org] for what is possible
A device designed by a guy with exactly zero experience in reactor design, worked on as a home project? Right, ok.
Jack Devanney's summary and his slide show prepared for the 3rd Annual Workshop on Accelerator-Driven Sub-Critical Systems & Thorium Utilization, which is fancy speak for 'nuclear furnace'.
This approach is brilliant and deserves more than a one liner --- whether you have the time to work your way through this 69 page summary or not. I have, and though I've never designed a nuclear reactor either, I have boned up on LFTR tech and will try to do it justice...
I can see that he has tacked the heat expansion problems in the reactor head-on by doing something that only a designer of naval ships (and not conventional reactors) might think of --- shrugging off the problem entirely by suspending components. [p.18] "Almost all the vertical expansion is downward. The drain line is hung from the PHX to Pot line and has no direct physical connection to the Can. So this vertical movement is unrestricted and the drain line at Can temperature is free to expand independently of the primary loop."
He's abandoning the Holy Grail of breeding, striving to leverage the proven portions of salt technology into a system that can be built and scale today. [p.16] "ThorCon is a thorium converter, not a breeder. ThorCon requires periodic additions of ïssile fuel. And the ïrst generation ThorCon is not a particularly eïfcient converter. Only about 25% of its power comes from converting thorium to 233U. ThorCon derives its ability to produce power cheaply not from its use of thorium, but from all the other advantages of liquid fuel."
He points out that the FLiBe salts neces
It is easy enough to get a big public outcry for any new nuclear plant, irrespective of its safety.
Yes including pro bono activists who will provide materials, come to your town and help organize opposition. It was not always this way.
First an interesting side trip. Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring introduced Americans to the vision of a dead planet, but it was actually Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book The Population Bomb that really set the stage for doomsday thinking. This bestseller (200 million copies) was not for everyone, but the predictions were vivid and awful. In hindsight, it grossly underestimated our ability to scale agriculture and feed more people over time, and (foolishly) exaggerated the scenario where so-called '3rd world' women living in poverty and hunger will persist in having 5+ children. Hans Rosling demonstrates nicely that it is excess child mortality (not family beliefs) that contributes to this, and once health improves women desire (on average 2-3.5) children.
But if you're an American intellectual in 1968, you would have gotten a sense of foreboding that people would soon overrun the Earth. Mostly dem Indiaafricachina people
In 1972 the UN Club of Rome commissioned a report from MIT, "Limits to Growth" (full text). It sold 12 million copies in 37 languages. This is an amazing piece of work, one of the first uses of computerized models. In it some of the doomsday assumptions made in Population Bomb was deftly woven with projections of food and energy resources to create projections. It also was the first popularized presentation that CO2 would directly increase global temperature.
The Internet has a lot of tinfoil crap floating around about Club of Rome (and yes they are creepy) but it helps rationally not think of Limits to Growth as some secret Illuminati document. It was merely a widely bestselling book at the time. It even "recommended" the adoption of nuclear energy.
I put recommended in scare-quotes because that's exactly what they did. Let's all turn to page 73. Nuclear will solve CO2... that's great. But then they launch into a warning about waste heat from nuclear plants disrupting aquatic life, which is a purely local and manageable phenomenon, why nuclear plants are sited on rivers not lakes. Swans love it. They then go full frontal thermodynamics on cities themselves as emitters of heat, as if we're living in a Dyson Sphere and this is something we should be worrying about today Interspersed with graphs of ever-escalating nuclear waste. Which --- according to a propaganda rule I call "The Frightened Animals of Bambi's Forest Flee In Terror" -- could never be somehow contained, burned completely, or managed properly (by default!). A bit on industrial and municipal pollution, lead is mentioned, glad that shit was stopped, then... we're off into a evisceration of DDT. Yes, even modern agriculture ills.
It's easy to imagine a young ~35 Jane Fonda scared to death by all this. You have to realize that the popular doomsday bestseller with its Malthusian warnings is a relatively recent phenomenon. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries industrial progress yielded direct and awe-inspiring improvements to life. Go ahead, flick a light on and run water from the tap, flush the toilet. I'll wait. By 1970 in the US this blessed infrastructure had become all but transparent.
Leaving us the time and luxury to live in the present. And develop new ideas such as the ugly brand of environmentalis
Management regrets any inconvenience
Meant to say incontinence, my bad.
That's why LFTR may never find a good backer -- unless we can find a billionaire willing to fund the development on a lark (and to save mankind from our own greed/hatred).
It would take two or more celebrity billionaires coming together who are polar opposites (green+oil, democrat+republican, penguin+polar bear, etc.) coming together and shaking hands under a Thorium banner. It's for the grandchildren, but also good for business. The only 'sustainable' form of wealth creation is to introducing something completely new that changes the game --- by lowering the personal and corporate cost of living.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
Meltdowns at the recent 2014 Thorium Energy Conference
John Kutsch is positively ape-shit about lack of support for the S.2006 Thorium Bill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgRn4g7a068
He's Mad As Fucking Hell And Not Going To Take It Anymore (with bonus luddite doofus footage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUXmff5R_bI
Jim Kennedy is absolutely bleedin' outraged that DOD is 'blocking' the Thorium Bill and handing over rare earth production, parts to China like fucktard traitorous pussies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CARlEac1iuA
Cavan Stone is excited about Bismth-213 for cancer treatment, also in a blather over S.2006's stall in Congress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAUzldJqlq4
Fascinating new topic this year, Andrew Dodson (BS EE, going for Master's in Power Distribution) is tearing out his beard about grid instability
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU6izpryqqw
But also choleric, fuming about the ridiculous current state of things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJtv7gkuh1s
All in all it's a great time to be stark raving monkey fuck for Thorium energy.
We are completely surrounded by fools -- they cannot possibly escape now.
Playlist of all TEAC6 conference videos so far (includes all above)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKfir74hxWhMI5JIcVhnWAZjrDszejxjS
Profanity used for entertainment purposes only. Management regrets any inconvenience experienced by those with delicate sensibilities.
Well you can keep on being a fan boy and a cheerleader all you want
Thanks kindly. !! Back by popular demand !!
CONFESSIONS OF A SLASHDOT LFTR FANBOI
It's fun to discuss nuclear energy on Slashdot ... sometimes you just have to point things out point by point ... some confuse Weinberg's '300 year best-fit for waste' two fluid design for other single fluid designs ... or using solid fuel Thorium, which is pointless so long as uranium is available ... yes it's full of dangerous glop, but it is useful and happy glop ... yes, I think a LFTR could be developed and built within $4B ... every path to biofuels leads to scorched-earth disaster, Thorium energy gives us the surplus to generate synfuels ... a move to LFTR may be the only way to preserve modern society in the face of disaster (volcanism, Maunder minimum) ... utility-scale so-called 'renewables' non-solutions have a gazillion points of failure, gigawatt LFTR plants few, and it is my belief they will save NOT fail us ... aside from your own yard or roof, solar and wind are losers ... with LFTR surplus we could begin making diesel and fertilizer ... do it for the children ... and you my friend -- you would look especially good in space ... an Admiral Rickover fact check (severe tire damage) ... LNT (linear no threshhold) needs re-examination ... no I'm not risk adverse, just risk conscious ... one must sift past the fear-hype, especially regards Fukushima ... a look at Electricity in the Time of Cholera ... on the new coal powered IBM Power8 chips ... Thorium lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help.
Think of me as the Trix Rabbit of Thorium.
___
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,
Well said. Let me risk '-1 Troll' moderation too by saying I agree with almost all of your points.
The problem isn't the disaster but rather Linear no threshold radiation cancer models which were created by deeply anti nuclear weapon scientists desperate to instill fear on governments undergoing nuclear weapons tests.
The Linear no-threshold model needs to be reevaluated, especially the way it is used in statistical tomfoolery to establish a "integer death count" for extremely large populations from doses that can be lost in the noise of background radiation... the official explanation is they were applying the Precautionary Principle to something for which they had no hard data. Some references and angles to LNT in this previous post.
The problem is that the Precautionary Principle requires no cost, courage or conviction to apply, so it will inevitably be used for a mix of pure-caution and evil-manipulative purposes. Anyone who applies it is indemnified from risk. It leads into zero-tolerance policy, codified aversion to risk taking (which has often been the evolutionary and technological jumpstart of the human race). It's one of those features of the human psyche that is also an exploitable bug.
Before I post this I'd better check with my insurance company, it may affect the premiums. Actually the rules may change, I really shouldn't, so I won't. vv[n9v9n[[9[[0n cat on keyboa;klkrd iopw;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
I sincerely hope that the fusion plants can be built here.
Congratulations on achieving ~22% nuclear electricity in July 2014.
My state of no-nuke Oklahoma is powered by natural gas and coal (which arrives by train), considers itself a nexus of wind power but after decades of investment, hundreds of turbines and probably much more money spent --- net generation of mostly-wind ~809GWh for July is still less than the ~855GWh that would have been generated that month by the single two-reactor Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant. That is... if it had not been the only nuclear plant in the United States cancelled after construction began, in 1982.
Oklahoma sits on the border of the three North American grid interconnects. I have been trying to convince the powers that be and Halliburton Corporate to embrace molten salt research, to no avail so far.
So far every "inherently impossible" to meltdown design has been proven to be susceptible.
Liquid fuels are already 'melted' while in operation, but I do catch your drift, as in runaway catastrophe.
Meltdown with atmospheric release of radioactivity is possible where decay heat comes into contact with water (hydrogen, Fukushima) or graphite (Chernobyl). While the danger of graphite ignition pebble reactors has been posed and disputed, they punt by saying, we'll keep a runaway pebbl;e reactor it contained and starved of oxygen (via inert gas) and it won't be a problem.
My worst case scenario is worse than theirs. My LFTR-killer event involves an explosion powerful enough to destroy the containment vessel and building, in the rain. It would be an awful mess. But the salts would merely solidify and remain bound to the heavy elements mixed in, and aside from some steam which would be barely radioactive (because they only react with water slowly) there would be no need to evacuate the day care center over the ridge as the cleanup begins.
So a LFTR 'disaster' is merely a local mishap. To solve the world's energy problems one could not hope for better.The Thorium video describes the failures at Chernobyl and especially Fukushima in greater detail.
History has shown (most recently with the baby boomers) that humans don't handle abundance so well.
I've got great news! Abundance, especially abundant energy and grid electricity, really works!
Take a look at Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four to see the interplay of "wealth" and life expectancy over time. In case you're wondering why the life bubble for China took a sudden dive in 1959, that was Chairman Mao. Let's not do that again.
Which leads into Hans Rosling's Child Mortailty, Family Planning & the Environment where it is revealed that in a progressively 'modern' world with low child mortality and family planning (by whatever means) women choose to have fewer children. The United States has achieved a fertility rate matching the replacement rate. To me this means that despite any political, ideological or religious mandates, folks with access to all the modern inconveniences are (naturally) gravitating towards a more stable population. If we could find a way to share our present level of infrastructure with the whole world in a clean and sustainable way, the greatest potential 'threat' of abundance, an over-abundance of people, would be pushed years into the future.
Hope this makes you feel better. Be fruitful and multiply 2.33 times.
What the hell is with the random prepper "saying"? How the fuck does that relate to the rest of TFS?
If you are having difficulty understanding the concept that one must always have a backup plan or spare tool on hand in order to ensure survival... then perhaps you should not be discussing nuclear technology.
Some of the nuance was lost when my submission was edited for the front page. It ended like this,
[referring to the two videos] "Four hours well spent. Saving humanity is worth having at least two eggs in the basket."
This sounds like a fanboy cheerleading. Nothing really informative here just someone saying I support this.
TL;DW eh? Glad you picked up the subtle nuance. When did 'fanboy cheerleading' become an insult? Were your comic book heroes aloof and distant, battling enthusiasm everywhere with snide epithets and apathy-vision?
I'm just glad that the late Dr. Bussard's lecture made it once again onto a Slashdot page. And Thorium Remix for the first time ever. Everyone needs to look into these topics. With attention always on the new even if it is short on substance, hard lectures are always is good to find.
Dr. Brussard was close to seeing the level of Polywell confinement that had eluded him for so many years realized. But in his lecture you will also hear his disappointment at lack of funding for his approach -- he who had championed the Tokamak and helped secure its development could not find support in his twilight years for his own subsequent design. That is why the 2006 Google talk is so important, it should remind us that what may be the right path is often a lonely one. If Polywell pans out, isn't it a shame that Dr. Bussard will not see it.
How similar that is to the tale of Dr. Alvin Weinberg, one of the original inventors of the light water reactor who later became convinced there was a better way, fissile in molten salts at normal atmospheric pressure. He literally pursued it to the end --- his own career's end --- and molten salts were abandoned for no good reason. Thorium Remix tells it better than I.
And thanks to the AC who goes on about commas,,,,,, it really helps.
There is even less chance of Rossi having developed a cold fusion device than there is of Moller successfully building an actual flying car.
Ha ha he he ho ho. Moller does really great brochure. I had a couple of them for years, even made a poster from the pictures. A friend had unsuccessfully tried to gather for a $100k 'pre-order reservation'. At the time I had a strong feeling probably held by many here on fusion... it really should work. Just around the corner... The part within us all that holds on to the dream. "The musicians were poised with their instruments. They were ready to go. It would only be a few seconds now, I wrote."
These days I I've let go of the Moller car and keep arms' length on fusion because because fusion is hard and LFTR is easy and the human race doesn't need to over complicate things when faced with existential threat...
Having exhausted my supply of patience and wit I just agitate, cantankerously.
Democrats do this to appease their brand of science deniers, the far left environmentalists who oppose everything and anything nuclear. Note that not all environmentalists are of this type, some are even former deniers who decided to listen to what actual physicists say rather than what far left environmentalist leaders say on the topic of physics.
And Republicans nee 'conservatives' kill Nuclear because despite a ~2.5:1 ratio of conservatives over liberals in super-PAC contributions, which I equate to be what these billionaires consider to be "disposable income"... it is evident that the people they trust to advise them are failing to suggest investments in commercial nuclear technologies, both legacy and new. Perhaps they don't give a hoot about their grandchildren. Perhaps they see the span of fossil fuel decline (amid increasing energy demand) as a time of financial opportunity, and a renaissance of nuclear energy would interfere with vested interests. Perhaps they do not consider the inevitability of global war to secure resources to be a personal expense. Whatever the reason -- I am more likely to believe it is they who could save us, especially if it comes down to investment strategy. Because their position on nuclear energy would be based more on potential reward and applied risk -- especially the lower risks of Molten Salts and other nuclear approaches -- rather than fear.
Virtually limitless energy from a small Thorium mining footprint, ~300 year storage of waste is the best workable idea we have come up with. At present the stall of progress in nuclear energy is a bi-partisan disgrace, an affront to the whole human race.