No, I'm not. BS charges will only carry weight if the public agrees with taking the criminal off the street. Otherwise, such charges would turn into a media circus that could result in the DA loosing his office. Here in the US, it's doubtful that the initial trial would have been pressed for very long due to public outrage. A secondary trial (say for his collection of MP3s or some-such) would be out of the question.
Most civilized countries have also abolished the death penalty.
Dear Lord. Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to get someone actually killed once they've been sentenced to the death penalty? It tends to take a MINIMUM of 10 years before the sentence is carried out. It's not uncommon for it to 20 or so years or for the convict to die of natural causes first. Also, the death penalty is not given unless there is incontrovertible proof that the convict used extreme prejudice when committing murder. Usually, they simply get life in prison (which invariably allows for parole).
Argue the death penalty all you want. It isn't a significant factor to these discussions.
In theory, due to your double jeopardy laws, if the accused is guilty and aquitted - he may walk out of the courtroom and then tell the press "They released me, but really - I did do it! Ha! Ha!
In theory, yes that could happen. In reality, the DA would simply try to nail you on some bullshit charge that can carry a hefty penalty. e.g. Al Capone was nailed on tax evasion after the various agencies were continually unable to prove his involvement in serious crimes.
Appeals are still double-jeopardy. In the U.S., the prosecution cannot appeal an innocent verdict, while the defense can appeal a guilty verdict as long as they can show sufficient grounds. This is to protect citizens against the possibility of being harassed until they go bankrupt or are found guilty.
This appeal is a perfect reason why "no double-jeopardy" laws exist.
Would you like to explain how we'd have a Chernobyl on our hands without FISSION? Did you even READ the link I posted describing RTGs? For others who are too lazy to RTFA, an RTG works by converting the natural radation of a substance into energy. No active operations are ever performed on the material, and no more that a few hundred watts of electricity is ever being worked with at a time. This is significantly different than a multi-megaton warhead or equivalent power plant.
Why dont you consider a radioisotope generator that uses something other than plutonium, mmmkay?
Read all my other responses.
In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to use Plutonium as an example. Yet all RTGs to date have only used Plutonium. One should be able to develop a nuclear generator without Plutonium 232 or 239, but it would take a much better design than the 6% efficiency of existing RTGs.
If we could even get 24% efficiency, power output would jump from 75w per 2.5 pounds to 300 watts per 2.5 pounds! Alternatively, you could cut the mass down to 0.625 pounds and be right back at 75 watts. Given how heavy plutonium is, even 2.5 pounds isn't much more than a (very) small bar. A little more efficiency and you could use something like Sr-90 instead. Such material is safe enough to be handled with kitchen gloves.
Whatever you want to think happened at pre t-minus zero, go ahead. Universes colliding, God snapping his fingers, a previous universe's formost researchers saying, "Oops!", it's all good.
Damn straight. Although, if Carl Sagan were alive, he'd REALLY have something to chew on. "Ok, so our Universe is small in comparison to the multi-verse. So one inhabited planet out of the entire Universe is not such a tremendous waste of space. But then there MUST be life in other Universes! Yeah, otherwise all those cosmos would be a tremendous waste of space! Err... Space/Time that is. Err... Multiple Space/Times. Err..." (head explodes)
Alright, "I have no idea". How's that? Two points:
1. I actually read about the theory in a science journal before the "Elegant Universe" special came out. I'm afraid I don't remember which journal as my wife had picked it up for her Dad. (He's a science journalist in Russia and tends to have difficulty in getting American journals.) "Elegant Universe" did do a much better job on visuals, but their explanation on extra dimensions seemed to be lacking:-)
2. This is a place for open discussion. If I'm wrong, there are usually enough informed people around to correct me. Helps make the place more interesting than a "don't speak unless you truly understand all the math behind the M-Brane theory, Relativity, and Quantum Physics". That would leave, what, 2 or 3 people? Max?
Part of what makes reprocessing so bad is the hazards of handling the radioactive materials involved. The processing involved in Np-237 Pu-238 production is vastly different. The hazard from fission-product is essentially nil, because there is no fission product involved. But Pu-238 is 247 times more toxic (by weight) than Pu-239. Both Pu-238 and Pu-239 are routinely handled with rubber gloves because the radiation is so non-penetrating.
And again, a less energetic and toxic source could be used. Plutonium just happens to work the best. If better atomic generators could be invented, we could potentially extract tremendous amounts of energy from lightly radioactive materials. RTGs are damn near 40 years old! We haven't done anything but sit on them! (Well, save for the Plutonium in pace makers.)
I'm not trying to say that Plutonium (or Uranium, or Radium, or any other radioactive material) is completely safe. I am simply stating that they aren't much worse than many of the chemicals that we use today. The advantage to radioactive materials is that (for the most part) you don't need to worry about waste. Nearly all of the material will be able to be reprocessed and used again in a future device. Imagine if your laptop could be powered for damn near forever. When you get a new laptop, you simply take the atomic power pack out of the old one and put it in the new one. It take anywhere from 10 to 1000 years for your power pack to drop its energy levels so low that you'd need to replaced your pack. At that point the manufacturer would be able to buy the pack back from you and reprocess the raw material into another power pack that will last another 10 to 1000 years.
Reprocess it. Nuclear fuel is only "spent" inside fission reactors. In a more passive device such as an RTG, the mass is slowly degrading into radiation. So if you took Plutonium 232, in 69 years you'd have about half as much as you started with. All you need to do is take the old material, add some new material, repackage, and you're good to go! No waste, see?
As for Fission reactors, there are ways to convert the fuel instead of disposing of it:
LOL. Yeah, they'd eventually be able to rip through a lead block. But it's their own damn fault if they get radiation poisoning. Did you know that batteries make a nice BOOM when exposed to a flame? There's GOT to be a good redneck story out there of some idiot who killed himself attempting THAT. Radioactive materials are not that much more dangerous. If they were, the naturally occurring Plutonium, Uranium, Radium, etc. would have killed us all years ago.
I should probably add that the battery chemicals may be more dangerous than the plutonium if properly indisposed of. Radiation levels, like light, fall off at a rate inversely proportional to the distance from the source. Radiation is also easily absorbed by water and lead. Battery chemicals OTOH, can easily contaminate fields and drinking water for miles. Radiator fluid isn't much better.
Technology presents an extreme number of dangers. It's up to the producers of technology to do their best to make it safe for all involved.
Indeed. The truly weird part is that (to the best of my understanding) M-Brane theory does not attempt to refute such a supposition. Without knowing the dynamics of a universal collision, we can not positively state that it was a point collision instead of a more spread out collision. It's possible that the entire surface of the two M-Branes collided and that everything is naturally spreading outward from the force of the collision. (As best as we can define force at an 11 dimensional level. My head hurts.)
Yes, that's a problem with plutonium. That's why you'd want to do one of two things (or perhaps both):
1. Don't use plutonium. Plutonium is great for energy due to its high rate of decay. However, there ARE alternatives that would emit, say, beta particles which are generally not dangerous to humans except in extreme amounts. (Think CRT rays.)
2. Make sure that the atomic casing is SEALED. This can't be stressed enough. If you want a safe atomic device, it needs to be just as well protected (if not better protected) than today's toxic battery chemicals. If something goes wrong with an atomic power pack, it should be swapped out and returned to the factory for remanufacture.
The other point that needs addressing is New Technology. RTGs are 1960's technology. They are tremendously inefficient and have not improved a smidge since they were first invented. Even a small amount of research should enable us to get more energy out of less atomic fuel. To date, the only research I'm aware of is the Cornell MEMs generator.
Even secular science is constantly questioning "The Big Bang". For example, M-Theory (modern string theory) postulates that the Universe could have been born of a collision with another M-Brane (i.e. Universe). Such a collision could produce more than enough stress on space-time to produce the matter and energy in our universe. Thus the inception of our universe was less of a "bang" and more of a "splat".
Personally, I think that's one of the best theories I've heard to date. The only problem is that until we can find some unique properties of M-Theory that allows us to develop proofs, we can't prove that the Universe started in that fashion. (Similarly, the traditional laws of physics break down in the "Big Bang" concept.) On the other hand, if the M-Brane theory is correct, our Universe could be destroyed far sooner than we expected. A single collision from another M-Brane would completely reorder all the material and energy currently in existence. Not a pretty thought...
...atomic power should be a consumer product. Many people would rate this as a 4 cuckoo because of the "danger" of terrorists developing a nuclear weapon. The truth is that atomic power is exceedingly easy, safe, and clean to produce and should be a zero cuckoo idea. Don't think that they'd completely rid us of batteries tho. In order to power your car with a RadioIsotope Generator (non-fission), you'd need hundreds of pounds of plutonium. However, if combined with batteries, you could reduce the amount of plutonium significantly, and have an auto-recharging electric car. Sure, it means a few more pit stops on long trips, but you NEVER have to refuel!
I don believe the UK would retaliate against their great friend of all times, the US... they'll probably turn their nukes on the french !!!
And to anyone who knows history, this is wildly hilarious.
(For the uninformed, the French were good friends during the revolutionary war. The Brits were obviously enemies. See that Statue of Liberty? It was a gift from the French.)
Ok, so politics changed significantly after the US helped Britain develop Radar and weapons during WWII, but it's still rather amusing.
I second that. Sun's OpenPROM (Sun's version of OpenFirmware) is one of those details that help make Sparcs kick ass systems. The BIOS started as a "poor man's firmware" with all device interaction simplified into a "standard" set of hardware. Thus no new drivers would ever be needed, thus a simple program/set of interrupts worked perfectly. Yet today, we're trying to make PCs into high end workstations. We could do that far more effectivly if the BIOS didn't get in the way.
I'm curious. Does anyone know a reason why a PC BIOS chip couldn't be swapped with an OpenFirmware chip? I assume there are a few details such as launch location (0x07F0 IIRC) which must be taken into account. Plus, many OSes may have difficulties if the BIOS is not present. However, both those problems are fixable. Does anyone know of other issues?
Slashdot Mirror
So why is it Double Jeopardy? Why is it wrong? Or is simply a case of it's-bad-because-it-is but no one can remember why it-is?
A fair enough question. US law contains a very complete explanation behind the 5th amendment.
A mistrial is not the same as being proven innocent. Once a jury finds you innocent, you can't be brought to trial for the same charges. Period.
No, I'm not. BS charges will only carry weight if the public agrees with taking the criminal off the street. Otherwise, such charges would turn into a media circus that could result in the DA loosing his office. Here in the US, it's doubtful that the initial trial would have been pressed for very long due to public outrage. A secondary trial (say for his collection of MP3s or some-such) would be out of the question.
Most civilized countries have also abolished the death penalty.
Dear Lord. Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to get someone actually killed once they've been sentenced to the death penalty? It tends to take a MINIMUM of 10 years before the sentence is carried out. It's not uncommon for it to 20 or so years or for the convict to die of natural causes first. Also, the death penalty is not given unless there is incontrovertible proof that the convict used extreme prejudice when committing murder. Usually, they simply get life in prison (which invariably allows for parole).
Argue the death penalty all you want. It isn't a significant factor to these discussions.
In theory, due to your double jeopardy laws, if the accused is guilty and aquitted - he may walk out of the courtroom and then tell the press "They released me, but really - I did do it! Ha! Ha!
In theory, yes that could happen. In reality, the DA would simply try to nail you on some bullshit charge that can carry a hefty penalty. e.g. Al Capone was nailed on tax evasion after the various agencies were continually unable to prove his involvement in serious crimes.
You cannot appeal an innocent verdict in the U.S. Such an appeal would be considered...
wait for it....
DOUBLE-JEOPARDY
Appeals are still double-jeopardy. In the U.S., the prosecution cannot appeal an innocent verdict, while the defense can appeal a guilty verdict as long as they can show sufficient grounds. This is to protect citizens against the possibility of being harassed until they go bankrupt or are found guilty.
This appeal is a perfect reason why "no double-jeopardy" laws exist.
Most civilized countries have protection against double-jeopardy. The fact that Norway does not have protection, reflects badly on their legal system.
Chernobyl?
:-)
Chernobyl?
Would you like to explain how we'd have a Chernobyl on our hands without FISSION? Did you even READ the link I posted describing RTGs? For others who are too lazy to RTFA, an RTG works by converting the natural radation of a substance into energy. No active operations are ever performed on the material, and no more that a few hundred watts of electricity is ever being worked with at a time. This is significantly different than a multi-megaton warhead or equivalent power plant.
Now you can "shut up".
Have a nice day!
Why dont you consider a radioisotope generator that uses something other than plutonium, mmmkay?
Read all my other responses.
In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to use Plutonium as an example. Yet all RTGs to date have only used Plutonium. One should be able to develop a nuclear generator without Plutonium 232 or 239, but it would take a much better design than the 6% efficiency of existing RTGs.
If we could even get 24% efficiency, power output would jump from 75w per 2.5 pounds to 300 watts per 2.5 pounds! Alternatively, you could cut the mass down to 0.625 pounds and be right back at 75 watts. Given how heavy plutonium is, even 2.5 pounds isn't much more than a (very) small bar. A little more efficiency and you could use something like Sr-90 instead. Such material is safe enough to be handled with kitchen gloves.
Research is what we need.
Whatever you want to think happened at pre t-minus zero, go ahead. Universes colliding, God snapping his fingers, a previous universe's formost researchers saying, "Oops!", it's all good.
Damn straight. Although, if Carl Sagan were alive, he'd REALLY have something to chew on. "Ok, so our Universe is small in comparison to the multi-verse. So one inhabited planet out of the entire Universe is not such a tremendous waste of space. But then there MUST be life in other Universes! Yeah, otherwise all those cosmos would be a tremendous waste of space! Err... Space/Time that is. Err... Multiple Space/Times. Err..." (head explodes)
Alright, "I have no idea". How's that? Two points:
:-)
1. I actually read about the theory in a science journal before the "Elegant Universe" special came out. I'm afraid I don't remember which journal as my wife had picked it up for her Dad. (He's a science journalist in Russia and tends to have difficulty in getting American journals.) "Elegant Universe" did do a much better job on visuals, but their explanation on extra dimensions seemed to be lacking
2. This is a place for open discussion. If I'm wrong, there are usually enough informed people around to correct me. Helps make the place more interesting than a "don't speak unless you truly understand all the math behind the M-Brane theory, Relativity, and Quantum Physics". That would leave, what, 2 or 3 people? Max?
Not much.
Part of what makes reprocessing so bad is the hazards of handling the radioactive materials involved. The processing involved in Np-237 Pu-238 production is vastly different. The hazard from fission-product is essentially nil, because there is no fission product involved. But Pu-238 is 247 times more toxic (by weight) than Pu-239. Both Pu-238 and Pu-239 are routinely handled with rubber gloves because the radiation is so non-penetrating.
And again, a less energetic and toxic source could be used. Plutonium just happens to work the best. If better atomic generators could be invented, we could potentially extract tremendous amounts of energy from lightly radioactive materials. RTGs are damn near 40 years old! We haven't done anything but sit on them! (Well, save for the Plutonium in pace makers.)
I'm not trying to say that Plutonium (or Uranium, or Radium, or any other radioactive material) is completely safe. I am simply stating that they aren't much worse than many of the chemicals that we use today. The advantage to radioactive materials is that (for the most part) you don't need to worry about waste. Nearly all of the material will be able to be reprocessed and used again in a future device. Imagine if your laptop could be powered for damn near forever. When you get a new laptop, you simply take the atomic power pack out of the old one and put it in the new one. It take anywhere from 10 to 1000 years for your power pack to drop its energy levels so low that you'd need to replaced your pack. At that point the manufacturer would be able to buy the pack back from you and reprocess the raw material into another power pack that will last another 10 to 1000 years.
Reprocess it. Nuclear fuel is only "spent" inside fission reactors. In a more passive device such as an RTG, the mass is slowly degrading into radiation. So if you took Plutonium 232, in 69 years you'd have about half as much as you started with. All you need to do is take the old material, add some new material, repackage, and you're good to go! No waste, see?
e .html l m l
As for Fission reactors, there are ways to convert the fuel instead of disposing of it:
http://www.atomicinsights.com/jun95/value.of.wast
http://www.atomicinsights.com/jun95/recycling.htm
http://www.atomicinsights.com/jun95/opposition.ht
BTW, I should mention that I have nothing to do with AEI. I just like how they have everything having to do with nuclear energy consolidated.
LOL. Yeah, they'd eventually be able to rip through a lead block. But it's their own damn fault if they get radiation poisoning. Did you know that batteries make a nice BOOM when exposed to a flame? There's GOT to be a good redneck story out there of some idiot who killed himself attempting THAT. Radioactive materials are not that much more dangerous. If they were, the naturally occurring Plutonium, Uranium, Radium, etc. would have killed us all years ago.
I should probably add that the battery chemicals may be more dangerous than the plutonium if properly indisposed of. Radiation levels, like light, fall off at a rate inversely proportional to the distance from the source. Radiation is also easily absorbed by water and lead. Battery chemicals OTOH, can easily contaminate fields and drinking water for miles. Radiator fluid isn't much better.
Technology presents an extreme number of dangers. It's up to the producers of technology to do their best to make it safe for all involved.
Indeed. The truly weird part is that (to the best of my understanding) M-Brane theory does not attempt to refute such a supposition. Without knowing the dynamics of a universal collision, we can not positively state that it was a point collision instead of a more spread out collision. It's possible that the entire surface of the two M-Branes collided and that everything is naturally spreading outward from the force of the collision. (As best as we can define force at an 11 dimensional level. My head hurts.)
I really should write an essay one of these days.
Yes, that's a problem with plutonium. That's why you'd want to do one of two things (or perhaps both):
1. Don't use plutonium. Plutonium is great for energy due to its high rate of decay. However, there ARE alternatives that would emit, say, beta particles which are generally not dangerous to humans except in extreme amounts. (Think CRT rays.)
2. Make sure that the atomic casing is SEALED. This can't be stressed enough. If you want a safe atomic device, it needs to be just as well protected (if not better protected) than today's toxic battery chemicals. If something goes wrong with an atomic power pack, it should be swapped out and returned to the factory for remanufacture.
The other point that needs addressing is New Technology. RTGs are 1960's technology. They are tremendously inefficient and have not improved a smidge since they were first invented. Even a small amount of research should enable us to get more energy out of less atomic fuel. To date, the only research I'm aware of is the Cornell MEMs generator.
Your Kung-Fu is good, but it cannot beat my third normal form!
;-)
LOL! That's a good one. I'll have to remember it for my next sig.
*sigh*
Even secular science is constantly questioning "The Big Bang". For example, M-Theory (modern string theory) postulates that the Universe could have been born of a collision with another M-Brane (i.e. Universe). Such a collision could produce more than enough stress on space-time to produce the matter and energy in our universe. Thus the inception of our universe was less of a "bang" and more of a "splat".
Personally, I think that's one of the best theories I've heard to date. The only problem is that until we can find some unique properties of M-Theory that allows us to develop proofs, we can't prove that the Universe started in that fashion. (Similarly, the traditional laws of physics break down in the "Big Bang" concept.) On the other hand, if the M-Brane theory is correct, our Universe could be destroyed far sooner than we expected. A single collision from another M-Brane would completely reorder all the material and energy currently in existence. Not a pretty thought...
...atomic power should be a consumer product. Many people would rate this as a 4 cuckoo because of the "danger" of terrorists developing a nuclear weapon. The truth is that atomic power is exceedingly easy, safe, and clean to produce and should be a zero cuckoo idea. Don't think that they'd completely rid us of batteries tho. In order to power your car with a RadioIsotope Generator (non-fission), you'd need hundreds of pounds of plutonium. However, if combined with batteries, you could reduce the amount of plutonium significantly, and have an auto-recharging electric car. Sure, it means a few more pit stops on long trips, but you NEVER have to refuel!
A great site on atomic energy is:
http://www.atomicinsights.com/AEI_Topics.html
I don believe the UK would retaliate against their great friend of all times, the US...
they'll probably turn their nukes on the french !!!
And to anyone who knows history, this is wildly hilarious.
(For the uninformed, the French were good friends during the revolutionary war. The Brits were obviously enemies. See that Statue of Liberty? It was a gift from the French.)
Ok, so politics changed significantly after the US helped Britain develop Radar and weapons during WWII, but it's still rather amusing.
Their site doesn't say, so I'll ask you. Is it OpenFirmware compatible? All it says is that it is free firmware available for many systems.
I second that. Sun's OpenPROM (Sun's version of OpenFirmware) is one of those details that help make Sparcs kick ass systems. The BIOS started as a "poor man's firmware" with all device interaction simplified into a "standard" set of hardware. Thus no new drivers would ever be needed, thus a simple program/set of interrupts worked perfectly. Yet today, we're trying to make PCs into high end workstations. We could do that far more effectivly if the BIOS didn't get in the way.
I'm curious. Does anyone know a reason why a PC BIOS chip couldn't be swapped with an OpenFirmware chip? I assume there are a few details such as launch location (0x07F0 IIRC) which must be taken into account. Plus, many OSes may have difficulties if the BIOS is not present. However, both those problems are fixable. Does anyone know of other issues?
More Info:
OpenFirmware
Free OpenFirmware Implementation