Telus cellphones run on the Bell network, and most telephone and Internet traffic from Telus goes over the nation wide Bell Internet backbone
Not completely true. Telus definitely has their own backbone. Particularly west of Ontario. They do have a cell tower sharing agreement with Bell and if you use a Telus cell phone in Ontario or East you will likely be using a Bell tower. This is true of many carriers though (like Freedom outside their core calling areas). Also, I believe Bell phones use Telus towers in many areas west of Ontario.
But Google didn't implement a JVM. They created a completely new virtual machine called Dalvik (later replaced by ART in 4.4+). Dalvik didn't even use the same underlying operating principles. The JVM is stack based whereas Dalvik was register based. They did provide a tool that would convert JVM bytecode to Dalvik bytecode but Google did not recreate or put a native JVM into Android.
This whole lawsuit is about Google copying the Java library declarations (so yes, the int round(float) parts). Google reimplemented all the underlying code themselves. Only the declarations themselves and the class hierarchy remained the same.
Just like the Wii, the Wii U locks all downloadable content to the console, not the account. So if your console breaks, is lost, or stolen have fun re-buying all that content. You also can't use your network ID on another console. Want to play that game you bought on your friends machine? Tough, not possible.
This is the main reason I refuse to buy any more Nintendo consoles. It's also the number one reason I regret buying my Wii as well. In my mind, until they fix this, online content actually reduces the value of a Nintendo console.
All? Will there be an Xbox 8, or will that have to wait for Windows 9?
Well they did push out Xbox SmartGlass along side the Windows 8 launch. That along with all the recent dashboard updates pretty much gives you the "Windows 8 experience" on the Xbox. So yes, Xbox 8 is already here.
The required content of the notice was clearly given. Adding stuff before or after the specified content changes the notice from what was specified. If they wanted to post a second ad/webpage giving their point of view they were well within their rights to do so. But by combining the two into one they didn't fulfill the order. The order states the material part of the notice should contain the "apology". One can hardly claim the material part of Apple's notice was the prescribed message. You have 2 lines of text followed by 5 paragraphs denigrating them. The material part of the notice is no longer the prescribed text so they didn't satisfy the order.
The judges ruling clearly states: As a result of his second judgment, Judge Birss ordered that:
Within seven days of the date of this Order [18th July 2012] [Apple] shall at its own expense (a) post in a font size no smaller than Arial 11pt the notice specified in Schedule 1 to this order on the homepage of its UK website... as specified in Schedule 1 to this Order, together with a hyperlink to the Judgment of HHJ Birss QC dated 9th July 2012, said notice and hyperlink to remain displayed on [Apple's] websites for a period of six months from the date of this order or until further order of the Court (b) publish in a font size no smaller than Arial 14pt the notice specified in Schedule 1 to this Order on a page earlier than page 6 in the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, The Guardian, Mobile Magazine and T3 magazine.
And The material part of the notice specified in Schedule 1 reads:
On 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic (UK) Limited's Galaxy Tablet Computer, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple's registered design No. 0000181607-0001. A copy of the full judgment of the High court is available on the following link [link given]
The judge specifically spelled out what Apple was suppose to post. Apple didn't follow these instruction by attaching all the other cruft to the ad therefore they haven't fulfilled the court order.
I did the same thing. I picked it up browsing the shelves and there was absolutely nothing on the book suggesting it was the third of a series. Slogging through the first hundred pages was a little painful and I eventually came to the conclusion there must be previous books but by then I was on the road and had pieced together enough of the back story that I just pushed through and finished it. In a way I think that made the somewhat abrupt resolution to the Inhibitors a bit more palatable. If I had invested in two other books about the war against the Inhibitors I may have been a little more miffed at the resolution. As such I've had no desire to read the previous books so can't comment on the. Gap though was well written.
In a far off, seldom visited corner of my companies campus is a wall of patents granted over the years. A few weeks ago I found myself browsing them and noticed one of them was for a proximity sensor on a phone. In this case it was designed to automatically switch the phone from normal mode to speaker phone depending on proximity but it doesn't take a genius to see other uses for this. It was granted in 1998. Apple "steals" from other companies just as much as they claim people steal from them.
Just like you can get a car second hand, you can get a Disney movie on DVD (new or used, or rented).
But you can't watch them via a streamed connection as the case against Zediva has shown. Zediva bought individual discs and streamed them on a one-to-one basis to users. For all intents the user had rented a real physical disc but because it was streamed over a network the courts deemed it a violation of copyright. So no, streaming companies cannot just buy used or new discs from just anyone. This would be the same as requiring all used car lots to buy their cars from the licensed dealer (no car auctions, no trade-ins, no private purchases).
Also, in an emergency, a CANDU, which uses heavy water, can't be cooled and moderated using sea water like in Fukushima
Nonsense, the heavy water actually promotes the reaction (it's a neutron moderator). Getting rid of it and cooling with normal fresh or sea water would be doable and simply serve the double role of cooling AND stopping the chain reaction (by virtue of not being heavy water).
It's even safer than that. The primary purpose of heavy water in a CANDU reactor is not to cool, but to act as a neutron moderator (it slows the neutrons down). Without this moderator the reaction stops (CANDU reactors do not use enriched uranium so neutron moderation is required to keep the chain reaction going). In addition to control rods CANDU reactor support either moderator poisoning (they inject chemicals into the moderator tank that absorb neutrons bringing the reaction to an end) or a moderator dump (they actually dump the heavy water from the moderator tank). This coupled with the non-enriched uranium just makes them plain safer. It's a shame they didn't sell more of them.
In 2009 and again in 2011, congress passed laws blocking the transfer of prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. They were part of omnibus spending bills, so refusing to sign them would have been a disaster. I don't know what you expected Obama to do, short of declaring himself emperor and ruling by decree.
Actually no, congress didn't outright block the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo. They simply imposed conditions (admittedly excessive ones) that needed to be met before the transfer could be made (unless I missed something). From the bill (section 9011) I know of we have:
(d) The President shall submit to Congress, in classified form, a plan regarding the proposed disposition of any individual covered by subsection (c) who is detained as of June 24, 2009. Such plan shall include, at a minimum, each of the following for each such individual:
(1) A determination of the risk that the individual might instigate an act of terrorism within the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, or the United States territories if the individual were so transferred.
(2) A determination of the risk that the individual might advocate, coerce, or incite violent extremism, ideologically motivated criminal activity, or acts of terrorism, among inmate populations at incarceration facilities within the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, or the United States territories if the individual were transferred to such a facility.
(3) The costs associated with transferring the individual in question.
(4) The legal rationale and associated court demands for transfer.
(5) A plan for mitigation of any risks described in paragraphs (1), (2), and (7).
(6) A copy of a notification to the Governor of the State to which the individual will be transferred, to the Mayor of the District of Columbia if the individual will be transferred to the District of Columbia, or to any United States territories with a certification by the Attorney General of the United States in classified form at least 14 days prior to such transfer (together with supporting documentation and justification) that the individual poses little or no security risk to the United States.
(7) An assessment of any risk to the national security of the United States or its citizens, including members of the Armed Services of the United States, that is posed by such transfer and the actions taken to mitigate such risk.
Yes, it's a lot of paper work (there's further notifications required 15 days prior to moving) but none of it is impossible. Also note, at no point does it require further approval of congress. Once the paperwork is submitted the President is good to go. Now admittedly, if he did try this congress would likely try to introduce a new bill blocking it (thus the 45 day notice) but hey, he could veto that one specifically unless overruled by congress in which case it really isn't his fault anymore. But he hasn't. The only thing stopping him at this point is paperwork. No law or specific prohibition from congress is doing it. And that is the disgraceful part of it.
Within 40 miles of the damaged wellhead, the oil deposits appear extensive but patchy.
So it's likely they took at least one sample forty miles out (for the record a forty mile radius would be about 5000 square miles so obviously they didn't do uniform sampling over all that area). Hopefully the report itself will have more details, unfortunately I haven't been able to find a copy online anywhere.
As far as I can tell Dr Joye though seems to me fairly level headed and the media has been a little overzealous in reporting on her work. Even she admits there won't be any lasting damage saying “The Gulf is resilient" and “I do believe that it will recover from this insult, but I don’t think it’s going to recover fully by 2012." I believe she just wants people to realize that the damage was more extensive than reported and we may not see the full effect for a couple of years yet.
Another thing she pointed out in an interview she did was her sampling technique appears to be more precise than those typically used by BP and others. Apparently the "pools" of oil are fairly delicate and can be blown away if you don't take your core very carefully (i.e. slowly). BP re-measured several of her sites using her technique and came away with the same results she got. If anything, this should help improve the process used to monitor the area.
In five different expeditions, the last one in December, Joye and colleagues took 250 cores of the sea floor and travelled across 2,600 square miles. Some of the locations she had been studying before the oil spill on April 20 and said there was a noticeable change.
Sounds like a fairly large survey to me. Definitely the largest to date (much larger than BP's "studies"). Now granted, I don't know if this entire area counts as "wellhead dives" as the language is a little vague but I'm confident we can believe her when she says the damage is extensive and widespread.
This is another interesting article postulating the mechanism behind the oil deposits.
before turbines came along, there simply were no large helicopters, only the tiny two-seaters.
Not strictly true. There where a handful of large piston engined helicopters like the S-58/H-34 which could carry ~6000 lbs (or 12 troops). But yes, turbine powered craft soon became the preferred option.
Well, we'll just have to hope that their competitors will implement the technology
Already have. Actually Alcatel is pretty much playing catchup with all this. Nortel introduced a 40Gb/s dual polarization coherent terminal 4 years ago (despite many people, including Alcatel, saying it wasn't possible). Furthermore Nortel Optical (now Ciena) already has a 100Gb/s version available. Alcatel is pretty late to this game.
Fermilab had a beam loss event in 2003 (beam came into contact with part of the ring). The beam drilled a 2.8 mm hole through a 5mm tungsten support. It also etched a groove 25 cm long and 1.5 mm deep into a stainless steel collimator (after passing through the tungsten). Apparently this took about 8.3 ms (over several turns of the beam) before the beam dissipated.
I'm guessing if you could insert your hand fast enough (not possible, even if there wasn't a vacuum tube) you would end up with a nice small hole drilled through your hand.
According to Horsfall and his fellow nails-tough tech developers, their carbide electronics can keep working up to temperatures of 900C. This is actually sufficient to withstand immersion in some lavas/magmas, though by no means all.
Apparently they aren't using Silicon based electronics so they don't need to keep the sensor that cool (at least from a silicon point of view). But even if the electronics can handle it I'm still not entirely sure what they would use to power it all (Sodium Nickel Chloride battery typically work between 270 and 350C, other molten salt batteries used in missile systems typically operate between 400-550C).
Personally I believe it was the delay from the license lawsuit that really killed it. The first couple of generations of LCD and Plasma's screens weren't cheap to produce either. But while the SED technology was mired in litigation the LCD and Plasma manufactures sold screens and used the money to develop better and cheaper manufacturing processes. Once the SED litigation was cleared up it was too late. They had missed the ramp up stage. The had an expensive new technology competing against a cheap mature one. The stupid thing is the biggest loser in the whole ordeal is probably Nano Proprietary, the ones who started the litigation in the first place. If they had just let the joint venture build the damn things they would be collecting royalty checks today. Instead they sued their only revenue source out of existence.
Though BP has shelled out a lot more than $75 million. And they are actually able to. Different situation for nuclear energy companies.
The $75 million cap does only apply to the economic impact to any disaster (lost jobs, business, property, etc). The companies are still on the hook for direct cleanup cost which is what BP has mostly paid to date (although typically the direct cleanup costs are the smaller part of any large scale disaster). BP has said they will cover all economic losses as well but it remains to be seen how truthful this is as the costs pile up (there's also the issue of the cap being removed if gross negligence can be proven....)
Let one of the French nuclear power plants go boom and the effects are a _lot_ worse.
Could be. I'm not familiar with French nuclear reactor design. I am however familiar with Canadian CANDU reactors and can say with some certainty they are much safer than most (use unenriched fuel, require heavy water moderation, vacuum building, etc...). Not to say a CANDU accident wouldn't be bad but it would certainly be better than, say, Chernobyl. The point I'm trying to make is nuclear reactors can be built safer. Newer designs, like pebble bed reactors, can not melt down by design. If there wasn't such fear mongering about nuclear energy we could invest in and build these safer reactors. Instead we're stuck with many aging reactors with suspect safety records.
Also, Africa has had an oil spill of similar size for ages and no one would think of starting to stop it as it's apparently not cost-efficient. And that is on land. Where people live. Not hidden under water by ways of chemicals.
Not entirely sure how this helps your argument against nuclear energy. It just goes to show again that oil can be just as damaging as nuclear.
Wrong. It's easy to process CO_2 into O_2 and C_x. It's just not economically feasible.
Yes, you can scrub, sequester, and convert fossil fuel emissions but as you stated it's not economically feasible. Recycling nuclear waste is economically feasible. They already do it in France and Britain. They don't do it in North America for political reasons (not technical or economic reasons).
I prefer to pay for my stuff in a way that makes sure the ones getting rich from what I pay have to shoulder the costs, as well. Not that I pay them _and_ pay extra for clean-up.
And this is my issue with how people think about fossil fuels. We are shouldering the burden of using them. For example increased smog causes more health issues which places extra burden health care which we all end up paying for with taxes (well, outside the US at least). So in truth, we are paying them and paying extra for the clean-up (just in different ways). At least with nuclear energy the problem is fairly well contained and solutions do exist (admittedly some better than others).
And the oil industry has a cap of $75 million on the possible economic impact of their mistakes so I fail to see your point. If the gulf has taught us anything it should be that fossil fuel usage can cause disasters just as bad, if not worst, than nuclear energy.
As for nuclear storage, as others have pointed out, spent fuel can be recycled. The same can't be said for the waste products of fossil fuels. At the end of the day society pays a price for all our energy usage.
Slashdot Mirror
Not completely true. Telus definitely has their own backbone. Particularly west of Ontario. They do have a cell tower sharing agreement with Bell and if you use a Telus cell phone in Ontario or East you will likely be using a Bell tower. This is true of many carriers though (like Freedom outside their core calling areas). Also, I believe Bell phones use Telus towers in many areas west of Ontario.
But Google didn't implement a JVM. They created a completely new virtual machine called Dalvik (later replaced by ART in 4.4+). Dalvik didn't even use the same underlying operating principles. The JVM is stack based whereas Dalvik was register based. They did provide a tool that would convert JVM bytecode to Dalvik bytecode but Google did not recreate or put a native JVM into Android.
This whole lawsuit is about Google copying the Java library declarations (so yes, the int round(float) parts). Google reimplemented all the underlying code themselves. Only the declarations themselves and the class hierarchy remained the same.
Just like the Wii, the Wii U locks all downloadable content to the console, not the account. So if your console breaks, is lost, or stolen have fun re-buying all that content. You also can't use your network ID on another console. Want to play that game you bought on your friends machine? Tough, not possible.
This is the main reason I refuse to buy any more Nintendo consoles. It's also the number one reason I regret buying my Wii as well. In my mind, until they fix this, online content actually reduces the value of a Nintendo console.
In Canada fuel sales are volume corrected (to 15C) so regardless of the temperature of the fuel you pay for the same amount.
All? Will there be an Xbox 8, or will that have to wait for Windows 9?
Well they did push out Xbox SmartGlass along side the Windows 8 launch. That along with all the recent dashboard updates pretty much gives you the "Windows 8 experience" on the Xbox. So yes, Xbox 8 is already here.
The required content of the notice was clearly given. Adding stuff before or after the specified content changes the notice from what was specified. If they wanted to post a second ad/webpage giving their point of view they were well within their rights to do so. But by combining the two into one they didn't fulfill the order. The order states the material part of the notice should contain the "apology". One can hardly claim the material part of Apple's notice was the prescribed message. You have 2 lines of text followed by 5 paragraphs denigrating them. The material part of the notice is no longer the prescribed text so they didn't satisfy the order.
The judges ruling clearly states:
As a result of his second judgment, Judge Birss ordered that:
Within seven days of the date of this Order [18th July 2012] [Apple] shall at its own expense (a) post in a font size no smaller than Arial 11pt the notice specified in Schedule 1 to this order on the homepage of its UK website ... as specified in Schedule 1 to this Order, together with a hyperlink to the Judgment of HHJ Birss QC dated 9th July 2012, said notice and hyperlink to remain displayed on [Apple's] websites for a period of six months from the date of this order or until further order of the Court (b) publish in a font size no smaller than Arial 14pt the notice specified in Schedule 1 to this Order on a page earlier than page 6 in the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, The Guardian, Mobile Magazine and T3 magazine.
And
The material part of the notice specified in Schedule 1 reads:
On 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic (UK) Limited's Galaxy Tablet Computer, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple's registered design No. 0000181607-0001. A copy of the full judgment of the High court is available on the following link [link given]
The judge specifically spelled out what Apple was suppose to post. Apple didn't follow these instruction by attaching all the other cruft to the ad therefore they haven't fulfilled the court order.
Well there was Nobel Prize awarded for the production of liquid helium so I guess one could call it a Nobel gas.
I did the same thing. I picked it up browsing the shelves and there was absolutely nothing on the book suggesting it was the third of a series. Slogging through the first hundred pages was a little painful and I eventually came to the conclusion there must be previous books but by then I was on the road and had pieced together enough of the back story that I just pushed through and finished it. In a way I think that made the somewhat abrupt resolution to the Inhibitors a bit more palatable. If I had invested in two other books about the war against the Inhibitors I may have been a little more miffed at the resolution. As such I've had no desire to read the previous books so can't comment on the. Gap though was well written.
In a far off, seldom visited corner of my companies campus is a wall of patents granted over the years. A few weeks ago I found myself browsing them and noticed one of them was for a proximity sensor on a phone. In this case it was designed to automatically switch the phone from normal mode to speaker phone depending on proximity but it doesn't take a genius to see other uses for this. It was granted in 1998. Apple "steals" from other companies just as much as they claim people steal from them.
Just like you can get a car second hand, you can get a Disney movie on DVD (new or used, or rented).
But you can't watch them via a streamed connection as the case against Zediva has shown. Zediva bought individual discs and streamed them on a one-to-one basis to users. For all intents the user had rented a real physical disc but because it was streamed over a network the courts deemed it a violation of copyright. So no, streaming companies cannot just buy used or new discs from just anyone. This would be the same as requiring all used car lots to buy their cars from the licensed dealer (no car auctions, no trade-ins, no private purchases).
pascals as a unit of force
Pascals are a unit of pressure.
Metric uses Newtons for force.
1 N is the force required to accelerate 1 kg at 1m/s^2
So on Earth (g ~= 9.8 m/s^2) 1 kg weighs 9.8 Newtons.
In the Foot-pound-second system the unit of mass is a slug
To answer the question more directly.
PHB -> Pointy Haired Boss
In other words Dilbert's boss and synonymous with clueless manager.
Also, in an emergency, a CANDU, which uses heavy water, can't be cooled and moderated using sea water like in Fukushima
Nonsense, the heavy water actually promotes the reaction (it's a neutron moderator). Getting rid of it and cooling with normal fresh or sea water would be doable and simply serve the double role of cooling AND stopping the chain reaction (by virtue of not being heavy water).
It's even safer than that. The primary purpose of heavy water in a CANDU reactor is not to cool, but to act as a neutron moderator (it slows the neutrons down). Without this moderator the reaction stops (CANDU reactors do not use enriched uranium so neutron moderation is required to keep the chain reaction going). In addition to control rods CANDU reactor support either moderator poisoning (they inject chemicals into the moderator tank that absorb neutrons bringing the reaction to an end) or a moderator dump (they actually dump the heavy water from the moderator tank). This coupled with the non-enriched uranium just makes them plain safer. It's a shame they didn't sell more of them.
In 2009 and again in 2011, congress passed laws blocking the transfer of prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. They were part of omnibus spending bills, so refusing to sign them would have been a disaster. I don't know what you expected Obama to do, short of declaring himself emperor and ruling by decree.
Actually no, congress didn't outright block the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo. They simply imposed conditions (admittedly excessive ones) that needed to be met before the transfer could be made (unless I missed something). From the bill (section 9011) I know of we have:
(d) The President shall submit to Congress, in classified form, a plan regarding the proposed disposition of any individual covered by subsection (c) who is detained as of June 24, 2009. Such plan shall include, at a minimum, each of the following for each such individual:
(1) A determination of the risk that the individual might instigate an act of terrorism within the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, or the United States territories if the individual were so transferred.
(2) A determination of the risk that the individual might advocate, coerce, or incite violent extremism, ideologically motivated criminal activity, or acts of terrorism, among inmate populations at incarceration facilities within the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, or the United States territories if the individual were transferred to such a facility.
(3) The costs associated with transferring the individual in question.
(4) The legal rationale and associated court demands for transfer.
(5) A plan for mitigation of any risks described in paragraphs (1), (2), and (7).
(6) A copy of a notification to the Governor of the State to which the individual will be transferred, to the Mayor of the District of Columbia if the individual will be transferred to the District of Columbia, or to any United States territories with a certification by the Attorney General of the United States in classified form at least 14 days prior to such transfer (together with supporting documentation and justification) that the individual poses little or no security risk to the United States.
(7) An assessment of any risk to the national security of the United States or its citizens, including members of the Armed Services of the United States, that is posed by such transfer and the actions taken to mitigate such risk.
Yes, it's a lot of paper work (there's further notifications required 15 days prior to moving) but none of it is impossible. Also note, at no point does it require further approval of congress. Once the paperwork is submitted the President is good to go. Now admittedly, if he did try this congress would likely try to introduce a new bill blocking it (thus the 45 day notice) but hey, he could veto that one specifically unless overruled by congress in which case it really isn't his fault anymore. But he hasn't. The only thing stopping him at this point is paperwork. No law or specific prohibition from congress is doing it. And that is the disgraceful part of it.
Well, the second article I linked mentioned:
Within 40 miles of the damaged wellhead, the oil deposits appear extensive but patchy.
So it's likely they took at least one sample forty miles out (for the record a forty mile radius would be about 5000 square miles so obviously they didn't do uniform sampling over all that area). Hopefully the report itself will have more details, unfortunately I haven't been able to find a copy online anywhere.
As far as I can tell Dr Joye though seems to me fairly level headed and the media has been a little overzealous in reporting on her work. Even she admits there won't be any lasting damage saying “The Gulf is resilient" and “I do believe that it will recover from this insult, but I don’t think it’s going to recover fully by 2012." I believe she just wants people to realize that the damage was more extensive than reported and we may not see the full effect for a couple of years yet.
Another thing she pointed out in an interview she did was her sampling technique appears to be more precise than those typically used by BP and others. Apparently the "pools" of oil are fairly delicate and can be blown away if you don't take your core very carefully (i.e. slowly). BP re-measured several of her sites using her technique and came away with the same results she got. If anything, this should help improve the process used to monitor the area.
From this article:
In five different expeditions, the last one in December, Joye and colleagues took 250 cores of the sea floor and travelled across 2,600 square miles. Some of the locations she had been studying before the oil spill on April 20 and said there was a noticeable change.
Sounds like a fairly large survey to me. Definitely the largest to date (much larger than BP's "studies"). Now granted, I don't know if this entire area counts as "wellhead dives" as the language is a little vague but I'm confident we can believe her when she says the damage is extensive and widespread.
This is another interesting article postulating the mechanism behind the oil deposits.
before turbines came along, there simply were no large helicopters, only the tiny two-seaters.
Not strictly true. There where a handful of large piston engined helicopters like the S-58/H-34 which could carry ~6000 lbs (or 12 troops). But yes, turbine powered craft soon became the preferred option.
Well, we'll just have to hope that their competitors will implement the technology
Already have. Actually Alcatel is pretty much playing catchup with all this. Nortel introduced a 40Gb/s dual polarization coherent terminal 4 years ago (despite many people, including Alcatel, saying it wasn't possible). Furthermore Nortel Optical (now Ciena) already has a 100Gb/s version available. Alcatel is pretty late to this game.
Fermilab had a beam loss event in 2003 (beam came into contact with part of the ring). The beam drilled a 2.8 mm hole through a 5mm tungsten support. It also etched a groove 25 cm long and 1.5 mm deep into a stainless steel collimator (after passing through the tungsten). Apparently this took about 8.3 ms (over several turns of the beam) before the beam dissipated.
I'm guessing if you could insert your hand fast enough (not possible, even if there wasn't a vacuum tube) you would end up with a nice small hole drilled through your hand.
This is the report from the Fermi incident:
http://beamdocs.fnal.gov/DocDB/0011/001185/001/FN-751.pdf
FTA:
According to Horsfall and his fellow nails-tough tech developers, their carbide electronics can keep working up to temperatures of 900C. This is actually sufficient to withstand immersion in some lavas/magmas, though by no means all.
Apparently they aren't using Silicon based electronics so they don't need to keep the sensor that cool (at least from a silicon point of view). But even if the electronics can handle it I'm still not entirely sure what they would use to power it all (Sodium Nickel Chloride battery typically work between 270 and 350C, other molten salt batteries used in missile systems typically operate between 400-550C).
Personally I believe it was the delay from the license lawsuit that really killed it. The first couple of generations of LCD and Plasma's screens weren't cheap to produce either. But while the SED technology was mired in litigation the LCD and Plasma manufactures sold screens and used the money to develop better and cheaper manufacturing processes. Once the SED litigation was cleared up it was too late. They had missed the ramp up stage. The had an expensive new technology competing against a cheap mature one. The stupid thing is the biggest loser in the whole ordeal is probably Nano Proprietary, the ones who started the litigation in the first place. If they had just let the joint venture build the damn things they would be collecting royalty checks today. Instead they sued their only revenue source out of existence.
The $75 million cap does only apply to the economic impact to any disaster (lost jobs, business, property, etc). The companies are still on the hook for direct cleanup cost which is what BP has mostly paid to date (although typically the direct cleanup costs are the smaller part of any large scale disaster). BP has said they will cover all economic losses as well but it remains to be seen how truthful this is as the costs pile up (there's also the issue of the cap being removed if gross negligence can be proven....)
Could be. I'm not familiar with French nuclear reactor design. I am however familiar with Canadian CANDU reactors and can say with some certainty they are much safer than most (use unenriched fuel, require heavy water moderation, vacuum building, etc...). Not to say a CANDU accident wouldn't be bad but it would certainly be better than, say, Chernobyl. The point I'm trying to make is nuclear reactors can be built safer. Newer designs, like pebble bed reactors, can not melt down by design. If there wasn't such fear mongering about nuclear energy we could invest in and build these safer reactors. Instead we're stuck with many aging reactors with suspect safety records.
Not entirely sure how this helps your argument against nuclear energy. It just goes to show again that oil can be just as damaging as nuclear.
Yes, you can scrub, sequester, and convert fossil fuel emissions but as you stated it's not economically feasible. Recycling nuclear waste is economically feasible. They already do it in France and Britain. They don't do it in North America for political reasons (not technical or economic reasons).
And this is my issue with how people think about fossil fuels. We are shouldering the burden of using them. For example increased smog causes more health issues which places extra burden health care which we all end up paying for with taxes (well, outside the US at least). So in truth, we are paying them and paying extra for the clean-up (just in different ways). At least with nuclear energy the problem is fairly well contained and solutions do exist (admittedly some better than others).
And the oil industry has a cap of $75 million on the possible economic impact of their mistakes so I fail to see your point. If the gulf has taught us anything it should be that fossil fuel usage can cause disasters just as bad, if not worst, than nuclear energy.
As for nuclear storage, as others have pointed out, spent fuel can be recycled. The same can't be said for the waste products of fossil fuels. At the end of the day society pays a price for all our energy usage.