I know several people who use the Afghan cell networks, primarily Roshan. I think at least three are using their own personal cell phones, including an iPhone and a Blackberry. I don't remember the rates exactly, but it's reasonable considering the circumstances.
I use Skype to video chat every night on a commercial satellite ISP sponsored here on base by AAFES. I pay $100 a month for the top tier upload and download speed, and I think it's barely adequate to push the video upstream. Again, it's worth it to me.
This is not an autonomous robot, but a radio controlled robot. We've been using laser guided bombs since the 1970s and other robots for this purpose for years. Until they are using automatons (autonomous robots not controlled by a human operator) it is not breaking Azimovs law.
The liquid sodium part concerned me as well, but after looking into it more, I realized that the system was being used for years with a good safety record elsewhere. You're right though that I wouldn't want to be the guy to go fix a leak.
As for the abundance of fuel, even burning surplus warheads, we'll run out of fuel in the not so distant future, but even that isn't the main point of these reactors and the reprocessing. They can take high grade nuclear waste, which contains plutonium, which will be dangerous for 10s of thousands of years and use up all of the usable stuff, leaving products that are only dangerous for about 300 years (like Strontium, and Cadmium IIRC). This will obviate the need for the controversial long term (i.e. beyond the scope of known civilization) storage at places like Yucca Mountain.
The article was very disappointing because I didn't see any mention of the pyrometalurgical reprocessing and fast reactor design that would allow much more efficient use of the nuclear fuel. Current reactor designs and pebble bed only use about 3-5% of the Uranium (the U235 in the enriched Uranium), whereas the reprocessing method I mentioned above uses nearly all the heavy metals (actinydes) from Americium to Plutonium, including the Uranium 235 and U238.
There's a really good article (only a preview available) at Scientific American which explains the pyrometalurgical process and the fast reactors that allow this.
On the other hand, the reactors mentioned in the article won't hurt anything if the reactors I'm talking about get built later. They can supposedly burn up the nuclear waste from existing reactors.
Well, unless the procedure is easy to do, it's very unlikely to dent Apple's sales because many of the people who buy Macs don't want a hack job and will continue to buy a refined product. People who enjoy tweaking their systems and people who like to do this sort of thing who normally wouldn't get exposure to OS X will play with it and maybe they will like what they see. This in turn may lead them to buy a genuine Mac, or at least maybe buy, develop, or support OS X software.
I see this kind of like the DRM in iTunes. It's almost trivial to bypass, but good enough to keep an honest person honest. Building a bulletproof DRM is rather futile because people determined to do it will hammer it down eventually. I think Apple may have a similar philosophy here--good enough to keep honest people honest, or at least those who just want to use it, not build it (listen to music or use the computer).
Contrast this to the "bipartisan" Abramaoff bribery scandal, where no money was given to Democrats and Abramoff's clients decreased their giving to Democrats at Abramoff's direction.
I'm not a Republican or Democrat, so don't kneejerk me here...BUT what you said above is not factually correct or kind of ambiguous. Democrats allegedly DID get money as part of this scandle, such as Daschle, Reid, and Gephardt. (source) (source2) .
Dick Durbin, Pelosi and a couple of others are implicated as well. Looks to me like both sides got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, not just one.
Quote: "So that's a sign that either the propoganda is very successful, or that the US media is rather poor on fact checking."
Propaganda is the dissemination of your viewpoint, like advertising and doesn't necessarilly mean it's false or untrue. See the wiki article on propaganda
Not only that, but if they are using the reprocessing technology I think they are, they will be reducing dangerous nuclear waste in the process. The Dec 2005 issue of Sci Am discussed a fast reactor type similar to what is alluded to in the article linked to the main article. This reactor would "burn" all the Uranium, Plutonium and Thorium, leaving waste that only lasts about 300 years instead of 10s of thousands of years, like trace Plutonium left in today's reactor products. Imagine, disposing of nuclear waste that you don't have to worry about outliving civilization.
Read the article more closely and you will see that we will process and burn their nuclear waste. There was a good article in Scientific American in Dec 05, and I'm hoping that's the technique they are talking about. After reprocessing, the waste from other countries reactors and our own will be useable in this type of reactor discussed in the SciAm article. If not, other countries can use the fuel in their reactors, but not make bombs out of it.
There was a good Scientific American article in December 2005 about using fast reactors to use waste fuel from other reactors to produce power using pyrometalurgical techniques to process the fuel. I'm sorry but all Scientific American has is a preview of the article, entitled http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D556 0-D9B2-137C-99B283414B7F0000&ref=sciam&chanID=sa00 6 "Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste".
The gist of the article is that current thermal reactors use only 5% of the enriched nuclear fuel (U235) and the waste includes a lot of Plutonium, U238, and other actinydes that the process in the article would consume. This pyrometalurgical processing also prevents taking out the Plutonium--it takes out the waste products, like Strontium. Since it can consume U238, Thorium, etc. it would be able to "burn" something like 95% of the nuclear fuel and the waste products would be short lived radioactive waste.
I hope this is the procedure they are using, and not breeder reactors or conventional reprocessing.
I think the best driver would be purchases and rentals of the movie "Serenity" to show them how many people (like me) never saw the original series, but want to after seeing the movie. The danger here is convincing them to start the show back up on some sort of pay format only. If we can get them to put the series on iTMS or buy the series DVDs, it would show renewed interest in the series. It could also convince them how much money they can make off the series. Unfortunately, they could also decide to ONLY release it on paying formats, like iTMS or pay-per-view if they get the perception that they can milk the hard-core fanboys.
Obviously they pulled the plug because of perceptions about how many viewers they had. Afterwards, the movie "Serenity" came out. I think the best strategy to get the show back on is to get copies of "Serenity" purchased and rented, and the same for the DVDs of the series. That way, the studio should say "Oh, I people didn't know about this before and do now since the movie came out". If they see signs that more people will be watching, they will probably renew. I also think getting the old episodes on iTMS or other video download or pay-per-view would be good, but they might try to milk the hardcore fans instead of actually renewing the series on non-pay channels, like Sci-Fi.
I hear a lot of grousing on/. about SUVs, and I agree that most of it is a waste, but doesn't anyone on/. ever leave the city and do anything fun, like pull a boat out to a lake, or take a camper somewhere and enjoy nature instead of griping about it ebbing away?
That sounds backwards...why would they release the patch for "Home" users, most of whom probably wouldn't notice anyway, instead of "Pro" users, who mostly probably consider themselves power users and would tend to be more concerned about the security of their machine, or at least features?
Better yet, have "real people" (TM) apply to be the astronauts or maybe celebrities. Send them out there to do something that looks like they are working on the Hubble while the real astronauts do the work.
Maybe send vicious animals in EVA suits out with them, set up a fight scene or something. That will get people watching. They could advertise and pay for the whole shebang!
"Oh oh, Alec Baldwin looks like he's in real trouble here folks. Will he make it back inside the airlock before his suit completely depressurizes? Find out after these messages!"
Could what we see as Quasars really be these high powered lasers? Last time I checked, there were a lot of theories about what Quasars are, but no real solutions. Maybe that would explain why they are so incredibly bright--focused light in our direction trying to tell us something.
Also, anticipating it would take a while to get our attention, they don't shift the light from place to place, they have dedicated beams aiming here to ensure it's there when we are looking.
That would be like a sabot round, like a long hard highly dense dart that uses kinetic energy (high speed) to punch through. This system does not address this. This system protects against highly prevalent, easy to use, and cheap ATGW and rockets like the RPG.
Actually, look up Blue Force Tracking, or FBCB2. The Army has a system that has computer systems in every vehicle that are connected to a GPS to map your position. They are all connected via a tactical intranet that shares situational awareness so you know where all your friendly vehicles are. Enemy vehicles plotted into the system by any other vehicle is propagated to everyone elses screen to share that info.
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I know several people who use the Afghan cell networks, primarily Roshan. I think at least three are using their own personal cell phones, including an iPhone and a Blackberry. I don't remember the rates exactly, but it's reasonable considering the circumstances.
I use Skype to video chat every night on a commercial satellite ISP sponsored here on base by AAFES. I pay $100 a month for the top tier upload and download speed, and I think it's barely adequate to push the video upstream. Again, it's worth it to me.
Good luck, and stay safe.
This is not an autonomous robot, but a radio controlled robot. We've been using laser guided bombs since the 1970s and other robots for this purpose for years. Until they are using automatons (autonomous robots not controlled by a human operator) it is not breaking Azimovs law.
The liquid sodium part concerned me as well, but after looking into it more, I realized that the system was being used for years with a good safety record elsewhere. You're right though that I wouldn't want to be the guy to go fix a leak.
As for the abundance of fuel, even burning surplus warheads, we'll run out of fuel in the not so distant future, but even that isn't the main point of these reactors and the reprocessing. They can take high grade nuclear waste, which contains plutonium, which will be dangerous for 10s of thousands of years and use up all of the usable stuff, leaving products that are only dangerous for about 300 years (like Strontium, and Cadmium IIRC). This will obviate the need for the controversial long term (i.e. beyond the scope of known civilization) storage at places like Yucca Mountain.
The article was very disappointing because I didn't see any mention of the pyrometalurgical reprocessing and fast reactor design that would allow much more efficient use of the nuclear fuel. Current reactor designs and pebble bed only use about 3-5% of the Uranium (the U235 in the enriched Uranium), whereas the reprocessing method I mentioned above uses nearly all the heavy metals (actinydes) from Americium to Plutonium, including the Uranium 235 and U238.
There's a really good article (only a preview available) at Scientific American which explains the pyrometalurgical process and the fast reactors that allow this.
On the other hand, the reactors mentioned in the article won't hurt anything if the reactors I'm talking about get built later. They can supposedly burn up the nuclear waste from existing reactors.
Well, unless the procedure is easy to do, it's very unlikely to dent Apple's sales because many of the people who buy Macs don't want a hack job and will continue to buy a refined product. People who enjoy tweaking their systems and people who like to do this sort of thing who normally wouldn't get exposure to OS X will play with it and maybe they will like what they see. This in turn may lead them to buy a genuine Mac, or at least maybe buy, develop, or support OS X software.
I see this kind of like the DRM in iTunes. It's almost trivial to bypass, but good enough to keep an honest person honest. Building a bulletproof DRM is rather futile because people determined to do it will hammer it down eventually. I think Apple may have a similar philosophy here--good enough to keep honest people honest, or at least those who just want to use it, not build it (listen to music or use the computer).
Contrast this to the "bipartisan" Abramaoff bribery scandal, where no money was given to Democrats and Abramoff's clients decreased their giving to Democrats at Abramoff's direction. I'm not a Republican or Democrat, so don't kneejerk me here...BUT what you said above is not factually correct or kind of ambiguous. Democrats allegedly DID get money as part of this scandle, such as Daschle, Reid, and Gephardt. (source) (source2) . Dick Durbin, Pelosi and a couple of others are implicated as well. Looks to me like both sides got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, not just one.
Quote: "So that's a sign that either the propoganda is very successful, or that the US media is rather poor on fact checking." Propaganda is the dissemination of your viewpoint, like advertising and doesn't necessarilly mean it's false or untrue. See the wiki article on propaganda
Not only that, but if they are using the reprocessing technology I think they are, they will be reducing dangerous nuclear waste in the process. The Dec 2005 issue of Sci Am discussed a fast reactor type similar to what is alluded to in the article linked to the main article. This reactor would "burn" all the Uranium, Plutonium and Thorium, leaving waste that only lasts about 300 years instead of 10s of thousands of years, like trace Plutonium left in today's reactor products. Imagine, disposing of nuclear waste that you don't have to worry about outliving civilization.
He only got to pick it up and play with it at the event, not take it back to a lab to benchmark it.
Read the article more closely and you will see that we will process and burn their nuclear waste. There was a good article in Scientific American in Dec 05, and I'm hoping that's the technique they are talking about. After reprocessing, the waste from other countries reactors and our own will be useable in this type of reactor discussed in the SciAm article. If not, other countries can use the fuel in their reactors, but not make bombs out of it.
There was a good Scientific American article in December 2005 about using fast reactors to use waste fuel from other reactors to produce power using pyrometalurgical techniques to process the fuel. I'm sorry but all Scientific American has is a preview of the article, entitled http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D556 0-D9B2-137C-99B283414B7F0000&ref=sciam&chanID=sa00 6 "Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste".
The gist of the article is that current thermal reactors use only 5% of the enriched nuclear fuel (U235) and the waste includes a lot of Plutonium, U238, and other actinydes that the process in the article would consume. This pyrometalurgical processing also prevents taking out the Plutonium--it takes out the waste products, like Strontium. Since it can consume U238, Thorium, etc. it would be able to "burn" something like 95% of the nuclear fuel and the waste products would be short lived radioactive waste.
I hope this is the procedure they are using, and not breeder reactors or conventional reprocessing.
I think the best driver would be purchases and rentals of the movie "Serenity" to show them how many people (like me) never saw the original series, but want to after seeing the movie. The danger here is convincing them to start the show back up on some sort of pay format only. If we can get them to put the series on iTMS or buy the series DVDs, it would show renewed interest in the series. It could also convince them how much money they can make off the series. Unfortunately, they could also decide to ONLY release it on paying formats, like iTMS or pay-per-view if they get the perception that they can milk the hard-core fanboys.
Obviously they pulled the plug because of perceptions about how many viewers they had. Afterwards, the movie "Serenity" came out. I think the best strategy to get the show back on is to get copies of "Serenity" purchased and rented, and the same for the DVDs of the series. That way, the studio should say "Oh, I people didn't know about this before and do now since the movie came out". If they see signs that more people will be watching, they will probably renew. I also think getting the old episodes on iTMS or other video download or pay-per-view would be good, but they might try to milk the hardcore fans instead of actually renewing the series on non-pay channels, like Sci-Fi.
Ok, so I guess Volvo and Saab will be the first car manufacturers to go completely fossil free too then, huh?
I hear a lot of grousing on /. about SUVs, and I agree that most of it is a waste, but doesn't anyone on /. ever leave the city and do anything fun, like pull a boat out to a lake, or take a camper somewhere and enjoy nature instead of griping about it ebbing away?
That sounds backwards...why would they release the patch for "Home" users, most of whom probably wouldn't notice anyway, instead of "Pro" users, who mostly probably consider themselves power users and would tend to be more concerned about the security of their machine, or at least features?
I was replying to the assertion that sending astronauts would make it more exciting, and that we could make a reality show about it.
Better yet, have "real people" (TM) apply to be the astronauts or maybe celebrities. Send them out there to do something that looks like they are working on the Hubble while the real astronauts do the work.
Maybe send vicious animals in EVA suits out with them, set up a fight scene or something. That will get people watching. They could advertise and pay for the whole shebang!
"Oh oh, Alec Baldwin looks like he's in real trouble here folks. Will he make it back inside the airlock before his suit completely depressurizes? Find out after these messages!"
Could what we see as Quasars really be these high powered lasers? Last time I checked, there were a lot of theories about what Quasars are, but no real solutions. Maybe that would explain why they are so incredibly bright--focused light in our direction trying to tell us something.
Also, anticipating it would take a while to get our attention, they don't shift the light from place to place, they have dedicated beams aiming here to ensure it's there when we are looking.
Wow. How do I mod an article as flamebait?
That's what special forces do (unconventional warfare). That's what happened in Afghanistan in 2001.
If you read the article on Globalsecurity, there are other countries co-developing the railgun system with the US.
That would be like a sabot round, like a long hard highly dense dart that uses kinetic energy (high speed) to punch through. This system does not address this. This system protects against highly prevalent, easy to use, and cheap ATGW and rockets like the RPG.
...and the antennas are on the OUTSIDE so even if it were sealed, the signals exit the hull through the antenna.
Actually, look up Blue Force Tracking, or FBCB2. The Army has a system that has computer systems in every vehicle that are connected to a GPS to map your position. They are all connected via a tactical intranet that shares situational awareness so you know where all your friendly vehicles are. Enemy vehicles plotted into the system by any other vehicle is propagated to everyone elses screen to share that info.