Yes, Pu from U is relatively easy. One of the sources said it can be done with nitric acid using a machine about the size of a refrigerator. If you're not worried about safety, it's a lot easier.
Isotopes are a different problem, and I didn't make this clear. Pu isotopes have different fission properties. For a weapons, the Pu-239 alone is desirable; the other isotopes, particularly Pu-240, tend to spew neutrons that cause pre-ignition of the reaction, resulting is a "dirty" nuclear explosion and inefficient conversion of plutonium. Non-Pu-239 isotopes also make the material harder to handle because of spontaneous decay.
A commercial reactor, esp. light-water, produces a significant proportion of the "undesirable" isotopes. Separating isotopes, as with U, is a lot of work; it's better just to produce the Pu right in the first place, that is, get the right reactor in the right configuration, and run it correctly for the purpose. But if you're a hard-up tinpot dictator and can settle for a 1-kt boom, or at least poison a water supply, and your real goal is to extort aid or concessions from other countries, then several kilos of dirty Pu will tide you over.
I'd like to know what kind of efficiency the Indian and Pakistani bombs have. I read somewhere that the device to approach 100% fission would be a very large H-bomb, and so the small "neutron bomb" of the 80's was pitched misleadingly.
Hey, their need for token competition may be the only reason Apple has survived. If they'd yanked Office for Mac, the Mac would have been in serious trouble. Scary that a suite of generic applications can have so much influence.
Apple may be on its own legs securely now, as may Linux. It will be interesting when Microsoft has apples-to-apples competition, but because of Microsoft's efforts to shove everyone else off the store shelf it will be years before they can no longer manipulate "the competition."
If Microsoft is smart -- how many sentences start with those words? -- it will begin to adapt, but also wring every last dime out of the legacy products. `They haven't done well in their efforts to dominate new markets where they don't benefit from the Windows foundation, such as the internet and little game boxes. Gates, despite his claims, has no vision.
I'd like to patent online cheating. Licenses will come dear.
I used to wonder if my professors could be replaced by a VCR, perhaps even year to year with material that hasn't changed. But at some point the learning experience must be compromised, however great the financial savings.
Regardless... this sounds as bright as the one-click purchase patent. Can't these people just compete on quality of service?
Thanks, that's interesting. Of course, it conflicts with a lot of what I've read, but a lot of what I've read conflicts, too.:)
My understanding from many sources is that a breeder can produce material of 20-30% Pu. Yes, it "can breed more fissionable fuel than it burns" but that new fuel is (as I understand it) exactly the Pu-239 we fear. All Pu comes from reactors, anyway, it's just a question of technique, esp. removing the material after a brief bombardment by appropriate-speed neutrons.
Bombarded Pu-rich reactor fuel is not the only problem, there's also the fuel-grade Pu after reprocessing. I've seen a couple of accounts of fuel-grade Pu bombs detonated, and I assume if one had the facilities to purify the fuel it would be even easier.
There are serious technical hurdles to engineering the actual bomb, but here we want to deny them even the fuel. Plenty of countries have surmounted the techincal end, anyway, such as Pakistan. Even a sloppy detonation would be bad enough. BTW, I'm not thinking about terrorists, unless they somehow stole a complete weapon. They'd take the surer low-tech path of a dirty bomb or flying a plane into a building, etc. Terrorists with nukes are a Hollywood thing for now.
On policy, here is a rather different account of why we don't reprocess -- economics. According to this account, Reagan vacated the Carter order in 1981. Truth?
I don'y usually respond to a response to a response, but...
I like your idea of delivering power from SK. It's probably practical -- power in the U.S. is sold over very long distances. The problem is that NK would not accept it, not least because it would give us a big on/off switch to push them around with.
On the first point, I made the mistake of semi-quoting the article. You're right, but I think the writer reasonably meant to indicate this one offered substantial advantages for monitors; perhaps use as a breeder becomes impractical. Someone else already complained about this.
On the second, there is a natural reactor in Africa that years ago produced some plutonium. I included "virtually" to avoid nitpickers who know this, but forgot about the nitpickers who do not.:)
The pu.org site has other interesting info about, guess what, Pu.
For purposes of monitoring -- and unless we are going to ban all distrusted powers from using nuclear energu, monitoring will be required -- should be easier here. Knowing nothing about reactor design, this one included, I don't know was kind of tamper-proofing could be used. I'm picturing a great big seal.... Anyway, I suspect it would be a lot easier than what we've been doing with cameras and stuff, and less invasive, too.
That softball Finland piece -- which I saw -- is hardly ammo enough to take out every program they do. The quality of a piece depends a lot on who produced it.
The striking and non-interpretive thing did was simply a space photo of the Korean peninsula at night -- all dark above the border and bright cities to the south. Relevant here was the fact that without Russian aid they are quite desperate, something that has been reported widely and should be accounted for in the eventual negotiated settlement we will need unless we really want to make them a colony. N. Korea I *do* know something about and I didn't detect anything horribly wrong with their report.
Finland -- I agree, that was pretty silly! I think it was intended to be "fluff." I tend to assume all media reports could be totally off the mark, but think 60 Minutes does OK for TV journalism.
Our policy doesn't look so idiotic after what happened in Japan last week, with North Korea right in their back yard and well-known for its infiltration missions. In the U.S. we may feel more secure, but we've had plenty of nasty surprises in the last few years.
Stolen reprocessed plutonium would be very useful for a dirty bomb. It would have to be enriched before making a bomb, but it would be a headstart and obviate a nucleare reactor to make the Pu.
I don't think the problem is that we're overflowing in nuclear waste. The problem is we've had so much trouble confronting where exactly to put the stuff because of political opposition. Countries like Japan and France have far less oil, and this desperation makes the nuclear power sacrifices less daunting.
Old nuclear fuel is sequestered in ceramics and buried. There is not that much need to guard it. Nuclear fuel grade uranium is only 2-3% enriched U-235 to begin with, so its a -long- way from being particularly useful. Old weapons-grade Pu is mixed with material like U-238 to make it useless. With Iraq or N. Korea, the big challenge they face is not getting material, but purifying it.
So... I think our policy is debatable but not idiotic.
IIRC, that stuff called LLRW (low-level radioactive waste) is not that big a deal, in either strength or half-life radioactivity. It is a lot of volume, and can be toxic, but the really nasty long-lived stuff that must be sequestrered carefully is mostly products of the pile itself, like radioactive plutonium and strontium and so on.
It's fairly hard to make something radioative by exposure. The LLWR is largely stuff that has come into contact with radioactive material, as in processing, hence comtamination.
The biggest problem with LLRW is political -- people don't want it in their back yard. And I don't blame them -- given a choice of your yard or mine, I'd pick yours.:) But the health hazard is exaggerated.
I think the really interesting thing here is that the reactor cannot be used as a breeder. That would make it an excellent candidate to require nations like North Korea to switch to. (If you think that's the way to go. NK is VERY energy poor now that the Russians no longer send oil. 60 Minutes did an excellent piece on them last night.)
All reactors IIRC produce some plutonium, from bombarded U-238 (virtually all Pu is manmade). Breeders produce a lot. The "waste" which is U-235 depleted but plutonium enriched must be further processed to produce weapons-grade material. For 25 years we have banned reprocessing even to the level needed for use as fuel because of the concern is could be stolen and further enriched. Some countries like France and Japan disagree and do reprocess. The scare in Japan last week illustrates the risk. Most people here would agree there' no such thing as perfect security, esp. with the universal hazards of corruption, accident, and incompetence.
Even if the thieves were unable to purify the material, it would make excellent "dirty bomb" material. Pu is not especially radioactive, absent heavy chain reaction, but it is very toxic and dangerous to ingest or inhale where it might lodge and expose sensitive tissue to prolonged damage.
It's a shame nuclear policy is so constrained by weapons issues.
Yes, that's the defense NASA attempted to use. But it was NASA that put enormous pressure on Morton Thiokol to reverse its earlier unanimous no-go recommendation. They got the answer they wanted to hear, to MT's discredit. But the investigation showed that NASA placed keeping the schedule over safety, in a marked departure from past practice, and it was NASA that made the ultimate decision over the conflicting recommendatiosn of its subcontractor. NASA was *not* hoodwinked by MT; but because MT failed to stand its ground, the blame is shared.
Read any of multiple accounts of the investigation.
You can't just "park" at the ISS like you're checking into a Motel 6.
I know this is a serious time, which is why I thank Jim for giving me a great laugh.
It is unfortunate that when NASA is condemned everyone in it is effectively condemned as well. Even if Columbia proves to have been either a design defect or a management problem -- or some of each, as was Challenger -- it says very little about whether the individuals involved were bright or dim. Indeed, I think assigning relative responsibility will be a lot more complicated than reconstructing the accident itself.
What's going on now is a lot of armchair quarterbacking. Anyone who tells you the ball's not in play is full of it. It will be many months before satisfactory answers even begin to emerge. I'm intrigued that they invited the NTSB to participate. In my experience the Board does excellent, sober, and surprisingly nonpolitical analyses of aircraft accidents.
Whateverf happens, it's important to stress that space travel is dangerous. We knew an accident was, what, a 1-in-300 to 1-in-500 probability? (Maybe my numbers are old? But I recently toyed with them to estimate the chances of 100 successful flights in a row at about 70% -- not overwhelming.) Challenger wasn't expected, but it can't be treated as this unholy surprise that must have resulted from foul play or gross negligence.
Anyway, thanks for the barbed rebuke, Jim. This spectator appreciated it.
VERY good point. We also need an independent commission assembling the record for 9/11 -- a rant for another day. Going in, though, we should bear in mind that the Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive, holding information as close as possible.
Here is what I just wrote elsewhere on the Challenger accident, which has been continually misrepresented as a defect discovered after the tragedy. NASA's culpability was great, and its reluctance to point a finger at itself even greater. Enter Feynmann, who frequently clashed with authority and was quite good at it, even funny.
I like it that you refer to her as Dr. and in the present tense, too. Instinctual respect. My kudos.
If ethnicities and genders matter here, there was a striking mix on the Challenger. It is a tragedy however you view it, but at least there will not be one odd one out like Christa McAuliffe for the media to fixate on and eclipse the others. The individual astronauts will be treated as equals, and human beings, joined from all different kinds.
The Challenger disaster O ring problem only came to light several months after the disaster. And it took Dick Feynman's demonstration with the ice water for the theory to be accepted as fact.
The O-ring problem was more insidious and reflected terribly on NASA. The engineers knew about the design defect from actual twisted and scorched O-rings recovered from previous flights. The failure of the O-rings to seat properly on booster ignition was exacerbated not created by cold temperature. The Challenger launch was about 20 below design spec limit of 53F.
NASA repeatedly disregarded the advice of the engineers who designed the system and issued itself waivers to fly well below the design temperature cutoff. The booster design could have been better, and now is, but it is false that the Challenger accident was what brought it to NASA's attention.
Here is a brief account of the history as I have come to believe it occurred. There are many more thorough accounts.
This is not to dismiss Feynmann's role -- his insistence brought O-rings to the fore -- but whistleblower MT engineer Robert Boisjoly was complaining loudly long before the accident.
Why bring this up now? Because we're still hearing the sound bite that Challenger "was due to faulty design" which is true but kind of like saying the drunk died because of his faulty seat belt that didn't save him on hitting his seventh tree.
Challenger was a matter of time. The complex failures of management often set the stage for disaster, and I'm sure Columbia will be far more complex that "act of God."
Yes, I misspoke. But you get the point, their OS happens to be called Windows. (DOS is just a bad memory, right?)
Re Apple, the question arise from vertical integration and tying concerns. Microsoft itself was sued under multiple theories, there are several ways to stumble over antitrust (and MS hits most of them). Apple has been extremely open, with the exception of extinguishing the clones, but I wonder if it would make a difference if they radically changed their policies, such as publishing API's (as it has always done with fairly good accuracy). It's a thought experiment. Imagine all those millions of Mac users who rely on Apple -- they can't just up an switch to Windows (god forbid) and linux is not directly comparable (yet).
I happen to trust Apple, that's why I'm typing on an iBook, but it's interesting to speculate. In practical, not legal, terms, I do worry Apple is sowing uncertainty among developers who will worry any app they develop will get whalloped by a free Apple alternative.
just getting ready to invest in a 12" powerbook (Mac #8 in my life)
Eighth Mac -- all at once? I think you get a short hop in Jobs' jet if you have that many.
We have 3, plus various legacy machines in the basement. And an Apple ][+. I kinda wish I'd kept the Macintosh SE, though being sentimental about a computer is ridiculous (I sold the thing long ago for $1000; you can get one now on eBay for $5). Mac users seems particularly prone to this weird sentimentality.
The iBook is a lovely thing... I'm typing on a radioactive green "clunker."
I laughed when I saw this story because just now I was trying to understand Apple's relationship with Linux regarding Quicktime. I complained earlier today to the U.S. Mint because of this page, which is a sublte advertisement for the Microsoft Media Player. WMP has significant proprietary features, and just linking to Microsoft as the sole standard implies something.
The immediate licensing problem in WMP may simply be a side effect of DRM, but of course Microsoft intends to use WMP as a wedge to push its own standards into what is now fairly generic commerce -- as it did with MSIE. I told the rep at the U.S. Mint (who knows if anyone will care) that it was unseemly for the government to tacitly endorse a private company by offering just one format, even providing a link to the company's site to get the player, especially where across town the government just recently busted Microsoft for monopoly abuse.
Anyway, Apple doesn't make a QT player for Linux (right?) but appears supportive of it (right?), and there are options to access QT content from *nix. Meanwhile, Microsoft's antagonism towards GPL is very well known, and may appear over WMP. Of course, generic MPEG does streaming, which QT plugins will play. (Also, there's Real, yech.) Maybe this is most another Windows versus Macintosh struggle, but I'd hate to see the government take sides, and I don't trust MS.
On standards and compatibility... I've written several emails to other government sites that sport the infernal "best viewed with Internet Explorer" links. I doubt I can take credit, but my state of Virginia dropped the MSIE tags. (They originally wrote back explaining, "Frontpage told us to say that.":)
BTW... why was I hanging out at the U.S. Mint site? My 6 y.o. thinks the state quarter program is very cool, and the Mint even has a whole kids' site built around the damn things. I'm getting tired of state factoids, but am impressed by the savvy of the Mint. We've already calculated how much the Mint would make if everyone in the U.S. took a complete set of commemorative quarters out of circulation.
I dunno, that "live free or die" thing makes me nervous.;-)
(For the uninformed, that's a reference to their license plate, not social practice.)
Isn't NH still debating secession? It used to. Before you jusge other states too harshly, your citizens are relatively well-off, giving room for relatively lower taxes that net relatively high revenue. I imagine property in NH is worth a lot more than property in Mississippi, for example.
It's a cool state, though I kinda liked Vermont, too. I know, communists. I like Maine, too. Hey, it's a nice place to live, and I envy you. (Though i do like Virginia, too. Once you've lived enough places you get flexible.)
Our property tax rate is just under 1%, and our assessments are unfortunately accurate and very high -- I live close to DC.
That state dividend tax -- I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some states RAISE that tax if the nat'l one is abolished. It's a golden opportunity to seize some revenue without anyon seeing their total tax bills go up, and a lot of states need the money right now thanks to the economy..... Now, if the economy were to improve... I guess that's talking crazy.;-)
Notice that I wrote "I'm pretty sure MA had the highest cumulative taxes of anywhere I've lived."
I was particularly impressed when I stopped working and went to upstate NY for school. Because of a peculiarity in NY law, I learned that they expected to tax my MA income before I even moved to NY. After paying NY tax plus penalties and refiling in MA, I came out ahead several hundred dollars!
MA pulls all kinds of stuff to slip taxes in discreetly. When I was there they faced a budget shortfall and so raised fees. To get a reciprocal driver's license from out-of-state, the fee was suddenly over $75. I think IL charged $15. I don't know which fee better represents actual costs, but one was or the other the taxpayer pays for it.
It's not important who is #1, unless it's a competition; it is important who is high tax. MA is absolutely high-tax, the 5.5% base rate + 5% sales tax + the astonishing 12% tax on "unearned income." (I don't know why they don't just go to a progressive tax structure that would give low income earners a break while taxing more those who can afford it -- the 12% just encourages restructuring finances, such as investing in state-tax-free federal obligations like T-bills that would otherwise be unattractive.) It's not like property taxes are low, either. If they now crack down on use tax in a way other states have not, it will be just another example of the state's tax focus.
Don't get me wrong, I think MA is a great state and would like to live there again, but its inefficient gov't coupled with a poor economy makes it an uninviting place for individuals and businesses. The services (I couldn't believe the ease of the Virginia DMV) do not reflect the high taxes. This is not to the state's benefit.
All bets are off when it comes to grand juries.:) Their investigatory pwoer is amazing, as Ken Starr demonstrated. But at least they only do indictments.
I just rechecked re admissibility and am unhappy to see that in the last few years federal courts are reconsidering the per se exclusion of polygraph tests, largely because of a Supreme Court case called Daubert. States have a variety of rules, most very hostile to polygraph.
I didn't know about the Act -- thanks (I see that it has other exceptions). There has been a lot written about the increasing use of the polygraph as a gov't screening measure, despite its multiple failures. I'm concerned that little effort seems to be going into measures that really do advance security.
Actually singling out food for different treatment is very common. I think I remember it in MA, IL, CA, NY, and VA. The poor spend a very high % of their income on food, so reducing or eliminating the supermarket food tax provides a more significant break to them than it does to others.
One weirdness in MA is the different taxation of "unearned income" like dividends. When I was there, it ran double the ordinary rate of 6%. If President Bush's proposed abolition of the dividend tax goes through, Mass. could well conclude it was reasonable to double its own taxation of dividends -- why let that money go to waste?:) (Thanks, I hadn't thought of that add'l argument against the tax break -- unless its backers really do intend to shift income to the states!)
I'm pretty sure MA had the highest cumulative taxes of anywhere I've lived.
I like your point that only honest people pay those taxes. I certainly feel like a schmuck when I fill in that field.
Ah yes, the famed "schmuck tax." Good thing I'm not a schmuck.:)
You forgot local taxes. That makes 3 gov't entities. I looked up the French tax system and see local business tax and property tax, which you probably paid through rent and purchasing services. The web page says France gets 50% of its revenue from the VAT. " The standard rate of VAT on the sale of goods and services is 19.6%, but lower rates are applicable in many cases. In particular, the rate is 5.5% for food, some agricultural products, medicine (5.5% or 2.5%), books, hotels, public transport, newspapers and magazines (5.5% or 2.1%), some types of entertainment, etc."
More on France -- I'm looking at a table and see that the U.K., France, and Italy are pretty crowded at 60 million each; reunified Germany is over 80. (Wow, look at the variation in infant mortality... more stuff.) The U.S. is closing in on 300 million I think, and of course is geographically much larger. But economically, the U.S. is *really* big. I recently checked California and found that at population of 34 million, if on its own it would form the world's sixth largest economy.
Tax theory is complicated, I know only a little bit of it, and I mentioned even less. I think it's pretty fascinating, though, to see what was intended versus how it plays out. The method of taxation definitely influences behavior, adding a layer of policy choices to the basic task of raising money. Neutrality is impossible, though a friend of a friend thinks everyone should simply get an identical bill for their share of the bill. An interesting puzzle is the effect of Pres. Bush's abolition of the dividend tax, aside from the obvious one of benefitting the wealthy.
There is a similar notion called "tax incidence" that looks at who takes the ultimate hit from a new tax. For things like corporate or VAT, it's not always the consumer because in some circumstances the company can't pass it along and takes the hit in its profits. Even if the end-user pays the tax, maybe they turn around and pressure their employer for more money. And so on, and so on.
In California, I remember there was a slightly different tax rate if you bought your donuts to eat in or take out. Kind of silly.
The US is decentralized, so we pay locally. Europeans are centralized, so they pay nationally.
Some U.S. states are as big as any country in Europe. So Europe's national looks a lot like some states' local. Also, the American federal gov't handles a lot of money, and imposes the vast majority of income taxation. I don't think it's clear who is more centralized.
Of course VAT's "work," though one can question efficiency. VAT's -- or "consumption tax" -- don't mean higher taxation. European taxes are generally much higher, but their citizens also expect a much higher level of services. VAT's are thought to encourage saving and investment; the American model is more to encourage greater consumption.
The usual purpose of imposing a lower rate on food is to reduce the regressive aspect of the tax. The poor tend to spend a higher fraction of their money on food. We have the same special food rate in many places in the U.S.
My point, anyway, was exactly that Americans pay more tax than they realize as they routinely overlook the sales tax. Among the various states, the income tax, sales tax, and property tax very a great deal. I'm not wild about the use tax, though it's basically fair, because of the record-keeping headache and that only especially honest people pay it.
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Yes, Pu from U is relatively easy. One of the sources said it can be done with nitric acid using a machine about the size of a refrigerator. If you're not worried about safety, it's a lot easier.
Isotopes are a different problem, and I didn't make this clear. Pu isotopes have different fission properties. For a weapons, the Pu-239 alone is desirable; the other isotopes, particularly Pu-240, tend to spew neutrons that cause pre-ignition of the reaction, resulting is a "dirty" nuclear explosion and inefficient conversion of plutonium. Non-Pu-239 isotopes also make the material harder to handle because of spontaneous decay.
A commercial reactor, esp. light-water, produces a significant proportion of the "undesirable" isotopes. Separating isotopes, as with U, is a lot of work; it's better just to produce the Pu right in the first place, that is, get the right reactor in the right configuration, and run it correctly for the purpose. But if you're a hard-up tinpot dictator and can settle for a 1-kt boom, or at least poison a water supply, and your real goal is to extort aid or concessions from other countries, then several kilos of dirty Pu will tide you over.
I'd like to know what kind of efficiency the Indian and Pakistani bombs have. I read somewhere that the device to approach 100% fission would be a very large H-bomb, and so the small "neutron bomb" of the 80's was pitched misleadingly.
Hey, their need for token competition may be the only reason Apple has survived. If they'd yanked Office for Mac, the Mac would have been in serious trouble. Scary that a suite of generic applications can have so much influence.
Apple may be on its own legs securely now, as may Linux. It will be interesting when Microsoft has apples-to-apples competition, but because of Microsoft's efforts to shove everyone else off the store shelf it will be years before they can no longer manipulate "the competition."
If Microsoft is smart -- how many sentences start with those words? -- it will begin to adapt, but also wring every last dime out of the legacy products. `They haven't done well in their efforts to dominate new markets where they don't benefit from the Windows foundation, such as the internet and little game boxes. Gates, despite his claims, has no vision.
I'd like to patent online cheating. Licenses will come dear.
... this sounds as bright as the one-click purchase patent. Can't these people just compete on quality of service?
I used to wonder if my professors could be replaced by a VCR, perhaps even year to year with material that hasn't changed. But at some point the learning experience must be compromised, however great the financial savings.
Regardless
Thanks, that's interesting. Of course, it conflicts with a lot of what I've read, but a lot of what I've read conflicts, too. :)
My understanding from many sources is that a breeder can produce material of 20-30% Pu. Yes, it "can breed more fissionable fuel than it burns" but that new fuel is (as I understand it) exactly the Pu-239 we fear. All Pu comes from reactors, anyway, it's just a question of technique, esp. removing the material after a brief bombardment by appropriate-speed neutrons.
Bombarded Pu-rich reactor fuel is not the only problem, there's also the fuel-grade Pu after reprocessing. I've seen a couple of accounts of fuel-grade Pu bombs detonated, and I assume if one had the facilities to purify the fuel it would be even easier.
There are serious technical hurdles to engineering the actual bomb, but here we want to deny them even the fuel. Plenty of countries have surmounted the techincal end, anyway, such as Pakistan. Even a sloppy detonation would be bad enough. BTW, I'm not thinking about terrorists, unless they somehow stole a complete weapon. They'd take the surer low-tech path of a dirty bomb or flying a plane into a building, etc. Terrorists with nukes are a Hollywood thing for now.
On policy, here is a rather different account of why we don't reprocess -- economics. According to this account, Reagan vacated the Carter order in 1981. Truth?
I don'y usually respond to a response to a response, but...
I like your idea of delivering power from SK. It's probably practical -- power in the U.S. is sold over very long distances. The problem is that NK would not accept it, not least because it would give us a big on/off switch to push them around with.
On the first point, I made the mistake of semi-quoting the article. You're right, but I think the writer reasonably meant to indicate this one offered substantial advantages for monitors; perhaps use as a breeder becomes impractical. Someone else already complained about this.
:)
On the second, there is a natural reactor in Africa that years ago produced some plutonium. I included "virtually" to avoid nitpickers who know this, but forgot about the nitpickers who do not.
The pu.org site has other interesting info about, guess what, Pu.
OK: cannot READILY be used as a breeder :)
For purposes of monitoring -- and unless we are going to ban all distrusted powers from using nuclear energu, monitoring will be required -- should be easier here. Knowing nothing about reactor design, this one included, I don't know was kind of tamper-proofing could be used. I'm picturing a great big seal.... Anyway, I suspect it would be a lot easier than what we've been doing with cameras and stuff, and less invasive, too.
That softball Finland piece -- which I saw -- is hardly ammo enough to take out every program they do. The quality of a piece depends a lot on who produced it.
The striking and non-interpretive thing did was simply a space photo of the Korean peninsula at night -- all dark above the border and bright cities to the south. Relevant here was the fact that without Russian aid they are quite desperate, something that has been reported widely and should be accounted for in the eventual negotiated settlement we will need unless we really want to make them a colony. N. Korea I *do* know something about and I didn't detect anything horribly wrong with their report.
Finland -- I agree, that was pretty silly! I think it was intended to be "fluff." I tend to assume all media reports could be totally off the mark, but think 60 Minutes does OK for TV journalism.
Our policy doesn't look so idiotic after what happened in Japan last week, with North Korea right in their back yard and well-known for its infiltration missions. In the U.S. we may feel more secure, but we've had plenty of nasty surprises in the last few years.
... I think our policy is debatable but not idiotic.
Stolen reprocessed plutonium would be very useful for a dirty bomb. It would have to be enriched before making a bomb, but it would be a headstart and obviate a nucleare reactor to make the Pu.
I don't think the problem is that we're overflowing in nuclear waste. The problem is we've had so much trouble confronting where exactly to put the stuff because of political opposition. Countries like Japan and France have far less oil, and this desperation makes the nuclear power sacrifices less daunting.
Old nuclear fuel is sequestered in ceramics and buried. There is not that much need to guard it. Nuclear fuel grade uranium is only 2-3% enriched U-235 to begin with, so its a -long- way from being particularly useful. Old weapons-grade Pu is mixed with material like U-238 to make it useless. With Iraq or N. Korea, the big challenge they face is not getting material, but purifying it.
So
IIRC, that stuff called LLRW (low-level radioactive waste) is not that big a deal, in either strength or half-life radioactivity. It is a lot of volume, and can be toxic, but the really nasty long-lived stuff that must be sequestrered carefully is mostly products of the pile itself, like radioactive plutonium and strontium and so on.
:) But the health hazard is exaggerated.
It's fairly hard to make something radioative by exposure. The LLWR is largely stuff that has come into contact with radioactive material, as in processing, hence comtamination.
The biggest problem with LLRW is political -- people don't want it in their back yard. And I don't blame them -- given a choice of your yard or mine, I'd pick yours.
I think the really interesting thing here is that the reactor cannot be used as a breeder. That would make it an excellent candidate to require nations like North Korea to switch to. (If you think that's the way to go. NK is VERY energy poor now that the Russians no longer send oil. 60 Minutes did an excellent piece on them last night.)
All reactors IIRC produce some plutonium, from bombarded U-238 (virtually all Pu is manmade). Breeders produce a lot. The "waste" which is U-235 depleted but plutonium enriched must be further processed to produce weapons-grade material. For 25 years we have banned reprocessing even to the level needed for use as fuel because of the concern is could be stolen and further enriched. Some countries like France and Japan disagree and do reprocess. The scare in Japan last week illustrates the risk. Most people here would agree there' no such thing as perfect security, esp. with the universal hazards of corruption, accident, and incompetence.
Even if the thieves were unable to purify the material, it would make excellent "dirty bomb" material. Pu is not especially radioactive, absent heavy chain reaction, but it is very toxic and dangerous to ingest or inhale where it might lodge and expose sensitive tissue to prolonged damage.
It's a shame nuclear policy is so constrained by weapons issues.
Yes, that's the defense NASA attempted to use. But it was NASA that put enormous pressure on Morton Thiokol to reverse its earlier unanimous no-go recommendation. They got the answer they wanted to hear, to MT's discredit. But the investigation showed that NASA placed keeping the schedule over safety, in a marked departure from past practice, and it was NASA that made the ultimate decision over the conflicting recommendatiosn of its subcontractor. NASA was *not* hoodwinked by MT; but because MT failed to stand its ground, the blame is shared.
Read any of multiple accounts of the investigation.
You can't just "park" at the ISS like you're checking into a Motel 6.
I know this is a serious time, which is why I thank Jim for giving me a great laugh.
It is unfortunate that when NASA is condemned everyone in it is effectively condemned as well. Even if Columbia proves to have been either a design defect or a management problem -- or some of each, as was Challenger -- it says very little about whether the individuals involved were bright or dim. Indeed, I think assigning relative responsibility will be a lot more complicated than reconstructing the accident itself.
What's going on now is a lot of armchair quarterbacking. Anyone who tells you the ball's not in play is full of it. It will be many months before satisfactory answers even begin to emerge. I'm intrigued that they invited the NTSB to participate. In my experience the Board does excellent, sober, and surprisingly nonpolitical analyses of aircraft accidents.
Whateverf happens, it's important to stress that space travel is dangerous. We knew an accident was, what, a 1-in-300 to 1-in-500 probability? (Maybe my numbers are old? But I recently toyed with them to estimate the chances of 100 successful flights in a row at about 70% -- not overwhelming.) Challenger wasn't expected, but it can't be treated as this unholy surprise that must have resulted from foul play or gross negligence.
Anyway, thanks for the barbed rebuke, Jim. This spectator appreciated it.
VERY good point. We also need an independent commission assembling the record for 9/11 -- a rant for another day. Going in, though, we should bear in mind that the Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive, holding information as close as possible.
Here is what I just wrote elsewhere on the Challenger accident, which has been continually misrepresented as a defect discovered after the tragedy. NASA's culpability was great, and its reluctance to point a finger at itself even greater. Enter Feynmann, who frequently clashed with authority and was quite good at it, even funny.
It will be hard to find another Feynmann here.
I like it that you refer to her as Dr. and in the present tense, too. Instinctual respect. My kudos.
If ethnicities and genders matter here, there was a striking mix on the Challenger. It is a tragedy however you view it, but at least there will not be one odd one out like Christa McAuliffe for the media to fixate on and eclipse the others. The individual astronauts will be treated as equals, and human beings, joined from all different kinds.
Such a waste.
The Challenger disaster O ring problem only came to light several months after the disaster. And it took Dick Feynman's demonstration with the ice water for the theory to be accepted as fact.
The O-ring problem was more insidious and reflected terribly on NASA. The engineers knew about the design defect from actual twisted and scorched O-rings recovered from previous flights. The failure of the O-rings to seat properly on booster ignition was exacerbated not created by cold temperature. The Challenger launch was about 20 below design spec limit of 53F.
NASA repeatedly disregarded the advice of the engineers who designed the system and issued itself waivers to fly well below the design temperature cutoff. The booster design could have been better, and now is, but it is false that the Challenger accident was what brought it to NASA's attention.
Here is a brief account of the history as I have come to believe it occurred. There are many more thorough accounts.
This is not to dismiss Feynmann's role -- his insistence brought O-rings to the fore -- but whistleblower MT engineer Robert Boisjoly was complaining loudly long before the accident.
Why bring this up now? Because we're still hearing the sound bite that Challenger "was due to faulty design" which is true but kind of like saying the drunk died because of his faulty seat belt that didn't save him on hitting his seventh tree.
Challenger was a matter of time. The complex failures of management often set the stage for disaster, and I'm sure Columbia will be far more complex that "act of God."
Yes, I misspoke. But you get the point, their OS happens to be called Windows. (DOS is just a bad memory, right?)
Re Apple, the question arise from vertical integration and tying concerns. Microsoft itself was sued under multiple theories, there are several ways to stumble over antitrust (and MS hits most of them). Apple has been extremely open, with the exception of extinguishing the clones, but I wonder if it would make a difference if they radically changed their policies, such as publishing API's (as it has always done with fairly good accuracy). It's a thought experiment. Imagine all those millions of Mac users who rely on Apple -- they can't just up an switch to Windows (god forbid) and linux is not directly comparable (yet).
I happen to trust Apple, that's why I'm typing on an iBook, but it's interesting to speculate. In practical, not legal, terms, I do worry Apple is sowing uncertainty among developers who will worry any app they develop will get whalloped by a free Apple alternative.
just getting ready to invest in a 12" powerbook (Mac #8 in my life)
... I'm typing on a radioactive green "clunker."
Eighth Mac -- all at once? I think you get a short hop in Jobs' jet if you have that many.
We have 3, plus various legacy machines in the basement. And an Apple ][+. I kinda wish I'd kept the Macintosh SE, though being sentimental about a computer is ridiculous (I sold the thing long ago for $1000; you can get one now on eBay for $5). Mac users seems particularly prone to this weird sentimentality.
The iBook is a lovely thing
I laughed when I saw this story because just now I was trying to understand Apple's relationship with Linux regarding Quicktime. I complained earlier today to the U.S. Mint because of this page, which is a sublte advertisement for the Microsoft Media Player. WMP has significant proprietary features, and just linking to Microsoft as the sole standard implies something.
... I've written several emails to other government sites that sport the infernal "best viewed with Internet Explorer" links. I doubt I can take credit, but my state of Virginia dropped the MSIE tags. (They originally wrote back explaining, "Frontpage told us to say that." :)
... why was I hanging out at the U.S. Mint site? My 6 y.o. thinks the state quarter program is very cool, and the Mint even has a whole kids' site built around the damn things. I'm getting tired of state factoids, but am impressed by the savvy of the Mint. We've already calculated how much the Mint would make if everyone in the U.S. took a complete set of commemorative quarters out of circulation.
The immediate licensing problem in WMP may simply be a side effect of DRM, but of course Microsoft intends to use WMP as a wedge to push its own standards into what is now fairly generic commerce -- as it did with MSIE. I told the rep at the U.S. Mint (who knows if anyone will care) that it was unseemly for the government to tacitly endorse a private company by offering just one format, even providing a link to the company's site to get the player, especially where across town the government just recently busted Microsoft for monopoly abuse.
Anyway, Apple doesn't make a QT player for Linux (right?) but appears supportive of it (right?), and there are options to access QT content from *nix. Meanwhile, Microsoft's antagonism towards GPL is very well known, and may appear over WMP. Of course, generic MPEG does streaming, which QT plugins will play. (Also, there's Real, yech.) Maybe this is most another Windows versus Macintosh struggle, but I'd hate to see the government take sides, and I don't trust MS.
On standards and compatibility
BTW
I dunno, that "live free or die" thing makes me nervous. ;-)
... I guess that's talking crazy. ;-)
(For the uninformed, that's a reference to their license plate, not social practice.)
Isn't NH still debating secession? It used to. Before you jusge other states too harshly, your citizens are relatively well-off, giving room for relatively lower taxes that net relatively high revenue. I imagine property in NH is worth a lot more than property in Mississippi, for example.
It's a cool state, though I kinda liked Vermont, too. I know, communists. I like Maine, too. Hey, it's a nice place to live, and I envy you. (Though i do like Virginia, too. Once you've lived enough places you get flexible.)
Our property tax rate is just under 1%, and our assessments are unfortunately accurate and very high -- I live close to DC.
That state dividend tax -- I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some states RAISE that tax if the nat'l one is abolished. It's a golden opportunity to seize some revenue without anyon seeing their total tax bills go up, and a lot of states need the money right now thanks to the economy..... Now, if the economy were to improve
Notice that I wrote "I'm pretty sure MA had the highest cumulative taxes of anywhere I've lived."
I was particularly impressed when I stopped working and went to upstate NY for school. Because of a peculiarity in NY law, I learned that they expected to tax my MA income before I even moved to NY. After paying NY tax plus penalties and refiling in MA, I came out ahead several hundred dollars!
MA pulls all kinds of stuff to slip taxes in discreetly. When I was there they faced a budget shortfall and so raised fees. To get a reciprocal driver's license from out-of-state, the fee was suddenly over $75. I think IL charged $15. I don't know which fee better represents actual costs, but one was or the other the taxpayer pays for it.
It's not important who is #1, unless it's a competition; it is important who is high tax. MA is absolutely high-tax, the 5.5% base rate + 5% sales tax + the astonishing 12% tax on "unearned income." (I don't know why they don't just go to a progressive tax structure that would give low income earners a break while taxing more those who can afford it -- the 12% just encourages restructuring finances, such as investing in state-tax-free federal obligations like T-bills that would otherwise be unattractive.) It's not like property taxes are low, either. If they now crack down on use tax in a way other states have not, it will be just another example of the state's tax focus.
Don't get me wrong, I think MA is a great state and would like to live there again, but its inefficient gov't coupled with a poor economy makes it an uninviting place for individuals and businesses. The services (I couldn't believe the ease of the Virginia DMV) do not reflect the high taxes. This is not to the state's benefit.
All bets are off when it comes to grand juries. :) Their investigatory pwoer is amazing, as Ken Starr demonstrated. But at least they only do indictments.
I just rechecked re admissibility and am unhappy to see that in the last few years federal courts are reconsidering the per se exclusion of polygraph tests, largely because of a Supreme Court case called Daubert. States have a variety of rules, most very hostile to polygraph.
I didn't know about the Act -- thanks (I see that it has other exceptions). There has been a lot written about the increasing use of the polygraph as a gov't screening measure, despite its multiple failures. I'm concerned that little effort seems to be going into measures that really do advance security.
Actually singling out food for different treatment is very common. I think I remember it in MA, IL, CA, NY, and VA. The poor spend a very high % of their income on food, so reducing or eliminating the supermarket food tax provides a more significant break to them than it does to others.
:) (Thanks, I hadn't thought of that add'l argument against the tax break -- unless its backers really do intend to shift income to the states!)
The VAT scheme provides a similar allowance -- 19.6% versus 5.5%.
One weirdness in MA is the different taxation of "unearned income" like dividends. When I was there, it ran double the ordinary rate of 6%. If President Bush's proposed abolition of the dividend tax goes through, Mass. could well conclude it was reasonable to double its own taxation of dividends -- why let that money go to waste?
I'm pretty sure MA had the highest cumulative taxes of anywhere I've lived.
I like your point that only honest people pay those taxes. I certainly feel like a schmuck when I fill in that field.
:)
... more stuff.) The U.S. is closing in on 300 million I think, and of course is geographically much larger. But economically, the U.S. is *really* big. I recently checked California and found that at population of 34 million, if on its own it would form the world's sixth largest economy.
Ah yes, the famed "schmuck tax." Good thing I'm not a schmuck.
You forgot local taxes. That makes 3 gov't entities. I looked up the French tax system and see local business tax and property tax, which you probably paid through rent and purchasing services. The web page says France gets 50% of its revenue from the VAT. " The standard rate of VAT on the sale of goods and services is 19.6%, but lower rates are applicable in many cases. In particular, the rate is 5.5% for food, some agricultural products, medicine (5.5% or 2.5%), books, hotels, public transport, newspapers and magazines (5.5% or 2.1%), some types of entertainment, etc."
More on France -- I'm looking at a table and see that the U.K., France, and Italy are pretty crowded at 60 million each; reunified Germany is over 80. (Wow, look at the variation in infant mortality
Tax theory is complicated, I know only a little bit of it, and I mentioned even less. I think it's pretty fascinating, though, to see what was intended versus how it plays out. The method of taxation definitely influences behavior, adding a layer of policy choices to the basic task of raising money. Neutrality is impossible, though a friend of a friend thinks everyone should simply get an identical bill for their share of the bill. An interesting puzzle is the effect of Pres. Bush's abolition of the dividend tax, aside from the obvious one of benefitting the wealthy.
There is a similar notion called "tax incidence" that looks at who takes the ultimate hit from a new tax. For things like corporate or VAT, it's not always the consumer because in some circumstances the company can't pass it along and takes the hit in its profits. Even if the end-user pays the tax, maybe they turn around and pressure their employer for more money. And so on, and so on.
In California, I remember there was a slightly different tax rate if you bought your donuts to eat in or take out. Kind of silly.
The US is decentralized, so we pay locally. Europeans are centralized, so they pay nationally.
Some U.S. states are as big as any country in Europe. So Europe's national looks a lot like some states' local. Also, the American federal gov't handles a lot of money, and imposes the vast majority of income taxation. I don't think it's clear who is more centralized.
Of course VAT's "work," though one can question efficiency. VAT's -- or "consumption tax" -- don't mean higher taxation. European taxes are generally much higher, but their citizens also expect a much higher level of services. VAT's are thought to encourage saving and investment; the American model is more to encourage greater consumption.
The usual purpose of imposing a lower rate on food is to reduce the regressive aspect of the tax. The poor tend to spend a higher fraction of their money on food. We have the same special food rate in many places in the U.S.
My point, anyway, was exactly that Americans pay more tax than they realize as they routinely overlook the sales tax. Among the various states, the income tax, sales tax, and property tax very a great deal. I'm not wild about the use tax, though it's basically fair, because of the record-keeping headache and that only especially honest people pay it.