I thought the cost of the LHC was insanely expensive, then I realized we spent more to bail out one sleazy bank ( while the banksters still got huge bonuses. )
I remember the physics department department's computer in 1960. An IBM 1620, the size of a teacher's desk, costing ten times as much as my parents' house, and the power of a $10 Casio digital watch.
We loved it. It could do in an hour when took us months of slide rule or mechanical calculator work.
Now a cheap desktop could do the work in a small fraction of a second.
During the TPP fast track debate I looked at comments about it in the New York Times. The comments were massively, almost unanimously, against the treaty. I asked myself "Well liberals are against it, who is for it?" Off I went to the National Review Online to see the conservatives' opinion. Well the comments there were unanimously against the treaty too.
I wonder who is for it. Why did Congress pass the fast track? I leave the answer as an exercise for the reader.
I will show my age. I remember when COBOL, with it's English-like syntax, was supposed to make programming so simple that even your secretary could do it. No go -- writing significant software is managing complexity. No amount of syntactical sugar can hide this.
In 1859 the world was hit by an EMP from a massive solar flare, called the Carrington Event. From a comment by Sampenny in the original article.
The Carrington event was a direct hit of a solar-generated EMP, and it destroyed some portion of the very primitive electronics of the time: the telegraph that connected batteries through a coding key to an electrical line stretching across the country-side. The electrostatic disturbances lasted more than a day, and the most obvious effects were the aurora borealis shining around the world. A few years ago the earth missed an equivalent event by just a couple of days of orbit, only now our entire society depends on electronics that fries when subjected to the kind of EM fields that will enter our grids when such as event does occur
More recently in March 1989 we had a geomagnetic storm which caused a massive blackout in Quebec. It was repaired in 9 hours, but a more massive widespread storm could take months.
Large FRCs are produced in C-2 by collision merging of two CTs.3,13 Figure 5 shows the evolution of the excluded flux radius obtained from a magnetic probe array in the -pinch formation and central sections. Time is measured from the instant of field reversal in the -pinches, and distance is relative to the system midplane. Multi-gigawatt pulsed-power modules drive the -pinches, briefly reversing the magnetic field to 0.5kG, then raising it forward to 0.4kG, with field-reversal occurring by t5s. The two CTs so formed then accelerate out of their respective -pinches at supersonic speeds, vz250km/s, and collide at the system mid-plane at about t30s
Even if the canal were closed, it is a just a matter of time until someone with an evil bent or an adolescent sense of humor deliberately introduces a few carp into the lake -- that's all that's needed.
As a recent article in IEEE Spectrum discusses, Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons, such as those depicted in the movie Oceans Eleven, have become more capable. They can wipe out electronics with no visible signature. EMPs might be deployed either as portable weapons, dropped from a plane or fixed booby traps
When I look at my electric bill about 1/3 the cost is the grid, the rest is energy. If you have solar panels you are still using the grid to both send and receive energy even as you save the utility from generating energy.
I'm 72 with slowed capacity. I have had similar thoughts. Even if you agree with the idea, implementation is tricky. Let's say I stop all life lengthening treatments at 75. Well, I take warfarin blood thinner to prevent clots from forming on my mechanical heart valve. These clots could break off to give me a heart attack or stroke. Clearly this is a life lengthening treatment. Should I stop taking it? If I stop and a clot develops there is a chance the the ensuing heart attack or stroke could leave me deeply crippled, either mentally or physically, but very alive -- to spend my last decade(s) in bed.
In biology there are no sharp lines. When does a child become an adult? 16? 18? 21? 25? All of these ages could do. In the same way, Emanuel, if he does not change his mind -- as most people I know do, will have great difficulty making these decisions except in extreme cases.
Sad thing. After Paolo Bacigalupi won all the awards below he discovered that you make much writing SF, and now writes Young Adult novels
The Windup Girl is a biopunk science fiction novel, written by Paolo Bacigalupi and published by Night Shade Books on September 1, 2009. The novel was named as the ninth best fiction book of 2009 by TIME magazine,[1] and as the best science fiction book of the year in the Reference and User Services Association's 2010 Reading List.[2] This book is a 2010 Nebula Award[3] and a 2010 Hugo Award winner (tied with The City & the City by China Miéville for the Hugo Award), both for best novel.[4] This book also won the 2010 Compton Crook Award and the 2010 Locus Award for best first novel.
Do I understand correctly that you have worked on that project? If so, could you comment on what the people on LPP Fusion are doing? Is is feasible / safe / sustainable?
Is it safe? I see no safety problems beyond those normally found in laboratories or industrial projects that use high energy densities.
Is it feasible? Who knows? That what science experiments are designed to find out.
Is it sustainable? I assume you are asking is it affordable. I suspect that it could be supported for less cost than the toilet paper used at ITER.
This was tried as the Trisops Project 35 years ago but lost funding because all of the fusion energy project's focus was on the Tokamak.
Trisops was an experimental machine for the study of magnetic confinement of plasmas with the ultimate goal of producing fusion power. The configuration was a variation of a compact toroid, a toroidal (doughnut-shaped) structure of plasma and magnetic fields with no coils penetrating the center. It lost funding in its original form in 1978. The configuration was produced by combining two individual toroids produced by two conical pinch guns, located at either end of a length of Pyrex pipe with a constant magnetic guide field. The toroidal currents in the toroids were in opposite directions, so that they repelled each other. After coming to an equilibrium, they were adiabatically compressed by increasing the external field.
Disclosure: I was an author on the paper and of the referenced Wikipedia article;
Slashdot Mirror
I thought the cost of the LHC was insanely expensive, then I realized we spent more to bail out one sleazy bank ( while the banksters still got huge bonuses. )
I remember the physics department department's computer in 1960. An IBM 1620, the size of a teacher's desk, costing ten times as much as my parents' house, and the power of a $10 Casio digital watch.
We loved it. It could do in an hour when took us months of slide rule or mechanical calculator work.
Now a cheap desktop could do the work in a small fraction of a second.
I still have my K&E log-log made of mahogany with a plastic vernier scale.
You could always, as a friend of mine did, hang the toilet seat by the wood stove inside the house, and carry it out when you wanted to use it.
10- seconds of googling.
http://politicalhumor.about.co...
Remember the sign at a Tea Party rally. "Keep government out of my Medicare."
During the TPP fast track debate I looked at comments about it in the New York Times. The comments were massively, almost unanimously, against the treaty. I asked myself "Well liberals are against it, who is for it?" Off I went to the National Review Online to see the conservatives' opinion. Well the comments there were unanimously against the treaty too.
I wonder who is for it. Why did Congress pass the fast track? I leave the answer as an exercise for the reader.
I will show my age. I remember when COBOL, with it's English-like syntax, was supposed to make programming so simple that even your secretary could do it. No go -- writing significant software is managing complexity. No amount of syntactical sugar can hide this.
It's deja vu all over again
CORRECTED LINK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
As far as I can tell from the article this looks familiar from 37 years ago.
Check out the Trisops project.
Disclosure: I am the author of the Wikipedia article and a co-author on the cited paper.
In 1859 the world was hit by an EMP from a massive solar flare, called the Carrington Event. From a comment by Sampenny in the original article.
More recently in March 1989 we had a geomagnetic storm which caused a massive blackout in Quebec. It was repaired in 9 hours, but a more massive widespread storm could take months.
Try your local community college to get the most educational bang for the buck.
From the paper
Check out Trisops
Disclosure. I am one of the authors of the paper referred to in the article.
don't make me kick your as-teroid.
Do you mean ass toroid -- a toilet seat?
Even worst, most photos are done with smartphones, whose default settings ( which most people do not touch) tag the photos with time and location.
Imagine some over ambitious prosecutor ( are there any other kind?) going on a fishing expedition using these photos.
You are in more danger of being shot by a toddler, than a terrorist. .
Even if the canal were closed, it is a just a matter of time until someone with an evil bent or an adolescent sense of humor deliberately introduces a few carp into the lake -- that's all that's needed.
Nutrition, like education, is fad driven. Whatever we "know" will be displaced in the future for something else.
As a recent article in IEEE Spectrum discusses, Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons, such as those depicted in the movie Oceans Eleven, have become more capable. They can wipe out electronics with no visible signature. EMPs might be deployed either as portable weapons, dropped from a plane or fixed booby traps
When I look at my electric bill about 1/3 the cost is the grid, the rest is energy. If you have solar panels you are still using the grid to both send and receive energy even as you save the utility from generating energy.
Feminist nix command
man bash
I'm 72 with slowed capacity. I have had similar thoughts. Even if you agree with the idea, implementation is tricky. Let's say I stop all life lengthening treatments at 75. Well, I take warfarin blood thinner to prevent clots from forming on my mechanical heart valve. These clots could break off to give me a heart attack or stroke. Clearly this is a life lengthening treatment. Should I stop taking it? If I stop and a clot develops there is a chance the the ensuing heart attack or stroke could leave me deeply crippled, either mentally or physically, but very alive -- to spend my last decade(s) in bed.
In biology there are no sharp lines. When does a child become an adult? 16? 18? 21? 25? All of these ages could do. In the same way, Emanuel, if he does not change his mind -- as most people I know do, will have great difficulty making these decisions except in extreme cases.
Sad thing. After Paolo Bacigalupi won all the awards below he discovered that you make much writing SF, and now writes Young Adult novels
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's a great book, one of the best I have read for years. Its plusible dystopian take on the near future still haunts me.
Do I understand correctly that you have worked on that project? If so, could you comment on what the people on LPP Fusion are doing? Is is feasible / safe / sustainable?
Is it safe? I see no safety problems beyond those normally found in laboratories or industrial projects that use high energy densities.
Is it feasible? Who knows? That what science experiments are designed to find out.
Is it sustainable? I assume you are asking is it affordable. I suspect that it could be supported for less cost than the toilet paper used at ITER.
This was tried as the Trisops Project 35 years ago but lost funding because all of the fusion energy project's focus was on the Tokamak.
Disclosure: I was an author on the paper and of the referenced Wikipedia article;