Almost exactly wrong if you meant Ron & Nancy, Reagan chewed out Secretary of the Interior James Watt for forbidding the Beach Boys to play at the national mall. Ron was a fan of the band. Of course, if you meant the James Watt as part of the Reagan Administration decided to nix the band because they attracted the wrong element, why, then you would be exactly correct. Any sufficiency large bureaucracy takes opposite positions of itself -- at least until it get slapped down for screwing up.
Yes, we been experimenting with 3rd grade reading level reading level here in American public schools for quite a few years now, sure its a bad idea in a technological world, but when it all falls apart, we will have to benefit of illiteracy experience and rule the world (or a least some of the local fiefdoms).
Yes, clearly the only possible influence on reported crime statistics is the number of guns per capita, and it should be based on a single data point. Or, just maybe you could use a back-to-back comparison for states or countries that change their laws re: gun regulation. John R Lott, Jr. did a lot of research and wrote the book "More Guns, Less Crimes". Here is an interview where he talks about countries with lots of crime, few gun and other with low crime but lots of guns.
His research was mostly re: US County crime and gun rate over time -- And his conclusion is obvious based on the title.
Now, people and studies both agree and disagree with his research & conclusions. Both his and other studies are likely to be flawed due to biases of authors (political or otherwise).
I think calling the parent post of my rant to be informative is simply ridiculous. Real information in this realm is hard, if not impossible to attain.
When I had my car stereo stolen (it was a nice system) the cops did not even show-up, they just assigned a number so I could report it on insurance. This was 25 years ago. I doubt it has improved since then. I was pretty sure I knew who stole it too -- since my roommate saw my neighbors installing it in their car.
You can report a stolen gun from the car too, then later realize that you failed to return the gun to the car after cleaning it. They get interested in the stolen gun reports. Of course, this would be filing a false police report, so of course I am not recommending illegal activity - that would be wrong.
70% seems too high to me. I doubt you can can past 60%, especially considering you are talking about demand power generation instead of base load. When you factor in a 50%-70% efficiency in the electrolysis process itself, you are more likely topping out at about 40% efficiency for the full cycle (not counting losses in the photovoltaic process)
I was an design engineer at Cummins in the late 70's, did some emissions work there. They were concerned about cancer from diesel exhaust back then. So was the EPA. It was not considered proven science, but the consensus in was that the EPA was going to start regulating the particulates before too long. I can understand Cummins preferring the ostrich approach, but I would have thought the EPA would be a bit more active re: this. In reality, Cummins was not opposed the regulation in this area at the time, because they figured they were ahead of the competition in emissions control.
Well, we could add the rule, if you can't do some simple arithmetic, you can't vote. Maybe that would change some outcomes in a positive way.
Before you decide this would be unconstitutional (in the USA) let me advise you, you would be wrong. Nothing in the US Constitution recognizes an unconditional right to vote, it just establishes that certain forms of voter discrimination are not allowed (e.g., racial or gender) and leaves most of the rules up to the states. States that gave literacy tests were ruled unconstitutional (rightly so), because the practice was designed and practiced as a form of racial discrimination. Nothing is inherently racial about a literacy test or math test. I also understand that many courts would disagree with me -- matters not, judges don't actually follow the constitution as is clear in a number of cases. If you doubt this, compare what the constitution actually says to dred scott v sandford, roe v wade, the slaughter house cases, plessy v ferguson and kelo vs new london.-- I put in cases that offend the both the left and the right. They all offend me because they are blatantly bad from a constitutional basis. This BTW does not mean that they are bad from a policy basis -- however, the correct solution is to amend the law.
This does not mean it would be a bad idea. Most governments have so really stupid laws practices that would benefit society most by immediate termination.
Bender doing this should not be a surprise, after all he already messed up the presidential election of 2000 by going back in time and getting Bush elected instead of Gore Act VI, he was probably did this as a lark at the same time. Given Bender's innate robotics skills, there is no doubt he could have done this.
I suppose based on your comment re: the International Space Station that this page should be an error 404 instead of packed with references to "scientific research". Perhaps surprising, I mostly agree with most of what you said.
Plenty about the ISS is of questionable merit based due to the high cost of the research, but a lot of that what due to the horribly inefficient shuttle delivery service.and as well as political considerations -- there is no lack of scientific value for a decent space station, there is a political mandate for doing real science on a space station.
1) Need to improve $/kg for low earth orbit. 2) Need to get politics out of NASA. And yes, these issues are deeply related.
Maybe we could use railgun tech designed for the Navy to launch materials payloads from a high altitude balloon platform with a railgun -- People and many things need lower-acceleration. It's not like this is the only possibility either.
Also, when space is sufficiently commercial, probably won't need a NASA at all for the kinds of things it does today. Maybe they can research warp drive, and crazy ideas with a much reduced budget.
Not happening to know the term "lock convoy" does not imply that said programmer is unfamiliar with the issues. If you learned multi-threading long ago (like I did), no-one had invented the cute description, but you certainly knew how what the condition was and possible methods of mitigation. Sounds like a stupid "tech interview" type of question.
I have programmed using threads in a number of different environments (phtreads, dce threads, and windows threads) in a number of different languages, and have taught threaded programming -- I have also threaded needles, reattached buttons, sewed, embroidered and read most of the Dragon Riders of Pern series. I am a skilled and experienced threader. I had never heard of a lock convoy until now, but have certainly dealt with this precise issue before..
I suspect you would not have just asked this question and "stopped the interview" because I did not know this term, but I get tired of hearing statements similar to yours, and worse, I've caught myself saying similar things.
Death is also correlated with use of statin drugs, a rather poor outcome for the patient if you ask me. There have been major studies on this, and takiing statins results in more deaths during the study period, but fewer deaths due to heart attacks. Big deal, dead is still a negative outcome in a drug study.
I personally consider the huge number of prescriptions for statins to be malpractice. If drug-induced cholesterol lowing was effective in treating hyperlipidemia, why did not the non-statin drugs that lowered cholesterol have a positive health outcome. I think it is because hyperlipidemia is a symptom of the underlying medical problem, not a causal agent.
So why do statins reduce cardiac events -- statins are anti-inflammatory drugs. This class of drugs is well-known to reduce heart attacks, but also cause numerous health problems when taken long term. You know, kind of like statin drugs do.
I'm a conservative, but I think the media is getting to me. My first thought was Sarah Palin, then I remembered it was Obama that made that mistake. Educated people make mistakes like this, ignorant people don't know the difference. As observers, we are like to infer educated / ignorant based on our expectations of the person.
Wehn Obama mentioned the 57 states, my first thought -- He must have been tired, thought it was funny. When someone on Jaywalking says it, I think what an idiot and think it is sad.
I just looked in my wallet. There are 6 $50 and 6 $100 bills inside. Just because you don't use them in everyday transactions, does not mean that I don't. Why? 1) I have had unauthorized charges against my credit cards on several occasions, by limiting credit card use it is much easier for me to notice fraud. 2) I like the fact that I am not paying the VISA transaction tax driving up the cost of goods constantly. 3) I like my privacy and don't want to be tracked every time I make a transaction, 4) I am a drug dealer, and 5) I find it more convenient (faster) and 6) Everyone accepts cash..-- (OK, #4 is a fib)
This is more cash than I usually keep in my wallet, but I load up when I expect to need it. I pay in cash for most things and will continue to do so as long as I can reasonably do so.
Prior to 1913 inflation in the US was non-existant. Since 1913 inflation has average a little over 3% (dollar is 5% of its old value). 1913 was when the federal reserve was established.
Fiat currency is a clever way for the government to steal from everybody else with most of them never even noticing it.
0.1% - you are lucky, in Indianapolis it is 2.0% on restaurant purchases, I would trade with you in a heartbeat.
BTW, In Indiana, it was bi-partisan corruption, mayor-D, statehouse (D/R) and governor-R. The mayor was perhaps the most guilty because he gave away just about everything in the early "negotiations"
Based on my own education and research, I and others believe the LFTR design in far from an unworkable pipe dream.
The physics is sound, the engineering seems very doable, and the economics seem extremely attractive. The prototype I mentioned did not breed any U-233 because if had not TH-232 shell surrounding the fissile core. They omitted this because it was irrelevant to what they were testing.
From a nuclear physics viewpoint, breeding U-233 in a LFTR design is a no-brainer, and the engineering challenges were not considered to be overly challenging. That is why they ignored them in the test. An engineering prototype often has considerably different requirements than a commercial prototype, much less a commercial design.
A solid fuel thorium breeder is a stupid design compared to LFTR. Yes, you have to do research/development to make LFTR work well, but you do not need any breakthroughs to make LFTR work well.
Are the issues, problems with LFTR, sure. Do we know what they all are? Nope. Is this any different than any other new technology, no. Untested, sure, pipe dream not in the least. Someone will do it sooner or later, sooner would be better. I for one would prefer not to kill hundreds, or thousands times more people by coal mines, oil, natural gas. All of the so-called green energy technology have problems too. Solar kills people, Bio-fuels kills people, Hydro kills people, Geothermal kills people. Candles kill people. Bicycles kill people.
People talk about fusion like it will be the great salvation, maybe so, but it won't be true for a minimum of 50 years. Fusion is very complex and capital intensive, it won't be cheap, it won't be clean (though cleaner than conventional nukes, or LFTR), it will kill people.
Not developing LFTR ASAP will kill many more people (15 million starve each year, crap filled water kills 12 million each year). If you have any compassion, you should support the possibility of changing the energy game instead of just declaring it a pipe dream.
How convenient that the world just happen to have fairly large stockpiles of Pu-239 that we generally treat as nuclear waste. This is a 1-time requirement, once you initiate a Th-232/Ur-233 fuel cycle, you generate more U-233 than you use.
You do not need large amounts of fissile material to seed LFTR reactors, on the most likely commercial size of LFTR reactors you would need about 1000 KG of U-235 (or Pu-239 or U-233) as the fissile core. The US alone has sufficient stockpiles to make thousands of such reactors. You can start extracting U-233 from these reactors as soon as they are put into production.
Be sure to tell that to the guy starving in Darfur. If we could get the benefits of USA level energy consumption world-wide without destroying our environment, you would have to be evil to deny it to the rest of the world. If your solution to make western civilation use energy at 10% of current level, be prepared for a major die-off. I consider this to be evil in the extreme.
I am all for energy conservation, I am also for energy abundance.
The best demonstration of Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactor (LFTR) was by ORNL in the 60's. They had a prototype molten salt reactor using U-233. This is the fissile component of the Th-232/U-233 fuel cycle. The breeding of TH-232 into U-233 was simply omitted as unneeded complication for this prototype. This was intended to prove / debug the molten salt reactor, it was very successful in key ways.
India has been working on solid fuel thorium reactors, this is an attempt to re-use our experience with U-235 reactors technologies. It is doubtful that this would ever be competitive with a clean LFTR design.
In the US, the regulatory hurdles for LFTR are very high, unless you bypass them by selling your design to the military, which has the option to bypass these regs. This is why Flibe Energy is planning to sell their LFTR to the military first. It is a lot easier to change the regulatory environment if there is clearly functional and safe product being used by the military.
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Almost exactly wrong if you meant Ron & Nancy, Reagan chewed out Secretary of the Interior James Watt for forbidding the Beach Boys to play at the national mall. Ron was a fan of the band. Of course, if you meant the James Watt as part of the Reagan Administration decided to nix the band because they attracted the wrong element, why, then you would be exactly correct. Any sufficiency large bureaucracy takes opposite positions of itself -- at least until it get slapped down for screwing up.
Even though the politicians (and the press and wall street and Al-Queda) make me very mad, they do not make me violent. Yet.
Yes, we been experimenting with 3rd grade reading level reading level here in American public schools for quite a few years now, sure its a bad idea in a technological world, but when it all falls apart, we will have to benefit of illiteracy experience and rule the world (or a least some of the local fiefdoms).
Yes, clearly the only possible influence on reported crime statistics is the number of guns per capita, and it should be based on a single data point. Or, just maybe you could use a back-to-back comparison for states or countries that change their laws re: gun regulation. John R Lott, Jr. did a lot of research and wrote the book "More Guns, Less Crimes". Here is an interview where he talks about countries with lots of crime, few gun and other with low crime but lots of guns.
His research was mostly re: US County crime and gun rate over time -- And his conclusion is obvious based on the title.
Now, people and studies both agree and disagree with his research & conclusions. Both his and other studies are likely to be flawed due to biases of authors (political or otherwise).
I think calling the parent post of my rant to be informative is simply ridiculous. Real information in this realm is hard, if not impossible to attain.
When I had my car stereo stolen (it was a nice system) the cops did not even show-up, they just assigned a number so I could report it on insurance. This was 25 years ago. I doubt it has improved since then. I was pretty sure I knew who stole it too -- since my roommate saw my neighbors installing it in their car.
You can report a stolen gun from the car too, then later realize that you failed to return the gun to the car after cleaning it. They get interested in the stolen gun reports. Of course, this would be filing a false police report, so of course I am not recommending illegal activity - that would be wrong.
70% seems too high to me. I doubt you can can past 60%, especially considering you are talking about demand power generation instead of base load. When you factor in a 50%-70% efficiency in the electrolysis process itself, you are more likely topping out at about 40% efficiency for the full cycle (not counting losses in the photovoltaic process)
Well, I would start with my superior math skills that realize it is 28 years from 2012 to 2040 -- That is sure to impress her.
I was an design engineer at Cummins in the late 70's, did some emissions work there. They were concerned about cancer from diesel exhaust back then. So was the EPA. It was not considered proven science, but the consensus in was that the EPA was going to start regulating the particulates before too long. I can understand Cummins preferring the ostrich approach, but I would have thought the EPA would be a bit more active re: this. In reality, Cummins was not opposed the regulation in this area at the time, because they figured they were ahead of the competition in emissions control.
Well, we could add the rule, if you can't do some simple arithmetic, you can't vote. Maybe that would change some outcomes in a positive way.
Before you decide this would be unconstitutional (in the USA) let me advise you, you would be wrong. Nothing in the US Constitution recognizes an unconditional right to vote, it just establishes that certain forms of voter discrimination are not allowed (e.g., racial or gender) and leaves most of the rules up to the states. States that gave literacy tests were ruled unconstitutional (rightly so), because the practice was designed and practiced as a form of racial discrimination. Nothing is inherently racial about a literacy test or math test. I also understand that many courts would disagree with me -- matters not, judges don't actually follow the constitution as is clear in a number of cases. If you doubt this, compare what the constitution actually says to dred scott v sandford, roe v wade, the slaughter house cases, plessy v ferguson and kelo vs new london.-- I put in cases that offend the both the left and the right. They all offend me because they are blatantly bad from a constitutional basis. This BTW does not mean that they are bad from a policy basis -- however, the correct solution is to amend the law.
This does not mean it would be a bad idea. Most governments have so really stupid laws practices that would benefit society most by immediate termination.
Bender doing this should not be a surprise, after all he already messed up the presidential election of 2000 by going back in time and getting Bush elected instead of Gore Act VI, he was probably did this as a lark at the same time. Given Bender's innate robotics skills, there is no doubt he could have done this.
I suppose based on your comment re: the International Space Station that this page should be an error 404 instead of packed with references to "scientific research". Perhaps surprising, I mostly agree with most of what you said.
Plenty about the ISS is of questionable merit based due to the high cost of the research, but a lot of that what due to the horribly inefficient shuttle delivery service.and as well as political considerations -- there is no lack of scientific value for a decent space station, there is a political mandate for doing real science on a space station.
1) Need to improve $/kg for low earth orbit. 2) Need to get politics out of NASA. And yes, these issues are deeply related.
Maybe we could use railgun tech designed for the Navy to launch materials payloads from a high altitude balloon platform with a railgun -- People and many things need lower-acceleration. It's not like this is the only possibility either.
Also, when space is sufficiently commercial, probably won't need a NASA at all for the kinds of things it does today. Maybe they can research warp drive, and crazy ideas with a much reduced budget.
Not happening to know the term "lock convoy" does not imply that said programmer is unfamiliar with the issues. If you learned multi-threading long ago (like I did), no-one had invented the cute description, but you certainly knew how what the condition was and possible methods of mitigation. Sounds like a stupid "tech interview" type of question.
I have programmed using threads in a number of different environments (phtreads, dce threads, and windows threads) in a number of different languages, and have taught threaded programming -- I have also threaded needles, reattached buttons, sewed, embroidered and read most of the Dragon Riders of Pern series. I am a skilled and experienced threader. I had never heard of a lock convoy until now, but have certainly dealt with this precise issue before..
I suspect you would not have just asked this question and "stopped the interview" because I did not know this term, but I get tired of hearing statements similar to yours, and worse, I've caught myself saying similar things.
I can't see how there could not be a possible downside. Note to employers, do not hire anyone with the ethics (including work ethic) of Wally.
Death is also correlated with use of statin drugs, a rather poor outcome for the patient if you ask me. There have been major studies on this, and takiing statins results in more deaths during the study period, but fewer deaths due to heart attacks. Big deal, dead is still a negative outcome in a drug study.
I personally consider the huge number of prescriptions for statins to be malpractice. If drug-induced cholesterol lowing was effective in treating hyperlipidemia, why did not the non-statin drugs that lowered cholesterol have a positive health outcome. I think it is because hyperlipidemia is a symptom of the underlying medical problem, not a causal agent.
So why do statins reduce cardiac events -- statins are anti-inflammatory drugs. This class of drugs is well-known to reduce heart attacks, but also cause numerous health problems when taken long term. You know, kind of like statin drugs do.
I'm a conservative, but I think the media is getting to me. My first thought was Sarah Palin, then I remembered it was Obama that made that mistake. Educated people make mistakes like this, ignorant people don't know the difference. As observers, we are like to infer educated / ignorant based on our expectations of the person.
Wehn Obama mentioned the 57 states, my first thought -- He must have been tired, thought it was funny. When someone on Jaywalking says it, I think what an idiot and think it is sad.
I just looked in my wallet. There are 6 $50 and 6 $100 bills inside. Just because you don't use them in everyday transactions, does not mean that I don't. Why? 1) I have had unauthorized charges against my credit cards on several occasions, by limiting credit card use it is much easier for me to notice fraud. 2) I like the fact that I am not paying the VISA transaction tax driving up the cost of goods constantly. 3) I like my privacy and don't want to be tracked every time I make a transaction, 4) I am a drug dealer, and 5) I find it more convenient (faster) and 6) Everyone accepts cash..-- (OK, #4 is a fib)
This is more cash than I usually keep in my wallet, but I load up when I expect to need it. I pay in cash for most things and will continue to do so as long as I can reasonably do so.
Maybe we can get the IRS to audit the TSA and the TSA to grope the IRS.
What would you do if you won a million dollars? Apply it to my debts as far as it would go.
Sadly, an extra 6 trillion dollars would only reduce the national debt by about 4 years.
Prior to 1913 inflation in the US was non-existant. Since 1913 inflation has average a little over 3% (dollar is 5% of its old value). 1913 was when the federal reserve was established.
Fiat currency is a clever way for the government to steal from everybody else with most of them never even noticing it.
Not entirely useless even today. Think of the Florida vote count debacle being national in scale.
0.1% - you are lucky, in Indianapolis it is 2.0% on restaurant purchases, I would trade with you in a heartbeat.
BTW, In Indiana, it was bi-partisan corruption, mayor-D, statehouse (D/R) and governor-R. The mayor was perhaps the most guilty because he gave away just about everything in the early "negotiations"
Based on my own education and research, I and others believe the LFTR design in far from an unworkable pipe dream.
The physics is sound, the engineering seems very doable, and the economics seem extremely attractive. The prototype I mentioned did not breed any U-233 because if had not TH-232 shell surrounding the fissile core. They omitted this because it was irrelevant to what they were testing.
From a nuclear physics viewpoint, breeding U-233 in a LFTR design is a no-brainer, and the engineering challenges were not considered to be overly challenging. That is why they ignored them in the test. An engineering prototype often has considerably different requirements than a commercial prototype, much less a commercial design.
A solid fuel thorium breeder is a stupid design compared to LFTR. Yes, you have to do research/development to make LFTR work well, but you do not need any breakthroughs to make LFTR work well.
Are the issues, problems with LFTR, sure. Do we know what they all are? Nope. Is this any different than any other new technology, no. Untested, sure, pipe dream not in the least. Someone will do it sooner or later, sooner would be better. I for one would prefer not to kill hundreds, or thousands times more people by coal mines, oil, natural gas. All of the so-called green energy technology have problems too. Solar kills people, Bio-fuels kills people, Hydro kills people, Geothermal kills people. Candles kill people. Bicycles kill people.
People talk about fusion like it will be the great salvation, maybe so, but it won't be true for a minimum of 50 years. Fusion is very complex and capital intensive, it won't be cheap, it won't be clean (though cleaner than conventional nukes, or LFTR), it will kill people.
Not developing LFTR ASAP will kill many more people (15 million starve each year, crap filled water kills 12 million each year). If you have any compassion, you should support the possibility of changing the energy game instead of just declaring it a pipe dream.
How convenient that the world just happen to have fairly large stockpiles of Pu-239 that we generally treat as nuclear waste. This is a 1-time requirement, once you initiate a Th-232/Ur-233 fuel cycle, you generate more U-233 than you use.
You do not need large amounts of fissile material to seed LFTR reactors, on the most likely commercial size of LFTR reactors you would need about 1000 KG of U-235 (or Pu-239 or U-233) as the fissile core. The US alone has sufficient stockpiles to make thousands of such reactors. You can start extracting U-233 from these reactors as soon as they are put into production.
Be sure to tell that to the guy starving in Darfur. If we could get the benefits of USA level energy consumption world-wide without destroying our environment, you would have to be evil to deny it to the rest of the world. If your solution to make western civilation use energy at 10% of current level, be prepared for a major die-off. I consider this to be evil in the extreme.
I am all for energy conservation, I am also for energy abundance.
The best demonstration of Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactor (LFTR) was by ORNL in the 60's. They had a prototype molten salt reactor using U-233. This is the fissile component of the Th-232/U-233 fuel cycle. The breeding of TH-232 into U-233 was simply omitted as unneeded complication for this prototype. This was intended to prove / debug the molten salt reactor, it was very successful in key ways.
India has been working on solid fuel thorium reactors, this is an attempt to re-use our experience with U-235 reactors technologies. It is doubtful that this would ever be competitive with a clean LFTR design.
In the US, the regulatory hurdles for LFTR are very high, unless you bypass them by selling your design to the military, which has the option to bypass these regs. This is why Flibe Energy is planning to sell their LFTR to the military first. It is a lot easier to change the regulatory environment if there is clearly functional and safe product being used by the military.