I am not a mechanical engineer but I was able to see and learn enough that I was reasonably assured that the kind of incident that happened at Chernobyl wouldn't happen there. At least not by accident.
It didn't happen by accident at Chernobyl. It happened by abject stupidity.
If the plant was sabotaged -- that's another matter.
It wasn't. Unless you consider the mandate from Moscow to run that particular test "sabotage". The particular test in question was "is it possible to extract usable energy from a nuclear plant to deal with a meltdown in progress?" For which test, they pushed an out-of-the-way (in other words, on the back end of nowhere) nuclear plant as close to meltdown conditions as it was possible to safely go.
Unfortunately, they were wrong about how far "as it was possible to SAFELY go" was....
They were doing standard procedures and "mistakes were made."
No, they weren't. They were doing experimental work prescribed by a bureaucrat several thousand km away. Which experimental work was completely unnecessary. The only good thing about the mess was that they had (barely) enough sense to do it on a reactor on the backend of nowhere...
So yes nuclear power plants are scary.
Only to people who know little or nothing about them.
Remember, for all that Chernobyl was the worst nuclear power disaster in the history of the world, it killed fewer people than will die in traffic in the USA TODAY.
For that matter, hydroelectric power has killed three orders of magnitude (at least. the three orders of magnitude are from ONE incident) more people than nuclear power, much less coal....
If you can show that a building 60 years old can save, I dunno let's pick a number, 25% in energy costs over the year with a $X investment, then you don't need to force people to do anything. Many will do it on their own.
Assuming, of course, that $X is less than 25% of your energy costs over the remaining lifetime of the building.
And yeah, poor people aren't going to be in on that game. Unless the government offers low interest loans to poor people to do so. Which will require that the city government borrow moderately enormous amounts of money.
Which is their privilege.
That said, looks like Da Mayor is planning on putting Chicago on the hook for a LOT of money, which bill won't come due till...his successor is in office. Always a great way to run things - promise the sun, the moon, the stars, and if it ends up being too expensive, you get to blame someone else for not doing it right....
Y'know, I've never met a person who believed that "the problem is too many people" who thinks that they have a moral obligation to remove themselves from the world.
But a lot of them DO think that OTHER people should be removed from the world....
"Personalized" ads are rarely relevant for me anyway and are just obnoxious, especially if they are for items that I recently purchase.
If "personalized ads" are for items that you've recently purchased, then whomever did the algorithm for "personalizing" those ads was a complete cretin. If you just bought one, then you're (probably) not in the market for one.
On the other hand, knowing you just bought a hoover vacuum, ads for bags for hoover vacs might be useful....
The best things in life speak for themselves and need no pushing. You find them or they find you by word of mouth, or you see it on your own, or.... you just know about it through some inexplicable mechanism.
So, just curious...
Would the personal computer revolution have occurred if none of the PC makers had been allowed to advertise their products? Same for any particular piece of software? And yes, Linux would have to be included in "any particular piece of software" even assuming Linux could have existed without the personal computers that noone would have ever heard of without advertising.
Or automobiles. Airlines. Trains. Refrigerators....
Face it, advertising is how people learn that there are new things they can spend their labour on. Without it, we're back to the nineteenth century (or earlier)....
So which state do think would be the first to have a Chernobyl after those pesky rules (regulations) are removed?
Chernobyl killed a hundred or so firefighters, in case you were unaware. It was also, in case you were unaware, a deliberate attempt by the government in question to create conditions in the reactor like a meltdown. So, a deliberate attempt to operate a reactor in an insanely unsafe way managed to produce fewer casualties as routine traffic accidents do on any random day in the USA.
If we had FIFTY Chernobyls each and every year, there would be fewer deaths than we have traffic fatalities every year. By a factor of ten or so...
The second worst nuclear accident in history has had ONE (1) fatality as a result. He took seven years to die (his death made the news last year). A rounding error compared to Chernobyl.
The third worst produced no casualties.
Frankly, if we were to go 100% nuclear (we can't and won't, because nuclear plants aren't designed for anything but baseload), which would about triple the number of nuke plants we have (and presumably would triple the number of nuclear accidents we have), and if every one of those accidents were "another Chernobyl", we'd still have fewer fatalities as a result of nuclear power than we have on any given day on the highways of America.
Of course, the anti-nuke hysterics would have you believe that nuclear power is killing millions of people a year, and that building nuclear power plants is essentially identical to throwing tens of thousands of babies into meat-grinders. And since throwing babies into meat grinders is bad, nuclear (which causes babies to be thrown into meat grinders) has just got to be unsafe....
1. Expire all tax exemptions, tax exclusions, tax incentives, and tax depreciation for all fossil fuel infrastructure of any type.
2. Use funds from 1 and any tarrifs on China to fund US built solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and tidal energy capital investment (not operations, only construction) nationwide, including territories.
Problem solved.
I'm assuming you've run the numbers on this, since you state that the solution is really simple.
So, just out of curiousity, how much money does the Federal govt make every year due to tax exemptions, tax incentives, and tax depreciation on all fossil fuel infrastructure every year?
Oh, and how much money does the Federal government lose due to the loss of taxes from the fossil fuel industries, since it'll pretty much evaporate if this does what you expect it to do?
Alas, this "bill" is no such thing, really. It doesn't include spending, or any details on how it's to be spent. It's just a feel-good-about-ourselves post-it note, really....
Wait, you are saying that the temperature has been increasing over the past 200 years. Right when we started massively burning fossil fuels.
Note that 200 years ago, the USA used a bit less than 200ktons of coal. Now, we're using on the order of 1Gton of coal per year.
While I consider a Gton of coal per year to be a serious problem, I fail to see the environmental impact of 200ktons of coal per year. At which rate that Gton of coal would last 5000 years or so....
"You work for us in a senior position for over a year, you get a lifetime pension with an annual amount equal to your salary (or heck, triple your annual salary), but you can never ever ever work in any capacity in any industry related to what you were responsible for. If you do, not only will you lose your pension, but you will be fined some obscene amount of money equal to that of the GDP of some equatorial African nation and spend years in a prison cell.
"But I have never worked since I quit the government. Alas, my daughter has worked in the industry. Are you seriously trying to suggest that my work for the government requires that all my direct descendants work for the government or nobody?"
Okay, I'll bite. How much do they owe planet wide? And why do they owe whatever amount you specified?
And do remember to refer to the relevant sections of the tax codes of each and every country on the planet that will be affected by paying "what they owe the planet"....
Myself, being something other than a tax lawyer (French or otherwise), I suspect that they pay an SI buttload of tax lawyers to make sure that they pay the absolute minimum they can LEGALLY pay....
The violence will end when everybody currently being ethnically cleansed is dead. Peace in our time!
I know you were joking, but the lads/lasses out there doing "ethnic cleansing" aren't going to stop when the current victims are all dead - they'll just find someone else to enjoy the benefits of being "ethnically cleansed".
And when they run out of those guys, they'll turn on each other....
What most people have now is good enough, there's no need to upgrade any more.
Just so. Unless a new piece of must-have software comes along that requires a much more powerful box, the desktop is now where the automobile has been for a long time - does what needs to be done, lasts nearly forever (yes, I remember when a car was pretty much worn out after 50K miles, instead of still going strong at 150K+ miles)....
How does anyone know it's a joke until they arrest the kid and question him and investigate?
Do note that "arrest", "questioning", and "investigation" aren't mandatory in such a situation.
Yeah, question the knothead.
And investigate as needed.
But arrest? No point in it, since he hasn't committed a crime (no, saying something stupid to Siri isn't against the law) until some action (other than talk about it) is taken in regards to the hypothetical crime....
I think people expect a level of accuracy that borders on premonition.
Possibly.
On the other hand, the forecast for this past Tuesday (where I live, of course), for each of the five days before that Tuesday, were different. And none of them came especially close (not even the one from Monday night) to what we actually had Tuesday.
However it also should be noted that the last 30 (probably 50) years there's been a huge emphasis on teaching children about the dangers of strangers which has done a lot to cut down on abductions.
Citation?
Children kidnapped by strangers happens so infrequently that it's hardly a blip, and pretty much always has been. Runaways are ~1000x more numerous. And "missing children" as a result of miscommunication (Grandma picks up the kids from school because Dad asked her to, and Mom, not knowing this, panics - or switch position of Mom and Dad, same deal) are even more numerous....
The fucking president of the United States shouldn't be using a fucking iPhone.
I take it you're one of the people who think that The Donald is using an off-the-shelf i{hone, instead of one that's been brought up to NSA standards? If so, I suspect you are...mistaken....
. If you use internet, you have been pwned, or at least one of the sites you have ever used has been pwned at least once which amounts to the same thing.
Umm, no. Having someone steal my/. userid & password wouldn't bother me in the slightest. It's one of many userid/password combos I don't care enough about to even bother changing it at random intervals....
My online banking info is a whole 'nuther game, of course.
Face it, there are a LOT of userid/password combos on the interwebs that don't amount to a hill of beans, even to their original owner, much less to someone who wants to steal their ID....
I doubt they're going to get 30+ launches done in a year, unless they've been playing things really close to the vest. But I am delighted to see someone else get into what used to be called the Space Race in a big way.
Let's not stop there on the excuse train. They could still import the screws and manufacture in the US.
Assemble not manufacture.
So, if they buy the screws from an local company, they're manufacturing the iWhatever locally, but if they buy the screws from a foreign company, they're "assembling, not manufacturing"?
I suspect that, by that definition, we can safely say that very little is manufactured in any country....
Slashdot Mirror
What, trolls can't take cruises? Or go to conventions with other trolls?
If not, why not?
Of course they do! After all, where would the "company store" be without the ability to limit the shopping choices of individuals?
It didn't happen by accident at Chernobyl. It happened by abject stupidity.
It wasn't. Unless you consider the mandate from Moscow to run that particular test "sabotage". The particular test in question was "is it possible to extract usable energy from a nuclear plant to deal with a meltdown in progress?" For which test, they pushed an out-of-the-way (in other words, on the back end of nowhere) nuclear plant as close to meltdown conditions as it was possible to safely go.
Unfortunately, they were wrong about how far "as it was possible to SAFELY go" was....
No, they weren't. They were doing experimental work prescribed by a bureaucrat several thousand km away. Which experimental work was completely unnecessary. The only good thing about the mess was that they had (barely) enough sense to do it on a reactor on the backend of nowhere...
Only to people who know little or nothing about them.
Remember, for all that Chernobyl was the worst nuclear power disaster in the history of the world, it killed fewer people than will die in traffic in the USA TODAY.
For that matter, hydroelectric power has killed three orders of magnitude (at least. the three orders of magnitude are from ONE incident) more people than nuclear power, much less coal....
Assuming, of course, that $X is less than 25% of your energy costs over the remaining lifetime of the building.
And yeah, poor people aren't going to be in on that game. Unless the government offers low interest loans to poor people to do so. Which will require that the city government borrow moderately enormous amounts of money.
Which is their privilege.
That said, looks like Da Mayor is planning on putting Chicago on the hook for a LOT of money, which bill won't come due till...his successor is in office. Always a great way to run things - promise the sun, the moon, the stars, and if it ends up being too expensive, you get to blame someone else for not doing it right....
Y'know, I've never met a person who believed that "the problem is too many people" who thinks that they have a moral obligation to remove themselves from the world.
But a lot of them DO think that OTHER people should be removed from the world....
If "personalized ads" are for items that you've recently purchased, then whomever did the algorithm for "personalizing" those ads was a complete cretin. If you just bought one, then you're (probably) not in the market for one.
On the other hand, knowing you just bought a hoover vacuum, ads for bags for hoover vacs might be useful....
So, just curious...
Would the personal computer revolution have occurred if none of the PC makers had been allowed to advertise their products? Same for any particular piece of software? And yes, Linux would have to be included in "any particular piece of software" even assuming Linux could have existed without the personal computers that noone would have ever heard of without advertising.
Or automobiles. Airlines. Trains. Refrigerators....
Face it, advertising is how people learn that there are new things they can spend their labour on. Without it, we're back to the nineteenth century (or earlier)....
Chernobyl killed a hundred or so firefighters, in case you were unaware. It was also, in case you were unaware, a deliberate attempt by the government in question to create conditions in the reactor like a meltdown. So, a deliberate attempt to operate a reactor in an insanely unsafe way managed to produce fewer casualties as routine traffic accidents do on any random day in the USA.
If we had FIFTY Chernobyls each and every year, there would be fewer deaths than we have traffic fatalities every year. By a factor of ten or so...
The second worst nuclear accident in history has had ONE (1) fatality as a result. He took seven years to die (his death made the news last year). A rounding error compared to Chernobyl.
The third worst produced no casualties.
Frankly, if we were to go 100% nuclear (we can't and won't, because nuclear plants aren't designed for anything but baseload), which would about triple the number of nuke plants we have (and presumably would triple the number of nuclear accidents we have), and if every one of those accidents were "another Chernobyl", we'd still have fewer fatalities as a result of nuclear power than we have on any given day on the highways of America.
Of course, the anti-nuke hysterics would have you believe that nuclear power is killing millions of people a year, and that building nuclear power plants is essentially identical to throwing tens of thousands of babies into meat-grinders. And since throwing babies into meat grinders is bad, nuclear (which causes babies to be thrown into meat grinders) has just got to be unsafe....
I'm assuming you've run the numbers on this, since you state that the solution is really simple.
So, just out of curiousity, how much money does the Federal govt make every year due to tax exemptions, tax incentives, and tax depreciation on all fossil fuel infrastructure every year?
Oh, and how much money does the Federal government lose due to the loss of taxes from the fossil fuel industries, since it'll pretty much evaporate if this does what you expect it to do?
Alas, this "bill" is no such thing, really. It doesn't include spending, or any details on how it's to be spent. It's just a feel-good-about-ourselves post-it note, really....
Note that 200 years ago, the USA used a bit less than 200ktons of coal. Now, we're using on the order of 1Gton of coal per year.
While I consider a Gton of coal per year to be a serious problem, I fail to see the environmental impact of 200ktons of coal per year. At which rate that Gton of coal would last 5000 years or so....
"But I have never worked since I quit the government. Alas, my daughter has worked in the industry. Are you seriously trying to suggest that my work for the government requires that all my direct descendants work for the government or nobody?"
Okay, I'll bite. How much do they owe planet wide? And why do they owe whatever amount you specified?
And do remember to refer to the relevant sections of the tax codes of each and every country on the planet that will be affected by paying "what they owe the planet"....
Myself, being something other than a tax lawyer (French or otherwise), I suspect that they pay an SI buttload of tax lawyers to make sure that they pay the absolute minimum they can LEGALLY pay....
If it tells me where the UID/Pwd combo exist, I can then change someone's password for them? That could be useful....
And some women won't. It tends to average out over large populations....
I know you were joking, but the lads/lasses out there doing "ethnic cleansing" aren't going to stop when the current victims are all dead - they'll just find someone else to enjoy the benefits of being "ethnically cleansed".
And when they run out of those guys, they'll turn on each other....
Just so. Unless a new piece of must-have software comes along that requires a much more powerful box, the desktop is now where the automobile has been for a long time - does what needs to be done, lasts nearly forever (yes, I remember when a car was pretty much worn out after 50K miles, instead of still going strong at 150K+ miles)....
Do note that "arrest", "questioning", and "investigation" aren't mandatory in such a situation.
Yeah, question the knothead.
And investigate as needed.
But arrest? No point in it, since he hasn't committed a crime (no, saying something stupid to Siri isn't against the law) until some action (other than talk about it) is taken in regards to the hypothetical crime....
Possibly.
On the other hand, the forecast for this past Tuesday (where I live, of course), for each of the five days before that Tuesday, were different. And none of them came especially close (not even the one from Monday night) to what we actually had Tuesday.
I didn't even have that excuse....
Citation?
Children kidnapped by strangers happens so infrequently that it's hardly a blip, and pretty much always has been. Runaways are ~1000x more numerous. And "missing children" as a result of miscommunication (Grandma picks up the kids from school because Dad asked her to, and Mom, not knowing this, panics - or switch position of Mom and Dad, same deal) are even more numerous....
I take it you're one of the people who think that The Donald is using an off-the-shelf i{hone, instead of one that's been brought up to NSA standards? If so, I suspect you are...mistaken....
Umm, no. Having someone steal my /. userid & password wouldn't bother me in the slightest. It's one of many userid/password combos I don't care enough about to even bother changing it at random intervals....
My online banking info is a whole 'nuther game, of course.
Face it, there are a LOT of userid/password combos on the interwebs that don't amount to a hill of beans, even to their original owner, much less to someone who wants to steal their ID....
I doubt they're going to get 30+ launches done in a year, unless they've been playing things really close to the vest. But I am delighted to see someone else get into what used to be called the Space Race in a big way.
Umm, no. It's a country in South America. Look it up on a map sometime, and maybe next time your babbling will have a kernel of truth.
That said, never trust the opinions as to cause-and-effect of a country's collapse to someone who doesn't even know where the country is....
So, if they buy the screws from an local company, they're manufacturing the iWhatever locally, but if they buy the screws from a foreign company, they're "assembling, not manufacturing"?
I suspect that, by that definition, we can safely say that very little is manufactured in any country....