Thanks. I've been cultivating it.:-) I intend to be the world's most curmudgeonly old git when the time comes, hopefully with an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for being an intolerant, cantankerous old fool with an "I told you so" attitude.
People are inherently stupid. There's no point trying to educate them with the facts of nuclear power. They aren't interested. In fact, most are not capable of being interested. They care about celebrities, handbag music, Big Brother and winning the lottery.
Things are beginning to change now here in the UK at least as it is finally beginning to dawn on the stupid, ignorant and politicians (but I repeat myself) that they should have been building new nuclear power stations 10 years ago.
I was lucky. I knew enough Unix/Linux to be able to change career.
As far as I'm aware, fissile plutonium doesn't always come out of the process - it needs to be a specific type of reactor, with enriched fuel, to "breed" plutonium...
That's not true. In conventional nuclear reactors, the plutonium naturally produced is fissile, or at least a substantial proportion of it is. This gives rise to the "moderator coefficient of reactivity" in thermal reactors where an increase in moderator temperature brings about a proportional increase in the number of neutrons with the correct energy spectrum to cause fission in the plutonium. This is a form of neutron resonance.
This is why Magnox and AGR reactors are "positive feedback" systems.
When a Magnox reactor is new, there is no plutonium, so there is no plutonium fission, so for the first few months of operation, the reactor is negative feedback.
In AGRs, the moderator temperature is kept constant by running the cold coolant gas through the moderator prior to cooling the fuel, so AGRs are negative feedback (and hence stable) as long as the moderator temperature is kept constant, which is achieved by active safety systems.
PWRs, on the other hand, are light-water moderated. They are effectively under-moderated and are epi-thermal reactors. They are negative-feedback since any increase in the moderator temperature (water) causes it to expand, reducing its density and hence the amount of moderation. As long as you can keep pressurised water flowing around a PWR it is stable.
In a previous life I worked in Reactor Physics at a nuclear power station.
The first generation of nuclear reactors in the UK (Magnox) used natural (i.e. unenriched) uranium metal as fuel.
This meant that the fuel was very cheap to make but the fuel cans had to have a low neutron capture cross-section, hence the Magnox. This limited the temperatures at which the reactors could operate.
Moving to enriched uranium allowed the use of stainless steel cladding which keeps its integrity to much higher temperatures and is mechanically stronger.
There have been many developments in nuclear fuel technology since the 1950s, as one might expect. MOX was a good idea, but derailed by BNFL corporate incompetence and "environmentalist" hysteria.
The idea with MOX is that, instead of enriching uranium to increase the proportion of fissile U-235, you mix in fissile plutonium recovered from used nuclear fuel which is then "burnt up" in the new fuel to provide power. Plutonium isotopes are natural byproducts of the nuclear reactions in fission reactors.
Perhaps it would be more economical and environmentally-friendly to use more MOX than enriching fresh uranium?
It would appear to us outsiders, that in the USA today it is considered more important for students to become indoctrinated into the ways of Christian Fundamentalism and unquestioning belief in authority than to actually have an education.
In high-temperature superconductors, there is a finite resistance, but in 'classical' superconductors, it's really zero: current flows with no applied voltage.
That sounds like a bogus explanation. From your description, that would be a perpetual motion machine.
Oh, because the XBox graphics are very low resolution compared to those on even a budget PeeCee graphics card, what with having output to the TV by design.
Based on Larry's apocalypses (apocalypti? I like that better, as I do not slobber all over when saying it), it looks he's trying to design a metalanguage to encapsulate every idiom instead of just a better Perl. I imagine this would bloat development time a bit.
Ah yes, the last stage of megalomania. Trying to Take Over the World.
Or, alternatively, "Why didn't you tell me that you went to the shop in your lunch break? What are you hiding? Went to look at the girls on the checkout, did you? You must have been, since you didn't tell me. Why else wouldn't you tell me?"
I worked with IRIX at some point of my career. Nothing impressive, mind you.
I keep hearing this from ex-Irix and Solaris users. Solaris and Irix were the best unixes at one point (1990's). However, their greatness was internal, in the kernel. Most users never got to see it.
I've never used Irix, but speaking for Solaris, the user land was pretty archaic and clumsy (the commands and utilities) compared to the GNU userland (the commands on Linux). Sun finally realised this in 2004 and started migrating the GNU user-land into core Solaris. See Solaris 10 which is available free to download and the source of which can be obtained from opensolaris.org.
Back in the mid-80's, in the days of 5.25" floppy disk and 8-bit microcomputers, one of my dad's colleagues taught an evening class in computing for the general public.
I think they were using BBC micros with 5.25" floppy drives.
Anyway, at the end of the first lesson, one of the ladies folded her floppy disk neatly in half and put it in her handbag.
Funny you should mention it, that would be my favourite way to die: completely unexpectedly, instantaneously, with no perception, and hence no pain or mental trauma.
Hopefully by the time I'm an old git dying of ${GRIM_PAINFUL_DISEASE} there will be legal euthanasia.
Higher Education establishments are nothing but breeding grounds for pinko-commie socialist subversives, homosexulaists and drug addicts. I mean, just look at the socialist gay athiest subversives that have come out of Cambridge University. I mean, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson... Need I go on?
No, the time has come for all right-wing, right-thinking, patriotic god-fearing men to bear arms and rid gods english-speaking (just like the in the bible written in jesuses own English mother tongue) countries of this evil commie anti-capitalist scourge that is bleeding our leaders and corporations dry.
languages can be picked up depending on requirements at any time.
This is an ability and skill that develops with time, having already learned, fairly thoroughly, a few different languages.
People who say that you can pick up a new language in a day are exaggerating. Take PERL and C++, for example. They are baroque monstrosities, especially PERL with its myriads if inconsistencies and special cases and its tendency to permit copious run-time errors.
You may be able to pick up the basics in a few hours, but to become good at a language takes dedication and practice.
I wish I'd been introduced to LISP when I was a kid.
Slashdot Mirror
How does one sleep in a shower?
Give it another fortnight, and there will be nuclear fusion power plants everywhere.
Too cheap to meter.
Your bitterness is mighty. :)
Thanks. I've been cultivating it. :-) I intend to be the world's most curmudgeonly old git when the time comes, hopefully with an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for being an intolerant, cantankerous old fool with an "I told you so" attitude.
People are inherently stupid. There's no point trying to educate them with the facts of nuclear power. They aren't interested. In fact, most are not capable of being interested. They care about celebrities, handbag music, Big Brother and winning the lottery.
Things are beginning to change now here in the UK at least as it is finally beginning to dawn on the stupid, ignorant and politicians (but I repeat myself) that they should have been building new nuclear power stations 10 years ago.
I was lucky. I knew enough Unix/Linux to be able to change career.
As far as I'm aware, fissile plutonium doesn't always come out of the process - it needs to be a specific type of reactor, with enriched fuel, to "breed" plutonium...
That's not true. In conventional nuclear reactors, the plutonium naturally produced is fissile, or at least a substantial proportion of it is. This gives rise to the "moderator coefficient of reactivity" in thermal reactors where an increase in moderator temperature brings about a proportional increase in the number of neutrons with the correct energy spectrum to cause fission in the plutonium. This is a form of neutron resonance.
This is why Magnox and AGR reactors are "positive feedback" systems.
When a Magnox reactor is new, there is no plutonium, so there is no plutonium fission, so for the first few months of operation, the reactor is negative feedback.
In AGRs, the moderator temperature is kept constant by running the cold coolant gas through the moderator prior to cooling the fuel, so AGRs are negative feedback (and hence stable) as long as the moderator temperature is kept constant, which is achieved by active safety systems.
PWRs, on the other hand, are light-water moderated. They are effectively under-moderated and are epi-thermal reactors. They are negative-feedback since any increase in the moderator temperature (water) causes it to expand, reducing its density and hence the amount of moderation. As long as you can keep pressurised water flowing around a PWR it is stable.
In a previous life I worked in Reactor Physics at a nuclear power station.
The first generation of nuclear reactors in the UK (Magnox) used natural (i.e. unenriched) uranium metal as fuel.
This meant that the fuel was very cheap to make but the fuel cans had to have a low neutron capture cross-section, hence the Magnox. This limited the temperatures at which the reactors could operate.
Moving to enriched uranium allowed the use of stainless steel cladding which keeps its integrity to much higher temperatures and is mechanically stronger.
There have been many developments in nuclear fuel technology since the 1950s, as one might expect. MOX was a good idea, but derailed by BNFL corporate incompetence and "environmentalist" hysteria.
The idea with MOX is that, instead of enriching uranium to increase the proportion of fissile U-235, you mix in fissile plutonium recovered from used nuclear fuel which is then "burnt up" in the new fuel to provide power. Plutonium isotopes are natural byproducts of the nuclear reactions in fission reactors.
Perhaps it would be more economical and environmentally-friendly to use more MOX than enriching fresh uranium?
It would appear to us outsiders, that in the USA today it is considered more important for students to become indoctrinated into the ways of Christian Fundamentalism and unquestioning belief in authority than to actually have an education.
Intelligent Design and Blind Patriotism.
"Ah!" says the lawyer, "just because she is there doesn't mean she is willing."
Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
I see what you mean.
In high-temperature superconductors, there is a finite resistance, but in 'classical' superconductors, it's really zero: current flows with no applied voltage.
That sounds like a bogus explanation. From your description, that would be a perpetual motion machine.
And I bet, the US founding fathers would be proud of me.
And they're dead too, along with their ideals. We've lost. The dictators have won, and the paranoid and suggestible have let it happen.
Oh, because the XBox graphics are very low resolution compared to those on even a budget PeeCee graphics card, what with having output to the TV by design.
Based on Larry's apocalypses (apocalypti? I like that better, as I do not slobber all over when saying it), it looks he's trying to design a metalanguage to encapsulate every idiom instead of just a better Perl. I imagine this would bloat development time a bit.
Ah yes, the last stage of megalomania. Trying to Take Over the World.
I say, young man, I like the cut of your jib!
Or, alternatively, "Why didn't you tell me that you went to the shop in your lunch break? What are you hiding? Went to look at the girls on the checkout, did you? You must have been, since you didn't tell me. Why else wouldn't you tell me?"
Not that I'm a government conspiracist, but DNA is yours, what does the government have to do with it?
Here in the UK, the reason given is that it, "Helps to eliminate you from the police's enquiries."
What reasonable, righteous, innocent and public-spirited person could possibly refuse?
I worked with IRIX at some point of my career. Nothing impressive, mind you.
I keep hearing this from ex-Irix and Solaris users. Solaris and Irix were the best unixes at one point (1990's). However, their greatness was internal, in the kernel. Most users never got to see it.
I've never used Irix, but speaking for Solaris, the user land was pretty archaic and clumsy (the commands and utilities) compared to the GNU userland (the commands on Linux). Sun finally realised this in 2004 and started migrating the GNU user-land into core Solaris. See Solaris 10 which is available free to download and the source of which can be obtained from opensolaris.org.
Back in the mid-80's, in the days of 5.25" floppy disk and 8-bit microcomputers, one of my dad's colleagues taught an evening class in computing for the general public.
I think they were using BBC micros with 5.25" floppy drives.
Anyway, at the end of the first lesson, one of the ladies folded her floppy disk neatly in half and put it in her handbag.
Are you a PERL programmer by any chance?
Funny you should mention it, that would be my favourite way to die: completely unexpectedly, instantaneously, with no perception, and hence no pain or mental trauma.
Hopefully by the time I'm an old git dying of ${GRIM_PAINFUL_DISEASE} there will be legal euthanasia.
Higher Education establishments are nothing but breeding grounds for pinko-commie socialist subversives, homosexulaists and drug addicts. I mean, just look at the socialist gay athiest subversives that have come out of Cambridge University. I mean, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson... Need I go on?
No, the time has come for all right-wing, right-thinking, patriotic god-fearing men to bear arms and rid gods english-speaking (just like the in the bible written in jesuses own English mother tongue) countries of this evil commie anti-capitalist scourge that is bleeding our leaders and corporations dry.
Bloody students!
Quite. My mother-in-law thinks that Tim Berners-Lee invented the Internet.
Come on, this isn't the BBC's Technology section or PeeCee Shopper magazine.
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Try "Crystal Tipps"
languages can be picked up depending on requirements at any time.
This is an ability and skill that develops with time, having already learned, fairly thoroughly, a few different languages.
People who say that you can pick up a new language in a day are exaggerating. Take PERL and C++, for example. They are baroque monstrosities, especially PERL with its myriads if inconsistencies and special cases and its tendency to permit copious run-time errors.
You may be able to pick up the basics in a few hours, but to become good at a language takes dedication and practice.
I wish I'd been introduced to LISP when I was a kid.