For em, the issue is that plutonium is astonishingly poisonous.
That's actually an urban myth. Read about it at the wikipedia.
140kg of plutonium is enough to cause cancer in the entire world population about ten times over.
Depends what you mean by "cause cancer." Tt is generally accepted that exposure to ionising radiation icreases your risk of developing cancer by an amount depending on the type of radiation, its strength and the time you are exposed to it. This is a very complicated subject, and people make careers out of understanding it and supervising radiation workers. Technically, exposure to any sort of ionising radiation at all increases your risk of developing a fatal cancer. For example, every banana you eat (which contains naturally-occuring potassium-50) slightly increases your risk. Having a dental X-ray increases your risk somewhat more, and so does flying in an aeroplane.
I'm not sure what the dose rate is from weapons-grade plutonium, but people are able to handle it in the lab, and people are able to stand next to nuclear warheads, all without turning green and losing their hair.
The dangers of plutonium are greatly exaggerated. I knew a man who ingested some. They figured out that the likeleyhood of him catching cancer from it was very small.
You never know when Islamist terrorists will take over one of those plutonium ships with one of their nuclear subs or aircraft carriers...
I was just thinking, they must be carrying a packet of wire wool and a spare tin of paint to clean the charred,black,sooty smudge off the hull that the suicide bombers will leave when they crash their inflatable dinghy into the ship shouting, "Death to the Infidel! God is great!"
AFAIK, the plutonium is being transported as plutonium oxide rather than pure metal. I'd imagine that probably makes it difficult or impossible to achieve criticality, but then I know nothing very much about nuclear weapons.
You gotta wonder what the brits got planned with those many TONNES of weapons grade PU they got in the bunker at Sellafield. That place aint no power plant!
Sellafield has never been a "power plant" it's just the ignorant, stupid, sensationalist British media and such that refer to it as one.
Sellafield is an enormous site. I think that somewhere in the region of 15000 people work there on a daily basis.
Sellafiled contains many things, including the ill-fated (criminally badly designed) Windscale reactors (whose sole purpose was plutonium production), the Calder Hall power station (mainly for providing site electricity and steam and the very first Magnox in the world, now shut down for good), various separation and containment facilities including the notorious "open pond", reprocessing facilities, the WAGR (Windscale Advanced Gas-cooler Reactor - absolutely brilliant piece of engineering, now decommissioning), the MOX Demonstration Facility, THORP (Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant) plus a load of other stuff.
Most of it isn't top secret and can be visited by the public. I went once on business. Very interesting. For those of us too young to remember the Cold War Era, it's absolutely incredible to see what's there.
Try clicking on the above link. I think BNFL has now got a clue and realises that IE isn't the only browser in existance...:-)
I think that the casinos are leaking plutonium into the soil. See, it's the only secret way we have of disposing of nukular waste without the terriorist getting their evil little hands on it to make a toxic robotic space monkey death ray president assassinator.
I hate casinos. I went to one once, and they told me the bar was closed. Then this dude went up to the bar and bought a beer. It wasn't even as if I was drunk, I mean I could still stand up and eveything. I'll just stick to the moonshine. That's when the Martians come. Jesus rides with them in their saucer craft. And Elvis too.
Poor old Jon Katz. He used to take a terrible beating from the trolls here. I quite enjoyed his essays. They did attract quite a lot of derision due to slashbot groupthink, but that is to be expected from thought-provoking and challenging writing. I didn't always agree with him, but he was always a good read.
who the hell installs a NEW Sun system these days?
Well, the Sun Opteronboxes are selling like hot cakes. The sales of UltraSPARC kit has increased by several 10s of percent in the last couple of quarters, so I suppose one or two people must be installing new Sun kit.
If we believed everything intel and HP were trelling us, we'd realise that every 64-bit platform other than itanic is doomed since itanic is taking over the world and resistance is futile.
But then what would I know? I'm just part of the slashbot groupthink.
35 years ago person-kind first set foot on the Moon. They were saying exactly the same thing about going to Mars back then.
Until we have some political will, or an oscenely rich private explorer (Bill here's a hint: do something cool with all that booty you've plundered from the hard-of-thinking PeeCee users over they years) to start the process, I'll remain skeptical.
1st Corollary : Any slashdotter who cannot spell Religion is unlikely to have informed, intelligen opinions on the subject.
With logic like that, you should vote Republican. Some dyslexics are highly intelligent and knowlegeable. Now I'm off to the warehouse to meet my lady for tonight.
In addition to Niagra, there's also a mysterous multi-threaded multi-core design called ROCK.
This is like Niagra but more geared towards floating-point workloads (e.g. science).
Sun will then be able to offer three different kinds of binary compatable SPARC processors: Olympic (from Fujitsu), Niagra for small web-type servers, and ROCK. No other company can claim this.
In the mean time, there's Opteron and UltraSPARC IV.
OK, now I have a few minutes to explain things properly.
Sun cancelled UltraSPARC V because it was too late. They also realised that in server-type situations, multi-core and multi-threading was the way to go, so they developed Niagra. Simply increasing clock frequency just doesn't scale anymore c.f. Pentium IV.
Further more, Fujitsu has an excellent 64-bit SPARC implementation (SPARC is an Open Standard, unlike itanic), so it makes more sense for them to use that than develop their own single-threaded UltraSPARC. See the link in my post above.
Since Sun announced it's highly multi-threaded cores, intel has done an enormous about turn, announced multi-core processors, and all but admitted that the Pentium IV Netburst Architecture is a dead end. They're losing out to Opteron big time. Just look at the SPEC scores and thermal characteristics vs. clock frequency. So intel has now decided that the Pentium M core is the way for them to go (a descendent of the Pentium III IIRC).
Niagra is only the tip of the iceberg. Recently there was an article about Niagra 2. I don't have the link handy.
Doesn't mean a damn thing unless software is written to take advantage of it.
This is a SPARC processor. It runs Solaris. The Solaris kernel is fully pre-emptively muti-threaded. Most of the large applications that you buy a big Solaris box to run are also highly mutlithreaded.
The beauty of this design is that there is already a mature, stable and high-performance industry-standard OS for it (Solaris) along with thousands of applications.
You could even probably run Linux on it if you wanted.
Slashdot Mirror
That's actually an urban myth. Read about it at the wikipedia.
140kg of plutonium is enough to cause cancer in the entire world population about ten times over.
Depends what you mean by "cause cancer." Tt is generally accepted that exposure to ionising radiation icreases your risk of developing cancer by an amount depending on the type of radiation, its strength and the time you are exposed to it. This is a very complicated subject, and people make careers out of understanding it and supervising radiation workers. Technically, exposure to any sort of ionising radiation at all increases your risk of developing a fatal cancer. For example, every banana you eat (which contains naturally-occuring potassium-50) slightly increases your risk. Having a dental X-ray increases your risk somewhat more, and so does flying in an aeroplane.
I'm not sure what the dose rate is from weapons-grade plutonium, but people are able to handle it in the lab, and people are able to stand next to nuclear warheads, all without turning green and losing their hair.
The dangers of plutonium are greatly exaggerated. I knew a man who ingested some. They figured out that the likeleyhood of him catching cancer from it was very small.
Smoking cigarettes is far more dangerous.
Where are the neutrons coming from?
I was just thinking, they must be carrying a packet of wire wool and a spare tin of paint to clean the charred,black,sooty smudge off the hull that the suicide bombers will leave when they crash their inflatable dinghy into the ship shouting, "Death to the Infidel! God is great!"
AFAIK, the plutonium is being transported as plutonium oxide rather than pure metal. I'd imagine that probably makes it difficult or impossible to achieve criticality, but then I know nothing very much about nuclear weapons.
Sellafield has never been a "power plant" it's just the ignorant, stupid, sensationalist British media and such that refer to it as one.
Sellafield is an enormous site. I think that somewhere in the region of 15000 people work there on a daily basis.
Sellafiled contains many things, including the ill-fated (criminally badly designed) Windscale reactors (whose sole purpose was plutonium production), the Calder Hall power station (mainly for providing site electricity and steam and the very first Magnox in the world, now shut down for good), various separation and containment facilities including the notorious "open pond", reprocessing facilities, the WAGR (Windscale Advanced Gas-cooler Reactor - absolutely brilliant piece of engineering, now decommissioning), the MOX Demonstration Facility, THORP (Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant) plus a load of other stuff.
Most of it isn't top secret and can be visited by the public. I went once on business. Very interesting. For those of us too young to remember the Cold War Era, it's absolutely incredible to see what's there.
Try clicking on the above link. I think BNFL has now got a clue and realises that IE isn't the only browser in existance...:-)
Is this you? :-)
I'm more excited about nuclear spacecraft.
I think that the casinos are leaking plutonium into the soil. See, it's the only secret way we have of disposing of nukular waste without the terriorist getting their evil little hands on it to make a toxic robotic space monkey death ray president assassinator.
I hate casinos. I went to one once, and they told me the bar was closed. Then this dude went up to the bar and bought a beer. It wasn't even as if I was drunk, I mean I could still stand up and eveything. I'll just stick to the moonshine. That's when the Martians come. Jesus rides with them in their saucer craft. And Elvis too.
So, you're a commie-lefty druggie un-American terrorist sympathizer! The Feds have been despatched.
You're about to become a big black man's boyfriend.
To the sarcasm-imparied, I apologise. The War on Civil Liberties, sorry, I mean Terror, is getting to me.
Oh to be back in Amsterdam's fair coffee shops, my best gal by my side....we'd sing, sing, sing..........
I'm a shell-scripter and I'm OK, I work all night and I work all day. I write shell scrips and small makefiles, and I go to the lavatory.
Somebody think of the children!!! Please, somebody, anybody! They're our future!
A fool and his money are easily parted. With casinos, he may also get a free pair of concete boots.
Poor old Jon Katz. He used to take a terrible beating from the trolls here. I quite enjoyed his essays. They did attract quite a lot of derision due to slashbot groupthink, but that is to be expected from thought-provoking and challenging writing. I didn't always agree with him, but he was always a good read.
Well, the Sun Opteron boxes are selling like hot cakes. The sales of UltraSPARC kit has increased by several 10s of percent in the last couple of quarters, so I suppose one or two people must be installing new Sun kit.
If we believed everything intel and HP were trelling us, we'd realise that every 64-bit platform other than itanic is doomed since itanic is taking over the world and resistance is futile.
But then what would I know? I'm just part of the slashbot groupthink.
The system's for sale.
But you do know, don't you, that Bill Gates gave $100 million to fight HIV and $421 million to fight Linux and Open Source when he visited India in 2002. You can read about it here too.
Philanthropist indeed.
By supplying the kerosene to get the stuff and construction workers into low earth orbit?
I wonder if the USA will ever elect a black female president?
For bonus points, elect a black, female, athiest president.
Now, I must get back to cooking my wife's dinner.
Until we have some political will, or an oscenely rich private explorer (Bill here's a hint: do something cool with all that booty you've plundered from the hard-of-thinking PeeCee users over they years) to start the process, I'll remain skeptical.
With logic like that, you should vote Republican. Some dyslexics are highly intelligent and knowlegeable. Now I'm off to the warehouse to meet my lady for tonight.
This is like Niagra but more geared towards floating-point workloads (e.g. science).
Sun will then be able to offer three different kinds of binary compatable SPARC processors: Olympic (from Fujitsu), Niagra for small web-type servers, and ROCK. No other company can claim this.
In the mean time, there's Opteron and UltraSPARC IV.
Sun cancelled UltraSPARC V because it was too late. They also realised that in server-type situations, multi-core and multi-threading was the way to go, so they developed Niagra. Simply increasing clock frequency just doesn't scale anymore c.f. Pentium IV.
Further more, Fujitsu has an excellent 64-bit SPARC implementation (SPARC is an Open Standard, unlike itanic), so it makes more sense for them to use that than develop their own single-threaded UltraSPARC. See the link in my post above.
Since Sun announced it's highly multi-threaded cores, intel has done an enormous about turn, announced multi-core processors, and all but admitted that the Pentium IV Netburst Architecture is a dead end. They're losing out to Opteron big time. Just look at the SPEC scores and thermal characteristics vs. clock frequency. So intel has now decided that the Pentium M core is the way for them to go (a descendent of the Pentium III IIRC).
Niagra is only the tip of the iceberg. Recently there was an article about Niagra 2. I don't have the link handy.
....see I don't give Microsoft any money at all, and I avoid their products too, so I'm not at risk either.
Certainly not.
This is a SPARC processor. It runs Solaris. The Solaris kernel is fully pre-emptively muti-threaded. Most of the large applications that you buy a big Solaris box to run are also highly mutlithreaded.
The beauty of this design is that there is already a mature, stable and high-performance industry-standard OS for it (Solaris) along with thousands of applications.
You could even probably run Linux on it if you wanted.
Double-plus good Bill.