One often meets the claim that science-fiction is a genre full of myriad possibilities, but if even once-legendary science-fiction authors are abandoning that, it doesn't make the field look any better.
That and the unfortunate tendency to moralize, pontificate, and preach under the guise of telling a story. Almost always demonizing mankind in the process.
The linked story would have you believe this is the shining virtue of sifi, the redeeming value in an otherwise unworthy piece of class B writing. I see that the other way around. In order to get published some of these authors throw in the sob story, the lesson, the obligatory short skirt.
You would have to measure, because 70 pounds is so small you couldn't possibly do the math with enough confidence. They worry about burn rate per hour in these planes, nobody does the math to the last pound unless they are flying right at max. These are big airplanes. Any tiny difference in pilot flying style would have a far bigger effect than 70 additional pounds. Does he put the gear down 20 seconds before the fleet average? Does he run up two seconds longer than average? Does he plan his route thru high pressure cells, into headwinds, or does fly like a bus driver? Does the loadmaster balance the load to the closest 100 pounds, or merely to the closest pallet?
By cutting publication printing and distribution costs, and exchanging 70 pounds of paper for a 1.3-pound iPad, the Air Force can save some serious cash, including more than $1.2 million worth of fuel per year."
I seriously doubt you could even measure the fuel savings of kicking 70 pounds off a C5 or C17.
Powered by what? You are in a mandatory shutdown situation. Where do you get the heat to run a turbine?
How long after a mandatory shutdown until the core is too cold to generate electricity? When you need to cool it (the problem they were running into), you have waste heat. Capture that and you'll have emergency power as long as you need it.
Apparently its not hot enough to generate any significant heat for very long, and boiling water to steam in enough volume to run even a small turbine takes a boat load of heat.
See this image. The vertical line shows temps dropping all over the reactor immediately after the scram.
This chart shows that the core was at 4000 degrees at 14:46 at the time of the quake (and scram), and by 15:30 when the wave struck it was at around 250 degrees. You won't produce enough steam to run a turbine with that amount of heat. (If you could there would be no reason for normal operation at 4000 degrees).
Diesel generators were the right choice. Indeed the only choice. Used in reactors all over the world.
The location of those generators was wrong. We both agree on that.
They knew, or should have know it was wrong, just as JD Posted Above. The risk assessment used to design the plant didn't take into account the very strong quake AND the very large wave, because the original design used ONLY a 100 year window. JDs point is that the 100 year window was too short.
But plant operators are handed a plant to run, and its almost impossible to go back and say this is dangerous, we need to totally rebuild this plant, or move it. That doesn't happen in Japan, and it doesn't happen in the US either.
Once built, you couldn't make this plant safe. $10,000 doesn't come close. There are 5 reactors on site. Even raising the generators, indeed, the entire plant 50 feet couldn't make it safe against a quake of that magnitude and a tsunami of that size. All it takes is a cooling water pipe to shake and break, or a pump to fail, or salt water contamination of the cooling system.
It should not have been built there. A proper risk assessment window would have prevented it.
RT(F)A -- Suit originally filed in 1999. Since the claim is specifically against image interaction, rather than simply hyperlinks, the timing is just about right.
That 1999 suit is long since over:
To those who follow high-profile tech litigation, the name Eolas may sound familiar. The company sued Microsoft back in 1999, winning a $521 million jury verdict in 2003 that shook the tech world. While that verdict was overturned on appeal, Microsoft ultimately settled rather than re-try the case.
So ultimately they lost the only case that went to court. By that time Microsoft could pay them to go away out of pocket change. That doesn't in any way validate their patent, which rejected the Eolas patent claims in re-exams. That was the state of things for a long long time.
So the entire web grew up in the interim after the rejection, but before the re-instatement. Everybody thought the way was cleared by the rejection.
Just as a side issue, Compuserve had the ability to share images over the web BEFORE there was even a WEB. Their suite even had image viewing back when it was strictly dial up. They introduced the GIF format in 1987, and digital porn was born two minutes later. Compuserve was the first online service to offer Internet connectivity, albeit limited access, as early as 1989.
And another side note, consider this exercise:
Berners-Lee's argument against this patent, namely that unless the Eolas patent was invalidated it would cause the “disruption of global web standards” and cause “substantial economic and technical damage to the operation of the World Wide Web. is fairly weak if you ask me.
If Eolas didn't have valid patents the case should be thrown out on THAT fact alone! BUT, If they did have valid patents, then invalidating them SIMPLY because of the hardship those patents would inflict seems to me just one more proof of how essential those (supposedly) valid patents would be to the development of the web.
I throw that out in the interest of discussion only. I'm not aware if there is any case law that allows invalidating a patent JUST because it proves essential to development of the very product it patents.
(Note: this is about current law, not the world as it "should be").
And HOW is that germane to the GP's points? Does it somehow give the NRC access to or information about an event in Japan just because some customers in some areas of the US see a small "regulatory charge" on their bill?
Further the NRC is a US organization, half a world away from the scene and totally cut off from communications.
Why would anyone expect them to have current knowledge, coherent communications, and clear planning for a reactor accident well out of their jurisdiction?
Powered by what? You are in a mandatory shutdown situation. Where do you get the heat to run a turbine? You just got smacked by a tidal wave! Everything got flooded.
They had generators. Poorly located, inadequately fueled perhaps. But would it be any different if they had a separate set of generators fueled with JetA, or natural gas?
As JD posted above, these things were well known ahead of time. But the Japanese tendency to "save face" as they "save money" prevented them from being dealt with publicly, proactively, and realistically.
Reactor design was the the first big problem. Location the second. Failure to heed the warnings that were documented years in advance was the third. Add them together, throw in a fairly secretive power company, and you have a perfect storm. That reactor on that site could not have been made safe for the twin disasters that hit it, and this was well known by the plant operators and the Japanese government.
With a 400 pound payload, this machine can carry (maybe) the full combat gear load of four soldiers, or more practically half the load for 8.
Global Security documents that the average rifleman's combat load is 91 pounds. Some of this is going to stay with the soldier. Remote special forces units packs will be much higher, as they must be more self sufficient. Combat pack weight is almost directly determined by the capability of (and the soldiers confidence in) the supply train.
If you have the luxury of going in with full air support and helicopter resupply you don't need heavy packs, but you aren't going to surprise anyone either. This walker device wouldn't be needed where you have helicopter support. Where you do need this device is where you may not want it, such as rough terrain missions, with small numbers of soldiers, trying to be reasonably stealthy.
An couple of chain saw motors coming thru the outback is going to be easy to hear. In the woods you can easily hear a chainsaw two to five miles away. Having one right next to you means you can't hear anything else. Not the breaking twig, not the thump of a distant mortar tube, probably not even bullets smacking the trees right next to you.
So unless they can do something about the noise this seems to me to be a re-supply tool for use in already controlled rugged areas rather than something that accompanies combat troops. But if you already control the area, just use a chopper. Even if you do quiet the engine, I suspect this thing is less than stealthy. And left unsaid is the weight of the second day's fuel.
The use case seems vanishingly small in its current state.
who the hell modded this flamebait!? It's absolutely spot on, they're supposed to be publicly transparent - including radio comms - since they're paid for with PUBLIC MONEY!
No they are not meant to be totally transparent. That's a great way to get innocent people killed, and totally destroy the effectiveness of police.
Being paid by public money doesn't entitle every bank robber, drug dealer, or murderer listen into police comms.
If the press gets to listen, then everybody gets to listen, because the press can't keep a secret. The big competition becomes which radio station can get it on the air first.
Use just a tiny bit of common sense before you post.
This has happened in hundreds of jurisdictions, and its been going on for a dozen years. Some jurisdictions only encrypt special tactical frequencies used for emergencies, but most realize that as soon as they did that they needed the decryption capable radios for every officer and car any way, and there was not much saving leaving regular channels unencrypted. They bought the radios, why not use them.
Not having reporters and wanna-be-cops show up at every incident was sort of a side benefit in their eyes.
Why the press would expect to be "loaned" a radio is beyond me. The press never "loans" their confidential sources to the police.
Why would you doubt space qualification making a difference?
Because Nasa has been testing off the shelf laptops and Android devices on the ISS for the last 3 years and have found no problems at all. Off the shelf. Go to Dell, buy a laptop. Launch. Use for over a year. No reported problems.
100 times smaller in area per bit? Which makes it 100 times more susceptible,
Or 100 times less susceptible assuming a random dispersal of cosmic rays. Smaller targets. Depends on the density of the rays I suppose.
But in any case, that amount of errors WOULD be noticed if it were infact occurring and going undetected and uncorrected by the hardware. Just about zero memory goes unused in the modern computer. They strive to use it all in one way or another. Unused memory is wasted memory.
Computers correct for these errors. Parity checking either in hardware or software. You can compare the content of files that have been sitting on disk or have been moving thru memory for years, and you never see unexplained changes to those files, even when such changes would be very evident (such as plain text files).
So its either not happening as much as the article suggests, or its already handled via error detection and correction and redundancy.
What happened to the tens of meters thick shielding? You throw that out there, then waive it away by implying you can make it all unnecessary by designing "with this in mind".
You totally over look the fact that off the shelf laptops are being used daily on the ISS with no problems. Have been up there for years.
Random bit flip errors as soon as its turned on you say?
Except no one knows for certain the computers crashed at all. The second link is the only thing mentioning a computer restart, but that is a one line sentence thrown in with a bunch of other possible causes.
A major short circuit in the engine controls could instantaneously trip both computers off line. Is that a programming error?
How many times do you supposed they actually tested engine start IN THE SPACE CRAFT? I'm guessing ZERO.
I'm sure they tested the engine multiple times. I'd figure the stress of the launch (vibrations, etc, etc.) causes something to fail either due to shoddy construction or small debris falling onto something.
I'm sure they tested the engines too. Its probably a tried and true engine. The Russians tend to make very good motors.
But I seriously doubt they tested it in the space craft using the space craft's wiring harness. They used the harness on the test bed platform.
The second link in summary leads to an article that is internally contradictory. That page from Discovery News is all over the place. Which is not surprising given the bio of the author:
Klotz came to Brevard County, Fla. (aka The Space Coast) as a copy editor for the local paper 24 years ago. She switched to writing because it was obvious the reporters were having way more fun than the editors for the same money. After a year or so of writing for the business section, Journalism major trying to wear the big girl shoes.
The Link to the planetary society page seems much more reliable.
Obviously the error handling routine was poorly written.
I'll assume your tongue was firmly planted in your cheek, and suggest a +1 Funny mod.
But on the chance you were serious, depending on where that chip was, it may have been beyond something manageable by software.
A chip in a power controller could take down any or all of the processor components, or render access to control circuits impossible.
The linked article also states
Everything was working well with the spacecraft immediately after launch, including deployment of the solar panels, until the command to start the engines was issued. When that did not happen, the spacecraft went into a safe mode, keeping the solar panels pointed to the Sun to maintain power.
How many times do you supposed they actually tested engine start IN THE SPACE CRAFT? I'm guessing ZERO.
non-space qualified parts being used in some of the electronics circuits. This is a design failure by the spacecraft engineers that might have been caught had they performed adequate component and system testing prior to flight. But they did not.
So design failure, due to radiation, prior to the craft getting near the strongest radiation belts. Unbelievable. Occam would be skeptical.
This sounds to me like some on-board internal source of radiation, or induction, or simple overload, fried a chip somewhere in some un-specified circuitry, most probably in the engine controls. This seems far more likely than an external radiation source given the shielding the physical design would provide.
I doubt space qualification made any difference at all. The window for space radiation in the brief time it was operational was small. Rather I suspect under-spec parts, over voltage or high current draw, or internal shielding oversights.
Slashdot Mirror
The prob was also lost inside the radiation belts.
And nasa sent the laptops and ipads specifically to test for radiation problems.
Not happening.
One often meets the claim that science-fiction is a genre full of myriad possibilities, but if even once-legendary science-fiction authors are abandoning that, it doesn't make the field look any better.
That and the unfortunate tendency to moralize, pontificate, and preach under the guise of telling a story.
Almost always demonizing mankind in the process.
The linked story would have you believe this is the shining virtue of sifi, the redeeming value in an otherwise unworthy piece of class B writing.
I see that the other way around. In order to get published some of these authors throw in the sob story, the lesson, the obligatory short skirt.
You would have to measure, because 70 pounds is so small you couldn't possibly do the math with enough confidence.
They worry about burn rate per hour in these planes, nobody does the math to the last pound unless they are flying right at max.
These are big airplanes. Any tiny difference in pilot flying style would have a far bigger effect than 70 additional pounds. Does he put the gear down 20 seconds before the fleet average? Does he run up two seconds longer than average? Does he plan his route thru high pressure cells, into headwinds, or does fly like a bus driver? Does the loadmaster balance the load to the closest 100 pounds, or merely to the closest pallet?
The shelf life is much longer than 28 days for the paper. Not ALL of it gets updated, just some pages.
The article also says:
By cutting publication printing and distribution costs, and exchanging 70 pounds of paper for a 1.3-pound iPad, the Air Force can save some serious cash, including more than $1.2 million worth of fuel per year."
I seriously doubt you could even measure the fuel savings of kicking 70 pounds off a C5 or C17.
Powered by what? You are in a mandatory shutdown situation. Where do you get the heat to run a turbine?
How long after a mandatory shutdown until the core is too cold to generate electricity? When you need to cool it (the problem they were running into), you have waste heat. Capture that and you'll have emergency power as long as you need it.
Apparently its not hot enough to generate any significant heat for very long, and boiling water to steam in enough volume to run even a small turbine takes a boat load of heat.
See this image. The vertical line shows temps dropping all over the reactor immediately after the scram.
This chart shows that the core was at 4000 degrees at 14:46 at the time of the quake (and scram), and by 15:30 when the wave struck it was at around 250 degrees. You won't produce enough steam to run a turbine with that amount of heat. (If you could there would be no reason for normal operation at 4000 degrees).
Diesel generators were the right choice. Indeed the only choice. Used in reactors all over the world.
The location of those generators was wrong. We both agree on that.
They knew, or should have know it was wrong, just as JD Posted Above. The risk assessment used to design the plant didn't take into account the very strong quake AND the very large wave, because the original design used ONLY a 100 year window. JDs point is that the 100 year window was too short.
But plant operators are handed a plant to run, and its almost impossible to go back and say this is dangerous, we need to totally rebuild this plant, or move it. That doesn't happen in Japan, and it doesn't happen in the US either.
Once built, you couldn't make this plant safe. $10,000 doesn't come close. There are 5 reactors on site. Even raising the generators, indeed, the entire plant 50 feet couldn't make it safe against a quake of that magnitude and a tsunami of that size. All it takes is a cooling water pipe to shake and break, or a pump to fail, or salt water contamination of the cooling system.
It should not have been built there. A proper risk assessment window would have prevented it.
RT(F)A -- Suit originally filed in 1999. Since the claim is specifically against image interaction, rather than simply hyperlinks, the timing is just about right.
That 1999 suit is long since over:
To those who follow high-profile tech litigation, the name Eolas may sound familiar. The company sued Microsoft back in 1999, winning a $521 million jury verdict in 2003 that shook the tech world. While that verdict was overturned on appeal, Microsoft ultimately settled rather than re-try the case.
So ultimately they lost the only case that went to court. By that time Microsoft could pay them to go away out of pocket change. That doesn't in any way validate their patent, which rejected the Eolas patent claims in re-exams. That was the state of things for a long long time.
So the entire web grew up in the interim after the rejection, but before the re-instatement. Everybody thought the way was cleared by the rejection.
Just as a side issue, Compuserve had the ability to share images over the web BEFORE there was even a WEB. Their suite even had image viewing back when it was strictly dial up. They introduced the GIF format in 1987, and digital porn was born two minutes later.
Compuserve was the first online service to offer Internet connectivity, albeit limited access, as early as 1989.
And another side note, consider this exercise:
Berners-Lee's argument against this patent, namely that unless the Eolas patent was invalidated it would cause the “disruption of global web standards” and cause “substantial economic and technical damage to the operation of the World Wide Web. is fairly weak if you ask me.
If Eolas didn't have valid patents the case should be thrown out on THAT fact alone! BUT, If they did have valid patents, then invalidating them SIMPLY because of the hardship those patents would inflict seems to me just one more proof of how essential those (supposedly) valid patents would be to the development of the web.
I throw that out in the interest of discussion only. I'm not aware if there is any case law that allows invalidating a patent JUST because it proves essential to development of the very product it patents.
(Note: this is about current law, not the world as it "should be").
Put another way, we pay for it all, dude.
And HOW is that germane to the GP's points?
Does it somehow give the NRC access to or information about an event in Japan just because some customers in some areas of the US see a small "regulatory charge" on their bill?
The NRC's job does not extend to Japan.
We do expect the NRC to know what to do in case of a meltdown. Evidently they take the money but don't do the job.
In JAPAN?
Please tell my you aren't serious!
Further the NRC is a US organization, half a world away from the scene and totally cut off from communications.
Why would anyone expect them to have current knowledge, coherent communications, and clear planning for a reactor accident well out of their jurisdiction?
Wait, What!? Emergency Turbines?
Powered by what? You are in a mandatory shutdown situation. Where do you get the heat to run a turbine?
You just got smacked by a tidal wave! Everything got flooded.
They had generators. Poorly located, inadequately fueled perhaps. But would it be any different if they had a separate set of generators fueled with JetA, or natural gas?
As JD posted above, these things were well known ahead of time. But the Japanese tendency to "save face" as they "save money" prevented them from being dealt with publicly, proactively, and realistically.
Reactor design was the the first big problem. Location the second. Failure to heed the warnings that were documented years in advance was the third. Add them together, throw in a fairly secretive power company, and you have a perfect storm. That reactor on that site could not have been made safe for the twin disasters that hit it, and this was well known by the plant operators and the Japanese government.
With a 400 pound payload, this machine can carry (maybe) the full combat gear load of four soldiers, or more practically half the load for 8.
Global Security documents that the average rifleman's combat load is 91 pounds. Some of this is going to stay with the soldier. Remote special forces units packs will be much higher, as they must be more self sufficient. Combat pack weight is almost directly determined by the capability of (and the soldiers confidence in) the supply train.
If you have the luxury of going in with full air support and helicopter resupply you don't need heavy packs, but you aren't going to surprise anyone either. This walker device wouldn't be needed where you have helicopter support. Where you do need this device is where you may not want it, such as rough terrain missions, with small numbers of soldiers, trying to be reasonably stealthy.
An couple of chain saw motors coming thru the outback is going to be easy to hear. In the woods you can easily hear a chainsaw two to five miles away. Having one right next to you means you can't hear anything else. Not the breaking twig, not the thump of a distant mortar tube, probably not even bullets smacking the trees right next to you.
So unless they can do something about the noise this seems to me to be a re-supply tool for use in already controlled rugged areas rather than something that accompanies combat troops. But if you already control the area, just use a chopper. Even if you do quiet the engine, I suspect this thing is less than stealthy.
And left unsaid is the weight of the second day's fuel.
The use case seems vanishingly small in its current state.
who the hell modded this flamebait!? It's absolutely spot on, they're supposed to be publicly transparent - including radio comms - since they're paid for with PUBLIC MONEY!
No they are not meant to be totally transparent. That's a great way to get innocent people killed, and totally destroy the effectiveness of police.
Being paid by public money doesn't entitle every bank robber, drug dealer, or murderer listen into police comms.
If the press gets to listen, then everybody gets to listen, because the press can't keep a secret. The big competition becomes which radio station can get it on the air first.
Use just a tiny bit of common sense before you post.
TV show? Really? That's all you got?
This has happened in hundreds of jurisdictions, and its been going on for a dozen years. Some jurisdictions only encrypt special tactical frequencies used for emergencies, but most realize that as soon as they did that they needed the decryption capable radios for every officer and car any way, and there was not much saving leaving regular channels unencrypted. They bought the radios, why not use them.
Not having reporters and wanna-be-cops show up at every incident was sort of a side benefit in their eyes.
Why the press would expect to be "loaned" a radio is beyond me. The press never "loans" their confidential sources to the police.
Why would you doubt space qualification making a difference?
Because Nasa has been testing off the shelf laptops and Android devices on the ISS for the last 3 years and have found no problems
at all. Off the shelf. Go to Dell, buy a laptop. Launch. Use for over a year. No reported problems.
100 times smaller in area per bit? Which makes it 100 times more susceptible,
Or 100 times less susceptible assuming a random dispersal of cosmic rays. Smaller targets.
Depends on the density of the rays I suppose.
But in any case, that amount of errors WOULD be noticed if it were infact occurring and going undetected and uncorrected
by the hardware. Just about zero memory goes unused in the modern computer. They strive to use it all in one way or
another. Unused memory is wasted memory.
Computers correct for these errors. Parity checking either in hardware or software. You can compare the content
of files that have been sitting on disk or have been moving thru memory for years, and you never see unexplained
changes to those files, even when such changes would be very evident (such as plain text files).
So its either not happening as much as the article suggests, or its already handled via error detection
and correction and redundancy.
Well played sir!
Excuse me but your post is self contradictory.
What happened to the tens of meters thick shielding? You throw that out there, then waive it away by implying you can make it all unnecessary by designing "with this in mind".
You totally over look the fact that off the shelf laptops are being used daily on the ISS with no problems. Have been up there for years.
Random bit flip errors as soon as its turned on you say?
I can see why you post as AC.
Except no one knows for certain the computers crashed at all.
The second link is the only thing mentioning a computer restart, but that is a one line sentence thrown in with a bunch of other possible causes.
A major short circuit in the engine controls could instantaneously trip both computers off line. Is that a programming error?
It's only beta. If it is the typical Google beta, ICS will be obsolete by the time Chrome is out of beta.
On the other hand a Google Beta is usually better than anyone else's Release 7.2.
How many times do you supposed they actually tested engine start IN THE SPACE CRAFT? I'm guessing ZERO.
I'm sure they tested the engine multiple times. I'd figure the stress of the launch (vibrations, etc, etc.) causes something to fail either due to shoddy construction or small debris falling onto something.
I'm sure they tested the engines too. Its probably a tried and true engine. The Russians tend to make very good motors.
But I seriously doubt they tested it in the space craft using the space craft's wiring harness. They used the harness on the test bed platform.
The second link in summary leads to an article that is internally contradictory. That page from Discovery News is all over the place.
Which is not surprising given the bio of the author:
Klotz came to Brevard County, Fla. (aka The Space Coast) as a copy editor for the local paper 24 years ago. She switched to writing because it was obvious the reporters were having way more fun than the editors for the same money. After a year or so of writing for the business section,
Journalism major trying to wear the big girl shoes.
The Link to the planetary society page seems much more reliable.
Obviously the error handling routine was poorly written.
I'll assume your tongue was firmly planted in your cheek, and suggest a +1 Funny mod.
But on the chance you were serious, depending on where that chip was, it may have been beyond something manageable by software.
A chip in a power controller could take down any or all of the processor components, or render access to control circuits impossible.
The linked article also states
Everything was working well with the spacecraft immediately after launch, including deployment of the solar panels, until the command to start the engines was issued. When that did not happen, the spacecraft went into a safe mode, keeping the solar panels pointed to the Sun to maintain power.
How many times do you supposed they actually tested engine start IN THE SPACE CRAFT? I'm guessing ZERO.
non-space qualified parts being used in some of the electronics circuits. This is a design failure by the spacecraft engineers that might have been caught had they performed adequate component and system testing prior to flight. But they did not.
So design failure, due to radiation, prior to the craft getting near the strongest radiation belts. Unbelievable. Occam would be skeptical.
This sounds to me like some on-board internal source of radiation, or induction, or simple overload, fried a chip somewhere in some un-specified circuitry, most probably in the engine controls. This seems far more likely than an external radiation source given the shielding the physical design would provide.
I doubt space qualification made any difference at all. The window for space radiation in the brief time it was operational was small.
Rather I suspect under-spec parts, over voltage or high current draw, or internal shielding oversights.