The primary reason for the bad handling within the company (according to what I hear from an acquaintance of mine who works for TEPCO at Fukushima I) was plain panic and desire to cut as much cost as possible. The first reaction of TEPCO was to move out of the Fukushima plant. They apparently had evacuated all staff and families on Sunday already. Then they left subcontractors to deal with the disaster, while TEPCO staff was monitoring the shit happening from Tokyo via videoconferencing. They even had a glitch that caused delay in power re-supply sometime in mid-April, when a construction machine cut the optical cable that connected TEPCO staff with their human robots at the plant.
The real question is, why was all this allowed. Many reasons.
First, TEPCO is a very well connected and influential corporation. The nuclear power management body in Japan - JAEA - is staffed exclusively with people from the nuclear power industry, i.e. about half of their staff is from TEPCO itself. Those people advise the government on what to do. They also own stock or options of, receive pensions from and hold sinecure positions with their former corporate employer. No wonder they would be among the last to criticize it. Naturally, they influence what gets in the government media (NHK, mostly) about the accident. TEPCO is a large contributor to national politicians, and the local governments where TEPCO operates (including the affected areas) are also mostly in the pockets of the company. That is why both national and local politicians have worked with TEPCO to calm protesters from day one.
Despite that, there have been a few large demonstrations, but don't forget that the people in the affected areas are also victims of the earthquake - their houses, business and in many cases, family members are gone. They simply don't have the means to stage significant protests.
Second, TEPCO is a large advertiser. They wield a very large influence with a lot of private media. That is why you never see anything really bad about them in the newspapers or in the popular private TV channels. The culture preference against rocking the boat plays very nicely with the financial motivation of not angering TEPCO, so coverage is avoiding classifications as "disaster", "severe", etc. There was a lot of shock when the accident was classified at Chernobyl level, but overall the media has managed to project the message that this was an accident that is due to factors beyond human control, which has until recently, limited the interest in it on national level. We'll see if the report changes this.
Third, TEPCO is a company that also manages distribution of power. That is why if you are a large consumer in times of shortages, you keep your trap shut if you're smart. Just in case.
There is also the complex political situation in Japan. The LDP, the party that is directly responsible for giving the nuclear lobby a free ride, is the major opposition. They have not uttered a peep about the disaster yet, because they don't want their role advertised. Half the politicians in the party in power (DPJ) were members of the LDP at the time decisions about nuclear power in Japan were made. They also don't want to put forward the political responsibility issue. Third, the DPJ is in deep trouble anyways, and because of the way the political apparatus of Japan works, they handle the bureaucracy with a lot of difficulty. Maybe that is partly why they made the ultimately disastrous decision to let TEPCO handle the accident.
In short, it is a very complex and very unfortunate story.
Dunno about iOS (my iphone 4 is collecting dust somewhere upstairs), but there's at least ruby, perl, lua, python and several scheme dialects available for the android.
Anyone in Japan who has followed the developments would have told you so much. I was hopeful until the Sunday after the quake, when it became plainly obvious that the government and TEPCO are lying about the extent of the damage. It was obvious that a meltdown has occurred at the time of the first explosion, but nobody with even a textbook understanding of how a reactor works would have had any doubts after unit 3 sent large concrete blocks 150 meters up in the air.
Yet, the Japanese government and TEPCO "admitted the possibility" of meltdowns in the beginning of May, and admitted meltdowns have actually occurred in late July. All this was done while the nuclear industry was faking support for nuclear energy all over Japan, and officials in Japan alongside with power company officials were twisting arms, legs and other limbs to avoid responsibility.
I won't even discuss the irresponsible dispatch of highly radioactive water on barges and into the ocean and the venting of radioactive steam in the air, which continued for weeks, etc. Now, when the cooling of the reactors has allegedly finished, TEPCO has few hundred tons of highly radioactive sludge in containers on site, waiting for the next quake and tsunami to wash them over the landscape. These will, supposedly, be "dealt with" in the distant future.
What is really surprising is not only the abysmal response of TEPCO. Nuclear industry in Japan has forever been plagued by accidents. What is un-fucking-believable s the continuing complacency of the government about it. There have been no investigations, no arrests, nothing.
A government panel, composed mostly of "old boys" (former execs from the nuclear industry, who now serve as "regulators" on taxpayer dime and whose job is to excuse the fuckups of their former colleagues) estimated that Fukushima will increase cost of nuclear power by 20%. Independent experts estimated that actual increase will be more like 3-4 times the current cost. Guess what -- TEPCO already wants the price of electricity to rise by about 20% from next year -- that is just to cope with the immediate cost of the Fukushima cleanup and compensations. The independent experts may yet turn out to be right about a fourfold cost increase.
Considering the size of the accident and the level of criminal complacency and negligence that lead to it, the report doesn't even come to "damning". It is more like a strongly-worded letter. What is needed in this case is some good ole criminal prosecution, some long terms in the PMITA prison for the TEPCO board members and plant managers, and restructuring the company so that investors who cheered the bad safety practices are heavily punished. A cleanup of the regulatory bodies won't be a bad thing as well.
But it is Japan, so none of these are very likely to happen. Instead, we'll have another accident in a few years.
There is a point where you can't design for extra safety, but this is not Fukushima I. It used reactors that were obsolete at the time of construction and that should have been retired after Chernobyl, or at least after the Kobe earthquake in 1995. Only complete retards, blinded by greed and backed by "old boys" in the government regulatory bodies -- that is, the TEPCO management -- would have allowed Fukushima.
It is not the only serious accident in Japan either, and it isn't the only serious accident where coverup was attempted, and where there is no prosecution of the responsible. Incidentally, this is why Japan will be seeing more of them accidents in the future.
The accident in Fukushima I wasn't caused by the earthquake or the tsunami. It was caused by the inadequate reactor/plant design and by the abysmal handling by TEPCO of the problems that developed as a result of the design inadequacies.
Sarah Palin is a stupid man. The word "man" means two things, one is an adult of the male gender, and the other is a human person of either sex. As in, you know, "mankind".
Similar devices have already been used by British and American troops in Afghanistan to help protect convoys from attack.
It seems that "normal civilians" are now being treated no differently than your average throat-cutting, convoy robbing, wife-whuppin', goat-fucking Taliban Mujahedin* in the Iraq or the Afghanistan. Yay for Democracy, Freedom and other Western Values.
_____ * This image of the Taliban is based on post-Soviet era Western media portrayal. Before that the Mujahedin were brave, just, honest and peace-loving farmers who were badly abused by the Bloody KGB and only kept goats for the milk and the meat.
If it was not yet obvious to someone that patents and litigation do more damage to free commerce than blatant and slavish copying, the abyss of ridiculosity that ha ensued in the wake of the recent Apple vs. * and * vs. Apple cases should have proved it once and for all with vengeance. Alas, the business leaders of the world and their political clients will continue to be oblivious to the issues. In the meantime, Florian Mueller and the rest of them patent "experts" rub hands in satisfaction in the background.
Ask your girlfriend, she'll know, and she'll know how to teach you.
So, as long as the phone/tablet doesn't blow up, it's all good?
As long as it doesn't blow up, as long as the manufacturer honors the warranty, and as long as I have a cool-off period when I buy it before I've seen it, it's all good. What other "consumer protection" from your government do you need as a consumer?
The purpose is to stop customer confusion and "knock off" products.
This is, for all intents and purposes, the same thing as "stifling competition to the detriment of the consumer". It is very hard for me to see the benefits for the consumer from stopping "knock off" products.
I've lived in Asia for many years - knock offs are sold openly in many countries, yet I know very few consumers who would not be able to tell the difference between a real leather Louis Vuitton bag and a cheap PU leather knock off. When a consumer actually chooses a knock-off, it is always a rational decision by them, which benefits them at least in their own eyes. The phrase "customer confusion" is only a cover word for anti-competitive practices by the companies who can afford to lobby for brand protection. In real life, consumers are very rarely confused. The rare cases where customer confusion may ensue or be detrimental are usually covered by PL and safety laws better anyway.
Also, anti-competitive legislation isn't even really necessary for a company that innovates to make good profits. Apple demonstrated this very well in the past decade. When they were innovative with the ipods, the music store, the first-gen iphones, even if it was mostly a case of "innovation" of looks and S&M techniques (as in sales and marketing), they were the unquestioned leader even without legal support, and commanded the highest margins in the industry.
Now that they have lost steam (as Ford model T has demonstrated, you can't really lead forever with one product) and are falling back to the trap of limiting consumer choice instead of innovating, they'll see more problems and less consumer goodwill.
There is no "significantly more radiation around coal-fired plants" than around nuclear plants today, please stop misquoting that ancient article.
First, the study you quote was made in the early 70s and published in 1978. Currently, coal plants are already fitted with filters (and have been since mid-80s, due to concerns other than radiation) that have reduced the emitted ash (and radioactive isotopes) to levels that are significantly less than what they were back then. The problem simply does not exist anymore.
Second, the article you quote has this interesting title, but the actual research qualifies the title in two important ways. First, the "more radiation" part is only true when compared to a normally operating nuclear plant, and then only in a zone of up to 1.5 km downwind of the coal plant.
A nuclear plant can release much more radiation than many coal-fired plants combined even in the course of a minor accident. In a catastrophic event like Chernobyl or Fukushima-I, the amounts released by the whole coal-fired industry circa 1978 will probably look insignificant next to what comes out of a single reactor.
Third, the comparison in the study is for stuff that is actually released to the environment. It does not concern the highly radioactive waste that has to be disposed of securely through the life of the nuclear plants.
I.e. the study is not only antiquated and true anymore, it was rather biased and misleading even when it was published for the first time. And the article in the "Scientific" American is a plain pro-nuke PR with no basis even in the 1978 reality.
Not only, but so that all records can be updated in real time in case of need. Remember all those movies from Men in Black to Enamy of Amurrika? Now they are one implementation away;)
They are doing it the wrong way. For total security, you don't ban threats proactively, instead you whitelist only the safe stuff. E.g. woodworking terminology is safe, unless you need to polish some rods, and so is cooking, unless you need to choke a snake or two for that aphrodisiac soup.
Even the loosers win when they apply the tried and tested best security practices.
"Nobody" in this context is understood to mean "nobody that matters", smartypants, and I've provided plenty of facts to support such an argument. And I am not arguing anyway, I am just making an observation. So you fail twice.
Be proud, you measure up by the high fail standards of the EC, they fail regularly at both politics and economics.
Too bad nobody takes the European Commission seriously anymore. The recent economic troubles have shrunk whatever credibility and influence the Commission had to subzero values. Now the people who matter are the national leaders, and the statements of the EU bureaucrats and MPs have completely dissolved in the noise.
Cameron wants to make the union "freer", Merkel wants to review the Lisbon treaty and who knows what Sarko will come up when her translator wakes up and we learn what's on her mind.
Maybe it is smarter to pay more attention to what happens in the larger EU countries, not listen to what the near-defunct EU bureaucracy is saying.
Or we can just build a good brain interface and just re-create the Matrix. Then we can have any kind of lifestyle and all the conflict we want, and for free.
Deforestation, bad farming practices and non-existent city planning contribute to global warming?
You should stay focused on the topic. The question isn't what contributes to climate change or not, the question is if this particular event is likely caused by climate change or not.
Since similar rainfall events were observed a few times between 1900 and 1990, I'd say claims for a causal relationship are extremely highly dubious, especially given the context of a science paper that was quoted, which predicts that the opposite should happen.
The rest of your comment is a long and crazy ad-hominem, so I'll just ignore it. Have a nice day, troll.
If you re-read my post while skillfully applying your excellent knowledge of logic, you'll realize I am not saying anything of the stuff you accuse me of saying. Have a nice day.
Slashdot Mirror
The primary reason for the bad handling within the company (according to what I hear from an acquaintance of mine who works for TEPCO at Fukushima I) was plain panic and desire to cut as much cost as possible. The first reaction of TEPCO was to move out of the Fukushima plant. They apparently had evacuated all staff and families on Sunday already. Then they left subcontractors to deal with the disaster, while TEPCO staff was monitoring the shit happening from Tokyo via videoconferencing. They even had a glitch that caused delay in power re-supply sometime in mid-April, when a construction machine cut the optical cable that connected TEPCO staff with their human robots at the plant.
The real question is, why was all this allowed. Many reasons.
First, TEPCO is a very well connected and influential corporation. The nuclear power management body in Japan - JAEA - is staffed exclusively with people from the nuclear power industry, i.e. about half of their staff is from TEPCO itself. Those people advise the government on what to do. They also own stock or options of, receive pensions from and hold sinecure positions with their former corporate employer. No wonder they would be among the last to criticize it. Naturally, they influence what gets in the government media (NHK, mostly) about the accident. TEPCO is a large contributor to national politicians, and the local governments where TEPCO operates (including the affected areas) are also mostly in the pockets of the company. That is why both national and local politicians have worked with TEPCO to calm protesters from day one.
Despite that, there have been a few large demonstrations, but don't forget that the people in the affected areas are also victims of the earthquake - their houses, business and in many cases, family members are gone. They simply don't have the means to stage significant protests.
Second, TEPCO is a large advertiser. They wield a very large influence with a lot of private media. That is why you never see anything really bad about them in the newspapers or in the popular private TV channels. The culture preference against rocking the boat plays very nicely with the financial motivation of not angering TEPCO, so coverage is avoiding classifications as "disaster", "severe", etc. There was a lot of shock when the accident was classified at Chernobyl level, but overall the media has managed to project the message that this was an accident that is due to factors beyond human control, which has until recently, limited the interest in it on national level. We'll see if the report changes this.
Third, TEPCO is a company that also manages distribution of power. That is why if you are a large consumer in times of shortages, you keep your trap shut if you're smart. Just in case.
There is also the complex political situation in Japan. The LDP, the party that is directly responsible for giving the nuclear lobby a free ride, is the major opposition. They have not uttered a peep about the disaster yet, because they don't want their role advertised. Half the politicians in the party in power (DPJ) were members of the LDP at the time decisions about nuclear power in Japan were made. They also don't want to put forward the political responsibility issue. Third, the DPJ is in deep trouble anyways, and because of the way the political apparatus of Japan works, they handle the bureaucracy with a lot of difficulty. Maybe that is partly why they made the ultimately disastrous decision to let TEPCO handle the accident.
In short, it is a very complex and very unfortunate story.
Dunno about iOS (my iphone 4 is collecting dust somewhere upstairs), but there's at least ruby, perl, lua, python and several scheme dialects available for the android.
Anyone in Japan who has followed the developments would have told you so much. I was hopeful until the Sunday after the quake, when it became plainly obvious that the government and TEPCO are lying about the extent of the damage. It was obvious that a meltdown has occurred at the time of the first explosion, but nobody with even a textbook understanding of how a reactor works would have had any doubts after unit 3 sent large concrete blocks 150 meters up in the air.
Yet, the Japanese government and TEPCO "admitted the possibility" of meltdowns in the beginning of May, and admitted meltdowns have actually occurred in late July. All this was done while the nuclear industry was faking support for nuclear energy all over Japan, and officials in Japan alongside with power company officials were twisting arms, legs and other limbs to avoid responsibility.
I won't even discuss the irresponsible dispatch of highly radioactive water on barges and into the ocean and the venting of radioactive steam in the air, which continued for weeks, etc. Now, when the cooling of the reactors has allegedly finished, TEPCO has few hundred tons of highly radioactive sludge in containers on site, waiting for the next quake and tsunami to wash them over the landscape. These will, supposedly, be "dealt with" in the distant future.
What is really surprising is not only the abysmal response of TEPCO. Nuclear industry in Japan has forever been plagued by accidents. What is un-fucking-believable s the continuing complacency of the government about it. There have been no investigations, no arrests, nothing.
A government panel, composed mostly of "old boys" (former execs from the nuclear industry, who now serve as "regulators" on taxpayer dime and whose job is to excuse the fuckups of their former colleagues) estimated that Fukushima will increase cost of nuclear power by 20%. Independent experts estimated that actual increase will be more like 3-4 times the current cost. Guess what -- TEPCO already wants the price of electricity to rise by about 20% from next year -- that is just to cope with the immediate cost of the Fukushima cleanup and compensations. The independent experts may yet turn out to be right about a fourfold cost increase.
Considering the size of the accident and the level of criminal complacency and negligence that lead to it, the report doesn't even come to "damning". It is more like a strongly-worded letter. What is needed in this case is some good ole criminal prosecution, some long terms in the PMITA prison for the TEPCO board members and plant managers, and restructuring the company so that investors who cheered the bad safety practices are heavily punished. A cleanup of the regulatory bodies won't be a bad thing as well.
But it is Japan, so none of these are very likely to happen. Instead, we'll have another accident in a few years.
There is a point where you can't design for extra safety, but this is not Fukushima I. It used reactors that were obsolete at the time of construction and that should have been retired after Chernobyl, or at least after the Kobe earthquake in 1995. Only complete retards, blinded by greed and backed by "old boys" in the government regulatory bodies -- that is, the TEPCO management -- would have allowed Fukushima.
It is not the only serious accident in Japan either, and it isn't the only serious accident where coverup was attempted, and where there is no prosecution of the responsible. Incidentally, this is why Japan will be seeing more of them accidents in the future.
The accident in Fukushima I wasn't caused by the earthquake or the tsunami. It was caused by the inadequate reactor/plant design and by the abysmal handling by TEPCO of the problems that developed as a result of the design inadequacies.
Sarah Palin is a stupid man. The word "man" means two things, one is an adult of the male gender, and the other is a human person of either sex. As in, you know, "mankind".
It is worse than that. FTA:
Similar devices have already been used by British and American troops in Afghanistan to help protect convoys from attack.
It seems that "normal civilians" are now being treated no differently than your average throat-cutting, convoy robbing, wife-whuppin', goat-fucking Taliban Mujahedin* in the Iraq or the Afghanistan. Yay for Democracy, Freedom and other Western Values.
_____
* This image of the Taliban is based on post-Soviet era Western media portrayal. Before that the Mujahedin were brave, just, honest and peace-loving farmers who were badly abused by the Bloody KGB and only kept goats for the milk and the meat.
If it was not yet obvious to someone that patents and litigation do more damage to free commerce than blatant and slavish copying, the abyss of ridiculosity that ha ensued in the wake of the recent Apple vs. * and * vs. Apple cases should have proved it once and for all with vengeance. Alas, the business leaders of the world and their political clients will continue to be oblivious to the issues. In the meantime, Florian Mueller and the rest of them patent "experts" rub hands in satisfaction in the background.
How? I'm not into fashion and accessories.
Ask your girlfriend, she'll know, and she'll know how to teach you.
So, as long as the phone/tablet doesn't blow up, it's all good?
As long as it doesn't blow up, as long as the manufacturer honors the warranty, and as long as I have a cool-off period when I buy it before I've seen it, it's all good. What other "consumer protection" from your government do you need as a consumer?
The purpose is to stop customer confusion and "knock off" products.
This is, for all intents and purposes, the same thing as "stifling competition to the detriment of the consumer". It is very hard for me to see the benefits for the consumer from stopping "knock off" products.
I've lived in Asia for many years - knock offs are sold openly in many countries, yet I know very few consumers who would not be able to tell the difference between a real leather Louis Vuitton bag and a cheap PU leather knock off. When a consumer actually chooses a knock-off, it is always a rational decision by them, which benefits them at least in their own eyes. The phrase "customer confusion" is only a cover word for anti-competitive practices by the companies who can afford to lobby for brand protection. In real life, consumers are very rarely confused. The rare cases where customer confusion may ensue or be detrimental are usually covered by PL and safety laws better anyway.
Also, anti-competitive legislation isn't even really necessary for a company that innovates to make good profits. Apple demonstrated this very well in the past decade. When they were innovative with the ipods, the music store, the first-gen iphones, even if it was mostly a case of "innovation" of looks and S&M techniques (as in sales and marketing), they were the unquestioned leader even without legal support, and commanded the highest margins in the industry.
Now that they have lost steam (as Ford model T has demonstrated, you can't really lead forever with one product) and are falling back to the trap of limiting consumer choice instead of innovating, they'll see more problems and less consumer goodwill.
There is no "significantly more radiation around coal-fired plants" than around nuclear plants today, please stop misquoting that ancient article.
First, the study you quote was made in the early 70s and published in 1978. Currently, coal plants are already fitted with filters (and have been since mid-80s, due to concerns other than radiation) that have reduced the emitted ash (and radioactive isotopes) to levels that are significantly less than what they were back then. The problem simply does not exist anymore.
Second, the article you quote has this interesting title, but the actual research qualifies the title in two important ways. First, the "more radiation" part is only true when compared to a normally operating nuclear plant, and then only in a zone of up to 1.5 km downwind of the coal plant.
A nuclear plant can release much more radiation than many coal-fired plants combined even in the course of a minor accident. In a catastrophic event like Chernobyl or Fukushima-I, the amounts released by the whole coal-fired industry circa 1978 will probably look insignificant next to what comes out of a single reactor.
Third, the comparison in the study is for stuff that is actually released to the environment. It does not concern the highly radioactive waste that has to be disposed of securely through the life of the nuclear plants.
I.e. the study is not only antiquated and true anymore, it was rather biased and misleading even when it was published for the first time. And the article in the "Scientific" American is a plain pro-nuke PR with no basis even in the 1978 reality.
You say it like this is a bad thing. What has the downside of Wikileaks been so far?
Remember, this was when Communism tried to invade America, and so to counter it the need for a comprehensive system of records for everyone arose.
Not only, but so that all records can be updated in real time in case of need. Remember all those movies from Men in Black to Enamy of Amurrika? Now they are one implementation away ;)
you don't ban threats proactively
Or retroactively, for that matter. Knowing all security practices backwards has me making mistakes at times. Backdoors, backdoors ...
They are doing it the wrong way. For total security, you don't ban threats proactively, instead you whitelist only the safe stuff. E.g. woodworking terminology is safe, unless you need to polish some rods, and so is cooking, unless you need to choke a snake or two for that aphrodisiac soup.
Even the loosers win when they apply the tried and tested best security practices.
"Nobody" in this context is understood to mean "nobody that matters", smartypants, and I've provided plenty of facts to support such an argument. And I am not arguing anyway, I am just making an observation. So you fail twice.
Be proud, you measure up by the high fail standards of the EC, they fail regularly at both politics and economics.
Too bad nobody takes the European Commission seriously anymore. The recent economic troubles have shrunk whatever credibility and influence the Commission had to subzero values. Now the people who matter are the national leaders, and the statements of the EU bureaucrats and MPs have completely dissolved in the noise.
Cameron wants to make the union "freer", Merkel wants to review the Lisbon treaty and who knows what Sarko will come up when her translator wakes up and we learn what's on her mind.
Maybe it is smarter to pay more attention to what happens in the larger EU countries, not listen to what the near-defunct EU bureaucracy is saying.
I believe the classical title is "Starship Troopers".
What can you do with all those marines in orbit except paratroop them back to Earth?
Or we can just build a good brain interface and just re-create the Matrix. Then we can have any kind of lifestyle and all the conflict we want, and for free.
My first "netbook" without an optical drive was a Sony Vaio Picturebook - like this one: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/199809/98-085/index.html. I used it happily on the road until about 2003, when I upgraded to a Victor Interlink - like this one: http://www.kemplar.com/jvc_741.php.
Both still work, and the Victor with Linux still puts most netbooks to shame.
Deforestation, bad farming practices and non-existent city planning contribute to global warming?
You should stay focused on the topic. The question isn't what contributes to climate change or not, the question is if this particular event is likely caused by climate change or not.
Since similar rainfall events were observed a few times between 1900 and 1990, I'd say claims for a causal relationship are extremely highly dubious, especially given the context of a science paper that was quoted, which predicts that the opposite should happen.
The rest of your comment is a long and crazy ad-hominem, so I'll just ignore it. Have a nice day, troll.
If you re-read my post while skillfully applying your excellent knowledge of logic, you'll realize I am not saying anything of the stuff you accuse me of saying. Have a nice day.
Yes, these are all products of intelligent design.