Point was: If TMI blew off, the disaster would have been comparable to Chernobyl.
I agree that TMI had a better design that proved to be good enough to delay the disaster long enough - so that the operators finally found the issue. On the other hand the design proved to be bad enough that the incident became out of control. And regaining the control was luck, because the operators were clueless before they luckily discovered that the instruments were broken.
I could not agree more with you. You can learn from disasters, but there is no such technology that can prevent disasters completely.
What you can do, is trying to reduce complexity from technology that is potentially dangerous. This and trying to get more direct information instead of indirect information (e.g. being able to actually see the water in the TMI case would have prevented that the incident went into out of control). Complexity, dependencies, and indirections greatly increases the likelihood to make wrong decisions. Combine this with time pressure (e.g. if you cannot fix the problem in TMI within a couple of hours, the incident becomes a disaster) and you have a recipe for normal accidents. BTW: I highly recommend this book, which also analyses the TMI case.
The people who point out 3 mile island as why nuclear is really dangerous are of the same mob as the people who want to close down the LHC because it might attract the attention of the Mutant Stellar Goat.
No, you are absolutely wrong. The Three Mile Island incident has clearly shown that you can actually lose control over your reactor, and that this can cause a real accident. I do not think that you can find any scientist who will deny this. On the other hand, the black hole rhetoric of the LHC critics is all but scientific.
That Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were completely different nuclear plants was not the point: The point was that Chernobyl exploded and caused many casualties and a highly contaminated environment, while Three Mile Island had luck.
Saying that it was not luck, because the next shift would have done something differently, is pure speculation. However it is no speculation that the TMI accident was very critical and nearly out of control. The next shift would not have had much time to gain control again.
Not really. The Three Mile Island accident was a mild, harmless incident in a nuclear energy facility but it is still used by nuclear energy opponents to denounce the "harms and perils" of the nuclear power.
Oh that irony: "Mild, harmless incident". Three Mile Island nearly blew off as later Chernobyl - it was just luck that the crew found the error before.
I agree, this helps to an extend. But then: Is it my business to make the damned PC secure, disable IE, and create a new user account? Or should this be the case, when I get the PC in the first place? And, btw, I twice got a PC that was infected before I actually did the first update -- it was infected within 2 minutes after having an Internet connection. If this is not a case for warranty, I do not know what is.
And when we are on it: The worst thing is the 30 day trial period of an antivirus. Ensures that your PC will be unsecure afterwards (and that the average user did not install a proper, and maybe free, AV).
They would however, always be very mad at me for not preventing their computers from getting reinfected. I guess they expected I would create some sort of magic barrier for them....
Absolutely, and your OS should be secure, if you leave it enabled (as it was by default). Now, those damned computers get infected nevertheless. Who is to blame?
However, I told people all those issues that are mentioned in TFA. The response of my friends? "So what?" -- They do not feel responsible for malware running on their computer. Somehow, I can even understand them; they just bought a computer and pay an ADSL line -- why should they care if their computer is broken by design (e.g. needs an update before the first connection as it was the case with Windows XP before the computers have been delivered with SP2 installed)? It's hardly their fault.
So the Europeans and the US governments say they are firmly convinced of dangerous anthropogenic global warming but they won't spend 15 Bn over 10 years to speed this up?
Probably because its not going to work. Fusion can only be made to work on a large scale, if at all. Every step along the way will cost the 15 billion you speak of and we are probably 100 years away from commercial production of energy. Wind, tide, photovoltaic and solar thermal power work right now. They can be tested on a small scale for a couple of thousand bucks then scaled up as far as you want in many cases.
This is not an "either-or" question. There are, for very good reasons, heavy investments into wind, solar, other renewable energies. This does not exclude the research on fusion.
Access to internet is a Fundamental Right as per EU.
This would be very cool, and I am in favor for this -- but, unfortunately, this is completely untrue. There is no right of access to the Internet. Where did you get your information from?
Then they'll sue you for that. Unauthorized use of encryption software is illegal in, for example, France.
BS. There was a moment in time (I believe before 2000), where you could only use cyphers with short key length (40 bits) in France -- allowing the French intelligence agency to decrypt. However, since they have seen the devastating effect (e.g. no bank offered online banking for security reasons), this law is trashed since long.
But, you might be right that our politicians will pass sometime a law that will make private use of encryption (e.g. encrypted emails, using TOR, etc.) illegal.
The next logical step for the politicians is to mandate white-lists of accepted web pages.
While I might agree that you (personally) are not responsible for the US government, you (the people of the USA) are responsible for your government. I think that it is fair that non-US people complain to US people about some issues that they do not like about the US government. Don't take it personally, but maybe it changes the point of view of some voters eventually.
Is Wolfram Alpha especially good in doing side to side comparisons (ex. from the article: "Microsoft Apple", "Stanford Harvard", "Utah Florida", "Utah Florida population")? Or why did the article test both engines with those queries?
I would have rather expected, complete questions that are nevertheless hard to answer (unless you know a source), such as:
1) "How many bull terriers are in the UK?" Google: link to Bullterriers on Wikipedia and some dog clubs in the UK. Wolfram: ???
2) "How many blind people live in the US?" Google: first link to WikiAnsers (about 1 million, but without any references). Next links seem to be more serious, but difficult to get a real answer to that question (it depends on how you interprete "blind"). Wolfram: ???
3) "What is the color of a strawberry?" Google: This confuses me, apparently it has many colors... Wolfram: ???
4) Apparently we need to use a comparison question: "strawberry blackberry" Google: I am getting hungry when I am following all those recipe links...
I do not know whether people are using P2P over 3G in the UK, but I know several people in Italy who do this (and those are actually "average" users, no geeks).
Reason is that you can get a flat 3G data plan (with USB 3G dongle) in Italy for only some bucks, if you already own a mobile phone subscription.
BTW: I know people using P2P over 3G in Italy at least since 20006.
I think you have a point here. In schools, white lists (maybe even different white lists for different classes) make a lot of sense. Those white lists can even come with a commenting link catalog.
On the other hand, I would not agree, if one would ask for white lists also in other public areas, such as libraries.
Since region locking is an optional component in most cases, there will be people trusting enough to go without. In fact both region coding and CSS is absent on about half of the DVD's I own. That doesn't negate the arguement that was put forward.
I just tried randomly about 20 picks at Amazon (in Europe), including current movies and movies older than 40 year, US movies, European movies, and mangas: All have region code 2. Where do you get your DVDs without region codes?
I am really interested, since this would for me a reason to actually buy DVDs.
I call BS. There are many items (and media items) available without region locking and different pricing in different regions - and surprisingly this is working.
Now, region locks have been invented to bring the movie in one region (US) to cinema, but follow the other regions only 6 months after. What, if those people could get the DVD before the official cinema release? So, in order to support their broken business model, the studios required region codes.
BTW: I don't own DVDs for exactly those region codes. I know that breaking them is trivial. But why the heck can I only use a tool (DVD player) after hacking it? And then there are those great countries that made it even illegal (that's actually the real joke here).
Slashdot Mirror
Point was: If TMI blew off, the disaster would have been comparable to Chernobyl.
I agree that TMI had a better design that proved to be good enough to delay the disaster long enough - so that the operators finally found the issue. On the other hand the design proved to be bad enough that the incident became out of control. And regaining the control was luck, because the operators were clueless before they luckily discovered that the instruments were broken.
I could not agree more with you. You can learn from disasters, but there is no such technology that can prevent disasters completely.
What you can do, is trying to reduce complexity from technology that is potentially dangerous. This and trying to get more direct information instead of indirect information (e.g. being able to actually see the water in the TMI case would have prevented that the incident went into out of control). Complexity, dependencies, and indirections greatly increases the likelihood to make wrong decisions. Combine this with time pressure (e.g. if you cannot fix the problem in TMI within a couple of hours, the incident becomes a disaster) and you have a recipe for normal accidents. BTW: I highly recommend this book, which also analyses the TMI case.
The people who point out 3 mile island as why nuclear is really dangerous are of the same mob as the people who want to close down the LHC because it might attract the attention of the Mutant Stellar Goat.
No, you are absolutely wrong. The Three Mile Island incident has clearly shown that you can actually lose control over your reactor, and that this can cause a real accident. I do not think that you can find any scientist who will deny this. On the other hand, the black hole rhetoric of the LHC critics is all but scientific.
That Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were completely different nuclear plants was not the point: The point was that Chernobyl exploded and caused many casualties and a highly contaminated environment, while Three Mile Island had luck.
Saying that it was not luck, because the next shift would have done something differently, is pure speculation. However it is no speculation that the TMI accident was very critical and nearly out of control. The next shift would not have had much time to gain control again.
Not really. The Three Mile Island accident was a mild, harmless incident in a nuclear energy facility but it is still used by nuclear energy opponents to denounce the "harms and perils" of the nuclear power.
Oh that irony: "Mild, harmless incident". Three Mile Island nearly blew off as later Chernobyl - it was just luck that the crew found the error before.
I agree, this helps to an extend. But then: Is it my business to make the damned PC secure, disable IE, and create a new user account? Or should this be the case, when I get the PC in the first place? And, btw, I twice got a PC that was infected before I actually did the first update -- it was infected within 2 minutes after having an Internet connection. If this is not a case for warranty, I do not know what is.
And when we are on it: The worst thing is the 30 day trial period of an antivirus. Ensures that your PC will be unsecure afterwards (and that the average user did not install a proper, and maybe free, AV).
They would however, always be very mad at me for not preventing their computers from getting reinfected. I guess they expected I would create some sort of magic barrier for them....
I quite natural assumption, don't you think?
Absolutely, and your OS should be secure, if you leave it enabled (as it was by default). Now, those damned computers get infected nevertheless. Who is to blame?
Same experience here.
However, I told people all those issues that are mentioned in TFA. The response of my friends? "So what?" -- They do not feel responsible for malware running on their computer. Somehow, I can even understand them; they just bought a computer and pay an ADSL line -- why should they care if their computer is broken by design (e.g. needs an update before the first connection as it was the case with Windows XP before the computers have been delivered with SP2 installed)? It's hardly their fault.
I like the fact that Governments put money into pure-science research, because no one else is likely to.
It does not follow that because government funds something, that it would not happen if the government were not the source of the funding.
-jcr
Right. But, just because the government funds a research project that does not exclude private funding of a similar project.
So the Europeans and the US governments say they are firmly convinced of dangerous anthropogenic global warming but they won't spend 15 Bn over 10 years to speed this up?
Probably because its not going to work. Fusion can only be made to work on a large scale, if at all. Every step along the way will cost the 15 billion you speak of and we are probably 100 years away from commercial production of energy. Wind, tide, photovoltaic and solar thermal power work right now. They can be tested on a small scale for a couple of thousand bucks then scaled up as far as you want in many cases.
This is not an "either-or" question. There are, for very good reasons, heavy investments into wind, solar, other renewable energies. This does not exclude the research on fusion.
Why is this post modded "troll"?
The poster should maybe back some of his claims, but afaik this should be possible.
Its a pity it doesn't have any Rush Limbaughs there, ...
Oh no. One of the better things Europe (or at least France and Germany) has to offer, is that we don't have any Rush Limbaughs.
Access to internet is a Fundamental Right as per EU.
This would be very cool, and I am in favor for this -- but, unfortunately, this is completely untrue. There is no right of access to the Internet. Where did you get your information from?
And if I gpg/pgp the email, what then?
Then they'll sue you for that. Unauthorized use of encryption software is illegal in, for example, France.
BS. There was a moment in time (I believe before 2000), where you could only use cyphers with short key length (40 bits) in France -- allowing the French intelligence agency to decrypt. However, since they have seen the devastating effect (e.g. no bank offered online banking for security reasons), this law is trashed since long.
But, you might be right that our politicians will pass sometime a law that will make private use of encryption (e.g. encrypted emails, using TOR, etc.) illegal.
The next logical step for the politicians is to mandate white-lists of accepted web pages.
actually, before the big bang, "here" (space) didn't exist yet. "before the big bang" (time) also didn't exist.
Your evidence, Watson?
While I might agree that you (personally) are not responsible for the US government, you (the people of the USA) are responsible for your government. I think that it is fair that non-US people complain to US people about some issues that they do not like about the US government. Don't take it personally, but maybe it changes the point of view of some voters eventually.
Is Wolfram Alpha especially good in doing side to side comparisons (ex. from the article: "Microsoft Apple", "Stanford Harvard", "Utah Florida", "Utah Florida population")? Or why did the article test both engines with those queries?
I would have rather expected, complete questions that are nevertheless hard to answer (unless you know a source), such as:
1) "How many bull terriers are in the UK?"
Google: link to Bullterriers on Wikipedia and some dog clubs in the UK.
Wolfram: ???
2) "How many blind people live in the US?"
Google: first link to WikiAnsers (about 1 million, but without any references). Next links seem to be more serious, but difficult to get a real answer to that question (it depends on how you interprete "blind").
Wolfram: ???
3) "What is the color of a strawberry?"
Google: This confuses me, apparently it has many colors...
Wolfram: ???
4) Apparently we need to use a comparison question: "strawberry blackberry" ...
Google: I am getting hungry when I am following all those recipe links
I do not know whether people are using P2P over 3G in the UK, but I know several people in Italy who do this (and those are actually "average" users, no geeks).
Reason is that you can get a flat 3G data plan (with USB 3G dongle) in Italy for only some bucks, if you already own a mobile phone subscription.
BTW: I know people using P2P over 3G in Italy at least since 20006.
I think you have a point here. In schools, white lists (maybe even different white lists for different classes) make a lot of sense. Those white lists can even come with a commenting link catalog.
On the other hand, I would not agree, if one would ask for white lists also in other public areas, such as libraries.
But that's all true?!
To the author: I am sorry to tell you that you are wrong:
Kilobit.
To the moderator: If you don't know what's wrong and what's true, just don't moderate.
Since region locking is an optional component in most cases, there will be people trusting enough to go without. In fact both region coding and CSS is absent on about half of the DVD's I own. That doesn't negate the arguement that was put forward.
I just tried randomly about 20 picks at Amazon (in Europe), including current movies and movies older than 40 year, US movies, European movies, and mangas: All have region code 2. Where do you get your DVDs without region codes?
I am really interested, since this would for me a reason to actually buy DVDs.
I call BS. There are many items (and media items) available without region locking and different pricing in different regions - and surprisingly this is working.
Now, region locks have been invented to bring the movie in one region (US) to cinema, but follow the other regions only 6 months after. What, if those people could get the DVD before the official cinema release? So, in order to support their broken business model, the studios required region codes.
BTW: I don't own DVDs for exactly those region codes. I know that breaking them is trivial. But why the heck can I only use a tool (DVD player) after hacking it? And then there are those great countries that made it even illegal (that's actually the real joke here).
So, either TomTom has patents and can cross-license them (patents, not code) or not. Where is Linux involved?
TomTom can use Linux and run licensed code and patented code on top of Linux. Where did you read "patents on Linux"?
[I see that MS might want to blow Linux with this patent suit -- but I can't see the "fascinating theory", which just results into "FUD".]