While free neutrons are unstable, unless they are flying through empty space you would not notice. The mean lifetime of a neutron bouncing around matter before being absorbed is on the order of microseconds, while the half-life is 10 minutes.
Dose from an unshielded spent fuel bundle (or research reactor) is far greater than other typical sources - on the order of 50,000 to 1,000,000 R/hr. These kinds of doses can be instantly fatal. An HP tech explained to me once that if you placed a spent fuel bundle on a football field, and ran towards it as fast as you could, you would drop dead before you could touch it. If you swam to the bottom of a research reactor to try to touch the fuel you would most certainly become incapacitated by the time you got close enough to touch it.
The concrete containment dome is akin to a dam - it should last 100+ years. The other big expensive component, the reactor vessel itself, can be annealed or possibly replaced.
This is a common misconception. Nuclear plants are not "designed to last 40 years". They have no designed lifespan. They are designed to last as long as possible given other safety requirements. The reason why they were licensed for 40 years is because the NRC (AEC at the time) figured that was the least amount of time the plant should be able to run without requiring a major overhaul. At the time, no one knew how long they would really last without requiring such expensive overhauls as to make it not financially worth it to maintain.
In the US, riflery and marksmanship used to be a national pastime. It was taught in public schools. High school students would bring their rifles to school for the shooting club. What has happened in recent decades can only be explained by social and cultural changes.
Just because you have the right to vote does not mean the government is obliged to drive you to the polls or provide absentee ballots. Just like how you have the right to free speech but that doesn't mean the government has the obligation to provide you with a microphone and an audience.
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
--Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"
Criminals as in gang member, don't. Criminals as in drunken wife beater who one day shoots his wife do.
The flaw in gun owners is that they see the world in blank and white, with the law-abiding beacons of righteousness on one side and the tattoo ridden coke pushing gang bangers on the other.
In reality, there's plenty of Joes just one more drink away from becoming news for the worst reasons.
It's true that sometimes regular people (i.e. not full-time criminals) do bad things with guns. There is no preventing this. But you don't outlaw something with a vast legitimate use because of a few bad apples. In the real world drunk drivers kill hundreds of thousand of people every year. Yet no one calls for bans on alcohol or cars.
I have never ever needed a gun in my life, and I dont relish the thought of having a gun battle with somebody because an argument got out of hand.
The American fascination with shooting people to death is disturbing and sad.
In America, we are more mature and responsible and thus go out of our way to not get in petty arguments and fights to begin with. We don't rely on the government to ban weapons because we are so immature and violent that we can't be trusted.
I have never needed a fire extinguisher in my life, and I don't relish the thought of having to do my own firefighting in the event of a wide-spread natural disaster like an earthquake or rioting, etc, where professional firefighters are not available. That doesn't mean I think no one should own one or even be able to own one.
We don't have a fascination with shooting people to death. We have a fascination with self reliance and citizenship, as opposed to being subjects. In America, we realize that the job of the police is not to protect you, it is to catch the guy that broke into your house and killed you (this is backed by Supreme Court case law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia ). No one goes around shooting people they get into arguments with.
I'm pissed that he didn't ban CO2 exhalation by humans. I mean it is clear we are a threat to the planet and need to be stopped. Then again that's about what I'd expect from the Cameron government, which acts like a puppet for that outrageous corrupt evil special interest corporation known as humanity.
Zimmerman was an immediate mortal threat to Martin because he was following him? No. Zimmerman did not pull his gun out until after he was being beaten on the ground and Martin said "you're gonna die now".
Well, almost. Steam works offline just fine if you tell it you want to go offline while you are still online. If you have a power or internet outage or some such, you cannot play your games offline because it does not have the offline key. Also, you cannot be permanently offline, you have to go online at least once every 30 days to re-validate they key.
No that is incorrect. An average nuclear reactor does indeed contain ~70 metric tons of uranium metal (not including the weight of the oxygen in the oxide). An average nuclear reactor fissions as many uranium atoms as a Hiroshima bomb every 4 hours and runs for up to two years.
Ok let me broaden my definition to include your example:
libertarianism: a society where your wealth belongs to you and cannot be taken by force socialism: a society in which wealth is forcibly transferred from one person to another for any purpose.
The net result is the same. Libertarianism is the philosophy that you own your body and the proceeds of your labor. Socialism is the philosophy that wealth should be taken from some people and given to other people. These two philosophies are completely incompatible.
In a pure libertarian economy there would be no taxes, as all services would be paid for privately. For example, if you wanted a road, you would have to pay someone to make it and arrange for a toll system. There would be no government that states it is in everyone's best interest for there to be a road and therefore we will tax everyone on the assumption that everyone gets equal use out of the road.
Now in reality government is useful for situations like roads where so many people get the same benefit that it mostly evens out on average. Here is where socialism comes in to play: socialism is when the government takes money from one person and gives it to another directly. This is distinct from the example with the road, because the road could be used by anyone and is therefore a "public good". Another example of a public good would be street lights or postal service. Socialism is the transfer of wealth not for public goods, but for goods that the government says is entitled. Taking my money to pay for your doctor visit is socialism, since I can not benefit from your doctor visit no matter how much your healthiness contributes to society as a whole.
socialist libertarianism? That is an oxymoron, by definition. libertarian = no government interference in economy socialism = complete government intervention in economy
Anyway, American libertarians realize that there can be no true freedom for civil rights if our basic constitutional rights and especially right to private property are violated. The reason why American libertarians vote for republicans is because most republicans, including the religious ones, believe in a constitutionally restrained government. There are some republicans who have a "we know what's better for you than you do" agenda but they are in the minority compared to the democrat party which is pretty much 99% nanny statists.
The republican party is definitely not the party of censorship (free speech zones, fairness doctrine, etc have all been the domain of liberals) nor is there any party agenda to put religion into government (although there is an agenda by liberals to stop the free exercise of religion by banning any sort of religious expression in any avenue that is even remotely connected to public service, which is becoming an increasingly larger sector of the economy).
The (very simple) skill system doesn't require/allow you to make any hard choices The stat system doesn't allow you to make ANY choices The rune system provides the illusion of skill choices in the form of yet another item hunt Gear is the only way to differentiate from one player of the same class to another (since you don't really controll stat or skill.
-Neither did previous games. If you made the "wrong" choice, your character was gimped and you had to delete him and start the game all over. -This was the case with every previous game as well. If you made your stats "wrong", your character was gimped and you had to delete him and start the game all over. The only real differentiation between characters was who had the better items. Nothing has changed. -Runes are not items any more. It is now just a method of selecting different skill abilities.
If you think Diablo 2 (the multiplayer community anyway) was anything more than a perpetual item grind then you are kidding yourself. There was no building or experimenting in D2 because there was no respeccing period.
Any form of government which is restrained by constitution and the rule of law will work well, even if it is an unelected dictator.
Any form of government which utilizes totalitarian control over its citizens will be destructive, regardless of whether it was elected democratically, by representatives, or emperor for life.
That being said, this article sounds like authoritarian big-government types whining about how they have to waste their money on the nuisance of elections all the time, and how it would be so much simpler if they could just be instated into power for life and not have to worry about accountability and such.
You are incorrect. Nuclear power can load follow perfectly fine. The reason why they don't is because the cost of nuclear power is almost entirely fixed in personnel and equipment. The fuel is practically free (and with fixed schedule refueling outages, whatever you don't use goes to waste anyway). Therefore running at anything besides full power 24x7 is a economically inefficient. In contrast with say, natural gas turbines, where nearly all of the cost is fuel so you only use those to make up the difference in demand.
My guess is space combat would be more akin to submarine warfare - ships heavily shielded and shaped to deflect as much radar energy as possible, as well as coated to reduce heat signature. Quietly floating around using passive sensors trying to locate enemy ship, and then launching either a guided missile or a gun/mass driver type projectile. And like the U-boats in WW2 going up against the allies with ASDIC, depth charges, hedgehogs, etc, space combat would be extremely hazardous. There's no way to realistically armor a ship to project against radiation from small nuclear weapons detonated at close range, or mass drivers at screaming relative velocities. Small fighter type craft buzzing around like WW2 airplanes would be suicidal, since they could be easily instantly destroyed by computer controlled guns or lasers at long range.
Slashdot Mirror
While free neutrons are unstable, unless they are flying through empty space you would not notice. The mean lifetime of a neutron bouncing around matter before being absorbed is on the order of microseconds, while the half-life is 10 minutes.
Dose from an unshielded spent fuel bundle (or research reactor) is far greater than other typical sources - on the order of 50,000 to 1,000,000 R/hr. These kinds of doses can be instantly fatal. An HP tech explained to me once that if you placed a spent fuel bundle on a football field, and ran towards it as fast as you could, you would drop dead before you could touch it. If you swam to the bottom of a research reactor to try to touch the fuel you would most certainly become incapacitated by the time you got close enough to touch it.
If it's actually on fire, then YES.
If you pass a law banning the yelling of fire in a crowded theater, even when it actually is on fire, then what will the result be?
Our centrifuge controllers aren't on the internet, they couldn't possibly be affected by an e-mail worm.
--Iran
The concrete containment dome is akin to a dam - it should last 100+ years. The other big expensive component, the reactor vessel itself, can be annealed or possibly replaced.
This is a common misconception. Nuclear plants are not "designed to last 40 years". They have no designed lifespan. They are designed to last as long as possible given other safety requirements. The reason why they were licensed for 40 years is because the NRC (AEC at the time) figured that was the least amount of time the plant should be able to run without requiring a major overhaul. At the time, no one knew how long they would really last without requiring such expensive overhauls as to make it not financially worth it to maintain.
In the US, riflery and marksmanship used to be a national pastime. It was taught in public schools. High school students would bring their rifles to school for the shooting club. What has happened in recent decades can only be explained by social and cultural changes.
If 90% of the population just doesn't care than you don't have a democracy, you have an oligarchical dictatorship.
Just because you have the right to vote does not mean the government is obliged to drive you to the polls or provide absentee ballots. Just like how you have the right to free speech but that doesn't mean the government has the obligation to provide you with a microphone and an audience.
For the USA on average, it's about 20%. If you live in a city serviced by a nuclear power plant, then it would be ~80-95%. Otherwise 0%.
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
--Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"
(from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, 1999).
Criminals as in gang member, don't. Criminals as in drunken wife beater who one day shoots his wife do.
The flaw in gun owners is that they see the world in blank and white, with the law-abiding beacons of righteousness on one side and the tattoo ridden coke pushing gang bangers on the other.
In reality, there's plenty of Joes just one more drink away from becoming news for the worst reasons.
It's true that sometimes regular people (i.e. not full-time criminals) do bad things with guns. There is no preventing this. But you don't outlaw something with a vast legitimate use because of a few bad apples. In the real world drunk drivers kill hundreds of thousand of people every year. Yet no one calls for bans on alcohol or cars.
As a non American, I can totally vouch for that.
I have never ever needed a gun in my life, and I dont relish the thought of having a gun battle with somebody because an argument got out of hand.
The American fascination with shooting people to death is disturbing and sad.
In America, we are more mature and responsible and thus go out of our way to not get in petty arguments and fights to begin with. We don't rely on the government to ban weapons because we are so immature and violent that we can't be trusted.
I have never needed a fire extinguisher in my life, and I don't relish the thought of having to do my own firefighting in the event of a wide-spread natural disaster like an earthquake or rioting, etc, where professional firefighters are not available. That doesn't mean I think no one should own one or even be able to own one.
We don't have a fascination with shooting people to death. We have a fascination with self reliance and citizenship, as opposed to being subjects. In America, we realize that the job of the police is not to protect you, it is to catch the guy that broke into your house and killed you (this is backed by Supreme Court case law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia ). No one goes around shooting people they get into arguments with.
I'm pissed that he didn't ban CO2 exhalation by humans. I mean it is clear we are a threat to the planet and need to be stopped. Then again that's about what I'd expect from the Cameron government, which acts like a puppet for that outrageous corrupt evil special interest corporation known as humanity.
Zimmerman was an immediate mortal threat to Martin because he was following him? No. Zimmerman did not pull his gun out until after he was being beaten on the ground and Martin said "you're gonna die now".
Zimmerman and his parents probably care that they were libeled on national TV in an attempt to rile a mob to literally murder them.
Well, almost. Steam works offline just fine if you tell it you want to go offline while you are still online. If you have a power or internet outage or some such, you cannot play your games offline because it does not have the offline key. Also, you cannot be permanently offline, you have to go online at least once every 30 days to re-validate they key.
No that is incorrect. An average nuclear reactor does indeed contain ~70 metric tons of uranium metal (not including the weight of the oxygen in the oxide). An average nuclear reactor fissions as many uranium atoms as a Hiroshima bomb every 4 hours and runs for up to two years.
Ok let me broaden my definition to include your example:
libertarianism: a society where your wealth belongs to you and cannot be taken by force
socialism: a society in which wealth is forcibly transferred from one person to another for any purpose.
The net result is the same. Libertarianism is the philosophy that you own your body and the proceeds of your labor. Socialism is the philosophy that wealth should be taken from some people and given to other people. These two philosophies are completely incompatible.
In a pure libertarian economy there would be no taxes, as all services would be paid for privately. For example, if you wanted a road, you would have to pay someone to make it and arrange for a toll system. There would be no government that states it is in everyone's best interest for there to be a road and therefore we will tax everyone on the assumption that everyone gets equal use out of the road.
Now in reality government is useful for situations like roads where so many people get the same benefit that it mostly evens out on average. Here is where socialism comes in to play: socialism is when the government takes money from one person and gives it to another directly. This is distinct from the example with the road, because the road could be used by anyone and is therefore a "public good". Another example of a public good would be street lights or postal service. Socialism is the transfer of wealth not for public goods, but for goods that the government says is entitled. Taking my money to pay for your doctor visit is socialism, since I can not benefit from your doctor visit no matter how much your healthiness contributes to society as a whole.
socialist libertarianism? That is an oxymoron, by definition.
libertarian = no government interference in economy
socialism = complete government intervention in economy
Anyway, American libertarians realize that there can be no true freedom for civil rights if our basic constitutional rights and especially right to private property are violated. The reason why American libertarians vote for republicans is because most republicans, including the religious ones, believe in a constitutionally restrained government. There are some republicans who have a "we know what's better for you than you do" agenda but they are in the minority compared to the democrat party which is pretty much 99% nanny statists.
The republican party is definitely not the party of censorship (free speech zones, fairness doctrine, etc have all been the domain of liberals) nor is there any party agenda to put religion into government (although there is an agenda by liberals to stop the free exercise of religion by banning any sort of religious expression in any avenue that is even remotely connected to public service, which is becoming an increasingly larger sector of the economy).
The (very simple) skill system doesn't require/allow you to make any hard choices
The stat system doesn't allow you to make ANY choices
The rune system provides the illusion of skill choices in the form of yet another item hunt
Gear is the only way to differentiate from one player of the same class to another (since you don't really controll stat or skill.
-Neither did previous games. If you made the "wrong" choice, your character was gimped and you had to delete him and start the game all over.
-This was the case with every previous game as well. If you made your stats "wrong", your character was gimped and you had to delete him and start the game all over. The only real differentiation between characters was who had the better items. Nothing has changed.
-Runes are not items any more. It is now just a method of selecting different skill abilities.
If you think Diablo 2 (the multiplayer community anyway) was anything more than a perpetual item grind then you are kidding yourself. There was no building or experimenting in D2 because there was no respeccing period.
No. IAANP and that is hollywood fiction.
Any form of government which is restrained by constitution and the rule of law will work well, even if it is an unelected dictator.
Any form of government which utilizes totalitarian control over its citizens will be destructive, regardless of whether it was elected democratically, by representatives, or emperor for life.
That being said, this article sounds like authoritarian big-government types whining about how they have to waste their money on the nuisance of elections all the time, and how it would be so much simpler if they could just be instated into power for life and not have to worry about accountability and such.
You are incorrect. Nuclear power can load follow perfectly fine. The reason why they don't is because the cost of nuclear power is almost entirely fixed in personnel and equipment. The fuel is practically free (and with fixed schedule refueling outages, whatever you don't use goes to waste anyway). Therefore running at anything besides full power 24x7 is a economically inefficient. In contrast with say, natural gas turbines, where nearly all of the cost is fuel so you only use those to make up the difference in demand.
My guess is space combat would be more akin to submarine warfare - ships heavily shielded and shaped to deflect as much radar energy as possible, as well as coated to reduce heat signature. Quietly floating around using passive sensors trying to locate enemy ship, and then launching either a guided missile or a gun/mass driver type projectile. And like the U-boats in WW2 going up against the allies with ASDIC, depth charges, hedgehogs, etc, space combat would be extremely hazardous. There's no way to realistically armor a ship to project against radiation from small nuclear weapons detonated at close range, or mass drivers at screaming relative velocities. Small fighter type craft buzzing around like WW2 airplanes would be suicidal, since they could be easily instantly destroyed by computer controlled guns or lasers at long range.