They are not incompatible with each other, and each has packages the other is missing.
The author seems to have overlooked the most popular Mac package management system, and the newest:
Software Update and The Mac App Store, respectively. Also, he missed the best package management system evar: pkgsrc.
For the world energy demand (18.000 TWh) we need only a surface area of 188 x 188 square miles with Concentrated Solar Plants.
Coincidentally, a 1997 report for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by Brookhaven National Laboratory found that a severe pool fire could render about 188 square miles uninhabitable. If that happens, we should definitely use that uninhabitable land for something... generating the worlds electricity sounds like as good an idea as any.
You are mistaken about where the fallacy exists. (your argument summarized): we need nuclear power because we need electricity
What makes this fallacious is that there are other sources of electricity. I can't make this any clearer.
The assertion was yours that "in the end" there weill have only been a modest radiation release. I disagree with you. They just found plutonium in the soil at Fukushima. We are far a past "modest" radiation release, IMO. But you are entitled to your opinion.
In my OP, I only mentioned Special Relativity. It was you that introduced General Relativity into this sorry excuse for a conversation. This was the core of my quip... I was talking about Special, and you go off about how I don't understand General... when I never mentioned it. That's a straw man when you attempt to attribute something to me I never discussed. And now... you've really gone round the bend. I never had a problem (at the time) with integrals, or derivatives (mostly just the trig)... I just felt integration was far easier. That is my opinion. That is the way I see it. You disagree... apparently, you feel the opposite. Great. This pleases me.
That, or you're just trolling
If you are unsure whether there is a troll here, I refer you to your first AC response to my OP, and all your subsequent responses. You want to argue because I liked integrals better than derivatives? You think you can convince me otherwise? O RLY?
your arguments concerning electricity are clearly fallacious, an appeal to consequences.
Something doesn't become a fallacy because you label it such. The study of consequence is a key part of engineering. Things like cheap electricity provide tremendous value and ease of suffering to society. Ignoring that is not reasonable.
Appeal to consequences (argumentum ad consequentiam): an argument that concludes a premise (usually a belief) as either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences.
tells me that there is no arguing with you. I thought most of these kinds of statements disappeared after the first wave of optimism proved incorrect. I was wrong, apparently. We are no where near an end at Fukushima, and the radiation already released is hardly modest. The runaway optimism concerning this incident is staggering.
You know what you're lacking here? Evidence that backs your claim.
wow... you are an angry, self-proclaimed math expert? Yes, I believe integrals are far easier than derivatives. If you believe integration is difficult, then it is you that needs to work a little harder at it. And your reading comprehension is about at the level of your lack of mastery of the language, so in that regard, at least you are consistent. Apparently, you think General Relativity is Special Relativity. Well, I really don't believe that, but you just didn't read my post close enough (not even sure why you read it to begin with, but I, however, made no claims regarding General Relativity).
I suspect you must be pals with the 12-year old... or perhaps the punk himself? Nice to meet you. You'll do well here. Now, when you're done mowing the lawn, please... get off and let the adults have a conversation.
I apologize for my knee jerk reaction and name calling. My fingers get away from me. I have simply to say that I disagree with nearly all of your assessments wholeheartedly, and your arguments concerning electricity are clearly fallacious, an appeal to consequences. Electricity is not solely dependent on nuclear power.
But this:
In the end, it'll just be a modest radiation release.
tells me that there is no arguing with you. I thought most of these kinds of statements disappeared after the first wave of optimism proved incorrect. I was wrong, apparently. We are no where near an end at Fukushima, and the radiation already released is hardly modest. The runaway optimism concerning this incident is staggering.
I remember when I was 12 and first started reading about Einstein's theories. I remember thinking how simple it was to understand, though the intuition was brilliant, I didn't understand all the fuss about how hard it was to understand. I think most 5 year olds, if you can get them to sit still, would have little problem understanding Special Relativity. I also remember in high school how easy some of calculus was. Integration is so easy it's almost fun. It's derivatives, logarithms and trigonometry that are hard. My trigonometry was weak... I barely got through that year of trig... and I didn't realize how detrimental that was until I was stuck in the 5 hour calc course at my university (spent half the exams deriving trig formulas I never memorized). If this punk has truly mastered trigonometry, logarithms, limits, residuals, radicals and derivatives, then I would say that is truly impressive, and I think its still impressive for anyone to master this at any age. But something is telling me he has cherry picked the mathematics that he found easy, and, like me, ignored the more difficult stuff like... utilizing... freaking... tangents or summations (I just puked a little in my mouth).
Keep in mind that the the Russian design (Wikipedia says there still are 11 of them going in Russia as of 2010) is far more dangerous than anything in the developed world and that the operators were taking extraordinary risks with the reactor at the time of the accident. Finally, dosages were higher because civilians weren't warned and evacuated for a significant time after the start of the accident.
So yes, I can brush off however many deaths Chernobyl ends up causing precisely because it was an insane situation that has never held at commercial nuclear power sites anywhere in the developed world.
Ah, because they lied or underestimated the severity of the situation, you can blow it off. Brilliant deductive reasoning there. First of all, the number of peoples in proximity to a nuclear accident has absolutely effect on the amount of radiation released. Secondly, they lied about TMI too: at first, they assured the public there were no radiation releases (lie), then they said the radiation was released purposely to control pressure (2 more lies). Ah, so right there I have proved you wrong. You're are terrifically naive to think that no one lies in the developed world. The only thing that prevented TMI from being a Chernobyl was that there was a concrete encasement protecting the reactor, and that structure was not breached. But there was no natural disaster that caused it... it was a faulty valve and human error. What if there was an earthquake right underneath one of our safely designed domestic nuclear plants?. I don't think its so far a stretch of the imagination that an earthquake might cause breaches in concrete.
Had the Yucca Mountain facility been built, it would have been already filled more than twice by the toxic nuclear waste we now have in the US.
We can reduce the volume of waste. We can recycle nuclear fuel rods. And we can increase the size of Yucca Mountain's volume.
You don't read very well. That ship sailed. Its too late for Yucca, as bad an idea as it was to begin with. As I said, even if we had built it, and even if we had reduced the volume of waste, it would still be full. But we never even got there... the vast majority of our nuclear waste is distributed accross the eastern seaboard where most of our nuclear power plants are.... just sitting there in containment pools. Forget the reactors for a moment, I wonder how much of an earthquake one of those pools can withstand before they breach and radiated water seeps into aquifers and water supplies, emptying the pools, and opening the real possibility of nuclear catastrophe with absolutely no containment whatsoever. I know what you're gonna say "ooo... scary earthquake fear mongering!"
At some point someone is going to have to actually pay attention to the very real possibilities of something going very wrong somewhere right in our backyard. I'd rather they did it sooner than later, and I'd rather they not be you, so you can just keep on being a cold bastard and not caring about the ridiculous amount of suffering that just a few nuclear incidents have caused just so you can avoid worrying about your electric bill.
I am not fully against nuclear power, but I am fully against this attitude that we've done nuclear power right and we continue to do it right, and the possibility of nuclear incident is small. There is just an immense amount of myopia involved with being pro-nuclear energy. I applaud these Americans favoring a moratorium, and I am releaved so many actually care. Bravo for caution.
All it takes is "one accident", which aside from Chernobyl, hasn't happened yet.
I find it exceedingly annoying how dismissive nuclear proponents are: "aside from Chernobyl," my God, how can you just brush off subsequent 4000-40,000 deaths? Chernobyl isn't done yet... the sarcophogas is failing... most experts agree cleanup is impossible (to collect and safeguard 20cm of top soil in a 20 mile radius of the plant). And not even considering TMI, its 14 years and $1 billion cost of cleanup is anathema to rational individuals. We got lucky at TMI, it could have been worse, but it was far worse than most nuclear proponents admit. Its not nothing. Its a big deal. And you're completely overlooking Fukushima (remember??).
For the projections for Yucca Mountain, they expected containment for ten thousand years to be adequate to get rid of most radioactivity from nuclear rods.
Had the Yucca Mountain facility been built, it would have been already filled more than twice by the toxic nuclear waste we now have in the US. Even if we reprocessed the waste with fast reactors, it would still be full by now. And no one, I don't care how good a team of engineers, no one can design a facility to keep this stuff safe for 10K years. To suggest otherwise is fantasy. No one can say a location will be safe in 300 years, much less 5K or 10K or 30K years. Humans are are unreliable... they cheat and lie... they make mistakes... and they forget.
The "zOMG, nuclear power always causes 3-eyed rats and flipper babies made of pure cancer!" brigade is out to lunch.
I'm not sure what is more disturbing, the inhumanity of this statement, or the reality of it. Chernobyl has killed people that weren't even born when it happened; lets see a coal or hydro accident do that. There is an entire generation of babies born without limbs. We're 25 years out, and still no one can live there.
Rational and intelligent individuals will question nuclear proliferation based on 2 things: 1) the waste issue, 2) cost.
Every single reactor site in the US has a temporary spent fuel facility that was at capacity over a decade ago. We still don't know what to do with the stuff. NO ONE HAS LEGITIMATELY SOLVED THIS, and the best they can do is defer the situation until the future. Even if Yucca Mountain had been built, it would have been filled more than twice by the amount of waste we already now have in the US. Even if fast breeder reactors were used to reprocess the waste, Yucca would still be full by now. And it was a terrible idea to begin with (how the heck are we supposed to keep toxic material safe for 30K years??)
The reality of expense is that once you account for the massive investment of resources in nuclear bomb fuel factories made by the US in the 1950's (electricity was a side effect, they were built for bomb fuel, and no return on investment was ever paid to tax payers), and the incidents at Chernobyl, TMI, and Fukushima, nuclear power becomes far more expensive than even the most inefficient solar installations. Chernobyl is still costing... estimated $250 billion by 2015, and it still won't be cleaned up... most experts agree that clean up is impossible, that place is effectively dead forever. TMI cost 14 years of cleanup and $1 billion. Fukushima is going to cost a lot more than TMI.
IMHO, it's not just those 2 factors, cost and waste, but the fact that, try as they may, humans are unreliable. Someone somewhere is cutting corners for more profit, and lying about it.
Just how many nuclear incidents are necessary before nuclear proponents rethink the situation?
Why are computer scientists even learning programming?
I am in complete agreement. Programming is for programmers. Let's put the 'science' back in computer science! Be gone coders, be gone systems administrators! Computer Science is the domain of scientists and mathematicians!
I'm not a psychologist or nuclear expert, but I'll give it a shot. We have 104 nuclear reactors operating in the United States (there's actually more, some being dismantled... I think the original number was 110, and then there's the military and research facilities). Some of these reactors are built on fault lines. Most of them are in well populated areas (not in centers of cities, but within 20 miles). Nearly all of them are operating far beyond their mandated lifetime. We have not solved the nuclear waste problem; we don't know what to do with it. All of the nuclear plants in the U.S. have temporary containment pools that have been at capacity for at least a decade.
The current international political climate is scary in and of itself, and the United States is the target and sworn enemy of terrorists and extremists, which has lead to our government slowly but surely constricting rights our Founders intended to remain clearly enumerated (a challenge to habeas corpus, a reinterpretation of the 2nd from common defense to self-defense, an unchecked interstate commerce clause, the elimination of a right to privacy). We have a large number of pro-nuclear activists that marginalize the real possibility of and danger of a nuclear incident, the long term effects (to put it mildly) of radioactivity, and the importance of keeping a clean environment because nuclear power appears at first glance to be the easiest and shortest route to cheap power. We have a powerful and growing population coming from the political right, and this after and during an economic crisis brought on by the people they elected deregulating everything from the financial sector to corporate environmental responsibility. We have a press that has begun to utilize the first amendment in a way that no one expected, that, rather than reporting the facts are cherry picking and editorializing and interpreting the facts for us; impartiality is dead.
This is all just off the top of my head, and with an obvious negative cast. I would applaud a response that talks about how great it is to be alive today... but I'd rather forgo electricity, plastics and modern conveniences and go back in time to, idk... live with the Native Americans long before the West was conquered (well, not really, but sort of).
Apologies if I have rambled, but my point is, if there is one, that none of these issues should be dismissed offhand. We have no central issue that all can get behind and work together on (like... idk, American independance or WWII). These issues are complex, and the compelling arguments from both sides are difficult to recognize above the noise.
I was under the impression there are a lot of high-functioning professionals secretly addicted to cocaine because it doesn't adversely affect your performance short-term like, say, alcohol does. True or false?
From my experience with it, which is by proxy through people I knew that used the drug, cocaine turns people into complete lying shitheads, though maybe they were always lying shitheads. From what I can tell, cocaine induces a manic state, and that can often be adverse to performance. Even if the user feels their elevated state is one of hyperperformance, it can be unsettling to witness, and, contrary to what the user believes, it is rather easy to tell if someone is high on cocaine.
the author loses credibility on a few points... the radioactive cloud irradiated sailors from the Ronald Reagan... impossible by the author's explaination, yet it happened. Also, his claim the reactor is safe and will stay safe is suspect. There indeed was subsequently a third explosion. I'd say his facts are suspect.
The explanation of the reactor design is nicely dumbed down for us laymen. The author appears to have a grasp of the situation, but is also prone to making obviously false conclusions. We don't know yet if or when the plants will be safe, and he didn't know when he wrote what I quoted. On his statements about the decay of the radioactive plume alone he loses credibility... we already know that the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan received about a month's worth of radiation. If what the author says is true, then it isn't possible... yet it happened. I don't know what that blog post is, but I know it isn't just the facts. From what I can gather from recent stories (within the last hour) we should expect at least one more explosion from hydrogen buildup. I'd hardly call that safe.
There was no debate, and there is no 2.5G standard. EDGE is 3G. It was first, so better 3G followed... then came the marketing term "2.5G" to separate the better 3G from EDGE.
yes, of course, kidding, It is a highly significant nuclear event. I am reacting to nuclear fanbois that are lamenting what this is going to do to their plans for universal nuclear proliferation and trying to instead make the major issue poor journalism rather than admitting that nuclear power has risks.
Nice smack down, but you missed the sarcastic point entirely; the inaccuracy was intended. Rabid nuclear proponents here will dismiss just about anything as being significant (e.g. Three Mile Island). Nuke fanbois are equal to sensationalist journalists. Try not to be so touchy feely about what this might do to the proliferation of nuclear power. We learn from this. These events will, in the end, help nuclear power. Let's see it for what it is, an extraordinarily significant event.
Totally! Why are they even reporting on this? There were hardly any explosions, like 3, big deal! Almost none of the reactors entered partial meltdown, what, like 2 of 6 at only 2 of their 17 power plants. Barely 200 people were treated for radiation and hardly 200,000 people were evacuated. News is just for entertainment, really. Move along, this is all being exaggerated to sell news.
Quite. Three lowsy hydrogen explosions, merely 2 of 6 reactors in partial meltdown at only 2 plants, hardly 200 irradiated and barely 200,000 evacuated... this is all bullshit, is it not? Slashdot has really turned into the Weekly World News of nerdy fear-mongering sensationalism. Thank God for the pro-nuke commenters that are setting the record straight. Nothing to see here.
Yeah, a total overreaction, only 2 nuclear power plants are failing, of 6 reactors, only 2 are in partial meltdown; less than 200 people were irradiated, less than 200,000 were evacuated. Why is this even news? Sensational journalism makes me nauseous.
Slashdot Mirror
First, use macports or fink, not both.
They are not incompatible with each other, and each has packages the other is missing.
The author seems to have overlooked the most popular Mac package management system, and the newest:
Software Update and The Mac App Store, respectively. Also, he missed the best package management system evar: pkgsrc.
For the world energy demand (18.000 TWh) we need only a surface area of 188 x 188 square miles with Concentrated Solar Plants.
Coincidentally, a 1997 report for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by Brookhaven National Laboratory found that a severe pool fire could render about 188 square miles uninhabitable. If that happens, we should definitely use that uninhabitable land for something... generating the worlds electricity sounds like as good an idea as any.
You are mistaken about where the fallacy exists. (your argument summarized):
we need nuclear power because we need electricity
What makes this fallacious is that there are other sources of electricity. I can't make this any clearer.
The assertion was yours that "in the end" there weill have only been a modest radiation release. I disagree with you. They just found plutonium in the soil at Fukushima. We are far a past "modest" radiation release, IMO. But you are entitled to your opinion.
In my OP, I only mentioned Special Relativity. It was you that introduced General Relativity into this sorry excuse for a conversation. This was the core of my quip... I was talking about Special, and you go off about how I don't understand General... when I never mentioned it. That's a straw man when you attempt to attribute something to me I never discussed. And now... you've really gone round the bend. I never had a problem (at the time) with integrals, or derivatives (mostly just the trig)... I just felt integration was far easier. That is my opinion. That is the way I see it. You disagree... apparently, you feel the opposite. Great. This pleases me.
That, or you're just trolling
If you are unsure whether there is a troll here, I refer you to your first AC response to my OP, and all your subsequent responses. You want to argue because I liked integrals better than derivatives? You think you can convince me otherwise? O RLY?
your arguments concerning electricity are clearly fallacious, an appeal to consequences.
Something doesn't become a fallacy because you label it such. The study of consequence is a key part of engineering. Things like cheap electricity provide tremendous value and ease of suffering to society. Ignoring that is not reasonable.
Appeal to consequences (argumentum ad consequentiam): an argument that concludes a premise (usually a belief) as either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences.
tells me that there is no arguing with you. I thought most of these kinds of statements disappeared after the first wave of optimism proved incorrect. I was wrong, apparently. We are no where near an end at Fukushima, and the radiation already released is hardly modest. The runaway optimism concerning this incident is staggering.
You know what you're lacking here? Evidence that backs your claim.
plenty of evidence.
wow... you are an angry, self-proclaimed math expert? Yes, I believe integrals are far easier than derivatives. If you believe integration is difficult, then it is you that needs to work a little harder at it. And your reading comprehension is about at the level of your lack of mastery of the language, so in that regard, at least you are consistent. Apparently, you think General Relativity is Special Relativity. Well, I really don't believe that, but you just didn't read my post close enough (not even sure why you read it to begin with, but I, however, made no claims regarding General Relativity).
I suspect you must be pals with the 12-year old... or perhaps the punk himself? Nice to meet you. You'll do well here. Now, when you're done mowing the lawn, please... get off and let the adults have a conversation.
In the end, it'll just be a modest radiation release.
tells me that there is no arguing with you. I thought most of these kinds of statements disappeared after the first wave of optimism proved incorrect. I was wrong, apparently. We are no where near an end at Fukushima, and the radiation already released is hardly modest. The runaway optimism concerning this incident is staggering.
I remember when I was 12 and first started reading about Einstein's theories. I remember thinking how simple it was to understand, though the intuition was brilliant, I didn't understand all the fuss about how hard it was to understand. I think most 5 year olds, if you can get them to sit still, would have little problem understanding Special Relativity. I also remember in high school how easy some of calculus was. Integration is so easy it's almost fun. It's derivatives, logarithms and trigonometry that are hard. My trigonometry was weak... I barely got through that year of trig... and I didn't realize how detrimental that was until I was stuck in the 5 hour calc course at my university (spent half the exams deriving trig formulas I never memorized). If this punk has truly mastered trigonometry, logarithms, limits, residuals, radicals and derivatives, then I would say that is truly impressive, and I think its still impressive for anyone to master this at any age. But something is telling me he has cherry picked the mathematics that he found easy, and, like me, ignored the more difficult stuff like ... utilizing... freaking... tangents or summations (I just puked a little in my mouth).
Keep in mind that the the Russian design (Wikipedia says there still are 11 of them going in Russia as of 2010) is far more dangerous than anything in the developed world and that the operators were taking extraordinary risks with the reactor at the time of the accident. Finally, dosages were higher because civilians weren't warned and evacuated for a significant time after the start of the accident. So yes, I can brush off however many deaths Chernobyl ends up causing precisely because it was an insane situation that has never held at commercial nuclear power sites anywhere in the developed world.
Ah, because they lied or underestimated the severity of the situation, you can blow it off. Brilliant deductive reasoning there. First of all, the number of peoples in proximity to a nuclear accident has absolutely effect on the amount of radiation released. Secondly, they lied about TMI too: at first, they assured the public there were no radiation releases (lie), then they said the radiation was released purposely to control pressure (2 more lies). Ah, so right there I have proved you wrong. You're are terrifically naive to think that no one lies in the developed world. The only thing that prevented TMI from being a Chernobyl was that there was a concrete encasement protecting the reactor, and that structure was not breached. But there was no natural disaster that caused it... it was a faulty valve and human error. What if there was an earthquake right underneath one of our safely designed domestic nuclear plants?. I don't think its so far a stretch of the imagination that an earthquake might cause breaches in concrete.
Had the Yucca Mountain facility been built, it would have been already filled more than twice by the toxic nuclear waste we now have in the US.
We can reduce the volume of waste. We can recycle nuclear fuel rods. And we can increase the size of Yucca Mountain's volume.
You don't read very well. That ship sailed. Its too late for Yucca, as bad an idea as it was to begin with. As I said, even if we had built it, and even if we had reduced the volume of waste, it would still be full. But we never even got there... the vast majority of our nuclear waste is distributed accross the eastern seaboard where most of our nuclear power plants are.... just sitting there in containment pools. Forget the reactors for a moment, I wonder how much of an earthquake one of those pools can withstand before they breach and radiated water seeps into aquifers and water supplies, emptying the pools, and opening the real possibility of nuclear catastrophe with absolutely no containment whatsoever. I know what you're gonna say "ooo... scary earthquake fear mongering!"
Seismicity of the United States
Location of reactors in the United States
At some point someone is going to have to actually pay attention to the very real possibilities of something going very wrong somewhere right in our backyard. I'd rather they did it sooner than later, and I'd rather they not be you, so you can just keep on being a cold bastard and not caring about the ridiculous amount of suffering that just a few nuclear incidents have caused just so you can avoid worrying about your electric bill.
I am not fully against nuclear power, but I am fully against this attitude that we've done nuclear power right and we continue to do it right, and the possibility of nuclear incident is small. There is just an immense amount of myopia involved with being pro-nuclear energy. I applaud these Americans favoring a moratorium, and I am releaved so many actually care. Bravo for caution.
All it takes is "one accident", which aside from Chernobyl, hasn't happened yet.
I find it exceedingly annoying how dismissive nuclear proponents are: "aside from Chernobyl," my God, how can you just brush off subsequent 4000-40,000 deaths? Chernobyl isn't done yet... the sarcophogas is failing... most experts agree cleanup is impossible (to collect and safeguard 20cm of top soil in a 20 mile radius of the plant). And not even considering TMI, its 14 years and $1 billion cost of cleanup is anathema to rational individuals. We got lucky at TMI, it could have been worse, but it was far worse than most nuclear proponents admit. Its not nothing. Its a big deal. And you're completely overlooking Fukushima (remember??).
For the projections for Yucca Mountain, they expected containment for ten thousand years to be adequate to get rid of most radioactivity from nuclear rods.
Had the Yucca Mountain facility been built, it would have been already filled more than twice by the toxic nuclear waste we now have in the US. Even if we reprocessed the waste with fast reactors, it would still be full by now. And no one, I don't care how good a team of engineers, no one can design a facility to keep this stuff safe for 10K years. To suggest otherwise is fantasy. No one can say a location will be safe in 300 years, much less 5K or 10K or 30K years. Humans are are unreliable... they cheat and lie... they make mistakes... and they forget.
The "zOMG, nuclear power always causes 3-eyed rats and flipper babies made of pure cancer!" brigade is out to lunch.
I'm not sure what is more disturbing, the inhumanity of this statement, or the reality of it. Chernobyl has killed people that weren't even born when it happened; lets see a coal or hydro accident do that. There is an entire generation of babies born without limbs. We're 25 years out, and still no one can live there.
Rational and intelligent individuals will question nuclear proliferation based on 2 things: 1) the waste issue, 2) cost.
Every single reactor site in the US has a temporary spent fuel facility that was at capacity over a decade ago. We still don't know what to do with the stuff. NO ONE HAS LEGITIMATELY SOLVED THIS, and the best they can do is defer the situation until the future. Even if Yucca Mountain had been built, it would have been filled more than twice by the amount of waste we already now have in the US. Even if fast breeder reactors were used to reprocess the waste, Yucca would still be full by now. And it was a terrible idea to begin with (how the heck are we supposed to keep toxic material safe for 30K years??)
The reality of expense is that once you account for the massive investment of resources in nuclear bomb fuel factories made by the US in the 1950's (electricity was a side effect, they were built for bomb fuel, and no return on investment was ever paid to tax payers), and the incidents at Chernobyl, TMI, and Fukushima, nuclear power becomes far more expensive than even the most inefficient solar installations. Chernobyl is still costing... estimated $250 billion by 2015, and it still won't be cleaned up... most experts agree that clean up is impossible, that place is effectively dead forever. TMI cost 14 years of cleanup and $1 billion. Fukushima is going to cost a lot more than TMI.
IMHO, it's not just those 2 factors, cost and waste, but the fact that, try as they may, humans are unreliable. Someone somewhere is cutting corners for more profit, and lying about it.
Just how many nuclear incidents are necessary before nuclear proponents rethink the situation?
Why are computer scientists even learning programming?
I am in complete agreement. Programming is for programmers. Let's put the 'science' back in computer science! Be gone coders, be gone systems administrators! Computer Science is the domain of scientists and mathematicians!
Best comment I've seen. Thank you for posting. Mod this freak of level headed rationality up plz!
Why is America so afraid?
I'm not a psychologist or nuclear expert, but I'll give it a shot. We have 104 nuclear reactors operating in the United States (there's actually more, some being dismantled... I think the original number was 110, and then there's the military and research facilities). Some of these reactors are built on fault lines. Most of them are in well populated areas (not in centers of cities, but within 20 miles). Nearly all of them are operating far beyond their mandated lifetime. We have not solved the nuclear waste problem; we don't know what to do with it. All of the nuclear plants in the U.S. have temporary containment pools that have been at capacity for at least a decade.
The current international political climate is scary in and of itself, and the United States is the target and sworn enemy of terrorists and extremists, which has lead to our government slowly but surely constricting rights our Founders intended to remain clearly enumerated (a challenge to habeas corpus, a reinterpretation of the 2nd from common defense to self-defense, an unchecked interstate commerce clause, the elimination of a right to privacy). We have a large number of pro-nuclear activists that marginalize the real possibility of and danger of a nuclear incident, the long term effects (to put it mildly) of radioactivity, and the importance of keeping a clean environment because nuclear power appears at first glance to be the easiest and shortest route to cheap power. We have a powerful and growing population coming from the political right, and this after and during an economic crisis brought on by the people they elected deregulating everything from the financial sector to corporate environmental responsibility. We have a press that has begun to utilize the first amendment in a way that no one expected, that, rather than reporting the facts are cherry picking and editorializing and interpreting the facts for us; impartiality is dead.
This is all just off the top of my head, and with an obvious negative cast. I would applaud a response that talks about how great it is to be alive today... but I'd rather forgo electricity, plastics and modern conveniences and go back in time to, idk... live with the Native Americans long before the West was conquered (well, not really, but sort of).
Apologies if I have rambled, but my point is, if there is one, that none of these issues should be dismissed offhand. We have no central issue that all can get behind and work together on (like... idk, American independance or WWII). These issues are complex, and the compelling arguments from both sides are difficult to recognize above the noise.
I was under the impression there are a lot of high-functioning professionals secretly addicted to cocaine because it doesn't adversely affect your performance short-term like, say, alcohol does. True or false?
Len Bias might disagree.
From my experience with it, which is by proxy through people I knew that used the drug, cocaine turns people into complete lying shitheads, though maybe they were always lying shitheads. From what I can tell, cocaine induces a manic state, and that can often be adverse to performance. Even if the user feels their elevated state is one of hyperperformance, it can be unsettling to witness, and, contrary to what the user believes, it is rather easy to tell if someone is high on cocaine.
the author loses credibility on a few points... the radioactive cloud irradiated sailors from the Ronald Reagan... impossible by the author's explaination, yet it happened. Also, his claim the reactor is safe and will stay safe is suspect. There indeed was subsequently a third explosion. I'd say his facts are suspect.
FYI ... I was still being facetious. It is ridiculous how this event is being dismissed in these comments... thus my post is ridiculous.
The plant is now safe and will stay safe
The explanation of the reactor design is nicely dumbed down for us laymen. The author appears to have a grasp of the situation, but is also prone to making obviously false conclusions. We don't know yet if or when the plants will be safe, and he didn't know when he wrote what I quoted. On his statements about the decay of the radioactive plume alone he loses credibility... we already know that the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan received about a month's worth of radiation. If what the author says is true, then it isn't possible... yet it happened. I don't know what that blog post is, but I know it isn't just the facts. From what I can gather from recent stories (within the last hour) we should expect at least one more explosion from hydrogen buildup. I'd hardly call that safe.
There was no debate, and there is no 2.5G standard. EDGE is 3G. It was first, so better 3G followed... then came the marketing term "2.5G" to separate the better 3G from EDGE.
yes, of course, kidding, It is a highly significant nuclear event. I am reacting to nuclear fanbois that are lamenting what this is going to do to their plans for universal nuclear proliferation and trying to instead make the major issue poor journalism rather than admitting that nuclear power has risks.
Apparently there are some contexts in which OHSA will allow free-climbing since tying in as actually more dangerous.
What do they have to do with it?
Nice smack down, but you missed the sarcastic point entirely; the inaccuracy was intended. Rabid nuclear proponents here will dismiss just about anything as being significant (e.g. Three Mile Island). Nuke fanbois are equal to sensationalist journalists. Try not to be so touchy feely about what this might do to the proliferation of nuclear power. We learn from this. These events will, in the end, help nuclear power. Let's see it for what it is, an extraordinarily significant event.
Totally! Why are they even reporting on this? There were hardly any explosions, like 3, big deal! Almost none of the reactors entered partial meltdown, what, like 2 of 6 at only 2 of their 17 power plants. Barely 200 people were treated for radiation and hardly 200,000 people were evacuated. News is just for entertainment, really. Move along, this is all being exaggerated to sell news.
Quite. Three lowsy hydrogen explosions, merely 2 of 6 reactors in partial meltdown at only 2 plants, hardly 200 irradiated and barely 200,000 evacuated... this is all bullshit, is it not? Slashdot has really turned into the Weekly World News of nerdy fear-mongering sensationalism. Thank God for the pro-nuke commenters that are setting the record straight. Nothing to see here.
Yeah, a total overreaction, only 2 nuclear power plants are failing, of 6 reactors, only 2 are in partial meltdown; less than 200 people were irradiated, less than 200,000 were evacuated. Why is this even news? Sensational journalism makes me nauseous.