An example of a more critical listening exercise where aac fell flat and mp3 would too is Einaudi's Nuvole Bianche where i was trying to listen to the quieter left hand part (this piece is solo piano) and heard an infistinct mush where the attack transients had clearly been removed by the algorithm. I'm happy casually listening to aac256 but when you want to listen carefully to an instrument that isnt the loudest thing in the signal, thats where you need lossless.
In this whole thread the AC is the only one who seems to get it.
TRANSIENTS are WHERE dynamic RANGE comes FROM.
It's the key issue with recording and mastering and the thing lost with audio compression. That is what dynamic range is all about, what makes it seem exciting and you want to turn the volume up, instead of down because it a mash of noise. Many things in sound recording are counter-intuitive, but it's the musical transients that give a piece of music a life like characteristic.
I have been recording and mastering music for years and this is one of the key things I strive for. A good example of dynamic range in recording is Tool's Anemia.
When it comes to data compression I note it's mainly the high frequency audio (say 12-15khz) that sounds affected. Some of the psycho-acoustic algorithms don't seem to work well in these ranges and waveform information (like cymbals) become waveform data that is decidedly unpleasant to listen to. When I look at the abused music subject on my studio gear it's plain to see the damage. Generally time by amplitude is the way a waveform is visualised, but when you look at a time by frequency visualisation instead of a distribution of frequency I saw lines of the most dominant frequencies (usually the resonant frequency of the instrument) the ones the algorithm kept.
Music isn't science, it's art. So is mastering and recording because a good production can make or break a album. The progressive commoditisation of the art has produced many lifeless mashes of noise. This is what many people want, but for people who appreciate the art that is music these two issues have destroyed the expression of many worthwhile musicians.
Hey, I'll have you know girls LOVE the bass player buddy! Its not our fault them damned whiny guitarist and pretty boy singers keep getting in our way and hogging all the spotlight!
that's cool dood, The bass player is the most important member of the band, after all, who else has all the drug contacts. Beside you need a singer to be able to tell you that your rig is killing the kick drum and where the gig is on.. just like every other bass player - you'll show up on time, just to the wrong place
Four days would have been more than adequate to line up the equipment and staff that they needed to clear the site of debris and keep the reactors cooled after the tsunami (plus four addition days of cooling would have been pretty useful in its own right!). They has somewhere around eight hours after the quake to bring in generating equipment to replace what had been lost. They might even be able to save some of the generators on site.
Which is all speculation because they didn't have four days they had four minutes and they weren't ready when the Tsunami hit because the seawall wasn't high enough.
It seems like my powers of prediction are better than yours, I told you TEPCO would wear it.
I argue about Nuclear power because I feel I have an obligation to future generations to do something to raise awareness of the problems the Nuclear Industry has so we can deal with the issues. Maybe in a hundred or so years we may have developed better materials technology to advance it, but right now I believe it's important to contain as much as possible in a granite facility. Granite because it contains groundwater penetration of radionucides.
This was the original approach by the DOE 'Defense in Depth' (from memory) it was called and yes, it's an energetic infrastructure project that takes 30 years to set up. Spent fuel containment so even if we fail as a society, we don't, very, very slowly, wipe out humanity. Right now what I see is a bunch of people I refer to as NIMG for Not In My Generation. They want to have their energy party and leave it to some other generation to have to sort out the problem while they make it a bigger problem.
I am deeply interested in developing solar and alternative energy technology and I just wonder from your posts if that is what you do or are you commercialising it? If I've embarrassed you I'm sorry, but you do seem very difficult to engage with in conversation outside of your journal. I barely have enough time to read slashdot. let alone peoples journals.
I find it difficult to believe that we don't already have enough energy from the sun to run society without coal and nuclear, just not enough imagination. I'm seeing leaps in solar and wind technology and wonder if the technologies will (as a collective of technologies) be able to displace coal and nuclear, respectively. I see what you are doing and I applaud your efforts. I am playing a small part in it as well.
Accelerators can break down plutonium so that is a zeroth order approach. We can expect an overshoot in solar panel production and excess energy available after fossil fuels and nuclear power are eliminated. Already nanosolar has an energy payback time of under eight months. http://www.nanosolar.com/company/about-us so repaying the nuclear energy debt should not be too difficult.
No need to convince me about solar and other alternatives, they're the only logical and practical energy selection for the next 50 -100 years. To me wind power with it's modular and rapid technology development cycle makes a superior return to nuclear. Solar thermal looks like the industrial level option to replace coal.
At issue though is also the decommissioning of the reactors which is a highly energy intensive operation to do safely. I'm fairly certain accelerators would be too. Do you have any links I could examine with more information. I'd like to compare the energetic expenditure of the Accelerator to an infrastructure plan and storage.
The last point is a political issue. The Nuclear cowboys (pro-nuclear, nuclear fanbois) need to have a common rallying point with anti nuclear that they can support otherwise I fear we will never see any progress on this issue.
It's still quite valuable material, and I sense they would lobby against that fiercely because the current generation of Nuclear cowboys treat radionuclides like baby poo 'unfortunate if it leaks into the environment, but no big deal'. Clearly they do not understand the mutagenic properties of the material and how hazardous it is to life systems.
Solar, wind, tidal and geo-thermal are the future and where I see more investment happening because they make money, nuclear costs money.
The energy returned on energy invested is pretty low for nuclear power even ignoring the waste clean up. Using centrifuges in the fuel processing can help, but with only about 75 years of uranium left, the whole slug of gas diffusion processed materials from weapons production makes the overall process low quality in energy terms.
I'd be surprised if there is 75 years supply left, certainly not in soft ore extraction - perhaps hard ore extraction but that eats into the energy return equation even more. Unless there is a serious advancement in materials technology I think we are unlikely to see any significant advance in reactor technology that makes it economical.
The deployment of AP1000s is no more than a hack. Thermal containment ratios are lower than previous generation reactors and the changes made to the systems, whilst simplifying the reactor, are made to make a reactor installation cheaper. Meanwhile oil companies are plundering the tax incentives for building reactors for there own fudicial reasoning.
The discussions of Nuclear I conduct is because I don't believe future generation need to have any more costs imposed on them than we already have. I am more interested in the business prospect of solar power now and how I can make that available, now. I personally think that creating a solid solar and wind power technology base is the best answer to ending the nuclear industry in its current form. I'd be very interested in contacting you outside the realm of/. if that is acceptable to you.
Actually, storage may not be the best option. Transportation of spent fuel to a central site is sure to lead to accidents. A mobile transmutation facility may be a better option. If we think of nuclear energy as energy that must be repaid to unmake the waste, a sort of deficit spending situation, then the picture of what nuclear energy is may be clearer.
Have you examined the work of Dr Phillip Smith, Nuclear Physicist and Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen (MSc)? They talk of the absence of a "Net energy return" of Nuclear power.
Have you considered any approaches to reducing pu-239 stores near nuclear reactors?
The controversy is that many of the Nuclear reactors in operation in the U.S are the G.E Mk 1, that Fukushima was. Even the Hitachi and Toshiba reactors are copies of the GE Mk 1.
The second part of the controversy is that the spent fuel cooling pools in the US are much more heavily loaded with pu-239 than Fukushima is/was.
The third part of the controversy is that U.S operators are at least as bad as the Japanese counterparts.
If this were the Japanese nuclear regulators, then I'd be worried.
I've observed that most people on slashdot don't want their belief systems about Nuclear power challenged. People who do are modded into oblivion. The fact remains that the U.S is at least as vulnerable to these accidents because it has many of these types of reactors *still* in operation itself. Coupled with the spent fuel density in many U.S reactor installation's cooling pools and you have a recipe for disaster that rivals the Japanese situation.
Unfortunately the lack of observable consensus between those for (pro) and against (anti) Nuclear power leaves the situation deadlocked against any pragmatic solution to the actual situation. Any form of, what I term "Responsible Nuclear Advocacy" is judged by both parties as against "their" argument when, in reality, if you observe both sides from afar you discover that while the end goal of both sides differ, the means to achieving it is the same: A geologically sound spent fuel facility in granite - built like the Rocky Mountains NORAD military facility (which is an ideal place).
It's actually easier for most people to maintain a certain level of apathy towards the situation so they can remain untroubled by events and not challenge their "ism" and I don't blame them because it's a horrendously complex subject. It encapsulates not only an understanding of physics, but engineering, governance and regulation, political constructs, economics and legislation, medicine and, of course, the Nuclear Industry itself.
I started off as undecided (well slightly pro) but determined to learn more and as I did became increasingly fascinated by this wonderful but also terrifying technology, after all, it's related to the atomic bomb. I encourage everyone who argues for Nuclear Power to really get an understanding of this technology. How much energy does mining take, what is the toxicity of mine tailings, what are the consequences of uranium enrichment and the relation to du weapons and the effect of CFC114 on the environment, how reactors are designed and their operational life cycle how basis design issues affect reactor operations (which lead to accidents like Fukushima AND Chernobyl) and, most importantly why dealing with spent fuel containment (and maintaining it in the U.S) is the most pressing issue that the faces humanity.
Simply put, I have long felt that it is up to our generation to deal with the issue of spent fuel containment if we are going to receive the benefits of the energy that Nuclear fuel provides. These reactors have life spans that are measured in decades, while it's "spent" fuel is toxic to life for thousands of years. We have a responsibility to future human generation to deal with this issue permanently. If we can't solve this, the simplest problem facing the Nuclear industry (spent fuel containment) then how can we ever expect to develop better reactor technology (that I completely support), when we are simply rendering the technology pointless. What actual right do we have to this technology if we are too short sighted to see such far reaching consequences.
I don't care if I'm modded down, I have always spoken to the truth of the Nuclear present and this argument has always been treated too flippantly on slashdot. The truth about the Nuclear industry gets modded down here because the truth about it introduces discomfiture that challenges the established dogma of the Nuclear industry and no one wants
Australians cannot take up arms against tyranny. The Australian people have been disarmed by their government.
The last hope against tyranny in Australia is the conscience of the armed forces and police who may refuse orders to support a police state.
If that police state emerges, however, the people are powerless.
Hopefully they can elect some better politicians and avoid going down that road.
If they do, there will be nothing to bring them back. They're nothing like the Yanks, who, despite gun laws which might seem a bit strange in Europe, don't have to worry about a helpless descent into 1984. The problem the Americans have with guns is so many people who have been tossed aside, warehoused for profit, undereducated, and have nothing to lose. The guns aren't doing the shooting, it's the people who have fallen between the cracks.
I wish we could have American style gun laws here in the Netherlands. I know if we cloned their laws we would not clone their violence because Dutch citizens don't fall thought the cracks into hopelessness and criminality. There might be some violence, but it is a small price to pay to protect us against the rise of another Hitler.
I wouldn't underestimate the power of Australia's flawed democracy. The people here are just informed enough to keep governments fearful. The issue is how Australia's mega rich control the media and thus the population.
It's been my experience that all it takes is some well reasoned lobbying to sway politicians in this country. They may not agree with you but they *will* listen. If they agree with you they will tell you how and what they are doing. If you interests align with theirs they will consult you repeatedly until the objective is met.
Don't get me wrong, Aussies are still being manipulated, and there are many time where I've felt the manipulation has been prototyped in Australia first. It's just that we are no more or less manipulated into a "helpless descent into 1984" than anywhere else in the world.
Nuke Haters always think they are *right* and file incessant lawsuits because of it. THAT is one of the primary inhibitors of Nuke technology...FUD spread by Haters.
That's not true. The technological development cycle of a Nuclear reactor is dictated at design time and the core technology can't be changed once it begins it's 40 year operational lifespan. The NRC put together a panel of Nuclear power plant manufacturers and they came up with about 30 fundamental advancements in Nuclear reactor technology. None of them have been implemented in the AP-1000, or any other design because they were too expensive. Protests mean a lot more in Europe and that didn't stop advancements that produced the EPR.
And when they lose, they still think they are *right* and do stupid shit like chaining themselves to things to hold up work.
Talk about an attitude problem.
I think you generated a lot of preconceptions of Nuclear Opponents based on whatever belief system you have that has clouded your judgement. Frankly people like you are the reason for the type of complacency that allowed a Fukushima accident to happen. If you were a *real* advocate of the Nuclear Industry you would lobby for the creation of a Granite spent fuel containment facility (for example in the rocky mountains) that would mitigate the risk of that happening in America.
But the core of your belief system is totally convinced that it could never happen. If you were right the Price-Anderson act would not exist. But it does and because it does your core belief system is built on ignorance of the facts upon which the Nuclear Industry operates.
It's ignorance that produces comments such as the ones you have made. I suggest you keep on making them to demonstrate how vapid and impotent your argument is.
The Pro Nukers will love nuclear industry propaganda.
There will always be nothing that damages any part of the environment.
There will never be any scenario that could possibly result in anything like Fukushima and Chernobyl.
Facts! well they are just optional, Pro Nukers are never required to provide them.
Evidence! No proof is possible to a Pro Nuker.
Reason. Pro Nukers have a belief system, challenge it and Pro Nukers will ad hominem you.
Arguement. Pro Nukers will produce so much bluster they will exhaust you - but don't make the most minor error (like a spelling mistake) because that means everything you have ever said is a lie.
No amount of dams will help the inland because the rain simply doesn't fall often enough.
We could pump our waste water inland and use it for agriculture (with fertiliser built in). I know it's a massive infrastructure project but it would also mean a great deal more potential food export plus enhance the ability to populate inland.
Excellent post, BTW. Melbourne - Four seasons in one day, Sydney - Four seasons at the same time - sometimes - who knows??? I posted about Sydneys weather not so long ago.
Yeah, 50 years ago "skyscrapers OMG 100 stories tall!!!" were impressive, it's time to take the game to the next level.
Absolutely. The NIAC Final report (Phase II) report talks about some remarkable possibilities and not as expensive as I expected,about 4 billion in 2003 dollars from memory. Time for us to colonise the solar system, I can't see the human race getting any smaller.
Do you remember how efficiently crude oil was harvested and refined 100 years ago? I wouldn't be surprised if the early wells achieved 10% extraction of the available raw material.
All we need to get lunar petroleum back to Earth is a space elevator pipeline, (relatively) easy to build on the moon, and if you pump it fast enough, it will get slung out the other end with more energy than you are pumping into it. Then we just have to catch it as it free falls toward Earth and give it a safe re-entry, again, Space Elevators seem like the way to go, and you can run some pretty nice generating turbines capturing the kinetic energy of the falling petroleum.
Anyone who believes the above is serious needs to check their humor sensors... on the other hand, using space elevators to lower raw materials from orbit just might be a good way to power mass up to orbit...
Ok, now you've stopped laughing I guess in another 50 years we will have one.
Incidentally, that's a joke for people who don't understand a sardonic comment.
If Agile and the UP worked for the software for NASA's space program it can work anywhere. This issue is the implementation of the process and quality of management. Some places it's so natural it's easy, in other places it's clunky, you have people who don't want to engage and other people who lack sincerity who are basically insecure about their role.
I like it, when it's done with sincerity to the original idea. Light weight, not process heavy. I find it does help get things done and make work less stressful. Occasionally you get personalities who try to dominate things, but when you realise that people think in different ways and you fix those part of Agile to suit you mix then usually things are ok.
As Agile stand I believe it favours people with pragmatic and realist as opposed to analytical and idealist thinking styles (i.e inquiry modes) and important ideas from synthesists (if you are lucky enough to get one!) can often be overlooked as speculation and not properly examined - especially if the idea is seen in the frame of negativity when it's just negative analysis (eg. what can got wrong here).
Anyway that's my 2cent but, yeah, as long as management dont screw up the implementation - it's ok.
Well I got good new for you regardless. Since the earth is losing mass, the gravity will become weaker, resulting in lower numbers on your bathroom scale.:)
(Although it's probably not going to be so noticeable in the shortcut.)
Maybe he should got on that weight loss TV Reality show, you know The Fattest Loser
The fire warning signs read something like (This is not a joke) Normal, High, Dangerous, Extremely dangerous, catastrophic. I almost feel it is appropriate to have them add "We're all gonna die" or "save the children" in case some people don't understand the point.
A wonderful tree, eucalyptus. Here in the western US, fires are common enough that trees produce seeds that don't sprout until they've reached a certain temperature (implying a fire hot enough to clear room for the seedlings to grow). Eucalyptus goes one better, by actively working to start those fires.
Absolutely great point Carnildo. Tourists here often wonder why they call The Blue Mountains, The Blue Mountains. Then they see them and they say "Wow, people in Sydney call The Blue Mountains, The Blue Mountains because...they...are..Blue.". The reason is because the Eucalypt lets out this fantastic oil which floats in the air like a mist when it's really hot and dry saying c'mon mutherfuckernature burn me, I dare you.
That's right folk even the trees here are so tough they ain't afraid of a little fire, even though it burns all the human houses to the ground and pretty much turns the place into the surface of the moon for a year or two. But it eventually recovers only to say a few years later, "is that the best you can do" - Nothing worse than a tree that likes to play with fire, indeed taunting the fire and making jokes about fire's mother. Because they are big beautiful tress, safe as houses, until they fall on your house and squash it or your cars.
Make no mistake Sydney is a beautiful city, but most of the time the only thing you see is the pictures of the city itself not the surrounding beaches and bush. Every now and then there will be a dust storm so severe that it covers the city for days and it's almost impossible to get around and the airport has to shut down. If anything people that live here are painfully aware of the contradictions in the weather flood, drought, fire are a normal part of living here.
Don't talk about sharks this season. Even if you dared going into the abnormally cold water this summer chances are a shark would discover that humans don't taste very good after sampling your leg...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm jealous - and wish him best of luck breaking that record(s)
An example of a more critical listening exercise where aac fell flat and mp3 would too is Einaudi's Nuvole Bianche where i was trying to listen to the quieter left hand part (this piece is solo piano) and heard an infistinct mush where the attack transients had clearly been removed by the algorithm. I'm happy casually listening to aac256 but when you want to listen carefully to an instrument that isnt the loudest thing in the signal, thats where you need lossless.
In this whole thread the AC is the only one who seems to get it.
TRANSIENTS are WHERE dynamic RANGE comes FROM.
It's the key issue with recording and mastering and the thing lost with audio compression. That is what dynamic range is all about, what makes it seem exciting and you want to turn the volume up, instead of down because it a mash of noise. Many things in sound recording are counter-intuitive, but it's the musical transients that give a piece of music a life like characteristic.
I have been recording and mastering music for years and this is one of the key things I strive for. A good example of dynamic range in recording is Tool's Anemia.
When it comes to data compression I note it's mainly the high frequency audio (say 12-15khz) that sounds affected. Some of the psycho-acoustic algorithms don't seem to work well in these ranges and waveform information (like cymbals) become waveform data that is decidedly unpleasant to listen to. When I look at the abused music subject on my studio gear it's plain to see the damage. Generally time by amplitude is the way a waveform is visualised, but when you look at a time by frequency visualisation instead of a distribution of frequency I saw lines of the most dominant frequencies (usually the resonant frequency of the instrument) the ones the algorithm kept.
Music isn't science, it's art. So is mastering and recording because a good production can make or break a album. The progressive commoditisation of the art has produced many lifeless mashes of noise. This is what many people want, but for people who appreciate the art that is music these two issues have destroyed the expression of many worthwhile musicians.
that's cool dood, The bass player is the most important member of the band, after all, who else has all the drug contacts. Beside you need a singer to be able to tell you that your rig is killing the kick drum and where the gig is on.. just like every other bass player - you'll show up on time, just to the wrong place
just sayin...,
With the attitude towards working hours it's no wonder ageism is so rampant and the efficiencies experience brings is lost.
Which is all speculation because they didn't have four days they had four minutes and they weren't ready when the Tsunami hit because the seawall wasn't high enough.
It seems like my powers of prediction are better than yours, I told you TEPCO would wear it.
otherwise sayings like "The people get the government they deserve" wouldn't exist
I argue about Nuclear power because I feel I have an obligation to future generations to do something to raise awareness of the problems the Nuclear Industry has so we can deal with the issues. Maybe in a hundred or so years we may have developed better materials technology to advance it, but right now I believe it's important to contain as much as possible in a granite facility. Granite because it contains groundwater penetration of radionucides.
This was the original approach by the DOE 'Defense in Depth' (from memory) it was called and yes, it's an energetic infrastructure project that takes 30 years to set up. Spent fuel containment so even if we fail as a society, we don't, very, very slowly, wipe out humanity. Right now what I see is a bunch of people I refer to as NIMG for Not In My Generation. They want to have their energy party and leave it to some other generation to have to sort out the problem while they make it a bigger problem.
I am deeply interested in developing solar and alternative energy technology and I just wonder from your posts if that is what you do or are you commercialising it? If I've embarrassed you I'm sorry, but you do seem very difficult to engage with in conversation outside of your journal. I barely have enough time to read slashdot. let alone peoples journals.
I find it difficult to believe that we don't already have enough energy from the sun to run society without coal and nuclear, just not enough imagination. I'm seeing leaps in solar and wind technology and wonder if the technologies will (as a collective of technologies) be able to displace coal and nuclear, respectively. I see what you are doing and I applaud your efforts. I am playing a small part in it as well.
Thank you for your posts.
Do I have to spell it out for you...
No need to convince me about solar and other alternatives, they're the only logical and practical energy selection for the next 50 -100 years. To me wind power with it's modular and rapid technology development cycle makes a superior return to nuclear. Solar thermal looks like the industrial level option to replace coal.
At issue though is also the decommissioning of the reactors which is a highly energy intensive operation to do safely. I'm fairly certain accelerators would be too. Do you have any links I could examine with more information. I'd like to compare the energetic expenditure of the Accelerator to an infrastructure plan and storage.
The last point is a political issue. The Nuclear cowboys (pro-nuclear, nuclear fanbois) need to have a common rallying point with anti nuclear that they can support otherwise I fear we will never see any progress on this issue.
It's still quite valuable material, and I sense they would lobby against that fiercely because the current generation of Nuclear cowboys treat radionuclides like baby poo 'unfortunate if it leaks into the environment, but no big deal'. Clearly they do not understand the mutagenic properties of the material and how hazardous it is to life systems.
Solar, wind, tidal and geo-thermal are the future and where I see more investment happening because they make money, nuclear costs money.
I'd be surprised if there is 75 years supply left, certainly not in soft ore extraction - perhaps hard ore extraction but that eats into the energy return equation even more. Unless there is a serious advancement in materials technology I think we are unlikely to see any significant advance in reactor technology that makes it economical.
The deployment of AP1000s is no more than a hack. Thermal containment ratios are lower than previous generation reactors and the changes made to the systems, whilst simplifying the reactor, are made to make a reactor installation cheaper. Meanwhile oil companies are plundering the tax incentives for building reactors for there own fudicial reasoning.
The discussions of Nuclear I conduct is because I don't believe future generation need to have any more costs imposed on them than we already have. I am more interested in the business prospect of solar power now and how I can make that available, now. I personally think that creating a solid solar and wind power technology base is the best answer to ending the nuclear industry in its current form. I'd be very interested in contacting you outside the realm of /. if that is acceptable to you.
awesome dood! Thanks
Actually, storage may not be the best option. Transportation of spent fuel to a central site is sure to lead to accidents. A mobile transmutation facility may be a better option. If we think of nuclear energy as energy that must be repaid to unmake the waste, a sort of deficit spending situation, then the picture of what nuclear energy is may be clearer.
Have you examined the work of Dr Phillip Smith, Nuclear Physicist and Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen (MSc)? They talk of the absence of a "Net energy return" of Nuclear power.
Have you considered any approaches to reducing pu-239 stores near nuclear reactors?
The controversy is that many of the Nuclear reactors in operation in the U.S are the G.E Mk 1, that Fukushima was. Even the Hitachi and Toshiba reactors are copies of the GE Mk 1.
The second part of the controversy is that the spent fuel cooling pools in the US are much more heavily loaded with pu-239 than Fukushima is/was.
The third part of the controversy is that U.S operators are at least as bad as the Japanese counterparts.
I've observed that most people on slashdot don't want their belief systems about Nuclear power challenged. People who do are modded into oblivion. The fact remains that the U.S is at least as vulnerable to these accidents because it has many of these types of reactors *still* in operation itself. Coupled with the spent fuel density in many U.S reactor installation's cooling pools and you have a recipe for disaster that rivals the Japanese situation.
Unfortunately the lack of observable consensus between those for (pro) and against (anti) Nuclear power leaves the situation deadlocked against any pragmatic solution to the actual situation. Any form of, what I term "Responsible Nuclear Advocacy" is judged by both parties as against "their" argument when, in reality, if you observe both sides from afar you discover that while the end goal of both sides differ, the means to achieving it is the same: A geologically sound spent fuel facility in granite - built like the Rocky Mountains NORAD military facility (which is an ideal place).
It's actually easier for most people to maintain a certain level of apathy towards the situation so they can remain untroubled by events and not challenge their "ism" and I don't blame them because it's a horrendously complex subject. It encapsulates not only an understanding of physics, but engineering, governance and regulation, political constructs, economics and legislation, medicine and, of course, the Nuclear Industry itself.
I started off as undecided (well slightly pro) but determined to learn more and as I did became increasingly fascinated by this wonderful but also terrifying technology, after all, it's related to the atomic bomb. I encourage everyone who argues for Nuclear Power to really get an understanding of this technology. How much energy does mining take, what is the toxicity of mine tailings, what are the consequences of uranium enrichment and the relation to du weapons and the effect of CFC114 on the environment, how reactors are designed and their operational life cycle how basis design issues affect reactor operations (which lead to accidents like Fukushima AND Chernobyl) and, most importantly why dealing with spent fuel containment (and maintaining it in the U.S) is the most pressing issue that the faces humanity.
Simply put, I have long felt that it is up to our generation to deal with the issue of spent fuel containment if we are going to receive the benefits of the energy that Nuclear fuel provides. These reactors have life spans that are measured in decades, while it's "spent" fuel is toxic to life for thousands of years. We have a responsibility to future human generation to deal with this issue permanently. If we can't solve this, the simplest problem facing the Nuclear industry (spent fuel containment) then how can we ever expect to develop better reactor technology (that I completely support), when we are simply rendering the technology pointless. What actual right do we have to this technology if we are too short sighted to see such far reaching consequences.
I don't care if I'm modded down, I have always spoken to the truth of the Nuclear present and this argument has always been treated too flippantly on slashdot. The truth about the Nuclear industry gets modded down here because the truth about it introduces discomfiture that challenges the established dogma of the Nuclear industry and no one wants
"Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these"
A grid in space connected to space elevators at regular points around the world and totally redundant access to space from anywhere on earth.
Australians cannot take up arms against tyranny. The Australian people have been disarmed by their government.
The last hope against tyranny in Australia is the conscience of the armed forces and police who may refuse orders to support a police state.
If that police state emerges, however, the people are powerless.
Hopefully they can elect some better politicians and avoid going down that road.
If they do, there will be nothing to bring them back. They're nothing like the Yanks, who, despite gun laws which might seem a bit strange in Europe, don't have to worry about a helpless descent into 1984. The problem the Americans have with guns is so many people who have been tossed aside, warehoused for profit, undereducated, and have nothing to lose. The guns aren't doing the shooting, it's the people who have fallen between the cracks.
I wish we could have American style gun laws here in the Netherlands. I know if we cloned their laws we would not clone their violence because Dutch citizens don't fall thought the cracks into hopelessness and criminality. There might be some violence, but it is a small price to pay to protect us against the rise of another Hitler.
I wouldn't underestimate the power of Australia's flawed democracy. The people here are just informed enough to keep governments fearful. The issue is how Australia's mega rich control the media and thus the population.
It's been my experience that all it takes is some well reasoned lobbying to sway politicians in this country. They may not agree with you but they *will* listen. If they agree with you they will tell you how and what they are doing. If you interests align with theirs they will consult you repeatedly until the objective is met.
Don't get me wrong, Aussies are still being manipulated, and there are many time where I've felt the manipulation has been prototyped in Australia first. It's just that we are no more or less manipulated into a "helpless descent into 1984" than anywhere else in the world.
Nuke Haters always think they are *right* and file incessant lawsuits because of it. THAT is one of the primary inhibitors of Nuke technology...FUD spread by Haters.
That's not true. The technological development cycle of a Nuclear reactor is dictated at design time and the core technology can't be changed once it begins it's 40 year operational lifespan. The NRC put together a panel of Nuclear power plant manufacturers and they came up with about 30 fundamental advancements in Nuclear reactor technology. None of them have been implemented in the AP-1000, or any other design because they were too expensive. Protests mean a lot more in Europe and that didn't stop advancements that produced the EPR.
And when they lose, they still think they are *right* and do stupid shit like chaining themselves to things to hold up work.
Talk about an attitude problem.
I think you generated a lot of preconceptions of Nuclear Opponents based on whatever belief system you have that has clouded your judgement. Frankly people like you are the reason for the type of complacency that allowed a Fukushima accident to happen. If you were a *real* advocate of the Nuclear Industry you would lobby for the creation of a Granite spent fuel containment facility (for example in the rocky mountains) that would mitigate the risk of that happening in America.
But the core of your belief system is totally convinced that it could never happen. If you were right the Price-Anderson act would not exist. But it does and because it does your core belief system is built on ignorance of the facts upon which the Nuclear Industry operates.
It's ignorance that produces comments such as the ones you have made. I suggest you keep on making them to demonstrate how vapid and impotent your argument is.
The Pro Nukers will love nuclear industry propaganda.
There will always be nothing that damages any part of the environment.
There will never be any scenario that could possibly result in anything like Fukushima and Chernobyl.
Facts! well they are just optional, Pro Nukers are never required to provide them.
Evidence! No proof is possible to a Pro Nuker.
Reason. Pro Nukers have a belief system, challenge it and Pro Nukers will ad hominem you.
Arguement. Pro Nukers will produce so much bluster they will exhaust you - but don't make the most minor error (like a spelling mistake) because that means everything you have ever said is a lie.
No amount of dams will help the inland because the rain simply doesn't fall often enough.
We could pump our waste water inland and use it for agriculture (with fertiliser built in). I know it's a massive infrastructure project but it would also mean a great deal more potential food export plus enhance the ability to populate inland.
Excellent post, BTW. Melbourne - Four seasons in one day, Sydney - Four seasons at the same time - sometimes - who knows??? I posted about Sydneys weather not so long ago.
It really puts grain dumping at sea to keep the commodities prices high into perspective.
Absolutely. The NIAC Final report (Phase II) report talks about some remarkable possibilities and not as expensive as I expected ,about 4 billion in 2003 dollars from memory. Time for us to colonise the solar system, I can't see the human race getting any smaller.
Ok, now you've stopped laughing I guess in another 50 years we will have one.
Incidentally, that's a joke for people who don't understand a sardonic comment.
If Agile and the UP worked for the software for NASA's space program it can work anywhere. This issue is the implementation of the process and quality of management. Some places it's so natural it's easy, in other places it's clunky, you have people who don't want to engage and other people who lack sincerity who are basically insecure about their role.
I like it, when it's done with sincerity to the original idea. Light weight, not process heavy. I find it does help get things done and make work less stressful. Occasionally you get personalities who try to dominate things, but when you realise that people think in different ways and you fix those part of Agile to suit you mix then usually things are ok.
As Agile stand I believe it favours people with pragmatic and realist as opposed to analytical and idealist thinking styles (i.e inquiry modes) and important ideas from synthesists (if you are lucky enough to get one!) can often be overlooked as speculation and not properly examined - especially if the idea is seen in the frame of negativity when it's just negative analysis (eg. what can got wrong here).
Anyway that's my 2cent but, yeah, as long as management dont screw up the implementation - it's ok.
Code first, think later.
Well I got good new for you regardless. Since the earth is losing mass, the gravity will become weaker, resulting in lower numbers on your bathroom scale. :)
(Although it's probably not going to be so noticeable in the shortcut.)
Maybe he should got on that weight loss TV Reality show, you know The Fattest Loser
A wonderful tree, eucalyptus. Here in the western US, fires are common enough that trees produce seeds that don't sprout until they've reached a certain temperature (implying a fire hot enough to clear room for the seedlings to grow). Eucalyptus goes one better, by actively working to start those fires.
Absolutely great point Carnildo. Tourists here often wonder why they call The Blue Mountains, The Blue Mountains. Then they see them and they say "Wow, people in Sydney call The Blue Mountains, The Blue Mountains because...they...are..Blue.". The reason is because the Eucalypt lets out this fantastic oil which floats in the air like a mist when it's really hot and dry saying c'mon mutherfuckernature burn me, I dare you.
That's right folk even the trees here are so tough they ain't afraid of a little fire, even though it burns all the human houses to the ground and pretty much turns the place into the surface of the moon for a year or two. But it eventually recovers only to say a few years later, "is that the best you can do" - Nothing worse than a tree that likes to play with fire, indeed taunting the fire and making jokes about fire's mother. Because they are big beautiful tress, safe as houses, until they fall on your house and squash it or your cars.
Make no mistake Sydney is a beautiful city, but most of the time the only thing you see is the pictures of the city itself not the surrounding beaches and bush. Every now and then there will be a dust storm so severe that it covers the city for days and it's almost impossible to get around and the airport has to shut down. If anything people that live here are painfully aware of the contradictions in the weather flood, drought, fire are a normal part of living here.
with lasers!
Don't talk about sharks this season. Even if you dared going into the abnormally cold water this summer chances are a shark would discover that humans don't taste very good after sampling your leg...