Yeah, it's most useful anyway in a corporate setting, and then I'm in the habit of telling people to expect it. The only reason I'd use it outside of work is to send a bulk mail in which I put everyone on BCC. That though is incredibly rare.
I do the same but I do it because I respect *other* peoples privacy. Usually it's a joke or something funny that I want to send around. They chose to give me their email address not everyone else I know so that's when I bcc it. There are many other things that I use bcc for.
But I note that only people who have no business speaking about the direction of technology try to create a meme about it to hide their inadequate grasp of it. Maybe gmail doesn't support bcc but that's a choice of the email *client* not the email protocol. Perhaps this ill informed blogger should consult with RFC 2076 - Common Internet Message Headers or RFC 2822 section 3.6.3. Destination address fields before announcing that a particular piece of functionality is in demise, as long as people choose to write free software there will be an email client to support bcc. I just checked the RFC and it tells me support is still there and I can't see the people who spent all that time writing that functionality into sendmail, postfix, etc etc taking that support away anytime soon.
................ a corporation............ has only one mandate: to maximize profit.
This is a totally true statement.
No, it is not a "totally true statement". Try reading some of the other posts in this thread.
Well I did, and none of the posts in this thread have anything to say about Corporations Law. Just because they have been moderated up doesn't change that *fact* that a businesses function is to generate profit, a Corporation with shareholders is a business designed to generate money. All other motivations are there to serve this outcome.
Unless you can provide some evidence that disputes the fact that a companies function is to generate profit I'll just have to assume you are naive. Unfortunately...
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. And really, do some research before making statements that make you look like a moron.
Oh such trollish behaviour FrostyPiss, such statements illustrate that your ability to argue is based on ad hominem attacks rather than the possession of any facts or the ability to reason. I spoke to you politely and you decide to flame me. You have created the impression that you are a fanboi, and that it's easier for you to attempt to modify reality than your perception of reality.
I'd suggest you do some study of Corporate Law, the function of a board and shareholders if you honestly believe that a business exists for any other reason than to generate profit as your earnest criticisms seem to say quite a bit about yourself.
"I expect its CEO to spread FUD against FOSS at every chance, because that's part of his job description."
So lying is part of Ballmer's job description?
Now who could write such a job description for a CEO. Why, it must be the Board of Directors. So his Board has instructed their employee to lie. And Ballmer couldn't do it on his own, he must have help. So Ballmer must be telling others to lie.
I think there is a mis-understanding. What you call a lie is refered to as a "Vision". The Board hires a CEO to create a "Vision" and then it's up to the board to believe in that "Vision". No one lies, they have a "Vision".
Microsoft is a corporation and thus it has only one mandate: to maximize profit.
Completely erroneous bullshit.
Um, no. let's re-examine that comment but take the company name out;
................ a corporation............ has only one mandate: to maximize profit.
This is a totally true statement. The fact is that the board of any corporation is legally obliged to do everything that it can to generate profits for the shareholders. Just because the sentence has *your favourite company name here* in it doesn't make it any less true. It's your personal opinion of the company that makes you say that it's erroneous, probably because you like them.
Have no doubt about it, corporations exist to make money, it's the *SOLE* reason a corporation exists and there is no room for idealistic jingoism. If they happen to make you love or hate them in the process it's just as irrelevant to their bottom line otherwise why would they have profit reports to the shareholders instead of a count of how many people love or hate their company.
Microsoft is a business as much as IBM, Apple, Oracle, Google, Intel and they all have one mandate: to maximize profit.
Especially in the business application space. I notice how hard they fight to get an application developer who hosts their application on Linux or a Unix when they are weighing up using JBoss or Websphere. They seem to behave in the most devious manner and every time you are just on the point of saying to yourself "maybe they have changed" you find they haven't. They type of zealotry they encourage makes Apple and Linux zealotry pale in comparison as well, just look at some of their trolls.
Go Google, I hope they are able to end Microsofts reign over the IT landscape.
raw ore per gram (Uranium Metal un-enriched) $323.75
weapons grade fuel per gram (Uranium Metal enriched ) $920
spent fuel per gram (plutonium, pu239) $10,890
So as you can see the value of the spent fuel is over 20 times the value of the raw ore, that's not my presumption, that's the certified price listed by the DOE. Since your ability to do research so obviously needs to be refined I'll leave it as an exercise for you to figure out what weapons grade material actually is and why the reality runs counter to your assumptions.
Which do you think people are going to try harder to steal?
I think you need to re-assess your belief system about nuclear issues as the things you have been saying seem to be rhetoric and flawed reasoning stated in an attempt to win an argument rather than to communicate any facts. None of the statements you made change the facts regarding the logistics of moving nuclear materials. So unless you can provide some actual facts to the contrary, I'll just presume you've conceded to the points raised in my original post.
Your comparison is missing a key point.
They moved 13 tons of _enriched_, near weapons grade fuel.
You are talking about 70,000 tons of _spent_ fuel.
Very different logistical concerns.
Perhaps you would like to elaborate.
You may not be aware but the 70,000 tons of material I'm talking about *is* pu-239 i.e. plutonium. In other words _spent_ fuel is *plutonium*. Enriching fuel is the process of separating fissionable U-235 from non-fissionable U-238 (depleted Uranium). Here are some more details with some more pictures of the casks. That article points out
Sandia provided security and logistics expertise to complete the transfer across Kazakhstan of spent fuel containing 11 tons (10 metric tons) of highly enriched uranium and 3.3 tons (3 metric tons) of weapons-grade plutonium
You also may not be aware that _spent_ fuel is *more* radioactive than enriched fuel which is what dictates the size and volume of the casks so, actually, they are very similar logistic concerns.
A large cache of enriched nuclear fuel - some 13 metric tons -- was stored in a nuclear reactor in the port city of Aktau, on the Caspian seacoast.
The really interesting thing about this story is that it demonstrates exactly why a well engineered spent fuel containment facility with appropriate logistics to support it is required in the United States. Currently there is approximately 70,000 tons of spent fuel around the U.S waiting transportation to longer term facilities. So if the following statement illustrates the logistics required to move 13 tons from one location;
The nuclear fuel was placed in steel casks, each one the size of a train car. Each of the 60 casks weighs 100 tons. They are designed to hold the material for 50 years, and they were taken across Kazakhstan to a remote location...The casks were put onto a special train, which made the 1,860 mile journey under guard. To make sure that nobody tried to sabotage the transport, nearly every mile of the tracks ahead were checked for damage.
then it also illustrates what an enormous logistics challenge moving 70,000 tons of spent fuel from multiple locations around the U.S represents. I point this out because often, when conversations arise around nuclear power, the discussion is focused on the reactor technology and none on any of the other logistic and infrastructure required to support the reactors operating.
Efforts like this are a positive one to reduce the threat of asymmetrical nuclear weapons use and should be applauded, even if they are only to a temporary location. Considering that the DOEs own report into Yucca mountain said that the geology was unsuitable for the containment of nuclear waste there should be no doubt why a geologically stable (embedded in granite as opposed to pumice) spent fuel containment facility is a necessity in the U.S. It has to be built to last as it will become the center point of many other large logistics operations that connect it to nuclear facilities around the country.
A few months after we took Iraq, we secured and flew out almost 14 tons of Yellow Cake in 55 gallon drums, 4 to a pallet,on C-17's to Diego Garcia, where it was put on ships to other places.
A year or two later 3 of our pilots came down with Lymphoma. Uncle Sam says it was unrelated...
Do you have any further information on this incident, a link perhaps?
The material you're talking about is an alpha emitter. This means the radiation is stopped by things like barrels, walls, your clothes, your skin and air.
The above poster was right about it being no risk unless someone ingested it.
I think you are overlooking the possibility that at least one of the drums had a broken seal and radioactive isotopes were released into the plane. There are any number of possibilities to allow material to be released into the aircraft and it is a ridiculous assumption on your part to discount that it was not *possible*. They *could* have breathed in the isotope after the initial trip - especially if they kept flying the same aircraft.
I'd like further information. If three airmen from the same aircraft all contracted the same type of cancer a year or so after transporting radioactive materials it's an extraordinary co-incidence.
Or it could be because AT&T *does* suck.
Or it could be because it was mostly a media-furor and not anything substantive.
Or it could be because lots of people put their iphone in a case and that pretty much resolved the non-problem.
Choose up to 5.
I agree with what you said but the point I'm making is the extent of consumer awareness is usually the word *shiney*
Analysts also argue that Apple sold millions of AT&T iPhone 4's last year and despite the media-furor, consumers did not line up at Apple Stores demanding refunds.
thats because they bought a flashy piece of technology, not an antenna. If the reception sucks on the iphone then that is viewed as the carrier's fault. 99% of people wouldn't have a clue about antenna design, If you walked up to them grabbed them and said "it's the phone" they wouldn't understand and say "nah, carrier X sucks".
Nations have been taking foreign loans to go to war since before man invented the gun. And the USA wouldn't exist if the rebels here didn't get massive military and financial assistance from France, Netherlands, etc. during the revolutionary war.
France had a vested interest in America defeating the British. At the time *they* were a superpower and America was the revolutionary force they could use to propagate their own agenda in exactly the same way America trained Afgans against the Soviets. Tell me what the point of the Iraq war is again, what exactly was the idealogical imperative that required financing?
If automation in warfare leads to cowardice shouldn't you also be railing against the machine gun? Real, brave warriors should have to load their musket one bullet at a time. Or maybe guns themselves are a sign of cowardice -- real men wouldn't attack from a distance. Or maybe any sort of weapon induces cowardice -- no true Scotsman would ever consider going to war with anything other than his wits and his fists.
Don't be fucking ridiculous. A machine gun emplacement is a target with a real person operating it. If that person dies there is *human* sacrifice. If I was to use your reasoning then soldiers should weep every time they let off a grenade because the fuse is a form of automation. Were are talking about an autonomous system that can fly and take commands there is close to zero chance the operator will take any fire.
More than likely a weapon like this will become a weapon of intimidation an oppression because the politician who chooses to deploy it will never have to deal with a grieving parent whose son was lost.
Seriously, get some perspective before you start spewing inflammatory words like "cowardice" in public.
oh really, when was the last time you wrote to a politician? The OP is dead on with this comment a weapon like this can be deployed with very little risk of political consequences. Perspective indeed, how naive.
Cowardice rises to the next level: another robot to replace the job of having some consequences to war.
I wish I had mod points.
Practicality replacing all that honor warrior crap
The honour from war was lost when politicians started taking our foreign loans to bankroll conflict. It used to be that when there was a war *everyone* made sacrifices. Now war is seen as a reality TV program where one nation beats the crap out of another nation. As long as the US military budget is as big as the rest of the worlds military budget what we are funding is new ways to bring about the wholesale slaughter of the human race.
But as long as I'm the one vicariously watching the slaughter then I guess it's ok.
Slashdot Mirror
Yo momma so fat, her IP address is faaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaat
it would be a supermassive black hole of 150,000,000 solar masses."
Quite fat, that momma.
I'd say, supermassive FAT momma.
This HAS to stop I have useful things to do!
Sigh - sadly slashdot is the only place where these jokes work.
gmail supports BCC:
My apologies, it's been a long time since I attempted to use it and it was an assumption that it still didn't support it.
Yeah, it's most useful anyway in a corporate setting, and then I'm in the habit of telling people to expect it. The only reason I'd use it outside of work is to send a bulk mail in which I put everyone on BCC. That though is incredibly rare.
I do the same but I do it because I respect *other* peoples privacy. Usually it's a joke or something funny that I want to send around. They chose to give me their email address not everyone else I know so that's when I bcc it. There are many other things that I use bcc for.
But I note that only people who have no business speaking about the direction of technology try to create a meme about it to hide their inadequate grasp of it. Maybe gmail doesn't support bcc but that's a choice of the email *client* not the email protocol. Perhaps this ill informed blogger should consult with RFC 2076 - Common Internet Message Headers or RFC 2822 section 3.6.3. Destination address fields before announcing that a particular piece of functionality is in demise, as long as people choose to write free software there will be an email client to support bcc. I just checked the RFC and it tells me support is still there and I can't see the people who spent all that time writing that functionality into sendmail, postfix, etc etc taking that support away anytime soon.
m.u.s.t...s.t.o.p....aarrrrrggggghhhhhhh
Yo mamma so fat, the scales need *two* cpus
Yo mamma so fat, she needs extra bandwidth to transmit her picture
Yo momma so FAT, her blocks exceed the inode allocation for the filesystem.
................ a corporation ............ has only one mandate: to maximize profit.
This is a totally true statement.
No, it is not a "totally true statement". Try reading some of the other posts in this thread.
Well I did, and none of the posts in this thread have anything to say about Corporations Law. Just because they have been moderated up doesn't change that *fact* that a businesses function is to generate profit, a Corporation with shareholders is a business designed to generate money. All other motivations are there to serve this outcome.
Unless you can provide some evidence that disputes the fact that a companies function is to generate profit I'll just have to assume you are naive. Unfortunately...
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. And really, do some research before making statements that make you look like a moron.
Oh such trollish behaviour FrostyPiss, such statements illustrate that your ability to argue is based on ad hominem attacks rather than the possession of any facts or the ability to reason. I spoke to you politely and you decide to flame me. You have created the impression that you are a fanboi, and that it's easier for you to attempt to modify reality than your perception of reality.
I'd suggest you do some study of Corporate Law, the function of a board and shareholders if you honestly believe that a business exists for any other reason than to generate profit as your earnest criticisms seem to say quite a bit about yourself.
"I expect its CEO to spread FUD against FOSS at every chance, because that's part of his job description."
So lying is part of Ballmer's job description?
Now who could write such a job description for a CEO. Why, it must be the Board of Directors. So his Board has instructed their employee to lie. And Ballmer couldn't do it on his own, he must have help. So Ballmer must be telling others to lie.
I think there is a mis-understanding. What you call a lie is refered to as a "Vision". The Board hires a CEO to create a "Vision" and then it's up to the board to believe in that "Vision". No one lies, they have a "Vision".
Microsoft is a corporation and thus it has only one mandate: to maximize profit.
Completely erroneous bullshit.
Um, no. let's re-examine that comment but take the company name out;
This is a totally true statement. The fact is that the board of any corporation is legally obliged to do everything that it can to generate profits for the shareholders. Just because the sentence has *your favourite company name here* in it doesn't make it any less true. It's your personal opinion of the company that makes you say that it's erroneous, probably because you like them.
Have no doubt about it, corporations exist to make money, it's the *SOLE* reason a corporation exists and there is no room for idealistic jingoism. If they happen to make you love or hate them in the process it's just as irrelevant to their bottom line otherwise why would they have profit reports to the shareholders instead of a count of how many people love or hate their company.
Microsoft is a business as much as IBM, Apple, Oracle, Google, Intel and they all have one mandate: to maximize profit.
MS actively fights against open source.
Especially in the business application space. I notice how hard they fight to get an application developer who hosts their application on Linux or a Unix when they are weighing up using JBoss or Websphere. They seem to behave in the most devious manner and every time you are just on the point of saying to yourself "maybe they have changed" you find they haven't. They type of zealotry they encourage makes Apple and Linux zealotry pale in comparison as well, just look at some of their trolls.
Go Google, I hope they are able to end Microsofts reign over the IT landscape.
Resistance is futile; you will be tivolized
This is what happens when IBM has IBMified you.
1) It is easier to build a bomb with weapons grade fuel than pu-239.
2) It is easier to fuel a reactor with weapons grade fuel than pu-239.
Well that depends on the bombs and the reactor doesn't it. So apart from stating the obvious, what is your point?
The value of spent fuel is less than the value of raw ore.
The value of weapons grade fuel is far greater than the value of raw ore.
The Department of Energy's Plutonium Certified Reference Materials Price List and Uranium Certified Reference Materials Price List list the values of the respective materials as follows
So as you can see the value of the spent fuel is over 20 times the value of the raw ore, that's not my presumption, that's the certified price listed by the DOE. Since your ability to do research so obviously needs to be refined I'll leave it as an exercise for you to figure out what weapons grade material actually is and why the reality runs counter to your assumptions.
Which do you think people are going to try harder to steal?
I think you need to re-assess your belief system about nuclear issues as the things you have been saying seem to be rhetoric and flawed reasoning stated in an attempt to win an argument rather than to communicate any facts. None of the statements you made change the facts regarding the logistics of moving nuclear materials. So unless you can provide some actual facts to the contrary, I'll just presume you've conceded to the points raised in my original post.
Your comparison is missing a key point. They moved 13 tons of _enriched_, near weapons grade fuel.
You are talking about 70,000 tons of _spent_ fuel.
Very different logistical concerns.
Perhaps you would like to elaborate.
You may not be aware but the 70,000 tons of material I'm talking about *is* pu-239 i.e. plutonium. In other words _spent_ fuel is *plutonium*. Enriching fuel is the process of separating fissionable U-235 from non-fissionable U-238 (depleted Uranium). Here are some more details with some more pictures of the casks. That article points out
You also may not be aware that _spent_ fuel is *more* radioactive than enriched fuel which is what dictates the size and volume of the casks so, actually, they are very similar logistic concerns.
A large cache of enriched nuclear fuel - some 13 metric tons -- was stored in a nuclear reactor in the port city of Aktau, on the Caspian seacoast.
The really interesting thing about this story is that it demonstrates exactly why a well engineered spent fuel containment facility with appropriate logistics to support it is required in the United States. Currently there is approximately 70,000 tons of spent fuel around the U.S waiting transportation to longer term facilities. So if the following statement illustrates the logistics required to move 13 tons from one location;
The nuclear fuel was placed in steel casks, each one the size of a train car. Each of the 60 casks weighs 100 tons. They are designed to hold the material for 50 years, and they were taken across Kazakhstan to a remote location...The casks were put onto a special train, which made the 1,860 mile journey under guard. To make sure that nobody tried to sabotage the transport, nearly every mile of the tracks ahead were checked for damage.
then it also illustrates what an enormous logistics challenge moving 70,000 tons of spent fuel from multiple locations around the U.S represents. I point this out because often, when conversations arise around nuclear power, the discussion is focused on the reactor technology and none on any of the other logistic and infrastructure required to support the reactors operating.
Efforts like this are a positive one to reduce the threat of asymmetrical nuclear weapons use and should be applauded, even if they are only to a temporary location. Considering that the DOEs own report into Yucca mountain said that the geology was unsuitable for the containment of nuclear waste there should be no doubt why a geologically stable (embedded in granite as opposed to pumice) spent fuel containment facility is a necessity in the U.S. It has to be built to last as it will become the center point of many other large logistics operations that connect it to nuclear facilities around the country.
A few months after we took Iraq, we secured and flew out almost 14 tons of Yellow Cake in 55 gallon drums, 4 to a pallet,on C-17's to Diego Garcia, where it was put on ships to other places. A year or two later 3 of our pilots came down with Lymphoma. Uncle Sam says it was unrelated...
Do you have any further information on this incident, a link perhaps?
The material you're talking about is an alpha emitter. This means the radiation is stopped by things like barrels, walls, your clothes, your skin and air.
The above poster was right about it being no risk unless someone ingested it.
I think you are overlooking the possibility that at least one of the drums had a broken seal and radioactive isotopes were released into the plane. There are any number of possibilities to allow material to be released into the aircraft and it is a ridiculous assumption on your part to discount that it was not *possible*. They *could* have breathed in the isotope after the initial trip - especially if they kept flying the same aircraft.
I'd like further information. If three airmen from the same aircraft all contracted the same type of cancer a year or so after transporting radioactive materials it's an extraordinary co-incidence.
VZW should have or I'm sure did test the phones for any such issues before releasing them.
I'm sure they did and I'm sure a manager signed off on the issues because they needed the sales of buyphones.
Or it could be because AT&T *does* suck.
Or it could be because it was mostly a media-furor and not anything substantive.
Or it could be because lots of people put their iphone in a case and that pretty much resolved the non-problem.
Choose up to 5.
I agree with what you said but the point I'm making is the extent of consumer awareness is usually the word *shiney*
In the Article;
thats because they bought a flashy piece of technology, not an antenna. If the reception sucks on the iphone then that is viewed as the carrier's fault. 99% of people wouldn't have a clue about antenna design, If you walked up to them grabbed them and said "it's the phone" they wouldn't understand and say "nah, carrier X sucks".
France had a vested interest in America defeating the British. At the time *they* were a superpower and America was the revolutionary force they could use to propagate their own agenda in exactly the same way America trained Afgans against the Soviets. Tell me what the point of the Iraq war is again, what exactly was the idealogical imperative that required financing?
Don't be fucking ridiculous. A machine gun emplacement is a target with a real person operating it. If that person dies there is *human* sacrifice. If I was to use your reasoning then soldiers should weep every time they let off a grenade because the fuse is a form of automation. Were are talking about an autonomous system that can fly and take commands there is close to zero chance the operator will take any fire.
More than likely a weapon like this will become a weapon of intimidation an oppression because the politician who chooses to deploy it will never have to deal with a grieving parent whose son was lost.
oh really, when was the last time you wrote to a politician? The OP is dead on with this comment a weapon like this can be deployed with very little risk of political consequences. Perspective indeed, how naive.
I wish I had mod points.
The honour from war was lost when politicians started taking our foreign loans to bankroll conflict. It used to be that when there was a war *everyone* made sacrifices. Now war is seen as a reality TV program where one nation beats the crap out of another nation. As long as the US military budget is as big as the rest of the worlds military budget what we are funding is new ways to bring about the wholesale slaughter of the human race.
But as long as I'm the one vicariously watching the slaughter then I guess it's ok.