plus they're alpha emitters, and alpha particles can't penetrate your skin
Which is why I mentioned the whole "inhaled or ingested" thing. It can be a hazard in the lungs, and it can be a hazard in the LLI.
There's lots and lots of uranium and thorium in the dirt already.
Not that much in most regions. And in the regions where there is a higher than usual concentration (E. Washington / W. Idaho, for example) there is a measurable increase in cancer and similar diseases.
You're points are reasonable; they're not totally out to lunch -- but I disagree with your general opinion that there's basically no danger with what I've described.
I've been a reactor operator and rad worker for many years (and taught reactor physics for a few years), so I'm not totally ignorant on the subject.
Geez, someone mentions Uranium and everything thinks "bombs". As many have pointed out here, getting from Point A (non-weapons grade Uranium) to Point B (a bomb) is not a trivial task.
There are plenty of other things a terrorist can do with Uranium, which is a significant health hazard if ingested or inhaled.
Grind it up fine and dump it in NYC's water supply, perhaps? Dump the dust from a plane over a populated area?
Not trying to scare monger, just pointing out that there's more to terrorism than bombs.
Wow, you're right; I didn't realize it wasn't available to the general public.
Sucks to be you, I guess - hehe. (Sorry, that was bad.)
Actually, 3.5.1 is available to the public on TRG's website. Their 3.5.1 is customized for the TRGPro, though. I don't know off-hand if it would work properly (or even install) in a regular Palm.
If some hacker out there wants to give it a whirl, I'd be interested in hearing the results (be sure to back up first!).
What's the worse that can happen?? Heheh...
Ohh -- Visor users need not apply, since you can't flash your toys (one of the reasons for the price difference that people seem to be so puzzled about).
Don't get me wrong -- I almost got a Visor, but the lack of flash really turned me off. Luckily, I found out about that *before* buying (three people in the office found out about it *after* buying).
Anybody have a clue when the new PalmOS is coming out?
Umm, what new PalmOS? There are new PalmOS's coming out all the time; 3.5 was released earlier this year.
I doubt Palm will ever try to wedge something as bloaty as CE into their devices. Maybe I should change that to "I hope they won't". PalmOS does what it needs to do, and it does it well.
Palm will continue to maintain their lead as long as the competition continues to not have a clue.
Besides, I can telnet to any of my *nix boxes with my Palm -- what else do I need?
-> a compromise depth of around 40m should do the trick
-> You'd also have marked lanes under water, and numerous turn-off/breaking lanes to divert the vehicle from collisions. Or, you might have a few accidents per decade, as there isn't much activity at >30m beneath the surface
Okay, let's go with the theory that this has potential (you've blessed me with the spirit of trying to find solutions).
Are you aware of a technology that can detect hazards for this beast at a depth of 40m from space? I'm not. Magnetic anomally and/or synthetic aperture radar are the two closest candidates that I can think of. The depth is pushing it for both, and neither is very good at detecting non-metallic things (and yes, non-metallic things can be hazardous).
Are you aware of a technology that would allow a satellite to communicate with a supersonic submarine at 40m - with the bandwidth necessary to relay the needed information *before* it's needed, and not sometime after? Again, I'm not.
Just trying to be helpful by letting you know what needs to be on your "to-do" list.:o)
otherwise, it is a straight shot across an ocean
Nothing is a straight shot anywhere. Rockets, planes, submarines, cars -- all have to make minor corrections during their travel. Oceans have currents, sometimes strong ones. Some sort of course correction would be essential.
The rockets work on powdered aluminum. so there will be an increase of aluminum oxide in the oceans, which isn't going to be much consiedring the VOLUME of the ocean.
The types of comments Green-Peacer's just love -- hell, it's a big ocean, who cares?:o)
Aluminum oxide rockets don't just spit aluminum out their pooper -- there's a lot of chemical reactions going on.
Besides, solid fuel would not be a likely candidate for a reusable, commercial, human transport.
and so the engines would have to unleash more force? I don't see the problem here
Engines unleashing more force require more fuel. More fuel requires more storage capacity -- which requires a bigger vessel -- which requires more force...lather, rinse, repeat.
cost is defined by demand.
I'm talking cost of materials to make the thing work in the first place. Add to THAT whatever profit margin they can tack on based on demand.
I know what I'd choose
So I take it you're currently choosing the Concorde, right? That's only about 2-1/2 hours, isn't it?
Sheesh, give a little techno-babble to a reporter and he has everyone dreaming about daily bullet trips across the Atlantic. Gimme a break.
This technology is fairly reasonable for what it's being used for (blind, dumb, fast, small things).
It won't scale to large vehicles, and most reasonable humans have an aversion to travelling in blind, dumb, fast things anyway.
Here's a short list of "strikes against it" that immediately come to mind:
(1) Hello, it's blind. How the heck is it going to see where it's going? Navy ships' passive sonar capability is seriously reduced at speed because of the noise being produced by the ship going through the water (and the increased noise of the ship's machinery). Active sonar? Well, that *might* help a little, but echo from active sonar has to be heard too (see above).
(2) Most of the marine life (including seaweed, etc) stays relatively close to the surface. Great, you say -- make the thing travel deeper to avoid skewering whales, etc. Well, that'd be nice, but it's a *lot* harder to cavitate at depth due to the increased pressure (and reduced temperature) -- and the relationship is not a proportional one. Besides being harder to cavitate in the first place, it'd be harder to maintain the bubble around the vehicle (because sea pressure would be trying to collapse it).
(3) Even if you could see where you were going, how would you turn? Control surfaces on the vessel wouldn't do anything because they're in a bubble. Change the direction of the rocket? Kill the bubble.
(4) Rockets aren't exactly green machines either. Pump our oceans full of chemicals? I don't think so.
(5) The speed required to maintain a cava-bubble (tm) around a large commercial vessel would be MUCH greater than that required to create/maintain a bubble around a small object like a bullet or a torpedo.
(6) Revisiting the "can't see" issue a bit -- assuming they *could* get active sonar to work from within a noisy bubble, what kind of range/warning is it going to give at those speeds? Ever drive really fast at night? Headlights don't give you a whole lot of reaction time, do they? This situation would be much worse.
(7) This is currently being used for non-manned things that we don't care about. They either run into something or blow up or whatever. Great. Ever wonder what the stopping experience is going to be like for humans? Think about it -- the speed creates the "bubble" which eliminates the drag. Okay, we reach our destination, start to slow down -- bubble collapses -- but guess what, we're still going pretty fast -- now we have a ton of drag slammed onto us. And people whine about a airliner slowing down after a landing.:o)
(8) Cost? Well, I dare say it'd be a heck of a lot more costly than the Concorde.
(9) If people are interested in travelling on submarines, why don't we have commercial submarines now?
-- CP (Who, by the way, spent several years on submarines; and spent three years teaching Heat Transfer & Fluid Flow)
If you go to Borland's sit, they say Kylix uses both Qt and GTK. They probably would have dropped GTK if the merger with Corel had happened because Corel's distro is KDE only.
Umm, no -- they make no bones about the fact that they are using Qt. They do not use GTK (they could add support for it at some point in the future, I suppose -- but I doubt it.
They do say that Kylix produced apps should run reasonably well under both Gnome and KDE (and no, this statement does not imply that they are using both Qt and GTK).
For some reason, I never got Legos when I was a kid. In fact, I bought my first Lego set every about a year ago. I would fail that test miserably.
Interesting point. I guess people tend to assume everyone has Legos. Actually, it's entirely possible that the people they are targeting have a lesser chance of growing up with Legos (not saying this was your situation) -- because they do tend to be expensive.
This last Christmas, we "adopted" a disadvantaged family. What did the kids want? Legos, because they didn't have any and couldn't afford them.
I don't even know what a Windows 2000 BSOD looks like. Never seen one.
Well, it's not the same medium blue they've used in the past. I guess they decided to freshen the look up a bit -- make the BSOD look a bit more professional. Heh.
I also have the impression (so far) that Win2K is more stable in most respects. But I can still BSOD it at will, just like I could NT.
Something new that I've managed to do with Win2K that I don't recall doing with any of the previous versions of Windows:
It was just an overall impression derived from reading hundreds of his posts. The technical content was there of course, but there often was an underlying "tone" that just wasn't necessary (IMHO). If I had the time, I could do some searching on Deja -- but I think you know what I'm talking about (at least one other person posted a message similar to mine here, so I know I'm not totally out to lunch).
Perhaps if you flag your postings with "NEWBIE", "PERL 4", "WINDOWS" or similar things, you get nuked.
Obviously, people can nuke whatever they want -- it's their choice. But remember my comment was posted specifically in response to Tom's nomination as "Best newbie helper". Having a kill file heavily optimized to eliminate newbie posts (and flaunting that fact in the newsgroup) seems to counter that nomination, IMHO.
"PERL 4", I can understand.
"Windows" is questionable -- Perl can obviously be used under Windows; although I can understand if he doesn't want to deal with the platform-specific issues.
"Newbie"? If he wants to help newbies, why the heck is that in there? The message never gets seen because the person is being honest?
IIRC, he also kills messages that were posted with any known Windows news client. I don't understand the point there. Okay, maybe he hates Windows -- many of us do. Could it be possible that this "newbie" isn't up to speed on *nix clients yet? Hmmm? Maybe they have to use Windows at work or whatever?
The more help these folks get in the *nix world, the more they'll use *nix, the more they'll like *nix -- the better chance they'll say "Goodbye" to Windows forever. Isn't that the goal?
All the whining of the form "why don't you spoon feed me?"
Yep, that's annoying. Anyone answering newsgroup messages gets fed up with it eventually.
But remember we're talking about newbies here -- it's going to happen. Some newbies don't know where the FAQ's or HowTo's are. Those folks need a polite "that, along with a bunch of other good stuff is covered here: xxx.xxxx.xxx/xxx go check it out; it covers your question in far more detail than I can here".
If you want to be voted "Best Newbie Helper" then you best have a spoon in your back pocket -- because you're going to need it every once in awhile, like it or not.
The trick, of course, is to transition them off the spoon as quickly as possible. The really annoying people can be added to the kill file when appropriate.
That, IMO, is a reasonable alternative to a broad stroke kill file that will nuke many (if not all) first posts by newbies (remember, we're talking about someone who actually wants to help newbies and get that coveted "Best newbie helper" beanie).
Then, do tell us, what is newbie help about?
I think I've covered it a bit, but I'll try to summarize: Making them feel welcome instead of chasing them away. Enhance their learning by pointing out applicable resources and encouraging them to use them. If a question is easy, go ahead and answer the damn thing (along with pointing out where similar answers can be found in the future). Often, more time is wasted flaming people than would be used to answer the damn question.
In case you don't remember, there is a bit of a ramp with Perl -- I have all the references, but still stumble across conceptual problems once in a while that turn out to be really obvious once I find the answer.
Okay, he's a good author (or has really good editors), and he knows a lot -- but I've seen rants in Perl newsgroups that probably scare newbies away forever (or at least make them very afraid to ask anything).
IMO, that's not what newbie help is about.
Maybe I've missed his efforts elsewhere, or maybe he was just joking -- but I don't remember seeing any 's.
Honestly, can someone help me change my impression of him?
Several months ago, I was a newbie in a couple Perl newsgroups (but not a newbie to programming in general) -- and all I thought of him was "pompus ass".
Within the first week of watching the groups, I saw a listing of his supposed kill list including keywords that would pretty much nuke 95% of newbie messages.
I presume it is smaller, but numerically how many times worse was Chernobyl, especially with regard to contamination of the atmosphere, which is measureable in other countries.
Not even close. Chernobyl was many thousands of times worse in terms of both radiation and contamination (and physical damage).
From what I've heard, the primary problem in Japan was gamma radiation. From what I've heard of the incident, the danger from released contamination is very slight -- there wasn't enough of a reaction to generate anything significant there.
It also depends on how you quantify how serious an accident is. If you include loss of human life into the equation, then this incident could be considered worse than TMI when everything's over and done -- even though TMI would definitely be considered a worse incident in purely scientific terms.
The difference there was the TMI incident occurred in a plant designed to contain radiation and contamination -- and the Japan incident happened in an area that wasn't designed to deal with criticality.
I'm guessing the two folks closest to the incident will die. A few others may have lasting symptoms, but will probably be okay overall (may have increased chance of cancer in the years to come, etc).
By reducing the cooling system (or by an overheating due to a failure) the water will turn into steam, thus its moderation properties are getting worse, the chain reaction will slow down.
That's a pretty big generality -- it depends on the temperature coefficient of the plant (which depends on the design of the plant).
The behavior you describe indeed exists in plants with a negative temperature coefficient (Alpha-T). It's also possible to have plants with a positive Alpha-T.
In any case, you make it sound like it's a Good Thing(tm) to drain the water in order to slow the reaction. That's way too simplfied. It was a viable solution in Japan because the heat generated by the reaction wasn't too bad (and because their other options to control the reaction were limited).
If I stumbled across a plant control room with horns going off, Homer Simpson asleep at the control panel, and nobody else around -- I guarantee I wouldn't be draining water out of the plant to stop the reaction -- that's asking for a meltdown -- the latent heat in the core needs to be removed long after the reaction is stopped.
Work into this that the workers actually saw the blue glow, and hypothesize that if it actually is Cerenkov radiation what minimum amount of uranium or nitric acid is required
Insufficient information. 16kg is certainly enough to sustain a reaction (depending on its physical layout, etc), but it depends on many other factors such as temperature, pressure, poisons present (poison to neutrons, not humans ). Nitric acid is not necessary.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm, ever hear of Mapopolis?
--CP
plus they're alpha emitters, and alpha particles can't penetrate your skin
Which is why I mentioned the whole "inhaled or ingested" thing. It can be a hazard in the lungs, and it can be a hazard in the LLI.
There's lots and lots of uranium and thorium in the dirt already.
Not that much in most regions. And in the regions where there is a higher than usual concentration (E. Washington / W. Idaho, for example) there is a measurable increase in cancer and similar diseases.
You're points are reasonable; they're not totally out to lunch -- but I disagree with your general opinion that there's basically no danger with what I've described.
I've been a reactor operator and rad worker for many years (and taught reactor physics for a few years), so I'm not totally ignorant on the subject.
-- CP
Geez, someone mentions Uranium and everything thinks "bombs". As many have pointed out here, getting from Point A (non-weapons grade Uranium) to Point B (a bomb) is not a trivial task.
There are plenty of other things a terrorist can do with Uranium, which is a significant health hazard if ingested or inhaled.
Grind it up fine and dump it in NYC's water supply, perhaps? Dump the dust from a plane over a populated area?
Not trying to scare monger, just pointing out that there's more to terrorism than bombs.
-- CP
but 3.5 is not available as an upgrade yet
Wow, you're right; I didn't realize it wasn't available to the general public.
Sucks to be you, I guess - hehe. (Sorry, that was bad.)
Actually, 3.5.1 is available to the public on TRG's website. Their 3.5.1 is customized for the TRGPro, though. I don't know off-hand if it would work properly (or even install) in a regular Palm.
If some hacker out there wants to give it a whirl, I'd be interested in hearing the results (be sure to back up first!).
What's the worse that can happen?? Heheh...
Ohh -- Visor users need not apply, since you can't flash your toys (one of the reasons for the price difference that people seem to be so puzzled about).
Don't get me wrong -- I almost got a Visor, but the lack of flash really turned me off. Luckily, I found out about that *before* buying (three people in the office found out about it *after* buying).
-- CP
Anybody have a clue when the new PalmOS is coming out?
Umm, what new PalmOS? There are new PalmOS's coming out all the time; 3.5 was released earlier this year.
I doubt Palm will ever try to wedge something as bloaty as CE into their devices. Maybe I should change that to "I hope they won't". PalmOS does what it needs to do, and it does it well.
Palm will continue to maintain their lead as long as the competition continues to not have a clue.
Besides, I can telnet to any of my *nix boxes with my Palm -- what else do I need?
-- CP
Ohhh, the answer man... :o)
:o)
:o)
-> obviously, you'd put the eyes in orbit.
-> a compromise depth of around 40m should do the trick
-> You'd also have marked lanes under water, and numerous turn-off/breaking lanes to divert the vehicle from collisions. Or, you might have a few accidents per decade, as there isn't much activity at >30m beneath the surface
Okay, let's go with the theory that this has potential (you've blessed me with the spirit of trying to find solutions).
Are you aware of a technology that can detect hazards for this beast at a depth of 40m from space? I'm not. Magnetic anomally and/or synthetic aperture radar are the two closest candidates that I can think of. The depth is pushing it for both, and neither is very good at detecting non-metallic things (and yes, non-metallic things can be hazardous).
Are you aware of a technology that would allow a satellite to communicate with a supersonic submarine at 40m - with the bandwidth necessary to relay the needed information *before* it's needed, and not sometime after? Again, I'm not.
Just trying to be helpful by letting you know what needs to be on your "to-do" list.
otherwise, it is a straight shot across an ocean
Nothing is a straight shot anywhere. Rockets, planes, submarines, cars -- all have to make minor corrections during their travel. Oceans have currents, sometimes strong ones. Some sort of course correction would be essential.
The rockets work on powdered aluminum. so there will be an increase of aluminum oxide in the oceans, which isn't going to be much consiedring the VOLUME of the ocean.
The types of comments Green-Peacer's just love -- hell, it's a big ocean, who cares?
Aluminum oxide rockets don't just spit aluminum out their pooper -- there's a lot of chemical reactions going on.
Besides, solid fuel would not be a likely candidate for a reusable, commercial, human transport.
and so the engines would have to unleash more force? I don't see the problem here
Engines unleashing more force require more fuel. More fuel requires more storage capacity -- which requires a bigger vessel -- which requires more force...lather, rinse, repeat.
cost is defined by demand.
I'm talking cost of materials to make the thing work in the first place. Add to THAT whatever profit margin they can tack on based on demand.
I know what I'd choose
So I take it you're currently choosing the Concorde, right? That's only about 2-1/2 hours, isn't it?
-CP
Sheesh, give a little techno-babble to a reporter and he has everyone dreaming about daily bullet trips across the Atlantic. Gimme a break.
:o)
This technology is fairly reasonable for what it's being used for (blind, dumb, fast, small things).
It won't scale to large vehicles, and most reasonable humans have an aversion to travelling in blind, dumb, fast things anyway.
Here's a short list of "strikes against it" that immediately come to mind:
(1) Hello, it's blind. How the heck is it going to see where it's going? Navy ships' passive sonar capability is seriously reduced at speed because of the noise being produced by the ship going through the water (and the increased noise of the ship's machinery). Active sonar? Well, that *might* help a little, but echo from active sonar has to be heard too (see above).
(2) Most of the marine life (including seaweed, etc) stays relatively close to the surface. Great, you say -- make the thing travel deeper to avoid skewering whales, etc. Well, that'd be nice, but it's a *lot* harder to cavitate at depth due to the increased pressure (and reduced temperature) -- and the relationship is not a proportional one. Besides being harder to cavitate in the first place, it'd be harder to maintain the bubble around the vehicle (because sea pressure would be trying to collapse it).
(3) Even if you could see where you were going, how would you turn? Control surfaces on the vessel wouldn't do anything because they're in a bubble. Change the direction of the rocket? Kill the bubble.
(4) Rockets aren't exactly green machines either. Pump our oceans full of chemicals? I don't think so.
(5) The speed required to maintain a cava-bubble (tm) around a large commercial vessel would be MUCH greater than that required to create/maintain a bubble around a small object like a bullet or a torpedo.
(6) Revisiting the "can't see" issue a bit -- assuming they *could* get active sonar to work from within a noisy bubble, what kind of range/warning is it going to give at those speeds? Ever drive really fast at night? Headlights don't give you a whole lot of reaction time, do they? This situation would be much worse.
(7) This is currently being used for non-manned things that we don't care about. They either run into something or blow up or whatever. Great. Ever wonder what the stopping experience is going to be like for humans? Think about it -- the speed creates the "bubble" which eliminates the drag. Okay, we reach our destination, start to slow down -- bubble collapses -- but guess what, we're still going pretty fast -- now we have a ton of drag slammed onto us. And people whine about a airliner slowing down after a landing.
(8) Cost? Well, I dare say it'd be a heck of a lot more costly than the Concorde.
(9) If people are interested in travelling on submarines, why don't we have commercial submarines now?
-- CP (Who, by the way, spent several years on submarines; and spent three years teaching Heat Transfer & Fluid Flow)
I ate both beans (I was hungry).
Nothing happened -- they must have counter-acted each other.
--CP
Umm, no -- they make no bones about the fact that they are using Qt. They do not use GTK (they could add support for it at some point in the future, I suppose -- but I doubt it.
They do say that Kylix produced apps should run reasonably well under both Gnome and KDE (and no, this statement does not imply that they are using both Qt and GTK).
I've been to two Kylix presentations.
--CP
i386 initially at least, but they have hinted that they are looking at other platforms and/or other *nix's.
-- CP
Saw the headline, scanned through the comments -- found exactly what I expected.
"Serves them right"; "Amazon is evil"; "Bad karma"; "This is funny"; "Live by the sword, die by the sword"; etc, etc.
I didn't notice anyone suggesting we should boycott Intouch...??? Hmmm??
I hit RMS's website, and didn't see any "Boycott Intouch!!!" postings...??? Hmmm??
Get a clue guys -- this is exactly the type of thing Amazon was trying to protect themselves against when they got the patents in the first place.
If they don't patent things, someone else will.
The system is broken -- it needs to be fixed at the source. If this stuff is stupid to patent, then it shouldn't be patentable.
-- CP
[..] I doubt there's room for another scripting language. Is Delphi all they have?
Another scripting language? You talking about Delphi? Delphi is not a scripting language. Spend some time with it before you make such a statement.
-- CP
Corel-Inprise-Borland...
CIB...
Coders in Black...
For some reason, I never got Legos when I was a kid. In fact, I bought my first Lego set every about a year ago. I would fail that test miserably.
Interesting point. I guess people tend to assume everyone has Legos. Actually, it's entirely possible that the people they are targeting have a lesser chance of growing up with Legos (not saying this was your situation) -- because they do tend to be expensive.
This last Christmas, we "adopted" a disadvantaged family. What did the kids want? Legos, because they didn't have any and couldn't afford them.
-- CP
I don't even know what a Windows 2000 BSOD looks like. Never seen one.
:o)
Well, it's not the same medium blue they've used in the past. I guess they decided to freshen the look up a bit -- make the BSOD look a bit more professional. Heh.
I also have the impression (so far) that Win2K is more stable in most respects. But I can still BSOD it at will, just like I could NT.
Something new that I've managed to do with Win2K that I don't recall doing with any of the previous versions of Windows:
BSOD in Safe Mode.
-- CP
What makes you think he's a "pompus ass"?
It was just an overall impression derived from reading hundreds of his posts. The technical content was there of course, but there often was an underlying "tone" that just wasn't necessary (IMHO). If I had the time, I could do some searching on Deja -- but I think you know what I'm talking about (at least one other person posted a message similar to mine here, so I know I'm not totally out to lunch).
Perhaps if you flag your postings with "NEWBIE", "PERL 4", "WINDOWS" or similar things, you get nuked.
Obviously, people can nuke whatever they want -- it's their choice. But remember my comment was posted specifically in response to Tom's nomination as "Best newbie helper". Having a kill file heavily optimized to eliminate newbie posts (and flaunting that fact in the newsgroup) seems to counter that nomination, IMHO.
"PERL 4", I can understand.
"Windows" is questionable -- Perl can obviously be used under Windows; although I can understand if he doesn't want to deal with the platform-specific issues.
"Newbie"? If he wants to help newbies, why the heck is that in there? The message never gets seen because the person is being honest?
IIRC, he also kills messages that were posted with any known Windows news client. I don't understand the point there. Okay, maybe he hates Windows -- many of us do. Could it be possible that this "newbie" isn't up to speed on *nix clients yet? Hmmm? Maybe they have to use Windows at work or whatever?
The more help these folks get in the *nix world, the more they'll use *nix, the more they'll like *nix -- the better chance they'll say "Goodbye" to Windows forever. Isn't that the goal?
All the whining of the form "why don't you spoon feed me?"
Yep, that's annoying. Anyone answering newsgroup messages gets fed up with it eventually.
But remember we're talking about newbies here -- it's going to happen. Some newbies don't know where the FAQ's or HowTo's are. Those folks need a polite "that, along with a bunch of other good stuff is covered here: xxx.xxxx.xxx/xxx go check it out; it covers your question in far more detail than I can here".
If you want to be voted "Best Newbie Helper" then you best have a spoon in your back pocket -- because you're going to need it every once in awhile, like it or not.
The trick, of course, is to transition them off the spoon as quickly as possible. The really annoying people can be added to the kill file when appropriate.
That, IMO, is a reasonable alternative to a broad stroke kill file that will nuke many (if not all) first posts by newbies (remember, we're talking about someone who actually wants to help newbies and get that coveted "Best newbie helper" beanie).
Then, do tell us, what is newbie help about?
I think I've covered it a bit, but I'll try to summarize: Making them feel welcome instead of chasing them away. Enhance their learning by pointing out applicable resources and encouraging them to use them. If a question is easy, go ahead and answer the damn thing (along with pointing out where similar answers can be found in the future). Often, more time is wasted flaming people than would be used to answer the damn question.
In case you don't remember, there is a bit of a ramp with Perl -- I have all the references, but still stumble across conceptual problems once in a while that turn out to be really obvious once I find the answer.
-- CP
Tom Christiansen? LOL!!!
Okay, he's a good author (or has really good editors), and he knows a lot -- but I've seen rants in Perl newsgroups that probably scare newbies away forever (or at least make them very afraid to ask anything).
IMO, that's not what newbie help is about.
Maybe I've missed his efforts elsewhere, or maybe he was just joking -- but I don't remember seeing any 's.
Honestly, can someone help me change my impression of him?
Several months ago, I was a newbie in a couple Perl newsgroups (but not a newbie to programming in general) -- and all I thought of him was "pompus ass".
Within the first week of watching the groups, I saw a listing of his supposed kill list including keywords that would pretty much nuke 95% of newbie messages.
-- CP
He got his site shut-down by harassing a 17 year old girl, which shortly after being shutdown, Ken sold for a reported $125,000 to Kroll.
So he sold a 17 year old girl to Kroll for $125,000?
Was she cute?
I'm waiting with baited breath for Teledesic myself.
NPR reported this morning that while the advising team had voted to resign, the rest of the players voted to continue to the bitter end.
No...like every other move, resignation was chosen by majority vote.
Despite the problems with a few things, I think it went pretty well overall. The technology used wasn't the best, but then what do you expect?
-- CP
This convenience IS the future of the Internet...
Umm, no it's not -- thanks to their patent.
I presume it is smaller, but numerically how many times worse was Chernobyl, especially with regard to contamination of the atmosphere, which is measureable in other countries.
Not even close. Chernobyl was many thousands of times worse in terms of both radiation and contamination (and physical damage).
From what I've heard, the primary problem in Japan was gamma radiation. From what I've heard of the incident, the danger from released contamination is very slight -- there wasn't enough of a reaction to generate anything significant there.
It also depends on how you quantify how serious an accident is. If you include loss of human life into the equation, then this incident could be considered worse than TMI when everything's over and done -- even though TMI would definitely be considered a worse incident in purely scientific terms.
The difference there was the TMI incident occurred in a plant designed to contain radiation and contamination -- and the Japan incident happened in an area that wasn't designed to deal with criticality.
I'm guessing the two folks closest to the incident will die. A few others may have lasting symptoms, but will probably be okay overall (may have increased chance of cancer in the years to come, etc).
-- CP
By reducing the cooling system (or by an overheating due to a failure) the water will turn into steam, thus its moderation properties are getting worse, the chain reaction will slow down.
That's a pretty big generality -- it depends on the temperature coefficient of the plant (which depends on the design of the plant).
The behavior you describe indeed exists in plants with a negative temperature coefficient (Alpha-T). It's also possible to have plants with a positive Alpha-T.
In any case, you make it sound like it's a Good Thing(tm) to drain the water in order to slow the reaction. That's way too simplfied. It was a viable solution in Japan because the heat generated by the reaction wasn't too bad (and because their other options to control the reaction were limited).
If I stumbled across a plant control room with horns going off, Homer Simpson asleep at the control panel, and nobody else around -- I guarantee I wouldn't be draining water out of the plant to stop the reaction -- that's asking for a meltdown -- the latent heat in the core needs to be removed long after the reaction is stopped.
-- CP
Work into this that the workers actually saw the blue glow, and hypothesize that if it actually is Cerenkov radiation what minimum amount of uranium or nitric acid is required
Insufficient information. 16kg is certainly enough to sustain a reaction (depending on its physical layout, etc), but it depends on many other factors such as temperature, pressure, poisons present (poison to neutrons, not humans ). Nitric acid is not necessary.
Maybe this will keep them comfortable with the idea that it's too hard to use? The longer, the better.