It doesn't produce "dangerous" amounts of energy for thousands of years. It produces dangerous amounts of radioactivity for several hundred years.
This is a common misconception and comes from letting non-scientists frame the waste disposal argument.
See, the natural ore is radioactive before it is ever processed and put in the reactor. It was going to be radioactive for thousands of years, no matter what human beings did. Not our fault, it just is.
When we concentrate it and use it in our reactors, the used fuel is highly and dangerously radioactive. The primary radiation producing elements are Cesium and Strontium. One has a half life of around 10 years, the other has a half life of 20 years. 20 years after a fuel rod is removed from a reactor, 75% of the Cesium will be gone and half the the Strontium. After 200 years, the fuel rod will emit basically the same amount and kinds of radioactivity it did before it went into the reactor. That is higher than natural ore, but not so high that exposure to it will sicken or injure humans.
The Anti-Nuke crowd believes that we should prove that we can safely sequester nuclear waste until it emits zero radioactivity. This becomes a political fight because a scientist would look at the problem and ask if a few hundred years of sequestering will make it the equivalent of an old uranium mine, why isn't that good enough?
Rule of thumb, if someone tells you that something is highly radioactive, it has a short half-life and is easily disposed of. (If it is throwing off lots of radiation, it doesn't take long before nothing of the original source is left). If someone tells you that something will be radioactive for thousands of years, it means it emits very low levels of radiation over a very long period of time.
Overall, I have to give you a thumbs up though, If something does produce high levels of energy for long periods of time, it would seem to be a useful energy source. I wonder how practical a Radioactive Isotope Thermal Generators powered by waste Cesium and Strontium would be?
One day I had an "Edge Technology" 386 dropped on my desk to replace an old 286. It was one of the first 30 prototype PCs from the company that grew into Micron Computer. It was very obviously a prototype, but I did fun stuff with it. It helped to work for a memory maker. Micron made a line of memory expansion cards that ran in ISA slots. I ran around and found all of them that I could find. I eventually had about 256MB of memory stuffed in this box. I set most of it as a RAM Drive. The AutoExec would copy Windows 3.1 to the RAM drive and then launch it from there. I had a small batch file that I launched when we wanted to shut down to copy Windows back from the RAM Drive to the Hard drive. Engineers used to come in and marvel how much faster my computer was than theirs was. It was stable enough for the uses we had for it and it ran like a bat out of h**l. Before I left the company, I bought a Micron PC for my home.
Micron Electronics eventually bought the CMS division, moved it to Nampa and eventually sold much of it to Plexus.
Re:I was wondering what this book was
on
Zoe's Tale
·
· Score: 1
I really enjoyed Zoe's Tale when I read it a couple weeks ago.
It really filled out some of the events that were important to plot of the Last Colony.
I especially got a kick out of Zoe and her friend trying to adjust to a life with no electronics, no texting, no music, etc when the Colony was trying to hide by reducing their electronic emissions.
Fellow sufferer of Avoidant Personality Disorder. Sounds like you have it worse than I did though.
Group therapy, Therapy in general were of little use to me. I couldn't trust the people enough to open up to them. First time they did something that 'confirmed' my lack of trust, I would stop going and never tell them why.
I got better as I got older. I studied the problem and learned to recognize the bad behaviors. I intentionally put myself in situations that caused me to stretch myself.
Somehow I got married and stayed married long enough to have a son. He is the light of my life, but I still have to deal with that little voice in my head that says "he is going to figure you out someday and reject you". At this point in my life, I know it is wrong, but it is still there.
Correct, ownership is no guarantee of success, but in the case of an ESOP, the employees don't put up any of their own money. The purchase of the company is cash-flowed through the corporation.
100% ESOP companies have a tax advantage though, that makes company growth easier. The company is organized as an S-Corp. S-Corps don't pay corporate income tax. Taxes are paid by the owners at their personal tax rate. In the case of an ESOP, the ESOP Trust is the sole "owner" for tax purposes. The Trust is a Tax-deferred entity. Therefore, there are no income tax liabilities at the Federal or State level (always consult a tax professional). That gives us extra cash that an non-ESOP company would have.
We also have really good management. We are much more diverse than we were even 10 years ago. Sales have doubled in the past 4 years. Our 10 biggest customers are in 5 different major industries. We have seen a handful of customers cut back on their orders, but have even more customers that would have us do more for them, but we don't have the capacity right now.
Over all, we are predicting a 5% growth in sales next year and are optimistic about our opportunities beyond that.
I am a hardware guy by inclination and training. I had some programming experience, but never enjoyed it.
I also tend to look more at the business side of things sometimes. I am the Chairman of my Company's ESOP committee. We are 100% employee owned. We are not an IT company. I am the only IT person.
I have always had a hard time believing in the business model of the Open Source community. As an IT person and a software customer, I can appreciate the ability to view and modify the source of software that isn't doing everything I want it to do, but as a business person, I have a hard time picturing a long term model where open source is a product I can make money off of.
In the short term, customers would purchase the software and support from me, but as the community grew around the software, it would fork in new unsupported directions, the community and customers would become more savy and need less support from me.
Long term, I think open source will work real well for drivers, routers, switches items that the hardware is secondary to the appliance.
But for standalone software products like Databases? I just can't see it, no matter how many Open Source advocates try to convince me of it.
Maybe I am a little anal about these things, but the wording people use when trying to describe the lead problem and the capability of the solutions they propose to solve the problem?
Lead is an element. It is also the end product of radioactive decay, so over time the amount of lead in our environment increases and will continue to increase no matter what we do.
Yes, lead is a neurotoxin with many bad effects on the human body. So the problem isn't that there is lead in the environment, is that we need to control the amount of lead humans are exposed to.
We can't reduce the amount of lead, remember its an element, we can only concentrate it in locations where it is less likely to cause us harm.
But because it is a product of decay, it will always be in the soil around us. At some point, we have to let the science of toxicology take over and say we can live with this level. At this point, we just keep lowering and lowering the level. I have no toxicology background, but sometimes it feels like they are lowering the limits because the detection technology got better, not because there is new science to demonstrate that the old limit was dangerous and the new limit is safer.
So in Summary, Lead is a distribution problem. We can't remove it from the environment, we can only concentrate it in an attempt to control our exposure.
In the early 90's, I worked for a nameless (begins with an M, located in Boise ID) semiconductor company.
Some employees complained to the State Department of Labor about a policy. If you worked in the Fab, you were required to be dressed in your bunny suit and in the Fab when your shift started. Employee's complained that putting on the suit properly took 15 minutes and that the company should pay them for that time.
Department of Labor agreed and required the Company to pay the time into the future, but also go back 3 years and pay all current and former employees 10 hours of overtime per week.
Sure, you can do that, but the law doesn't currently cover this situation, they are trying to stretch it to fit this situation.
I am not a fan of Prosecutors stretching the law like this when something bad happens that doesn't have a law against it (Jack McCoy syndrome). It makes for really bad case law down the road.
This was written by a Law Professor. Basically it boils down to the SEC has to really stretch current law to cover this situation.
It appears the CEO of Mamma.com knew that several of their original investors, specifically Mark Cuban, would be upset by the release of more stock, diluting his original investment. The CEO might have told Mark about the investment in an attempt to keep him from being able to sell his shares before the announcement.
Mark was a minor stockholder (6.3%) and didn't meet any of the other legal standards (fiduciary responsibility to the company) to be considered a traditional insider.
So here is question. If you are a stockholder in a company, can the SEC consider you an insider under the law if an insider calls you and asks you to keep a secret? Under traditional insider rules, the CEO of the company is the person who violated the law by telling Mark about the upcoming announcement.
For there to have been 750,000 lost jobs, wouldn't you have to prove that these people have been employed in the industry first?
Can they show that businesses decided to leave Copyright protected industries because of piracy?
Or are they trying to show a decrease in production of Copyrighted materials because of production?
Maybe they are trying to say that Piracy accounted for $XX lost sales and the money from those sales could have employed as many as 750,000 other people.
It is probably the latter, but it is made up statistics anyway. To prove the lost sales, you have to prove that people who acquired the material through piracy would have paid the higher price to acquire the material if piracy didn't exist. My hypothesis is that a significant number of them would never have bought the item, they would have done without, or acquired a competitive at a lower cost.
it may not be the typical geek hobby, but I work as a Paid-On-Call firefighter and EMT in my community.
Its a lot of fun. Some of the training is extremely helpful in a variety of situations. I just returned from a weeklong Command and Control course at the National Fire Academy.
The ability to build a Command system in an emergency situation, grow it as you get new resources is a fascinating topic.
I don't make a lot doing this $5000-6000 per year, but it is a ton of fun.
Emmittsburg, MD?
There is only one major FEMA facility there, The US Fire Administration National Fire Academy.
Happens I am going to be there for a week next month.
Wonder if the phreaker will offer instructions so that I can call home free too.
Beautiful campus btw, about 3 miles from Camp David
I maintain a "Hit by the Bus" book.
I keep a journal of important information about the network I maintain. It isn't large, but if it goes down, my company goes with it.
Myself and the Company President are the only people who know about the book and can gain access to it.
Honestly,
Couple other posters have it right, it isn't that these elements are going away, its that the current mines will be played out.
That doesn't mean that these are the only mines though. There are lots of untapped areas of the world where these stocks exist.
During the 19th century, there were lots of mineral mines within 100 miles of my home. One small town was famous as a copper mining town. So famous they named the town for it, Cuprum. If you visit the area there is still lots of copper ore around. There were also Zinc, Gold, Silver, and Mercury mines in the area. With modern technology, most of these mines are not played out.
When prices go up high enough, mining companies will move back to these areas. Guaranteed. Locals will tell you that periodically the mining companies will send assay teams into these areas frequently enough to keep their claims alive.
I have been in IT in one shape or another for 16 years. I have been divorced for 7 years, was married for 3 years. I have 50/50 custody of my 9yo son. My ex- blaims IT. To this day she still says "you spent too much time on computers". To be honest, the last year of our marriage, I spent way too much time on the computer. By then I wasn't happy and was tired of dealing with her weirdness. I used computers to avoid fighting with her. If she hadn't filed for divorce, we would still be married and miserable.
To this day she still whines that 50/50 gives me too much contact with my son and how she doesn't get to spend enough time with him. She's taken me to court 4 times in 6 years. All she has to show for it is a conviction for criminal contempt of court. She blaims me for that too.
No it wasn't IT's fault. Divorce is a people problem.
Funny, I looked at all those long lines at the security check points and my thought was, if I am a terrorist and my plot to blow up an airplane has been foiled, why don't I blow up my bomb at one of the security checkpoints.
That would freak people as much.
Idaho native, born near Idaho Falls, have relatives in Idaho Falls. I like Idaho Falls, but most of you wouldn't.
Yes, the falls are artificial. Built for recreation and to increase tourism. The town is bordered by a large desert to the north and west, farmland to the east and south. The desert to the north is home to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. Home to a lot of Nuclear Power Research. At one time, had around 200 nuclear reactors there. That is still the largest employer, and it is a 60 mile commute on two lane highway. They do have buses for commuting though.
If you are into outdoor activities, hunting, fishing, camping, skiing, snowmobiling, you might really like it. If you are into nightlife, clubs, movies, bars, you will hate it. The town is over 50% LDS (mormon).
We work with Titanium all the time in the shop. We have learned what works and what doesn't. Some of our machinists actually like working with Titanium. They tell me for instance, that it turns nice on a lathe for them. Not gummy like aluminum.
Cutting a ring of someone's finger in an ER is a different story. Ring cutters were designed with soft metals, like gold and silver, in mind. ER can pop a normal gold wedding band quick as a flash with a ring cutter. A platinum or titanium band is significantly harder than gold or silver and their ring cutter may not work. True, the maintenance guy may have something in his toolbox that will work, but your nurse or doctor in the ER may not think about it. Also remember, ring cutters are designed to protect your finger from the blade as your ring is cut off. The maintenance guys wire cutters aren't.
There are ring cutters on the market that can cut titanium, but they aren't common in hospital settings yet. The old manual ring cutters are $10-20 each. The new electric ones are an order of magnitude more expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't produce "dangerous" amounts of energy for thousands of years. It produces dangerous amounts of radioactivity for several hundred years.
This is a common misconception and comes from letting non-scientists frame the waste disposal argument.
See, the natural ore is radioactive before it is ever processed and put in the reactor. It was going to be radioactive for thousands of years, no matter what human beings did. Not our fault, it just is.
When we concentrate it and use it in our reactors, the used fuel is highly and dangerously radioactive. The primary radiation producing elements are Cesium and Strontium. One has a half life of around 10 years, the other has a half life of 20 years. 20 years after a fuel rod is removed from a reactor, 75% of the Cesium will be gone and half the the Strontium. After 200 years, the fuel rod will emit basically the same amount and kinds of radioactivity it did before it went into the reactor. That is higher than natural ore, but not so high that exposure to it will sicken or injure humans.
The Anti-Nuke crowd believes that we should prove that we can safely sequester nuclear waste until it emits zero radioactivity. This becomes a political fight because a scientist would look at the problem and ask if a few hundred years of sequestering will make it the equivalent of an old uranium mine, why isn't that good enough?
Rule of thumb, if someone tells you that something is highly radioactive, it has a short half-life and is easily disposed of. (If it is throwing off lots of radiation, it doesn't take long before nothing of the original source is left). If someone tells you that something will be radioactive for thousands of years, it means it emits very low levels of radiation over a very long period of time.
Overall, I have to give you a thumbs up though, If something does produce high levels of energy for long periods of time, it would seem to be a useful energy source. I wonder how practical a Radioactive Isotope Thermal Generators powered by waste Cesium and Strontium would be?
I worked for Micron CMS from 1991 to 1994
One day I had an "Edge Technology" 386 dropped on my desk to replace an old 286. It was one of the first 30 prototype PCs from the company that grew into Micron Computer. It was very obviously a prototype, but I did fun stuff with it. It helped to work for a memory maker. Micron made a line of memory expansion cards that ran in ISA slots. I ran around and found all of them that I could find. I eventually had about 256MB of memory stuffed in this box. I set most of it as a RAM Drive. The AutoExec would copy Windows 3.1 to the RAM drive and then launch it from there. I had a small batch file that I launched when we wanted to shut down to copy Windows back from the RAM Drive to the Hard drive. Engineers used to come in and marvel how much faster my computer was than theirs was. It was stable enough for the uses we had for it and it ran like a bat out of h**l. Before I left the company, I bought a Micron PC for my home.
Micron Electronics eventually bought the CMS division, moved it to Nampa and eventually sold much of it to Plexus.
I really enjoyed Zoe's Tale when I read it a couple weeks ago.
It really filled out some of the events that were important to plot of the Last Colony.
I especially got a kick out of Zoe and her friend trying to adjust to a life with no electronics, no texting, no music, etc when the Colony was trying to hide by reducing their electronic emissions.
Haven't tried it, will look into it though, Thanks for the tip.
Fellow sufferer of Avoidant Personality Disorder. Sounds like you have it worse than I did though.
Group therapy, Therapy in general were of little use to me. I couldn't trust the people enough to open up to them. First time they did something that 'confirmed' my lack of trust, I would stop going and never tell them why.
I got better as I got older. I studied the problem and learned to recognize the bad behaviors. I intentionally put myself in situations that caused me to stretch myself.
Somehow I got married and stayed married long enough to have a son. He is the light of my life, but I still have to deal with that little voice in my head that says "he is going to figure you out someday and reject you". At this point in my life, I know it is wrong, but it is still there.
Good Luck
Correct, ownership is no guarantee of success, but in the case of an ESOP, the employees don't put up any of their own money. The purchase of the company is cash-flowed through the corporation.
100% ESOP companies have a tax advantage though, that makes company growth easier. The company is organized as an S-Corp. S-Corps don't pay corporate income tax. Taxes are paid by the owners at their personal tax rate. In the case of an ESOP, the ESOP Trust is the sole "owner" for tax purposes. The Trust is a Tax-deferred entity. Therefore, there are no income tax liabilities at the Federal or State level (always consult a tax professional). That gives us extra cash that an non-ESOP company would have.
We also have really good management. We are much more diverse than we were even 10 years ago. Sales have doubled in the past 4 years. Our 10 biggest customers are in 5 different major industries. We have seen a handful of customers cut back on their orders, but have even more customers that would have us do more for them, but we don't have the capacity right now.
Over all, we are predicting a 5% growth in sales next year and are optimistic about our opportunities beyond that.
First thing,
I am a hardware guy by inclination and training. I had some programming experience, but never enjoyed it.
I also tend to look more at the business side of things sometimes. I am the Chairman of my Company's ESOP committee. We are 100% employee owned. We are not an IT company. I am the only IT person.
I have always had a hard time believing in the business model of the Open Source community. As an IT person and a software customer, I can appreciate the ability to view and modify the source of software that isn't doing everything I want it to do, but as a business person, I have a hard time picturing a long term model where open source is a product I can make money off of.
In the short term, customers would purchase the software and support from me, but as the community grew around the software, it would fork in new unsupported directions, the community and customers would become more savy and need less support from me.
Long term, I think open source will work real well for drivers, routers, switches items that the hardware is secondary to the appliance.
But for standalone software products like Databases? I just can't see it, no matter how many Open Source advocates try to convince me of it.
Maybe I am a little anal about these things, but the wording people use when trying to describe the lead problem and the capability of the solutions they propose to solve the problem?
Lead is an element. It is also the end product of radioactive decay, so over time the amount of lead in our environment increases and will continue to increase no matter what we do.
Yes, lead is a neurotoxin with many bad effects on the human body. So the problem isn't that there is lead in the environment, is that we need to control the amount of lead humans are exposed to.
We can't reduce the amount of lead, remember its an element, we can only concentrate it in locations where it is less likely to cause us harm.
But because it is a product of decay, it will always be in the soil around us. At some point, we have to let the science of toxicology take over and say we can live with this level. At this point, we just keep lowering and lowering the level. I have no toxicology background, but sometimes it feels like they are lowering the limits because the detection technology got better, not because there is new science to demonstrate that the old limit was dangerous and the new limit is safer.
So in Summary, Lead is a distribution problem. We can't remove it from the environment, we can only concentrate it in an attempt to control our exposure.
In the early 90's, I worked for a nameless (begins with an M, located in Boise ID) semiconductor company.
Some employees complained to the State Department of Labor about a policy. If you worked in the Fab, you were required to be dressed in your bunny suit and in the Fab when your shift started. Employee's complained that putting on the suit properly took 15 minutes and that the company should pay them for that time.
Department of Labor agreed and required the Company to pay the time into the future, but also go back 3 years and pay all current and former employees 10 hours of overtime per week.
Sure, you can do that, but the law doesn't currently cover this situation, they are trying to stretch it to fit this situation.
I am not a fan of Prosecutors stretching the law like this when something bad happens that doesn't have a law against it (Jack McCoy syndrome). It makes for really bad case law down the road.
http://www.businessassociationsblog.com/lawandbusiness/comments/the_insider_trading_charges_against_mark_cuban/
This was written by a Law Professor. Basically it boils down to the SEC has to really stretch current law to cover this situation.
It appears the CEO of Mamma.com knew that several of their original investors, specifically Mark Cuban, would be upset by the release of more stock, diluting his original investment. The CEO might have told Mark about the investment in an attempt to keep him from being able to sell his shares before the announcement.
Mark was a minor stockholder (6.3%) and didn't meet any of the other legal standards (fiduciary responsibility to the company) to be considered a traditional insider.
So here is question. If you are a stockholder in a company, can the SEC consider you an insider under the law if an insider calls you and asks you to keep a secret? Under traditional insider rules, the CEO of the company is the person who violated the law by telling Mark about the upcoming announcement.
not a lawyer, but find legal topics fascinating
Serious question,
If we have DST 8 months of the year, and Standard Time 4 months of the year, aren't they named wrong?
Would people feel better if we renamed DST to Standard Time and changed the name of Standard Time to Winter Time or something?
I love the court trying to order that the encryption key exists seperate from the will of the defendant
Since the key only exists in the defendants mind, I wish the courts the best of luck in trying to separate it.
For there to have been 750,000 lost jobs, wouldn't you have to prove that these people have been employed in the industry first?
Can they show that businesses decided to leave Copyright protected industries because of piracy?
Or are they trying to show a decrease in production of Copyrighted materials because of production?
Maybe they are trying to say that Piracy accounted for $XX lost sales and the money from those sales could have employed as many as 750,000 other people.
It is probably the latter, but it is made up statistics anyway. To prove the lost sales, you have to prove that people who acquired the material through piracy would have paid the higher price to acquire the material if piracy didn't exist. My hypothesis is that a significant number of them would never have bought the item, they would have done without, or acquired a competitive at a lower cost.
Stupid statisticians
it may not be the typical geek hobby, but I work as a Paid-On-Call firefighter and EMT in my community. Its a lot of fun. Some of the training is extremely helpful in a variety of situations. I just returned from a weeklong Command and Control course at the National Fire Academy. The ability to build a Command system in an emergency situation, grow it as you get new resources is a fascinating topic. I don't make a lot doing this $5000-6000 per year, but it is a ton of fun.
Emmittsburg, MD? There is only one major FEMA facility there, The US Fire Administration National Fire Academy. Happens I am going to be there for a week next month. Wonder if the phreaker will offer instructions so that I can call home free too. Beautiful campus btw, about 3 miles from Camp David
Article did say he was acting Pro Se. For those unfamiliar with legal terms, that means he has no attorney and is representing himself.
I write grant applications for my fire department.
First search I tried was the name of a Federal grant program I just finished an application for.
In Google, name of the program returns as the #1 link. In Cuil (I hate the name btw), I get no results found.
Sorry, if they couldn't index the US Government websites properly, it makes me wonder how many other holes are in their search.
I maintain a "Hit by the Bus" book. I keep a journal of important information about the network I maintain. It isn't large, but if it goes down, my company goes with it. Myself and the Company President are the only people who know about the book and can gain access to it.
Honestly, Couple other posters have it right, it isn't that these elements are going away, its that the current mines will be played out. That doesn't mean that these are the only mines though. There are lots of untapped areas of the world where these stocks exist. During the 19th century, there were lots of mineral mines within 100 miles of my home. One small town was famous as a copper mining town. So famous they named the town for it, Cuprum. If you visit the area there is still lots of copper ore around. There were also Zinc, Gold, Silver, and Mercury mines in the area. With modern technology, most of these mines are not played out. When prices go up high enough, mining companies will move back to these areas. Guaranteed. Locals will tell you that periodically the mining companies will send assay teams into these areas frequently enough to keep their claims alive.
To this day she still whines that 50/50 gives me too much contact with my son and how she doesn't get to spend enough time with him. She's taken me to court 4 times in 6 years. All she has to show for it is a conviction for criminal contempt of court. She blaims me for that too.
No it wasn't IT's fault. Divorce is a people problem.
Funny, I looked at all those long lines at the security check points and my thought was, if I am a terrorist and my plot to blow up an airplane has been foiled, why don't I blow up my bomb at one of the security checkpoints. That would freak people as much.
Idaho native, born near Idaho Falls, have relatives in Idaho Falls. I like Idaho Falls, but most of you wouldn't. Yes, the falls are artificial. Built for recreation and to increase tourism. The town is bordered by a large desert to the north and west, farmland to the east and south. The desert to the north is home to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. Home to a lot of Nuclear Power Research. At one time, had around 200 nuclear reactors there. That is still the largest employer, and it is a 60 mile commute on two lane highway. They do have buses for commuting though. If you are into outdoor activities, hunting, fishing, camping, skiing, snowmobiling, you might really like it. If you are into nightlife, clubs, movies, bars, you will hate it. The town is over 50% LDS (mormon).
I work in a machine shop and I am an EMT.
We work with Titanium all the time in the shop. We have learned what works and what doesn't. Some of our machinists actually like working with Titanium. They tell me for instance, that it turns nice on a lathe for them. Not gummy like aluminum.
Cutting a ring of someone's finger in an ER is a different story. Ring cutters were designed with soft metals, like gold and silver, in mind. ER can pop a normal gold wedding band quick as a flash with a ring cutter. A platinum or titanium band is significantly harder than gold or silver and their ring cutter may not work. True, the maintenance guy may have something in his toolbox that will work, but your nurse or doctor in the ER may not think about it. Also remember, ring cutters are designed to protect your finger from the blade as your ring is cut off. The maintenance guys wire cutters aren't.
There are ring cutters on the market that can cut titanium, but they aren't common in hospital settings yet. The old manual ring cutters are $10-20 each. The new electric ones are an order of magnitude more expensive.
heh, must hit preview more often