Am I the only one to find them funny? I mean they're a change from Anonymous and their oh-so-serious "we don't forget, expect us" bullshit. Well I can't help but giggle at their seemingly random, no-head-and-tail string of attacks. They are doing it purely for the "Lulz" and do appear quite good at what they're doing.
They will be caught eventually, and when they are, I sincerely hope something terrible happens to them.
Man you should chill out a bit and keep your anger directed towards Cheney, his banker friends and the likes who actually screw you up the ass, not a bunch of teenagers playing some high-profile pranks.
No, let's pour unlimited amounts of taxpayer's money into nuclear power so we can keep the lights on and infrastructure working without destroying the environment.
No current reactor design / technology seems able to provide that, as Fukushima has amply demonstrated. Pressurized reactors are inherently dangerous because a loss of cooling for whatever reason means a catastrophic failure. So either you base your assertion on the belief that such accidents will never happen again, which boils down to faith in technology, or on the fact that newer reactors without this drawback are around the corner, which boils down to faith in research. Other people might not be so confident.
No, it should be disregarded because such solutions do not exist yet
This applies to your proposition equally if not even more, because in the case of NP people tried, whereas with renewable nobody every really tried. Just compare the current and also cumulative amounts of investments that have been directed into each branch.
Wind and solar lack the energy density and dependability to keep our infrastructure working
This is definitely the crux of the question, I mean everybody agrees that if the energy needs of humanity could be fulfilled using renewable energy alone then the choice would be obvious. Nuclear proponents brush happily that possibility aside as if obviously impossible, however I have yet to see a convincing study showing that. On the contrary I see many studies that seem to imply that we definitely could switch to 100% renewables, however with some non-trivial upgrade of the industrial fabric (energy conservation, optimization, smart grid, energy storage solutions, etc). Not necessarily easy or cheap to do, but also, contrary to what nuclear proponents like to present as an evidence, mostly without genuine research or argumentation, no necessarily much more expensive that the nuclear way. So to me this question still remains to this day an open one - I don't feel the urge to build myself a religion about such a mundane, technical/economical matter.
about things they choose to remain ignorant about
Does this apply to your views on renewable energy? It does definitely look so.
so he picks something to resist as evil - renewable energy, energy conservation, whatever - and calls it a day
Yes that's even better, let's pour unlimited amounts of taxpayers' money into NP so that nuclear apologists can continue playing with their expensive fancy toys. The fact that the public doesn't want that and would prefer this money invested into energy efficiency, energy conservation and renewable energy generation is to be disregarded because basically they're all nothing but bleating luddites joe-six-packs and the enlightened elite is in a better position to tell them what's good for them, amirite?
Go ahead buddy, start your private company and do exactly that. What do you say? That's not exactly the idea? Oh I see, your plan is rather to let the public support the research, development, insurance, risks, waste disposal and decommissioning costs and have your private company make a nice profit on the electricity generation. Well of course, this makes much more sense this way.
Don't blame the hippies or others with no say at all for a lack of new generation plants - blame the bankers and governments.
And blame the end of the cold war arm race, because without the prospect/need to produce large amounts of nuclear weapons, civil nuclear power generation loses most of its appeal and becomes again the very risky, dirty and financially unsound business it truly is.
That's probably because of the amount of misinformation coming from many of the anti-nuclear zealots.
Currently, and especially since the Fukushima disaster, it has appeared to me that most of the disinformation, FUD and blatant lies were on side of the nuclear islamists; I'm thinking of arguments about radioactivity of bananas, nothing wrong coming out of Fukushima, the quake/tsunami being an incredibly rare and unpredictable event, anyone concerned about nuclear contamination being a "luddite", "hippie", "joe-six-pack", "moron", etc, etc. I find this more annoying than simple uninformed fear of layman people because the guys who push that bullshit have the appearance and arrogance of knowledgeable or rational people.
The pro-nuclear argument is that despite this, the alternatives are worse.
No. Everybody agrees that renewable energy is the best thing possible hands off. Nuclear islamists only insist that it is not a viable solution by itself alone (which to me remains an open and important question) and are very eager to provide any argument to defend this credo, however contrived and ridiculous it gets (things about windmills killing birds by the thousands, plumbers falling from the rooftops, solar being incredibly expensive, etc).
The point at issue whether a 100% renewable solution could work, and while it would be wrong to say 'never', I think it is fair to say that with current technology the sums don't add up.
That's exactly what is so irritating with nuclear islamists, they insist that nuclear energy is ok because all of its current very serious issues (fuel, waste, risks, proliferation, etc) are solved by newer designs (LFTR, fast breeders) that do not exist yet in any commercially viable form and that would undoubtedly require huge investments in research, prototypes, trial-and-error, etc, before ever being viable if they ever get there. And then dismiss renewable energy as impractical because the technology "is not there yet" despite the minuscule amounts of money that have been invested into its development compared to anything else. This would be funny if it weren't so sad.
even if you only look at the environmental and/or safety impact then nuclear wins most of the time
It wins all of the time indeed in the minds of its proponents, who insist that they base their convictions on facts and rationality while nuclear skeptics simply follow ignorance and stupidity. But from my point of view it is very obvious that those guys base their beliefs on faith alone, and just like any true believers adapt their belief and discourse to fit reality and work around the contradictions it throws in their way. That was very clear during the development of the Fukushima disaster.
then I suspect that most of the 'pro-nuclear zealots' you refer to would vanish overnight
I very much doubt that.
Pro-nuclear sentiment is very rarely grounded in any form of ideology, other than (as was once famously noted) being 'pro-arithmetic'.
On the very contrary it is so deeply grounded in ideology that the people affected with that condition are not even able to recognize it at all anylonger; it has become more than just an opinion to them, it is their frame of reference now. In that way they are quite similar to islamists indeed, persuaded that they bath in the truth, that anybody who doesn't accept their ideology is inferior somehow (hence "infidels" on one side, "luddites/morons/joe-six-packs" on the other) and are extremely eager to shove their belief down the throat of everybody else for their own good (hence the recent arguments on slashdot about the adequacy to get rid of democracy and replace it with fascism because nuclear power is more important for the masses to have than anything else, despite the fact that they are not able or too stupid to recognize it).
Could you provide some figures about the amount of research investments worldwide/by country into nuclear technologies compared to renewable technologies, currently and cumulated? I'd be genuinely interested.
What about the other 15 or so that you don't know about because the media didn't make a big deal out of them?
This is why I specified meltdowns in commercial reactors; the other ones were research/military ones I think.
It is estimated that 0.3 million people die annually world-wide from societally-imposed, fossil fuel-based electricity generation pollutants
This essentially points to the sloppiness with which fossil-based electricity generation is currently handled, due to historical reasons; but it could and should be held to security and environmental standards similar to the ones nuclear power is subjected to. Only then would we be able to correctly estimate and compare the environmental and societal impact they have.
Unless, of course, you only watch TV when it's windy outside.
Or, of course, unless you devise a way to efficiently store the energy - wouldn't using the batteries of millions of parked electric cars be a suitable option? Just wondering.
The economic costs for solar-base grids, both centralized and decentralized, are roughly equivalent to to nuclear
To me if this is true this is the final argument that we should go with solar power once and for all - it has all the benefits without the drawbacks. Why insist on going to the lesser option?
Ssssh! Don't break their fantasy with your damn arguments! Haven't you heard? If you don't follow the nuclear islamists crowd or feel concerned about the problem of radioactive contamination, you're a laughable idiot, that is all there is to say.
A fuel melt-down might be expected once in 20,000 years of reactor operation
Up to now there has been five meltdowns in commercial reactors in 40 years (TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima 1, 2, 3), how does this add up to once every 20,000 years?
Plus A/C is the prefect example of an application that's perfectly suited to solar energy, since obviously you only need it where there is sun. So even those peaks could be leveled off with some investment in solar energy, which would leave all the more energy available for other applications.
Interesting read, however in this case just as in the case of DOS boot sector viruses mentioned in another response, the problem stems from the propensity of Microsoft operating systems to automatically execute code on behalf of the user, which makes sense for an end-user systems oriented towards non-technical savvy users but is totally uncalled for in a production environment. Unix doesn't have any such feature, and rightly so; this kind of attack would have been infinitely more difficult, if not impossible to convey on any serious server system. The only justification for running a Windows server is a production environment is really incompetence IMHO.
Which indicates that the systems were running Windows XP which is the only OS out there with the autorun "feature". If you're using a Windows OS to run critical industrial facilities then you really deserve to be hacked and have your facility shut down. This system was never intended to do that.
If you want a secure setup use a decent Unix variant to run your servers; you can even have them accessible from the outside if you know what you're doing.
Really because I'm tired and lazy. Sometimes I think I should really make an effort and discuss with people on the Internet, and sometimes I feel it's mostly useless and a waste of time; there are so many people, and so many basic misconceptions on so many subjects... Has anything that I have ever posted made anyone change his mind or even simply reconsider? Sincerely I doubt it.
However you should really not take what I wrote as insulting; really what I meant is that people who haven't really thought about the question will flock to that simple misconception, exactly because of that: it's simple. The "public" is craving for drugs and the legal obstacles put against access to them are the only things that preserve society from collapse. However this is not reality. First one has to recognize that prohibition doesn't hamper anyone in the slightest to obtain drugs if they want them; drugs are readily available everyday with extreme ease, especially among youngsters. So legalizing drugs would not make them more readily available, because they are already totally available.
The other argument as though legalizing would send the wrong signal to the youth is also unrealistic. On the contrary once drugs are legalized then more responsible people are able to come with reasonable explanations and warnings about drugs, not "OMG it's evil" but reasonable, truthful arguments that youngsters will be able and willing to heed: drugs are enjoyable but dangerous, you need to know the health effects, you need to know the psychological effects, you don't need to be afraid or mesmerized but you need to know there is a danger of dependency and be able to recognize it, and seek help and advice. However as long as the only message that society is able or willing to provide is "don't do it or we'll fuck your like mercilessly" (i.e., throw you in jail) then the young will try it anyway but also they will distrust you (older, more experienced and responsible people) and then be left on their own with it, and with the problems and dangers coming with it.
But above all legalizing drugs would solve the huge problem of violence and crime that are associated with drugs and that are solely the consequence of prohibition, exactly as it was in the 30's with alcohol. Since prohibition has been lifted people have not been drinking more, they might even have been drinking slightly less, or at least less abusively, because without the appeal of taboo it loses quite a bit of appeal with youngsters, it becomes something mundane that doesn't make you feel as much as a "rebel". Sure there will be people abusing drugs, just like there are currently people abusing drugs and alcohol. Prohibition doesn't prevent that. But people will just go on with their lives and maybe the amount of violence and misery that is currently plaguing the USA will start to ease up a bit.
Yeah right. Other peoples doing drugs bother you, so they should stop, right? But mind you, people doing porn, or being homosexual, or practicing a religion, bother me. Should we stop them too, and possibly throw them in jail for that? Other countries do that, so this doesn't sound like a crazy idea. Are you with me for some good scum-cleaning in this country?
That stance is easy and comfortable to keep, which is basically why all politicians and idiots adopt it. However it doesn't stand scrutiny. But to understand that needs to think a bit and see things as they are, not as one wishes them to be.
Slashdot Mirror
They will be caught eventually, and when they are, I sincerely hope something terrible happens to them.
Man you should chill out a bit and keep your anger directed towards Cheney, his banker friends and the likes who actually screw you up the ass, not a bunch of teenagers playing some high-profile pranks.
No, let's pour unlimited amounts of taxpayer's money into nuclear power so we can keep the lights on and infrastructure working without destroying the environment.
No current reactor design / technology seems able to provide that, as Fukushima has amply demonstrated. Pressurized reactors are inherently dangerous because a loss of cooling for whatever reason means a catastrophic failure. So either you base your assertion on the belief that such accidents will never happen again, which boils down to faith in technology, or on the fact that newer reactors without this drawback are around the corner, which boils down to faith in research. Other people might not be so confident.
No, it should be disregarded because such solutions do not exist yet
This applies to your proposition equally if not even more, because in the case of NP people tried, whereas with renewable nobody every really tried. Just compare the current and also cumulative amounts of investments that have been directed into each branch.
Wind and solar lack the energy density and dependability to keep our infrastructure working
This is definitely the crux of the question, I mean everybody agrees that if the energy needs of humanity could be fulfilled using renewable energy alone then the choice would be obvious. Nuclear proponents brush happily that possibility aside as if obviously impossible, however I have yet to see a convincing study showing that. On the contrary I see many studies that seem to imply that we definitely could switch to 100% renewables, however with some non-trivial upgrade of the industrial fabric (energy conservation, optimization, smart grid, energy storage solutions, etc). Not necessarily easy or cheap to do, but also, contrary to what nuclear proponents like to present as an evidence, mostly without genuine research or argumentation, no necessarily much more expensive that the nuclear way. So to me this question still remains to this day an open one - I don't feel the urge to build myself a religion about such a mundane, technical/economical matter.
about things they choose to remain ignorant about
Does this apply to your views on renewable energy? It does definitely look so.
so he picks something to resist as evil - renewable energy, energy conservation, whatever - and calls it a day
FTFY?
Yes that's even better, let's pour unlimited amounts of taxpayers' money into NP so that nuclear apologists can continue playing with their expensive fancy toys. The fact that the public doesn't want that and would prefer this money invested into energy efficiency, energy conservation and renewable energy generation is to be disregarded because basically they're all nothing but bleating luddites joe-six-packs and the enlightened elite is in a better position to tell them what's good for them, amirite?
Go ahead buddy, start your private company and do exactly that. What do you say? That's not exactly the idea? Oh I see, your plan is rather to let the public support the research, development, insurance, risks, waste disposal and decommissioning costs and have your private company make a nice profit on the electricity generation. Well of course, this makes much more sense this way.
Don't blame the hippies or others with no say at all for a lack of new generation plants - blame the bankers and governments.
And blame the end of the cold war arm race, because without the prospect/need to produce large amounts of nuclear weapons, civil nuclear power generation loses most of its appeal and becomes again the very risky, dirty and financially unsound business it truly is.
That's probably because of the amount of misinformation coming from many of the anti-nuclear zealots.
Currently, and especially since the Fukushima disaster, it has appeared to me that most of the disinformation, FUD and blatant lies were on side of the nuclear islamists; I'm thinking of arguments about radioactivity of bananas, nothing wrong coming out of Fukushima, the quake/tsunami being an incredibly rare and unpredictable event, anyone concerned about nuclear contamination being a "luddite", "hippie", "joe-six-pack", "moron", etc, etc. I find this more annoying than simple uninformed fear of layman people because the guys who push that bullshit have the appearance and arrogance of knowledgeable or rational people.
The pro-nuclear argument is that despite this, the alternatives are worse.
No. Everybody agrees that renewable energy is the best thing possible hands off. Nuclear islamists only insist that it is not a viable solution by itself alone (which to me remains an open and important question) and are very eager to provide any argument to defend this credo, however contrived and ridiculous it gets (things about windmills killing birds by the thousands, plumbers falling from the rooftops, solar being incredibly expensive, etc).
The point at issue whether a 100% renewable solution could work, and while it would be wrong to say 'never', I think it is fair to say that with current technology the sums don't add up.
That's exactly what is so irritating with nuclear islamists, they insist that nuclear energy is ok because all of its current very serious issues (fuel, waste, risks, proliferation, etc) are solved by newer designs (LFTR, fast breeders) that do not exist yet in any commercially viable form and that would undoubtedly require huge investments in research, prototypes, trial-and-error, etc, before ever being viable if they ever get there. And then dismiss renewable energy as impractical because the technology "is not there yet" despite the minuscule amounts of money that have been invested into its development compared to anything else. This would be funny if it weren't so sad.
even if you only look at the environmental and/or safety impact then nuclear wins most of the time
It wins all of the time indeed in the minds of its proponents, who insist that they base their convictions on facts and rationality while nuclear skeptics simply follow ignorance and stupidity. But from my point of view it is very obvious that those guys base their beliefs on faith alone, and just like any true believers adapt their belief and discourse to fit reality and work around the contradictions it throws in their way. That was very clear during the development of the Fukushima disaster.
then I suspect that most of the 'pro-nuclear zealots' you refer to would vanish overnight
I very much doubt that.
Pro-nuclear sentiment is very rarely grounded in any form of ideology, other than (as was once famously noted) being 'pro-arithmetic'.
On the very contrary it is so deeply grounded in ideology that the people affected with that condition are not even able to recognize it at all anylonger; it has become more than just an opinion to them, it is their frame of reference now. In that way they are quite similar to islamists indeed, persuaded that they bath in the truth, that anybody who doesn't accept their ideology is inferior somehow (hence "infidels" on one side, "luddites/morons/joe-six-packs" on the other) and are extremely eager to shove their belief down the throat of everybody else for their own good (hence the recent arguments on slashdot about the adequacy to get rid of democracy and replace it with fascism because nuclear power is more important for the masses to have than anything else, despite the fact that they are not able or too stupid to recognize it).
Could you provide some figures about the amount of research investments worldwide/by country into nuclear technologies compared to renewable technologies, currently and cumulated? I'd be genuinely interested.
Are you going to keep on using oil at the rate you're using it now in 40 years from now? In 20 years from now?
What about the other 15 or so that you don't know about because the media didn't make a big deal out of them?
This is why I specified meltdowns in commercial reactors; the other ones were research/military ones I think.
It is estimated that 0.3 million people die annually world-wide from societally-imposed, fossil fuel-based electricity generation pollutants
This essentially points to the sloppiness with which fossil-based electricity generation is currently handled, due to historical reasons; but it could and should be held to security and environmental standards similar to the ones nuclear power is subjected to. Only then would we be able to correctly estimate and compare the environmental and societal impact they have.
And in 2006 revised this number in a new statement. Interesting read about that here.
Unless, of course, you only watch TV when it's windy outside.
Or, of course, unless you devise a way to efficiently store the energy - wouldn't using the batteries of millions of parked electric cars be a suitable option? Just wondering.
The economic costs for solar-base grids, both centralized and decentralized, are roughly equivalent to to nuclear
To me if this is true this is the final argument that we should go with solar power once and for all - it has all the benefits without the drawbacks. Why insist on going to the lesser option?
Responsible nuclear power includes thorium and feeder/breeder reactors that produce manageable waste
and don't exist yet in any commercially viable form, and might not do so sooner than any fusion reactor does.
Solar? Oh I know, it's too expensive. Forget about it.
Ssssh! Don't break their fantasy with your damn arguments! Haven't you heard? If you don't follow the nuclear islamists crowd or feel concerned about the problem of radioactive contamination, you're a laughable idiot, that is all there is to say.
A fuel melt-down might be expected once in 20,000 years of reactor operation
Up to now there has been five meltdowns in commercial reactors in 40 years (TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima 1, 2, 3), how does this add up to once every 20,000 years?
You're either a black hat for two reasons
Maybe they're doing it for the lulz?
the smart grid could turn up the thermostat temperature on hot days
People could also turn to solar air conditioning which basically takes advantage of the fact that the sun shines precisely when you need A/C.
Plus A/C is the prefect example of an application that's perfectly suited to solar energy, since obviously you only need it where there is sun. So even those peaks could be leveled off with some investment in solar energy, which would leave all the more energy available for other applications.
Forget that, who pays for pron anymore?
Forget that, who pays for anything on the Internet anyway?
Interesting read, however in this case just as in the case of DOS boot sector viruses mentioned in another response, the problem stems from the propensity of Microsoft operating systems to automatically execute code on behalf of the user, which makes sense for an end-user systems oriented towards non-technical savvy users but is totally uncalled for in a production environment. Unix doesn't have any such feature, and rightly so; this kind of attack would have been infinitely more difficult, if not impossible to convey on any serious server system. The only justification for running a Windows server is a production environment is really incompetence IMHO.
by jumping aboard USB thumb drives
Which indicates that the systems were running Windows XP which is the only OS out there with the autorun "feature". If you're using a Windows OS to run critical industrial facilities then you really deserve to be hacked and have your facility shut down. This system was never intended to do that.
If you want a secure setup use a decent Unix variant to run your servers; you can even have them accessible from the outside if you know what you're doing.
Really because I'm tired and lazy. Sometimes I think I should really make an effort and discuss with people on the Internet, and sometimes I feel it's mostly useless and a waste of time; there are so many people, and so many basic misconceptions on so many subjects... Has anything that I have ever posted made anyone change his mind or even simply reconsider? Sincerely I doubt it.
However you should really not take what I wrote as insulting; really what I meant is that people who haven't really thought about the question will flock to that simple misconception, exactly because of that: it's simple. The "public" is craving for drugs and the legal obstacles put against access to them are the only things that preserve society from collapse. However this is not reality. First one has to recognize that prohibition doesn't hamper anyone in the slightest to obtain drugs if they want them; drugs are readily available everyday with extreme ease, especially among youngsters. So legalizing drugs would not make them more readily available, because they are already totally available.
The other argument as though legalizing would send the wrong signal to the youth is also unrealistic. On the contrary once drugs are legalized then more responsible people are able to come with reasonable explanations and warnings about drugs, not "OMG it's evil" but reasonable, truthful arguments that youngsters will be able and willing to heed: drugs are enjoyable but dangerous, you need to know the health effects, you need to know the psychological effects, you don't need to be afraid or mesmerized but you need to know there is a danger of dependency and be able to recognize it, and seek help and advice. However as long as the only message that society is able or willing to provide is "don't do it or we'll fuck your like mercilessly" (i.e., throw you in jail) then the young will try it anyway but also they will distrust you (older, more experienced and responsible people) and then be left on their own with it, and with the problems and dangers coming with it.
But above all legalizing drugs would solve the huge problem of violence and crime that are associated with drugs and that are solely the consequence of prohibition, exactly as it was in the 30's with alcohol. Since prohibition has been lifted people have not been drinking more, they might even have been drinking slightly less, or at least less abusively, because without the appeal of taboo it loses quite a bit of appeal with youngsters, it becomes something mundane that doesn't make you feel as much as a "rebel". Sure there will be people abusing drugs, just like there are currently people abusing drugs and alcohol. Prohibition doesn't prevent that. But people will just go on with their lives and maybe the amount of violence and misery that is currently plaguing the USA will start to ease up a bit.
Yeah right. Other peoples doing drugs bother you, so they should stop, right? But mind you, people doing porn, or being homosexual, or practicing a religion, bother me. Should we stop them too, and possibly throw them in jail for that? Other countries do that, so this doesn't sound like a crazy idea. Are you with me for some good scum-cleaning in this country?
That stance is easy and comfortable to keep, which is basically why all politicians and idiots adopt it. However it doesn't stand scrutiny. But to understand that needs to think a bit and see things as they are, not as one wishes them to be.