An even bigger fear is that a nasty storm could cut the plant off from the land-based power supply required to run plant operations. Should emergency generators fail, says David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Chernobyl-like disaster could ensue. In a worst-case scenario, an overheated core could melt through the bottom of the barge and drop into the water, creating a radioactive steam explosion.
IANANP (I am not a nuclear physicist) but I was under the impression that fission chain reactions could always be stopped quickly by simply withdrawing the fuel rods. It seems like it shouldn't be impossible to build a fail-safe system that would stop the reaction if land-based power supplies were cut off.
I'm also confused as to why a land-based power supply is needed at all - isn't the plant producing more energy than it's taking? Why does it need any other power source?
I don't know if they could have known which day would be more populated, but don't kid yourself -- they were certainly intent on killing people, not just wrecking the buildings.
I definitely agree - that's why gaining access to a system that would allow them to know the best times to attack would be a major issue.
Still, knowing that a 7th grade class trip is on the way to the security line could allow them to make their attacks do even more damage (physically and psychologically).
If there actually is a suicide bomber in the airport it will be easier for him to follow just behind the 7th grade class than to walk around with netstumbler and try to hack into a airport-wide RFID positioning system.
My point is that the terrorist is probably unaware of when the largest groups of people will be passing through. I'm not saying that breaking into the system would necessarily be worth the trouble, but the dangers inherent in this real-time database may be enough to outweigh the marginal benefits of this system.
killing people is not the ultimate goal of the terrorists, it sure helps their cause.
What is their cause and where did you learn about it? Fox news might be a slightly biased source.
Um... what? Why would you think that I agree with Fox news? I'm arguing against privacy intrusion. And the goal of the terrorist is, by definition, to cause terror (for whatever reason). So, killing people is not their ultimate goal, but it definitely helps to induce terror if people are being killed in public.
what if a terrorist gains access to the system? They could optimize their detonation to hit the most people by looking at when/where the most people gather.
Duh. Terrorists already do that; that's why they usually blow up airplanes, buses, subways, malls, restaurants etc.
Still, knowing that a 7th grade class trip is on the way to the security line could allow them to make their attacks do even more damage (physically and psychologically). While it's hard to imagine 9/11 being worse than it was, the terrorists could have killed many more people in the towers if they had chosen a day when more people were in the buildings. While I agree with "way2trivial" above that killing people is not the ultimate goal of the terrorists, it sure helps their cause.
And terrorists who just want to kill a bunch of people at the airport can do that easily too - there are enough densely packed queues in airports to easily facilitate mass murder whether the terrorist has a valid passport, ticket, id or RFID or not.
In fact, in this situation the tracking dots could be a liability - what if a terrorist gains access to the system? They could optimize their detonation to hit the most people by looking at when/where the most people gather.
Incredible picture - anyone else play "where's waldo" and try to find the rover? (Hint - look at the original picture to get a rough idea of where on the circle it's located)
And would those savings be passed on to the consumers in the absence of competition?
There would still be competition among game consoles - I think the PS3 would be much more competitive at a lower price. HD movie prices would probably drop as well, since roughly twice as many HD-DVDs could be sold.
I'm currently reading Unweaving the Rainbow, by Richard Dawkins which makes the same argument: Newton "unweaving the rainbow" (understanding its formation) should only increase our poetic sense of wonder.
A possible argument could be - how safe is this? If there is a 1% chance that the blastocyst won't survive, is it still okay (according to those who believe killing embryos is murder)? If there's a 30% chance, is it okay?
I'm not sure if I understand TFA on this point: "The team used embryos created for in vitro fertilisation, allowing them to multiply to eight or ten cells, or blastomeres, before removing one or two. Most of these blastomeres, divided at least once more in the laboratory, and about half produced outgrowths of 50 to 100 cells including some identified as stem cells."
"Most" of the blastomeres survived? Sounds like it's still an issue. Also, half of <i>what</i> produced outgrowths - the blastomeres? That doesn't seem to make sense.
That being said, having "a set of immortal stem cells" unique to a person would be incredible, not to mention the help this would be to stem-cell research in general.
Then don't use the word "Wiki." Call it an Authenticated Collaboration System (ACS), add some access controls and voila! That will be $400 million please...
I'm not sure whether that picture is the scariest thing I've ever seen or the funniest thing I've ever seen. That guy looks like he's about to get his shotgun and head for a Dell executive.
Exactly. While I suppose that Sony plans to "get around" this problem by forcing Blu-ray onto PS3 buyers, it's always a bad sign when your problem is that there's no demand. Both formats are too busy growling at each other to realize that >95% of the population couldn't care less about either format.
I wonder how much cheaper the PS3 would be without Blu-ray? By forcing them to be bundled together, Blu-ray could easily drag the PS3 down with it.
Right - it splits the cost among a large group of people, rather than having one organization pay for supercomputer time. Of course, they could try to fund this through donations, but I think that people are more likely to run a program for SETI than to start sending them checks.
It's not fair to compare each movie that comes out to the "classic" movies - there are thousands of terrible old movies, they just don't get remembered. I think that there are still some excellent movies and shows being produced (United 93, 24, etc.) - these are the ones that people will remember. Good movies have always been surrounded by their era's versions of "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties."
In related news, Congress has outlawed all trips to Africa. It has been decided that the continent is not safe for visitors, since creatures such as "lions" have made large areas of the landmass their hunting ground. "Can we really let our citizens travel to an area with tens of thousands of hungry beasts?" asked Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick. "Think of the children!" In response to criticisms from African tourism agencies, he only replied, "Packs of lions have literally exploded in the last few years. Think about that."
In related news, Congress has outlawed all trips to Africa. It has been decided that the continent is not safe for visitors, since creatures such as "lions" have made large areas of the landmass their hunting ground. "Can we really let our citizens travel to an area with tens of thousands of hungry beasts?" asked Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick. "Think of the children!" In response to criticisms from African tourism agencies, he only replied, "Packs of lions have literally exploded in the last few years. Think about that."
The main problem is that most CEOs nowadays only stay with companies for a limited amount of time. They don't feel like spending money on R&D for projects that may be profitable 5 years from now, since it will hurt their profits and they won't be around to reap the benefits. This is unfortunate, since these decisions are terrible for the company as a whole - this is the perfect opportunity for oil companies to branch out into alternative energy, but the short-term losses make them afraid to innovate.
It seems like everyone is missing the coolest product - the Hover Creeper!. This is cool to begin with (hovering around under cars) but think of the possibilities! To name a few:
Fun:
-Sledding
-Bobsled racing
-Back-to-the-future style hoverboard (though it might have trouble if you're standing up)
Serious:
-Getting across potential landmine areas - yes, you're still pushing against the ground, but your weight is distributed so it would probably be much safer
-The ultimate luggage - forget wheels, have your luggage (or backpack!) float behind you!
Is there a reason no one else is excited about this?
I've gotten involved with the Princeton team that competed in the challenge - the cool thing about Princeton's car was that it relied only on GPS and stereo vision (no expensive lasers). The car didn't finish due to a programming bug, but the team took the car back to the course and was able to complete it after the race was over.
If you're interested in Princeton's approach and how the car performed in both runs, here's a PDF that explains everything.
In general news, DARPA has implied that they are going to announce another challenge soon; all they have said is that it will be "in an urban environment." Should be awesome!
Slashdot Mirror
I'm also confused as to why a land-based power supply is needed at all - isn't the plant producing more energy than it's taking? Why does it need any other power source?
I definitely agree - that's why gaining access to a system that would allow them to know the best times to attack would be a major issue.
Um... what? Why would you think that I agree with Fox news? I'm arguing against privacy intrusion. And the goal of the terrorist is, by definition, to cause terror (for whatever reason). So, killing people is not their ultimate goal, but it definitely helps to induce terror if people are being killed in public.
Still, knowing that a 7th grade class trip is on the way to the security line could allow them to make their attacks do even more damage (physically and psychologically). While it's hard to imagine 9/11 being worse than it was, the terrorists could have killed many more people in the towers if they had chosen a day when more people were in the buildings. While I agree with "way2trivial" above that killing people is not the ultimate goal of the terrorists, it sure helps their cause.
And terrorists who just want to kill a bunch of people at the airport can do that easily too - there are enough densely packed queues in airports to easily facilitate mass murder whether the terrorist has a valid passport, ticket, id or RFID or not.
In fact, in this situation the tracking dots could be a liability - what if a terrorist gains access to the system? They could optimize their detonation to hit the most people by looking at when/where the most people gather.
Incredible picture - anyone else play "where's waldo" and try to find the rover? (Hint - look at the original picture to get a rough idea of where on the circle it's located)
And would those savings be passed on to the consumers in the absence of competition?
There would still be competition among game consoles - I think the PS3 would be much more competitive at a lower price. HD movie prices would probably drop as well, since roughly twice as many HD-DVDs could be sold.
"Sir, the hard drives are registering a Tsunami!"
"No, no... thats just Windows Vista being released."
I'm currently reading Unweaving the Rainbow, by Richard Dawkins which makes the same argument: Newton "unweaving the rainbow" (understanding its formation) should only increase our poetic sense of wonder.
A possible argument could be - how safe is this? If there is a 1% chance that the blastocyst won't survive, is it still okay (according to those who believe killing embryos is murder)? If there's a 30% chance, is it okay?
I'm not sure if I understand TFA on this point: "The team used embryos created for in vitro fertilisation, allowing them to multiply to eight or ten cells, or blastomeres, before removing one or two.
Most of these blastomeres, divided at least once more in the laboratory, and about half produced outgrowths of 50 to 100 cells including some identified as stem cells."
"Most" of the blastomeres survived? Sounds like it's still an issue. Also, half of <i>what</i> produced outgrowths - the blastomeres? That doesn't seem to make sense.
That being said, having "a set of immortal stem cells" unique to a person would be incredible, not to mention the help this would be to stem-cell research in general.
Then don't use the word "Wiki." Call it an Authenticated Collaboration System (ACS), add some access controls and voila! That will be $400 million please...
I just finished A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein. Though the material is a little dense for those without a background in science and philosophy, I thought the book was great. Kurt Godel never made it on the "usual suspects" list, for some reason, but was one of the most important philosophers/logicians of the last century (wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del)
Personally I like this link much better: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/technology/15bat tery.html?ex=1313294400&en=af57f2af347e0f52&ei=508 8&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
I'm not sure whether that picture is the scariest thing I've ever seen or the funniest thing I've ever seen. That guy looks like he's about to get his shotgun and head for a Dell executive.
Exactly. While I suppose that Sony plans to "get around" this problem by forcing Blu-ray onto PS3 buyers, it's always a bad sign when your problem is that there's no demand. Both formats are too busy growling at each other to realize that >95% of the population couldn't care less about either format. I wonder how much cheaper the PS3 would be without Blu-ray? By forcing them to be bundled together, Blu-ray could easily drag the PS3 down with it.
Right - it splits the cost among a large group of people, rather than having one organization pay for supercomputer time. Of course, they could try to fund this through donations, but I think that people are more likely to run a program for SETI than to start sending them checks.
It's not fair to compare each movie that comes out to the "classic" movies - there are thousands of terrible old movies, they just don't get remembered. I think that there are still some excellent movies and shows being produced (United 93, 24, etc.) - these are the ones that people will remember. Good movies have always been surrounded by their era's versions of "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties."
In related news, Congress has outlawed all trips to Africa. It has been decided that the continent is not safe for visitors, since creatures such as "lions" have made large areas of the landmass their hunting ground. "Can we really let our citizens travel to an area with tens of thousands of hungry beasts?" asked Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick. "Think of the children!" In response to criticisms from African tourism agencies, he only replied, "Packs of lions have literally exploded in the last few years. Think about that."
In related news, Congress has outlawed all trips to Africa. It has been decided that the continent is not safe for visitors, since creatures such as "lions" have made large areas of the landmass their hunting ground. "Can we really let our citizens travel to an area with tens of thousands of hungry beasts?" asked Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick. "Think of the children!" In response to criticisms from African tourism agencies, he only replied, "Packs of lions have literally exploded in the last few years. Think about that."
The main problem is that most CEOs nowadays only stay with companies for a limited amount of time. They don't feel like spending money on R&D for projects that may be profitable 5 years from now, since it will hurt their profits and they won't be around to reap the benefits. This is unfortunate, since these decisions are terrible for the company as a whole - this is the perfect opportunity for oil companies to branch out into alternative energy, but the short-term losses make them afraid to innovate.
It seems like everyone is missing the coolest product - the Hover Creeper!. This is cool to begin with (hovering around under cars) but think of the possibilities! To name a few:
Fun:
-Sledding
-Bobsled racing
-Back-to-the-future style hoverboard (though it might have trouble if you're standing up)
Serious:
-Getting across potential landmine areas - yes, you're still pushing against the ground, but your weight is distributed so it would probably be much safer
-The ultimate luggage - forget wheels, have your luggage (or backpack!) float behind you!
Is there a reason no one else is excited about this?
I've gotten involved with the Princeton team that competed in the challenge - the cool thing about Princeton's car was that it relied only on GPS and stereo vision (no expensive lasers). The car didn't finish due to a programming bug, but the team took the car back to the course and was able to complete it after the race was over. If you're interested in Princeton's approach and how the car performed in both runs, here's a PDF that explains everything. In general news, DARPA has implied that they are going to announce another challenge soon; all they have said is that it will be "in an urban environment." Should be awesome!