Dictionaries typically have a list of definitions for a word ;-)

transitive verb:
3: to apply the principles of scientific management to (as an industry or its operations) for a desired result (as increased efficiency)

So, you are ripping someone else off...

A ripoff (or rip-off) is a bad financial transaction. Usually it refers to an incident in which a person is overcharged for something, or receives goods or services not of the standard expected for the price." There is no ripoff involved in copying and sharing information.

It depends on whether the particles are accumulating faster than they are leaving the system. If the figures we're talking about represent an equilibrium that will continue indefinitely into the future, surely we are not doomed. But if the concentration of particles is increasing and people need to do something about this before it becomes a problem, we might be.

Eventually something's going to get our species. Either changes in the Sun will make the Earth uninhabitable to anything recognizably human, or we'll do ourselves in before then.

Well, it probably makes no difference to the clean-up, but it does add to the take-away lessons from the disaster. It's an ongoing theme that TEPCO knew less about what was going on at the time than they thought or led us to believe. You have to set that against the overall good news that the failsafe designs of even this relatively primitive reactor mostly contained the accident. The principles of engineering are sound; management, not so much; at least not in a disaster.

Valid points. Can't help but note the same group is out downmodding any comment pointing this out.

sPh

- - - - - but in the US most plant upgrades have been denied permits by the feds because of work done by organizations like [organization parent poster doesn't like] - - - -

Nuclear power plants in the United States with operating licenses undergo a continuous process of upgrade and modification, will continue to do so throughout their operating life, and in some cases continue to receive upgrades after retirement if in safestore mode. Over the last 20 years enormous effort has gone into simplifying and rationalizing the designs of the post-TMI era, standardizing operations, and improving backup systems. A current challenge is replacing the 1960s/70s era control and instrumentation systems which, while rugged and highly reliable, cannot be maintained as there are no longer sources of spare parts, with modern C&I systems. All while avoiding the fragility and instability of COTS electronics.

It is true that the finance world on Wall Street has made it difficult to begin new from-scratch nuclear plants in the US (although a few are currently underway) due to serious doubts about ROI during the financed lifetime, but that's another issue entirely.

sPh

I see this as qualified good news. A power plant had a total meltdown but the world didn't end.

"The situation is far worse then we thought, but is didn't cause an apocalypse. Good news!" Riiiiight.

Maybe we can start to talk about nuclear risk more pragmatically.

Sure. The risk of fusion-as-we-know-it, including the unsolved problems of radioactive waste and weapons proliferation, are so high that, pragmatically, any sane society should abandon it as a dead end and put resources into renewables (including perhaps orbital photovoltaic), efficiency, and research into fusion and accelerator-based "energy amplifier" systems -- i.e., systems with a Big Red Switch you can flip to turn them off. It's only a romanticism with the Big Science of Splitting The Atom, a desire to normalize military nuclear technology, and the incredible profits can be made when the costs are externalized, that keeps the idea alive.

Now, if a group of consumers started a class action suit against Sony for this, I'd imagine their chances of winning would be much better.

Dude. You don't even have to RTFA, just RTFS. "A California man with nothing better to do has launched a class-action lawsuit..."

To make the high for their joy to come out.

...informations to better builds the good!

Bad informations with for the good people so making of the understanding isn't!

It just happens to be denominated in dollars.

You don't seriously think when the Fed decides to add a trillion dollars to the US money supply that they call up the Treasury Department and tell them to fire up the printing presses? There's only about $4000 of physical currency for every US citizen, and a majority of the physical currency is being held overseas.

Most dollars "exist" as part of aggregate numbers sitting in databases. There's no reason to create an elaborate cryptographic algorithm for identifying each individual unit of currency for a centrally controlled money supply. The whole bitcoin thing, the interesting thing about it, is an attempt to create decentralized money.

It's called an airport. Scaled Composites has successfully launched suborbital spacecraft from one.

I think you just answered your own question there. Because not everyone can do it.

Of course, the fact that you did something that anybody can do but almost nobody does can be cool too.

I make stuff all the time. Just the other day I made a belt sheath that holds a pair of kitchen shears and a pair of forceps for when I'm fishing from my canoe. I made the sheath out of duct tape, which took me about five minutes. Anybody could have done it, which I think makes it a cool project. But suppose I'd sewed the sheath out of fish leather that I'd tanned myself. Not anyone could do that, and that would be cool too, but in a different way.

Well maybe Putin's going around cutting everyone's hawsers. That would leave them towing the line.