your unwillingness to
read Ogg words make Ogg sad
Ogg sorry
maybe you read more in next life
when we are both cats

cite "I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the million ages to come, I will never breathe, or laugh, or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment..."

HELLO?
Could you please take that thing off?
There is a dreary urban landscape to explore.

You know that door opening on to the empty lot, the one that someone painted too thickly, large flakes shedding from the rotting wood? A tiny spider has laid eggs there, they will hatch in a couple weeks. The chain link fence to the South has one link untwisted on the bottom. What could have done that? In your bathroom cabinet under the sink there is a hole where the drain goes into the wall. If you shine a flashlight there you just might glimpse something. Once in a great while a white cockroach is born. How many have you seen? Where would you look? One of the buildings in town has a really incredible basement. Subterranean parking garages typically contain strange crawlspaces. At the bottom of every elevator shaft is a pit where lost items have fallen. There is nothing as exciting and terrifying as a rotten wooden ladder on the roof of a tall building, which (shakily) allows one to climb to its most dramatic and amazing place, where one can sit and dangle the legs over empty space. Where is a largest storm drain, that one can walk into the gloom with a flashlight? Some empty lots in tornado country have storm cellars. One of them is waiting for you to discover the hatch. Do you know where that creek goes? How far could you follow it? Set out right now. Bring a change of clothes, water and snacks and bus fare. That empty lot with the discarded furniture, old tires and lumber is so haphazardly arranged. If someone were to re-arrange the items so that they would touch one another and form a labyrinth, children would find it and walking through. Somewhere next to the railroad track there are discarded metal spikes and the green glass insulators that once suspended telegraph wires. If you spotted your town's wooded areas in Google Earth you might discover a clearing where there is the old foundation of a building. Perhaps it has a basement. Head for that power pylon, the one where massive cable or chain is suspended high above the ground carrying hundreds of thousands of volts. Follow it. Every now and then you will come to a spot that buzzes. Can you hear the variations in power load drawn into distant cities? Somewhere nearby is a tower with a climbable ladder. Somewhere nearby is a small wooded area where people dump old appliances. With a pliers, a cutter and a couple of screwdrivers you could fill a bag with interesting things, that you might some day fit together in a surprising way. Start out in a park or off to one side of town. Now close your eyes and listen until you hear something interesting. Open your eyes and head in the direction of the sound. Discover what it is. Now listen for another. At the end of four hours, where have you traveled to? I had the great fortune to discover one day, while I was out walking, a large steel door leading into the side of a hill. It was slightly open and led into the gloom of a a tunnel with a side tunnel, two other entrances, ladders and hatches. I hope you will find one too some day but you best start looking. Near the ruins of old houses you can spot where there were tended gardens. What might still be growing there? That creek has a spot where water tumbles over something and falls a few feet. Scrounge around to find bits and pieces that harness the power of the water to make a little sculpture that moves or spins. Every few days, bring something else there to add to it. Many buildings in your town have fallout shelters from the 50s and 60s. Somewhere in one of them you'll find the remains of a Civil Defense stockpile, or at the very least, a rusty sign with the radiation symbol that states the number of persons the shelter could accommodate. There is an old junkyard nearby that only an elderly person could point you to. This person is sitting on a porch or watching television at a old folks' home somewhere, where they wait for their family to call. You, a perfect stranger, are about to introduce yourself and invite them to speak of interesting places and things they did as a child. From that meeting you will learn of at least one special place you would never have found otherwise. And your voyage will lead you to another elderly person. Perhaps there were steam tunnels. There is a perfect place to string a zip line to fly over something. Every old attic has at least one overlooked corner where there is a small metal box. Just about any old mechanical clock made of brass can be cleaned until its gears work again. Maybe there is an old utility or industrial plant somewhere. That strange little side road that leads into the bushes, why was it built and where did it lead? How small of an area does it take to become completely lost? It takes a bit of effort, you must stand where no landmarks can be seen and spin yourself around until you're dizzy. Then for a brief moment try to experience the feeling of not knowing the way home. What if that feeling persisted for hours, days, years? Find an ocean, lake or sewage settling pond and systematically examine its boundary and shore. What things have floated to the edge? Are there the remains of machinery or buildings obscured by bushes and sand? Some where nearby a shipment of construction sand included a fascinating assortment of small shells and smooth stones. By the sides of highways you will find, if you examine carefully, small bits of glass of many colors. How would it look if it were collected into one pile? Some one left a pile of sand somewhere, and with a small bag of mortar to mix sparingly with it and some water, you could build a sand castle with bits of wood as drawbridges and tiny winding roads that would last for a long time. Somewhere in the bushes the telephone company discarded a section of 200-pair copper telephone wire, you remember seeing a cross-section of an end. You must find it again, for Inside the cable is a rainbow of colored wires. Something incredible could be woven from them. There may be trolls under bridges, you cannot disprove their existence unless you check every one. Some where there is a place with a pile of long slats or metal corner stock next to a high retaining wall that would make a most excellent marble run, one with lots of speed and direction changes that would take a marble a whole minute to complete. A pile of bricks that one could lay out on the ground to form a small but intricately fascinating maze. Sort that pile of gravel by color. Collect enough uniquely shaped stones to build a chess set, meticulously stain a flat rock with mud in little squares and spend an afternoon playing 'caveman chess'. Dress the part. Camp overnight in various places, some natural and some so urban you have to look out for the cops. Arrange reeds or small sticks lashed together to create a 3-dimensional maze and set beetles and other insects to navigate it. Systematically examine the cracks between sidewalks with sharp metal tools, and see what has collected there. What is under that thing, behind that other thing? Find the abandoned shells of vehicles and see if there are any personal items with names and photographs left in trunk or under-seat spaces, imagine yourself an anthropologist finding them and try to imagine what kind of life they lived. Find somewhere where mushrooms grow. Somewhere with a great echo, stairwells and storm drains are good spots. Bring a little flute or other instrument. Place an object in the wilderness and bring enough rags and spray cleaner to clean its surface after it is set in a clearing, then with permanent markers write a story upon it. The more people writing the better. Try to fill every visible surface of the object with words. Go through your town or city arranging loose things into a particular shape, or assembling totems in human form.

Or just sit there.

Oh yeah ENCRYPTION that's the ticket! It's the answer because... we think encryption is cool and we like to talk about it. The extra cycles and massive overhead of it fit so well into our every day lifestyle, social conventions and habits already, it will be easy as butter to bread.

Whenever the subject turns to Civil Liberties, privacy and especially Freedom of Association, and I hear CRITTERS MADE OF FUCKING MEAT flapping and squealing and wheezing about encryption being a solution, I wonder, have they really given it enough thought.

It's a like-like-like dere's dese nano-supercharged characters in some Neal Stephenson saga who have fantastic reconfigurable polymers and nanotech-grit embedded in their pores, and the raise of an eyebrow and nod of the head precipitates a public key exchange Then the gents' throat sacs become engorged with a fluid ring of octave-resonant modulators, and the cilia in their ears pulls apart and twists like some virtual Enigma Machine plugboard to bring into place a Session Key and the two gentlemen begin to converse in a series of chirp-noisy warbles... And WHAM! The bus squashes the stupid ugly toad-people who have deliberately re-configured their biology because long ago someone took Slashdot by storm with the idea that HIDING BEHIND ENCRYPTION is the answer for everything and these poor bloated idiots whose senses are reconfigured for their Clear Private Channel cannot even resolve the world around them. "Oh but that's solvable, so simple!" We cry. "There needs to be a third device in the loop that also receives a copy of the session key. It is a device attached to their ear-pods with a quantum Monster Cable, and it scans ambient sounds and injects encrypted packets into the private stream so the toad-gentlemen can perceive plain text sense data such as traffic noise as they converse!" Too bad it relies on a Malaysian chip that contains an NSA backdoor... "Oh but that's solvable, so simple... we just use THREE of them and turn one upside-sown like 3DES..."

But I don't know how those weird toad-people snuck into my message in the first place. Oh yeah, now I remember. THAT is how all this "normal" chatter around here about hiding behind encryption and Who Cares Anyway I Have No Secrets Ha Ha stuff sounds to me. Like a small pond full of croaky toad people.

This is serious shit that can be resolved in yours-mine-our time.
But it has to get CREATIVE and a little BIZARRE.
Because such things are the only way to cut through the noise.
Once again you see a story about NSA ending "telephone records collection program"
When they don't NEED the record collection program.
They have backbone taps. They want to keep those taps.
So they want YOU and CONGRESS to talk about telephone record metadata instead.
They want to control the discussion.
People have to press Congress and the Press to de-fund and dismantle FULL-TAPS and UTAH.
And if they try to change the subject, people have to jump upand shout,
"If you cannot address the real issue, you're an UGLY FUCKING TOAD!"
This has to happen in a National press conference, on billboards, on T-shirts.
It really will be THAT HARD to get the subject on track.

For the part of my point that actually makes sense, please see this previous Slashdot post.

"The WOPR spends all of its time thinking about [Turing Tests]. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it plays an endless series of [Turing test 'games'], using all available information on the state of [human sentience]. It has already proved the existence of [machine intelligence] as a game, time and time again. It estimates human and machine responses to our test responses to their responses, and so on. Estimates probabilities, tallies the score, and it looks for ways to ---"

"The point is, key decisions of every available option in determining [the presence of Artificial Intelligence] have already been made by the WOPR."

"So what you're really telling me is all this trillion dollar hardware is really at the mercy of those men with the little brass keys...?"

"That's exactly right. Whose only problem is that they are human beings. In 30 days, we could upgrade the Turing Test scoring process with electronic relays. Get the men out of the loop."

Which... as it would seem... we might all welcome, I for one.

And then, 150,000 years later...

Yeah, lack of even simple chemical analysis -- let alone spectral at this point in time. It's disturbing. I've been tracking this odd phenomenon, I even had a Slashdot submission typed up about it. No, not about the cloud/substance itself, about the reaction.

We seem to be a whole country filled with cell phone cameras, social media sharers, windshield wipers, action news reporters, meteorologists running computer models. Our news sources (correctly) posit that it is likely volcanic ash, and the comments on the news stories are peppered with the usual shallow pond tripe about chemtrails, Fukushima crap. And a news item here and there ends with some expert musing obviously, "without a chemical analysis it's difficult to tell..."

Every one is seeming to allude to a a series of samples collected and sent to a lab by the Weather Service. We're not curious enough to go out and get the stuff ourselves, that's the job of experts. We're all waiting --- not for more information, such as preliminary results of base composition... nope, we will wait for the source to be scientifically determined beyond doubt, at which point a press conference will be held.

Here is an interesting mystery that has dropped right into our lap. How many chem labs are in the affected area? How many undergrad students, Universities laboratories? How many mass spectrometers?

It's like the Dog That Didn't Bark. Blah blah blah, no actual boots on the ground analysis. News blah, wait for expert results blah.

In a world with more technical capability than ever before,
less than ever was actually attempted.

Could be fallout from a Transit Cloud
Or residue from a Brain Cloud

"You have some time left. You have some life left.
My advice to you is, live it well."

"...and the wolf will shack up with the lamb, the leopard will go down on the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, in the climacticus, calamitous tumult of the wicked Anthropocene, and acne, AIDS, poppy/opium genocide, elder death, the end of Africa, hostile weed takeovers, airplane crashes, more Al Qaeda/Taliban, allergies, alligator migration and sex-ratio disruption, anxiety, asteroid strikes, jellyfish attacks, worse beer, brain shrinkage, brothel shortages, return of the black plague, cannibalism, cataracts, cat love, reduction in circumcisions, cougar attacks, thin and healthy rich people, gingerbread house apocalypse, end of golf, no more outdoor ice hockey, no more pasta, maple syrup shortages, pirates, rapes, redhead extinction, sea snot, sexual dysfunction, pug and other short-nosed animals' extinction, new shrimp sex patterns ever weirder than before, giant spiders, alarmingly small spiders, murders, fewer truffles, UFO sightings, noisier oceans, violin extinction, drop in GDP..."

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE

Pressed for time this morning... but may I suggest a commentary and analysis of the failure modes of Fukushima reactors and fuel pool#4?

Fukushima âoeMelt Throughsâ: Fact or Fiction?
Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool
Fukushima Fear Uncertainty and Doubt

The torus is a known weak point in any boiling reactor design. Triple-redundancy is our best approach right now. High pressure operation, what can you do?

Truth is, I never set out to 'defend' light water reactors at all. I got into this to push for a renaissance of molten salt designs. But seeing the level of hysteria and outright disinformation out there, I find myself compelled to speak out on behalf of those who have made this dangerous practice of mixing uranium and water routine and as safe as it can possibly be.

Some inspection at Fukushima has been carried by endoscopy and is still incomplete, but conditions observed do not appear to support full meltdown and especially melt-through. And about pool #4 catching fire... and #3's 'prompt criticality' ... those are straight from the Arne Gundersen playbook, which is a muddle of quotes and speculations, confused tenses and intentional failure to communicate whether he is fronting a speculation or citing observed fact, and a smarmy, deliberate dishonesty with which he holds on to those theories as contrary evidence becomes available. He misleads people. Gundersen's apocalyptic poop may litter the Internet forever, but it is hoped that his meal ticket as a doom-lecturer will be cancelled.

Because when the Global Governance folk roll into town you have to lock up your daughters, stop issuing parking tickets (they won't pay 'em anyway) and create an entirely new layer of quasi-government to 'interface' and 'negotiate' with them. Ultimately this leads to some time-wasting end that will benefit them more than it does you, *if* you are convinced what you're doing is sound.

The way we have operated nuclear plants in the US is sound. The safety record shows it, and the gigawatt-years of reliable power underscore that success. I believe that as a layman who has researched the topic I am more objective saying this than even the most experienced plant operator... because I am looking from a grand perspective of history, while their own safety culture imposes a certain vulnerability on them, it discourages them from making self-serving statements, even if true. A humility that keeps them from standing up to say "Enough is enough!"

Nuclear energy, as we have done it, has proven to be the most promising and most sustainable --- to use the proper definition of the word --- way to ensure the continuance of modern life.

But there will always be those who try to convince you that another layer of governance is good for you. So when Switzerland proposes that "making the principle of "avoiding off-site contamination" legally binding in the Convention would be a vital step towards improved global nuclear safety. ..." the rational human response is What the fuck.

As in... what the fuck, do these people believe off-site contamination is like a drunk running a stop sign? That keeping Earth safe from contamination is for lack of some simple rule?

As in... what the fuck does 'legally binding' mean in this context? Again, a governance organization arrogantly asserts that there is some evil malfeasance let loose in a lawless world, for lack of something that would be 'legally binding'. Here they come to save the day. What form would a legally binding punishment be, if a signatory is unfortunate to suffer a disaster that spreads a discernible count of radiation across the border? A preemptive strike? Sanctions? Regime change? I'm sure all of this will be discussed at the next meeting.

Don't get me wrong. The IAEA has done some excellent work. Not all international conventions are trite and insulting. To render assistance in a disaster, responsibly notify one's neighbors, agree on safe handling practices, and even address liability in our litigious world, are worth things to agree on.

They want to give this nebulous diplomatic instrument teeth with the stroke of the pen. It has not earned them. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has teeth. It has earned them. It is also a very specific and useful framework tailored to our task at hand.

Now if the Swiss had said, "Be sure you have some form of containment at all" (Chernobyl) or "don't put all your generators in the basement" (Fukushima), you could sink your teeth into that. Such may be the way "things are done". But I would propose that for the most part in real life, things are done by rules of common sense anyway. Has anyone ever asked a plant operator if safety interferes with their bottom line?

Sorry to vent so, thanks for your comment. Also thanks to mdsolar for bringing to our attention evidence that nuclear energy is in a total shambles and the US is once again disappointing the world by acting in its own self-interest.

The Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) is a treaty-ish pile of broad and anti-specific foofy diplo-language. Its purpose is not to share or agree on a single iota of practical knowledge, though over time a tiny bit might creep into it. It exists to permit and encourage the ratification of itself by as many parties as possible, and in this, it is like those "bad luck if you do not forward me" chain letters.

The Swiss proposal said in effect, stop all the music and implement every feature ever conceived to make new plant designs safer, to every existing plant. Somehow. Even if it is redundant and absurd. The whole kitchen sink. They cannot be bothered with specifics, that is not the game being played. Signing on to every broad recommendation would be a direct insult to our own NRC, which does not dabble in such diplomatic newspeak, preferring to assess actual risk, look at each site, mandate practical and specific engineering guidelines, evaluate what has been done.

See INFCIRC/449 and Add.2 and Add.3 and Add.4 and Swiss Amendment.

This stuff was written by people from another planet. It was probably leaked from Planet X which is orbiting with the Earth directly behind the Sun. Planet X is just like ours only its United Nations truly runs everything. That is why they send UFOs to abduct an engineer every now and then, to keep their shit from falling apart. Then we send one of our own (out of Hangar 19) to bring 'em back. Maybe we got the wrong one back, one of their 'senior diplomats' instead.

In it you will find some vague things that sound like good ideas. You're supposed to imagine that this is a world where people do not apply common sense unless they are acting directly on the recommendations of a multi-national NGO.

The compromise statement now says basically, "New nuclear power plants should be designed and constructed with the objective of preventing accidents, and minimizing off-site contamination in case of accidents. Reasonably achievable safety improvements identified at existing plants during... safety assessments should be oriented to these objectives and be implemented in a timely manner."

Engineers should not be afraid to stand up and express their anger when they are insulted. This is an insult. We lose an essential part of our human self-respect and tenacity when insults like this go unanswered. Governance of the world should not be bestowed upon folks who cannot be bothered to delve into detail. Regardless, some people will be comforted by the mere presence of the CNS, they're the people who distrust corporations and their own government, to find solace in the flowery language of international diplomacy even though there is little substance in it.

Basically, this organization-thing was spawned in 1994 and went to sleep. Fukushima woke it up, and they've been running in little circles ever since to come up with a timely response. The response has finally arrived and is on the table in early 2015. This is the kind of time frame you can expect if you pursue world governance.

Meanwhile, the United States Nuclear Power industry and its associated regulatory body NRC hit the ground running in 2011, assessing the disaster and lessons learned from Fukushima. If you are expecting me to elaborate on them and think there is something to be learned from every earthly experience you will be disappointed.

We learned NOTHING from Fukushima.
Because there was nothing to learn.
It was a STUPID FAIL that had nothing to do with nuclear energy.
Batteries worked, generators did not.
We know better. We do not build that way.
Because we are not stupid.

___
"Oh dear! We're late!" Down the nuclear rabbit hole.

What I'm hoping for is some form of pulse-charging track built into roadways, so that electric vehicles could maintain charge while traveling and even arrive at their destinations with a surplus of energy.

But when it comes to practical transportation liquid fuel reigns supreme today. Ammonia has been proposed as an alternative for vehicle fuel, though it has its problems, such as being only half the energy density of gasoline. And it would be stinky and hazardous in a new way. But it does provide liquid fuel while taking carbon out of the equation altogether. Elemental hydrogen is really dangerous but some form of solid encapsulation to ensure its slow release would help.

Barring some Jetsons miracle invention, I think the eventual winner for cars and airplanes as oil and gas runs out might be the very same gasoline and jet fuel. All you would need is an economical and massive source of heat or neutrons to separate hydrogen from water, to be bound with carbon to make our own 'fossil' fuel, as nature does. If you sequester that carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere you at least achieve break-even what it burns.

But that sequestration process to extract carbon from the thin atmospheric ~0.04% carbon dioxide would itself be a massive endeavor requiring additional energy. Would you run this Dr. Seuss Carbon-Gallomper with its giant sucking mechanical lungs for an hour to get a lump of carbon... or when no one is looking, feed trees and grass into it and get a dozen lumps a minute? Or sneak into a coal mine for a hundred? In the end the best way is to electrify transportation to the greatest extent possible, and pursue a sequestration strategy that operates independently of the fuel producers --- making use of plants and farmed algae as well as direct feats of applied chemical engineering.

Some calculations showing actual energy/thermal output of some ~2.5Gwt for a year from tonne of Thorium. This is an amazing, unprecedented amount of carbon-neutral energy for a fuel source that is present on every continent, and can be mined with a very small footprint.

We deserve the chance to discover what we could accomplish with such a win-win energy source. So many environmental 'solutions' come down to (you first) conservation or outright malicious sabotage of modern lifestyle. I want no fewer options for my own children than I have, and a whole lot more.

Got to go work on the blueprints for the Dr. Seuss Carbon-Gallomper. Because there really ought to be such a thing.

___
"Oh dear! We're late!" Down the nuclear rabbit hole we go.

That is like saying we'll never get beyond the nuclear bronze age (thermal spectrum). We already have, fast breeders can output enriched product even from low-yield inputs like depleted uranium, though the reactor is expensive and dangerous and fun to operate, like a fine sports car.

But the GP poster was obviously referring not to depleted uranium, but spent irradiated fuel stockpiled from conventional reactors which contains significant amounts of unburned fissile. You probably knew that but forgot to point it out. Glad to be of assistance. Aside from re-enrichment, fuel-diverse Thorium breeders or even burners could use fission reactor waste 'as-is'.

Short answer: Shoddy thinking, broken promises and irrational fear.

Longer answer: a brief history of nuclear fear in the United States

___
Please see Thorium Remix and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

Aside from a timeless Summer, there is also the every-day time. You're not going to achieve the proper effect unless, during the evening time when they are supposed to be doing homework, you are nearby and are also reading a book.

Abridged history of the Great Distraction.

1. parents reading or knitting, kids have nothing but homework in front of them (until it is done)
2. family gathers around the radio, kids manage to multitask just enough to complete homework
3. early television, all watch a favorite TV show then it is turned off, followed by silent book and homework time
[... several years omitted ...]
10. Television in every room blaring age-targeted drivel. Parents drooling in front of television glancing at Facebook shouting something about homework. Kids in another room with TV, radio and cell phone beeping constant SMS messages from local friends, rolling chats and web pages with countless worldwide near-acquaintances recommending youtube videos, endless Buzzfeed and Tweety scrolls.

The Distraction Ends.

"We were all excited when the package arrived. Daddy opened it slowly as we put down our screens and watched. 'It was recommended by someone on Facebook... I don't remember friending him, but he saw me post about the problems we've been having with sleep and schoolwork... said this is the first step towards a solution.' It was a large heavy metal box with a single red button. We looked at it for a moment and as I reached for the button Daddy grabbed my arm and said 'hold on...' and rooted through the wrapping but all he found was a small sheet of paper written in some strange script. Chinese, Korean, Tagalog...? 'Well, that doesn't help.' so with a shrug he nodded and let me press the button. There was a loud hum, the lights dimmed and went out and the little screens in our hands threw sparks with a loud Snap!. We shrieked, then a silence set in. We could hear the neighbors talking and shouting, doors down the block opening. Mom stepped toward the front door carefully, feeling for it in the dark. As she opened it and stepped outside I remember clearly her shape superimposed on the night sky."

"Then she said softly, 'Look... at all those stars!'."

We lost our memories.
Now we need to make new ones.

Bulbous-eyed fellow, throat sac a-billow,
sweet voice melodic as the pip-squeaks
of sneakers at an NBA playoff,
what is your secret, your purpose?
I am unable to fathom you by light
scattered as if by Cupid's arrows
that never found the mark.

By photonic lance I have found thee
as in the manner of mine own kind, ever
tossing a mess of things at other things
to see what bounces back.
I am surrounded by light.
Why am I blind??

But perhaps this tuned möbius laser
will do the trick.

By use of this special lens...
we see that the frog is quite handsome...!
Plaid waistcoat and chain fob
handkerchief at the ready, Oxfords and scarf,
setting aside a walking stick of oak,
with a doff of his derby, he stoops and squats
to fertilize a clutch of eggs left by his beloved,
in gentle seminal rain.
All in all, a most proper gentleman.

Now I will set my möbius laser skyward
to illuminate Mars! Where it will resolve the illusion
of dry valleys and magnificent desolation
into a cheerful reality of watery canals,
tall spires of intelligent, unknown purpose,
and one can even see the ripples
spreading outward from the poles and oars
of longboats and trailing garlands of flowers.

I was blind,
but now I see.

You're placing a guaranteed positive outcome for the human race over any number of imaginings of potentially negative outcomes.

Congratulations.

When Diadema Antillarum , commonly known as the Caribbean God Damned Motherfucking Black Sea Urchin, began to die off in the 80s from an unknown cause... we're talking ~97% mortality... we knew we were in deep shit. Any day the World Wildlife Fund would issue a press release and lobby regional governments to cease all human activity. The Greenpeace ship would arrive and putt-putt around harassing fishermen, charter boats or anything that did not resemble a sea urchin or baby seal. There would be impassioned speeches at the UN to tie urchin preservation with environmental sustainability so they could use financial aid as a blunt instrument to conk small nation-states over the head.

What a relief. None of this happened.

Certainly the young girl who stepped on one and screamed, and her father who ran into the water to help her and wound up with dozens of spines in his feet and legs (which break off leaving the tips in the body), hospitalized with sepsis, they didn't object. The only creature that might have spoken up, Balistes Vetula , commonly known as Ole Wife --- whose pouty lips are perfectly suited to this spine-plucking lip smacking treat --- was too busy dining on shrimp and crabs to feel threatened. The urchins have come back but not in obscene numbers as before.

So not all die-offs are bad. Send those Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes home to Jesus.

My inner nerd wholly agrees with you.

My outer nerd thinks orbital base load energy would be a single point of failure, and the entity that provides it would become the de-facto world government. Better to build autonomous terrestrial plants in sovereign countries fueled by an element present on every continent.

And yes, I have even more layers of nerd underneath. It's nerd all the way down.