"I would say my father was referring to fusion energy. I know this because I became my father's eyes and ears as I travelled around the country for him."

So, a nuclear advocate covers for his nuclear advocate father's boneheaded remark pretending that nuclear energy would be cost effective. Or at least that's the assertion of someone named "Blubbaloo" who is the person who created the "too cheap to meter" wikipedia page. It is the only wikipedia entry that "Blubbaloo" has ever seemed to have made. And one that he seems to guard very carefully. And the only person who has ever disputed the meaning of Strauss' statement was his nuclear advocate son.

It's funny that a "physicist" wouldn't be able to understand the concept of externalities.

Here's a little detail from the talk pages of that very interesting wiki artifact:

We should not discount the popular impact of this statement. I added "Newspaper articles at the time..." and I wonder why there is any question about Strauss' meaning. Clearly the New York Times, writing about the Sept. 16 1954 speech, understood that Strauss was referring to the entire atomic energy program. Even if Strauss was misunderstood, he did not take any great pains to clear up the record. User:wkovarik -- Bill Kovarik, March 15, 2011.

A direct copy of the entire speech would clear up most of the questions around the usual (often mangled, as the one included today is) quotes. (Did the NYT reprint the entire speech or just portions?)
Robert Pool, 1997 p.71,[1] quotes this preceding line, often left out: "Transmutation of the elements--unlimited power ... these and a host of other results all in fifteen short years. It is not too much to expect that our children...." etc. There's little question that Strauss was waxing poetic; more to the point: many sources say he was encouraging science writers to promote fission power to these ends. Which completely makes sense considering their need to create more plutonium.
His view was not widely shared; in 1951, General Electric's own C. G. Suits, who was operating the Hanford reactors, said that "At present, atomic power presents an exceptionally costly and inconvenient means of obtaining energy which can be extracted much more economically from conventional fuels.... This is expensive power, not cheap power as the public has been led to believe."[2] Twang (talk) 16:53, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

"many sources say he was encouraging science writers to promote fission power to these ends."

Shills is shills, ya know?

You want to keep spent fuel. It's not really "waste" - the anti-nuclear lobby just likes to call it that to hype up opposition. Current light water reactor designs use only about 5% of the U-235 in the fuel rods, and only about 1% of the total energy extractable from the uranium. That's why spent fuel remains "hot" for so long - the vast majority of the energy it contains is still there, and is emitted over time as radioactive energy as it decays.

So in essence, the "waste" is really fuel containing 100x as much energy as you've already extracted from it. If you send it to a breeder reactor, it can use the "waste" as fuel thus extracting more energy. The "waste" from that process converts it into a form which light water reactors can use again as fuel. You extract a much larger fraction of the energy from the original uranium, and the end product of all this would only remain "hot" for a few centuries instead of dozens of millenia.

"OMG - this solves the nuclear waste problem! Why aren't we doing this?" Unfortunately, breeder reactors create weapons-grade plutonium as a byproduct. That's the only reason we don't do it - it's a purely political reason, not technical. President Carter banned the commercial use of breeder reactors in the U.S. in the interest of non-proliferation (the military still can and does use them).

I won't judge whether Carter made the correct call - that's a political decision. But you can see why you do not want to be selling spent fuel to a country you frequently butt heads with on the geopolitical arena. First, you're selling them cheap energy (that we ourselves choose not to tap for political reasons). Second, you're selling them the means to make more nukes.

government hate.
Seriously. They know they will need something, so they are looking for ideas. They aren't purchasing them, they are looking ahead.
Something the government does rather well, but you knuckle heads can't possible understand that.

Well, the government used to do it very well, now there are fanatics in office that just stop any forward looking planning that doesn't jive with there religious views.

Working on such data is my day job. It is not even close to as easy as you describe often needing 1000s of generations or more, and you end up with something that is antibiotic resistant *on agar*. Your host is not such a simple media.

You might consider a 128gb or 256gb SSD (cheap) paired with an HD.

My main system and all programs take up less than 128gb -- it's my data that takes up TB.

If you want what was there before 1995, then you are still free to provide that.

You mean more than just two ISPs for the entire country?

Actually, you are NOT free to provide that. Not any more.

While I generally agree with you that this judge's order is silly, I don't think it's as cut and dry as you make it out to be. If you base jurisdiction over the data entirely upon where the data is stored, then multi-national corporations will start criss-crossing their data storage. e.g. Data for their European operations gets stored in the U.S. Data for their U.S. operations gets stored in Europe.

If the U.S. government investigates Microsoft demanding they turn over info about their U.S. operations, Microsoft will say sorry, that data is stored in Europe. The U.S. will then have to go through the European legal system to get their hands on their data. Same if Europe asks for data on Microsoft's European operations. Microsoft says it's stored in the U.S. And they have to petition the U.S. government before they can get their hands on the data. The company gets double-protection - in order for a government to subpoena any corporate data, they have to first clear it with their court system, then clear it with the court system of the country where the data is stored. Both countries' courts have to agree to release the data before it actually gets released.

I don't know what the solution is. But it's not as simple as you're making it out to be. The relevance of the data to the country requesting it somehow needs to be taken into account.

I love it. Very easy to route cables, great cooling, and it is shorter than a normal case (wider, but shorter). It is a great, great choice in my opinion.

They handle them fine, detecting when you use hand signals to indicate intentions

So, a driverless car that can't handle rain or snow or recognize a pothole is going to be perfectly safe around pedestrians and bicyclists?

O-kay....

Stop yourself. Nobody reading Slashdot today will live to see ubiquitous driverless cars.

look at another parked car and park next to it?
How do you know where to park?

What he wrote was:
"Our self-driving cars have now traveled nearly 200,000 miles on public highways in California and Nevada, 100 percent safely. They have driven from San Francisco to Los Angeles and around Lake Tahoe, and have even descended crooked Lombard Street in San Francisco. They drive anywhere a car can legally drive."

I like how you left out the fact that, clearly, they didn't need special roads.

" entire highway infrastructure will have to be completely overhauled, at enormous expense, before 'self driving cars' could be a reality"
since they are using them everyday, and taking them on trip in CA, on normal roads, I don't think you are correct.
Of course are road infrastructure could use a few smart changes anyways.

It's trivial to kidnapped some in a car today.

"There's no way they're going to code an 'evasive maneuvers'"
Oh, I see. You think you would be able to do some Die Hard esque driving to get away from kidnappers.

"It is to counter Google's skewed data that make it look like autonomous cars are just around the corner."
Google has never said that. And this guy doesn't have all the data, nor does he know whats in development.

"why come out with a vehicle that has no steering wheel if it is not viable for another 5-10 years (by your estimate)?"
The same reason worlds fair showed tech that will be coming out in 5-10 years. Its' fun, it's cool. It also show they are thinking long term and not quarterly. It also shows a company spending money on RnD.
I consider all of that a good thing.

"Do you ever see a Google press release mention any of these limitations?"
Yes.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com...

" All you hear from Google is a rising tally of miles driven and the fact that there have been no accidents. "
Which is pretty important.

"The fact that the miles are driven on carefully selected, heavily scanned roads under optimal conditions never seems to make it into the reports."
That is the smart way to start, but they are moving past that.

" Driving down the same roads thousands of times is not progress."
Of course it is. Same roads, different traffic. The same rods can have 10's of thousands of changing variables at any given time.
The team members are using them. A team member took one from Google campus to Tahoe on a trip.

Do you lay awake at night just trying to think of ways to hate cool new things?

Google is big.
Google general does good things
So people who make money from hating need to find something, anything to get clicks from google hate.

Well, you start to turn, the next millisecond the car detects something is moving in front of it and slows. Far faster then any current driver.

You are just another object. The fact that you are on a bike getting in everyone's way is irrelevant.