Until the general population is prepared to lobby their congress critters in government they will never exert any real power.

I think many peoples ideas about democracy now don't extend beyond which party to vote for, if they even vote. Perhaps if more people actually cared enough to lobby about bills that are being introduced, to be put into law, then the situation may be different. Those who do, are running things and cementing their interests. They certainly don't miss the opportunity to lobby.

Even Franklin spoke to the flaws in the American Constitution that would not save America from despotism when it was being passed. The only question now is whether the American people are too afraid of their own government to actually effect change in the country anymore, and Franklins fears have manifested.

Corruption is the cancer that eats away at the body of democracy, it's institutions like failing organs, until the host dies.

Precisely. Will I be paid for the weekends and evening I don't have with my family, friends or activites and will they. What about when they fly employees over weekends and expect them to be fresh and shiney Monday morning after being stuck in aircraft and airports over the weekend.

It's a fucking tax deduction anyway, fly me business class and I may have a hope of being productive on Monday and the rest of the week. It's false economy to spend the money to send someone around the world just to have them to exhausted to do anything when they get there.

Such a gathering would be illegal anyway and I would have to report you lest I would be liable for similar penalties. You also have a pleasant day citizen!

More people wearing head coverings like in Star Wars.

Personally I'm thinking of exercising my rights, as a western white male, to dress as a muslim woman and don a Burqa.

Soon this will be the rule for walking around the street, great news for botox fans. No smiling, look straight ahead, head down, eyes down and enjoy your freedom.

Have a nice day!

If you don't like what the product does, just don't buy them.

That's the point. While you are busy attending to the debt left to you by the previous generation, you aren't concerned with matters of democracy to lobby against things like this.

The same way our generation was left a carbon legacy all I see is the selfish thinking of the baby boomer generation wanting cheap electricity until they die and forcing the costs onto the X, Y generation and those that come after that. These costs will be realized by these generations in terms of infrastructure to handle all of the problems that have been offset to be dealt with "sometime in the future".

This "Not in My Generation" thinking has to end. In these years now we have the energy and expertise to create technological solutions however the entrenched status quo has the same capacity to mold opinions into complacency as it does for solving these problems permanently. Molding opinions though, is much cheaper.

Nuclear and carbon capture in their current forms are only stopgap measure to a more permanent solutions. Carbon capture looks like a dead technology that will only serve to delay facing the issue of carbons a means to just keep using coal.

Nuclear looks more promising, but requires a more serious attitude to deal with the sobering danger the impact of its failures present. Infrastructure to deal with spent fuel containment, reactor decommissioning, reactor design, enrichment and, especially, infrastructure to move the existing fuel all have to be dealt with if we are to have any realistic energy return from Nuclear. These problems become more intense as the energetic costs to produce uranium continue to rise due to the transitions from processing soft ores (like sandstone) to hard ores (like granite) as a source material for extracting uranium. The energetic costs of seawater production is also very high with current technology. And before you say breeder reactors or thorium reactors, they still require the above infrastructure. Whilst a thorium fuel cycle, from my understanding, will trade Plutonium 239 for Thallium 238 as a spent fuel product, so we have 2 problems instead of one.

Creating an alternative energy production infrastructure based on Solar, Wind, Wave and geothermal, independent of existing infrastructure, is a smart choice as it also allows us time to create a new technological base that produces less externalities. Doing so would also allow a more planned approach to Nuclear power that improves the development of that technological infrastructure base as it is proven that solar thermal can do base load and that wind scale quite well.

What this means is that OUR generation deals with the transition of the technological bases in a more controlled manner while the costs of doing so can be handled for lower cost. It will never be perfect and mistakes will be made however, if we don't learn from the past mistakes and invest in high externality power infrastructure (like coal and nuclear in its current form) while we have a functioning infrastructure then we will be leaving a greater set of problems for humanity to deal with in the future.

None of this though, is a concern that the current establishment cares about.

If you fix every problem before it gets serious and avert the other 90%, your bosses will think they have a highly reliable IT infrastructure. They will then cast their eyes about for cost savings - and the biggest target will be the most highly paid admins - the most senior ones - YOU!!! .

A big part of that effectiveness is being able to identify trends, classes and root causes of issues. The amount of symptomatic issues is a measurement for the impact the issue causes and the metric by which to demonstrate why the pay is justified.

Allowing a organisation to feel the impact of their management decisions also demonstrates to them why your expertise and, judgement should be taken seriously - especially when you alert them which issues matter. Management may not like you for the level of natural power you have over an organisation however they will respect you.

If you're really an effective administrator you should have your work finished well inside 30 hours and/or 4 working days.

Also known as "No fuckups on Fridays"

This is why my office chair is a toilet. Actually my entire desk is in a toilet cubicle with the rest of the IT Team 'just in case of emergencies'. Curiously though the sound of urination is no different from the sound of people pissing on things to make their territory but they can't because we are already pissing on everything.

It's sometimes very odd when someone urgently bursts in during one of our meetings, but they usually leaved feeling relieved.

Can someone explain to me why a reactor can overheat and meltdown like in Japan ... but not have the energy to spin the turbines to power cooling?

Yes. The first factor is the residual thermal heat in the reactor, it is 150 tons of uranium, so it's a large thermal mass before having properties that cause the heat in the first place, i.e. neutrons bouncing around.

Obviously the heat is removed with the water cooling, however the water also serves to *moderate* the reaction by slowing the neutrons. There has to be enough water to cover the fuel rods otherwise more heat is generated. There probably was enough energy to spin the turbines and may have been a way to control the reactor assuming it was operational.

I don't know if there is facilities to do that however, after the earthquake and SCRAM the reactors condition was unknown.

How can it get so hot that it boils the water way even under ridiculous pressures ... but that heat can't be used to power turbines?

Well the pressure in a Mk I reactor only has to get to 70psi to expose the basis design issues and typically operates at lower pressures than that.. As the water level was not known in the reactor the operators didn't know that the water level was low. Consequently there was nothing to moderate the reaction and instead of cooling, it was getting hotter.

Am I to believe that reactors actually generate more power when shutdown than when powered up?

Yes, when they malfunction, as was the case in Fukushima.

I just can't fathom why a plant can SCRAM and then overheat ... but be unable to cool itself.

Because there wasn't enough water to moderate the reaction, let alone cool it. Don't forget the natural state is for it to produce heat.

Someones design is WAY fucked up me thinks. Its generating too much steam ... USE IT ...

By that stage each reactor was fully exposed to the basis design issue and was hot enough (thermal and radioactive) to start producing hydrogen from the water. This is the beginning of a plutonium fire, so at that stage, assuming you still had containment a lot of water is required to bring things under control. If TEPCO had better contingency planning, followed the manufacturers instructions for operating the plant, and the backup generators were available this whole situation could have been avoided.