Have you looked at what they are calling "Clean up"? I believe that in Britain they actually filled one reactor building (not just the reactor) with cement. I presume they removed the fuel first. And it's still considered a hazerdous area and entry is forbidden to most people. That's not anything I'd call "clean up". And, IIUC, the US hasn't figured out HOW to close down the Hanford reactors, and is threatening to pollute the Columbia river right down through Seattle. If we need to evacuate Seattle that will be a fair inconvenience. There have already been minor leaks.

I'm not really convinced we know HOW to clean up a reactor site. Even cleaning up after a gas station is a real problem.

How the hell did the motor manufacturer prevent the flight?

As you say, it's a prototype on loan for testing, and the contract terms explicitly say Siemens get to say what they can and can't do with it.

The Airbus thing is complete bull; they'd have zero interest in preventing a test flight like this, and plenty of professional interest in seeing it fly.

If you go a day without Slashdot, it probably means your life stopped sucking for a day.

Don't worry ... be happy!

If you are complaining the Osbourne was too light, you need to stop taking steroids - NOW! (it might improve your temper too).

give them each a kick in the nuts

This. a thousand times this!

Surely any browser would render content much faster than a dial-up connection can transfer data?

Never underestimate the power of bloat!

even the basic UI of a car does not change (clutch, brakes, gas, steering wheel, gear stick).

Only becase of state intervention. Before that, every new model had the pedals and handbrake in different places, sometimes to work around a competitor's patents.

I believe Ford had a patent on having all the switches on a single stalk on the steering column with the Mk1 Cortina (about 1962), so everyone else had to have two stalks, and then switch them around so you can squirt yourself in the face with the screen washer when you want the turn indicator in you partner's car, or go for the horn in an emergency.

Its not only computer UI designers that are a manace to society. The world has been subjected to this nightmare for quite some time.

The MS ribbon what what made my 80 year old mum switch to a Mac.

OK, how about "We suck less, but not a lot?" - I am all for truth in advertising.

I have emailed a whole bunch of TV dinner manufacturers explaing that if someone is going to eat the dinner, they first need to read the instructions, and if you print them in 75DPI resolution using 6 point type, in white on yellow, then this is unlikely to happen. Given that there is masses of space around the instructions, it would be easy to enlarge the print, and a change of colour might improve the contrast from 7/4 against.

Some of them reply politely.

Doing it for research, with energy output being among the things studied, is something I'd support. The current system, though, is worse than nothing. It's setting up random time bombs all across the country. The older ones are just entering their critical period. The more recent ones weren't designed to last as long. Everything is being pushed to produce more power and last longer than it was designed to do. And there's no way to clean up when you shut them down.

OTOH, I don't expect a "China Syndrome", more many "Fukishima-like" incidents. With an occasional incident as bad as Chernobyl (though not through the same failure mode).

Until we can deal with the waste produced by reactors, they shouldn't be anything much more than research projects. Would a fast-breeded really consume all it's fuel? Perhaps that's the way to go. Perhaps some other design. Don't build twenty of a design that hasn't been well tested through decomissioning and cleanup. (Even then expect that you've missed some major problems, but that's no excuse not to do anything.)

Almost. Clover, beans, etc. cannot fix nitrogen. What they *can* do is host microorganisms that *do* fix nitrogen. But this doesn't happen automatically, and different plants host different fixing organisms, so you need to ensure that the proper host is innoculated with the proper fixer. If you buy plant seed this is usually (not always) already done, but it often comes with a coating of accompanying applied fungicides. Sometimes this is intentionally applied to prevent people from eating the seeds. (Check the history of Morning Glory seeds, I forget whether it was "Heavenly Blue" or "Pearly Gates".) Sometimes it's just because the most effective fungicides are somewhat poisonous.

It's not clear that using sunlight to grow things is the best approach for urban farming. In fact, unless you are doing rooftop farming it probably isn't.

The real question is, "have they solve the energy problem?" The reason this approach hasn't worked before except for suppliers to real gourmet restaurants is that it's too expensive. Largely this means it uses too much electricity. As a result, it's only been viable where you need extreme freshness.

A long time ago I worked in a place where, when it was busy, the only keypunch that was available was one you needed to stand up at. The error rate when I used it was horrendously higher, and even so the entry speed was a lot slower.

Everyone avoided using it if they had any alternative.

It's all Greek to me...

...laura

Unfortunately, by your definition I don't believe that there *are* any civilized nations. It's not that I disagree with you, exactly. But I believe that your idealized definition of civilized doesn't map to any country in the world either at the present time or at any previous time.