Comment Re:what the planet needs (Score 1) 417
What this guy said. Thorium reactors are the way forward, IMHO. Hell, even India is conducting ground breaking research into these. (No offence intended, just making a point.)
Comment Re:what the planet needs (Score 1) 417
Just because an accident happened, doesn't make it less safe. That is not how statistics work.
By "country-worth of mess" do you mean the 20km exclusion zone? The biggest mess to come from Fukushima is the political mess from TEPCO trying to cover stuff up.
And, to answer you question, absolutely nothing (nobody?). However, they don't tend to build power plants on fault lines, so the probability is very low. Similarly low, in fact, to a Magnitude 9 'quake happening directly under Tokyo, and I can guarantee that that would cause a bigger mess.
By "country-worth of mess" do you mean the 20km exclusion zone? The biggest mess to come from Fukushima is the political mess from TEPCO trying to cover stuff up.
And, to answer you question, absolutely nothing (nobody?). However, they don't tend to build power plants on fault lines, so the probability is very low. Similarly low, in fact, to a Magnitude 9 'quake happening directly under Tokyo, and I can guarantee that that would cause a bigger mess.
Comment Re:Ok. safe this time. (Score 3, Insightful) 417
I agree that were a natural disaster to strike a nuclear plant (you seem to have misspelled this, by the way), there is a possibility of radiation leakage, and possibly even casualties.
However, a coal fire power plant is continuously pumping soot, CO2, and a whole host of other unfriendly substances into the atmosphere. A report from last year estimated that coal power kills roughly 13,000 Americans each year.
So, yes, nuclear power is not perfect, but the perceived risk is far greater than the actual risk. This can be blamed, in part, to the scaremongering of the media, but mostly stems from the the fact that the general public does not understand radiation, so is naturally scared of it.
(Source)
However, a coal fire power plant is continuously pumping soot, CO2, and a whole host of other unfriendly substances into the atmosphere. A report from last year estimated that coal power kills roughly 13,000 Americans each year.
So, yes, nuclear power is not perfect, but the perceived risk is far greater than the actual risk. This can be blamed, in part, to the scaremongering of the media, but mostly stems from the the fact that the general public does not understand radiation, so is naturally scared of it.
(Source)
Comment Re:what the planet needs (Score 2) 417
... planetary-scale hazardous installations
Are you aware that nuclear power is safer, in terms of death toll and environmental impact, than both fossil fuels and hydroelectric power? Source
Comment More Ammo (Score 1) 417
Oh great, more ammunition for the protest against nuclear power. Just what this planet needs.
Comment Re:Early 80's? (Score 1) 510
Fortunately Fortran hasn't stood still. Later versions are a bit more lenient, as they are no longer need to be set as punch cards!
You can even have comments in your code, radical!
You can even have comments in your code, radical!
Comment Early 80's? (Score 3, Funny) 510
"How do you get the instant gratification we oldies got when sitting down in front of the early-80s home computers?"
By using a language that has lasted through that time to this one: Fortran.
Fortran is still one of the most widely used languages in scientific applications, and is a great starting point for beginners.
By using a language that has lasted through that time to this one: Fortran.
Fortran is still one of the most widely used languages in scientific applications, and is a great starting point for beginners.
Comment Re:What won't scientists do for attention? (Score 3, Insightful) 74
No, I can see why they chose that. SpongeBob's a fun guy.
Comment WTF (Score 0) 74
People in the next century are going to seriously question the sanity of this one if this sort of stuff continues.
Samsung Wants To See iPhone 5 and iPad 3 136
tekgoblin writes "The suit against Samsung that Apple filed back in April has been full of surprises recently; Apple even asked to see some of Samsung's future devices. Now, Samsung is requesting to view Apple's upcoming devices such as the iPad 3 and iPhone 5."
Fedora 15 Released 171
halfline writes "Fedora 15 was released today. It features GNOME 3 (with its substantially redone UI) and the systemd init system by default."
The release also brings the latest KDE and XFCE versions, improved Btrfs support, amd a switch from OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice. Installation images are available from the usual sources.
Apple Proposes Smaller SIM Card Design 198
An anonymous reader writes with word that Apple, as reported by Reuters, has proposed a smaller SIM card standard. Says the Orange executive quoted, "We were quite happy to see last week that Apple has submitted a new requirement to (European telecoms standards body) ETSI for a smaller SIM form factor -- smaller than the one that goes in iPhone 4 and iPad." Hard to believe that any phone designed for the human hand could be much limited by the size of the current micro-SIMs, but this is one race to the bottom I'm pleased with.
Comment !XKCD (Score 5, Funny) 113
It's like XKCD, but without the funny.
Micro-SD Card Slot Abused As VGA-Port 77
dvdkhlng writes "The Ben NanoNote open-source hand-held computer has often been criticized for not being very extensible hardware-wise. A community effort now starts to challenge this by shipping the so-called UBB board, which plugs into the micro-SD port, making 6 I/O lines available to hardware hackers. The most impressive use so far is this VGA port implemented by just a few resistors, with signal-generation mostly controlled by software. The guy who did this calls it an 'unexpected capability.' Schematics and source code are available under the GPL."
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"Unibus timeout fatal trap program lost sorry" - An error message printed by DEC's RSTS operating system for the PDP-11
