"The Spoils of War" by Andrew Cockburn. Goes way back to American soldiers having to steal boots off dead Chinese soldiers in Korea to get decent boots, their feet were freezing off.

"The Pentagon Wars" by Col. James F Burton. Burton was part of the 1980s "Fighter Mafia" who got the F-16 built, against Pentagon tendencies for every new plane to be twice the weight and twice the cost of the last one. (The F-35 continues the tradition.) They were the ones who publicized the $400 hammer and $600 toilet seat.

Cockburn laments that people thought it only applied to some things, when their point was that every $1 lightbulb on the console was $25 to replace.

Burton notes that one Army logistics guy got the price of a single uranium bullet down from $80 to $4 by whipsawing two suppliers into real competition, another reduction every purchasing round, for years. That guy gave a presentation to a roomful of Stars on it, and came back to his desk to find retirement papers waiting. Or a transfer to Thule. His choice.

"You are too smart to be a cop...."

LMAO That is what they tell the ID10T's that can't be trusted with gun, badge or any responsibilty. Almost any reputable force requires a degree and advancement requires a higher degree. I am not saying a degree shows intelligence or more importantly common-sense, but I'd say your "buddies" might be more suited for the Marines.

We need a burn-down pin. When entered performs a factory reset.

They act like dynamic pricing is a new thing ? NOT..

It was the standard for almost the entire human history. There were no price tags and you haggled for a discount, so if you sucked you paid more. If the merchant thought you were a rube you paid more...

Now that Chuck is gone William Shatner "Capt. Kirk", and Clint Eastwood are the last super heroes from my childhood.
Getting old sucks....

Maybe one will have a temper tantrum and generate complaints upstream, complete with accusations and fabricated evidence of the other largest users getting them blocked in order to free up bandwidth. I read somthing like that somewhere.
   

I sat my daughter down in my lap and explained how as much as I loved her Mommy, different people liked different things. That what her Mother and I had, some people had between Mommy's or Daddy's. It was awkward, uncomfortable and not very effective. Luckily she accepted it and went to talk to Mommy. I was afraid she would ask about trans or alternate pronouns...I don't have a speech for that yet...

Bottom line I can't help you explain the reality of things to your child. You should continue to do as you think is best and Ignore the slashbots...

so you are stating that the current LLM models are intelligent ?
The dictionary definition does contain a sub-clause dealing specifically with computers :

4. Computers. pertaining to the ability to do data processing locally; smart.

I don't see an LLM/AI meeting the other clauses, pertaining to good judgement, sound thought, or comprehensive understanding. AI used as a tool has some good potential uses but I ISN"T intelligent or in any way reliably self directing.
You need to check your reading comprehension...I never said AI doesn't work...I SAID IT ISN'T INTELLIGENT...
Do you seriously think the "AI" of today is going to replace humanity ?!?! Wake up and try some coffee.

Think of it as a chance to ACTUALLY parent. Explain things to your child that they WILL have to face one day instead of hiding it and pretending it doesn't exist. I suppose voting with you dollars is a decent answer, but allowing what these terrible Corps do to influence and affect your choices is silly. With holding from Evil entity #1 to support Evil entity #2 is hardly a good answer.

Rei, it's always this way with you. Take the chip off your shoulder.

Firstly, I see you have this notion that martian rocks must all be igneous. This is not correct. That planet has had extensive geologic hydrolysis. Noteworthy shale formations have been found at Jezero and Gale.

https://news.mit.edu/2024/stud...

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary....

The generalized composition profile for windblown dust is very high in basaltic minerals, but many noteworthy sedimentary-dominated structures have been catalogued, as above. Depending on where the regolith is sourced, its composition can vary widely. Blanket statements like 'regolith is not shale!', does not engender notions of superior knowledge. Regolith is the fine to midsized mixture of fractured rocks on the surface. Its composition will be determined by wind erosion and transport patterns, and which rocks became wind eroded. As pointed out above, large surface deposits of hydrolized mineral layers are present on mars.

Rather than pretend I dont know this, I instead correctly asserted that what you do with the collected dust after extracting the perclorate depends entirely on its composition, which will be very site-specific. The one making silly generalizations about the regolith is yourself, Rei.

But, since we are playing 'name the ignorance' in this exchange, your attestation stat perchlorate is 0.5% liberatable oxygen says 'Say i'm ignorant of basic chemistry without saying i'm ignorant of basic chemistry, and am bad at reading too.' The 0.5% statistic comes from the publication at bottom, and is the proportion of the regolith that is perchlorates. This is one of those lemons you seem to have a hard time with, so I'll hold your agitated little hand on this one.

Washing the regolith to remove the perchlorate is a requirement for *any* other use of that regolith. The chlorine it contains is a fouling contaminant for any other industrial process that you put it through. It's not optional. This stuff MUST be washed first. Even at this low of a concentration, its presence would destroy melting crucibles, and deleteriously affect the mechanical properties of resulting products.

Washing it is not optional. It's a required first step for any subsequent process.

As you have rightly pointed out, the water ice on mars is more 'frozen mud'. Cleaning the melt is going to be a necessary first step to using it *regardless*. That means either vacuum distillation, thermal distillation, or reverse osmosis filtration. Again, NOT OPTIONAL. This is necessary equipment that you need to bring, regardless. RO filtration is the least energy intensive of these.

The end products are clean water and perchlorate contaminated mud, and clean mud, with contaminated water.

Since we already have to bring the RO equipment, do it like this:

Permafrost goes in RO unit 1.
clean water and salty mud come out.

Dry, salty regolith, and the dirty mud go in an agitation and settling system. It gets completely cleaned through agitation and settling in a continuous inflow agitator, until water testing shows clean (salt free) water at the outflow. The dirty water is partially re-added to the salty mud in the RO unit, which is processing permafrost, to improve filtration. The remainder is low-sediment saline water, which is fed to another RO unit, giving potable water, and concentrated perchlorate saline solution as products.

This gets you cleaned regolith, concentrated perchlorate brine, and fresh water.

Of those, only one is a lemon. The perchlorate brine. The other two have industrial or immediate uses.

What do we do with this nasty bitter lemon? Do we complain about it, or put it to use? You seem to favor complaining about it, but that's dumb. Instead, it should be made into lemonaide.

Now that we have strongly concentrated the stuff, as a biproduct of producing other things this doomed colony needs, I remind you, the percentage of this stuff is going to be very much higher than 0.6% by weight, so kindly shove that out the airlock, and look at what perchlorate salts *are*: highly oxygenated alkali-earth and transition metal chlorine salts, with a very high recoverable oxygen value.

The very same publication that gives the 0.6% wt value, also gives us a generalized compositional makep of what perchlorates we have. They assay it as predominantly calcium and magnesium perchlorate.

Here are the percentages of oxygen (many wholly liberatable) by weight of various anhydrous perchlorate salts, including calcium and magnesium), and the thermal decomposition temperatures of each. (No electrolysis, just getting it hot enough. Though again, if we have nitrogen, we can use bioreactors for this very cheaply instead. Since thats not guaranteed, here's the thermal decomp route.)

Sodium Perchlorate (NaClO4): 52.3% liberatable oxygen by weight. Thermal decomp at 490-520C at 1atm.

Potassium perchlorate (KClO4): 46.19% liberatable oxygen by weight. Thermal decomp at 550-600C at 1atm.

Calcium perchlorate (Ca(ClO4)2): 53.56% liberatable oxygen by weight. Partial decomp at 150C(!), full decomp at 380-570C at 1atm.

Magnesium perchlorate (Mg(ClO4)2): 57.3% liberatable oxygen by weight (but requires more processing to get it all). Thermal decomp (to MgO) at 369-429C.

Aluminium perchlorate: (Al(ClO4)3): 58.9% oxygen by weight. Aluminium holds oxygen very tightly. Decomposition produces a mix of oxygen and chlorine gasses, with pure aluminium oxide as the end product. This is a useful substance, as it's a principle ore of aluminium, and a useful abrasive in manufacturing. Thermal decomposition begins at 150C, and ends at 450C. (But unlikely to be a major constituent of martian regolith)

Iron(II) perchlorate (Fe(ClO4)2): 50.24% oxygen by weight. Like Aluminium, it holds oxygen tightly. The decomposition initiates a redox reaction that turns iron(ii) into iron(iii), resulting in iron(iii) oxide (Fe2O3), and a mixture of oxygen and chlorine gasses. It functions as a catalyst in the thermal decomposition of other perchlorates. Decomposition starts at 100C(!)

Iron(iii) perchlorate (Fe(ClO4)3): 54.2% liberatable oxygen by weight. Basically the same as iron(ii), but is already oxidized to iron(iii).

Since we need to heat the now cleaned regolith to its melting point *ANYWAY*, (in order to get glasses, basalt fibre, or bisqued shales, as appropriate) we can use the same industrial plant to thermally decompose the perchlorates. If we're building sintering furnaces, we are building sintering furnaces. The decomp temps are comparatively low, compared to the temps needed for melting bassalt. The melting / bisqueing of the regolith will also evolve useful gasses we want to collect and refine later, because of local scarcities *anyway*, so having the equipment in one processing plant makes logistical sense.

Our outputs here are alkali earth oxides (mainly calcium and magnesium oxides, which are useful for making concrete) and chlorides (which are useful for an abundance of chemical processes), oxygen, chlorine, and water vapors, and industrial regolith end products (glasses, basalt fibre, or bisqued shale pellets or bricks, depending on what we fed in.)

Fractional distillation of the gasses will give you distilled water, liquefied oxygen gas, and compressed chlorine gas.

Noteworthy publications:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a...

I am not interested in an an argumentative tit for tat Rei.

Perchlorates can be broken down through bacterial processes in water (but assumes you have the other things you need for life, which we dont here. Then again, I am open to nitrogen sources existing, but being undocumented. If they do, this by far the least expensive means), and through electrolysis with a boron doped diamond electrode set.

Which just so happens that this latter is also be your preferred method, since it breaks the water as well. The increased ion content of the water would increase bulk oxygen yeild over pure water.

Why are you complaining, instead of being informative?

As for mineral dusts being bad, it depends on how hygroscopic the dust is. Shales and clays are indeed bad (but can be sintered into bisque that is not). Fine silicon oxide species less so (but are better used to make glass). Sintered bb sized balls, being much more ideal.

Again, why be argumentative instead of informative?

The statement about bassalt fiber is not meant to be taken in a horticultural context. It's vastly more useful as a construction matetial for high pressure vessels, which any 'earth atmospheric pressure' cabin WOULD BE, compared the the outside pressure. Not all regolith compositions produce bassalt fibre when melted though, which is why there is the caveat. Even the powders not useful for either role (like calciferous minerals) have industrial uses as bulk fillers for plastic resins, and as cement.

  It's almost as if you are either unwilling or unable to 'make lemonaide' from the lemons, because you are used to using only abundant fresh fruit.

The notion that only perfectly ideal conditions or materials are required, rather than just preferred, is not consistent with reality.

A more honest appraisal looks at the costs associated with using what's actually available, and if they exceed operational thresholds or not. 'Is it cheaper than importing from Earth', and 'Can we actually systain the infrastructure required on-site' being the important questions. NOT 'can we compete with people in the market who have ideal feedstocks'.

People have made housing from regional materials for thousands of years. The kinds of conditions that forced that are present on both the moon, and Mars. Think of ways to make lemonaide, and less about how you dont have fresh guava juice.

I'm not so sure that perchlorates are such an awful sticking point.

(This is not meant to be a post in support of this study, mind. Please do not infer that it is.)

Perchlorates are a 'potentially useful' chemical salt, that form from slow dehydration and UV exposure in an oxygen rich envirionment. They contain a lot of chemically bound oxygen, that is relatively easy to liberate, producing reactive oxygen species when that happens.

Numerous findings of water ice have been made on Mars, which means it can be collected from the Martian envirionment. The primary ways perchlorates decompose is from exposure to water and heat. Perchlorates are also generally water soluble, which is one of the reasons they are harmful to human health.

Together, this suggests Martian regolith that is loaded with perchlorate is a potentially valuable source of easily extracted mineral-derived oxygen gas, which would be essential for a manned Martian colony mission. The extraction of this gas from the perchlorates would leave alkali-earth chloride salts behind in the reactor vessel, but these have other industrial uses, such as the production of hydrochloric acid, and the production of vinyl-chlorides.

Extraction of the perchlorates from the regolith through this industrial process would produce an abundance of potentially useful mineral dust to use hydroponically, or, if the composition is useful and fit for purpose, as raw material for sintered brick and basalt fiber.

The elements in low abundance are nitrogen and phosphorus. These are the real sticking points, from my understanding. The only sources of these would be from radiological processes, or from importation from earth. Both represent a very significant scarcity that would make the idea of 'colonization' infeasible.

Lunar regolith spectrometer data suggests that lunar soil does contain phosphorus, but in very low concentrations. Carbon and nitrogen are scarce.

The majority of publications about Martian regolith is about geochemical evidence of hydrolysis and water-erosion evidence, and talk about perchlorate levels. I have not seen good datasets detailing phosphate levels, or nitrogen sources. They may exist, but I have not seen it discussed much.

Methinks they are drinking their own Kool-Aid. They seem to think their chips are actually intelligent ?!!?
Keep this guy away from anything scientific please...

Or chloromidians? Was there any mention of chlorine on it?

In the absence of chlorine, would flouromidians form? Would flouromidian-based life have any unusual properties?

Or whatever it is that tricorders detect?

Or souls? Did it make a detour through our solar system to pick up a few souls for later use?

I posted this in a substack forum recently, using very back-of-envelope arithmetic using half-remembered price mentions. I was surprised to see nobody dunk on the estimate. If this is for reals, I think my trollish ending of "so nuclear's toast" might be true?

The money issue is the one where I'd have to tell a Big Investor, that a good $10/watt should be budgeted as the CAPEX for a new nuclear station that will provide 7x24 power (85% of the time, they need scheduled downtime).

For $10/watt, instead of a gigawatt of nuclear, I can spend $10B on:

- 5 GW of solar at 20% capacity, so 1GW on average, just intermittent. ($3B at $0.6/Watt)

- 3 GW of wind at 30% capacity, another 1GW on average, intermittent ($3B at $1/Watt)

- 72h of storage of 1GW ($3B) ...I find that last hard to believe myself, but I'm told that $40/kWh is coming from sodium-ion, which is $40M/Gwh, but you have to spend $160M for 4 hours of discharge at 1GW. But $160M/4 hours = $1B for 24 hours, so I think I get to claim 72h for $3B of sodium-ion in 2030.

And I have a billion left over to make it all work together. And I can have it built long before your nuke plant is done, the battery price will come down while the rest is being built.

This system may not really replace a 1GW nuke plant - but it will certainly put out a hell of a lot more than 1GW at times, probably not a bad thing.

The thing is, it's close-enough to dispatchable power to take the investor's money away from the nuke plants. So I don't see any getting investment money without government intervention like Ontario's.