Today, nuclear power is not usually considered among the “sustainable” alternatives to fossil fuels and, since it relies upon uranium as a fuel, of which a finite supply exists on Earth, is classified as “non-renewable” and hence not viable as a long-term energy source. But what do you mean “long-term”, anyway? Eventually, the Sun will burn out, after all, so even solar isn’t forever. Will ten thousand years or so do for now, until we can think of something better?

Energy “experts” scoff at the long-term prospects for nuclear fission power, observing that known worldwide reserves of uranium, used in present-day reactor designs, would suffice for only on the order of a century if nuclear power were to replace all primary power generation sources presently in use. But is this correct? In fact, this conclusion stems not from science and technology, but stupidity and timidity, and nuclear fission is a “bird in the hand” solution to the world’s energy problems awaiting only the courage and will to deploy it.

That is the conclusion by the authors of a paper with the same title as this post, “Nuclear Fission Fuel is Inexhaustible 45” [PDF, 8 pages], presented at the IEEE EIC Climate Change Conference in Ottawa, Canada in May 2006. Here is the abstract:

Nuclear fission energy is as inexhaustible as those energies usually termed “renewable”, such as hydro, wind, solar, and biomass. But, unlike the sum of these energies, nuclear fission energy has sufficient capacity to replace fossil fuels as they become scarce. Replacement of the current thermal variety of nuclear fission reactors with nuclear fission fast reactors, which are 100 times more fuel efficient, can dramatically extend nuclear fuel reserves. The contribution of uranium price to the cost of electricity generated by fast reactors, even if its price were the same as that of gold at US$14,000/kg, would be US$0.003/kWh of electricity generated. At that price, economically viable uranium reserves would be, for all practical purposes, inexhaustible. Uranium could power the world as far into the future as we are today from the dawn of civilization—more than 10,000 years ago. Fast reactors have distinct advantages in siting of plants, product transport and management of waste.

Tue 13 Feb 2024 // 11:17 UTC
OBIT Polymath, pioneering developer of software and hardware, a prolific writer, and true old-school hacker John Walker has passed away.

His death was announced in a brief personal obituary on SCANALYST, a discussion forum hosted on Walker's own remarkably broad and fascinating website, Fourmilab. Its name is a playful take on Fermilab, the US physics laboratory, and fourmi, the French for "ant."

Picat is a research language intended to combine logic programming, imperative programming, and constraint solving. I originally learned it to help with vacation scheduling but soon discovered its planner module, which is one of the most fascinating programming models I’ve ever seen.

First, a brief explanation of logic programming (LP). In imperative and functional programming, we take inputs and write algorithms that produce outputs. In LP and constraint solving, we instead provide a set of equations and find assignments that satisfy those relationships.

What is a “color space?”

Well first you take some colors.

• red
• yellow
• blue

And then you arrange them, however you like, into some kind of space: //

What might a useful color space do? Well, just like the RYB color wheel, maybe it could help us predict how different colors will mix.

And lo, in 1931, an international team of experts got together in England and laid out a color space that does exactly that1. They used science and math. They called themselves the International Commission on Illumination (aka le Commission Internationale de l'Éclairage, aka the CIE), and they called their color space CIE XYZ.

It will take 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election. Click states on this interactive map to create your own 2024 election forecast. Create a specific match-up by clicking the party and/or names near the electoral vote counter. Use the buttons below the map to share your forecast or embed it into a web page.

A true leader who understands politics is someone who understands his voters’ priorities and then maneuvers electorally at the ballot box and within his party caucus to deliver on those priorities. That is the exact opposite of Mitch McConnell’s legacy. The people he represents, the nation, and the GOP are all weaker because of his “leadership.” The GOP will pick a new leader, and we can only pray he doesn’t even vaguely resemble McConnell.

Mitch McConnell was correct in saying he has many faults. Misunderstanding politics was perhaps the worst of them.

The newly disclosed video shows a dark SUV pulling up to the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., at 9:44 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. It sits for several minutes until a uniformed man with a bomb-sniffing dog enters from the right and steps up to the vehicle. The driver complies with his command, the dog sniffs inside and outside the car which is soon allowed to enter the parking garage. The man and his dog exit back to the right.

This scene is unremarkable except for one detail: The uniformed man and his trained canine came within a few feet of where a plainclothes Capitol Police officer would soon discover a pipe bomb that had been planted there the night before. The bomb, which the FBI has described as viable and capable of inflicting serious injury, along with a similar one found at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee, would appear to be the most overt act of violence perpetrated on Jan. 6.

Responding to the video discovered by this reporter, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the Georgia Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee subcommittee now conducting a separate inquiry into Jan. 6, asked, “How could a bomb-sniffing dog miss a pipe bomb at the DNC? We’ll add this to our long list of unanswered questions and continue getting to the truth.”

The number of anomalies surrounding this still-unsolved case continues to grow. These include: ... //

The greatest mystery may be why official Washington has lost interest in this alleged act of domestic terrorism. In the three years since Jan. 6, the DOJ has conducted what Attorney General Merrick Garland describes as a criminal investigation proceeding at an “unprecedented speed and scale” into the protests. Casting a wide dragnet for Capitol protesters across the country, federal and local authorities in Washington have tracked down and prosecuted more than 1,300 defendants, almost all of whom were unarmed, including 62 individuals so far this year.

Yet the perpetrator of what could have been the only deadly attack by a civilian that day appears to have vanished without a trace. He or she also seems to have slipped down the official memory hole. Although the Washington FBI field office recently issued a statement saying the “suspect may still pose a danger to the public or themselves” and upped the reward to $500,000, Washington appears to have lost interest in the pipe bomb whodunnit. //

This represents another aspect of the congressional investigation that did not reach an edifying conclusion. A suspected Trump supporter planted a bomb that could have killed the first female and person of color to hold the office of the vice presidency — and it only merited one sentence in an 840-page report.

etba_ss
18 minutes ago edited
Does everyone realize what just happened here? RFK, Jr, of Democrat family royalty, just endorsed one of the staunchest conservatives in the Senate for Majority Leader, assuming the GOP can take the Senate.

That's pretty remarkable. Paul isn't just anti-war. He's pretty much a rock ribbed conservative down the line. He's got some libertarian leanings, but he's solid.

Studies comparing modern traffic accidents with those of the early 20th century reveal that death from travel is 90 percent less likely today than it was in 1925.

JohnDeL Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
8y
6,157
Subscriptor
The single bit requirement indicates that this was primarily an engineering mission and not a science one. The intent was to test out new technology and see how it might be improved for use on later science missions.

A great example of this is the Sojourner/Pathfinder mission. Sojourner's mission goals were to roll one meter and send back one image and last one sol on the surface. The nominal plan was for it to roll (IIRC) 10 meters, send back 100 images and APXS readings, and last 7 sols. What we got was 100 meters, more than a thousand readings and images, and a lifetime of 83 sols.

Thanks to Sojourner's work, we now have freakin' huge rovers on Mars that have lasted for a decade, rolled more than 30 km, and provided thousands of images and readings that have significantly improved our understanding of Mars.

We can expect the same sort of improvement from Odie's siblings when they finally make it to the Moon. Per aspera, ad astra!

Altemus said crises like this, and the loss of the range finders, happened over and over. "This mission kept throwing us alligators, and we would reduce these alligators to snapping turtles because they don't hurt as bad," he said.

If one assumes there is a 70 percent chance of recovering from any one of these crises but you have to address 11 different crises on the way to the Moon, the probability of mission success is less than 2 percent. //

In truth, NASA is thrilled with Intuitive Machines' performance. The aerospace industry at large understands what this company was up against and is celebrating its success. Most of the customers flying on Odysseus are getting the data they paid for.

The reality is that Intuitive Machines is a private company with about 250 people working on this lunar lander program. That's a small fraction of the resources that national space programs typically devote to these initiatives, and with all the data it has gathered, Intuitive Machines and its customers can be pretty confident that the company will stick the landing next time.

And there will be a next time, as the commercial lunar landers built by private companies in the United States cost about $100 million instead of the half-billion dollars the government would have spent on a specialized, one-time mission to the Moon.

Here's why I think this is a truly notable success. Consider the trials and turmoil that a similarly sized company called SpaceX went through 18 years ago as it worked toward the first launch of its first rocket, the Falcon 1. Rockets are hard, but so are spacecraft that must make a soft landing on the Moon. I would argue that a lunar lander like Odysseus is as complicated, if not more so, than a relatively simple booster like the Falcon 1. //

Unlike the initial Falcon 1, Odysseus flew all the way to the Moon on its very first time out and made a soft landing. It has been phoning home ever since, sending a rich stream of data. That's a pretty big win.

That story had to do with an abandoned McDonald's outlet on Adak Island out in the Aleutians, which still had its prices listed. //

According to the prices listed on the old-school menu, a Big Mac was $2.45, a Big Mac meal was $4.59, a six-piece McNuggets cost $2.35, a Happy Meal cost $3.36 and an egg McMuffin was $1.95.

Now, a Big Mac meal — which includes a burger, fries and a drink — has increased to $18 in some locations.

As we've written many times on these pages, the only way this original investigative reporting could happen and can continue to happen is through the financial support of our readers. Clearly, we highlight corruption and malfeasance on the left, but sometimes those on the right need to be held to account too so conservatives can win hearts and minds - and elections. Much of the data we reported on with Ronna McDaniel was in publicly-available documents, but RedState was the first outlet to cover it, and still one of the only outlets to dive in. Why? Not only do we have investigative journalists who want to do the work; those journalists aren't constrained by corporate bean counters who are afraid of the ramifications. We go where the truth leads us.

Doctors are expected to uphold a certain ethical standard but if DEI is involved, a doctor's first priority isn't to the patient but to the political ideology they hold to, which has to be leftist or else. This highlights the true nature of DEI.

It's not here to help anyone. It prioritizes political power and control and sees humanity as a means to an end. People will die but they're just sacrifices on the altar of the Marxist endgame for those who wish to push it on the populace.

DEI has to go. Our society, our country, and our way of life cannot coexist with it. It's not good or righteous and it doesn't help anyone, even those who implement it at the top. Innocent people are going to get hurt and that could easily include you and your friends and family.

DEI is going to be the death of many if we don't stop it soon and that's not an exaggeration. //

anon-cdoc
an hour ago
DEI is just another name for affirmative action and both are just another name for the bigotry of low expectations. You don't need either one of those if you fix the damn schools.

In the small town of Calhoun, Georgia, the Timms family has found itself embroiled in a heart-wrenching legal battle that further exposes the profound flaws within the state’s child welfare agency. The ordeal began when Brady and Carrie Timms’ three-month-old son Jameson was forcibly removed from their care following medical visits that quickly spiraled into a misdiagnosis and false accusations that brought about their current nightmare. //

The couple later petitioned the court to have Jameson examined at Boston Children’s Hospital by an expert. The court agreed, provided that two case workers with DFCS were also allowed to be present. The doctor diagnosed both Carrie and Jameson with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a genetic condition that could explain the child’s symptoms and injuries. //

The family believed the diagnosis, which occurred with the DFCS agents present, would vindicate them. Unfortunately, the agency disregarded this critical evidence and refused to move toward reunifying the family.

With this online TCP port scanner you can scan an IP address for open ports.

The Romantic Piano Concerto 84 - Aloys Schmitt

Howard Shelley (piano)

Ulster Orchestra, Howard Shelley

Musk's problem was that his laptop was automatically connecting to the local Wi-Fi, which doesn't have a password. If a user can install without connecting to the internet, it is still possible to get Windows 11 up and running without using a Microsoft account. //

On a sacrificial PC, we found that Windows 11 can indeed be installed without a Microsoft account. We used Shift + F10 to drop to a command line at the network connection page and entered OOBE\BYPASSNRO to force a reboot and make the "I don't have internet" option appear. To be fair to Musk, it is quite convoluted.

Running a personal Windows 11 device without a Microsoft account is not a great experience, however. Some elements of the operating system simply do not work, and Microsoft is clearly keen for customers to have an account. If that's not a path you wish to tread, there are plenty of alternatives to Windows 11 out there.

In the early days of microcomputers, everyone just invented their own user interfaces, until an Apple-influenced IBM standard brought about harmony. Then, sadly, the world forgot. In 1981, the IBM PC arrived and legitimized microcomputers as business tools, not just home playthings. The PC largely created the industry that the …

COMMENTS

An airplane does not instantly recover airspeed lost in a wind shear. That takes time, and it takes a particularly long time when all excess power is being used for climbing. //

It’s common practice in gusty conditions to add some knots to your normal approach or climbing speed. Those knots are often said to be “for grandma”—probably because she was always urging us to be careful—and they seem to come in multiples of five. To be logical about it, we should add airspeed in proportion to the reported gust or wind shear fluctuations. When those numbers are of the same magnitude as the difference between the airplane’s climbing speed and its stalling speed, grandma would become justifiably nervous, and it might be best to honor her by remaining on the ground. If that isn’t possible, favor airspeed over climb rate and, if the nose and airspeed drop at once, push, don’t pull.