PaladinPhil 1/12/2020 6:10:09 AM

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PaladinPhil 1/12/2020 6:15:44 AM

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So, this happened this morning. Just got the update text telling me it was a mistake.

Worst part was all the local FBidiots screaming "Chernobyl". *facepalm*

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 7:06:20 AM

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In #2 PaladinPhil said: Worst part was all the local FBidiots screaming "Chernobyl". *facepalm*

At worst, a Three Mile Island. There were bad health effects due to the accident - because of the coal that got burned to replace the electricity.

Many differences between a graphite moderated and water moderated reactors.

One, graphite burns; water does not.

Two, water is a less efficient moderator as it gets hot; graphite is a more efficient moderator when it gets hot (negative temperature coefficient vs positive temperature coefficient)

The water isn't just a coolant. It is a moderator, which slows neutrons down. You see, fast neutrons aren't as efficient at causing more fissions. Slower ones get absorbed by nuclei better, and then cause the nucleus to split. 

So if a water cooled and moderated reactor starts to heat up, it gets less efficient, reducing its power level. This is used to have the reactors in US nuclear submarines automatically control their power output to match demand. Less steam used, reactor water gets hotter, reaction slows. Less steam used, reactor gets cooler and reactor produces more reactions and more heat.

So if a water moderated reactor loses water, the less water, the more the reactor slows down. The big problem is residual heat - the fuel rods stay hot and do still produce some fission. There are designs that cool off quickly. I think those use smaller fuel elements. But there was a complete loss of cooling test maybe in the 1970's or 80's at a test reactor. It cooled off faster than expected. No China syndrome.

It seems there have been a lot of people who want to go back to medieval times without electricity, not realizing how bad it was. Even in more modern times,people took miserable mill jobs because it was better than staying on farms,

lucius septimius 1/12/2020 7:09:34 AM

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In #3 Kosh's Shadow said: It seems there have been a lot of people who want to go back to medieval times without electricity, not realizing how bad it was. Even in more modern times,people took miserable mill jobs because it was better than staying on farms,

They live in a perpetual Jane Austen fantasy, not realizing that in the pre-petroleum age, those lovely lamps were lit with whale oil.

PaladinPhil 1/12/2020 7:10:17 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 3:

Yeah, I know about the CANDU design. Learned something about it in high school, all those decades ago. Before Chernobyl actually. So the first thought when I got the first text was a security incident vs. engineering incident.

lucius septimius 1/12/2020 7:10:27 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 3:

Which reminds me -- I've got all these graphite blocks I found under the stands at the the U of C football stadium.  Not really sure what to do with them.

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 7:24:55 AM

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In #6 lucius septimius said: Which reminds me -- I've got all these graphite blocks I found under the stands at the the U of C football stadium.  Not really sure what to do with them.

My father and my uncle helped put those in place.  They both got a commemorative lithograph for the fiftieth anniversary of the first chain reaction; the ink for the litho was made with graphite from the original pile. 

I didn't see it when we got rid of the stuff in the house; don't know whether it got damaged/disappeared over the years, or whether it's in the vast amount of unsorted stuff my sister has in her garage.

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 7:27:30 AM

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In #4 lucius septimius said: those lovely lamps were lit with whale oil.

Consider a world where it was economically feasible---for both the workers who produced the product and for those who consumed it---to send off ships of men on two- or three-year voyages to randomly seek giant ocean beasts to kill them and render down their fat so that it would be possible to read after the sun went down.

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 7:40:10 AM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 6:
I had a summer position between undergrad and grad school at Argonne National Labs, at the ZGS (zero gradient synchrotron) accelerator.

Nearby were the CP-3 and CP-5 reactors. CP stands for Chicago Pile. CP-1 was the one you discuss; CP-2 was the same thing after it was dismantled and moved to Argonne. CP-5 was used for various research, including basically a neutron "x-ray" system that could get images of the interiors of objects.

They explained one day, people in black suits and cars came up with some objects and only certain people could be inside while they measured these objects. They were some of the electronics and other components from the MiG-25 that Belenko flew to Japan. The deal with the USSR was that the plane could be disassembled and shipped back, but none of the boxes could be opened. We stuck to the letter of that.

I also saw ZP-9, but this meant zero-power. It was a test reactor to try different fuel arrangements for a breeder reactor. Not long later, "nuclear engineer" Carter shut the breeder reactor program down. Note the reactor was open, and had some fuel in it, when we got fairly close to the opening where the fuel rods were inserted and removed, and I don't glow in the dark. Neither did the fuel rods, unlike in the opening sequence of the Simpsons.

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 7:42:19 AM

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Buzz, I don't think you saw this reply to you back in the Pub

How long before the Swedish pest-child licenses out her name for a vegan fast-food franchise?  Just imagine the advertising:  Greet a Thun-Burger!

The TRULY impossible burger - vegan, organic, and carbon-free

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 7:46:00 AM

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In #10 Kosh's Shadow said: The TRULY impossible burger - vegan, organic, and carbon-free

To eat the impossible meat
To bite the uneatable growth
To please with most queasable cuisine
To serve what into trash they throw...

---Man of La Mangia

JCM 1/12/2020 9:52:33 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 9:

The left has long been anti-science.

Go back to Carson's Silent Spring.

Ignoring the advances in nuclear science.

Ignoring the advances in agriculture.

Ignoring the real climate science.

Think about this the third world could be lifted out of poverty in short order with the new reactor technology and agri-science available. But the people hating leftist won't let that happen. Carson sentenced millions of children to death, the lack of energy and food contributes to the political unrest. The combination of all that is millions die.

lucius septimius 1/12/2020 9:57:44 AM

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In #10 Kosh's Shadow said: organic, and carbon-free

Now that would be a neat trick.

Basic principle of organic chemistry:  carbon is whore.

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 9:58:47 AM

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Reply to JCM in 12:

Reminds me of the scientism of Mad King Yertle back in the day---"scientism" being the idiot pseudoscience that the half-educated invoke as "science."

JCM 1/12/2020 10:17:39 AM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 13

Big-ag dilutes our food with CARBON!

Sign my petition to ban the use of carbon in food!

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 10:25:05 AM

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In #15 JCM said: Sign my petition to ban the use of carbon in food!

No more tacos al carbon?

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 10:25:44 AM

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In #15 JCM said: Sign my petition to ban the use of carbon in food!

No more carbonated beverages?

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 10:40:54 AM

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In #13 lucius septimius said: n #10 Kosh's Shadow said: organic, and carbon-free Now that would be a neat trick. Basic principle of organic chemistry:  carbon is whore.

That's why I said the really impossible burger

I saw a truck labeled "xxx Organics". I felt like asking "got benzene?"

doppelganglander 1/12/2020 10:48:02 AM

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Reply to JCM in 15:

Ban dihydrogen monoxide! 

Occasional Reader 1/12/2020 11:15:52 AM

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buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 11:19:37 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 20:

Heh.

Occasional Reader 1/12/2020 11:28:21 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 21:

And have you noticed those telltale cheekbones on Indian Point?

Occasional Reader 1/12/2020 11:35:09 AM

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Occasional Reader 1/12/2020 12:35:09 PM

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JCM 1/12/2020 12:48:46 PM

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buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 1:24:31 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 24:

Steyn's harsh words for the virtue-signallers can now be equally applied to the people in the US prating against "hate" but who don't have the guts to say that "the black community" really, really, really hates Jews.

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 1:37:55 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 24:

I note the #jeSuisCharlie hashtag, although they only pretend to be Charlie.

No (and pardon my French) #JeSuisJuis hashtag.No, no one wants that.

And in France, smoking pot gives you a license to kill a Jew.

Maybe that's why

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 1:39:10 PM

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In #26 buzzsawmonkey said: Steyn's harsh words for the virtue-signallers can now be equally applied to the people in the US prating against "hate" but who don't have the guts to say that "the black community" really, really, really hates Jews.

Now, deBlasio clearly said that all the hate is from White Supremacists. You must be mistaken

--The NY government

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 1:40:37 PM

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In #26 buzzsawmonkey said: Steyn's harsh words for the virtue-signallers can now be equally applied to the people in the US prating against "hate" but who don't have the guts to say that "the black community" really, really, really hates Jews.

Note there are only vigils against hate when some white supremacist shoots or stabs Jews. Not when it is done by blacks.

And even then, the media blames it on Trump - even though the white supremacist shooters hate Trump.

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 1:57:59 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 29:

A lot of wannabee "white supremacists" show up over at PJM, usually trying to use the "It's OK to be white" line---although some few lapse over into the the "diversity is white genocide" line.

I always ask them, "How do you define "white?"  The Irish were not considered "white"---indeed, they were regarded as freckled Enwords---from the early 19th century until well into the 20th.  Southern Europeans---Spaniards, Italians, Greeks---were not considered "white." More than that, Scandinavians---or "Scandihoovians," as they were called in the late-19th/early-20th centuries---were not considered "white," despite their skin pallor and their tendency towards being blonde and blue-eyed; the same goes for Slavs.  And then, of course, there are the Jews, who are considered "white" when that's useful for vilifying them and "non-white" when that is useful.  So...when you're talking about "whites," whom do you include, or exclude, and why?"

I've never gotten an answer.

Occasional Reader 1/12/2020 2:15:42 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 26:

I’m not sure if Steyn himself invented the “tilty-headed wankers” moniker, but it’s perfect.

Occasional Reader 1/12/2020 2:17:05 PM

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In #27 Kosh's Shadow said: No (and pardon my French) #JeSuisJuis

#JeSuisJuiF

(I assume you mean)

Occasional Reader 1/12/2020 2:20:58 PM

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In #30 buzzsawmonkey said: usually trying to use the "It's OK to be white" line

While that line may, indeed, be misappropriated by those types, I actually think it’s a pretty clever line, punching as it does at the very heart of the self-contradiction of political correctness. 

You don’t have to be a “white nationalist“ to recognize that being “white“ - whatever it means - is vilified by the so-called social justice warriors.  It’s either OK to damn people based on such immutable characteristics, or it is not.

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 2:39:58 PM

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In #33 Occasional Reader said: While that line may, indeed, be misappropriated by those types, I actually think it’s a pretty clever line, punching as it does at the very heart of the self-contradiction of political correctness.  You don’t have to be a “white nationalist“ to recognize that being “white“ - whatever it means - is vilified by the so-called social justice warriors.  It’s either OK to damn people based on such immutable characteristics, or it is not.

On that, I agree.  The problem I have with the types who use it on places like PJM is that they are basically the bleach-baby version of the "black nationalists"; they ascribe some (undefined) virtue to "whiteness" that they somehow share---and, worse, cannot define what they mean by "white." As I noted above, there are all kinds of "white people" whom other "white people" did not accept as "white"---many, not that long ago.  So, fine---it's "OK to be white," but let's have some criteria, please; whom do you consider "white," or not, and why?

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 2:42:06 PM

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Dopps will be pleased with this:

Jeopardy refuses to let contestant rewrite history

The popular US game-show “Jeopardy!” on Friday identified the Church of Nativity as located in Israel, rather than “Palestine,” as a contestant erroneously answered. The church is located in Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem, in the Palestinian Authority-controlled region of Judea, the ancient homeland of the Jewish People.

Jeopardy!, which has aired on and off since 1964, provides three competitors with answers for which they need to provide questions. Under the category, “Where’s that Church?” host Alex Trebek gave the clue, “Built in the 300s A.D., the Church of the Nativity.”

Returning contestant Katie Needle was the first to buzz in. She replied, “What is Palestine?” to which Trebek responded, “Nope.”

Contestant Jack McGuire, who was in last-place, then correctly answered, “What is Israel?”

As for the first contestant’s answer, never in history was there a ‘State of Palestine.,

But maybe we shouldn't celebrate too early

Unfortunately, following the commercial break, points were unceremoniously returned to Needle and taken away from McGuire.

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 2:44:25 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 33:

To the above, I'd add that "race" is really nothing but pseudoscience; it's merely a classification method based largely on visual and regional factors.

Human beings are all the same species; they can all interbreed with each other just as dogs can. Selective breeding over time is all that separates the Great Dane from the chihuahua, or the Inuit from the pygmy: in the case of dogs, this was a matter of selective breeding for certain traits; in the case of people, it's largely a function of the fact that until modern times few people traveled far from the local gene pool.

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 2:46:23 PM

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In #32 Occasional Reader said: #JeSuisJuiF (I assume you mean)

Mercy buckets./

I hated French. They tried to teach it to us in elementary school.

By TV, And the TV was shared by two classrooms, alternating lessons.

Great way to teach///////

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 2:49:09 PM

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The Iran protests you won't hear about in the MSM:

Iranian protesters refuse to stomp on Israeli, US flags

Students in Tehran University take pains to avoid walking on the flags of U.S. & Israel—as the regime forces people to do—and when two Basiji regime agents then make a point of trampling the flags, the crowds shout “Besharaf!” #بی‌شرف — the regime is shameless, dishonorable. pic.twitter.com/BLr5QKztr8

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) January 12, 2020

Student protesters at Tehran’s Beheshti University take pains to avoid trampling on US and Israeli flags painted on entrance walkway pic.twitter.com/mqqzT0D9gK

— Borzou Daragahi 🖊🗒 (@borzou) January 12, 2020

lucius septimius 1/12/2020 3:14:45 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 30:

I remember the (in)famous quip of Tsar Nicholas II when he declared that all Englishmen were Jews by definition.

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 3:17:49 PM

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In #39 lucius septimius said: I remember the (in)famous quip of Tsar Nicholas II when he declared that all Englishmen were Jews by definition.

Never heard that one, but duly noted.  

Meanwhile, here's Billy Murray extolling "multiculturalism," early-20th-century style: "If It Wasn't For the Irish and the Jews."

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 3:21:00 PM

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Buzz, on another topic, have you heard of the latest housing trend? "co-living" 

At least the news articles do point out this is a new version of rooming houses and SRO hotels.

Just for richer millennials.  One in Boston is planning some "affordable" units, though.

doppelganglander 1/12/2020 3:21:12 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 35:

I saw the clip and was quite pleased when the judges ruled against Katie. I didn't know it had been overturned, which ticks me off. TBH, I thought they wanted the city, not the country. No one could argue if the correct response was simply Bethlehem.

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 3:21:39 PM

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In #39 lucius septimius said: I remember the (in)famous quip of Tsar Nicholas II when he declared that all Englishmen were Jews by definition.

Quite funny given how long Jews were banned from England.

lucius septimius 1/12/2020 3:27:04 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 40:

I've always thought it might be interesting to do a study of the Southern phenomenon of the "Dry Goods Jew" found in nearly every small Southern town.  There is a parallel in the pre-plague distribution of Jews in central Europe.  Although we tend to think of Jews as being concentrated in cities, the records collected the Germania Judaica, a huge research project begun in the 1920s, there were individual Jews living in most small towns and villages.  These families appear to have absorbed Jews who fled from the cities during the periodic pogroms; once things had settled down, the city dwellers would return to where they had lived before.  That all changed after 1350 -- in the second half of the century Jews were increasingly housed in their own communities with a Rabbinate largely created by Christian authorities to act as liaisons between the two groups.  Before then, though, the settlement patters of Jews were roughly similar to those found in the South before about 1960.  And i suspect for the same reason -- Jews occupied specialized niches in the economy as merchants and tradesmen.  They continued to have that role in Poland until the Russians took it over -- there is evidence that many Polish girls married "up" into Jewish families as a way of escaping serfdom and entering the middle class.

Anyway, just a thought.

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 3:32:12 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 44:

I agree with you; it would be an interesting study.  

As an aside, the proprietor of the general store in John Wayne's late film "McClintock!" was an obvious Jew by the name of Birnbaum.  Wayne, at least in his later films, was very scrupulous about "inclusion"; in "McClintock!" he also favors a young man with part-Indian ancestry, despite the prejudice expressed by others, and is also on friendly terms with his former-enemy/adversary from one of the Indian nations (who asks his character to represent them before the government instead of the designated Indian agent).

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 3:37:31 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 44:

It is my understanding that the prevalence of Jewish dry goods stores in the South (and, probably, elsewhere) was an outgrowth of Jews working as traveling pedlars in such areas.

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 4:03:47 PM

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Article on black Jew-hatred

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 4:16:52 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 47:

Forgive my saying so, but what a bunch of mealy-mouthed shit.  He takes about five times longer than necessary to say that the black community is rife with Jew-hate, and he can barely bring himself to say even that.

Blacks have been open Jew-haters in the "civil rights movement" since the black nationalists/black-power advocates, Islamists, and Marxists among them embraced the PLO when it was formed in 1964.  Stokely Carmichael was a vocal Jew-hater.  He, and the other blacks who embraced the PLO---prior to the Six-Day War---were acolytes of Frantz Fanon and his "anticolonialist" theories, and regarded---regard---themselves as "victims of colonialist oppression" in the US, and as such united with the "Palestinian victims of colonialist oppression" in Israel.  

This is nothing new.  Indeed, Martin Luther King, shortly before his assassination, denounced the Jew-hate and the anti-Zionism that was spreading in the ranks of the movement that was rapidly sidelining him.  It is my own belief that it was his having done so that was the reason for his assassination, but that's another issue.  My point here is to say that looking at the Jew-hate being spread in the black community as a "new" phenomenon is the act of a willfully blind fool.

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 4:37:52 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 48:

I will say that a week from Monday, I will pay my respects to MLK, who was pro-Jew and pro-Israel.

And realize how those who came after him don't deserve his legacy.

Now, as for MLK's namesake, he hated the Jews, too.

Jukebox
Which, unfortunately, does not  have the line "He hated the Jews, yeah"

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 4:52:21 PM

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In #49 Kosh's Shadow said: And realize how those who came after him don't deserve his legacy.

Martin Luther King, whatever his personal flaws, believed in individual self-determination, and believed that, given an even break in civil rights, that blacks could do well on their own.

The people who were supplanting and sidelining him in the movement he had formerly led wanted to build their own satrapies with federal money, and King stood in the way of that. He was much more useful to them as a dead martyr---a sheep's pelt---under which these wolves could hide.

In the words of the late, great Eric Ambler, the important thing in an assassination is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet.

lucius septimius 1/12/2020 5:14:36 PM

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In #46 buzzsawmonkey said: elsewhere) was an outgrowth of Jews working as traveling pedlars in such areas.

That would seem to be the case.  What's interesting is that the bulk of Jews who emigrated to America in the colonial era were Sephardic Jews.  There is a good book on the Sephardic community in Savannah, one of the few places open to Jewish emigration from the beginning.

buzzsawmonkey 1/12/2020 5:23:07 PM

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In #51 lucius septimius said: That would seem to be the case.  What's interesting is that the bulk of Jews who emigrated to America in the colonial era were Sephardic Jews.  There is a good book on the Sephardic community in Savannah, one of the few places open to Jewish emigration from the beginning.

The first Jews in New York---then New Amsterdam---were refugees from Recife in Brazil.  They'd fled when the Inquisition set up shop in the New World.  Then-governor Peter Stuyvesant did not want to admit them, but he was ordered to do so by his bosses in the Dutch West India Company.

Kosh's Shadow 1/12/2020 5:53:14 PM

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