Going from 16 bits, to 24 bits will lower the noise floor which, if you have the audio turned up enough, you can hear it ever so slightly. It's not a huge difference and you're not going to hear it in a typical song. It's definitely there, but it's already insanely quiet at 16 bits. An "Audiophile" on pristine gear may notice the slight change in hiss in a moment of silence, with the speakers cranked up - but that's about it.

As for pushing up the sampling rate, when you get beyond 44.1kHz, you're not really dealing with anything musical anymore. All you're hearing, if you're hearing it at all, is "shimmer". or "air". It sounds "different" and you might be able to tell which is which, but it's one of those differences that doesn't really matter in effect. A 44.1khz track can still make ear-piercingly high frequencies - the added headroom just makes it glisten in a really inconsequential way.

This is coming from 17 years of music production. I've gone through all of this, over and over again, testing myself, trying to figure out what is and isn't important.

At the end of it all, I work on everything in 16bit 48kHz - I record audio files in 24 bit 48 kHz - then export as 16 bit 44.1kHz. I don't enable dither anymore. I don't buy pro-audio sound cards anymore. I don't use "studio monitors" anymore. I just take good care of my ears and make music now.

Damn, somebody needs his shit pushed-up. Please officer friendly, commit a crime against a minority on patrol tomorrow on camera...You have new friends waiting to meet you!

Looks like it could be a Texas constable-We apologize, though NEWSFLASH!-An inordinate amount of douchebags join law enforcement organizations all over the world- (German cops suck donkjey-balls, too!)

We use these victim-of-child-abuse-type thugs with smaller brain-pans to keep order, y'know...

Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups - he does Earth push-downs.

If I had to make a comment...

This is how Chuck Norris does push-ups.

Only up to a certain weight, do a push-up on a scale to see what that weight is. If you want to go heavier, which most people in the gym do... you need bench-press. But if you can't even do 8-10 push-ups, then you're right, you don't need a bench.

Never really understood the point of benchpressing. Wouldn't pull-ups and push-ups accomplish the same thing while requiring significantly less equipment and far less risk?

@GeeSussFreeK

I tried to stay way from issues specific to the use of nuclear technology for a reason. There's very little in your reply that I can respond to, simply for a lack of expertise. So bear with me if I once again attempt to generalize and abstract some points. And I'll try to keep it shorter this time.

You mentioned how construction times and costs are pushed up by the constant evolution of compliance codes. A problem not exclusive to the construction of power plants, but maybe more pronounced in these cases. No matter.

What buggers me, however, is what you can currently observe in real time at the EPR construction sites in Olkiluoto and Flamanville.
For instance, the former is reported to have more than 4000 workers from over 60 nations, involving more than 1500 sub-contractors. It's basically the Tower of Babylon, and the quality of work might be similar as well. Workers say, they were ordered to just pour concrete over inadequate weld seams to get things done in time, just to name an example. They are three years over plan as of now, and it'll be at least 2-3 more before completion.
And Flamanville... here's some of what the French Nuclear Safety Authority had to say about the construction site: "concrete supports look like Swiss cheese", "walls with gaping holes", "brittle spots without a trace of cement".

Again, this is not exclusive to the construction of NPPs. Almost every large scale construction site in Europe these days looks like this, except for whatever the Swiss are doing: kudos to them, wonderful work indeed. But if they mess up the construction of a train station, they don't run a risk of ruining the ground water and irradiating what little living space we have in Europe as it is.

Then you explain the advantages of small scale, modular reactors. Again, no argument from my side on the feasability of this, I have to take your word on it. But looking at how the Russians dispose of their old nuclear reactors (bottom of the Barents Sea) and how Germany disposes of its nuclear waste (dropped down a hole), I don't fancy the idea of having even more reactors around.

As for prices, I have to raise my hands in surrender once again. Not my area of expertise, my knowledge is limited to whatever analysis hits the mainstream press every now and then. Here's my take on it, regarding just the German market: the development, construction, tax exemption, insurance exemption, fuel transport and waste disposal of the nuclear industry was paid for primarly by taxes. Conservative government estimates were in the neighbourhood of €300B since the sixties, in addition to the costs of waste disposal and plant deconstruction that the companies can't pay for. And that's if nothing happens to any of the plants, no flood, no fire, nothing.

That's not cheap. E.ON and RWE dropped out of the bid on construction permits for new NPPs in GB, simply because it's not profitable. RWE CEO Terium mentioned ~100€/MWh as the minimum base price to make new NPPs profitable, 75.80€/MWh for gas-powered plants. Right now, the base (peak) price is at 46€/MWh (54€/MWh) in Germany. France generates ~75% of its power through NPPs, while Germany is getting plastered with highly subsidized wind turbines and solar panels, yet the market price for energy is lower in Germany.

Yes, the conditions are vastly different in the US, and yes, the next generation of NPPs might be significantly cheaper and safer to construct and run. I'm all for research in these areas. But on the field of commercial energy generation, nuclear energy just doesn't seem to cut it right now.

So let's hop over to safety/dangers. Again, priorities might differ significantly and I can only argue from a central European perspective. As cold-hearted as it may sound, the number of direct casualties is not the issue. Toxicity and radiation is, as far as I'm concerned. All our NPPs are built on rivers and the entire country is rather densely populated. A crashing plane might kill 500 people, but there will be no long term damage, particularly not to the water table. The picture of an experimental waste storage site is disturbing enough as it is, and it wasn't even "by accident" that some of these chambers are now flooded by ground water.

Apologies if I ripped anything out of context. I tried to avoid the technicalities as best as I could in a desperate attempt not to make a fool of myself. Again.

And sorry for not linking any sources in many cases. Most of it was taken from German/Swiss/Austrian/French articles.

1% of the world is like 70million people. So yeah, of the people in the world eligible to even attempt it, 70million isn't a small number, not really as uncommon as the percentage leads you to believe.

Even though yes, the statement is indeed pointless as his method of verification is very highly likely completely anecdotal.
>> ^Stu:

In my opinion full planche push ups are harder because of the balance involved. Yes I can do both. This just takes some practice to lock up the middle of your body. I don't believe his one percent comment. Trainers in my gym have their clients work up to these in a couple weeks. Maybe they pump an aerosol form of steroids through my gyms ventilation system.

>> ^Stu:

In my opinion full planche push ups are harder because of the balance involved. Yes I can do both. This just takes some practice to lock up the middle of your body. I don't believe his one percent comment. Trainers in my gym have their clients work up to these in a couple weeks. Maybe they pump an aerosol form of steroids through my gyms ventilation system.


Yeah, I can do these too, but planches are quite a bit beyond me.

In my opinion full planche push ups are harder because of the balance involved. Yes I can do both. This just takes some practice to lock up the middle of your body. I don't believe his one percent comment. Trainers in my gym have their clients work up to these in a couple weeks. Maybe they pump an aerosol form of steroids through my gyms ventilation system.

That was funny. FYI, was he was actually seeing at the end of his commentary was the start of one the closest and tightest classes of Olympic sailing (Lasers)---two ways to play that start---either bunch up at the point closest to the committee boat (and have the much vaunted windward advantage for the first leg of the trial) or give up on trying to get that and find clear air anywhere on the start line and try to get clear of the pack by out accelerating them in the undisturbed air before cutting back.

Sailors in this class burn between 3000 and 6000 calories a day; they blow out their backs; their training can include regimens as extreme as 400 crunchies and 200 push ups between morning and afternoon training sessions.

But yah; if you're not into, it can be boring ! LOL

Dupe of http://videosift.com/video/London-Double-Decker-Bus-Does-Push-Ups ?

>> ^lucky760:

>> ^kymbos:
You people work and sleep some crazy hours!
@lucky760 how can you work till 3am then get up at 5:45am? I would not be able to cope with that.

Yes, it definitely is really tough. I am so desperate to go to bed most nights and I have to fight hard against my brain and body to stay awake, but it's my role in life to suffer so that my family doesn't have to. Sometimes I start to feel I am Jack's lost mind, and once or twice a week when I really start to get delirious, I'll very regrettably hit the hay at 10pm without getting any work done that night.
High doses of caffeine late at night doesn't work any more even though I don't consume it any other time of the day. I sometimes (jokingly) consider getting on drugs to help me stay awake. Instead, I hit the deck and give me 30 push-ups to rev my heart back up. That's usually good for a 30 minute boost (one minute per push-up).


Just. Wow. Sift can we do anything for the @lucky760 ?
How much more sleep would you get if I chartered now?

>> ^kymbos:

You people work and sleep some crazy hours!
@lucky760 how can you work till 3am then get up at 5:45am? I would not be able to cope with that.


Yes, it definitely is really tough. I am so desperate to go to bed most nights and I have to fight hard against my brain and body to stay awake, but it's my role in life to suffer so that my family doesn't have to. Sometimes I start to feel I am Jack's lost mind, and once or twice a week when I really start to get delirious, I'll very regrettably hit the hay at 10pm without getting any work done that night.

High doses of caffeine late at night doesn't work any more even though I don't consume it any other time of the day. I sometimes (jokingly) consider getting on drugs to help me stay awake. Instead, I hit the deck and give me 30 push-ups to rev my heart back up. That's usually good for a 30 minute boost (one minute per push-up).

The actinides are, generally, "safe" to handle, like those Uranium Oxide pellets. You are more likely to damage the pellet with your nasty human oils than the uranium will you...unless you eat the whole thing, but its chemical toxicity will do you more harm that its radioactive toxicity. Uranium oxide just isn't that radioactive, that is why none of the containers or work areas were shielded in this lab.



Now, if they were dealing with a "hot" substance, one that has hard gammas (like when you do MOX fuel recycling), you have to take even greater precautions because then the radioactive problems really do start to show their heads. Not only will it damage your cells faster than they can repair, but it can start to take out unshielded electronics. This is generally only true for fission products, and a few actinides like protactinium which is highly radioactive AND chemically toxic, and generally only man-made (normal occurrences are less than a few parts per trillion in the crust).



These complications are pretty good generalization to why normal LWRs are not the best way to do nuclear, they just generate far to much waste compared to alternatives. You burn less than 1% of the mined uranium in current reactor tech and fuel cycle choices. With a thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor, you can burn greater than 90%, pushing up to 99% or higher if you try real hard. This means you generate an order(s) of magnitude less waste, and that waste generally is safe after about 300 years (radiation is about the same as naturally occurring radiation). There are also other alternates that use uranium in a faster spectrum that perform better than current tech.



A second age of the atom is fast approaching. Unfortunately, those great pioneers which made this industry in the shadow of "the bomb" failed to realize the full potential of e=mc^2. If nuclear power was developed along side the Apollo instead of the Manhattan project, we might already be in that future, alas...it was not to be.



Radiation is fascinating though! I used to believe what I read in the fear news about any radiation leading to death..turns out that isn't so true after all. The planet is a far more radioactive place then you normally consider, and FAR more radioactive when our primordial ancestors evolved. In fact, there are many people living today in what are dubbed High Background Radiation Areas that seem to suffer no ill effect, and some suggest, have lower rates of cancer than other groups. More studies need to be done, but initial findings fly in the face of the notion of radiation I grew up with (that it all is bad and it all kills you!) Some have even suggested that the creator of the entire model used for evaluating radiation risk knowingly lied about it. The entire basis for today's evaluation of radiological risk is evaluated by Muller's findings as supported by the National Academy of Sciences’ of the time. And in fact, might just be based in fear instead of evidence.



Perhaps ancient man went through the same struggles as he tried to adopt fire, some impassioned move against the dangers of fire prevented some groups from using fire and advancing their way of life. Fire, though, allowed the groups that adopted it to improve their life dramatically. The energy released from a fission event is over a million times more energy rich than any energy tech we currently use, imagine what that could mean for mankind. Fusion is over 4 times that of fission (but much harder), and antimatter over 2000x that of fission (and MUCH MUCH harder). Yes, the age of the atom has only just begun, and who knows were man will be a result? Don't settle for solar dandruff, the power of the atom will reign supreme.