Yeah, let's give it one more stomp so we can investigate the physics of fluids under pressure.

I kept cringing waiting for something bad to happen to the coke can guy. I don't like things under pressure and I refuse to work on even low pressure gas lines at my house. I don't like being near propane or oxygen tanks. Maybe I've played too many video games.

Yo man, she was under a lot of pressure and she blew out the end of her answer with a jam-packed-battery of well-articulated and enunciated garbledy....She was able to endorse the wholesale use of marijuana and pull it off looking genuinely concerned about the potential for any mishaps....I am gonna pick very smart and not-so-stupid

Grace under pressure.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Randy Quaid, infommercial, terrible, pop under pressure, ffffuuuuuuuu' to 'infommercial, terrible, pop under pressure, ffffuuuuuuuu, handjob' - edited by gwiz665

The technology for firearms exist, they will always exist now. If someone truly was willing and dedicated to kill people with a gun, they will. You can make a gun with the right materials, though obviously not the same craftsmanship as a manufacturer.

I can totally see how banning guns can save lives: If a parent, or roommate, etc, owned a gun, and someone who knew that completely legal gun was able to be reached and used to kill innocent people. Then yes, banning guns would have stopped that. But if they are, then there's a small line that guy needs to cross: to reach out to whoever to find an illegal weapon.

I for one believe they should be legal, and I also believe that if someone wants to own one, they do their damned homework and train in the ways of a gun, that would save more lives than anything else. Reckless use of a gun is stupid and deadly to the gun owner him(her)self. Would be like a knife wielding junkie going against a samurai, if you do not know how to handle a gun, or handle being under pressure, you are the junkie.

@radx No problem on the short comment, I do the exact same thing

I find your question hard to address directly because it is a series of things I find kind of complexly contradictory. IE, market forces causing undesirable things, and the lack of market forces because of centralization causing undesirable things. Not to say you are believing in contradictions, but rather it is a complex set of issues that have to be addressed, In that, I was thinking all day how to address these, and decided on an a round about way, talking about neither, but rather the history and evolution as to why it is viewed the way you see it, and if those things are necessarily bad. This might be a bit long in the tooth, and I apologize up front for that.

Firstly, reactors are the second invention of nuclear. While a reactor type creation were the first demonstration of fission by humans (turns out there are natural fission reactors: Oklo in Gabon, Africa ), the first objective was, of course, weapons. Most of the early tech that was researched was aimed at "how to make a bomb, and fast". As a result, after the war was all said and done, those pieces of technology could most quickly be transitioned to reactor tech, even if more qualified pieces of technology were better suited. As a result, nearly all of Americas 104 (or so) reactors are based on light water pressure vessels, the result of mostly Admiral Rickover's decision to use them in the nuclear navy. This technological lock in made the big players bigger in the nuclear field, as they didn't have to do any heavy lifting on R&D, just sell lucrative fuel contracts.

This had some very toxic effects on the overall development of reactor technology. As a result of this lock-in, the NRC is predisposed to only approving technology the resembles 50 year old reactor technology. Most of the fleet is very old, and all might as well be called Rickover Reactors. Reactors which use solid fuel rods, control rods, water under pressure, ect, are approved; even though there are some other very good candidates for reactor R&D and deployment, it simply is beyond the NRCs desire to make those kinds of changes. These barriers to entry can't be understated, only the very rich could ever afford to attempt to approve a new reactor technology, like mutli-billionaire, and still might not get approved it it smells funny (thorium, what the hell is thorium!)! The result is current reactors use mostly the same innards but have larger requirements. Those requirements also change without notice and they are required to comply with more hast than any industry. So if you built a reactor to code, and the wire mesh standards changed mid construction, you have to comply, so tear down the wall and start over unless you can figure out some way to comply. This has had a multiplication effect on costs and construction times. So many times, complications can arise not because it was "over engineered", but that they have had to go super ad-hawk to make it all work due to changes mid construction. Frankly, it is pretty amazing what they have done with reactor technology to stretch it out this long. Even with the setbacks you mention, these rube goldbergian devices still manage to compete with coal in terms of its cost per Kwh, and blow away things like solar and wind on the carbon free front.

As to reactor size LWRs had to be big in the day because of various reasons, mostly licencing. Currently, there are no real ways to do small reactors because all licencing and regulatory framework assumes it is a 1GW power station. All the huge fees and regulatory framework established by these well engineered at the time, but now ancient marvels. So you need an evacuation plan that is X miles wide ( I think it is 10), even if your reactor is fractionally as large. In other words, there is nothing technically keeping reactors large. I actually would like to see them go more modular, self regulating, and at the point of need. This would simplify transmission greatly and build in a redundancy into the system. It would also potentially open up a huge market to a variety of different small, modular reactors. Currently, though, this is a pipe dream...but a dream well worth having and pushing for.

Also, reactors in the west are pretty safe, if you look at deaths per KWH, even figuring in the worst estimates of Chernobyl, nuclear is one of the best (Chernobyl isn't a western reactor). Even so, safety ratcheting in nuclear safety happens all the time, driving costs and complexity on very old systems up and up with only nominal gains. For instance, there are no computer control systems in a reactor. Each and every gauge is a specific type that is mandated by NRC edict or similar ones abroad (usually very archaic) . This creates a potential for counterfeiter parts and other actions considered foul by many. These edicts do little for safety, most safety comes from proper reactor design, and skillful operation of the plant managers. With plants so expensive, and general costs of power still very competitive, Managers would never want to damage the money output of nuclear reactors. They would very much like to make plant operations a combination of safe, smooth, and affordable. When one of those edges out the other, it tends to find abuses in the real world. If something gets to needlessly costly, managers start looking around for alternatives. Like the DHS, much of nuclear safety is nuclear safety theater...so to a certain extent, some of the abuses don't account for any real significant increase in risk. This isn't always the case, but it has to be evaluated case by case, and for the layperson, this isn't usually something that will be done.

This combination of unwillingness to invest in new reactor technology, higher demands from reactors in general, and a single minded focus on safety, (several NRC chairmen have been decidedly anti-nuclear, that is like having the internet czar hate broadband) have stilted true growth in nuclear technology. For instance, cars are not 100% safe. It is likely you will know someone that will die in a car wreak in the course of your life. This, however, doesn't cause cars to escalate that drastically in safety features or costs to implement features to drop the death rate to 0. Even though in the US, 10s of thousands die each year in cars, you will not see well meaning people call for arresting foam injection or titanium platted unobtanium body frames, mainly because safety isn't the only point of a car. A car, or a plane, or anything really, has a complicated set of benefits and defects that we have to make hard choices on...choices that don't necessarily have a correct answer. There is a benefit curve where excessive costs don't actually improve safety that much more. If everyone in the USA had to spend 10K more on a car for form injection systems that saved 100 lives in the course of a year, is that worth it? I don't have an answer there as a matter of fact, only opinion. And as the same matter of opinion on reactors, most of their cost, complication, and centralization have to do with the special way in which we treat reactors, not the technology itself. If there was a better regulatory framework, you would see (as we kind of are slowly in the industry despite these things) cheaper, easier to fabricate reactors which are safer by default. Designs that start on a fresh sheet of paper, with the latest and greatest in computer modeling (most current reactors were designed before computer simulations on the internals or externals was even a thing) and materials science. I am routing for the molten salt, thorium reactors, but there are a bunch of other generation4 reactors that are just begging to be built.

Right now, getting the NRC to approve a new reactor design takes millions of dollars, ensuring the big boy will stay around for awhile longer yet. And the regularly framework also ensures whatever reactor gets built, it is big, and that it will use solid fuel, and water coolant, and specific dials and gauges...ect. It would be like the FCC saying the exact innards of what a cellphone should be, it would be kind of maddening to cellphone manufacturers..and you most likely wouldn't have an iPhone in the way we have it today. NRC needs to change for any of the problems you mentioned to be resolved. That is a big obstacle, I am not going to lie, it is unlikely to change anytime soon. But I think the promise of carbon free energy with reliable base-load abilities can't be ignored in this green minded future we want to create.

Any rate, thanks for your feedback, hopefully, that wasn't overkill

>> ^Fletch:

You say "bullshit", and then give an example that demonstrates exactly the opposite.

That's because they are two separate issues. One is about red light cameras and speed cameras in urban areas, and the other is road traffic policing on open roads.

>> ^Fletch:

No camera at the dangerous corner, but cameras where people are likely to exceed the speed limit (albeit safely)? Gee, I wonder why they would do that? Maybe because they raise more revenue putting cameras where there is little danger, but high return via fines. If speed cameras were truly a deterrent, and they chose not to put a camera at the known dangerous corner, then they either don't believe they are a deterrent and just place the cameras for maximum revenue, or they don't give a shit about public safety and, again, place the cameras for maximum revenue.

Possible. But in the grand scheme of things, I don't believe the revenue raised is a significant sum from a government pov. More likely, it's that the cops are under pressure to be seen to be enforcing speed limits and so do so in a place that will allow them to say "look how many people we caught".

>> ^Fletch:

I average about one speeding ticket every two years or so, and it hasn't deterred me in any way. I just think of the fine, spread out over 24 months, as the price I pay to drive however the hell I want.

Again, in any sane system, you would have your licence suspended for repeated infringement.

>> ^Fletch:

Nothing the government does, such as approving red light cameras, comes without cost/benefit considerations, and there is no benefit ($) to "fewer people running red lights".

Apart from less crashes, which couldn't possibly lead to other benefits to governments like less use of emergency services? Plus a whole bunch of knock-on effects that stem from this. Not to mention all the intangibles such as voter popularity declining in the face of an increasing road toll.

>> ^spoco2:

Cool. I was initially concerned that it'd have to have something nasty in it to do this, but what it seems is actually happening is that because the coke is stored under pressure, it can be kept below its normal freezing temperature without it actually freezing. Then when you open it and mix it around, you've released the pressure and it can now freeze.
The taking a swig is presumably just to make room for the expansion on freezing.

At lease this seems to be the explanation.


Along with this it may be a form of supercooling and when the bottle is open, nucleation (the bubbles formed by the CO2, for everyone that doesn't know what I'm saying) begins to allow ice crystals to form in the water that is already below freezing in the storage machine.

Cool. I was initially concerned that it'd have to have something nasty in it to do this, but what it seems is actually happening is that because the coke is stored under pressure, it can be kept below its normal freezing temperature without it actually freezing. Then when you open it and mix it around, you've released the pressure and it can now freeze.

The taking a swig is presumably just to make room for the expansion on freezing.


At lease this seems to be the explanation.

Well technically, they said it was probably a white pointer, not great white.

But man, I'm damn impressed with how they handled that, very cool under pressure. Nice work boys.

I didn't say her actions were evidence I meant they were suspicious. There are certain things people do when they lie, such as looking left, avoiding eye contact, stopping mid-sentence to change a statement, justifying actions for no reason(as in there is no reason to justify your actions if your innocent). She exhibits enough signs that I doubt her story. I could be wrong who knows. I sorta doubt that I am wrong however I do hope for the child's sake that I am.

But let's say your right and she got sunburned while tanning with her Mother outside. Is it any better that she took a 5 yr old to tan outside than it is to tan a 5 yr old in a tanning bed?

And speaking from experience here as I have red hair and fair skin myself. People with red hair and fair skin don't tan EVER period we burn end of story she should know better. Some people don't have the ability to tan. Their skin simply won't take it. This child will never have a natural tan the only way she will ever look tanned is through the use of spray on tanning. The fact that she would even try to let her daughter tan either in a tanning bed or outside in the sun is simply idiocy.

>> ^Stormsinger:

None of what you mention is evidence, you know. If I, or most people, get accused and arrested for something I didn't do, we quite likely get a bit defensive. And being interviewed on TV is more than enough to fuck up your train of thought if you're not an experienced interviewee. It's surprising how disruptive those lights and the pressure can be.
And once again, there are more ways to tan than in a booth. As a matter of fact, more people tan out in the sun than in a booth.
Being inarticulate when under pressure is not evidence of a crime. So far, no hint of any evidence has been made public in this case. There hasn't even been any hearsay reported. The daughter's statement of "going tanning with mommy" makes no mention of a tanning bed. I'm really rather surprised that so many people are so willing to believe the worst of this woman, with so little reason. Especially on a site that is usually more than a little rabid in their down-with-police stance. I guess that attitude only applies to young and/or attractive victims.
>> ^Auger8:
I'm sorry but it's obvious she is lying she changes her story like three times and is way way too defensive about it in the first place for someone who is innocent. First she starts to say "tanning is ok as long as.... I just like to tan.", then she says "it just didn't happen", then she says "well other parents bring their kids", then she says she got the sunburn outside. So what's the real story here lady? And why would the little girl tell her school she got the sunburn while tanning with her Mom if that's not what happened? Why would a 5 yr old lie about something like that? You think the kid was TRYING to get her Mom in trouble? No the more likely reason is that this woman who is obviously addicted to tanning decided her Fair skinned child was hideous and took matters into her own hands. Look in the mirror lady the only thing hideous around here is you and your behavior.
>> ^Stormsinger:
At least the comments here are a bit more reasonable...although a bit off track from what the actual news story is. Yes, she's damaged her appearance. Big deal....that's her choice.
What -I- find interesting is that nowhere, anywhere, have I seen the slightest shred of evidence that she actually did anything wrong. Her daughter said that she tans with Mommy. Mom, Dad, and the attendants at the tanning salon all agree that the girl never went in the tanning booth. Where's the grounds for an arrest? Because she had a sunburn? I'm pretty fucking sure there are ways to get sunburned that don't involve a tanning booth. I'm even almost sure that they might qualify as "going tanning with Mommy".

None of what you mention is evidence, you know. If I, or most people, get accused and arrested for something I didn't do, we quite likely get a bit defensive. And being interviewed on TV is more than enough to fuck up your train of thought if you're not an experienced interviewee. It's surprising how disruptive those lights and the pressure can be.

And once again, there are more ways to tan than in a booth. As a matter of fact, more people tan out in the sun than in a booth.

Being inarticulate when under pressure is not evidence of a crime. So far, no hint of any evidence has been made public in this case. There hasn't even been any hearsay reported. The daughter's statement of "going tanning with mommy" makes no mention of a tanning bed. I'm really rather surprised that so many people are so willing to believe the worst of this woman, with so little reason. Especially on a site that is usually more than a little rabid in their down-with-police stance. I guess that attitude only applies to young and/or attractive victims.
>> ^Auger8:

I'm sorry but it's obvious she is lying she changes her story like three times and is way way too defensive about it in the first place for someone who is innocent. First she starts to say "tanning is ok as long as.... I just like to tan.", then she says "it just didn't happen", then she says "well other parents bring their kids", then she says she got the sunburn outside. So what's the real story here lady? And why would the little girl tell her school she got the sunburn while tanning with her Mom if that's not what happened? Why would a 5 yr old lie about something like that? You think the kid was TRYING to get her Mom in trouble? No the more likely reason is that this woman who is obviously addicted to tanning decided her Fair skinned child was hideous and took matters into her own hands. Look in the mirror lady the only thing hideous around here is you and your behavior.
>> ^Stormsinger:
At least the comments here are a bit more reasonable...although a bit off track from what the actual news story is. Yes, she's damaged her appearance. Big deal....that's her choice.
What -I- find interesting is that nowhere, anywhere, have I seen the slightest shred of evidence that she actually did anything wrong. Her daughter said that she tans with Mommy. Mom, Dad, and the attendants at the tanning salon all agree that the girl never went in the tanning booth. Where's the grounds for an arrest? Because she had a sunburn? I'm pretty fucking sure there are ways to get sunburned that don't involve a tanning booth. I'm even almost sure that they might qualify as "going tanning with Mommy".

I really loved "Outside". Still one of my favorite albums of all time.
>> ^ulysses1904:

Yeah, for me "Scary Monsters" was his last breath of brilliance in 1980. The "Let's Dance" album had a few catchy tunes and I liked the "Blue Jean" single but his albums were becoming mostly filler at that point. I was impressed with his performance of "America" at the 9/11 concert.
>> ^TheJehosephat:
>> ^ulysses1904:
Stopped listening to him after the 1970s, he pretty much dried up creatively after that.

Really? I thought a couple of his songs from the 1980s were good. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), Loving The Alien, Ashes To Ashes, Let's Dance, and Under Pressure (collaboration with Queen, but still) ...even a couple from the 1990s like The Heart's Filthy Lesson and I'm Afraid of Americans.