@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.

Ok, I'll start with a few things that most people would probably agree with, but the police force currently would fight like hell to avoid. How about we decide to actually punish cops who break existing rules and laws. Use testing to weed out unbalanced power hungry or corrupt types from becoming cops. QUIT hiring COMBAT veterans to become PEACE officers. I'm sure there are many things that could be done to fix the problem with the police, its just that it's not being done because the police think the only problem is that we, the lowly people, dont always follow ALL commands,and sometimes we need to be put in our place. >> ^shveddy:
False dichotomy, among other things. There are innumerable intermediate steps between "allowing them to do whatever they want to you" and "shooting the motherfuckers." I'll admit that there is a point where armed resistance is warranted, but if you think that we have arrived anywhere near that point with enough frequency to warrant armed resistance, then you are crazy.
Yes, there are plenty of instances of people's rights being violated - but in 99.99% of those occasions, I think the problem can best be solved through other means.
Do I think that the students who got peppersprayed at UC Davis had their rights violated?
Yes, I do. But this guy seems to suggest that the proper response is for the students to pull guns and start a shoot-out. Let's imagine what that would look like for a second:
One of the students peers through the caustic mist with righteous fury and a wet t-shirt over his mouth. He can feel the comforting weight of his Barretta, held close to his heart in a chest holster, and he knows that this is the moment to act. He stands up tall despite the onslaught of bright orange asphyxiation, reaches for his piece and takes aim. Somewhat startled, the officer is suddenly defenseless with his canister and it is not long before he crumples to the ground in an ever expanding pool of blood. He basks in a brief moment of clarity before chaos reigns. His fellow students are quick to bear arms themselves, but the training, body armor and poise of the officers allows them a significant head start and the students suffer heavy casualties in this initial volley.
Not to be deterred by the deaths of their friends, the occupy movement takes up refuge in the life sciences building which, designed in the late sixties with a brutalist aesthetic, is mostly concrete and as such is a perfect fortress from which to outlast the ensuing siege and inspire innumerable citizens on the outside world to take up arms as well. Guerrilla warfare is the only tactic effective in such asymmetrical circumstances, and after a few weeks of violence the powers that be succumb to international pressure and agree to negotiate with the 99%...
...or we could launch an official investigation, fire the guy as a scapegoat after an admittedly long, expensive and cumbersome process, and let the public outrage that ensued lead to a more cautious approach to future student protests. Bloggers and editorialists collectively write millions of words on the subject, increasing awareness and generally shaming the agency that allowed it to happen.
Not perfect, but a whole hell of a lot more civilized.
Any time you use guns against a government entity in he US, you will eventually be caught and put in jail. Period. The only way to avoid this is to be a small part of a large popular movement that eventually overthrows the US government, and I don't see that ever happening with citizen gun-owners unless it involves guerrilla tactics. Imagine gunfights erupting at your local municipal buildings. Imagine pipe bombs at your local police station. People need to realize that this is what they are advocating when they argue for second amendment rights as a fourth check and balance.
If you disagree with that statement, feel free to fill in a reasonable sequence of events to span the gap between "guy whose fourth amendment rights are violated guns down cop" and "said guy is vindicated, and massive changes are made to our law enforcement policies." I suspect that we are far more likely to see a greater militarization of the police in response.
I humbly propose that we join the civilized world and come up with more creative ways to correct our problems.

False dichotomy, among other things. There are innumerable intermediate steps between "allowing them to do whatever they want to you" and "shooting the motherfuckers." I'll admit that there is a point where armed resistance is warranted, but if you think that we have arrived anywhere near that point with enough frequency to warrant armed resistance, then you are crazy.

Yes, there are plenty of instances of people's rights being violated - but in 99.99% of those occasions, I think the problem can best be solved through other means.

Do I think that the students who got peppersprayed at UC Davis had their rights violated?

Yes, I do. But this guy seems to suggest that the proper response is for the students to pull guns and start a shoot-out. Let's imagine what that would look like for a second:

One of the students peers through the caustic mist with righteous fury and a wet t-shirt over his mouth. He can feel the comforting weight of his Barretta, held close to his heart in a chest holster, and he knows that this is the moment to act. He stands up tall despite the onslaught of bright orange asphyxiation, reaches for his piece and takes aim. Somewhat startled, the officer is suddenly defenseless with his canister and it is not long before he crumples to the ground in an ever expanding pool of blood. He basks in a brief moment of clarity before chaos reigns. His fellow students are quick to bear arms themselves, but the training, body armor and poise of the officers allows them a significant head start and the students suffer heavy casualties in this initial volley.

Not to be deterred by the deaths of their friends, the occupy movement takes up refuge in the life sciences building which, designed in the late sixties with a brutalist aesthetic, is mostly concrete and as such is a perfect fortress from which to outlast the ensuing siege and inspire innumerable citizens on the outside world to take up arms as well. Guerrilla warfare is the only tactic effective in such asymmetrical circumstances, and after a few weeks of violence the powers that be succumb to international pressure and agree to negotiate with the 99%...

...or we could launch an official investigation, fire the guy as a scapegoat after an admittedly long, expensive and cumbersome process, and let the public outrage that ensued lead to a more cautious approach to future student protests. Bloggers and editorialists collectively write millions of words on the subject, increasing awareness and generally shaming the agency that allowed it to happen.

Not perfect, but a whole hell of a lot more civilized.

Any time you use guns against a government entity in he US, you will eventually be caught and put in jail. Period. The only way to avoid this is to be a small part of a large popular movement that eventually overthrows the US government, and I don't see that ever happening with citizen gun-owners unless it involves guerrilla tactics. Imagine gunfights erupting at your local municipal buildings. Imagine pipe bombs at your local police station. People need to realize that this is what they are advocating when they argue for second amendment rights as a fourth check and balance.

If you disagree with that statement, feel free to fill in a reasonable sequence of events to span the gap between "guy whose fourth amendment rights are violated guns down cop" and "said guy is vindicated, and massive changes are made to our law enforcement policies." I suspect that we are far more likely to see a greater militarization of the police in response.

I humbly propose that we join the civilized world and come up with more creative ways to correct our problems.

Thanks for the promote!
In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

....hehehe, Dude-You have thirty-three hundred and sixty-four videos in yer pee-Q.....JEEEEZUZZZZZSS!!

Your video, Current and Magnets - Sixty Symbols, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Thanks for the promote.
In reply to this comment by messenger:
*promote drunk crystals.

Ayn Rand's Influence on Alan Greenspan
In The Age of Turbulence, Alan Greenspan describes the influence that Ayn Rand had on his intellectual development.

Ayn Rand became a stabilizing force in my life. It hadn't taken long for us to have a meeting of the minds -- mostly my mind meeting hers -- and in the fifties and early sixties I became a regular at the weekly gatherings at her apartment. She was a wholly original thinker, sharply analytical, strong-willed, highly principled, and very insistent on rationality as the highest value. In that regard, our values were congruent -- we agreed on the importance of mathematics and intellectual rigor.

But she had gone far beyond that, thinking more broadly than I had ever dared. She was a devoted Aristotelian -- the central idea being that there exists an objective reality that is separate from consciousness and capable of being known. Thus she called her philosophy objectivism. And she applied key tenets of Aristotelian ethics -- namely, that individuals have innate nobility and that the highest duty of every individual is to flourish by realizing that potential. Exploring ideas with her was a remarkable course in logic and epistemology. I was able to keep up with her most of the time.

Rand's Collective became my first social circle outside the university and the economics profession. I engaged in the all-night debates and wrote spirited commentary for her newsletter with the fervor of a young acolyte drawn to a whole new set of ideas. Like any new convert, I tended to frame the concepts in their starkest, simplest terms. Most everyone sees the simple outline of an idea before complexity and qualification set in. If we didn't, there would be nothing to qualify, nothing to learn. It was only as contradictions inherent in my new notions began to emerge that the fervor receded.

One contradiction I found particularly enlightening. According to objectivist precepts, taxation was immoral because it allowed for government appropriation of private property by force. Yet if taxation was wrong, how could you reliably finance the essential functions of government, including the protection of individuals' rights through police power? The Randian answer, that those who rationally saw the need for government would contribute voluntarily, was inadequate. People have free will; suppose they refused?

I still found the broader philosophy of unfettered market competition compelling, as I do to this day, but I reluctantly began to realize that if there were qualifications to my intellectual edifice, I couldn't argue that others should readily accept it. [...]

Ayn Rand and I remained close until she died in 1982, and I'm grateful for the influence she had on my life. I was intellectually limited until I met her. All of my work had been empirical and numbers-based, never values-oriented. I was a talented technician, but that was all. My logical positivism had discounted history and literature -- if you'd asked me whether Chaucer was worth reading, I'd have said, "Don't bother." Rand persuaded me to look at human beings, their values, how they work, what they do and why they do it, and how they think and why they think. This broadened my horizons far beyond the models of economics I'd learned. I began to study how societies form and how cultures behave, and to realize that economics and forecasting depend on such knowledge -- different cultures grow and create material wealth in profoundly different ways. All of this started for me with Ayn Rand. She introduced me to a vast realm from which I'd shut myself off.

From The Age of Turbulence, pp. 51-53. Omissions from the text are shown with bracketed ellipses. All other punctuation and spelling is from the original.

http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/turbulence.html

Seems a little US-centric to me. Jeopardy's run from 1964- to present with a ten year gap is impressive, and I know it says 'one of the...' but in the interests of Trivia there are a number of UK based shows that beat or equal it, and I'm sure other countries can boast likewise: Round Britain Quiz (since 1947, radio), University Challenge (1962), A Question of Sport (1970) and Mastermind (1972, but with a few years gap) are the obvious ones.

I guess we haven't had quite the scandal here that the US has with quiz shows in the fifties/sixties.

Your video, Is it the Higgs Boson? - Sixty Symbols, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Thanks mate!
In reply to this comment by eric3579:
*promote

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video When I'm Sixty-Four. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

>> ^Kreegath:

You can find a fix here:
http://www.vimeo.com/1802284


Dead too!

*dead -- "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated..."

Yep, I think you're right. My prediction above could only happen with initial speeds massive enough for the outgoing particle to overcome the magnetic pull, or with the magnet fixed to a spot on the track.

My next question is about why in this video the incoming ball hits twice. In a cradle, it only hits once, and all force is transmitted through the chain of balls in a single pulse, ejecting just one ball. Why should it be different with a magnet? Arguably, it should stick even stronger if there's a force holding it there. Maybe the difference is that in this video the ball is accelerating as it strikes, whereas in the cradle, as the ball's direction approaches level, it's acceleration goes down to zero, so that the moment of impact, there's zero acceleration happening.

An experiment to test this: get a track with a steady slope, and several balls. Hold a group of balls around the middle of the track, and a single ball well above them. Release the single ball towards the group, and before it strikes the group, release the group. The single ball will be accelerating relative to the group and eventually strike it. We can see how many balls are ejected out the front of the group. If more than one, then it's confirmed. If only one, then it's disconfirmed, and probably has something to do with magnetic attraction specifically.>> ^oritteropo:

Momentum can be conserved in a number of ways, and my thought was that if the ball is really stuck to that magnet then rather than ejecting the ball on the other side, the whole lot might just move along the track together. If you've ever played with neodymium magnets you'll know why I think that, the amount of effort required to unstick something from them is surprisingly large. [minor edit]

Momentum can be conserved in a number of ways, and my thought was that if the ball is really stuck to that magnet then rather than ejecting the ball on the other side, the whole lot might just move along the track together. If you've ever played with neodymium magnets you'll know why I think that, the amount of effort required to unstick something from them is surprisingly large.
>> ^messenger:

I think ideally, as momentum must be conserved, that the ball would come in, the other ball would be ejected, and decelerated until it escaped the magnetic pull going the same speed as the incoming ball was before it started accelerating.
On a real physical track like this with friction and sound energy loss, I think the ball would be ejected, not overcome the pull of the magnet, and get sucked back pretty quick. It may strike hard enough to send the other ball out a bit, but after very few iterations, they would be all stuck together.
I haven't thought yet about the effect of the magnet moving towards the first ball as it approaches. Maybe this has no net effect at all.