Category: Uncategorized

From what I remember about the Good Samaritan doctrine from law school, while there is no duty to render aid to someone, if you do render aid you are then under a duty to do it properly. A guy in New Mexico seems to have messed up as a Good Samaritan, for while he took…

From the ex-SKF blog comes this bit: I posted this on my Japanese blog for the Japanese readers. I’m putting out the summary for the English readers here, too. A nuclear researcher at Kyoto University (which is considered one of the two most prestigious national universities, the other one being Tokyo University) has reversed his…

While I’m all for free campaign speech, I don’t know what to make of this news development. Facebook and the White House jointly announced Tuesday that Obama will visit the Palo Alto headquarters of the social network on April 20, where the president will hold a special “Facebook town hall” event that will stream live…

Glenn Greenwald has written yet another post (as if we needed more) castigating Glenn Reynolds as a stupid bigot. Surprise. But lest anyone get the idea that Greenwald is obsessed with Reynolds (heaven forefend!), Greenwald asssures us that Reynolds is mainly being “highlighted” because he is so “common.” Reynolds is highlighted here not because he’s…

Every now and then I get one wrong. When I do I like to correct my errors. Thanks to Charlie Martin who made me look up some different opinions. ==== In my recent post Blue Light Special I said that the blue lights seen at the reactor accidents in Japan were evidence of a criticality…

In my post Crack Of Doom I said: Just to add to the rumor factory. I have seen mentioned that the radiation monitors can read a maximum of 1,000 millisieverts per hour. Which is a very high level for human habitation. If that is the case we do not in fact have a maximum number…

I often wish I could write freely and without any restraint what is in my mind, but because this is a public blog, I can’t. Generalizations are the problem. In general, whenever you generalize about anything, the people who are in any way sensitive about what you’re generalizing about will immediately object. At least many…

Evidently the fish in the ocean are not paying attention to the 20 km exclusion zone around Fukushima. They should because there is a small radiation problem. Radioactive iodine-131 readings taken from seawater near the water intake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant’s No. 2 reactor reached 7.5 million times the legal limit, Tokyo…

The Prometheus Award is a big deal in science fiction. The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist…

Some really cheery news from Japan. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says that if the current situation continues for a long time, with accumulation of more radioactive substances, there will be “a huge impact on the ocean.” Well OK. If it continues for a long time. What are the odds of that? William Brinkman, director…

I have a couple of prognostications on the effect of the Japanese earthquake on semiconductors. Here is the first. There are several bullet points. I’m going to list those plus the final conclusion. 1. GDP will fall 2. Electronic systems will take a hit 3. There will be no change in IC forecast 4. Supply…

The Chlorine paper mentioned in the video. There is a nice explanation of fission chain reactions in the video. My only minor quibble is that neutron production per fission is 2.5 not 2.0. His point about neutrons being hard to detect is true for standard issue body dosimeters. They are not hard to detect with…

Despite a fairly long discussion of purity yesterday, I don’t think I was able to determine with any degree of accuracy how purity is to be defined, much less who gets to define it. I couldn’t even determine whether purity comes from within a person or by reference to outside ideology. Is a person’s purity…

Not that I needed a reminder of how impure I am, but Glenn Reynolds has linked a couple of great posts on libertarian purity by Tom Knighton which reminded me that I hardly alone in grappling with this problem. Knighton’s latest post discusses a touchy subject for some libertarian purists — moderate libertarians.  These can…

The White House Insider thinks that Donald Trump has a good chance of beating Obama. In discussing that he has a deep critique of the Republicans. The dynamics of a Trump campaign – I find it a fascinating prospect. He could defeat Obama – he really could. And he can play tough. All of the…

Looking at the murderous rampage committed in response to the latest Koran-burning incident, Ed Morrissey made an observation with which I completely agree: The only people responsible for murders are those who commit them, and those who specifically incite them to kill.  Any other position eventually wipes out free speech, free religious practice, and freedom…

Via Zero Hedge. The mayor of Minami Soma city, located 25 km away from the Fukushima plant, had decided to bypass the traditional channels in requesting assistance out of disgust and frustration with the government’s handling of the disaster, and instead is appealing to the entire world via this soon to be viral video clip…

Dr. Helen raised the issue of doctors asking their patients about gun ownership, and she linked a post by GruntDoc condemning a proposal which would prohibit doctors from questioning their patients about guns. GruntDoc sees it as an attempt to limit medical practice and as a free speech issue, and I see his point. If…

Picture Source If you want to read an engineers view of the current status of Fukushima may I suggest An Engineer’s View. If you have been following my work on the subject you know that my conclusions are very similar. And why not? I’m Naval Nuke trained. Cross Posted at Power and Control

A nice review of the events of the last three weeks at Fukushima can be found at the link. It is in Power Point format. If you prefer a pdf you can get that here. You can also get daily status updates from the IAEA here. So now you know about the apocalypse. What can…