Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

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…

What is going on with this damned blog????? Look at the top! Holy shit! Has the unimaginable and unthinkable actually happened? I am going to look into this, and heads will roll! (I guess I can’t say I wasn’t warned….) MORE: I have emailed both M. Simon and Sarah seeking an explanation. This is an…

Here’s a tidbit I find myself unable to ignore, yet because of my lack of access to reliable information, any opinions I have are conditioned on the reliability of other people’s opinions. (How I hate that! Usually I remain silent about such things….) Anyway, Brian P. Fairchild (who has a CIA background and who seems…

There is some bad news for the Japanese people. According to the Mainichi newspaper Japan’s government plans to take control of Tokyo Electric Power Co , the operator of a stricken nuclear power plant, by injecting public funds. However, it appears that Japan has learned a thing or two from Tim Geithner and the concept…

I’m back from seeing Gary Johnson speak at the University of Michigan, and even though it’s past my normal blogtime, I thought I would share a few thoughts. Unless you’ve been in a longterm coma, you know we are in a real crisis now. Not just the usual crisis (or the usual “emergency“) they like…

People keep saying that the Tea Party is doing nothing. The last time I tried to do something it involved marching around in the freezing cold to stop a local (Saline, MI) school millage initiative which would have cost taxpayers $29 million. The conventional wisdom was that because the schools (meaning “The Children”) need the…

We are most fortunate that the mysterious source of neutrons at Fukushima has just been found. The risk to workers might be greater than previously thought because melted fuel in the No. 1 reactor building may be causing isolated, uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions, Denis Flory, nuclear safety director for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said…

A commenter on one of my articles about the possibility of a recriticality accident said such an accident was not possible. Well actually, a study of the type of reactor now having problems in Japan (BWR) shows that a recriticality accident is possible: ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp5-euratom/docs/09-sara.pdf From the summary of the document: Recriticality in a BWR during…