Go tell Tebas that the AEPD fines over LaLiga app can be astronomically huge. Also, telecomms' disruption and suplantation (MITM) in Spain can make both Tebas, the ISP CEO's (and mid managers) among the judge jailed in the spot.
I have wondered if one of the issues with mobile devices might simply be physiological - using them appears to require constant eye movement that rest does not require. I haven't seen this addressed.
More on the topic of the post, devices require a tight focus on details on a small object. That's the poison. Tight focus means stress for humans. You need time where you're not focusing on things (in all senses of the word, ideally) to recover and lower stress.
The wars in Ukraine and irán have also highlighted what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophic. The idea that such will never happen is as silly as the idea that there will never be an accident or a tsunami. But passive safety won't stop a missile.
It's certainly possible to blow them up, but they very unlikely to melt down like Chernobyl did anymore due to all the effort put into preventing that. Easier to just launch radioactive materials at your enemy if that's the result you want.
The containment building of new nuclear power plant has to withstand impact of large, commercial aircraft used for long distance flights, with aviation fuel loading typically used in such flights.
Containment buildings for nuclear reactors are the strongest non-military buildings ever build. You need something much stronger than a small airplane, or simple drone, missile to breach it. Even a 155mm artillery granite or a anti-tank missile is not enough. You would probably need specialize bunker buster munition, or nuclear explosion.
The Russian army will not directly attack nuclear power plants in Ukraine. They could not gain much from release of radioactive material as the radioactive material would also migrate to Russia. The Russian army is attacking the infrastructure connecting power plants to the grid, to deny the electricity production. (And is attacking must power infrastructure in Ukraine).
> A missile hitting a coal power plant will also be pretty bad, and there's not a giant shield around it.
Probably not even the same order of magnitude. A blown-up nuclear reactor would be WAY worse in short- and long-term effects (and cleanup costs) than a blown-up coal power plant producing comparable MW.
Coal is shockingly nasty. Combustion concentrates heavy radioactive elements that are present in the coal. Coal and nuclear plants can't be built too close together or the exhaust from the coal plant will set off the radiation alarm at the nuclear plant.
It also does the same thing to heavy metals in the coal like arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury. More than 90% of coal is carbon and therefore becomes CO2, but because of the huge difference in energy density, the coal plant has to burn millions of times more coal than nuclear reactors consume uranium, and thereby generates tens of thousands of times more toxic and radioactive coal ash than the nuclear plant generates nuclear waste.
Then they put the stuff into "wet surface impoundments" which is industry for dumping the toxic sludge into a lake. Those things frequently poison entire towns without any kind of terrorist attack.
What do you think happens if you send a missile to the "wet surface impoundment" that releases the contents of the lake into the town or the groundwater?
> What do you think happens if you send a missile to the "wet surface impoundment" that releases the contents of the lake into the town or the groundwater?
I can't speak to that. But nearly 50 years ago I did a deep dive into what would likely happen in the event of a nuclear "accident" (a term of art) in a Navy ship's reactor in port. This was when I was doing the Navy's prep course for the [chief] engineer exam after two years of sea duty running aircraft-carrier reactors. Current-design civilian reactors are much larger, so the effects of a missile-strike meltdown would be correspondingly worse. If I had to guess, it'd be far worse than even the missile strike you postulate.
Footnote: AFAIK there has never been a nuclear accident aboard a Navy ship, submarine or otherwise. That's something in which nukes take immense pride. It's largely because of the zero-defect, second-checking culture ferociously instilled by Admiral Hyman Rickover during his decades in charge of "The Program."
Back to non-missile dangers: Human error is what I've always worried about for nuclear power plants. From what's been made public, both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl could easily have been averted — had it not been for cascades of operator errors. Can we confidently say that such errors are less likely today? To be sure, many civilian nuclear plants in the U.S. are run by Navy veterans. But my guess is that working in such plants doesn't provide the same motivations and incentives as "the Fleet." (And a flock of suicide drones won't care either way.)
Relatedly: I was just reading an account of Air France Flight 447, which flew itself into the middle of the South Atlantic — killing all aboard — because of cascades of egregious pilot error that defeated all the autopilot systems.
I think it's an error that International Atomic Energy Agency classified both Fukushima nuclear accident and Chernobyl nuclear accident on International Nuclear Event Scale Level 7 (major accident).
In both the amount of released radionuclides and health effects of the accidents, Chernobyl accident was much, much bigger than Fukushima.
Saying humanity should never use nuclear energy just because someone might shoot a missile at it is incredibly stupid when CO2 emissions are causing climate change.
If climate change prevention is the target, then its also an no for nuclear.
Nuclear reactors need tons of cement, the fuel needs an complicated and energy intensive process with a lot of waste.
That link is also using an average including older reactors that require more highly enriched uranium (enrichment is energy-intensive), newer designs that can run on natural or low enrichment uranium can do 1.31g/kWh:
By that logic solar power should also be banned, due to the amount of coal required per panel (0) both for reduction and Czochralski process. And remember, solar panel factories don't run on solar power.
How does that change the fact that solar panels cannot be manufactured without high quality coal? (0) And doesn't that undermine the "cement for nuclear power" argument?
Cumulative total number of deaths from Chernobyl, definitively the worst nuclear disaster in history, ranges from 4000 to 16000 (estimates, via Wikipedia). A dam bursting upstream of a few small towns will kill many more[0].
For comparison the Bhopal disaster (which is much less known in the West) that occurred on 3 December 1984 in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India caused deaths in the range 3928 to 16000.
A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.
Most of Europe drinks water from underground aquifers, which could not be affected by Chernobyl. Even breathing with air with radionuclides from Chernobyl in far distance from Chernobyl power plant didn't cause much radiation dose to the population. It was eating contaminated food and drinking contaminated milk that cause most radiation dose for population.
The precise mechanism was: radioactive particles fall to ground, or are washed to ground by rain, which concentrates them on vegetation with a lot of surface especially leafy vegetables, grass. Leafy vegetables are eaten directly by humans. Grass is eaten by cows, which again concentrates the radionuclides in milk. Humans drink milk, eat cheese concentrated from milk.
Not all radionuclides produced in nuclear fission have the same health impact on population in case of a nuclear disaster. To have a significant health hazard a radionuclide needs to have 3 properties: volatility, half-life, bioaccumulativity.
Volatility - some radioactive elements (heavy metals) are not moved far away by air, some radioactive elements like radioactive noble gases dilute very fast.
Stuff with a short half-life will transform into stable elements before migrating far. Stuff with with very long half-life will not produce much radiation during human lifetime.
Bioaccumulativity, radioactive stuff needs to stay in body to do damage. If it's eaten and then pooped out next day it usually doesn't cause much damage.
Most dangerous for general public in case of nuclear disasters are:
Iodine-131 (half-life 8 days): Iodine is stored in thyroid gland and stays in for long time in body. Especially children need a lot of iodine per kilogram of body weight. In regions where there is not enough of iodine in food (lacking seafood, table salt without added iodine), human body will try to get every bit of iodine from environment and hold it in body as long as possible.
Cesium-137 (half-time 30.04 years) : Alkali metal that forms salts. Has tendency to accumulate in soft tissues.
Strontium-90 (half-time 28.91 years) : Chemically similar to calcium. Has tendency to be incorporated into bones, teeth and stay in body for very long time.
Big part of radiation dose to the population could be prevented if the Soviet state didn't tried to cover up the Chernobyl and would prevent people from eating local food and milk, because most of the damage is done by eating iodine-131 in the first weeks after accident. Timely administration of potassium iodide tables would also help.
Chernobyl liquidators were affected with much broader range of radionuclides (radioactive stuff that did not migrate far) and with much high concentrations (radioactive stuff was not diluted much).
Direct deaths: 2 killed by debris (including 1 missing) and 28 killed by acute radiation sickness.
There many estimates about impact of Chernobyl disaster. I think the most comprehensive study is from Chernobyl Forum.
"On the death toll of the accident, the report states that 28 emergency workers died from acute radiation syndrome and 15 patients died from thyroid cancer. It roughly estimates that cancers deaths caused by the Chernobyl accident might eventually reach a total of up to 4,000 among the 600,000 cleanup workers or "liquidators" who received the greatest exposures."
Both are good sources of energy. If you're going to make the argument that "nuclear is unsafe so we shouldn't do it" though, it's relevant to keep in mind that since we've had nuclear power, dam failures have outpaced nuclear by many times in terms of deaths / TwH (1).
Edit to add: Before anyone jumps on for this it's important to note that without the Banquiao disaster the rates are about the same. Still means "nuclear is unsafe" is kind of a red herring.
"In August 1975, the Banqiao Dam and 61 others throughout Henan, China, collapsed following the landfall of Typhoon Nina. The dam collapse created the third-deadliest flood in history which affected 12,000 km2 (3 million acres) with a total population of 10.15 million, including around 30 cities and counties, with estimates of the death toll ranging from 26,000 to 240,000."
"After the disaster, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government remained silent to the public, while no media were allowed to make reports."
"The official documents of this disaster were considered a state secret until 2005 when they were declassified."
But still after +4 years of war, with extensive targeting of Ukrainian civilians, the nuclear power plants stand while the plants using gas etc. are bombed daily. They are simply too dangerous of a target. Russia enjoys using Zaporizhzhia power plant for some brinkmanship once in a while, but they are well aware of the risk and everything has turned out fine so far.
If Ukraine didn't have nuclear energy they would be blacked out now.
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant hasn't been bombed because (1) the Russians control it right now (it's behind their lines) so why would they, and (2) the Ukranians live downwind so why would they?
Russia has bombed the switchyards and trandformers of other NPPs though.
Bambaataa was a serial sexual abuser and everybody in the rap scene knew it back in the day (early 90s) same way everyone knew about R. Kelly (I ran a rap program on the radio in 92-94).
Damn. As someone half the world away I just knew him as a pioneer, news didn't travel enough to know anything about the personal lives of artists in the early 00s.
No idea about the allegations until now, which means the news doubly suck.
I've read this a number of times, and dismissed it because there's no proof. But, I'm beginning to believe it, given the sheer amount of different sources saying it.
I can imagine scenarios where decent people in tough environments might be compelled to join a gang, rob, or even murder. That doesn’t make it ok, but it makes it at least understandable.
I’m unable to imagine a reason why decent people might be compelled to rape children, let alone serially.
There is the position, of course, that a sexually abused child that reaches teen years or adulthood is no longer a "decent person" .. which is an interesting transition to dwell on.
That makes it more understandable, but he lost a trial that said he was raping a child when he was 38 years old.
Someone abused as a child who does sketchy things in their early 20s is tragic. Someone doing the same when they’re nearly 40 is a whole lot harder to dismiss. Like, you don’t make it to that age without hearing a lot of people along the way saying not to rape children.
Oh, please, don't think I'm making any excuses here .. but I was around and about the evidence management side of a five deep dive into institutional childhood abuse ... the various things that went down tend to explain a lot of early following behaviour once some kind of distance from early abuse is made.
You're right to flag ongoing and persistent shitty behaviour as unacceptable - even assigning blame there gets problematic as there absolutely is an element of "would they be less bad had they had more support on escape", but you can't be giving a pass forever.
Bloody Trolley problems .. this is one of several areas with no good choices, no easy solutions.
Yeah, I hear ya. My wife and I like watching crime shows, and you see someone like Ed Kemper, and wonder how he would’ve turned out if he hadn’t been subject to loads of abuse. If his parents hadn’t sucked, he might’ve been a doctor or something. It doesn’t forgive his crimes but does give a lot to ponder.
If only human behavior was that simple. The DSM-5 is filled with diseases of the mind. Choice often isn’t as cut and dry as we would like to believe.
No one wakes up and thinks “I want to suffer today of _____.” [1] AndI want others to suffer along with me.
That said, perhaps the universe is binary? Perhaps evil, pure evil does exist? Perhaps there’s no to stopping evil than “just say no”? It’s hard to say.
There is also the theory that it serves as a reenactment of one’s own abuse. Trying to find peace and return to safety by replaying the scene, this time not as helpless victim but perpetrator: in control.
Victims of sexual abuse thus often are haunted by “fantasies” of abuse but avoiding the victim position; the trap is to identify with the fantasies. All too often, they’ve been told it is their fault, they wanted it etc, so the imagined replay “proves the original perpetrator right”.
The only way to break the circle seems to be to fully go into the fantasy and process the victim position, with support of a well-meaning presence (typically a therapist but in another reality it could be friends or family).
Um, yeah? You can’t think of a single reason for justified homicide, ever? Maybe a kid who’s tired of seeing his stepdad beat the hell out of him and his mom, or they’re in a lawless part of the world where might makes right and the local mayor is horrid.
I’m not talking about random “my neighbor disrespected me so I killed him” idiocy. Just saying, I can at least imagine situations where, even if he shouldn’t have done it, if I were in the jury, I’d probably vote to acquit. If you can’t, you are definitely not a decent person.
Nope, I would never justify outright murder. I don't even support capital punishment. I might be able to develop an understanding for the circumstances, but that doesn't mean I would say "Hey, that instance of lynchmob justice was actually OK." Because you know, its a slipery slope I am not willing to walk on.
That's a totally fair and reasonable moral perspective, albeit one not widely shared. I can't imagine a plausible scenario where I — living in a safe place, around decent people, in a stable environment — would ever feel the need to proactively protect myself or my family with lethal force. But every day I watch the news and see people living in war-torn settings, and I can sympathize that they might see it otherwise.
Not a reasonable question. All my information was third hand at best.
We didn't play Bambaataa, R Kelly or Tupac (convicted rapist) records. That's about all a radio station could do. Can't state what legally speaking were merely rumors on the air without facing problems. All you can do is not support them commercially, which we did.
We had a whole list of stuff we wouldn't play. R Kelly's first album was around 93 (I can't remember now) and the video of him and the underage girl that initially got him charged was known about at the time. The music and also information about the musicians reached people in the loop somewhat earlier than it reached everyone else. It's also 30+ years ago and details are not easy to remember, but there was no social media or internet. We had pirated cassette tapes and vinyl freebies from the distributors and word of mouth. R Kelly specifically there were djs who played him. This was not a commercial station so we could ban Tupac with no problems and we did. We also thought he was a mediocre rapper. There's lots of revisionism in how people remember things now.
For context we were in a big northeastern city with a good range and at the time there was almost no other regular rap programming on the radio (one other show locally). Outside NYC it was very hard to get rap (or even R&B) on the radio except in certain places or in very commercial programming (and then biz market and Beastie boys were maybe the best stuff you could put on the radio). Something like hit 107 in ATL (a very receptive market) started in 1990 and even there rap programming was mostly on college and community stations. We had guest djs beeping swearwords live on turntables while they stole our records because everyone was too high to pay attention. It was very much a bunch of kids into music convincing someone that this music deserved a time slot and one mistake and it all got cancelled. A lot of them were socially conscious and there was a lot of pushback against the misogynistic and gangster stuff but commerce won. We had issues about playing shabba ranks and the like too because of all the homophobia in dancehall. Tupac's case was a tough one because he had fans and defenders.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait and/or snark? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly; actually a rather shocking amount. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
so if I disagree with the overwhelming amount of reddit-think, my comments are unsubstantive? The spirit of your site has changed in the last several years and it is slowly turning into a popular subreddit
A friend of mine has worked in TV and film for decades. Many times he has told me about rumoured offenders (typically after they are arrested), but other than avoiding working on productions with them what are his choices? Trying to do a completely ridiculous "citizen's arrest"?
That's sadly a recurring pattern with Black American pioneers.
For example a lot of early bluesmen are known to be highly problematic and the completely clean ones are rare (Howlin' Wolf is one).
I've been recently experimenting with rape as a structuring force in sociology and anthropology (when I say "experimenting", I'm mean as a work hypothesis) and I'm now thinking it's more determinative at scale than murder. After all murder takes someone out of the pool.
I wouldn't go around DJing an abuser's music but I find it insufficient to stop at signaling about it and cancelling. That's where the work begins, not where it ends.
Stopping at jailing abusers will force them to hide better and prevent the more cowardly ones from acting, but it won't stop before the process behind it is fully understood, internalized and treated.
I don't know the story behind it but there's a very high chance Afrika Bambaataa was abused as a child.
> That's sadly a recurring pattern with Black American pioneers
I think we have enough evidence these days to confidently say race has nothing to do with it.
For people who get enough power and influence they'll either become role models from a position of power, get followers and maybe even act as mentors to their subsequent victims (priests, teachers, various artists, activists and other "influencers"), or they're rich enough to think/know they can get away with anything (everyone in the Epstein files).
You're mis-interpreting if you're thinking I'm ascribing it to race. Frankly, I'm not an American and I don't care for it.
I'm saying quite literally that it's over-represented in Black American artists, alongside with drug abuse. Which is a theme explored extensively by Black American artists themselves, most recently Kendrick.
That it happens to white people in a similar set of circumstances (absentee parents and abuse during childhood) confirms my point.
Sadly a reoccurring problem with lots of white rock and roll “heroes” from Aerosmith to Led Zeppelin to Iggy Pop to Lynyrd Skynyrd to The Cars to The Stones…
I'd say the point is "An Ordinary Guy did X". Vs. an engineering genius, or somebody with deep pockets, or a Hollywood special effects model builder, or 3D printer junkie, or whatever.
"Engineering genius" not being an "ordinary guy" is a kind of classism. The whole tenor of the "truck driver did something interesting" is essentially classist thinking.
Jesus christ this is pedantic. You do understand that not all statements can be universally distilled to true or false right? That there's nuance and opinion here right?
Silly management fads waste huge amounts of time and resources and generate all manner of perverse incentives. They entrench institutional mediocrity as much as anything.
reply