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The Even Cooler Stuff From [History] Thread

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    DiplominatorDiplominator Hardcore Porg Registered User regular
    I liked the idea of glowing cats myself, and introducing a religion around that.

    Children of the Catom.

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    RichyRichy Registered User regular
    Forar wrote: »
    There were some really interesting articles a few years back about people trying to assess the best ways to indicate danger without necessarily being able to predict/use language or cultural understanding.

    My first thought is to make it look as dangerous as possible, lots of sharp pointy bits, but then that could become "what treasures could be hidden behind such a formidable fortress?" and the problem loops around.

    How do you keep people away without making it enticing to those who see the danger as a feature, not a bug?

    You carve "dangerous radioactive waste buried here" in stone in every language, living and dead, we know how to write. There is at least one language in there that our descendants from thousands of years in the future will still be able to decode, just like we can still read Babylonian cuneiform and Pharaohnic hieroglyphs. We just don't know which one, so we shoot all of them.

    As a bonus, we'll leave behind a modern Rosetta Stone.

    sig.gif
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    SadgasmSadgasm Deluded doodler A cold placeRegistered User regular
    Richy wrote: »
    Sadgasm wrote: »
    Richy wrote: »
    Hobnail wrote: »
    And all that with hundred year old technology and population levels, World War 3 is going to leave some seriously wild shit lying around for the hyperintelligent amphibian archaeologists of the future

    It's Indiana Jones, except we're the primitive civilization leaving death traps behind.

    Did they ever figure out a good way to warn future people away from digging around in toxic waste storage sites? Because that shit isnt going anywhere for a while

    I believe the current plan is to have a strange and ambiguous pictogram that only makes sense if you're in the mindset of the designer and could easily mean the exact opposite if you look at it slightly differently.

    Oh well, I'm sure they'll figure it out after they start dying.

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    Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    We should just shoot that crap into deep space. Let ET worry about it.

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    RichyRichy Registered User regular
    We should just shoot that crap into deep space. Let ET worry about it.

    A great plan, until a rocket malfunctions and blows up in the atmosphere.

    sig.gif
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    jothkijothki Registered User regular
    Forar wrote: »
    There were some really interesting articles a few years back about people trying to assess the best ways to indicate danger without necessarily being able to predict/use language or cultural understanding.

    My first thought is to make it look as dangerous as possible, lots of sharp pointy bits, but then that could become "what treasures could be hidden behind such a formidable fortress?" and the problem loops around.

    How do you keep people away without making it enticing to those who see the danger as a feature, not a bug?

    If you see warnings that entering will cause you to slowly and painfully die over the next few years, that's obviously where the really good stuff is.

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    RiemannLivesRiemannLives Registered User regular
    We should just shoot that crap into deep space. Let ET worry about it.

    Once we have lift systems that are sufficiently cheap and reliable then this is one of pretty much 2 possible solutions to the problem that are even possible.
    1) Remove the waste from earth. Ideally drop it into the sun but that is way harder than it sounds (it's easier to get to the outer solar system than it is to get to the sun from Earth)
    2) Figure out how to get the waste into the inner core of the earth

    Right now trying to do this would be insane due to the costs (both monetary and environmental) of sending stuff into space but more importantly because of the failure rate on rockets. It's way better to have a few no-go areas that are on the planet that are contaminated as hell than to have a rocket carrying such waste blow up 30 miles up.

    Attacked by tweeeeeeees!
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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    Richy wrote: »
    We should just shoot that crap into deep space. Let ET worry about it.

    A great plan, until a rocket malfunctions and blows up in the atmosphere.

    Also, unless we aim them specificly to hit the sun they're going to cross earth orbit at some point in the future.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    RiemannLivesRiemannLives Registered User regular
    Richy wrote: »
    We should just shoot that crap into deep space. Let ET worry about it.

    A great plan, until a rocket malfunctions and blows up in the atmosphere.

    Also, unless we aim them specificly to hit the sun they're going to cross earth orbit at some point in the future.

    Much easier to hit Jupiter or another outer planet. It's actually really hard to get to the sun from earth without first going into the outer system.

    Attacked by tweeeeeeees!
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    mrondeaumrondeau Montréal, CanadaRegistered User regular
    jothki wrote: »
    Forar wrote: »
    There were some really interesting articles a few years back about people trying to assess the best ways to indicate danger without necessarily being able to predict/use language or cultural understanding.

    My first thought is to make it look as dangerous as possible, lots of sharp pointy bits, but then that could become "what treasures could be hidden behind such a formidable fortress?" and the problem loops around.

    How do you keep people away without making it enticing to those who see the danger as a feature, not a bug?

    If you see warnings that entering will cause you to slowly and painfully die over the next few years, that's obviously where the really good stuff is.

    Reverse psychology, and natural selection: we put "free candy", in all known language. In case of collapse, the surviving society who preserved some historical knowledge will know that this is a trap, and will have an advantage over other societies.

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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    Richy wrote: »
    We should just shoot that crap into deep space. Let ET worry about it.

    A great plan, until a rocket malfunctions and blows up in the atmosphere.

    Also, unless we aim them specificly to hit the sun they're going to cross earth orbit at some point in the future.

    Much easier to hit Jupiter or another outer planet. It's actually really hard to get to the sun from earth without first going into the outer system.

    Point. And it's not like we can fuck up jupiter any more than it is. It's already a radioactive ball of gas that vacuums up doomsday meteors like an All-you-can-eat buffet.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    AimAim Registered User regular
    At the risk of going space 1999, the dark side of the moon is right there, and even if we want to put bases on the moon they could be placed at a safe distance from the deposits.

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    jothkijothki Registered User regular
    I have to wonder about the efficiency of all of that. Sure, insufficiently protected radioactive waste may kill some people who stumble into it generations later after the collapse of society, but a lot of things are going to kill a lot of people after the collapse of society anyway. At some point it has to be far more effective to spend that money protecting people in other ways.

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    RichyRichy Registered User regular
    Aim wrote: »
    At the risk of going space 1999, the dark side of the moon is right there, and even if we want to put bases on the moon they could be placed at a safe distance from the deposits.

    But what about the cat-women hiding in a cave on the dark side of the moon, waiting to entrap our astronauts and steal their spaceship to return to Earth?

    sig.gif
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    TastyfishTastyfish Registered User regular
    edited May 2018
    Richy wrote: »
    Aim wrote: »
    At the risk of going space 1999, the dark side of the moon is right there, and even if we want to put bases on the moon they could be placed at a safe distance from the deposits.

    But what about the cat-women hiding in a cave on the dark side of the moon, waiting to entrap our astronauts and steal their spaceship to return to Earth?

    Just stay away from any glowing cave, whether it's a waste site or a nest of Catomadams.

    Tastyfish on
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    MadpoetMadpoet Registered User regular
    Aim wrote: »
    At the risk of going space 1999, the dark side of the moon is right there, and even if we want to put bases on the moon they could be placed at a safe distance from the deposits.
    There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark.

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    AimAim Registered User regular
    Madpoet wrote: »
    Aim wrote: »
    At the risk of going space 1999, the dark side of the moon is right there, and even if we want to put bases on the moon they could be placed at a safe distance from the deposits.
    There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark.

    Probably a joke that went over my head, but I just meant the side of the moon facing away from earth.

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    L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    That's where Hitler has built his secret base!
    Did no one see the documentary "Iron Sky"????

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    Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    jothki wrote: »
    I have to wonder about the efficiency of all of that. Sure, insufficiently protected radioactive waste may kill some people who stumble into it generations later after the collapse of society, but a lot of things are going to kill a lot of people after the collapse of society anyway. At some point it has to be far more effective to spend that money protecting people in other ways.

    Once the people of the future have burned through what remaining fossil fuels there are they’ll probably be mining the radioactive waste for breeder reactor fuel anyway.

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    Al_watAl_wat Registered User regular
    super long term storage is stupid anyways.

    reactor designs exist which can use the reprocessed "spent" fuel from existing reactors and then their waste product is dangerously radioactive for like, hundreds of years as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years. And we get electrical power while eliminating waste.

    But oh yeah, "nuclear is dangerous" in the eye of the public so no.

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    Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    edited May 2018
    Edit: sorry, I'm just being a bummer for no danged ol reason

    Metzger Meister on
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    BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    Richy wrote: »
    We should just shoot that crap into deep space. Let ET worry about it.

    A great plan, until a rocket malfunctions and blows up in the atmosphere.

    We could do a skyhook where planes or balloons take it up to the bottom of the hook the elevator takes it to the top and off to wherever we will dump it off

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    RiemannLivesRiemannLives Registered User regular
    edited May 2018
    Al_wat wrote: »
    super long term storage is stupid anyways.

    reactor designs exist which can use the reprocessed "spent" fuel from existing reactors and then their waste product is dangerously radioactive for like, hundreds of years as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years. And we get electrical power while eliminating waste.

    But oh yeah, "nuclear is dangerous" in the eye of the public so no.

    yeah, the downside of those designs are:
    1) The entire reactor facility still gets turned into low level (but still dangerous) waste over the ~50 years of its lifetime due to neutron bombardment. This is true for any fission and most theoretical fusion based systems.
    2) Anyone who has one of these effectively has nuclear weapons. So you need to guard that shit and it severely limits which countries should have access to such facilities.

    Solar, wind and battery tech have reached the point that there is no reason to ever build another fission reactor. They were invented to produce weapons, not power, and have never been at all efficient at power generation once you factor in the amount of energy has to be spent on fuel mining, refinement and waste management.

    RiemannLives on
    Attacked by tweeeeeeees!
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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    Al_wat wrote: »
    super long term storage is stupid anyways.

    reactor designs exist which can use the reprocessed "spent" fuel from existing reactors and then their waste product is dangerously radioactive for like, hundreds of years as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years. And we get electrical power while eliminating waste.

    But oh yeah, "nuclear is dangerous" in the eye of the public so no.

    yeah, the downside of those designs are:
    1) The entire reactor facility still gets turned into low level (but still dangerous) waste over the ~50 years of its lifetime due to neutron bombardment. This is true for any fission and most theoretical fusion based systems.
    2) Anyone who has one of these effectively has nuclear weapons. So you need to guard that shit and it severely limits which countries should have access to such facilities.

    Solar, wind and battery tech have reached the point that there is no reason to ever build another fission reactor. They were invented to produce weapons, not power, and have never been at all efficient at power generation once you factor in the amount of energy has to be spent on fuel mining, refinement and waste management.

    In terms of technology and infrastruture...No. We have not reached a point where Solar, wind and battery tech have reached the point where there is no reason to ever build another fission reactor.
    1. Only nations with a very strong availability of geothermal or hydroelectric power so far have a realistic option of not using nuclear power or fossile fuels. The reason is called Base Load power and Load Balancing. Solar Photovoltaics and wind power produce fairly poor electricity, which needs to be diluted and load balanced in order to have an electric grid with a reliable voltage and frequency. To some extent this can be mitigated by solar thermal energy, but we're so crazy far away from the energy infrastructure needed that. Yeah. We still need nuclear power unless we're gonna burn some coal.
    2. Wind power isn't removing our dependency on fossile fuel at all. Reason? The amount of steel, cement and rare metals used per life-time megawatt/hour (materials used to produce a powerplant vs how much power that powerplant will use during its lifetime) means that holy shit are they using fossile coal (although a lot of that will be tied up into the steel and cement itself). This isn't a problem that's going away with Wind power, because it's by its very nature a low-density energy.
    3. Nuclear power itself has developed by quite a bit, both theoreticly and practically. Those old reactors optimized for making weapons? We're not really using and definitely not building those anymore. The nuclear powerplant of the future is probably not going to use Uranium, and absolutely not plutonium (although many types will be able to "eat" various isotopes of plutonium in order to get rid of the damn stuff). It's going to use stuff that's more widely available, safer to mine and a lot safer to handle.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    V1mV1m Registered User regular
    edited May 2018
    There's still a lot of low-hanging fruit when it comes to solar that remains unpicked (partly because the existing corporate infrastructure is frquently hostile to local power generation in any form, not because the tech is lacking). For a start, every habitation in climates where people routinely use air conditioning that doesn't have solar panels is a few kilowatts of locally generated missed opportunity.

    I rather suspect that we're going to see more consumer durables, including vehicles, designed with significantly varying levels of electrical power availability in mind appearing. Concepts like a fridge with a large thermal sink - use your surplus solar power to "charge up" your fridge/freezer when the sun is shining and keep it cold overnight when you want to minimise use of expensive "baseline" power. Technologically simple, and doesn't need lots of resources to run or create.

    Proliferating battery supply is going to make a difference as well, as the projects in Australia and South Africa show, but the biggest deal will be to allow people to store their own power supply just like they can keep a cistern full of water. Once local energy storage is widespread, then ideas like smart metering become viable, where the price of electricity changes dynamcially according to the supply. In that scenario, it's fine to have most of your generation from variable power sources, because you can increase and decrease demand by changing the pricing. Cloudy day with no wind? Prices rise, people have their smart devices set to use less juice, or pull power from their store. Blazing sunshine and a steady breeze? Drop prices to the point where people are buying electricity to store it ready for the next cloudy day.

    That being said I agree that people are maybe a little too quick to dimiss nuclear plants. The vast majority of nuclear power stations are 50-70s era builds, already past their expected lifetime. Newer designs are far safer. And you do want to have an amount of baseline capability for those irritating occasions when there's no sun or wind for 6 days in a row. And for applications where running out of power is intolerable. And lets face it we're not giving up our nuclear weapon habit anytime soon either.

    V1m on
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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    The main argument in favor of building new nuclear power plants. They're basicly plug and play, entirely compatible with our current energy grid which is reliant on top-down regulation, load balancing (demand regulates supply) and really only works well with "big energy", ie massive powerstations which can use extremely advanced technology, prediction models and skill to balance the grid.

    We can lessen this with demand-side power management (for example, using a smart-charger that only charges electric cars during the night or using ice-based central AC that builds up ice over night and uses that ice to keep the building cool during the day), but right now. No, we can't eliminate it. Or use renewable energy to generate enough power to cover our needs.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    Al_watAl_wat Registered User regular
    Al_wat wrote: »
    super long term storage is stupid anyways.

    reactor designs exist which can use the reprocessed "spent" fuel from existing reactors and then their waste product is dangerously radioactive for like, hundreds of years as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years. And we get electrical power while eliminating waste.

    But oh yeah, "nuclear is dangerous" in the eye of the public so no.

    yeah, the downside of those designs are:
    1) The entire reactor facility still gets turned into low level (but still dangerous) waste over the ~50 years of its lifetime due to neutron bombardment. This is true for any fission and most theoretical fusion based systems.
    2) Anyone who has one of these effectively has nuclear weapons. So you need to guard that shit and it severely limits which countries should have access to such facilities.

    Solar, wind and battery tech have reached the point that there is no reason to ever build another fission reactor. They were invented to produce weapons, not power, and have never been at all efficient at power generation once you factor in the amount of energy has to be spent on fuel mining, refinement and waste management.

    Those are the same downsides as any nuclear power plant (with some leeway on specific designs and weapons proliferation). Not necessarily the "entire" reactor facility will become irradiated or contaminated but I get your point; large portions of equipment will.

    However, there is a massive quantity of spent nuclear fuel already in existence across many countries in the world. We have a technological solution in these reactor designs to drastically reduce the long term risk to society posed by this spent fuel. In my belief a better solution than digging very deep mines and burying spent fuel - viable as those solutions may be.

    The concern for weapons proliferation should not stop us from building these reactors. There are many countries in the world who do not have nor seek nuclear weapons and yet operate power plants that could be used for weapons proliferation. The concern for these reactors with respect to weapons proliferation is the same as with nuclear power in general. Its not like the designs of these plants would be some hugely guarded secret above and beyond any other nuclear power plant - the science is well established and known.

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    HefflingHeffling No Pic EverRegistered User regular
    The established public fear of nuclear is also well known and established. We were on the cusp of a nuclear renaissance when Fukishima happened, which has killed nuclear expansion in the US. France has shut down their breeder reactors (as have other countries), leaving only Japan, China, Russia, and India as the only countries with operating breeder reactors.

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    Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    Things like TSR nuclear plants significantly change the entire risk profile of nuclear power.

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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    Well. India isn't going to stop. Developing practical Thorium-based nuclear power is practically their only hope of a fully electrified India. If they manage it they've got a domesticly fueled India that isn't extremely vulnerable to outside economic fluctuations.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    hawkboxhawkbox Registered User regular
    That's where Hitler has built his secret base!
    Did no one see the documentary "Iron Sky"????

    So they have nuclear material now on top of all that Helium 3??!!

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    ThomamelasThomamelas Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
    And of historical note today marks the 400th anniversary of Second Defenestration of Prague. One of the Casus belli of the 30 years war.

    In case anyone is curious, there are four historically notable defenestrations in Prague. The first one involved an angry mob throwing various members of the town government through windows. The 1.5th involved throwing a violent over throw of town government. And the fourth was the murder of Jan Masaryk.

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    BurtletoyBurtletoy Registered User regular
    okay but what is a defenestration?

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    RedTideRedTide Registered User regular
    Burtletoy wrote: »
    okay but what is a defenestration?

    Come look out the window and I'll show you.

    RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
    Come Overwatch with meeeee
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    ThomamelasThomamelas Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
    Burtletoy wrote: »
    okay but what is a defenestration?

    The act of throwing someone out of a window. It's why if I visit Prague I am never leaving the ground floor.

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    RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    It's always been weird to me that we have a dedicated term for that specific act.

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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    It's always been weird to me that we have a dedicated term for that specific act.

    Eh. It's not a very inventive term. Defenestration literally means "From a window". And when not one but two major wars (the Hussite war and the 30-year-war) have been incited by the same type of killing in the same city, then you damn well create a term for the act!

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    MuzzmuzzMuzzmuzz Registered User regular
    Wasn’t there a Hussite war started by inviting a guy over to have a friendly religious debate, PSYCHE! Gonna burn you alive heretic!

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    RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    Muzzmuzz wrote: »
    Wasn’t there a Hussite war started by inviting a guy over to have a friendly religious debate, PSYCHE! Gonna burn you alive heretic!

    Woah, Gothic War flashbacks.

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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    Muzzmuzz wrote: »
    Wasn’t there a Hussite war started by inviting a guy over to have a friendly religious debate, PSYCHE! Gonna burn you alive heretic!

    That event, the execution of Jan Hus despite his letter of safe conduct (by the same guy who signed his safe conduct letter, Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor), happened in 1414. It would set the ball rolling for the first defenestration in prague in 1419. Which led to 12 years of warfare and 5 anti-hussite crusades, and it ended with a victory for the Utraquists (who were moderate hussites, despite their faction name only being one L away from sounding very X-treme) who basicly got most of their demands. Which ironicly were the same things that Jan Hus asked for in the beginning.
    Great Job Sigismund.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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