icarus_drowning

Bitcoins don't have to be tradable to dollars to represent nonzero value. Their utility is in and of itself valuable. It might not have value to you, but that's different than suggesting that it has no value at all.

But that's not reasonable. Its just ignoring the privacy/anonymity value of BTC. Again, we can argue about the monetary value as compared to dollars, (especially given the tradeoffs-- i.e., convertibility to established currency, places to spend, etc) but that's real, practical value. You can't simply ignore it.

Bitcoin is, in a way, backed by the value that it brings as a currency-- privacy and anonymity. We can argue whether that value is $10 per BTC, but I also don't think any reasonable person thinks that it is zero.

I don't know how much I agree with the statement "even the Cold War was really just the US and Russia building to re-win WWII until Russia ran out of cash". Not that it matters for this discussion, because I think its clear that the U.S. military is still trying to design itself for a Cold War scenario, and encountering huge problems when faced with asymmetrical opponents.

He also misrepresents the view of Victor Davis Hanson-- I think he's referring to "Carnage and Culture", which has a much more nuanced (and thus far different) argument.

This is certainly a concern, but I think it is very encouraging that the major players- Amazon, B&N, Sony, etc.-- have done a fairly decent job of keeping the devices "open enough" that you don't need them to get your works onto Kindles, Nooks, etc.

Amazon, for instance, might curate its bookstore and censor "offensive" books, but you can still always transfer books using USB (there's even software like Calibre that makes the process fairly painless). I don't have a Nook, but my previous Sony EReader had the same capability-- I actually buy quite a lot of the books for my Kindle from outlets like Smashwords, which cuts out even Amazon as the middleman.

Still, I think its worth keeping in mind that it is Amazon's choice to allow us to transfer content to our Kindles. They could make that irritating or difficult-- and do it at any time. Given that, it is certainly worth being wary, if optimistic, about their policies.

"Trust by verify".

Aren't they explicitly described as forum postings?

Not to mention that the tech has been out for about 5 minutes. Proclaiming the death of an interconnect that is this new is in and of itself pretty ridiculous.

This is one aspect of this debate that I think hasn't been covered nearly enough. Nuclear opponents have successfully created an environment in which it is extremely difficult to construct new reactors, and then they are quick to decry failures of obsolete designs. The anti-nuke movement shares culpability in the Fukushima disaster precisely because they have done everything possible to ensure that we are stuck with older, far less safe designs.

If anything, Fukushima is an example of how little attention we should pay to the anti-nuclear movement, because an inevitable side effect of their cause is the prolonging of older reactor's lifespans, when much safer designs could be replacing them.

The real question you should be asking is how economical coal would be if it had the same kind of regulations as nuclear power.

Exactly. Shouldn't he be skeptical because he disagrees with some element of their advice? Shouldn't he be willing to engage with it, rather than dismissing it out of hand?

Oh, wait-- that's what he always does when he encounters someone who disagrees with him even in the slightest, even if it simply means referring to an operating system as merely "Linux".

Many modern reactor designs (Thorium LFTR's being the most prominent) are actually designed to help mitigate the problem of current waste by burning it as fuel. So if its waste that you are worried about, it seems sensible to support limited construction of modern reactors to address this problem.

Actually this particular article seems to highlight the fact that people who don't have good intentions get caught. These aren't new allegations.

The evidence isn't yet in whether this has any impact on Fukushima's current troubles

Won't this be easy to get from MacPorts soon enough anyway?

I think his point is that up until now the Fukashima situation has proven to be an illustration of the stability and safety of the technology rather than the dangers of it. Since the situation seems to be stabilizing, I think its a pretty good argument.

Also, there has been no nuclear explosion. (IMHO, that's not a trivial error you made there)

I understand why Winer says that "each is the solution to the other's problem" (referring to Twitter and the NYT). It is a reasonable assumption to come to, but I have to admit: I suspect its wrong. I don't think the primary reason why most "normal" people use Twitter is to share news links. I think Dave Winer uses it that way, but I feel like he has a tendency to assume that his way is the only way. It isn't.

I also understand Winer's objection to the 140-character limit. I really do. I personally think that it breaks Twitter for me and others who primarily access it via the web or the data connection on our smartphones.

However, I don't think Winer understands that for people who don't access Twitter in this way, anything more that 140 characters completely breaks the service. My wife used to have a "dumb" phone and thus access Twitter entirely through SMS. Had the service broken the 140-character limit, she would not have been able to use it.

I don't know how many people use Twitter in this manner. I don't know if anyone but Twitter does. I suspect, though, that Twitter doesn't change this because they know it will negatively impact enough of their userbase that it isn't worth dealing with.

What I find interesting about this analysis is the fact that Twitter could presumably "fix" the dickbar by finding a way to make it 1)useful and 2) targeted to the user.

After years of Twitter claiming that they were going to find a way to monetize without resorting to irritating advertisements (and after billions of tweets) they presumably have the knowledge and ability to do this. The question really is, "do they want to"?

For me, this seems pretty simple: if it is shown that Adobe can create a version of Flash that alleviates problems with poor battery life and terrible performance, obviously it will be "better to have Flash". So long as those problems persist, Flash seems like a lot more of a liability than an asset.

Of course it would. Should it? I'd argue "no".

Reducing power consumption how much? To zero? By half? That's a bit of a moving target.

Regarding the alternate studies you have posted (which, btw, I really do appreciate): If one were to include the upper limits of them, would that make nuclear more dangerous than fossil fuels? Than widespread "alternatives"?

Please note that I'm not trying to be snarky here. I appreciate your posts and would genuinely like to hear your thoughts.

I'm arguing about the original post that I responded to, which makes the argument "this is not from an engineer, but a lobbyist and is therefore bullshit". That is a genetic fallacy.

If he had made the entirely reasonable point that you did-- that this might not be as trustworthy a source compared to another, or engaged the actual evidence used, I wouldn't have taken the time to critique it.

In other words, my disagreement with you has nothing to do with the weighing of credible sources, but the fact that the original post didn't do that.

Note that I haven't even brought up the fact that the post he actually responded to was a revised version of the article by nuclear engineers, thus invalidating much of his claims about it anyway.

>"a large portion of the public do insist that a nuclear reactor never be built again."

...and the entire point of the OP is to point out that they are wrong to do so-- or at the very least, that this opinion is irrational.

I disagree. The logic of the post clearly states that the source of the information is a reason to reject it rather than a problem with the information itself. This is a common problem with a vast majority of the negative responses to the "why I am not worried" article.

Remember, the poster says that the origin of the facts makes those facts bullshit. Textbook genetic fallacy.

And if Chernobyl had been a dam burst, it is likely a great many more people would have died, and much more quickly.

EDIT: Despite the downvotes, this is not a trivial point, and is precisely why the OP is getting so much attention.

Lets see: genetic fallacy[1], circumstantial ad hominem[2], appeal to spite[3], and well-poisoning[4].

All in all, a very good compendium of logical fallacies, but as such, not a terribly good argument against the assertions made.

1:http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/genetic-fallacy.htm...

2:http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/circumstantial-ad-h...

3:http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-spite.htm...

4:http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/poisoning-the-well....

Again, I'd posit that given the facts available 3/12, it was the right conclusion.

More importantly, she claims that a "core team" didn't leave. There's a lot of contradictory and confusing information on the situation right now.

If your accusation is that the article should have been updated to include this, I think that's fair. But my original question was about the facts of the article as is.

One of the primary reasons the spent fuel problem is not mentioned in the article is because it became an issue fairly recently with the fire in the #4 building. Note that the date on the article is 3/12, whereas the fire and concerns in #4 are fairly recent, occurring on 3/15 and 3/16.

++Also, the spent fuel and the reactors themselves are separate problems, so I fail to see why an article about the reactors in under obligation to mention them.++

UPDATE: I concede that the article should be updated to include the #4 fire, as that is very pertinent (see below).

>This is typical MIT hubris.

I am getting tired of asking this, but which facts are wrong in the revised article?