I was searching around my MacBook Pro for a PDF to open in Acrobat 8. I did a little Spotlight search and found the “MacBook Pro 15-inch User Guide.pdf”

I was reading through it a bit, finding it somewhat amusing. Then I came to page 64/80, under “Important Safety Information.” Here is what I read:

High-risk activities: This computer system is not intended for use in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communications systems, air traffic control systems, or for any other uses where the failure of the computer system could lead to death, personal injury, or severe environmental damage.

I just ordered a new processor for my desktop. AMD Athlon X2 3800+… Socket 939..
Newegg Page.

Should speed up the desktop quite a bit. Although with the Macbook Pro it is becoming more of a media server/player than a day-to-day computer.

Hopefully the Macbook Pro will be able to handle Starcraft II.

When I was 15 I decided to write something of a “manefesto of my beliefs in capitalism” (at the time.)

“A viewpoint about Capitalism and ‘The Game’”

In retrospect, it comes off as an immature rant that looks more like I was trolling Usenet rather than a coherent argument.

Fun with the internet

Check the post out

I like(d) Google Answers. It is always fun asking a question and getting a good response from someone educated on the subject (even if it does cost me a few dollars.)

I once asked if I was to, hypothetically, run a house party where there was underage drinking… If a neighbor called just because of noise would the cops be able to just come in?
I got some interesting responses. Check out my Question and the Answers.

I asked mostly because there was a party that was broken up my senior year of High School.

(fyi, I’ve never run a house party)

I got told this morning that my problem is that I make broad sweeping statements that can not be backed up. Their case and point: I said that Nuclear power is one of the safest forms of electrical production. I would also like to add that it is the best for conservationists.

Now I don’t feel like going into the science of it, but let me just do a run down of why each type of energy generation is bad:

Solar: Takes up land. A lot of land. A lot and lot and lot of land. For not much output. Especially at night. If you back them up with batteries, the acid from the batteries would be worse environmentally to clean up than nuclear waste (which can be buried in much smaller quantities.) And even if you CAN find a lot of land, you need to transmit the power to population centers… Which aren’t exactly next door all of the time. Power transmission over metal wires (like we have now) isn’t nearly effective enough to move energy from the west coast to the east coast effectively.
Wind: Also takes up land. Land that is sparse and hard to find. And when you do find it, it may be near residential areas who might find the constant “hum” from them (this has gotten better in recent years) unacceptable. Not only that, these things just destroy the environment wherever they are planted, and you need to plant a lot of them to get the same power output as a nuclear plant. Plus, what do you do on a day without massive amounts of wind? More batteries?
Natural Gas: You are stuck with using a non-renewable resource. Nuclear is non-renewable, but we won’t have to worry about running out of it until the sun explodes and destroys the earth. Not as much pollution (actually quite clean) but very expensive to not only build but to keep going.
Coal: People wonder why they can’t fish in the lakes and rivers in upstate Wisconsin. It is because we generate so much energy from Coal that we are spreading it statewide. This entire “clean coal” initiative is BS, it is still the dirtiest way to generate electricity.
Hydro-Dams: Dams are great… where you can build one. Huge cost and massive relocation necessary, especially when the only location is near farmland or population centers. Tidal hydro looks cool though. Then again, a lot of the stuff in 1920s Popular Science looks cool too, doesn’t mean anything.

Nuclear:
Low pollution: Fuel, when spent, takes up a few square miles of space, compared to an entire region with coal. Also, new technology requires less fuel to make the same amount of energy, which means less waste. And less extremely dangerous waste (fuel is mostly depleted when removed.)
High Output in Low Amount of Land: You can put a reactor just about anywhere. Being close to a water source helps.
Safety: Old school nuclear power is, to paraphrase a statement I heard once, like giving a gun to somebody. As long as they don’t pull the damn trigger it will be fine. People are scared of it because they see a nuclear bomb and what that causes. That would simply never happen in the case of a reactor breach. Also, new technology would contain such a breech (should it happen) before it would even impact the outside world. Even 3 Mile Island would have been averted had the engineered sat back and let the (primitive, at the time) computer do its job. The new stuff being implemented in new plants worldwide make it almost impossible to melt-down.
Effective: Nuclear power is… well… powerful. France generates most of its electricity using nuclear power, and our plants have been humming along (although not quite as loud of a “hum” as wind turbines) for decades now.
Pollution: Pebble-bed and breeder reactors don’t have nearly as much waste as 1970s reactors. By a large amount. The amount of land required to safely store this pollution is much smaller than the massive amount of land that is required to store. Once Breeder reactors are up and running, you can turn the waste back into fuel, reducing the pollution problem considerably.

It is time to invest in nuclear energy. It is by far one of the safest ways to EFFECTIVELY generate electricity there is.

(Note: This applies ONLY to North America / Western EU. I wouldn’t want to give politically unstable countries anything that involves nuclear energy.)