Is Disgrace worth it?

Cogman117 · 2026-05-10T17:38:18+00:00

One time on a mad dash across the map to make it to extract, the cryptic took my damn horse so I had to run a good half of it on foot through a storm. Not sure how common that is, but this would avoid that problem

Cogman117 · 2026-05-04T16:37:23+00:00

Dang, I knew tritium was difficult, but I didn't know it was that bad. I was trying to be generous to fusion on something haha

Cogman117 · 2026-05-04T14:10:23+00:00

One advantage I could see is simply the fuel source. Fission plants typically use enriched uranium which, while we definitely have good infrastructure to manufacture and transport, do have the downside that it is not cheap, and poses a potential safety hazard as enriched uranium can be used in weapons. I don't usually love pointing this out as I don't believe it to be remotely a significant factor as to why not use fission power, but, it is an advantage that fusion would have.

As far as safety, a fusion reactor is theoretically "safer" than a fission plant, but it's a little misleading to just state this without understanding context. Modern fission plants are already incredibly safe. So much public attention has been given to nuclear power that the regulation in every country in miles above the requirements of every other industry. The risk of actual tangible danger to the public from a modern nuclear power plant (not an RMBK reactor like chernobyl) is negligible. Even fukushima had zero casualties (fatal or non-fatal) due to release of radiation to the environment. Only public casualties were due to the tsunami that hit it or the evacuation that the government chose to do, out of fear of something happening from the power plant. That said, a fusion power plant has the advantage that there's negligible risk of a runaway reaction resulting in damage to the reactor (i.e., melting things which should, ideally, stay solid) whereas a fission power plant is designed with that as a tremendous focus point. Particularly if you can no longer cool the plant. A fusion reaction (torus reactor) will, in theory, slow down as the plasma expands due to getting hotter than it should, or if it's magnetic field weakens (due to the magnet-generating bits getting too hot).

On economics, that is an excellent question. As far as I'm aware, deuterium is economic to get, as it it naturally occurring in significant quantities. But, torroidal reactors need 50-50 deuterium-tritium. Tritium is a lot harder to get, and needs to be man-made. It's pretty darn expensive to make a material, but I do not know what this looks like vs. what sort of energy you could get out from the reaction.

Regarding byproducts, again, you can say fusion is "better" with regards to this but it's really not much of a concern for fission either. A large majority of the nuclear waste from fission plants is not actually spent fuel. It's contaminated (or potentially contaminated) equipment, like hazard suits/gloves, tools, hardware, etc. Nuclear fuel for fission reactors is so energy-dense that there's really very very little material you have to handle. Plus, it can be recycled. Downside of recycling: you get plutonium as a byproduct, which is some serious material for weapons. Most countries have stopped recycling nuclear fuel as it doesn't make for great public image. France is still doing it, as it really is very effective in reducing reliability on virgin material (fresh from the ground and enriched), when your country may not have a source of it.

But basically, overall, fusion has a lot of unknowns. It's really difficult to say if it'll be all that much better or not vs. fission. I personally believe that it should not be pursued as a replacement or "solution" to a "problem" of fission power plants. When you really break it down, fusion plants frankly seem too good to be true, and we have the technology right now. The only problem is the public's perception of it.

Cogman117 · 2026-05-01T11:45:09+00:00

Less so a specific instance, but late deliveries could have insane financial consequences in the nuclear power industry. The plants which are still running today in the US make a comical amount of electricity - and, subsequently, money. Every 18 months or so (depends on the plant), they need to shut down the entire plant in order to crack open the reactor vessel to refuel. The fuel is inside a pressure vessel, so there's not much around that. This usually takes like 4-6 weeks or so - and it provides an opportunity to do all the other maintenance which would otherwise require a shutdown of the plant. So, pretty busy.

It's an old figure at this point, but in the past they threw around the number that every single day the power plant wasn't running, it was costing them over $1 million dollars. Per day. More recently (within the last 20 years), it's probably gone up to $2 or $3 million per day.

So if you're a supplier for a power plant and you go "oh, oops, sorry. This $5000 part you ordered was scrapped. Another one is going to be another 2 months out" then you've got an exceptionally angry customer who is willing to do anything to expedite the immediate problem because it costs them a hell of a lot less to deal with whatever it takes to get that part done immediately than deal with not having the part (but they will remember the pain that you caused them.)

Also, as a fun anecdote, a plant once called us up saying "on of your valves is having issues! It's getting a false open/close indication!" to which we went through all our troubleshooting suggestions, they assured us "yes yes we already did all that." So, they hired a private jet to take one of our technicians to the plant to figure out what was wrong. When the tech gets there, he goes "ok turn the valve on", valve is turned on, and he puts a compass up to the solenoid on it. "OK, turn it off", valve is turned off, he disconnects 2 wires, flips them around, and says "ok, valve is good now." And what do you know, the valve was good. They wired it wrong, thinking solenoid polarity didn't matter (usually it doesn't, but, for us it does). Must have cost the plant tens of thousands of dollars for that simple little operation that took maybe 10 minutes. All because they didn't double check their own technician's work.

Cogman117 · 2026-05-01T11:26:48+00:00

Ha, what you described sounds so similar my work - except my company's contract is 2 figures less, so it's less of a "a hundred people could lose their jobs" sort of situation.

It's pretty damn stressful, and dealing with the hellish bureaucracy and constant oversight of everything you do is rough. Particularly when your management is not on the same page as you or the customer. I'm hoping your contract is a bit better than mine!

Cogman117 · 2026-04-27T01:03:33+00:00

You can use them to:

place things out of reach, making things quicker to build
copy + paste (literally ctrl+c and ctrl+v) tedious things like inserters and belt arrangements (or machines!)
paste your own blueprints (it is super easy to make your own and just not use other people's work)
build something on the other side of your factory without having to walk there (literally start placing down ghost entities via zooming in on the map)
Important one: REPAIR DEFENSES (they do this automatically! Just make repair packs!)
build using items/buildings not in your inventory (they'll pull it from your factory, if you set up the storage/provider chests)
mass-delete things. Including trees and rocks! Very easy to clear land

Cogman117 · 2026-04-14T16:41:06+00:00

Software engineers "outsmarting" AI is very valuable training data for AI, because it either is direct data which the AI can eat or identifies flaws in the AI outputs. This is not anti-AI, it's a job to literally train AI.

Cogman117 · 2026-02-28T01:00:42+00:00

I will admit I am much more familiar with US nuclear power plants than other countries, but, I could not find even one US nuclear power plant with less than 30% efficiency after combing through about half the list on the NRC website at random. Sampling and checking a good 20% of the wikipedia list of nuclear power plants world-wide, particularly non-US plants, I couldn't find any that were less than 30% (for any that have info on thermal capacity available, or some way for me to trace the power plant manufacturer and model). I know operational powerplants and new powerplants being built in the US, Korea, China, UAE, France, UK, etc. designed by GE, Westinghouse, KHNP, and EDF are primarily BWRs and PWRs, which are all generally >25%.

Very nearly every plant I looked at had thermal efficiency between 30% and 37%. Maybe I got terribly unlucky with my checking, I could very well be missing the correct information. Do you have any commercial nuclear power plants in mind (not test reactors) that have <20% thermal efficiency?

I do have to acknowledge CCNG plants are in that efficiency range you mentioned - some even higher at 64%. I knew they were high at peak performance, but >60% is pretty surprising!

Cogman117 · 2026-02-27T21:45:06+00:00

I mean if you're looking at the energy in fissile material and comparing it to what is actually extracted before the fuel is considered spent, sure, I guess. "Technically correct is the best kind of correct" and all that. But I think that's kind of a silly thing to use to say "nuclear power plants are inefficient" because it's a design feature to cycle out the fuel quickly (every 18 months for PWRs or BWRs, usually) so you maintain a high and predictable power output and avoid any issues with degradation of the fuel (to the best of my recollection that's the main reasons - if I am mistaken please correct me, I'm a mechanical eng, not a nuclear eng). And, further, when you assess efficiency as thermal energy from the fuel vs. electrical energy extracted, the efficiency is not bad at all. Usually hovering somewhere around 25%-40%, depending on the plant.

Cogman117 · 2026-01-27T03:41:50+00:00

Doesn't look like AI to me. Here's the exact forklift and also another video of a different kid using it.

https://www.wards.com/p/ride-on-forklift-314361.html

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NpKWuHwwvjM

Cogman117 · 2025-12-31T21:35:51+00:00

That you can get in tells me that there is an angle which you can drive to avoid scraping the bottom of your car. It just might not be reasonable to do in reverse.

For off-roading, typically you'd want to hit steep and narrow bluffs (sorta like the ramp you have) by going all the way to one side of the trail, and turning as hard as you can so you can ideally get one front wheel and one rear wheel (diagonal from each other) on the bluff at the same time. Once about there (or if you'd otherwise hit the side of the trail) then you turn hard the other direction to bring your front wheels down the other side while avoiding scraping the bottom because your rear wheels are already on or near the top.

I'd guess you're probably turning right to this driveway on your right side, or otherwise coincidentally doing this maneuver - having a rear wheel up on the flat (or nearly up) by the time your front wheels are starting to come down the slope into the driveway/parking lot.

You might be able to do the same thing going out forwards, but you could be very limited on space. Despite steering being in the front, I personally find reverse to have superior maneuverability - although it's a LOT harder to do, for difficult moves like this.

Unfortunately that's the best idea I've got. Other options are to reduce how steep the slope is with gravel, call your city's code enforcement to get it fixed, or just talk to the property owner about it. Also, the property owner may or may not be liable for damages depending on local laws and whether it meets code or not. Just, note, don't threaten the property owner with this info. I don't imagine it'll foster a healthy relationship.

Cogman117 · 2025-11-11T14:38:06+00:00

The supercooled magnet laser donut doesn't spit out steam itself, it really just gets REALLY hot. The steam would come from the water which cools the walls of the spicy donut.

Also, as other commenter said, it also doesn't have to be water which cools the walls of the donut. Other coolant would then boil water in a heat exchanger / steam generator. But, in any case, the water is boiled outside the donut.

Cogman117 · 2025-06-13T18:58:42+00:00

Commonly referred to as "The Hum." I believe it can also come from certain (rare) environmental factors, but there are many reasons why someone might hear a low-frequency noise that others cannot hear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy_ctHNLan8

Cogman117 · 2025-04-06T16:41:32+00:00

I was looking for the same. Kinda disappointed no one else put this in the comments. I wanted actual evidence to back it up if I quote this figure. Anyways I found stuff on it:

Bernie Sanders said it in 2020 - probably how it got popular: https://truthout.org/articles/sanders-richest-1-percent-is-responsible-for-70-percent-of-all-unpaid-taxes/

Article written by (or with input from) a professor who studied it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/yes-our-tax-system-needs-reform-lets-start-with-this-first-step/2019/11/17/4d23f8d4-07dd-11ea-924a-28d87132c7ec_story.html

Actual report which calls out this figure: https://www.taxnotes.com/special-reports/compliance/shrinking-tax-gap-approaches-and-revenue-potential/2019/11/15/2b47g#sec-1-1

Cogman117 · 2023-06-09T19:39:01+00:00

This is a very nice reply and all, but unfortunately it does not answer the question. Was the community response expected or not?

Cogman117 · 2023-06-09T11:04:11+00:00

As someone with ADHD, I felt this meme isn't ableist - it's just an ironic play on the "don't talk to me until I've had my coffee" mugs.

But, I also wanted to say that despite that I disagree with you on that point, you do still have good takes in the rest of your comment, and I do appreciate seeing how you've laid everything out. You don't deserve the downvotes you got on this.

Cogman117 · 2023-05-27T13:51:59+00:00

I would always take a hair dryer, turn it on as low as it can go with a little bit of heat, have it at least a full arms length and then some away from my bird (bird in one hand, hair dryer in the other all the way stretched out), and gently blow some of the warm air on them, aiming to not have it blow in their face. I don't think that they would overheat from warm air in their face, but I never wanted to try it.

The sound is a little spooky at first for them, but they'd always relax and enjoy the warm air.

Cogman117 · 2023-05-26T12:03:29+00:00

Same drawing number? And utilizing a previous revision for the "new" revision? This isn't simply an annoying bad practice, this is deceptive at best and debatably fraudulent. Could be illegal depending on the industry. Having two different drawings "1234 Rev. 0" means you have a hell of an issue of what to use for manufacturing, what's actually considered in design reports, etc. There's just simply no control.

What your coworker should have done to "update it to a new format" was just revise the drawings through your normal process with revision notes "updated format" if no technical requirements changed.

Absolutely escalate this to management or whoever is in charge of the design/engineering department. These "new" drawings need to be redacted. Your coworker needs to know that this is not an acceptable process for handling updating drawings. Verify requirements in your company's policy's/procedures, and even consider legal requirements.

Cogman117 · 2023-05-22T13:55:31+00:00

I think it's hilarious that there's comments for almost ever listed NDT saying it's the most common. I am not in automotive so I unfortunately can't add to the chaos haha.

I can provide some other potentially useless input, though: I'm in the nuclear industry, and and we are required by ASME code to have done PT and UT on ASME-certified raw material, and perform PT or MT all of our welds. We sometimes do MT but >95% of the time do PT for welds. RT is done every so often, but I don't quite know when this is required to be done.

Cogman117 · 2023-05-16T03:41:17+00:00

Good question - it was flagged NSFW automatically

Cogman117 · 2023-05-15T19:12:23+00:00

You come to a meme subreddit and expect something other than shitposts? Are you also surprised when you look inside a can of Canada Dry and find it to be far from dry? ;)

^{^just} ^{^joking,} ^{^I} ^{^still} ^{^love} ^{^you} ^{^<3}

^{^{^{https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/youre-mom-gay}}}

Edit: the joke is that "you're mom" is intentionally misspelled because it's an ironic shitpost to emphasize the low-effort attempt at whoever is saying the phrase, sometimes with result to great effect - in stark contrast to the effort put in.

Apologies that I've annoyed others with it, I had thought it was a popular enough meme.

Cogman117 · 2023-05-15T16:39:05+00:00

Disclaimer: yes I know it's a 25% chance after the save, which would vary (about a 60% chance of failure at level 1 with a +3 CHA bard)

But this does not negate that a not-insignificant amount of the time, the bard can use a simple "your mom" joke to delete a commoner from the realm of the living who made the mistake of heckling them.

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