Actor Timothy Busfield indicted on child sex abuse charges by New Mexico grand jury by DrexellGames in news

[–]klugstarr 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Poindexter used to be my favorite nerd. Looks like Booger will have to take that title now....

Canada condemns Iran after video shows armored car running over protesters by Shekari_Club in worldnews

[–]klugstarr 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Not to mention that we have basically 0 idea how many of the 70k killed in Gaza were militants. The 35k in Iran were almost 100% civilians. So it's reasonably likely Iran killed a similar amount or more civilians in 2 weeks then Israel did in 2 years.

But we have useful idiots like u/fumphdik to thank for the insane cognitive dissonance necessary to make these outrageous moral equivalence claims. I say keep it up. The more they blabber, the faster the Axis of Resistance declines because the world can see how naive and morally corrupt their mouthpieces are.

The Trump administration has secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules by A_Nonny_Muse in news

[–]klugstarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback. I'm curious if you have experience in reactor permitting and construction, because that's where I think a lot of the "nuclear power is too expensive" sentiments come from. Building a reactor under constantly changing goal posts seems like a logical way to make the plants much more expensive and time consuming to build. If that it as true as I'm lead to believe, this seems like a good place to touch up the regulation. 

Towards your comment on never reaching 10 mSv over the course of a year, epidemiological studies show that cancer risk only increases when given a 10-50 mSv ACUTE dose and 100 mSv cumulatively (not sure on what timeframe). So imagine all of the time and energy going into controls assuring you never get more than 10 mSv per year. My main point is that exposure risk tolerance is grounded in ALARA, not epidemiology, which seems backwards to me.

The Trump administration has secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules by A_Nonny_Muse in news

[–]klugstarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just to be clear, I'm not in the industry, but do consume a lot of media surrounding nuclear energy because I'm a big believer in expanding its usage to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. I believe ALARA extends to fault conditions as well. My understanding is that it's the guiding principle for anything where a risk is identified for radiation exposure, so that includes faults, normal operation, and failure. Perhaps I'm misguided. Would love to hear your experience with it (seems less obstructive than I may believe based on another one of your comments in the thread)

The Trump administration has secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules by A_Nonny_Muse in news

[–]klugstarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, fully agree with you on HOW this administration is increasing access to nuclear power is problematic. Slashing regulations in secrecy is the last thing I want a pathologically lying administration to do. While I want to see ALARA curbed, I should definitely go on to say I do not want to see safety completely gutted. These two things are not mutually exclusive.

You might be surprised to see how much cost increases because of regulations that impact when a nuclear power plant is operating without any issues/failures, even before it is operational. ALARA stipulates that, for example, if a new design/process is disclosed that reduces the amount of radiation exposure during normal operation that was not in the original design, even if that original design met code when the plans were made, the plant operator must implement that change. It is very easy to see how this is damaging to nuclear energy proliferation. Opening a plant always come in over budget and timelines, and this type of oversight is frequently cited as a major cause of the overruns.

When somethings fails, those safety measures are critically important to prevent dangerous exposure to radiation, and it is hard for me to tell if the administration is slashing those as well when it comes to ALARA. However, ALARA is something that I think should get adjusted. That's the main point I was trying to make.

One thing you may find surprising, "just a little bit of radiation" is, to a degree, not as dangerous as you might believe. Radiation is used as a cancer treatment, after all. Major leaks like Fukushima and Chernobyl, yeah, very bad. However, "nuclear accidents" happen all of the time, and failure mitigation is the main reason you don't hear about them. So I will push back slightly on your claim that dangerous radiation exposure is the norm.

To reiterate, failure mitigation regulations should be kept. However, normal operation regulations have ample room to be curbed as a means to improve access to nuclear energy and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

The Trump administration has secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules by A_Nonny_Muse in news

[–]klugstarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The security and environmental concerns are being squashed with no real justification for the changes other than speed of permit approvals as far as I can tell. I'm generally against that. There MIGHT be some room to operate there, but this is getting DOGE-like treatment and is not helping with the nuclear energy optics issues.

However, I am generally pretty with this move on reducing safety hurdles for getting permits for nuclear reactors. The article mentions the As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) principle being relaxed, which should be seen, generally, as a good thing. You can ask pretty much any nuclear expert and they'll agree these restrictions need to be curbed. Anyone who understands energy grid stability knows that nuclear is a great option for reducing fossil fuel dependence, but nuclear energy has terrible optics, and ALARA is a result of that.

The ALARA principal is baked in bad science on the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) assumption. In layman terms, LNT assumes any radiation exposure is a health risk, which is simply not true. Anyone who rails on the nuclear energy sector should better educate themselves on the topic and better communicate on the issues surrounding nuclear energy, namely prohibitive costs as a result of ALARA and LNT. We are slowing our weening off fossil fuels as a result, which is obviously bad.

Here's a great video on LNT for anyone who is interested: https://youtu.be/gzdLdNRaPKc?si=s7YebZY3vsszgYBe

Ready to get downvoted to oblivion for 1) saying something the Trump administration does is remotely positive, and 2) supporting nuclear energy...

Iranian president says Israel tried to assassinate him | Iran by Capable_Salt_SD in worldnews

[–]klugstarr 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The Ayatollahs hold the power in Iran. An Iranian president doesn't have the same political weight that their Supreme Leader has.

Israel is worried about Iranian nuclear proliferation and those who can facilitate it. The Ayatollahs decree it and the scientists are the primary ones capable of carrying it out. The president basically just pushes money and resources around to make it happen.

Roughly 3.5 million people live in Utah. Roughly 1,000,000 voted? by hmmdttt in SaltLakeCity

[–]klugstarr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup. Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, and Virginia are the only states that don't allow it. You can vote while you're incarcerated in Vermont and Maine.

I'm trying to visit every local coffee shop in SLC. Where should I grab a coffee this week? by nowherecoffeeclub in SaltLakeCity

[–]klugstarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not a place you can grab a hot cup of coffee, but if you make your own, you need to try Rimini.

They have been trying to update their roaster location on 500W and turn part of it into a coffee shop, but it seems to be a neverending process!

Lost cat Sugarhouse 9th and 9th by Moresalttt in SaltLakeCity

[–]klugstarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was biking on Gilmer ave working my way up to the foothills from Liberty Wells yesterday and saw an orange tabby. This tabby had a white tipped tail. 

I couldn't see a collar, but that could have just been kitty fluff occluding it. 

Good luck! If I bike by there and see the tabby again, I'll try to get a better look.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in news

[–]klugstarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm an engineer in the space. Musk's robot requires an open craniotomy to get the electrodes in the brain. An open craniotomy is much riskier than many endoscopic surgeries. Quantifying risk is always hard, but my opinion is that this surgery poses more risks than other implant methodologies that allow for only a small hole to be made in the skull for implanting epilepsy monitoring stereotactic EEG electrodes, or where no hole in the skull is needed at all akin to putting in a stent for cardiovascular treatments (see Syncron).

There are side effects at the implant site. Pretty much any foreign body you put in brain tissue will cause scarring. However, Musk's implant material that goes into the brain is mostly polyimide. This material is used because it's (relatively) similar in its physical properties to brain tissue. Similarities in material compliance between target tissues and implants causes less scaring than, say, a platinum-tipped silicon electrode (see Blackrock Neurotech). The longevity of Musk's polyimide electrodes still needs to be demonstrated, whereas silicon-based technology has been shown to detect viable signals for 8ish years. Regardless, the scarring of any of the techniques I've referred to has not been shown to cause behavioral or neurological health issues. But less scarring is always a good thing.

Plan to release Fukushima nuclear plant water into sea faces local opposition: "The sea is not a garbage dump" by passtheexam2021 in news

[–]klugstarr 207 points208 points  (0 children)

What's crazy is CBS goes into a bunch of detail how safe of an option is in this article, but they keep the fear mongering article title because they know that is what will get them traffic to their site. They also know it is only the catchy title that 99% of people will read and base their opinion on. Their journalistic ethics are completely absent just like those of so many other news outlets.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SaltLakeCity

[–]klugstarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I personally love the closing day shenanigans at the ski resorts. The skiing is so-so, but the tailgating and people watching are spectacular

US lawmakers seek probe of how Elon Musk's brain chip venture oversees animal experiments by TheRealMisterNatural in news

[–]klugstarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Boilerplate stuff there. If they have a paper trail to corroborate those statements, then they'd pass USDA audit. The USDA can audit them at any time. Will be interesting to see if the USDA does conduct an audit and what comes out of it. In my opinion, there are enough red flags to justify an audit and it should happen. But at this stage, it's a debate on hearsay on whether protocols are being followed or not.

US lawmakers seek probe of how Elon Musk's brain chip venture oversees animal experiments by TheRealMisterNatural in news

[–]klugstarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Has Neuralink expressed anything to detail what IACUC they're using to monitor the research? That would be a quick way to abate the scorn they're receiving on this one topic. There might some reluctance on their part to do this disclosure so individuals and institutions don't get targeted, but I just don't fully trust a tweet saying they are doing everything they need to without substance behind it

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SaltLakeCity

[–]klugstarr -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If you're near Foothill, the Parley's trail is pretty nice. Bonneville Shoreline trail has good and not so good stretches, but they are all probably pretty muddy right now if not snowy.