31–40 of 128 posts
In terms of a hardened robot, hydraulic or pneumatic movement powered by an diesel engine seems like the way to go. depending on the location you could run the pressure lines to the robot and keep the engine outside.
As I feel incompetent to comment on the article's content, I'll be glad to start a thread on the linguistics of that car crash of a headline. It took me three or four fresh starts to parse it correctly. The linguistic term for this is garden path sentence[1][2] and it's such a good one that it makes me wonder if it's deliberate. Even just some small adjustments would make it more readable: "Japanese pictures may show…
Melted Fukushima fuel photographed for the first time. First photos of melted Fukushima fuel. If you take away the tentativeness of "may", "likely", etc., you can make the sentence much easier to read. I wouldn't mind a slight lack of qualifiers as long as the whole thing is not too linkbaity and the content puts the qualifiers back where they belong.
As I feel incompetent to comment on the article's content, I'll be glad to start a thread on the linguistics of that car crash of a headline. It took me three or four fresh starts to parse it correctly. The linguistic term for this is garden path sentence[1][2] and it's such a good one that it makes me wonder if it's deliberate. Even just some small adjustments would make it more readable: "Japanese pictures may show…
Melted Fukushima fuel photographed for the first time. First photos of melted Fukushima fuel. If you take away the tentativeness of "may", "likely", etc., you can make the sentence much easier to read. I wouldn't mind a slight lack of qualifiers as long as the whole thing is not too linkbaity and the content puts the qualifiers back where they belong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Complex problems often require complex solutions. I imagine that your suggestion works for some situations but not all. The cynical side of me thinks that one of the few benefits of the disaster will be new technology and robots that will help prevent future disasters. I imagine there's a very high priced market for these kinds of hardened robots.
There was a documentary about Tchernobyl surrounding forest few years ago. Most of the vegetation grew back, healthily for my naked eye. Anyways, the most surprising part is that mammals were back too; even though the radiation level was higher than average. I concluded that only a few generation of darwinian selection is needed to breed radiation hardened humans.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a documentary about Tchernobyl surrounding forest few years ago. Most of the vegetation grew back, healthily for my naked eye. Anyways, the most surprising part is that mammals were back too; even though the radiation level was higher than average. I concluded that only a few generation of darwinian selection is needed to breed radiation hardened humans.
Alternatively, the animals aren't radiation hardened and do die of cancer, but not fast enough to get in the way of breeding and multiplying. Or, in other words, while radioactive waste is unhealthy, it fatality rate is lower than having humans around.
I still don't see why they are spending years trying to make rad hard robots. A long steel tube with fiber optics to pipe in light, mirrors and optics to transmit an image down the tube would be infinitely easier. They'd need to burn a few holes, but none of the reactor vessels are intact so that wouldn't allow additional radioactive material to escape. I'm surprised the Japanese decision to dump the all the tritium…
>A long steel tube with fiber optics to pipe in light, mirrors and optics to transmit an image down the tube would be infinitely easier. That seems likely to degrade the fiber, or the signal and I'm having trouble thinking of any tested fiber in the range of a molten reactor core. The flux is really crazy near that thing, and not just photons, but relativistic electrons and some very angry helium nuclei.
Or you could put a scintillating detector in a lead ball with a hole, and scan by rotation and pipe the light from the scintillator out to external electronics. All you need is a long pipe installed to get started.
I still don't see why they are spending years trying to make rad hard robots. A long steel tube with fiber optics to pipe in light, mirrors and optics to transmit an image down the tube would be infinitely easier. They'd need to burn a few holes, but none of the reactor vessels are intact so that wouldn't allow additional radioactive material to escape. I'm surprised the Japanese decision to dump the all the tritium…
Complex problems often require complex solutions. I imagine that your suggestion works for some situations but not all. The cynical side of me thinks that one of the few benefits of the disaster will be new technology and robots that will help prevent future disasters. I imagine there's a very high priced market for these kinds of hardened robots.
With an electronics-free periscope, they could have saved five years. And keep in mind, the radioisotopes are still flowing into the ocean this whole time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only real difference from your version to the titles is -ese on Japan. 'Likely' is a fine substitute for 'may show', from my perspective.
The OP may have started to read it as "Japan (noun) pictures (verb) likely (adjective)...". Changing "Japan" to "Japanese" and "likely" to "may" eliminates that as a possible interpretation.
Which is nice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a documentary about Tchernobyl surrounding forest few years ago. Most of the vegetation grew back, healthily for my naked eye. Anyways, the most surprising part is that mammals were back too; even though the radiation level was higher than average. I concluded that only a few generation of darwinian selection is needed to breed radiation hardened humans.
Animals that die within 5 years probably don't have enough time to succumb to the effects of radiation. That's just a guess though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a documentary about Tchernobyl surrounding forest few years ago. Most of the vegetation grew back, healthily for my naked eye. Anyways, the most surprising part is that mammals were back too; even though the radiation level was higher than average. I concluded that only a few generation of darwinian selection is needed to breed radiation hardened humans.
Why would you draw such a concrete conclusion? What about the animals you possibly didn't see and how many animals reach fertility in 2-3 years?