asciilifeform: nah, 'biggest' would be the idiot ssl master keys.

asciilifeform: Vexual: obtain gas mask. surplus sovblok are cheap.

asciilifeform: Vexual: did they find a way to put the meth in gaseous form, and send it into your air supply?

asciilifeform: 'you go to war with the enemy you have, not the enemy you wish you had.'

asciilifeform: even programming! 'he died at the console, of hunger and thirst. come morning, they buried him, face down, nine-edge first.'

asciilifeform: of course.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: price for just about anything worth doing is 'yer life.' even mathematics.

asciilifeform: who wouldn't wanna go to persia. not the nutty iran, the real persia. with xerxes.

asciilifeform: most of the candidates for carrying out the algo are woefully underequipped to survive so much as a week outside of their terrarium.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: likewise, the streets of bangkok are full of americans who tried to follow the 'prison break' advice.

asciilifeform: right. but it does not obviate the need for the cannon.

asciilifeform: not bad advice, per se.

asciilifeform: 'how to survive in desert. obtain bucket, that will absolutely never let out water.'

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: only one problem with that article. esp. for the u.s. crowd: it's a little like 'how to build atomic bomb. step one. don't waste any U-235 you come across. not one gram.'

asciilifeform: can one buy futures in: undertakers?

asciilifeform: (not that other instruments were eschewed)

asciilifeform: they were used for no other purpose.

asciilifeform: phun phact: the only officially permitted instrument of torture in the ussr was: handcuffs.

asciilifeform: over here we have weapons-grade chumpatron fuel.

asciilifeform: right

asciilifeform: (not much else is both transparent and conductive.)

asciilifeform: (apologies if no one remembers; re-read log.)

asciilifeform: re: indium. true. no indium, no lcd.

asciilifeform: mebbe just dumpers doing a splendid job.

asciilifeform: pankkake: that's more of a 'eat recycled food! it's good for the environment and ok for you!'

asciilifeform: betcha there's a market for coprophagic restaurants, too. do what you will...

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: you had 'theorems to prove.' these fellows don't.

asciilifeform: think about it. it's the reason the $1mil/yr lawyers don't just quit after a couple of years and move to costa rica, and the like.

asciilifeform: in the u.s., they don't just do exams, they do 'blue blood.'

asciilifeform: perhaps not conditioned, but pre-selected.

asciilifeform: fissions into money and depleted лох

asciilifeform: 'лох' - chump, mark, patsy, fool

asciilifeform: stolen from the dirt-common '90s russian 'лохотрон'

asciilifeform: (using a Chumpatron reactor.)

asciilifeform: of course, who needs neutrons when you can 'transmute' W into Au the Chinese way.

asciilifeform: and you need fast neutrons if you want to use the more common isotope of Hg.

asciilifeform: people are trying spallation neutron source, if i recall.

asciilifeform: http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v60/i7/p473_1

asciilifeform: if i recall, Hg as starting point.

asciilifeform: we'll know what it costs in 'hard number' when the: norks start doing it.

asciilifeform: and considering that much of the cost of operating a reactor is bureaucratic in origin, the question may not have a satisfactory answer.

asciilifeform: might want to ask a domain expert. i've run across estimates from 1-10k/g

asciilifeform: cost will vary by manyfold depending on whether you assume a purpose-built reactor (expensive) or a tack-on to an existing civilian reactor (much cheaper.)

asciilifeform: trick is

asciilifeform: because, afaik, you inevitably get some unstable isotopes of Au in the mix.

asciilifeform: and, you'll know when it starts happening, if you're a bullion aficionado and own a pocket geiger.

asciilifeform: strictly 20th century physics here

asciilifeform: sure

asciilifeform: (at present-day usd)

asciilifeform: or, on the opposite end of things: the hard ceiling on gold price created by the fact that you can transmute with neutron bombardment, at something like $1k/gram

asciilifeform: (yield - pumping cost) has to be positive.

asciilifeform: sorta like the famous 'out of oil' scenario still leaves half of it in the ground.

asciilifeform: 'folks who won't learn thermodynamics are doomed to talk nonsense' and so forth.

asciilifeform: step-up isn't in the mix.

asciilifeform: given that: it isn't simply a mass of wire, but step-down stations as well.

asciilifeform: odd as that may seem

asciilifeform: one of the inescapable problems is that the electric grid isn't really designed as a two-way machine

asciilifeform: varies by state. in most places you buy the unit proper, and get a tax break later.

asciilifeform: (jouls over expected MTBF minus joules to manufacture - melting point of Si is quite high, etc)

asciilifeform: whatever happened to the calculation where photovoltaics turn out to be... joule-negative

asciilifeform: if they're still there.

asciilifeform: the inescapable conclusions is that Az is: insufficiently hostile to the drifters...

asciilifeform: http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/urinetown/itsaprivelegetopee.htm

asciilifeform: 'it's a Privilege to pee!' ☟︎

asciilifeform: anybody seen the crackpot musical 'urinetown' ?

asciilifeform: where they pay $1 a minute

asciilifeform: there are even special phone companies for people judged unfit for credit

asciilifeform: e.g. phone service

asciilifeform: in the u.s., every service that lets you 'eat' even a little before mailing a bill, is thought of as 'credit'

asciilifeform: thinkaboutit

asciilifeform: datacenters belong in... alaska.

asciilifeform: people notice the jumps.

asciilifeform: see, when you boil frogs, trick is to use a nice temperature-controlled hob, and not a chinese unit with 'low/high/incinerate' settings on the dial.

asciilifeform: the day the plug is pulled, it will roast. literally.

asciilifeform: in a market economy, a place like Az would be inhabited by Indians only

asciilifeform: could've gotten the same spreadsheet, without the brouhaha

asciilifeform: (they could've just reduced the rate paid back to the solar folks, subtracting line maintenance charge)

asciilifeform: somebody needs to fire an accountant

asciilifeform: ok then it's absurdly cheap

asciilifeform: Aha

asciilifeform: depends quite heavily on the region.

asciilifeform: i'm paying a tenth of that

asciilifeform: but a chum of mine confessed to writing 'classic nintendo' stuff.

asciilifeform: not that many people take advantage of this.

asciilifeform: free, even. (emulation)

asciilifeform: (that is, one where you actually control the machine.)

asciilifeform: funny thing is, with basic rom-diddling equipment being a dime a dozen now, classic consoles are a great place to learn to program a 'real computer'

asciilifeform: "limited time 20% discount per liter!"

asciilifeform: which they had to wheedle actual money to pay for

asciilifeform: i remember, as a kid, finding out about consoles and that other boys had... countably small! collections of games

asciilifeform: the one that cost what a high-end pc of the time did?

asciilifeform: or even 'zork'

asciilifeform: perhaps it's not fair, but i hold consoles responsible for the extinction of "thinking man's" games

asciilifeform: actually, that's a lie. bought a 'virtual boy' once - to cannibalize for the optics.

asciilifeform: i never once did.

asciilifeform: mine gets powered up once every business quarter or so.

asciilifeform: quoting mr. jobs: 'we're gonna take unfair advantage of the fact that we control the whole device.'

asciilifeform: (300,000+ page views, many from angry fanbois, on that one)

asciilifeform: suppose i should throw this oldie in: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=132

asciilifeform: now if only Tadpole (maker of SPARC laptops) hadn't croaked.