log☇︎
831300+ entries in 0.583s
asciilifeform: of course, who needs neutrons when you can 'transmute' W into Au the Chinese way.
mod6: i see. this is fascinating.
mircea_popescu: the process is that an extra proton eats a low electron to create an energetic neutron and spits it out as a neutrino
asciilifeform: and you need fast neutrons if you want to use the more common isotope of Hg.
mod6: that kinda blows my mind: Hg(80) gets bombarded with neutrons and then down to Au(79)?!
mircea_popescu: a, but you need the rarer mercury.
asciilifeform: people are trying spallation neutron source, if i recall.
mircea_popescu: whoa fuck, mercury ghuh ? the alchemists had it right ?
ozbot: Phys. Rev. 60, 473 (1941): Transmutation of Mercury by Fast Neutrons
mircea_popescu: what would be the proposed reaction ?
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.)
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform pls to make the math visible for this, is important.
mircea_popescu: you can filter those out the same way and on the same machines you make dup.
mircea_popescu: dude wtf no wonder the price of gold is "depressed". it's not lol.
asciilifeform: because, afaik, you inevitably get some unstable isotopes of Au in the mix.
mircea_popescu: o fuck me. well what the fucking fuck, how sure are you of this ? math me up.
mircea_popescu: it can't be THAT cheap ?
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
mod6: if they haven't realized it already. those wells dry up quick and its expensive to drill 'em, and then they need more and more and more wells to produce the same amount of output.
mod6: yeah, they're gonna get a rude awakining on the fraking in a few years for sure.
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.
mod6: thanks for posting that az link. im always interested to hear whats going on out there. :]
mircea_popescu: ima put this in a n article just to have what to link later.
asciilifeform: 'folks who won't learn thermodynamics are doomed to talk nonsense' and so forth.
mircea_popescu: this is the entire silkroad nonsense all over again. nobody cares you have 1mn little dribblets of sugar all over your kitchen floor.
mircea_popescu: people insist to not understand that the value of 1gw you can peel into 1kw consumers is not the same as the value of 1mn 1kw producers you ahve to link to 1mn 1kw consumers.
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.
mod6: im not sure. i know some people who were green-hippy types who shelled out for the panels.
mircea_popescu: mod6 also they get the units for free don't they ? just sign some paperwork.
mircea_popescu: which these aren't, i'll bet you.
mod6: *sigh* oh well. then again, if they can afford to get the damn solar units themselfs (somewhere around $10k for an array), whats $60/year?
mircea_popescu: mod6 independant households are only good if they're inhabited by independent people.
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
mod6: yeah, i have to believe thats part of the deal. they're seen as "sticking it to the man"... but really its probably a good thing over all. and creates independant households.
mircea_popescu: mod6 probably the idea is that they're the troublemakers and so they should pay.
mircea_popescu: that's why economic growth has been by now baked into the system at statal level. it's actually bad for corps when income dwindles because it exposes fixed costs
mod6: yeah, but why charge the solar people? if anything, i'd think they'd charge non-solar customers more.
mod6: haha, but then again, wth do i know?
mod6: the heat knocks out the power lots in the summer. I guess thats a function of cooling... but getting it back on line is hard as it gets overloaded on the draw. you'd think that having more people on solar would reduce the over all load.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform drifters are the anal child, basically.
mod6: there used to be terrible rolling brownouts out west all the time.
asciilifeform: if they're still there.
asciilifeform: the inescapable conclusions is that Az is: insufficiently hostile to the drifters...
mod6: it does amaze me that they (power companies) don't encourage more private homes to go solar so they can push back to an already strained grid.
mod6: i had a neighbor when i first moved out there that had 2 kids in his apt and no power like 70% of the time. his apt was like well over 120 deg. F. during the day.
mircea_popescu: i suppose the moral is, "don't be on the shit end of the stick"
mod6: but, *shrug*. its certainly a royal pita if you're on the shit end of the stick.
mod6: thats how this system got to where it is now.
mod6: (20:46) < mircea_popescu> well no, the deadbeat is a pain in the ass << this is true. they have a lot of drifters in az who come in and setup power and other utils and then flee before they have to pay.
mircea_popescu: certainly gay porn sets are innundated with gay for pay actors shooting stuff in their cocks to get erections.
mircea_popescu: probably goes the same way on the other half of the town too.
Diablo-D3: because I want someone to clean my house
mircea_popescu: some will get down to business and explore what "anything" means in that "do anything" bit.
Diablo-D3: where do I get these women who are slaves and will do anything
mircea_popescu: i guess it's been moving that way for a decade or two already. not everyone is going to sit and whine with horseface-whatshername that men are "impossible to find"
mircea_popescu: mod6 the adsites for such weirdos are already awash in women that identify as "slaves" and will "do anything" but are looking for a monogamous, husbandy relationship.
Diablo-D3: break the system
mod6: yeah, blowjobs might be the first order of business.
mircea_popescu: mod6 i imagine learn to bdsm and find masters.
Diablo-D3: asciilifeform: I can get pay as you go plans effectively cheaper than "real" phones
asciilifeform: 'it's a Privilege to pee!' ☟︎
asciilifeform: anybody seen the crackpot musical 'urinetown' ?
Diablo-D3: asciilifeform: thats not true
mod6: yah, its gonna be a whole different ball game for people. i have no idea what they're gonna do.
mod6: seriously, it sucks a major dong down there if you have poor or no credit. its like financial apartheid
mircea_popescu: anyway, i have trouble seeing this bloomberg article as anything other than "we're nice, give us free shit"
asciilifeform: where they pay $1 a minute
mircea_popescu: well it is technically credit
mod6: the whole system down there is obnoxious
asciilifeform: in the u.s., every service that lets you 'eat' even a little before mailing a bill, is thought of as 'credit'
mod6: so you have to go out of your way to load the f'ing card to turn your lights on.
Diablo-D3: mod6: well yes, they do that wrong
mircea_popescu: i knew people like that.
mircea_popescu: company has to cut power every month
Diablo-D3: same with telephone, internet, and cable companies
mircea_popescu: well no, the deadbeat is a pain in the ass
mod6: they only have these ATMs at certain locations.
Diablo-D3: why are they loaning people money
mod6: its such a pain the the royal ass though.
Diablo-D3: mod6: honestly, thats how it should work everywhere
mod6: then that ticks down until you run out and have to refill it
mod6: so they give you this meter thing that plugs into the wall, and from there you have to load dollars onto a simcard in an ATM and then put that into the meter.
Diablo-D3: mod6: and if they refused me an account I would just sue them
Diablo-D3: mod6: unless I was planning on selling to them
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform no because they'd fuck it up.
mircea_popescu: mod6 they can do that ?
mod6: let alone, that arizona has like horrid power company polices and rules. there are a lot of drifters who come through there, so it makes it actually hard to get power if you don't have good credit.
mircea_popescu: arizona would probably end up in the future as a whole state's worth of solar farms + datacenters here and there.
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.
mod6: we're being nicked and dimed here for everything in the us. and im sure people see this as just another brick in the wall.