It's pretty amazing that we all had to wait for this very clear explanation of how the fusion research community loves to have the public confused (or actually misled) about where they hope to get to with the fantastically expensive ITER project.
Watch it all - I think that it's actually a Right wing politician in America could legitimately call a scientific scandal, were it not for the time they spend on imaginary scandals:
Seems pretty obvious to me that we are not going to build our own nuclear submarines in Australia:
Australia's switch to nuclear-powered submarines is prompting a government push for the fleet to be built faster, possibly at the expense of local industry content, to make up for time lost under the now-scrapped French deal.
I mean, why bother if you are never going to build your own reactors - and I am pretty sure we are not going to go to the trouble of doing that.
The whole complexity of the Australian submarine deal was trying to do it in a way to keep shipbuilding jobs here. But submarine building is surely such a specialised thing, why bother trying to keep expertise here when you only need it for a small fleet?
I am therefore dubious about the whole US/UK nuclear sub deal.
Why not work with another country, closer to us, sharing our own regional interests, and just let them build us some convention subs that are quieter than nuclear anyway?
Hence - it pains me to say it, but Tony Abbott might have had the right instinct on something for once - why not go for the Japanese building us a fleet, but not the Soryu class, their latest design instead?:
Like the last two boats of the Soryu class, the Taigei will be equipped with lithium-ion batteries as a power source. Japan has conducted extensive research into the use of lithium-ion batteries onboard submarines since the early 2000s, and says they require less maintenance and are capable of longer endurance at high speeds while submerged, compared to lead-acid batteries.
Japan is the only known country to have operational submarines using lithium-ion batteries.
I like the idea of something as ubiquitous as lithium ion batteries powering a submarine; although I trust they have figured out the issue with them occasionally bursting into flame. But it is pretty rare in mobile phones, isn't it?
And look, they're even politically correct:
The Taigei subs also have another important new feature: all-gender bathrooms. Japan is following the U.S. Navy’s lead in integrating women into the submarine force, and Taigei will have bathrooms for both men and women. The issue isn’t just gender equality, but also the country’s declining population, which is creating a smaller pool of potential recruits. Opening subs to women effectively doubles the number of people that could serve in the Maritime Self Defense Force.
It's pretty incredible, really: countries may want plenty of submarines, but have trouble finding people willing to work in them.
And what about the cost?
Japan has plans for two more Taigei-class submarines, and has asked for $654.1 million for one more boat in the Defense Ministry’s latest budget request.
Assuming that is US dollars, sounds like the cost of one is roughly $1 billion AUD?
But we were planning on spending $90 billion on French submarines?
Gee - how many people does building subs here employ? Some government paper says:
The naval shipbuilding plan indicated that construction of the Future Submarine Program (FSP) is expected to sustain around 1,100 Australian jobs in direct build and around 1,700 Australian jobs through the supply chain.
So, tops, 3,000 or so people?
You could pay them a tax free income of $100,000 per year for $300 million per annum. Times a 20 year project - $6 billion.
Plus, say, 10 Japanese subs at about $1 billion each - grand total of $16 billion?
I have just saved the government $74 billion...
In a free to read article from The Economist's 1843 magazine:
Scientists reckon that potatoes originated in the Peruvian Andes. It was probably from here that the first ones were ferried back to Europe in the 16th century by Spanish conquistadores.
Europeans at first treated potatoes as a botanical curiosity, and mostly used them to feed livestock. Over time, however, they became a staple in many countries. But the Peruvian strains of potatoes were used to a consistent 12 hours of equatorial sunlight – they’re now known as “short-day potatoes” – and fared poorly in the longer but weaker summer sun of higher latitudes in Europe. Nevertheless, Europeans became so hooked on spuds that when an epidemic of potato blight hit crops in the mid-19th century, it caused the “great famine” in Ireland and beyond.
After the famine, most farmers in Europe switched to the “long-day” species native to Chiloé. It is these Chilean varieties that, through decades of micro-evolution and selective breeding, developed into the common spuds we now see in our supermarkets. Most potatoes these days are grown in Europe and Asia: China, India and Russia are the three top producers. The citizens of Belarus, Ukraine and Latvia are the most voracious consumers, eating around 500g of potatoes a day each, or two large spuds. Yet more than 90% of modern potato varieties cultivated across the world today can be traced back to Chiloé.
It explains at the start of the article:
Off the coast of northern Patagonia, some 1,220km south of the capital of Chile, lies an island shaped like a peanut. The patchwork farms and wood-shingled churches of Chiloé lie below moody skies that often unleash horizontal raindrops amid howling winds. Get enough drizzle in your eyes to blur out the volcanoes in the distance, and you’d swear the radiant green hills belonged not in South America, but half a world away in Ireland. And just like Ireland, the staple crop on Chiloé is the potato.
Seems odd that I don't recall reading about this Very Important Island before.
Here it is:
From a Washington Post piece:
These machinations involving Pence came on top of at least 30 direct Trump contacts with election officials, elected officials and others to cajole Republican state legislatures to send in those alternative slates of electors. (None did, but Eastman’s plan pretended that they had.)
We dodged a bullet last time, and things are much worse now. Election officials have been leaving their jobs as they face threats of violence and harassment, and some of the people who will replace them have bought into the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen. Those are the people who will be in charge of counting the votes in some places next election. Simply put, we face a serious risk that election results will not reflect the will of the people in 2024 or some other future American presidential election.
The article goes on to argue for steps which should be taken to protect future elections from such risk, but you can go read that at the paper.
I think this is Gab, a long time resident at Catallaxy:
I'm sticking with idiocy. Oh ok: "Why not both?"
Back in 2015 I noted that I had been wondering for some time why you couldn't combine massive solar farms and grazing and agriculture - just by setting up the panels on higher steel framework. Some crops might even do better in the middle of summer with a bit of shade - who knows? A lot of cows and sheep would appreciate it, too.
It would seem from this video (a few months old now) that the idea is still being researched:
Seems kind of obvious to me that it's a good idea in those parts of Australia which you want to retain good quality land for agricultural purposes.
Now I wonder when anyone will listen to my oft repeated suggestion that Wivenhoe Dam near Brisbane should be at least a third covered in floating solar panels?
An article at the Washington Post: The Rise of the Liberal Latter-Day Saints seems interesting, but I haven't read it word for word yet.
I sometimes wonder why I have a generally sympathetic attitude towards this invented religion. I think it's because I also find appeal in the Asiatic reverence for ancestors, and the idea that their care and interest in their living descendants extends indefinitely. Mormonism is like a syncretic combination of that with Christianity, I guess.
Sure, in mainstream Christianity, perhaps especially in Catholicism, you can also have the belief that the souls of parents or relatives are watching over you; but it's not as intense as it could be.
Last night, two or three of the blokey blokes who comment at Dover Beach's (appalling "conservative" Catholic) reincarnation of Catallaxy were talking about having big arguments with their wives because they (the wives) had decided to get COVID vaccinated after all. How tragic for them [/sarc]. Of course, they don't recognise that what their spouses doing so is only likely to aid their own health future. As I say, we're dealing with idiots.
Then this morning, local Queensland nutjob, truck driver and pub musician has come over all sympathetic to "whatever it takes", including assassination, presumably:
He's been expecting the end of the West for years now, even before COVID, but it having come from China has given him all the push he needed into mulling and promoting political violence.
The comment got 4 likes, by the way.
A succinct explanation at Axios of China banning crypto and the likely future of the technology.
I agree with the sentiment at the end - there is no way China, or other nations, are going to let private currencies make too much of an inroad. Nor should they.
I've been looking around for articles debunking the "we haven't proved fraud but this might be fraud" style claims of the Arizona election audit:
Arizona ‘audit’: A multitude of unsubstantiated claims and no proof of fraudFive takeaways from Arizona's audit results
Trump pretends Arizona election audit findings didn't completely embarrass him
And in this one:
The goal was to substantiate a new consensus Republican belief that Democrats cannot win elections legitimately, and that any victory they notch must be somehow tainted. It is not a coincidence that the places where audits have focused are those, like Maricopa County, or Harris County, Texas, or Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, with high levels of minority voters, who can be disparaged—mostly implicitly, but occasionally more directly—as illegitimate participants in the polity. Trump has been the foremost proponent of the theory, but he’s been joined by eager sycophants, demagogues, and conspiracists.
We had 500 g of very nice looking beef mince, and I wanted to do something different. Not sure why, but I don't think I have ever made my own Italian style (or more accurately, American Italian, I think) meatballs and spaghetti before.
I followed roughly this recipe, except I used milk to soak the bread, and then following an idea from another online recipe, added about 100g of frozen (de-thawed and squeezed dry) spinach to add something other than protein to them. (Also lots of parsley.)
And for the sauce - used a 700ml bottle of Coles branded passata with basil in it. It was surprisingly nice all by itself (and at $1.95 a bottle, made me wonder why we don't just use it all the time for pasta sauce.) Fried an onion and some garlic and then put the passata in, and half a cup of water. And the browned meatballs. And chilli flakes, as per the recipe. But didn't worry about other herbs - it was flavourful enough. All worked out well indeed.
Given their soft texture (which is what you really want), it does mean that imitation meat meatballs should do a good job too. I have had some vegan type meatballs at Ikea, actually, and they weren't bad. I should look up some recipes for vegetarian meatballs.
