Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Ketchup]

...oddly enough, other than you and Somber, I don't think I know what, if any, anyone else's career is on here.
It feels like I talk about my own all the time...
Edit:
No, wait, Admiral's a chef and Adder's... well, he built computers, then he worked in the navy, now he does something with software.
I think that's it, though...

Well, your job sounds interesting, though you have protested to that.

Kipper works retail, Katarn is a computer guy of some sort, and I think Camo is/was an Army medic, but I think he has another job now. He was deployed to Afghanistan at some point.
And, of course, many of us are still in education of some sort. You're working on a Masters in information security, right?

[Cptadder]

So... I made a post in the All That Remains thread, and I noticed that I was at 999. This post will be my thousandth here.
That's all.
...
Uh, goodbye.

@O.Hinds: ... I just pictured you being dragged away by the tentacles into the vat...

Funny enough Kattlarv and I are on the exact same wavelength here.

...oddly enough, other than you and Somber, I don't think I know what, if any, anyone else's career is on here.
It feels like I talk about my own all the time...

Edit:
No, wait, Admiral's a chef and Adder's... well, he built computers, then he worked in the navy, now he does something with software.
I think that's it, though...

Systems Engineer, I engineer systems. My chief job consists of trying to convince my current boss to pay for my travel because hey I could just remote in and restart their server in five minutes. But wodn't it make more sense to fly me down to Puerto Rico for the weekend at the cost of about 400$ once airfare, the rental car and hotel are all calculated in.

No? Damn, okay how about flying me out to Toronto to fix their stuck printer rather then walking the floor manager through the process of unjamming a printer.

[Ketchup]

snip

You are losing acquaintances, they overwork you, the company is in hard times, and waste disposal is getting more expensive. I think I can see why you wouldn't particularly like the position.

Wait, if engineers get blamed for something getting broken by another person, why have people who aren't qualified enough not to break the equipment? Or am I missing something here?

[Frost]

Y'know what's a stupid fucking power? The Stare. The smallest, weakest, most cowardly piece of shit in the whole show just looks you in the eye, and suddenly you're a gibbering wreck. Makes no goddamn sense. The only thing Fluttershy has to contribute at all, really, is the ability to put on a thick suit of Plot Armor as soon as she gets pissy at something. It's not cute, it's not endearing, it's fucking stupid. Either she's strong, or she's a coward. Fucking pick one, writers.

As is their wont, fanfic writers have taken this and pushed it to its (il)logical extreme. Suddenly, Fluttershy's Stare is now suddenly a godlike power capable of stopping War Gods and highly-trained, ruthless Sociopaths in their tracks.

Just once, I want to see a scene in a fanfic where she attempts to Stare down the villain, whose only reaction is slight confusion as to why she's staring at him like that, or why she thought she could stop Meatfucker McThroatSlitter, or whoever the villain is, with a stern look.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Are you talking about radioactive wastes, or just good ol' toxic wastes, Swicked ?

[Harmony Ltd.]

AFAIK, what happen with Slenderman isn't *gore everywhere*, but simply *no one hears of you ever again*


Also, another argument as to why nuclear power should be phased out once we manage to get rid of the other fossil fuels

[Ketchup]

I think the word you might be looking for is "unions".

Everyone's qualified, though. It's just if someone bumps a switch... why wasn't a cover on the switch? Why does that one switch, by itself, do that? Quick, make a bunch of engineering controls to fix the issue! And other mostly-minor stuff. The bigger issue is the fact that stuff breaks, sometimes, because we're trying to lower our operations and maintenance budget (not to be confused with the departments) so, whether or not a manual says "Hey, do this every year, or we can't guarantee it'll work) we still end up doing it every two years and, barring any failures, then every three... until something breaks and people ask why we weren't maintaining it.
It's like some sorta game of chicken.

I think I get it now. Cut too many corners and you get an octagon instead of the square it should be. Then someone complains about it or breaks it, and I assume money is drawn to fix it from something else that also needs maintenance. Then it happens again.
Nice simile. Very much like a game of chicken.

I don't know much about unions aside from a little bit my father told me and the rantings of my social studies teacher. And something about why we haven't had bus service in the area for the past year and why it is free for the next month. Unions. And the drivers wanted salaries near surgeons.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I don't know how it is in the US, but here unions are the reasons why we have healthcare and a great number of social services in the first place, and those thanks to whom we are nominally working 35 hours a week with full pay instead of 50 hours.

[222222]

@Frost: Well seeing as her special talent is dealing with animals, I always treat the Stare as the extreme manifestation of that talent. She isnt just straight up intimidating people, she is magically controlling them through their animal instincts. Thats how I see it at least. As for Fanfics, well, I can't explain Fanfics, who knows what goes through some of those people's minds.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I don't think we have ever seen Fluttershy use the Stare on anything else than animals. No ponies, griffins or minotaur. Not that I know of at least.

[222222]

@Unions: unions in the US were very, very important in getting people adequate and reliable working conditions. Unfortunately, in many cases now they are just screwing workers out of money and forcing companies to make cuts. Not all unions of course, but many. The problem, in my opinion of course, is that most of what unions need to fight for they have won, and now they are just fighting for more and more ridiculous things in order to stay relevant and making money.

[Ketchup]

I don't know how it is in the US, but here unions are the reasons why we have healthcare and a great number of social services in the first place, and those thanks to whom we are nominally working 35 hours a week with full pay instead of 50 hours.

In Canada, every citizen has 'medicare'. It's a government thing, I don't think unions are involved aside from those concerning the professionals in the medical field.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Ketchup : healthcare is also a government thing here. The Unions (and the communists) fought for it to be - literally, given it was instituted when the country was liberated from the Nazis in WW2.

Erumpet : yeah, I heard that unions in the US are pretty fucked up (like a lot of things it seems...). Normally they are there so that the patrons cannot screw over the workers. That's the role they're supposed to fulfill.

[Ketchup]

Also? Don't get me started on the nuclear waste issue. It isn't a science issue. It is 100% a political one. There's a billion things we could use this "waste" for, starting with using it as a fuel for smaller reactors. It just won't happen, because nuclear technology is about as discouraged in the USA as it possibly can be without an outright ban.

I actually mentioned the lack of recycling and reuse of nuclear wastes in a paper I wrote for my science class. I got a 50/50 for the assignment.

But yes, we've been over the subject twice before.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I'm not pretending Unions are all goody-good-goodness. Heck, even here we've had our share of scandals and shit like that involving them. I just get reflexively cranky when people start saying things that might imply we'd be better off without them, because, at least here, that'd mean that in 10-20 years we'd be back in the 19th century as far as working conditions go.


Also, I know that nuclear power is, for all intent and purpose, safe, and that the question of nuclear waste is a political issue and nothing else : hell we could bury our wastes in abandoned oil wells, we wouldn't see them for millions of years for all I know.

I just think that technologically, fission power can only be a stop-gap measure until we reach better ways to do thing.

I also think de-centralized energy sources are the stuff of the future, which nuclear power plants are the exact opposite of.

[Harmony Ltd.]

The secret to making renewable (wind, solar, sea-waves power) useful is to mix & match, have a lot of surplus production (produce 50% more than what you nominally need), and implement a smart bi-directionnal power grid to send your surplus to where people are experiencing a shortgage. Also, the best energy is the one you don't spend in the first place, so energy savings are the first theater of battle here.

The trend now is to try to conceive every building as mostly self-sufficient with renewable and able to save as much power as possible, so that they use as few energy from the grid as possible, and are able to give their energy to the grid when they are producing surplus.

For now, until proper power storage technologies are implemented (industrial-grade hydrogen fuel cells, compressed air turbines, etc...), we'll be forced to use either nuclear, coal, oil or gas as a base load. But once we are able to reliably stock large amount of energy on a smart, auto-adaptive de-centralized grid, then the need for nuclear power will (slowly ? [1]) subside.


I agree that proliferation-safe micro-generators using re-purposed nuclear wastes would be a great way to dispose of said nuclear wastes, but I wouldn't favor such a solution ; as I'd tend to think it would pose a number of logistical problem, as you would need to keep track of all of them and ensure that all the proper regulations are followed - because people sure as heck will demand for the security measures around these things to be OUTSTANDING and nearly godlike.

Basically, look at all the problems of our modern nuclear power industry, and imagine multiplying that to everyone's backyard (hyperbole, but you get the idea).


[1] : most probably, as soon as a reliable and cost effective alternative to nuclear power will be found, you'll see governments and decision makers ditching the old plants as fast as they can.

[Ironmonger]

I think Camo is/was an Army medic

Army National Guard to be more specific. #Nitpick

[Harmony Ltd.]

Foreigner here : Are the National Guard reservists, or are there "career" Guards ?

[Cptadder]

Y'know what's a stupid fucking power? The Stare. The smallest, weakest, most cowardly piece of shit in the whole show just looks you in the eye, and suddenly you're a gibbering wreck. Makes no goddamn sense. The only thing Fluttershy has to contribute at all, really, is the ability to put on a thick suit of Plot Armor as soon as she gets pissy at something. It's not cute, it's not endearing, it's fucking stupid. Either she's strong, or she's a coward. Fucking pick one, writers.

As is their wont, fanfic writers have taken this and pushed it to its (il)logical extreme. Suddenly, Fluttershy's Stare is now suddenly a godlike power capable of stopping War Gods and highly-trained, ruthless Sociopaths in their tracks.

Just once, I want to see a scene in a fanfic where she attempts to Stare down the villain, whose only reaction is slight confusion as to why she's staring at him like that, or why she thought she could stop Meatfucker McThroatSlitter, or whoever the villain is, with a stern look.

I'd like to see Fluttershy meet slenderman. "Now listen here, mister, you... you don't have any eyes, do you? Crap." *GORE EVERYWHERE*

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oHh680O9sz8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
You no knowing of bloodline power handed down from father to son, mother to daughter of the entire Shy family. The stare is the least of Fluttershy's many broken abilities.
OAN: Naruto BSE:(Before the Shippuden Era) was a fun little battle manga with lots of cool abilities and a lot of "I could totally kick almost anyone else ass but oh no you ran up against one or two of three people who are the rock to my scissors" the way One Piece maintains to this day. But since Shippuden the Sharigan went from neat bloodline power to "It can alter reality" godlike super power.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I currently work at the CEA. Micro- and Nano-technologies helping, we're doing breakthroughs in the various fields related to renewable energies.

The plan right now (at the level of the European Commission) is to use the excess energy produced by renewable sources, transform that into hydrogen through electrolysis, stock it into the super-secure tanks we now have (as a demonstration of reliability, the military use them as target practice without them even leaking), and then transform it back into electricity with the affordable and efficient fuel cells they're working on. That way even the most isolated places will be able to have a reliable power supply given they have the adequate mix of renewable power sources. [1]

By 2020 we should have cut our emissions by 20%, our energy consumption by 20%, and renewable energy sources should represent 20% of our energy mix. That's the plan. By 2040 we should be at least at 50% of the energy mix - by then we will have built giant solar plants in the Sahara (at least that was the plan but it seems that as always the Politics are getting in the way)

The problem with your idea is, when an entire city is overcast, then none of their solar cells work. Weather systems blanket huge regions at a time. It's much more likely that an entire region will have either, collectively, a great excess or a great deficiency. I just don't see how they can make sure their power source is giving them just what they need just when they need it, or even getting close to that balance.

The idea is to have that Smart-Grid work at the scale of a continent.



[1] : all the "magics" of renewable power source is that you NEED to adapt the mix you're using to the geographical area you're in, its resources, the needs of the inhabitants and those of the surrounding regions, etc... Basically, it can only work if you're smart about it. And that's the biggest hurdle. It's far easier to have an oil or coal plant, import the oil or coal, send the energy to the grid and be done with it, than building a whole infrastructure to accommodate the use of renewable power sources. But with the revolution brought to us by the internet and all the associated technologies, we'll be able to tackle that obstacle. That's the current challenge people are working on : integrating everything into a coherent, intelligent auto-adaptive whole.

[Harmony Ltd.]

[1] : most probably, as soon as a reliable and cost effective alternative to nuclear power will be found, you'll see governments and decision makers ditching the old plants as fast as they can.

I gotta laugh at the idea of governments and decision makers making any kind of intelligent decision, especially from a financial standpoint XD

The problem in that case is that decommissioning a nuclear power plant take a looooonnng time (more than twenty years), time during which you employ at least as many people as you did when you were running the plant (by the way, that's an argument of the anti-nuclear side to say that getting rid of nuclear power wouldn't hurt employement, but actually help it), but with the added little fact that during that time the plant doesn't produce energy and thus is just a money sink.

That's why in France our nuclear plants, which are producing three-fourth of our electricity, are for the most part long past their originally intended lifespan, and are currently scheduled to run for 20 to 40 more years, when they are already more than 10 to 20 years overdue for decommission. We're talking about hundreds of billions of euro to do the job, here.

Yeah, another one of my problem with nuclear power is that, in theory, it's pretty cheap, but in practice it tend to be the exact contrary. When you build a plant you have to factor in the decommissioning costs, and that thing is a huge money sink.

[Ironmonger]

Foreigner here : Are the National Guard reservists, or are there "career" Guards ?

We have reserves (not the trope you wiseasses), but the National Guard is the US garrison force that protects the homeland while the Army and Marines are off doing whatever. There are career Guardsmen just like there are career Army men, it really doesn't sound like that bad of a job compared to the other parts of the military(almost said branches, incorrect) since you only serve like once a month, if I remember correctly, but it's still hard. I won't insult Camo by saying he has an easy job. #EndofRant

[Harmony Ltd.]

You just can't efficiently transport energy from one end of a continent to the other, especially if strong shifts in energy consumption follow those same weather systems, like icy rain or the like, causing a region to both produce less and expend more.
Smartgrids are more about efficiency, anyway. Being able to predict usage levels at different times and situations and adapt to them beforehand so that shifts in power supply can be taken more gradually.

Until we can control, or at least predict, the weather... anything dependent and/or highly affected by it is going to get messed up.
That is one of the biggest hurdles here.

Indeed. That's why they're putting so much money into the whole Hydrogen shtick : in order to be able to stock the energy, to then use it when needed.

Also why they're putting a lot of money on sea-wave power, which is almost always there. Given we have lots and lots of coastal areas at the European scale, that seems like a pretty good plan.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Indeed. That's why they're putting so much money into the whole Hydrogen shtick : in order to be able to stock the energy, to then use it when needed.

To expand on that, on the hypothesis that we're going to see more and more H2-fuel-cell powered cars on the road, one of the idea is to integrate them to the grid when they are parked - the idea being I suppose to credit the car's proprietor with a sum of money equivalent to the hydrogen that was "pumped" from his tank and into the grid.

[Harmony Ltd.]

The thing is that these regulations aren't going away (doing otherwise would be political suicide), so the costs will remain high.

[222222]

@Harmony: last I heard hydrogen fuel cells for cars are horrendously expensive, but that was a while ago. Is that still the case? Legitimate question here. A different question, why would hydrogen be pumped out of the car?

@Iron: #enoughwiththefuckinghashtags
Please

[Ironmonger]

@Iron: #enoughwiththefuckinghashtags
Please

I have NO clue how the hell I got addicted to using hash-tags.

[222222]

@Iron: addiction to hash is a terrible thing. Stop it, if not for yourself then for the friends and loved ones you are harming.

[Ironmonger]

@Iron: addiction to hash is a terrible thing. Stop it, if not for yourself then for the friends and loved ones you are harming.

Reminds me of that joke that goes "If you see a billboard stating 'say no to crack' and it reminds you to pull up your pants, you might be a redneck."

[Harmony Ltd.]

@Harmony: last I heard hydrogen fuel cells for cars are horrendously expensive, but that was a while ago. Is that still the case? Legitimate question here. A different question, why would hydrogen be pumped out of the car?

The CEA is working on replacing platinum with cobalt. This will greatly reduce costs. And other research efforts are underway to further reduce costs. So I think it isn't unreasonable to imagine them to be a relatively common sight in a 15-20 years timeframe.


As for the hydrogen, it isn't literally pumped out of the cars, silly. It was a figure of speech. The hydrogen is consumed by the car's internal fuel cell, the energy produced going into the grid instead of powering its electrical motors.

Of course, the car's user would be able to set things like "don't pump more than X percent of my tank", or things like that, I suppose.

Individually, a car wouldn't produce much energy, but there's millions of them on the roads, and they spend the majority of their time on parkings, so...

Ideally, you would want a car with an Hydrogen AND a water tank, in order to be able to convert water to hydrogen "on the fly" while you're parked and the grid say that there's an energy surplus and hey, we need to stock it so why not refuel your hydrogen tank while we're at it ?

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