Texas in Crisis

[Gospel]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

 

[bilby]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

meh. That's only 45°

 

[Swammerdami]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

meh. That's only 45°

That 45° ties the all-time record reported in 1958 by the nearest major weather station (484000) to my home. But how many consecutive days of 40°+ heat were there in Nevada?

As reported by that Weather Station, April-May 2016 had 32 days of 42°+ heat. From April 3, 2016 to April 29, every day's high was 40°+, fifteen of these days were 43°+. April 30 and May 1 were below 40°, but May 2 through May 13 were all 40°+. This 2016 heat-wave set records all over S.E. Asia. Heaven helped the many millions of people without air-conditioning.

 

[Harry Bosch]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

I've never understood why anyone would want to live in an area where you go outsides into nature without dying of heat exhaustion. Everything is fine in my life as long as I can ski in the winter and spring; hike, fish and kayak in the summer and fall. I'd never live in south!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

I've never understood why anyone would want to live in an area where you go outsides into nature without dying of heat exhaustion. Everything is fine in my life as long as I can ski in the winter and spring; hike, fish and kayak in the summer and fall. I'd never live in south!

Likewise. I demand a winter to kill the bugs! And a summer (spring and fall?) I don't have to hide from.

 

[marc]

 

[Loren Pechtel]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

Going for a record-breaking 116 today. However, it's a very dry heat, 5% humidity.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

I've never understood why anyone would want to live in an area where you go outsides into nature without dying of heat exhaustion. Everything is fine in my life as long as I can ski in the winter and spring; hike, fish and kayak in the summer and fall. I'd never live in south!

I'm not into skiing or fishing. Never tried kayaking. I can hike anytime other than during heat waves like this--the mountain trailheads are roughly 20 below the city and the high areas are 30 below the city.

 

[bilby]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

I reckon in that kind of weather, you might want to keep your hat on.

 

[Patooka]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

meh. That's only 45°

That 45° ties the all-time record reported in 1958 by the nearest major weather station (484000) to my home. But how many consecutive days of 40°+ heat were there in Nevada?

As reported by that Weather Station, April-May 2016 had 32 days of 42°+ heat. From April 3, 2016 to April 29, every day's high was 40°+, fifteen of these days were 43°+. April 30 and May 1 were below 40°, but May 2 through May 13 were all 40°+. This 2016 heat-wave set records all over S.E. Asia. Heaven helped the many millions of people without air-conditioning.

Bilby lives in a part of Australia that is usually on fire in summer. 45 is borderline Arctic in comparison.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That 45° ties the all-time record reported in 1958 by the nearest major weather station (484000) to my home. But how many consecutive days of 40°+ heat were there in Nevada?

As reported by that Weather Station, April-May 2016 had 32 days of 42°+ heat. From April 3, 2016 to April 29, every day's high was 40°+, fifteen of these days were 43°+. April 30 and May 1 were below 40°, but May 2 through May 13 were all 40°+. This 2016 heat-wave set records all over S.E. Asia. Heaven helped the many millions of people without air-conditioning.

Bilby lives in a part of Australia that is usually on fire in summer. 45 is borderline Arctic in comparison.

Yeah, bilby once mistook Fahrenheit 451 for the weather forecast.

 

[Swammerdami]

The only waste disposal issues are political - anti nuclear protestors don't want a solution, because it would take away their favourite talking point. But the fact is, we already solved all the problems, and have a variety of excellent options to pick from.
...
The worst possible result from a nuclear plant incident would be another Chernobyl. It's basically physically impossible for a power plant to fail worse than that.

Include me in the camp agreeing that nuclear power is a must-have for those serious about fighting CO2 emissions.

HOWEVER ... is it necessary to impugn the motives of anti-nuclear protestors? We know 35% of Americans favor lies and hypocrisy over all other values; is there any hope for us if that number is 55% instead?

And I wonder about "physically impossible for a power plant to fail worse than [Chernobyl did]." This is certainly not the viewpoint of the excellent HBO documentary Chernobyl. One group of heroes sustained lethal radiation dosages to prevent a disastrous steam explosion. Even more important, another group of volunteer coal miners stopped a nuclear meltdown which could have contaminated the Pripyat and Dnieper Rivers, the local water supply for 50 million people, plus crops and livestock.

I agree that nuclear power is now safer than ever, and join in condemning the political impasses in U.S. that prevent wider adoption. But let's please do not minimize the heroism of Ukrainians and Russians who kept the Chernobyl disaster from being even worse than it was.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I like this about Ted Cruz, the Senator from Cancun:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I don’t care what Cruz said at CPAC, but I do care that it appears Texas was just a layover stop for him between Cancun and Orlando to drop a pack of water into someone’s trunk and abandon his constituents again as they get slammed with $16,000 electrical bills." / Twitter

"Senator from Cancun"?

There is a bit of Congressional courtesy, and that is referring to fellow members as a colleague or whatever from their state. This has obvious extensions, like Joe Biden as the Senator from Amtrak.

Truman was "Senator from Pendergast;" Lieberman the "Senator from Insurancecticut." Manchin seems to be proudly embracing his new role as "Senator from Koch Industries." Who are some others? Is Rand Paul the "Senator from Objectivism"? Hawley the "Senator from QAnon"? Mitch McConnell seems happy to act as Vladimir Putin's lapdog, but I'm not sure he's the appropriate guy to spend the coveted title "Senator from Moscow" on.

 

[bilby]

The HBO show Chernobyl wasn't a documentary, it was a dramatisation.

It got a lot of things very wrong indeed.

Don't go looking for facts on TV. With a very few, very obvious, exceptions, TV shows are entertainment, not education. Any educational value is either explicit (eg BBC Open University lextures), or incidental.

 

[Swammerdami]

The HBO show Chernobyl wasn't a documentary, it was a dramatisation.

It got a lot of things very wrong indeed.

Don't go looking for facts on TV. With a very few, very obvious, exceptions, TV shows are entertainment, not education. Any educational value is either explicit (eg BBC Open University lextures), or incidental.

(1) documentary vs dramatisation? Distinction often without important qualitative difference.
(2) WHAT did the series get very wrong? Don't say that Whatsername was a conflation of several people: the series itself points that out in concluding remarks.
(3) Same to you, buddy! I confirmed the relevant facts with Wikipedia and/or the sources it cites.

 

[bilby]

The HBO show Chernobyl wasn't a documentary, it was a dramatisation.

It got a lot of things very wrong indeed.

Don't go looking for facts on TV. With a very few, very obvious, exceptions, TV shows are entertainment, not education. Any educational value is either explicit (eg BBC Open University lextures), or incidental.

(1) documentary vs dramatisation? Distinction often without important qualitative difference.

I think you genuinely believe that. Which is a sad indictment of the TV industry, and an excellent reason why you shouldn't try to use TV shows to learn facts.

(2) WHAT did the series get very wrong? Don't say that Whatsername was a conflation of several people: the series itself points that out in concluding remarks.

Where to start?

Let's take your example: There was never any risk of a second steam explosion doing any further damage; Any such event would have been minuscule in comparison to the major steam explosion that destroyed the reactor, and would have just tossed rubble around. No containment still existed that could have allowed sufficient over pressure for a steam explosion.

That's far from the only major factual error, but it is more than enough on its own to eliminate any claims of being a documentary.

(3) Same to you, buddy! I confirmed the relevant facts with Wikipedia and/or the sources it cites.

Clearly you didn't.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

I reckon in that kind of weather, you might want to keep your hat on.

Definitely. My hair has thinned enough that I must wear a hat when hiking or the top of my head will sunburn. There's enough hair to make it basically impossible to apply sunscreen, though.

114 now, today, tomorrow and Saturday.

 

[Swammerdami]

I think you genuinely believe that. Which is a sad indictment of the TV industry, and an excellent reason why you shouldn't try to use TV shows to learn facts.

(2) WHAT did the series get very wrong? Don't say that Whatsername was a conflation of several people: the series itself points that out in concluding remarks.

Where to start?

Let's take your example: There was never any risk of a second steam explosion doing any further damage; Any such event would have been minuscule in comparison to the major steam explosion that destroyed the reactor, and would have just tossed rubble around. No containment still existed that could have allowed sufficient over pressure for a steam explosion.

That's far from the only major factual error, but it is more than enough on its own to eliminate any claims of being a documentary.

(3) Same to you, buddy! I confirmed the relevant facts with Wikipedia and/or the sources it cites.

Clearly you didn't.

(1) Ad hominem.

(2)

The smoldering graphite, fuel and other material above, at more than 1,200 °C (2,190 °F),[74] started to burn through the reactor floor and mixed with molten concrete from the reactor lining, creating corium, a radioactive semi-liquid material comparable to lava.[73][75] If this mixture had melted through the floor into the pool of water, it was feared it could have created a serious steam explosion that would have ejected more radioactive material from the reactor. It became necessary to drain the pool.[76]

(3) I win. (See #1 and #2.)

 

[Jarhyn]

113? God damn, hats off to you Loren.

I reckon in that kind of weather, you might want to keep your hat on.

Definitely. My hair has thinned enough that I must wear a hat when hiking or the top of my head will sunburn. There's enough hair to make it basically impossible to apply sunscreen, though.

114 now, today, tomorrow and Saturday.

Hot damn. Literally. Then, I wear a hat to protect my scalp and neck from the sun regardless of how much of a long haired hippy I am. Try not to die in that mess. I do enjoy bickering with you as much as it appears bilby and Swammerdami enjoy doing so.

 

[bilby]

I think you genuinely believe that. Which is a sad indictment of the TV industry, and an excellent reason why you shouldn't try to use TV shows to learn facts.

Where to start?

Let's take your example: There was never any risk of a second steam explosion doing any further damage; Any such event would have been minuscule in comparison to the major steam explosion that destroyed the reactor, and would have just tossed rubble around. No containment still existed that could have allowed sufficient over pressure for a steam explosion.

That's far from the only major factual error, but it is more than enough on its own to eliminate any claims of being a documentary.


Clearly you didn't.

(1) Ad hominem.

(2)

The smoldering graphite, fuel and other material above, at more than 1,200 °C (2,190 °F),[74] started to burn through the reactor floor and mixed with molten concrete from the reactor lining, creating corium, a radioactive semi-liquid material comparable to lava.[73][75] If this mixture had melted through the floor into the pool of water, it was feared it could have created a serious steam explosion that would have ejected more radioactive material from the reactor. It became necessary to drain the pool.[76]

(3) I win. (See #1 and #2.)

I never suggested that people didn't fear it, only that it couldn't have actually happened.

Reality doesn't give two shits about who wins or loses debates. Winning a debate doesn't alter facts, nor change the laws of physics.

 

[Politesse]

(1) Ad hominem.

(2)


(3) I win. (See #1 and #2.)

I never suggested that people didn't fear it, only that it couldn't have actually happened.

Reality doesn't give two shits about who wins or loses debates. Winning a debate doesn't alter facts, nor change the laws of physics.

So in your mind, the dramatization would be more accurate if the characters talked only about the things we know now, as opposed to re-enacting the conversations they actually had at the time?