So, something HAL said in the other thread got my brain a-turning and I wanted to get everyone else's thoughts before I went to Mr. Phantomhive and Belldandy with the idea.

Basically, have a set of subforums that are accessible to our tenants as well as ourselves.

This would do a couple of things.  For one, it would provide our tenants with an online space where they can vent and 'be themselves'.  For another, this would give them a channel to socialize and commiserate with people in the same situation.  It helps that many of us are housing multiple groups, but expanding the pool of contacts can't hurt much.

At least I would hope it doesn't.  This is something that would need to be carefully moderated so anything going in a bad direction can be quashed quickly without ruffling too many feathers.  Some of our charges are not in the best mental states, after all, and the sudden change in scenery and circumstances isn't helping much...  (Though in some cases it's exactly what they need.)

So, what do you guys think?  Feel like you'd be up to the task?

PS: I'd nominate HAL to be a sort of majordomo of the system, that way he can let us know the moment something fishy comes up and also handle the more mundane stuff like password resets and the like.

PPS: Also, making this a poll so I don't have to go through and count all the nays and yays.

From: Ladiesman77@friggarock.fen
To: [Classified disclosures]
Encrypted and Cleared: J247_08_Black
Subj: Critical Vulnerability in Roughriders Engine systems

Anika finally convinced me to release this thing to people who can do something about it. But this really, really must not go outside this group or *very bad things* will happen. It's the sort of thing that, once you read it, you can't ever tell anyone. It's a Great Justice 'Black Notice' sort of thing - the sort of thing troubleshooters will use unecessary force to stop from getting public because it is that dangerous.

Everyone who gets this has been pre-cleared to know about it, and only everyone who has. You can thank 'sis for your conscription. If you think there's anyone else who needs to be on the list, you need to propose it.

If you don't want to know what it is, you can leave right now, because this thing *terrified* me. If you do, there's a tattelate in the link below that'll load the true message from a secure server, and tell me you read it. Clicking the link is basically agreeing to be under a Black Notice for this sort of information.

Spoiler

The short story is, every roughrider engine built in the last 12 years is a proliferation risk.

You know it. Now you can't unknow it.

Background:

Roughriders Cool Cuke engines from 2014 onwards to current run on a mix of Uranium 235 and 238. The Uranium is currently enriched under tight security using an inertial differentiation process. Inside the engine, the U235 is the active reactant, with some of the 238 transmuting into Plutonium to further undergo fission.

The 'Hot Cuke' project.

An ongoing project is to boost a standard Cool Cuke core by using some of the reaction energy to initiate a fusion reaction in a seperate chamber, and use the excess fasat neutrons from this reaction to boost the output from the core by fissioning the 238 alongside the 235. Deuterium was added to the fuel rod to make Uranium Deuteride to up the efficiency of the engine a little.

A test-run for the engine core onboard the Dragon Wagon II ended with the core destroying itself

The deuterium hydride was a moderator for the reactor core. With a low rate of fission within the fuel, and a lot of iodine poisoning, a high gain setting of the fusion booster and the configuration of the engine reflector assembly, the core went supercritical. We had an 'uncommanded fission surplus which rapidly dissasembled the test engine.

The engine was modified with a boron injection system to stop it but, well, the madboy in me triggered and I had a bad idea that I just had to check.

Uranium Deuteride as a path to Nuclear Weapons.

Most nukes use 'Fast' neutrons. Nuclear weapons using 'slow' or moderated neutrons were'nt explored in depth, because two early tests were called failures. The yield was considered too low. Because of the tests were called failures, I think everyone just overlooked the possibility

But both tests prove it was still possible to produce a workinl, small-scale weapon using low enriched Uranium that would still have an explosive yield above what would be possible with conventional explosives.

I ran acomputer simulation of a hollow implosion core made from low-enriched uranium deuteride, with tritium boosting in the pit, was able to achieve an excursion of 3-400 tons equivelant before the simulation crashed. This was based on a computer program designed for modelling engine cores so should be taken with a grain of salt - it didn't model the destruction of the core.

For obvious reasons, a practical test was never done.

The Bottom Line:

Every single Cool Cuke reactor core is a potential proliferation risk each time refuelling is required.

Mitigation of the vulnerability:

The longer a core's been operating, the lower a threat it represents. The risk is highest with fresh engine cores that are being replaced.

As a short term solution, the enrichment ratio of freshly issued cores can be reduced. This will reduce the life of the core, but bring the core below the point where a moderated reaction can actually go supercritical.

As a long-term Asagiri has designed a variant of the Cool Cuke core that will run on reactor grade plutonium. These cores can be swapped for Cool Cuke engines with minimal modifications. Design details are attached - there's enough Plutonium 240 in the fuel mix to make them useless as a weapon material. The 240 does create an additional heatload on the core when it is shut-down that needs a larger heat sink.


We can't build near enough of them to replace every Roughriders engine, or make enough plutonium fuel if someone else could build the cores. So, I've attached the core design and fuel profile to this post. These are freely given with no licensing or stuff.

Okay, just gonna go straight out with it.  With all the BS that the Republicans have been pulling, I don't think they have a prayer at holding both the House and the Senate.  Hell, I suspect they might even lose both of them to the Democrats.

Political cartoonists may be painting Democrats in a rather satirical light lately for their lack of action.  They fail to realize that they're simply saving up their political capital for a strategic push-back on all the harm that the Republicans have done in the last two years.  Because we don't know for sure how we'll stand until after this November.

The Register: Ubuntu wants to slurp PCs' vital statistics – even location – with new desktop installs - Data harvest notice will be checked by default

Also, software will be installed "to spot trends in package usage and help us to focus on the packages which are of most value to our users" and "to automatically send anonymous crash reports without user interruption."

So... which Linux distros are good nowadays? With this stunt, Ubuntu just took itself off that list, IMHO.

And it's a 3D model, too. Too bad my current computer isn't powerful enough to render it.

BotMoto for Daz Studio 4.10

Better known as Andreas Kupries, a rather well-known programmer.  We're glad to have you on the boards.

One of the features of the new board puts birthday alerts down at the bottom of the top page for users who care to enter their birthday in their profiles.  Chibipoe is the first of our users to do so who've been displayed (at least that I've noticed).  So allow me to wish you a very happy birthday!

Was it wrong for Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould to tweet about the Boushie verdict? Two experts debate

Yes, it's Canada ... but the general legal principles are the same in the USA, even if the specific laws are different.

So the heating system in the family holiday home was prone to sucking up air. And because the goober who'd plumbed the fucking cunt had put the main circulator on the outlet from the boiler - it was also prone to airlocking very easily and going dead.

Now, the correct method to bleed the system is to crack a fitting on the top of the boiler, open the mains fill pipe and regulate the pressurisation valve to push the air out the cracked fitting.

This involved taking the entire boiler casing off, outside, in the cold. And cracking the fitting, outside, in the cold. Then, running back inside, dicking with the valve, and running back down to the fitting which is now pouring either superheated, or freezing cold water, tightening it, running back in to close the valve, then back out again to refit all the boiler casing.

A lot of fucking around, so.

But. There was a pressure relief valve on the boiler case with an overflow pipe piped outside. Visible from where the pressurisation valve is through a window.

So, instead, I just pushed the pressurisation valve wide-open and watched the gauge climb. Normally at about 3.6 the PRV would go and it'd blast the air out of the top of the boiler, and I could close it down when I saw water and let the pressure settle back down.

It worked handy enough every time I did it. Quick and easy.

Up until Sunday.

When I pushed the pressure up to 3.odd and the guage just dropped.... with nothing at all coming from the vent pipe.

It settled at half a bar, with full flow through pressuriser valve. Which pretty much meant half a bar pressure loss from mains to where the water was now pissing out of the system.

It blew a joint under the fucking floor somewhere. Now the floors have to come up. Concrete has to be dug, and a metric fuckton of pipe needs to be replaced.

Fucking cunt.

(02-10-2018, 02:03 PM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: Oh my yes indeed there is interest, from the board owner at least.  <grin>