Not the element, but the original Plutonia, Roman-era gates that caused the death of sacrificial animals.  For some reason, I'm thinking of the Department of Mysteries.

Ryuugi is still on his Sailor Moon kick, this time with some Usagi as a Planeswalker snippets. So now we get to see some of his awesome Usagi characterization through the lens of Magic: the Gathering.

Quote:Emrakul and Usagi are both thieving magpies, just in different ways. Emrakul is a corruptive force that spreads through bodies and minds and twists them both until they're more like her. She's Colorless, a force that's so alien that it can honestly take control of others without realizing it, because she's not wholly certain that anyone else is real*. In terms of mechanics, this is perhaps best exemplified by her cards; she takes extra turns or she takes control of your turns; when she takes possession of things, it's a madness, a terror, and a loss of control.

Usagi's the opposite. She's a purifying, empowering force that makes people more of what they are--that turns them from base matter to persistent magical effects, until there's magic in every motion and deed. Where Emrakul's taken are a part of her in every way that matters, Usagi's are a part of her the way things you love are a part of you; separate in many senses, except several very important ones. She's not Colorless, she's every color. She's Red when she's freedom, passion, and love, and her Red spells, such as they are, aren't really about her temporarily taking control of someone, but rather giving someone the power or inspiration to temporarily resist the control they're already under. She's Blue when she's the clarity of mind and vision and dream, when she frees someone and saves them and gives them those things back in a permanent way. She's Black and White and Green when she stands before those who are lost and gone beyond saving, and saves them anyway, because it's what she wants, because it's right, because she gives them life. She knows everyone and they know her, and that's why they follow her. When she takes control of something, it's as a restoration, a realization, a second chance, and a return.

When they fought one another, it was a battle to see who could take--and keep--control of everything around them, up to an including themselves when Emrakul finally broke through and attacked in person. Usagi won that particular battle with time/mind shenanigans** and won the war by having lots of loyal subordinates that she protected from Emrakul's touch and who also weren't crazy. They shielded her in turn until she found what she needed to stop Emrakul for real.

*With the exception of Usagi, which is why she's so focused on her.

**My mental image of exact how that would or could have gone down in game terms is a bit amusing, at least to me. The idea is that Emrakul broke through and was all ready to take control of Usagi's mind and utterly demolish her on her next turn by doing everything wrong--and Usagi promptly going 'Taking turns is for pussies anyway'*** and casting Meditation and whatever she hadn't already cast from Awakening/Intruder Alarm, Leyline of Anticipation, and Burst of Speed, and just relying on that, Cryptolith Rite, and Tamiyo's emblem to play the rest of the game in Emrakul's turns with repeated Meditations. And just generally being a bitch with 'Until your next turn' effects like Chronomantic Escape, Comply, Conjurer's Ban, and Inaction Injunction until Emrakul was left frustratedly waiting for Usagi to just take her turn and die already and she just refused to.

***Which is kind of the equivalent of replying to someone saying "I'll control your thoughts." by saying "Then I'll just stop thinking!" And it working.

The Register: Bright idea: Make H when the Sun shines, and H when it doesn't

tl;dr: Use solar power in the daytime, and use more solar power to heat air to use for power in the nighttime.

The Register is reporting that Salon.com is giving people who use adblockers an option: turn off the adblocker, or mine cryptocurrency for them.

Which security hole do you want to open on your PC? Or would you rather stop reading salon.com?

I know what my answer is... but I never really read salon.com anyway, so I won't miss it.

...but I have trouble keeping silent. All I can honestly do is not pollute the cursed thread with my jaundiced mutterings.

(02-21-2018, 12:17 PM)robkelk Wrote:

(02-21-2018, 11:49 AM)Pyeknu Wrote: Another main of faith has passed on:  https://apnews.com/ea6f9efdc7544a6dab337690c5849bfc

Regardless of his politics and his stance of many social issues, the Reverend Graham did care for people.  May he rest in peace and enjoy his heavenly reward.

Rev. Billy Graham was a desegregationist in the South before it was legally required - that's enough to earn my respect.

More information: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/billy-graha...-1.4544809

Charles P. Pierce Wrote:He got too close to Richard Nixon and too eagerly joined the pile of history’s yard waste that was that worthy’s career. It was a marvelous environment for bigotry and Graham let his freak flag fly.

Again, from the Times: 

"Mr. Graham’s image was tainted in 2002 with the release of audiotapes that Nixon had secretly recorded in the White House three decades earlier. The two men were heard agreeing that liberal Jews controlled the media and were responsible for pornography.
"'A lot of the Jews are great friends of mine,' Mr. Graham said at one point on the tapes. 'They swarm around me and are friendly to me because they know that I’m friendly with Israel. But they don’t know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country.'"

Here's another free 3D resource that I need help identifying: Space Warrior cosplay armor. The page says it's from something, but it doesn't say what. For me, this "armor from an iconic franchise" is Just a Face Outfit And A Caption; I need more data for a proper description on the freebie wiki.

What needs identifying is the outfit (or at least the bustier), not the skin colour, the hairdo, or anything else.

Does anybody recognize it?

CBC Radio, opinion piece: Perhaps we'll be saved by the sheer incompetence of President Trump's staff

Michael Enright raises an interesting question: "If African-Americans, the poor, women, immigrants, gays and Hispanics should be included in the national conversation, why not dummies?" He goes on to point out how many Republican politicians have been of less than stellar intellect, including Spiro Agnew (showing how long this has been going on), Sarah Palin, Mike Pence, and Dan Quayle.

The previous thread is here.

I have no update, I just like posting links to other threads.

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.