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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • I’m interested to dig into how the HTGR works. I have what I would call an “average redditor” level of understanding about how graphite and heavy water regulated reactors work but I’m not one of those let’s go all in on nuclear Andys so I’m not up to date on the latest designs.

    My main issues with nuclear are the safety, costs compared to other green solutions like solar and wind, what to do about the waste and ensure that it is stored safely for the centuries or millennia that it needs to be stored safely, and how/where the raw materials are mined (see France wrt Niger). The article makes it out that this design improves safety so that’s good. I’m curious to look into how much it costs compared to the Westinghouse designed reactors that China is building (has built recently?) per kWh.


  • I’ll take the downvotes as a sign that I am an out of touch millennial when it comes to present day F1. Don’t worry, I’ve already unsubscribed, I’m done. But for a moment, imagine a sport that was the true pinnacle of Motorsport. There is a “formula” for the car. For example, it has to be open wheel, it can produce X amount of horsepower or KWh, open cockpit but you keep the halo or anything else for safety, it has to fit within these limits for minimum and maximum length and width, and there are a whole list of specific restrictions to prevent expensive loopholes previously found in the rule set that led to meaningless arms races for tenths of a second. But otherwise you let teams go wild. Maybe a budget cap, but why not turbo charged V-6’s against naturally aspirated V-10’s against electric motors all producing the same amount of energy? Make it a true engineering sport where the top automotive engineers in the world along with the top drivers in the world try to produce the fastest car within the formula. Make the formula able to be broadly interpreted to encourage real innovation and each year reevaluate the rules allowing the participants to vote equally to encourage more equitable competition from year to year and to discourage expense explosion. As the costs for new technology comes down, re-evaluate whether it should be reintroduced or whatever. You know what fans want to see? Top drivers racing in the same car on their favorite tracks. You know what makes good, natural, relatable, exciting drama? Engineers, drivers, professionals operating at their peak. The rules should encourage that, and if the owners want to spice up the “show”, why not also support the classic tracks that fans love by having extra spec races on Saturdays? It can carry points, but make it actually exciting to watch instead of a mediocre repeat of what we are going to see on Sunday. This shit is just off the top of my head by a disaffected fan for the last decade that can come up with better ideas to improve the sport while I am half drunk and high than the owners that have turned it into little more than professional wrestling for billionaires, oligarchs, and authoritarians. I guess it’s always been that, but damn, at least it used to be more entertaining.


  • So awesome having qualifying on a Friday while people are working. Thank you Liberty Media for ruining F1. I used to watch every minute of every session, preseason testing when they bother to film it, follow off season rumors, you name it since 2011. This year I promised myself I was done with F1 but have mostly followed qualifying results and even watched a few first laps and final laps. But there’s been what? One race worth watching this season. I bet everyone subscribed here can name it. Maybe this is what people want, the viewership numbers and money seems to be pointing to so, but the sport has left me behind at some point in the past five years.