A facet of modern industrial life-cycle most people never pay any attention to. Once you start reading the piece, its hard to put down.

I once sold 60 tonnes of nuclear power plant scrap to be turned into car wheels. Not used scrap of course, rather the stuff left over from making the fuel rods. These are, in the Soviet system, made of a zirconium/niobium alloy (the Western world uses Zr/Sn)...

... the plants that made the new tubes were all closed, so there was no recycling to be done by them, there's no point in trying to run them through the Western Zr scrap plants because it's an entirely different alloy. So what to do with this pile that we were being offered? Zr is used in some aluminium alloys, usually a 1 per cent or so addition. But no one wants the Nb: not a good thing to have in such alloys. However, there was one bloke in Rotterdam who had worked out that under 0.01 per cent Nb (100 ppm) was fine and the Russian nuclear alloy was 1.1 per cent Nb. So, if he mixed in a bit of pure Zr scrap and only wanted 1 per cent Zr in the Al alloy then the Nb would be diluted below 0.01 per cent and thus he was willing to pay bottom feeding fire-sale prices for this nuclear scrap.

The job of the broker is to know this shit: there's no reason why the bloke running the fuel rod filling plant should, he's got other things on his mind. And this broker did know this shit and after contacting the friendly local smuggler (without, of course, mentioning the need for a nuclear goods license) shipped three trucks worth off to be made into MAG alloy wheels for cars...

The one bright spot in the Obama economy? Brokers don't lack for material to unload.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:21 AM | Comments (103)
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So most of Nullsec has put aside the stuff we fight about for this weekend. We unleash co-ordinated gankfest of freighters and any one dumb enough to head to the main trade hub. Read some Read some Blogs Idiots. I don't know why I should be surprised by High Sec Idiots anymore.

In Theory why we do this.
Why we really do this
Update with the Damage thus far:

#burnjita stats thus far: 442.5b destroyed,104 freighters, 11 jump freighters, countless pods/indies/etc. #tweetfleet #eveonline

— The Mittani (@TheMittani) April 21, 2013

If you want to watch it You too can enjoy listening to DBRB apparently he wants to try and Gank a freighter today with nothing but Frigates. Sounds Interesting. We did it last year in Destroyers. It's funny to see the amount of Concord (The "Space Police") that show up to kill 300 destroyers. It looks like Boston did on Friday.

If you do go and watch let me explain what you are seeing. Generally there are 3 fleets going in Jita right now. A fleet of "Bump" Ships which have high mass and speed that keep bumping into Freighters to prevent thier aligning to warp off. Then There is the DPS fleet. These are dudes in Tornados that 1 shot the freighters before Concord blows them up. Then there is "Jita Police" that deal with the War Targets. For some reason Highsec wants to try and stop Burn Jita. It doesn't end well for them.

I had some of my most fun last year dealing with the War Targets during Burn Jita. Last year the Highsec tards War Dec'd the entire CFC, so I could get in on that. This year, they just Dec'd Goons. So no Highsec PVP for Zakn this year. I can't really get in on the Ganking cause my Security Status is still jacked from last year (I don't "Rat"). I'm writing this on Saturday, so I might get drunk and go zonk pods till I go full on -10. I still have a bunch of Catalysts from Hulkageddon last year somewhere....

I was bummed that Helicity Boson said he's to busy to run Hulkageddon right after. But that's life. more...

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 09:00 AM | Comments (111)
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The socialist system and its concomittant system of quasi-aristocratic privileges contains its own contradictions, which are the seeds of its own destruction.

No quotes, just trust me.

Posted by: Ace at 10:22 AM | Comments (90)
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Posted by: Ace at 05:32 PM | Comments (757)
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Posted by: Ace at 04:49 PM | Comments (631)
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Plain brown wrapper.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:12 PM | Comments (823)
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Automatic gunfire, they say, and an ambulance speeding to the scene.

Obviously what everyone suspects is that they've cornered Suspect Number One and he's fired on encircling police.

Cars are flying around, and someone claimed that police radio (which I no longer can log into it) ordered all cops to that location, and now the FBI is headed there too.

Local TV Coverage: I link this for those away from the TV, but just to let you know, no media has cameras actually on the gunfight or anything. They're just vaguely near the scene.

Robot Deployed To Scene:

Posted by: Ace at 03:04 PM | Comments (1262)
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You should be ashamed.

Well, that's terribly convenient.

Let me note the pattern here, because we've seen it now seven times straight. In the aftermath of a tragedy, the media freely speculates that the perpetrator was most likely someone on the rightwing-- usually a Tea Partier, always a rightwing extremist of some kind.

When the culprit turns out to be a member of the Coalition of the Left -- for example, as in the case of the Discovery Channel shooting/attempted bombing -- we're informed that political motivations and implication don't matter.

But until that point, accuse the Tea Party and Tax Protesters and Xtremist Xtians of every sort. Have fun with it. Explore the studio space. Just wishcast and dreamjournal away.

Like NPR, the "news" channel you pay for so that wealthy white people don't have to spring $60 a year for digital radio.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:49 PM | Comments (349)
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And they say this because of claims he has been

Let me note something: John King was not wrong. Furthermore, it's quite possible he had decent sourcing for this description.

I am only speculating here, but note this article.

A victim of the Boston bombings Monday with some of the most graphic wounds caught on photograph reportedly woke up in a drugged haze after surgery and in recovery, saw the FBI’s pictures of the two suspects that had been released and said one of them “looked right at me.”

he brother of Jeff Bauman, who had both legs amputated below the knee, said in an interview, according to Bloomberg, that the 27-year-old was waiting for his girlfriend to finish the race when he claims to have seen one of the suspects, wearing a black jacket, a cap and sunglasses. He dropped a bag at BaumanÂ’s feet.

“He woke up under so much drugs, asked for a paper and pen and wrote, ‘bag, saw the guy, looked right at me,’” Chris Bauman, Jeff’s brother, said Thursday in an interview.

Chris Bauman is later reported as saying he has been alone with his brother “many times” when he had told him “every single detail.”

My point is that law enforcement had additional information beyond what was publicly released -- and ergo it's quite possible that this witness (or another) did describe the suspects of having a darker-than-white skin tone.

But apparently you're not allowed to say that on TV, even when the description actually would aide someone in making an identification. That is to say, the pictures themselves were ambiguous about skin-tone; it's possible an eyewitness filled in that detail, and hence having the pictures plus that detail could add in making a ID.

But, again, you can't offer relevant information during a manhunt for a terrorist because, racism.

Now CNN botched an awful lot on their reporting (as did Fox, as did AP, as did... I).

But we're specifically going after John King for one detail upon which he was correct?

Why?

Meanwhile, I should note that "media commentator" or whatever he is Jeff Greenfield, a thoroughly soporific tedium-machine, has looked at all the erroneous coverage from almost all the major media companies and has decided to...

...mock Reddit, a forum of unpaid amateurs, for its error in thinking Suspect Number One may have been the wrongly-suspected Sunil Tripathi.

A tweet of his made a poor joke of analogizing the Pete Williams to Nate Silver (in that both were right) and Reddit to Dick Morris (in that both are wrong).

Note that with all the fumbles and stumbles by the media -- which, I honestly, I personally give them a pass on; it was a chaotic time and sources are often wrong -- he decides to focus his media-criticism attention on an internet forum.

The Guild protects its own. Every profession is a conspiracy against those outside it.

Posted by: Ace at 02:38 PM | Comments (250)
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The first cop killed by the terrorists last night.

WHAT? The story had been that the terrorists robbed a 7/11, and this is what drew police attention.

Now they're saying there was no 7/11 robbery. I think.

I really don't know. I feel so stupid, sitting here "blogging news" when I have no idea what the news is.

Posted by: Ace at 02:15 PM | Comments (197)
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