Posts by Hermes Conran

RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally

Re: It seems entire nation is waiting for El Reg readers to tell them whats going on

What happened was almost certainly a simple change to the overnight batch run. Not properly tested before implementation and caused a problem that was not caught before the end of the run. The batch run completed and the online systems were brought up for the next day and then the problem was spotted. You then have to back out the online transactions, back out the batch run back out the change, rerun the batch, reapply the online transactions. Unfortunately the overnight batch takes all night to run and doing all that other stuff is time intensive too. This problem stems from the RBS takeover of Natwest, RBS (small bank) management says "why the hell does this mainframe stuff take so long and cost so much?" Natwest management say "Well it's all the testing and expensive mainframe staff" RBS management look to India and thinks hmm......

Giant kangaroos wiped out by humans, not climate change

Clone them!

I for one would pay to ride on a five meter kangaroo!

IT guy answers daughter's Facebook rant by shooting her laptop

As a supporter of gun control,

I really think he should have used a chainsaw!

Steve Jobs action figure set for shop shelves

will it come with...

Replaceable livers?

Too soon?

NASA working on nuclear rocket for manned Mars trips

you mean strong language like..

"Anti Nuclear Fruit Cakes"?

Spanish firm brings 20MW solar ‘ranch’ online in Arizona

I'm guessing,

it's less than the annual subsidy to any one of the major (massively profitable) oil producing companies.

(Flames for burning oil installation.)

Cheap gas is a 'crisis' for Greens, but not for us

Cheap power!!!

and the only drawback is notherners have earthquakes and flames coming out of their taps!

Bill Gates drops $1m on laser-based malaria fighter

Fry the suckers!!!

I really hate mozzies......

Green energy and jobs will cripple the UK economy

Green energy ignored by the rest of the world...

Do you mean like China with the worlds largest PV manufacturing capacity or like Germany with the largest installed PV base, or Demark who generate up to 20% of peak electricity use with wind, or California or Texas with huge wind investments or Italian geothermal or Brazilian biomass...

Nuke plant shut down after US earthquake

yes, I was expecting Mr Page.....

to explain how great this triumph is.

Apple App Store passes 15bn download mark

if you listen carefully...

You can hear a billion fart apps....

NASA restores Pluto to league of planets

Ceres is in the asteroid belt,

between Mars and Jupiter.

Fukushima fearmongers are stealing our Jetsons future

@ Black betty

Infrasound aqffecting health? Aircraft waring light intrusive? You are really reaching there...

@ Aaron Em

Plutonium is not found in nature, it is created in fission reactors. If you are going to comment on this forum you really should do a little research first.....

Insurance costs

Is anyone still underwriting public liability insurance on fusion plants? Or is this something (like our banking system) that is picked up by governments because they're too big to fail...

"what's so special about a repository?"

It has to last for tens of thousands of years, that's what.

No structure every built by man has every done that. Do you know what happens to concrete that is a thousand years old? I don't and no other humans do.

MIBTF to welcome our alien building contractors......

It's it's

You should proof read your post if you're going to criticise.....

Jumping to conclusions...

a controlled substance that does not exist in nature is found very close to an exploded plant that uses it. But lets not make assumptions Highlander.....

Lewis' analysis

is sounding more and more like the scruffy guy in the high street with the can of diamond white. He still makes more sense than Orlowski though....

reprocessing would cut the amount of waste that had to be managed

Actually while cutting high level waste reprocessing greatly increase the amount of low level waste, which still has to be managed. But seeing as Mr Page seems happy to have it in his house it looks like that problem's solved!

"experts" - often anti-nuclear campaigners, suggest the evacuation zone be extended.

Like those anti nuclear IAEA guys huh Lewis?

Praying for meltdown: The media and the nukes

@ Madmike & Svanevid

Agreed trace amounts of uranium (all isotopes) are present in coal (and some soil) but plutonium isn't. Plutonium does not occur in nature and is widely argued to be the most poisonous substance known. I'm glad you're so confident that the incompetants who are in charge of Japan's NP to dig up and dispose of thousands (millions?) of tons of dangerously radioactive topsoil but I'm not.

I wouldn't like to live next to a coal powered plant either but I don't believe that coal and NP are the only two choices.

Despoiled..

The plant managers have admitted that they have found plutonium in the soil around the reactors, the only place this could have come from is from inside fuel rods. Given that they don't even look close to making the reactor buildings safe to work in it is going to be some time before they frind the broken rods and make them safe. Plutonium in the soil will mean it is too dangerous to do any large scale groundwork based remediation, which means a small scale enclosed operation that will take years, decades, generations.

Meltdown

Even those convicted liars who run these plants have had to admit that the core in at least one reactor has melted. The fact that good civil engineering and drastic risk management has prevented hundreds of people being poised so far does not detract from the fact that the whole area around the plant is despoiled for generations.

Data centres gripped by power struggle

Are Direct Current backbones making much headway?

I read about systems that wouldn't require transformation at each server being more efficient.

Fukushima scaremongers becoming increasingly desperate

All very interesting Andydaws....

how do you explain the plutonium in the soil outside the reactor building?

Thank you Lewis,

I was begining to think you had succumbed to reality but I'm glad to hear that everything is still rosy in your radioactive world!

Fire-quenching electric forcefield backpack invented

ever heard of

convection?

(flames for melting reactor)

Libya fighting shows just how idiotic the Defence Review was

Too right..

I need someone to tell me why the water that managed to give radiation burns to workers near the reactor is safe and healthful.....

Radioactive Tokyo tapwater HARMS BABIES ... if drunk for a year

You're right trach....

The effect of radioactive releases into the environment is often stated as the number of extra cancer cases. This is normally a very small number compared to the overall number of cases but there will still be a handful of people who die from cancer who would not have. It's impossible to tell which are the extra ones so there's no comeback for the people responsible for contaminating the environment.

Glowing children,

....what do you mean they haven't been eating Ready Brek?

Out of shape? Not had sex for years? Watch out

So according to Lewis.....

sex is more dangerous than swabbing down a burnt out nuclear reactor?

Fukushima one week on: Situation 'stable', says IAEA

"The Fukushima reactors actually came through the quake with flying colours"

Then proceeded to do more damage to themselves than the quake + tsunami did.

To paraphrase another 'tard, any system that self distructs when power is removed is normally called a booby trap.

Fukushima situation as of Wednesday

"No credible authority thinks they're in any immediate danger"

My mistake Andydaws, full radiation suits must be a northern japanese fashion at the moment.

There is a fused lump of MOX fuel....

at the bottom of at least one of these reactors. How long is the half life of plutonium?

They declared the end after 14 years...

But the #2 reactor room is still too radioactive to enter and TMI didn't melt down like Fukushima...

beyond satire now mr Page

Focusing on the fact that not many people have been killed yet is missing the point. This site is now too dangerous to approach and is dependant on people risking their lives and health to stop it getting much worse. It will be too radioactive to dismantle for centuries and will be dangerous all that time.

Site-saving workers evacuated from Japanese reactor disaster

A bottle of Paracetemol,

will not still be poisoning people in a thousand years....

you're right,

Oil spillages have poisoned areas for decades and that's a bad thing. The reactor failures will poison the site for millenia.....

(can we have a radiation hazard icon please El Reg?)

Reactor 4 is triumpantly emitting steam or smoke...

To let the world know that this triumph isn't over yet! Have we reached Chernoble levels of triumph yet?

Reactors 5 and 6..

are now being flooded with seawater according to Reuters, so they're trashed too. Attempts to helecopter water into reactor 2 have failed due to high radiation levels. The triumphs keep coming!

Fukushima update: No chance cooling fuel can breach vessels

Another great triumph!

So they are left with 4 fused and corroded raioactive lumps to get rid of and a large amount of the country's generating capacity ofline at a time when they rest of thier infrastructure has taken a huge hit. It will take years (decades, never?) to dismantle the site and years to get their capacity back to where it was before the quake both at enormous cost. Win!!!!

Fukushima reactor core battle continues

Call me a doom monger, but....

Three explosions, one ongoing fire, four deaths so far, a significant release of radioactivity and a still worsening situation does not seem good. This is still not over and the whole truth is not out yet.

Triumphs closer to home..

An old Japanese man interviewed some time after the end of WWII said that even though the Japanese officials kept trumpeting about their great victories in the pacific he knew they were losing the war because each victory was closer to Japan than the last. I was reminded by this when hearing japanese officials saying how the problems in their nukes were being overcome, each intervention seems more desperate than the last.

Were I religious I would pray.....

Fukushima is a triumph for nuke power: Build more reactors now!

Isn't tsunami

a japanese word?

"No imaginable disaster can result in serious problems"

Sounds like a failure of imagination Lewis! (the lead lined one please.....)

Russia knocks back Soyuz launch

You're in low earth orbit, NASA have scrapped all their shuttles

and you are depending on the russians to bring you home. Better pack a reentry-proof surfboard!

Threat to third Fukushima nuke reactor

Boo Hoo!

"I swore at people who disagree with me and my comment got deleted!"

Grow up Norkolk, El Reg are in now way tree huggers, (I know because I am). You were just offensive.

I'm sure that these were marvels of engineering,

and I'm sure that the people who built them to stay mostly intact after the punishment they sufferered did a great job. I just think it was a bad idea to build them in the first place......

Second explosion rocks Japanese nuke plant

75% of yearly exposure?

Can anyone explain what they mean by this?