Posts by loco_wunee

Eggheads want YOU to name Jupiter's five newly found moons ‒ and yeah, not so fast with Moony McMoonface

Re: Talking of Pallas ...

Perhaps Mulva then?

I think she had something spectacular about her.

Artificial Intelligence: You know it isn't real, yeah?

Define intelligence? Ok...

Here's how I will know that a robot is as smart as me: My ideal robot would, without flinching, without prompting, immediately scratch any itch on my body before my hand can reach. It will scratch vigorously, sufficiently, and comfortably any region of my body, on or under the skin, and with such discreetness and moral sensitivity that I can take this robot to any social gathering, I can be in any state of dress, and never slow me down.

Show me the scratch.

Then we'll talk about intelligence.

Techie in need of a doorstop picks up 'chunk of metal' – only to find out it's rather pricey

Shipmate attack

From NNPTC, I was sent to the Navy's wonderful prototype reactor plants in the middle of a desert... in Idaho... in winter to spend some time learning to operate a nuclear reactor that used to float in a pool of water as a mock submarine. This story was told to me about "controlled pure water" and the abbreviation for it... CPW. Basically, any water that has been through the reactor and then purified to standards 1000 times more stringent than potable water is CPW.

Well, the Navy runs on roughly 3 things at a place like that, with long 12-hour shifts and not too much for entertainment. So we got coffee, telling stories, and standing watch. Well, this one ties in #1 and #2, so hear me out.

The "noobs" or "nubs" of the fleet were often tasked with coffee making and refilling for the slightly more senior folks. Well, as the story goes, a trainee was being questioned about different plant components as part of his testing. It was pretty common to ask trainees questions in unusual ways, to plumb the depth and breadth of their knowledge, so one youngster was asked to explain what CPW was.

"Oh, that's just coffee pot water."

"Yeah, that's funny. No, you need to explain the CPW system."

[Confused look] Well, there's a tap over beside the wall where you can fill the coffee pots.

[Concerned look] Uh, ok, show me where you get the water for the coffee pot.

[Points to CPW system test tap] Right here!

Ok, so I don't really know if this ever happened... but if it did... I'll bet it was quite an incident! The CPW system, just so you know, didn't have any "special" marking on it, so while plausible, it may be apocryphal.