Badabinski

joined 9 months ago
[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 18 points 3 days ago

I imagine it's more complicated than that. For example, Pu-238 only emits alpha radiation. I doubt that reactor waste only emits alpha radiation, meaning you'd have to harden the electronics for a close and potentially extreme emitter of beta/gamma radiation. I also don't know if random high grade reactor waste gets hot enough to provide meaningful amounts of energy via thermoelectric means. Alternatively, it may be that it gets too hot.

I doubt they could have simply slapped something together. The cost of developing a new RTG capable of using reactor waste would likely be a significant fraction of the budget to develop the probe itself. It might have been worth it, but I feel that it's not clear-cut.

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 33 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The biggest problem with RTGs is the extreme cost and lack of availability. Pu-238 is very expensive and at any moment, there's only tens of KG of Pu-238 available for RTG use. They're not really a reasonable choice for private industry at this time.

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 8 points 6 days ago

There's the magical term! God I fucking hate wage theft. OP, the company is trying to steal from you. Your time is money and if they're not paying you for work then they're, by definition, stealing from you.

I've had conversations like this before, and usually you only have to hint that it's wage theft for dumbfuck managers to realize and back down, especially if you're assertive but polite with them. If you're not getting anywhere with the manager, then you should go to HR. HR's job is to protect the company and the obviously correct move for an HR person is to keep the DoL out of the situation. If you go to HR and then get fired, then that may be even better evidence against the shitheads.

If you do go to HR, try to get your manager to admit to wage theft in a way that gives you evidence. If you can't get the manager to admit to wage theft on paper or electronically (which you should immediately back up), you're going to the DoL, and you live somewhere with one-party consent, then surreptitiously record your manager saying it. It may be against company policy to make this recording (and should be your last resort, don't go to HR with audio recordings!), but it's legal as long as your jurisdiction has one-party consent laws on the books.

Don't let them steal from you, OP. The other magic words that have already been mentioned in this thread are "fuck you, pay me."

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Certainly looks like the Wasatch or maybe Oquirrh mountains. Kinda seems like it's somewhere near Park City, which is just such a beautiful area my god.

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 3 points 1 week ago

Ahhh, hell yeah time to dig for a SDS!

PDF warning: https://imgcdn.mckesson.com/CumulusWeb/Click_and_learn/SDS_ZIMMER_CEMENT_BONE_BIOMET_R_1X40_1_BX.pdf

looks like it's the monomer of plexiglass with hydroquinone to prevent premature polymerization and N,N-dimethyl-p-toluidine which is like, an adhesive or something? The latter is probably the issue.

Yeah, seems like people working in medicine have a rough time of it. My sister works in a cath lab and I worry about her exposure levels sometimes. I know she wears a dosimeter but like, man, it's a lot of X-rays.

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Huh, TIL about bone cement. I was curious so I looked it up, and for those who are also curious, it appears to typically be a mix of PMMA (i.e. plexiglass) and its monomer MMA (although some radically different materials have been developed). You mix the goo and it turns to dough and then eventually hardens into, well, plexiglass. The SDS for MMA doesn't seem that bad, so there must be more to it than just that.

Thanks for sharing this! I never knew plexiglass was biocompatible-ish and was used in this way.

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 6 points 1 week ago

I think shit went down with h3h3 around that same time. I gave up on them after they started making irritating anti-feminist content. I've avoided them like the plague, but I think they had uh, a definite shift rightwards.

edit: all of the above is rampant speculation btw. Like I said, I've avoided them like the plague since then.

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Same, I'm pretty bitter about him. Like, I figured we'd have different political views but he didn't seem like a nutter beyond him being completely off his fucking rocker. He had interesting videos, he was quotable as hell, and some of his stuff was quite informative.

I'm quite sad that things turned out the way they did. I can't watch his stuff anymore because I don't want to get flashbanged by crazy.

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I've been very pleased with my factory-seconds Framework 13 (11th gen i7, 64 gigs of RAM and 2TB storage acquired through other channels). Linux support has been basically perfect for me, although there were some kinks earlier on. The Framework 16 might work for you if you need something with a discrete GPU.

If you want something more mainstream, ThinkPads are often great for running Linux. Not every model is perfect, so I'd recommend doing some research there. The Arch Linux wiki often has laptop specific web pages that show how well supported the laptop is. For example, here's the page for the Framework 13.