Disarming Nuclear Bombs

Hm, for some reason this post never got published. Made a lot more sense the week I saw three nuclear weapons disarmed on TV, but here it is:

Disarming a nuclear weapon pops up occasionally on TV and in movies (I'm looking at you Chuck, Castle and even SGU). They always make it seem like a super complicated task. I'm not sure that it is all that difficult (this is one of those posts where I'm way outside my realm of knowledge).

What I'm willing to concede:
-Even if you know how to disarm a nuclear bomb it would be crazy scary.
-Conventional bombs may have fake wires and components that will cause the bomb to explode if tampered with and it is possible that a nuclear bomb would also have this.

But:
Nuclear weapons are really hard to make. Getting the material may be the hardest part, but even with the material it is quite a task. My understanding is those scientists at Los Alamos (many of the greatest in American history) were provided the radio active material. Today a semi-trained bomb maker with some parts from radio shack and a lawn store can make a conventional bomb, but only certain governments have made nuclear weapons.

Something that hard to make shouldn't be too hard to stop.

Typically nuclear weapons work by using a conventional explosive to smash two pieces of radio active material together. Dirty bombs work by having a conventional bomb spread radio active material. So the key is just to separate the radioactive part from the conventional weapon.

Yes it is good to stop the conventional weapon as well to avoid any damage and yes the bomb maker might make that tricky, but then the scary part is disarming a bomb, not disarming a NUCLEAR bomb.

Ok, maybe it isn't super easy, but definitely seems more straight forward than whatever they end up doing on TV. Plus while they are screwing around with guessing which wire they could be trying to get the material and conventional bomb as far away from each other as possible.

I took a look on the web to see what others think and here's wired's take.

Patent Granted!

For those who missed it on the twitter feed, I'm first inventor on a patent that was just granted!

For those who did see it on the twitter feed this link includes the pretty pictures along with the text:
MULTIPLE BATTERY CONFIGURATIONS IN AN IMPLANTABLE MEDICAL DEVICE.

Actually the link above is the application, here's the link to the granted patent.

The Magicians

I read The Magicians during a pause between installments of the wheel of time. It is a twist on Harry Potter/Narnia. It presents these stories based on what would "really" happen if someone was transported off to a magical land where they learn that they can cast spells.

This book's take is that learning to do magic would be very difficult and tedious, much like studying any other difficult subject and would eventually become a standard task rather than an exciting adventure.

The other big difference starts with the observation that typically the main characters in these stories aren't happy in the real world then find happiness in the magical world. This book claims that if the characters aren't happy people they aren't going to be happy no matter what world they end up in. Part of this is the book shows how relationships with others as well as various mundane aspects of life do much more to influence a person's happiness than the world that surrounds the person.

On one hand it is somewhat humorous and a change of pace to see this take on the genre. However, a book that shows a character being unhappy in a series of settings really isn't much fun. Also as part of the "real" take there isn't a clear goal or direction at any point in the book so I often found myself asking if the story is going anywhere or if I'm just meandering around in this world. There is a somewhat interesting plot line running through the book, but it isn't really revealed till near the end. I also thought that the book made the main points through the story, then made them a bit more obvious, then stated them outright in dialogue. I think it would have had more impact if it stopped when the message was a little more subtle.

I'm tempted to recommend this book to anyone who reads a lot of fantasy as something different to throw into the mix. However, if someone reads a lot of fantasy it is probably because they enjoy those magical worlds and don't want to read a book where those worlds aren't that great.