Thorium reactors?

I saw a cool comment about wind turbines recently, wanted to post it with proper attributions, forgot where I saw it, so I googled it and found it:

wind turbines are nothing but prayer wheels for suburbanite Buddhists.

Down in the comments I saw one from Billy Beck, who gave a youtube link. I looked at it. Whoah! It is highly edited to be extremely fast-paced, and most of it will just fly right past you like a fighter jet on full afterburners if you're not already pretty much up to speed on chemistry and basic nuclear physics. But it is worth looking at if you are, or are willing to stop frequently and keep on going back to re-listen.



Btw, piece of trivia: that is an Australian 20c coin shown top left at the 15 min mark.

Speaking of money, there is a disclosure I should make: I own shares in Arafura Resources, whose interests includes thorium from rare earths processing.

JJM

Category theory

Four years of engineering mathematics and we were never introduced to this. Whether or not it was used in formulating electrical engineering methodologies such as symmetrical components, however, is another matter. We never got into that kind of underlying theory, we just learned how to use various techniques to solve real-world problems.

JJM

Resurgence of interest in Mech and Elec Eng

Courtesy of the Ace of Spades I read this WSJ peice about the return of hands-on engineering (primarily mech and elec), chiefly at the expense of software and computer engineering. I'm initially trained in electrical engineering myself.