This BLOG is for LLNL present and past employees, friends of LLNL and anyone impacted by the privatization of the Lab to express their opinions and expose the waste, wrongdoing and any kind of injustice against employees and taxpayers by LLNS/DOE/NNSA.
The opinions stated are personal opinions. Therefore,
The BLOG author may or may not agree with them before making the decision to post them.
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Posts and comments are posted several times a day.
"...a significant level of scientific and operational independence" led to the fiasco of NIF and the big lie of miniature suns. Maybe LLNL needs more oversight and micromanagement from NNSA, not less. Least until it demonstrates it can keep its promises in line with reality, and can control damaging destructive leaders.
Did the poster above actually read the article ! It says,
"The concern was not that the laboratories should be treated with kid gloves, but that scientists cannot work up to their creative potential if every move has to be approved and audited by regulators."
Without scientific and operational independence, no progress in any significant physics endeavor will be made. NIF campaigns were reviewed countless times by expert panels, including those from the National Academy of Sciences.
All the real experts were here, and misled every single review panel they faced. When you carefully spin every word, you can snow anyone - and they snowed everyone. That is why the culture needs to change internally, even at the cost of squashing "scientific and operational independence", because lab management cannot be trusted.
Sorry, the "snowjob" you refer to could not have been successful without the explicit and willing complicity of the scientists. When it comes to NIF, neither the scientists nor the managers can be trusted. NIF harbors, encourages, and survives upon a culture of lies, deceit, and self-delusion.
Actually, given the renewed interest in clean nuclear, fusion could play a huge role in saving the planet. If the NNSA and DOE had any "guts" they would double down on NIF and get ignition with gain. And the doubters will continue to doubt, but NIF did get most of the way there, within factors of two on critical parameters. It's just that ICF is very, very hard.
"All the real experts were here, and misled every single review panel they faced. When you carefully spin every word, you can snow anyone - and they snowed everyone."
Well, many of the experts I knew at least thought that there was a 50/50 chance of ignition with smooth enough cryo layering.
Well, many of the experts I knew at least thought that there was a 50/50 chance of ignition with smooth enough cryo layering. April 18, 2014 at 11:19 PM
Those would be the same experts who misled all the review panels, with wildly optimistic predictions and the official Lindl line, regarding something that had never come close to being done before. They never even got close enough that cryo layer quality mattered (there is no evidence I have seen that it ever did). What the review panels did not do, and should have done, is talk to all the key people one on one in their offices, and get a clear view of what was going on. Act like an aggressive red team, and find out just how much "faith" was behind the whole official posture.
This obsession with expert panels is strange. Lord Thomson at the turn of the century claimed that there will be no new discoveries, and ooops came Einstein and Bohr and all the other great people.
The only way we will make progress in science is by doing experiments. So give NIF a chance, let them continue to try to improve and learn from this.
Yes NIF is expensive, but as long as we still have enough money to blow the costs of 1 NIF in 2 month in Afghanistan, I don't really see it as that expensive.
"as long as we still have enough money to blow the costs of 1 NIF in 2 month in Afghanistan, I don't really see it as that expensive."
April 20, 2014 at 6:59 AM
You could make that argument about any expense of a half billion dollars a year, including lighting it on fire or giving it to the Chinese. It's a question of value, where is the best place to spend that half billion dollars a year. And since it remains a huge amount of money, you could do a lot with that half billion dollars, other than spend it on maintaining NIF.
Afghanistan is NOT a national security issue for the United States. It's a poor, backward country without much in the way of infrastructure or capabilities. The only national security issue it poses is in the trillions we have wasted on this backwater region.
However, Saudi Arabia -- the nation that spreads terrorist ideology around the world -- that is a big problem. Pakistan, an unstable Islamic nation with nukes is another one. And then there is the big threat of Iran.
America needs to get its key national security priorities straight. We wasted an enormous amount of 'blood & treasure' on both Iraq and Afghanistan that could have been put to better use over this last decade. We have bankrupted the nation over two wars that have done little to help make the nation more secure. Historians will probably look back on this era as being more wasteful and harmful to America than the pitiful years we spent "saving" South Vietnam.
Afghanistan is NOT a national security issue for the United States.
April 21, 2014 at 10:43 PM
What nonsense. No one thinks that the government of Afghanistan is going to attack the US. However, it will gladly allow the presence, multiplication, recruiting, and training of Taliban and Al Qaida. This is why Obama called it the "right war." If you think THAT is not a national security issue for the US you are a fool.
Also, the major crop of Afghanistan is opium poppies. We had more than a decade with enough troops in the country to commpletely destroy this source of the heroin epidemic in the US that Obamans are crying so much about now, but chose to ignore it.
Because the people we were trying to support and defend make the majority of their money from the opium crop. You will never stop the drug epidemic by cutting off the supply. If the demand cannot be cut off, the destruction of lives will continue. Maybe the best that one can hope for will be a legal and closely regulated market, just like for alcohol, which although it also destroys lives, does so at a much less horrific cost to society, in gang wars and organized crime.
"No one thinks that the government of Afghanistan is going to attack the US. However, it will gladly allow the presence, multiplication, recruiting, and training of Taliban and Al Qaida." April 22, 2014 at 1:23 PM
And it still will, despite trillions in expenses and a decade of boots on the ground. AQ has dispersed, with major regroupings in places like Yemen and Mali, but has not gone away, and the Taliban still rule most of the region. What have we really accomplished beyond chasing Bin Laden and Co. over the border to Pakistan? That was accomplished in the first few months of the war.
We accomplished, and maintained, the dispersal of Al Qaida. Their failure to successfully mount another 9/11 - style attack shows the value of that. You can argue that calculation all day, but not the result. The US leaving Afghanistan establishes a vacuum to draw Al Qaida right back in, where they cannot be monitored or stopped.
I guess you believe that if your enemy is persistent and difficult to kill, you should just give up, and they'll stop trying to kill you. Not very smart.
"And what do you think would happen to all the NIF scientists if NIF were shut down? Instant employment elsewhere? Where?"
Actually, there are quite a few high paying engineering jobs in the Bay Area, even some in Livermore outside of the Labs. You might even see a few new Photonics startups in the Livermore/Pleasanton area if NIF was shut down. Sometimes it takes a layoff to get people off their skinny old butts ! Notice I didn't say "fat asses".
Right, the failure to "eradicate the sources" is MY fault. Maybe you need a little more information about the issue. Hint: it is not possible to "eradicate the sources," either politically or realistically. If you aren't willing to "eradicate the demand" then you are fighting a losing game, economically and politically. Legalize, regulate, and tax. Just like the other "legal" intoxicants and addictive drugs our society demands. It's the only rational way to stop the cartel and gang violence
Legalization of currently-illegal mood-altering drugs would condemn millions to death or pathetic unproductive unhappy lives, because use *will* increase and because for many or most people these drugs are addictive. Alcohol is a great example of what happens when you legalize and tax such an addictive mood-altering drug - wreckage on all levels of society, so serious that if alcohol were invented tomorrow there is no way we would permit it to be sold in stores and restaurants and "alcohol dens". And, the cartels won't just go away, just as the mafia didn't just go away after alcohol prohibition ended. Doesn't mean you carpet-napalm Afghanistan and Columbia, or even that you arrest individual users, but the human cost of drug abuse is huge. Has anyone else been close to a drug addict, close enough to see and feel the wreckage?
Legalization of currently-illegal mood-altering drugs would condemn millions to death or pathetic unproductive unhappy lives, because use *will* increase and because for many or most people these drugs are addictive.
April 25, 2014 at 6:13 AM
So what? Are you in charge of telling people what they can't ingest? Or are you one who believes that only laws prevent most people from committing crimes? Or maybe you are terribly afraid that the real, ugly truth about American society would be exposed if your precious restrictions on everyone else's behavior were removed. Either way, it is clear you don't believe in personal responsibility.
Actually it is clear you know nothing about how drugs work. You are also probably an arrogant labbie scientist who thinks knowledge in one specialized area equates to broad knowledge in all areas.
Directed to the posters above. Your discussion on narcotics is off the subject of this blog. However, the big problem in this country is not so much illicit narcotics, but the abuse of narcotic pain killers and the failure of our medical professionals and institutions (private hospitals, VA, Kaiser, Medicaid, Medicare, ...) to deal with "pain management". Our medical community has done a piss poor job on rehabilitation after surgery, physical trauma, brain injury, neurological damage, etc... I bet most addictions start after a trip to the emergency room.
Well, welcome to the off-topic zone. It appears you have an axe to grind regarding prescription drug addition. If you believe that most drug addicts are addicted to prescription drugs, you need to get better informed.
Good idea. Scotch is widely known for its ability to prevent dizziness.
April 30, 2014 at 1:14 PM
Drugs are bad, users should be put in jail. Alcohol is good, Jesus turned water into wine, he did not turn wheat in to marihuana. The Christian God may be a drunk but be never tokes.
42 comments:
"...a significant level of scientific and operational independence" led to the fiasco of NIF and the big lie of miniature suns. Maybe LLNL needs more oversight and micromanagement from NNSA, not less. Least until it demonstrates it can keep its promises in line with reality, and can control damaging destructive leaders.
Did the poster above actually read the article ! It says,
"The concern was not that the laboratories should be treated with kid gloves, but that scientists cannot work up to their creative potential if every move has to be approved and audited by regulators."
Without scientific and operational independence, no progress in any significant physics endeavor will be made. NIF campaigns were reviewed countless times by expert panels, including those from the National Academy of Sciences.
All the real experts were here, and misled every single review panel they faced. When you carefully spin every word, you can snow anyone - and they snowed everyone. That is why the culture needs to change internally, even at the cost of squashing "scientific and operational independence", because lab management cannot be trusted.
...lab management cannot be trusted.
April 17, 2014 at 6:17 AM
Sorry, the "snowjob" you refer to could not have been successful without the explicit and willing complicity of the scientists. When it comes to NIF, neither the scientists nor the managers can be trusted. NIF harbors, encourages, and survives upon a culture of lies, deceit, and self-delusion.
True. But NIF is just the most glaring publicly visible example, there are many more. It is ingrained in the culture.
rtuSounds like a few people have a little dislike for NIF. I hope they don't feel like NIF funding cut into their piece of the pie.
Guess what? NIF funding cut into everyone's pie. I.e., the taxpayers. NIF can now take it's fingers out of my pie!
Actually, given the renewed interest in clean nuclear, fusion could play a huge role in saving the planet. If the NNSA and DOE had any "guts" they would double down on NIF and get ignition with gain. And the doubters will continue to doubt, but NIF did get most of the way there, within factors of two on critical parameters. It's just that ICF is very, very hard.
"All the real experts were here, and misled every single review panel they faced. When you carefully spin every word, you can snow anyone - and they snowed everyone."
Well, many of the experts I knew at least thought that there was a 50/50 chance of ignition with smooth enough cryo layering.
Actually, given the renewed interest in clean nuclear, fusion could play a huge role in saving the planet.
April 18, 2014 at 11:12 PM
Thanks, Pollyanna. So the only reason fusion hasn't "played a huge role" is lack of interest? Right.
Well, many of the experts I knew at least thought that there was a 50/50 chance of ignition with smooth enough cryo layering.
April 18, 2014 at 11:19 PM
Those would be the same experts who misled all the review panels, with wildly optimistic predictions and the official Lindl line, regarding something that had never come close to being done before. They never even got close enough that cryo layer quality mattered (there is no evidence I have seen that it ever did). What the review panels did not do, and should have done, is talk to all the key people one on one in their offices, and get a clear view of what was going on. Act like an aggressive red team, and find out just how much "faith" was behind the whole official posture.
This obsession with expert panels is strange. Lord Thomson at the turn of the century claimed that there will be no new discoveries, and ooops
came Einstein and Bohr and all the other great people.
The only way we will make progress in science is by doing experiments. So give NIF a chance, let them continue to try to improve and learn from this.
Yes NIF is expensive, but as long as we still have enough money to blow the costs of 1 NIF in 2 month in Afghanistan, I don't really see it as that expensive.
Comparing a national security issue with a taxpayer-funded playground for otherwise unemployable scientists doesn't help your argument.
Comparing a national security issue with a taxpayer-funded playground for otherwise unemployable scientists doesn't help your argument.
What national security issue would that be?
And where did you get the unemployable scientists from? Having a bit of problem wit scientists? Must be from Bechtel.
"as long as we still have enough money to blow the costs of 1 NIF in 2 month in Afghanistan, I don't really see it as that expensive."
April 20, 2014 at 6:59 AM
You could make that argument about any expense of a half billion dollars a year, including lighting it on fire or giving it to the Chinese. It's a question of value, where is the best place to spend that half billion dollars a year. And since it remains a huge amount of money, you could do a lot with that half billion dollars, other than spend it on maintaining NIF.
What national security issue would that be?
And where did you get the unemployable scientists from? Having a bit of problem wit scientists? Must be from Bechtel.
April 20, 2014 at 10:41 AM
Um, you don't think that Afghanistan is a national security issue for the US? You been asleep since 2001?
And what do you think would happen to all the NIF scientists if NIF were shut down? Instant employment elsewhere? Where?
Afghanistan is NOT a national security issue for the United States. It's a poor, backward country without much in the way of infrastructure or capabilities. The only national security issue it poses is in the trillions we have wasted on this backwater region.
However, Saudi Arabia -- the nation that spreads terrorist ideology around the world -- that is a big problem. Pakistan, an unstable Islamic nation with nukes is another one. And then there is the big threat of Iran.
America needs to get its key national security priorities straight. We wasted an enormous amount of 'blood & treasure' on both Iraq and Afghanistan that could have been put to better use over this last decade. We have bankrupted the nation over two wars that have done little to help make the nation more secure. Historians will probably look back on this era as being more wasteful and harmful to America than the pitiful years we spent "saving" South Vietnam.
Afghanistan is NOT a national security issue for the United States.
April 21, 2014 at 10:43 PM
What nonsense. No one thinks that the government of Afghanistan is going to attack the US. However, it will gladly allow the presence, multiplication, recruiting, and training of Taliban and Al Qaida. This is why Obama called it the "right war." If you think THAT is not a national security issue for the US you are a fool.
Also, the major crop of Afghanistan is opium poppies. We had more than a decade with enough troops in the country to commpletely destroy this source of the heroin epidemic in the US that Obamans are crying so much about now, but chose to ignore it.
...chose to ignore it.
April 22, 2014 at 7:34 PM
Because the people we were trying to support and defend make the majority of their money from the opium crop. You will never stop the drug epidemic by cutting off the supply. If the demand cannot be cut off, the destruction of lives will continue. Maybe the best that one can hope for will be a legal and closely regulated market, just like for alcohol, which although it also destroys lives, does so at a much less horrific cost to society, in gang wars and organized crime.
"No one thinks that the government of Afghanistan is going to attack the US. However, it will gladly allow the presence, multiplication, recruiting, and training of Taliban and Al Qaida."
April 22, 2014 at 1:23 PM
And it still will, despite trillions in expenses and a decade of boots on the ground. AQ has dispersed, with major regroupings in places like Yemen and Mali, but has not gone away, and the Taliban still rule most of the region. What have we really accomplished beyond chasing Bin Laden and Co. over the border to Pakistan? That was accomplished in the first few months of the war.
We accomplished, and maintained, the dispersal of Al Qaida. Their failure to successfully mount another 9/11 - style attack shows the value of that. You can argue that calculation all day, but not the result. The US leaving Afghanistan establishes a vacuum to draw Al Qaida right back in, where they cannot be monitored or stopped.
I guess you believe that if your enemy is persistent and difficult to kill, you should just give up, and they'll stop trying to kill you. Not very smart.
Because the people we were trying to support and defend make the majority of their money from the opium crop.
April 22, 2014 at 8:38 PM
Please remind us how many American lives were lost protecting and defending the illegal narcotics trade in Afghanistan?
Please remind us how many American lives were lost protecting and defending the illegal narcotics trade in Afghanistan?
April 23, 2014 at 8:14 PM
Take your puritan moralizing somewhere else. If your kid is using, YOU are the problem, not the opium growers.
"And what do you think would happen to all the NIF scientists if NIF were shut down? Instant employment elsewhere? Where?"
Actually, there are quite a few high paying engineering jobs in the Bay Area, even some in Livermore outside of the Labs. You might even see a few new Photonics startups in the Livermore/Pleasanton area if NIF was shut down. Sometimes it takes a layoff to get people off their skinny old butts ! Notice I didn't say "fat asses".
Our bitter B-program retiree makes a 9:24 pm driveby...
Only "bitter" about the absolute failure and exorbitant cost of the so-called "war on drugs." Also, not retired (yet).
Anonymous said...
Only "bitter" about the absolute failure and exorbitant cost of the so-called "war on drugs." Also, not retired (yet).
April 24, 2014 at 10:19 AM
Only failing because pussies like you are too chicken to eradicate the sources. A little napalm would do wonders for discouraging the growers.
Right, the failure to "eradicate the sources" is MY fault. Maybe you need a little more information about the issue. Hint: it is not possible to "eradicate the sources," either politically or realistically. If you aren't willing to "eradicate the demand" then you are fighting a losing game, economically and politically. Legalize, regulate, and tax. Just like the other "legal" intoxicants and addictive drugs our society demands. It's the only rational way to stop the cartel and gang violence
Legalization of currently-illegal mood-altering drugs would condemn millions to death or pathetic unproductive unhappy lives, because use *will* increase and because for many or most people these drugs are addictive. Alcohol is a great example of what happens when you legalize and tax such an addictive mood-altering drug - wreckage on all levels of society, so serious that if alcohol were invented tomorrow there is no way we would permit it to be sold in stores and restaurants and "alcohol dens". And, the cartels won't just go away, just as the mafia didn't just go away after alcohol prohibition ended. Doesn't mean you carpet-napalm Afghanistan and Columbia, or even that you arrest individual users, but the human cost of drug abuse is huge. Has anyone else been close to a drug addict, close enough to see and feel the wreckage?
Legalization of currently-illegal mood-altering drugs would condemn millions to death or pathetic unproductive unhappy lives, because use *will* increase and because for many or most people these drugs are addictive.
April 25, 2014 at 6:13 AM
So what? Are you in charge of telling people what they can't ingest? Or are you one who believes that only laws prevent most people from committing crimes? Or maybe you are terribly afraid that the real, ugly truth about American society would be exposed if your precious restrictions on everyone else's behavior were removed. Either way, it is clear you don't believe in personal responsibility.
Actually it is clear you know nothing about how drugs work. You are also probably an arrogant labbie scientist who thinks knowledge in one specialized area equates to broad knowledge in all areas.
Actually it is clear you know nothing about how drugs work.
April 25, 2014 at 9:20 AM
I don't give a damn about how drugs work. I do care about how personal freedom works.
Directed to the posters above. Your discussion on narcotics is off the subject of this blog. However, the big problem in this country is not so much illicit narcotics, but the abuse of narcotic pain killers and the failure of our medical professionals and institutions (private hospitals, VA, Kaiser, Medicaid, Medicare, ...) to deal with "pain management". Our medical community has done a piss poor job on rehabilitation after surgery, physical trauma, brain injury, neurological damage, etc... I bet most addictions start after a trip to the emergency room.
April 26, 2014 at 11:25 PM
Well, welcome to the off-topic zone. It appears you have an axe to grind regarding prescription drug addition. If you believe that most drug addicts are addicted to prescription drugs, you need to get better informed.
Most drug addicts, by far in this country, are addicted to alcohol. Probably includes some posters on this forum.
All right, if you insist: "illegal" drug addicts. Feel better now?
Wait a minute...
Do you mean "illegal-drug" addicts?
Or illegal drug-addicts.
The latter might include undocumented alcohol addicts.
Can you be any more picayune? I think I'll make you wait a couple of days for the answer - maybe your head will blow up.
Time to down another shot of 12 year old Scotch ! This LLNL Blog is making me dizzy !
Good idea. Scotch is widely known for its ability to prevent dizziness.
Good idea. Scotch is widely known for its ability to prevent dizziness.
April 30, 2014 at 1:14 PM
Drugs are bad, users should be put in jail. Alcohol is good, Jesus turned water into wine, he did not turn wheat in to marihuana. The Christian God may be a drunk but be never tokes.
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