Are we ready?

 Are we headed to a 911 event or worse?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GB3svbNQ-zU&pp=ygURbmV4dCA5LzExIHNsZWVwZXI%3D

Racial issues in Los Alamos

There seems to be some kind of growing racial issues in Los Alamos. The paper and local social media is now filled with letters of accusations and counter accusations. This does not paint to the town in a good light and will most certainly cause challenges to trying to bring people out.

https://losalamosreporter.com/2023/12/25/racial-gaslighting-and-the-angry-black-woman-trope/

https://losalamosreporter.com/2023/12/24/whats-happening-at-los-alamos-public-schools/

https://losalamosreporter.com/2023/12/22/the-time-to-change-and-act-is-now/

https://losalamosreporter.com/2023/12/21/the-dichotomy-of-civility-and-politeness/

Anti-government viewpoints

 What anti-government viewpoints are being funded and taught at our Universities today, and how does and will it impact security clearance eligibility?

“Professor Calls for Dismantling US: 'Greatest Predator Empire'”

https://www.newsweek.com/professor-calls-dismantling-us-greatest-predator-empire-1855115

Winter solstice

 This is a nice astrophysics and astronomy video for the holidays, and the winter solstice, it has a holiday theme:

https://youtu.be/a_Qeb4vVaqM?si=T5s8dU4cFBdk7lja

PhD work

 What percentage of PhDs at LLNL and LANL are routinely doing PhD level work compared to PhDs outside of these Labs?

Los Álamos, the 4th age

 Tom Mason announces Los Alamos has ENTERED the the Fourth Age!!! The post post cold war. We are a new lab now with a new emphases. The eye of Soren has fallen and we look toward a future we could have not imagined.

Why not just say it is pit manufacturing facility, that is the priority because that is where the money is at. I suppose AGE of PITS! has certain ironic phrasing to it. What is it with all this Lord of the Rings nonsense. Sorry to any fans the books and movie are just fine but LANL is not Middle Earth and Mason should not be playing live action role playing.

A system that integrates brain cells into a hybrid machine

 This is interesting, it is a new computing methodology that is a hybrid of human brain cells and silicon microelectronics:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03975-7

Maybe this "brainoware" system might eventually lead to AI systems that have human-like capabilities, like consciousness and free will; the use of synthetic brain tissue could also circumvent limitations related to the current pace of progress in Moore's law.

Microsoft Machine Learning Foundations

 Microsoft has announced a new language model trained using the "textbooks are all you need" approach. Using high quality training data, they obtain relatively good performance with a simple model that can easily run on mobile devices such as a phone:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/phi-2-the-surprising-power-of-small-language-models/

This highlights that improvements in AI are not only driven by hardware improvements, this model was trained for 2 weeks on 96 GPU's, or approximately 4 GPU-years of computing time.

A year of progress

 Researchers at the National Ignition Facility are consistently creating reactions that make more energy than they consume.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-04045-8

Fusion breakthrough!

 Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a new technology that promises to make commercial nuclear fusion reactors one step closer to reality.

https://www.newsweek.com/fusion-breakthrough-limitless-energy-reality-1852897

The race for fusion

 

In the latest step to advance nuclear fusion technology, the world's biggest reactor has just opened for business in Japan.

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Another-Major-Milestone-in-the-Race-for-Nuclear-Fusion.amp.html

NNSA labs versus Musk.

It is becoming clear Musk is now the enemy of humanity, can the NNSA labs lead the fight against of Musk?

Energy costs in CA

 To UC/LLNL and LLNS retirees living in CA, how much more will your vehicle gas, natural gas, and home electricity rates go up (even more) in the near future?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uGur8209nn0&pp=ygUKY2EgaW5zaWRlcg%3D%3D

Gemini, the new AI model

 Google announced Gemini yesterday, a new AI model which among other things has advanced capabilities in programming and understanding scientific literature. A version of this is now freely available to the general public in Google Bard:

https://youtu.be/_TVnM9dmUSk?si=J5Lrk0dtIw-2-FWh

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/6/23989744/google-bard-gemini-model-chatbot-ai

Site 300 Superfund status

 Site 300 Superfund status due for update

https://www.ttownmedia.com/tracy_press/site-300-superfund-status-due-for-update/article_f0c35d02-79b4-11ee-8104-432a241bc80d.html

Is US help adequate?

 Question for people on this blog. What do you think of the failure of the NATO armed and funded Ukrainian military? This has now been documented by the Washington Post. It seems that US equipment, intelligence, and training was not adequate mount a successful counteroffensive. Want does this say about our other military technology, such as nuclear weapons?

Rise of the midwits

 LLNL and the rise of the Midwit? Is this an issue?

Have we created this over educated society over this last 50 or 60 years.
We've gone from five percent of the population in the '50s having a BA, to nearly 50 percent of the population having one.
...You also get more people that have master's degrees and more people that have doctorates.

Having a doctorate was seen as a sign that you are part of the intellectual elite. (it still does, and that's the problem).

Imagine if the average iq of a person that had a doctorate was reduced from 135, all the way down to 115?
Imagine if a doctorate became something that was associated with being a midwit.

The doom plan

 Evidently, the Republicans are planning to defund much of the Federal government and eliminate so-called "experts":

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision

Will this affect the labs, especially once AI exceeds human intelligence?

No chance of Super-Intelligent AI soon

 The president of Microsoft said that there was absolutely no chance of super-intelligent AI being created "soon", meaning in the next 12 months! After that it could take "years". Decades are certainly possible, I take it, but not likely.

https://slashdot.org/story/23/11/30/1639238/microsoft-president-says-no-chance-of-super-intelligent-ai-soon

Of course, super-intelligent AI is the term for something much smarter than the smartest humans. So perhaps reaching ordinary human intelligence will be sooner!

The "self-operating computer"

 This may be an exciting AI development -- a prototype of the "self-operating computer":

https://venturebeat.com/ai/the-self-operating-computer-emerges/

This sounds like something that would be very useful for those with disabilities and the elderly, in the near term, of course it could also represent an important step towards automating away many jobs.

Altman and OpenAI

 https://www.reuters.com/technology/sam-altmans-ouster-openai-was-precipitated-by-letter-board-about-ai-breakthrough-2023-11-22/

Nov 22 (Reuters) - Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers wrote a letter to the board of directors warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

This sounds like the Einstein-Szilard letter in a way! I believe Karl Marx said history repeats itself, first as tragedy then as a farce.

Nuc testing

 Downwind, a trailer. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d-KWaE2La5g

Fear and Loathing at LANL

 

LANL has put out a new mission statement for LDRD, or the SIP, as well as a new strategic vision for the future. This has caused an uproar amongst scientists and the lab fellows. The SIP basically says LANL will be doing very little science form now on and will focus on production and be much more narrow. What is odd is that everyone seemed to be caught off guard by this and saying this a complete mess and makes little sense. My feeling from looking at this is that it was thrown together in like 5 minutes by some out of touch managers who are after the next promotion. It comes across like they did this in secret very fast so they would get no input by anybody. That or its is just a power grab by a select group a managers. Mason is probably not happy about this but wants to move on to the next bigger position. No one wants to rock the boat. My guess a bunch of people will leave, (so what) will be replaced by lower quality people (so what), some managers will move up...mission accomplished.

Are LLNL and LANL next?

https://www.engadget.com/self-proclaimed-gay-furry-hackers-breach-nuclear-lab-152034192.html

Self-proclaimed 'gay furry hackers' breach nuclear lab
They demanded research into creating IRL catgirls.
The nuclear research hub Idaho National Laboratory (INL) confirmed that it fell victim to a data breach on Tuesday. SiegedSec, a group of self-proclaimed "gay furry hackers," took responsibility for the attack and claimed they accessed sensitive employee data like social security numbers, home addresses and more.

"We're willing to make a deal with INL. If they research creating irl catgirls we will take down this post," SiegedSec wrote in a post announcing the leak on Monday.

Very serious, of course for all we know NNSA has had a long term classified project on IRL cat-people for some time.

Randy Pico

 Was “Native American” Randy Pico continually promoted under LLNS management under the protection of “identity politics”, despite alleged repeated workplace misconduct toward subordinate employees?

11/17/2023 7:06 PM

Salary information

 If the next contractor to manage LLNL is a non-profit like Triad, will that LLNL contractor be required to make public all lab salaries?

Workers Are Getting Paid to Do Nothing at Los Alamos National Laboratory

 https://www.thenation.com/article/society/los-alamos-laboratory-waste-fraud/

The nuclear weapons complex is so mismanaged that employees are collecting full salaries to play chess and catnap.

Reading the story the guy actually does more than a lot of LANL people. He has to show up to do nothing. In many places people show up once every two weeks talk and go home. Bizarre place. They should have the decency to at least let these electricians stay at home.

DOE Secretary Granholm invited CCP and Russian dignitaries to visit Nevada Test Site

Granholm states she made the invitation in September to show that the U.S. is continuing to not test nuclear weapons. Like the Chinese and Russians don't have seismic capabilities nor satellites nor spies to already determine that.

Bottom line, it's another publicity stunt. Maybe they can tour the Sudan crater in electric Hummers and if any luggage is misplaced, she can call in Sam Brinton on the case.

US-UK partnership

 The new US-UK partnership will see fusion scientists on both sides of the Atlantic collaborate on R&D, share knowledge and access to facilities in an attempt to make fusion commercially viable.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/fusion-nuclear-uk-us-partners-b2444573.html

Unreasonable Bechtel cost estimates

 Bechtel allegedly failed to conduct cost related audits for 18 years leading to potential overcharges. Years later, an audit from May 2021 through May 2022, resulted in Bechtel being accused of cost estimates that were “unreasonable”. Yet in March of 2023, Hanford under Bechtel management, gets best ever annual rating. Wait what?

Why is there an apparent disconnect between DOE IG negative audits of Bechtel’s performance, and Bechtel’s annual performance ratings, and how does this disconnect impact Bechtel at other DOE facilities like LLNL?


November 2019

Taxpayers may have been overcharged for Hanford work for 18 years. Bechtel failed to audit costs

https://amp.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article237409979.html


March 2023

Hanford contractor gets best ever annual rating, earning it $6.5M in incentive pay

https://www.aol.com/hanford-contractor-gets-best-ever-120000494.html


September 2023

These issues resulted in estimates that were likely unreasonable, could not be adequately supported, and potentially benefited Bechtel improperly and disadvantaged the taxpayer.

https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-10/DOE-OIG-23-34.pdf

Japan sets new nuclear fusion record

Hello!

Would a scientist please unpack what is happening here? 

 https://www.freethink.com/energy/nuclear-fusion-jt-60sa

What did the Office of Inspector General find out?

 Department of Energy Office of Inspector General Bechtel National, Inc.'s Cost Proposal Estimates for Baseline Change Proposal 02 and Its Contract Modification 384 Counterpart for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (DOE-OIG-23-34)

What Did the OIG Find?

We found that Bechtel did not utilize reasonable cost proposal estimates for baseline change proposal 02 and its contract modification 384 counterpart at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. First, Bechtel did not always use adequate estimating practices. Second, Bechtel was unable to reconcile management reserve amounts to identified risks and demonstrate how estimates reconciled to the Risk Management Plan. Finally, Bechtel's use of its Monte Carlo simulation was not consistent with industry practice, which resulted in overstated hours and costs. We attributed these issues to inadequacies in Bechtel's estimating system and Department oversight. We identified several weaknesses related to Bechtel's labor hour estimates. The labor hour estimates account for approximately $1.8 billion of the total proposed $4.5 billion.

What Is the Impact?

These issues resulted in estimates that were likely unreasonable, could not be adequately supported, and potentially benefited Bechtel improperly and disadvantaged the taxpayer. In addition, the issues identified indicate an inadequate estimating system could impact every future estimate Bechtel makes on this project. We identified over 1 million direct labor hours added through Bechtel's questionable application of Monte Carlo.

https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-10/DOE-OIG-23-34.pdf

10/31/2023 8:38 AM

Modern variant of the B61

 The Department of Defense (DoD) announced that the United States will pursue a modern variant of the B61 nuclear gravity bomb, designated the B61-13, pending Congressional authorization and appropriation. 

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3571660/department-of-defense-announces-pursuit-of-b61-gravity-bomb-variant/

U.S. announces new NUCLEAR weapon 24 times the power of one dropped on Hiroshima

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12688663/Nuclear-Hiroshima-bomb-Biden-Xi-Taiwan-Putin-Pentagon.html

B61-13s will have less than one third the power of the biggest U.S. nuclear weapon - the B83 - which has a yield of 1.2 megatons, 80 times the Hiroshima bomb.

Barack Obama tried to retire the B83 but Donald Trump ended that effort.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico 3,300 workers have been hired in the last two years, with the workforce now numbering more than 17,000.

Workers are producing plutonium cores which are key components for nuclear weapons.

Does China really invest any other country

 It seems surprising that China invests more than any country in renewable energy. These 2019 statistics by statista, a reliable and often source cited in academic research.

Is my surprise justified?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/799098/global-clean-energy-investment-by-country/

China’s nuclear arsenal on track to double by 2030

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-s-nuclear-arsenal-on-track-to-double-by-2030-pentagon-reports/ar-AA1ix2i5

China has developed an arsenal of more than 500 operational nuclear warheads and is set to double that number by the end of the decade, exceeding previous Pentagon estimates, according to a Defense Department report.

Former Sandía Lab in Livermore is suing

 9th Circuit panel considers if Sandia scientist’s retirement was voluntary

https://www.exchangemonitor.com/9th-circuit-panel-considers-if-sandia-scientists-retirement-was-voluntary/

January 2022 (background)

Former Sandia Lab Director Robert Hwang Files Suit For Racism

https://www.independentnews.com/news/livermore_news/former-sandia-lab-director-robert-hwang-files-suit-for-racism/article_93b308d4-7a05-11ec-8516-77578a6fb89e.html

Mello said.....

 Greg Mello posted this

Good morning Khal. One senate staffer, when asked what the post-PF-4 plan for pit production at LANL was, said to me, "Savannah River." That is, pit production at LANL is meant to be temporary. The idea is apparently what LANL's Bob Webster (I think it was) said to a large group of managers, "Interview 50, hire all 50, and sort them out later." All these people being hired will be "sorted out" later. LANL hopes there will be a new "Bit Thing," or continuing "Big Thing(s)" down the road. Dear developers: don't bet on the pit market forever.

It does not sound like Webster but I have to admit the new hires are horrible. Not everyone but they seem to have no quality control and just hiring everyone. I can understand that maybe in the PIT part of the lab you just need to hire, however what I cannot figure out is why is this attitude in other parts of the lab?

Building Nuclear Bomb Cores Again

 https://time.com/6296743/los-alamos-lab-plutonium-pits-nuclear-weapons/

In the Lab Oppenheimer Built, the U.S. Is Building Nuclear Bomb Cores Again

The effort to restart America’s nuclear-weapons manufacturing program in response represents the biggest test since the Manhattan Project. A wide range of arms-control experts and nuclear watchdogs, as well as a handful of lawmakers, are frantically sounding the alarms, warning of the existential risks of the course that leaders in both parties have taken. Critics say the U.S. is repeating the mistakes of the Cold War by funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into weapons that will hopefully never be used and haven’t been tested in more than a generation.

The picturesque setting for Oppenheimer’s pursuit of an atomic bomb contributed to the sense of insularity. Outsiders were not welcome. The people who worked and lived at Los Alamos were bound by secrecy and, with few exceptions, unable to leave. To this day, the people on this isolated plateau say they’re “on the hill,” which by default means that everyone else in the world is “off” it.



That last part is kind of funny. "someone tried to escape the hill but was caught" because no one "leaves the hill". The article is just crap. (1) 95% of anyone working at LANL could easily find a job elsewhere, no one is trapped on "the hill". (2) in the last 20 years the lab has had about 50% turnover rate, people get offers all the time. Anyone I know who said they wanted to leave, because of a spouse, new area, or what they are doing at the lab was shrinking got an offer in short order. Less than half the workers at LANL even live on "the hill". Also you could this about anything, people who work in DC say "we work in DC" which by default means everyone else "does not work in DC". Ok that is just stupid.

Are we ready?

 WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The United States must prepare for possible simultaneous wars with Russia and China by expanding its conventional forces, strengthening alliances and enhancing its nuclear weapons modernization program, a congressionally appointed bipartisan panel said on Thursday.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-must-be-ready-simultaneous-wars-with-china-russia-report-says-2023-10-12/

Putin threatens the West

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12598295/Putin-vows-create-new-world-Russian-insists-Western-arrogance-started-war-Ukraine-trying-end-ranting-anti-speech.html

Putin threatens the West with total nuclear destruction leaving 'no chance of survival' in the event of a strike on Russia as he warns his 'Satan-2' and 'Flying Chernobyl' missiles are ready for use in ranting anti-US speech.

This is a lot of talk. What I want to know is what happens if Putin tests a nuke. Would this really put fear into the west that this is serious or would it just make the west want to take out Russia even faster. Also what if the test is a failure? Would we test?

Things could be getting very interesting in the next 14 months, as we could have ww3, a civil war or both. Well at least NIF works. Maybe a Nobel next year.

Water desalinisation

MIT water desalinisation system yields fresh water cheaper than tap water!

 https://scitechdaily.com/mits-new-desalination-system-produces-freshwater-that-is-cheaper-than-tap-water/

Pivotal discovery

 This discovery holds promise for the advancement of fusion energy, with potential implications for the ongoing ITER project in France.

https://scitechdaily.com/pivotal-discovery-signals-a-huge-leap-forward-in-fusion-energy-reactor-progress/

China overtakes United States on contribution to research in Nature Index

China overtakes United States on contribution to research in Nature Index
Data on affiliations suggest that authors from China made the largest contribution to high-quality natural-science research in 2022.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01705-7

New Bechtel office in Knoxville,TN

 Bechtel opens new Tennessee office

The firm’s Engineering Execution Center will support its work on complex, mission-based projects.


https://www.constructiondive.com/news/bechtel-knoxville-tennessee-new-office/693666/

19 most recent scientific breakthroughs

 Scientists in many fields have been getting little attention over the last two years or so...

https://theweek.com/health-and-science/1019386/recent-scientific-breakthroughs

Will AI cause a reduction in the workforce in the NNSA labs?

 

According to a new poll, fear of becoming obsolete (FOBO) among the younger workforce participants is a real issue as AI is predicted to replace large portions of the workforce. The question is, how much of the NNSA workforce can be replaced by AI or automation? If one could automate pit production, that could reduce the number of workers, but this will likely happen soon.

On the other hand, many Admin, HR, and bureaucratic jobs seem like good candidates to be replaced by AI, which could be 10-30% of the workforce. Of course, a more cynical is that these jobs are already early versions of Universal Basic Income, so simply replacing them with AI will not help because then you would have to give these people money once they are out of a job. Of course, AI could replace scientists or at least replace what we do at the labs. Highly automated simulations and analysis could be done better than we have with humans doing it.

Granholm impeachment

 Rep. Claudia Tenney pushes Congress to hold Energy Secretary ‘accountable’ with impeachment injury: ‘Colossal ego’

https://nypost.com/2023/09/14/rep-claudia-tenney-pushes-for-impeachment-inquiry-energy-secretary-granholm/amp/

LLNS contract expiration

 The “Prime Contract” DE-AC52-07NA27344 with LLNS, began on October 1, 2007, and is scheduled to end on September 30, 2026 (~3 years from now).

Who are the material contenders to manage LLNL when LLNS is out? What actions have been taken thus far to make the transition to the next federal contractor to manage LLNL, occur with minimum delay due to failure to prepare?

Can the labs rise to the challenges?

 Lots of relevant world news for the labs. China, Russia and climate change. Can the labs rise to the challenges?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/xi-jinping-is-done-with-the-established-world-order/ar-AA1gtcNM

Xi Jinping Is Done With the Established World Order. China is sending a clear messsge, that China is done with the established world order.

Musk is out of control and not helping with the world in defeating Russia

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/08/elon-musk-committed-evil-starlink-order-ukraine

We need to start considering a government take over against Musk at this point. It is becoming clear that he and his minions are a threat to freedom.

This is on top of the fact that 2023 has been the worse year in worlds weather

as climate change is now ramping up.

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/30/1196865225/whats-the-connection-between-climate-change-and-hurricanes

Bill Richardson died.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12473877/new-mexico-governor-ambassador-bill-richardson-brittney-griner.html

Ok maybe this is not as big as news as Jimmy Buffet but Bill Richardson was rather the controversial character in terms of NNSA and LANL.

Richardson had a troubled tenure as energy secretary because of a scandal over missing computer equipment with nuclear weapons secrets at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the government´s investigation and prosecution of former nuclear weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee.

Richardson approved Lee´s firing at Los Alamos in 1999. Lee spent nine months in solitary confinement, charged with 59 counts of mishandling sensitive information. Lee later pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling computer files and was released with the apology of a federal judge.

Rumor had it that Richardson leaked information on the WHL case to try to save himself. This partially jeopardized the case. The other rumors was that he was going to be Al Gores running mate but because of the LANL incident was out. He may have been able to swing the hispanic vote a bit in Florida.

2023 Nobel Prize

 The 2023 Nobel prize season is coming up. Is this the year NIF gets it?

Pulsed power fusion

 Is it time to put pulsed power fusion to bed? Given the success of NIF and the inability of the Z machine to get anywhere near that level of performance, should the NNSA officially announce that fusion will no longer be pursued on pulsed power machines? I understand there is great difficulty in scaling to a larger Z machine due to power flow losses. The future designs presented by Sandia are also highly impractical, relying on hundreds of thousands of capacitors. I think it’s over for pulsed power fusion efforts

Will LLNS layoff "permanent" employees ?

 Will LLNS again lay off so called “Career Indefinite” employees in the next major LLNS lay off event, now that they have a 2013 NNSA approved recipe to keep Supplemental Labor over career FTEs (breach of contract)? You want to work here?

Will Tech Breakthroughs Bring Fusion Energy Closer to Reality?

“Even pursuing it (fusion) some critics felt, was a distraction from taking more immediate action to lower greenhouse gas emissions.”

https://e360.yale.edu/features/nuclear-fusion-research-startups#:~:text=Abundant%20carbon%2Dfree%20energy%20from,still%20a%20long%20way%20off.

Boom is Possible

 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tech-breakthrough-makes-2-5-000000892.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma

LANL behind on NUC bomb cores

 GAO: Lab faces four-year delay, cost growth for making nuclear bomb cores

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/gao-lab-faces-four-year-delay-cost-growth-for-making-nuclear-bomb-cores/article_92f2ad84-3dd4-11ee-b677-b76ab4ca1b91.html

Federal officials estimate Los Alamos National Laboratory won’t produce 30 nuclear bomb cores until 2030 — four years after the legally required deadline.

The additional time needed to produce 30 bowling-ball-sized warhead triggers, known as pits, will cost the lab significantly more than originally estimated, a government watchdog said in a newly released report.


I am shocked, shocked.

Rumor

 Rumor is masking and mandatory Covid vaccination up to date 2023-2024 for LANL, LLNL get masked, get waxed and please, please stay home.

Fusion news; why isn't anyone else talking about this?

 “It’s a singular moment in humanity,” said Vincent Tang, the principal deputy director for the National Ignition Facility and Photon Science Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/08/20/fusion-breakthrough-highlights-tri-valleys-emergence-as-bay-area-tech-mecca/

Oppenheimer and Los Alamos.

 Article in Physics Today about Robert Oppenheimer and Los Alamos.

https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/online/42547/Oppenheimer-s-science-beyond-the-Manhattan-Project?searchresult=1

The comment section for this article had a opinion of the current state of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos.

"Oppenheimer's breadth of interests and ability to connect quite different fields of physics and engineering was essential to the success of the Manhattan Project, which typified the tradition of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory for decades afterwards, and the reason I first enthusiastically joined Theoretical Division there in 1986. Unfortunately that tradition is now being lost, eroded by short-term thinking that discourages basic research in cutting edge physics --such as how quantum theory and general relativity can be reconciled in black holes.

This myopia is completely at odds with the tradition that Oppenheimer, Bethe and Feynman founded in T-Division at Los Alamos, and will make it increasingly difficult to attract the best and brightest of the next generation to the lab, as Oppenheimer was able to do so masterfully at its inception."

The catastrophic destruction of the middle class.

 This is a viewpoint from someone associated with the Hoover Institute about the destruction of the so-called middle class.

https://youtu.be/rTgEq0aa6XY

Doesn't the (supposed) government-led destruction of the middle class impact the national labs, which have historically had middle-class workers?

Toxic universities:

 

This video claims that universities create toxic situations in the workforce -- it's from Australia of course, rather than the US which is of course possibly worse:

https://youtu.be/Xl164GrHcM0

How much does this affect national security, since foreign countries recruit key scientists and engineers while promising an escape from toxicity? And does this type of unethical behavior spill over unto the national labs which are also short on research funds?

Fusion success

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-scientists-repeat-fusion-power-breakthrough-ft-2023-08-06/

How does Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), influence LLNS hiring policies?

 How does Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), influence LLNS hiring policies, and Affirmative Action underutilization criteria with respect to transgender new hires or existing employees? Are credential and experience requirements for scientific and engineering positions being maintained?

The video link below talks about Bud Light and Target’s business decisions of late, and the loss of tens of billions of dollars in market share rooted (he believes) in relatively new ESG requirements.

“The Fall of Bud Light: What Went Wrong?”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O6cAKYPIOhY

NOAA and nucs

 What is the real story on nuking hurricanes? Obviously Trump is not smart enough to think of such a strange idea himself. It was discussed during International Geophysical Year in the late 1950's obviously, something which the parade of experts seemed to ignore.

The NOAA page speaks of using a "nuclear weapon" but then speaks of it in more neutral terma (they mention it violates a convention on "peaceful nuclear explosives" or something like that).

Is it just something the labs wouldn't want to discuss as the true history of it, as with a lot of cold war stuff is such an embarassment or they want to stay out politics?

On a more practical note, suppose we use conventional explosives to target tornadoes, as they approach populated areas they could be targeted over farmland, through some sort of missile defense system. I believe the SDI people later came out with a laser to shoot down insects, too, to prevent malaria, and it looks promising.

Brevity and clarity go hand in hand

 Hello,

We all have been taught that using more words, being verbose, doesn't necessarily help you express your views clearly.

I am seeing more and more comments that take 10 minutes to read and more importantly understand .

Please be brief for the sake of clarity. Verbosity seems to go against clarity.

I don't want to impose actual size limit and instead count on your cooperation to be brief. Brevity = clarity.

Thank you.

Superconductivity breakthrough?

 

This is interesting, it's a claim of a room temperature superconductor:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12037

One might imagine, if this is true, it could be technologically useful in some ways, both beneficial or through accelerating mankind's technological progress, also creating various problems.

Certainly such a claim, requires better data to confirm, I would think, but if so this could be a Nobel prize. Otherwise, to explain the data they do have (unless the data is fake) could also require some interesting physics, and it still might have some ultimate applications.

Can a DOE Contractor Weaponize an Employees DOE Q-Clearance as a Tool of Retaliation without Risk?

Can a DOE/NNSA contractor leverage known Security Q-Clearance criteria as a pretext to firing an employee? The short answer is likely yes.

As explained in the July 6, 2023 DOE OHA Administrative Judge decision in the link below, a QNSP acknowledgment (or obviously much worse, failure to acknowledge) of any “received a written warning, been officially reprimanded, suspended, or disciplined for misconduct in the workplace” can trigger a DOE evaluation of one’s Security Clearance eligibility above and beyond the normal periodic review.

In this case, the employee in question referred to as “the Individual”, under QNSP/“Employment Activities”, “affirmatively answered” “he had received a written warning, been officially reprimanded, suspended, or disciplined for misconduct in the workplace”. “The Individuals” honesty and confirmed rehabilitation efforts, likely led to his access authorization being granted or maintained.

Had “the Individual” lost his clearance he could have been dismissed based on his position requirements and DOE/Lab policy.

In this case, the concern in question was alcohol consumption and reasonable, but that is a QNSP sub-question. ANY written warning, official reprimand, suspension, or discipline for misconduct, can trigger such a clearance eligibility review.

The validity of the written warning, official reprimand, suspension, or discipline for misconduct, is not a factor for this extra DOE security clearance scrutiny, and as far as I can tell, the contractor will face no DOE blowback for merit-less or pre-textual efforts to fire “the Individual”. If the contractor’s targeted employee maintains his security clearance, afterward, the contractor can default to a “we were going to fire him anyway” position.

Therefore, if the contractor is not liable to DOE for employee false or misleading accusations or other disciplinary actions, an employee’s clearance can indeed be weaponized by the contractor against employees without consequence. Another risk free tool in the DOE contractor retaliation tool box.

https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/PSH-23-0014.pdf

American Physical Society's response

 American Physical Society Statement

So Bill Priedhorsky a retied scientists from LANL is giving a LANL talk on the APS American Physical Society statement on missile defense systems. Bill was on that board that gave the report in early 2022. I find it a tad odd he is going to be giving a talk on this since there is considerable controversy on this and in fact the original report got pulled form the APS site due to errors.

https://www.aps.org/policy/analysis/missile-respons.cfm

In February 2022, POPA published a report detailing the technical challenges of defending the United States against intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from North Korea. The report was reviewed by nine independent experts and approved for publication by the APS Council.

"Subsequent to publication, technical errors were identified in one section of the report, on the topic of boost-phase intercept systems. After confirming that there were two errors, APS promptly removed the report from its website and notified key Congressional and Executive Branch staff of the errors. The study committee is currently revising the report. APS has secured an additional expert reviewer who will assess the accuracy of the revised report before it is republished, subject to approval of the Council.

is that guy on this? Fetter a sociologist or something, some union of concerned science types, who one the face of it I do not trust. I do not see how any of these people are "experts" in missile defense.

I simply find it hard to take this panel seriously, and it looks like it has a clear political agenda. By the way I am not the only person who though that the panel was strange. Several high energy theory people faculty I know though it was very odd that James Wells was the co-chair as his expertise seems utterly outside of this field. Bill P sorta makes more sense than some of the others but again this seems pretty outside of what he does. I think APS should stay out of politics and stick with just stick with science.

Bomb discussion

https://losalamosreporter.com/2023/07/19/the-real-purpose-in-making-the-bomb-was-to-subdue-the-soviets-now-its-happening-again-on-a-vast-scale-scale-why-july-22-at-fuller-lodge/

The Real Purpose In Making The Bomb Was To Subdue The Soviets.’ Now It’s Happening Again, On A Vast Scale. Scale. Why? – July 22 At Fuller Lodge

California Dreamin

California Dreamin

https://news.stanford.edu/report/2023/07/17/john-sarrao-named-director-slac-national-accelerator-laboratory/

Following a broad, international search, John Sarrao, deputy director for science, technology & engineering at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), has been named SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s sixth director, Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced today.

At first this does not seem all that significant but John Sarrao has been rumored for many years to be a future LANL director most assumed after Mason that it would be John. I think he even had offers to head up some other DOE labs but turned them down to stay at LANL. Of course there are a number of rumors for why he is leaving (1) Sarrao sees that LANL will be a pit facility and he does not really want to manage that kind of operation, and he would rather be in charge of science organization. (2) He was told that future lab directors are going to be industry types that can manage a large manufacturing plants not science based people so he has no chance

(3) Maybe he sees the writing on the wall and the pit mission could fail and he would not want to be the director if that happens. SLAC is fairly safe job in terms of measuring success since there are always some kind of breakthroughs or good science that gets done in these kinds of facilities. LANL on the other hand has a lot of risk in that things can go wrong in terms of safety, security or failing to get stuff done. It also possible that this issimply a job he wanted and the opportunity came up. SLAC has about 1600 people and LANL will soon have about 16000 people so a LANL directorship is likely a higher paying and more powerful position. My guess is that the LANL mission is going more toward manufacturing and that future lab directors are going be people with these kinds of backgrounds but who knows.

Class war in America

 This is quite interesting, it goes into how scientific and technical expertise and judgement have been devalued in the United States, and it is an ongoing trend of course:

https://theintercept.com/2023/07/16/class-warfare-1-percent-technocrat/

Tired of blog

 I've been away from this blog for a few months. It looks like Scooby has finally given up on control of content relating to the national labs and is admitting anyone access with whatever cockamamie screwball claims about whatever. It is a free-for-all of conspiracy theories, outright trolling, and general craziness. It used to be a good resource for LLNL/LANL information. Now it is just another out of control internet garbage dump. I won't be back.

Why is metabolic dysfunction on the rise?

 Why is metabolic dysfunction on the rise in the USA and in other parts of the world?

UFOs, flat earth, and other topics, OK. Why not then, a topic on our collective state of diminishing health, and how much of it is lifestyle choice related that is largely correctable if addressed early enough?

In the last ~50 years, we have become less active, eat too many processed foods, eat way way way too much sugar and carbs, and too few whole (natural) foods.

The end result in my opinion? Childhood and adult obesity is on the rise along with non-alcohol related “fatty liver”, insulin resistance, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, and the list goes on.

I’m NOT suggesting anyone change their diet and exercise routine without consulting their medical physician first. Having said this, most medical physicians have little to no nutritional education or training.

Why not take lifestyle steps to address a growing list of chronic conditions before they become acute ones where we can?

Scooby's note: Warning: This Youtube video is over 2 hours long but worth watching!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sTS2fd3kE9I&pp=ygUcd2F0Y2ggb3V0IHRoZSBmb29kIGkgZHVzdHJ5cw%3D%3D

Toyota announces ambitious new EV goals

 Toyota announces ambitious new EV goals with 'solid-state' batteries.

Advertised Advantages:

-higher energy density
-longer life
-longer range
-safer technology (?)
-shorter charging times

All promising if true, but will the USA grid keep up with the future electrical demand and charging stations needed for the growing number of EVs on the road?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NT8dCij_XcY&pp=ygUedG95b3RhIGV2IGJhdHRlcnkgYnJlYWt0aHJvdWdo

A movie on Oppenheimer

Everyone is saying how the new Oppenheimer will be the film of the year and how it could save Hollywood. Some other directors describe it as a kind of horror movie.

https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/chris-nolan-says-another-director-called-oppenheimer-a-horror-movie#:~:text=Christopher%20Nolan%20Says%20Fellow%20Filmmaker,entire%20cities%20is%20pretty%20terrifying.&text=%22Now%20I%20am%20become%20Death%2C%20the%20destroyer%20of%20worlds.%22

I think we should make a movie about Edward Teller instead of Oppenheimer, one that is historically accurate and not a Oppenheimer horror story.

Hybrid community discussion

 https://losalamosreporter.com/2023/07/10/los-alamos-study-groups-greg-mello-historian-peter-kuznick-to-host-hybrid-conversation-july-22-in-los-alamos/

Los Alamos Study Group executive director Greg Mello and historian Peter Kuznick are hosting a hybrid community discussion at 6:30 p.m., July 22 at Fuller Lodge. The topic will be, “‘The real purpose in making the bomb was to subdue the Soviets.’ Now it’s happening again, on a vast scale. Why?”

The latest conspiracy theory.

https://www.indy100.com/viral/nuclear-weapons-arent-real-conspiracy

https://www.gamereactor.eu/the-latest-conspiracy-theory-has-people-believing-nuclear-bombs-arent-real-1283163/


"Conspiracy theorist and right-wing comedian Owen Benjamin is now claiming that nuclear bombs do not exist because there is evidence of cameras filming nuclear blasts.

“It’s weird that the nuclear blasts vaporised brick houses but not the old times camera recording it. It’s because nukes are fake.” Benjamin claims. “Hiroshima and Nagasaki never had any fall out radiation. The whole narrative and all the evidence is absurd.”"


My guess was there was flat earth conspiracy a few years ago but with just telescope a far off object and a few calculations you can show the earth is not flat. The flat earth guys even did some experiments and figured they are wrong. So how do you prove nukes are real, do these guys have to make one, test it and go, " I guess I was wrong"

The Gibbs phenomenon

 This was from a professor at UMass Boston, who wrote this story after being forced to attend seminar on "Decolonizing Rigor in STEM. He made up scary story where Alice and Bob are in attendance and drop rigor from their science work and blow up UMass Boston with the help of LLNL.

https://hxstem.substack.com/p/gibbs-phenomenon

The following is based on recommendations from "Decolonizing Rigor in Higher Education" by Mona Abo-Zena and Kerrie Wilkins-Yel, Center for Innovative Teaching, University of Massachusetts Boston, January 31, 2023.

Workplace Virtue Signaling

 Workplace “Virtue Signaling”

What is an effective plan B when a company truly does not have a track record of workplace equal opportunity? Answer: Virtue signaling, where a “load test” is not required for PR gains. In such an environment, don’t be the load test if you value your job.

Impact of court' decision on Labs

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-affirmative-action-unconstitutional_n_64789e10e4b0047ed77f8fd4

The Supreme Court declared affirmative action programs at public and private colleges and universities unconstitutional on Thursday in a decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts.
The decision puts an end to systems designed to help Black and Latino students access higher education after centuries of racial discrimination. Colleges and universities will no longer be allowed to seek greater diversity of their student bodies by preferencing race.

Since the labs have extensive programs for students we should ask how this will effect the NNSA lab system. There are also several programs at the labs designed for minority students does this get effected also?

New World order?

 WW3 around the corner or a new world order?

It looks like Putin might be about to fall, which means Russia could fall apart and essentially be integrated into the West or a give up its nuclear arms in exchange for better trade or help with rebuilding Ukraine.

If that happens the only two nuclear powers left are the US and China, right now the US has at least 10-20 times more nukes than China but China is rapidly expanding. If Russia is no longer a threat the next 1-3 years could be the best chance the US has of defeating China in a war. We either tell China to disarm or we go to WW3 and they lose. Either way the US wins, if we do nothing China will continue to grow and at some point we will have another stalemate in the world order for another 80 years.

I always said the whole push to defeat Russia in Ukraine was always about China.

Queering nuclear weapons?

 https://www.thecollegefix.com/researchers-queering-nuclear-weapons-can-strengthen-national-security/

The duo also claim that queer theory, like feminist theory, “shines a light on the harm done by nuclear weapons” by focusing on individuals’ “rights and well-being” over national security.