Techdirt. Stories filed under "nuclear"

North Korea Threatens To Nuke US With Copied Video Game Footage

Timothy Geigner — Wed, 6 Feb 2013 12:31:46 PST

If you happened to check your favorite major news site in the past 24 hours, you probably already know about this incredibly strange video North Korea's state media has been running, in which a peacefully sleeping Korean man dreams of a nuclear rocket detonating on American soil while Korean text is overlayed and Michael Jackson's "We Are The World" plays in the background.

Awww, we think about you when we're dreaming, too, you guys!

Now, since I can't translate Korean, I can only assume the text amounts to some kind of assertion that Michael Jackson was taken long before his time by a massive American military plot and that a nuke up our rectums will be issued as retribution. Really, who can tell? But I'll tell you what I can translate, and that's video game footage. I say this because it turns out that North Korea, in the tradition of the Chinese Air Force, apparently decided to simply yank a bunch of nuke footage from Modern Warfare 3 to use in this wonderfully disturbing bit of propaganda. This side by side will show you the rip.

Essentially, that terribly frightening part where New York is ablaze is all from MW3, with an additional explosion or two added along side a grainy filter and 'Ol Glory. For most normal people in The States, their reaction to this is probably, "So what?" But I know Techdirt readers aren't all in the States, nor are they normal, so I'm sure amongst your first thoughts was, "Hey! That's copyright infringement!" Well, the Forbes post got our juices flowing with this:

UPDATE: Activision actually DID have it killed, which is sort of hilarious.

America! So mark today as the day that copyright saved us all... And you people say we never have anything good to say about... Oh, wait... it turns out that the original video was actually taken down by the user who uploaded it (i.e., whatever North Korea's version of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo is), so it wasn't so much a victory for America! as it was a failure of America!'s media fact-checking efforts.

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DailyDirt: Nuclear Power Won't Go Away

Michael Ho — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:00:00 PDT

Someday, the world will run out of fossil fuels to burn. But maybe we can avoid running out of fossil fuels by figuring out another energy source, so we won't need to burn hydrocarbons to produce electricity. Nuclear fission is just one possible energy source that could potentially replace coal, oil and natural gas entirely -- but there are some obvious drawbacks such as long-term radioactivity from its waste and the possibility of creating more nuclear weapons. Nuclear technology keeps moving forward (whether or not we've figured out how to deal with WMDs), and here are just a few examples.

Separating uranium-235 from the uranium-238 is a difficult process, but if there were an easier way to do it, nuclear proliferation could be a much bigger problem. Cheaper nuclear energy might solve a bunch of the world's problems, but it could also create a few new ones, too. [url]
Kenya is looking to develop its own nuclear energy program at the the University of Nairobi. It's an ambitious goal, but Kenya wants to create a sustainable, reliable and affordable source of energy for its economy to become a middle-income country by 2030. [url]
The ability to turn enriched uranium into weapons isn't a one-way trip -- about 20,000 of Russia's nuclear missiles will be turned into nuclear fuel for US power plants by 2013. A 1993 agreement between Russia and the USA has been turning 500 metric tons of Soviet weapons-grade uranium into electricity for America's cities. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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DailyDirt: Impractically-Powered Planes

Michael Ho — Tue, 1 Nov 2011 17:00:00 PDT

Some methods of flying are better than others. Passenger comfort isn't always the top priority for some aircraft, and that's especially true when engineers are trying out really novel designs and propulsion ideas. Here are just a few examples of some new planes that aren't quite ready for commercial flight, but that look really cool on the drawing board.

A solar-powered plane prototype was demonstrated at the Paris Airshow. Unfortunately, the plane requires almost windless conditions to fly, and it's not too fast. But it *can* stay aloft almost indefinitely (greater than 24 hours so far). [url]
The VoltAir is an all-electric plane concept with superconducting (!) electric motors... "VoltAir is an upstream research concept, not a near-term commercial approach." Duh. [url]
If superconducting electric motors seem plausible, then using a low-energy nuclear reactor (LENR) to power a plane is just around the corner. I'd like a Mr. Fusion generator for my DeLorean, too. [url]
To discover more cool sites about aviation, check out what's currently flying around StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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DailyDirt: Placing Bets On Alternative Energy Technologies...

Michael Ho — Thu, 5 May 2011 17:00:00 PDT

As oil prices fluctuate, so do the opinions of what to do about shifting away from fossil fuels. Gas prices seem to be going up, and that has boosted the calls for investment in alternative energy projects. Unfortunately, there's no clearly superior technology that's poised to take over. But there are plenty of opinions being thrown around -- here are just a few.

Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to put huge solar power plants in the Mojave Desert to help reduce America's dependence on oil. But isn't there a nuclear battery in his chest (from a Skynet-dominated future...) that we can reverse engineer? [url]
Critics of wind and wave energy say that the environmental impact of these sources could be harmful -- if they were actually used to produce significant amounts of energy. Ah, the good old truckload of vegetables tactic arises, again. [url]
Bill Gates says nuclear power is the best energy solution -- and that other alternative energy technologies are merely cute. Bill Gates is right, though, nuclear power is definitely not cute. [url]
To discover more stuff on alternative energy, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

As always, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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