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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social

@diabolicalengineer.bsky.social
142 followers 249 following 727 posts

Engineer who only glows in the dark sometimes

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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I think they've usually gone after the people importing the smoke detectors. Most of the time the element collectors just get a "friendly" visit from the FBI, it gets confiscated, and then they post on reddit to complain about the whole experience. It's almost a yearly event at this point
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Me resetting the "it's been X days since the FBI showed up at an element collectors house" sign
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
We picked up a $700 Mazda5 for my partner last year. It's a junker, but it runs
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Fortunately for me (and unfortunately for my partner) our city bans livestock inside city limits
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
As of about 30 seconds ago
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Do they have any discussion under what legal authority they're pursuing construction? Because as far as I know, they don't have an authorized construction permit (or even an application), and the demonstration reactor provisions in the AEA don't cover something of this scale at all
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's pretty telling that the more serious startups/existing vendors haven't really bothered with either Janus or the pilot program
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's also worth noting that not only is Janus an attempted end run around NEPA, but it's also an attempted (an extremely dubious) end run around the NRC. While that institution is increasingly a shell of its former self, NRC licensing is still a barrier to entry that a lot of the startups can't pass
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
There are a couple of exceptions, but in general, I agree
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Huh, weird. Wonder what aspect of the local climate/geography is the dominant factor
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Is this like Poe's Law but for cars?
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A much needed breath of harmless whimsy
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I've literally had cell service in the deep desert, but at the plant I can see from my vets office? Absolutely not.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Side discussion, how do you deal with situations that PPE doesn't necessarily improve safety. Example that comes to mind is respiratory protection in some radiation environments. E.g. the internal contamination protection is outweighed by the increased dose from other sources due to the longer time
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
What I don't get, is even taking the assumption that we want to build new wpns at face value, abandoning stockpile stewardship doesn't really make sense. Like, we have sucked at production for ages, so if you want to maintain a stockpile, putting in the work to preserve existing wpns makes sense
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Somehow, university facilities had taken responsibility for maintenance of it, so our computational group had a massive air conditioning unit for whenever they turned the steam supply to the building up a little too high. We loved our mysterious abandoned air handler
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
In my old lab, at some point between the mid 2010s and the early 1960s, someone installed a large supplemental air chiller. We assume it was also the group that had multiple gas lines for tube furnaces running up through the floor, but it wasn't documented anywhere.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Objectively, probably correct. But also pop up headlights
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I haven't taken our kiddos to see it, but honestly there's enough funny gags that they'd enjoy it even if they're not familiar with the Looney Tunes
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I am also taking over a position previously occupied by the same person for the better part of 30 years. Hopefully no strange surprises will be left in my new office.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Oh no. Fortunately, the worst I have had to deal with was metallurgical root cause reports from before I was born. Proprietary in the distant past, but mostly releasable today.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
You can always hope for an opportune retirement too! One of my favorite desk ornaments is a chunk of GE weld overlay a retiring colleague gave me.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
The thing I'm really on the hunt for is items from the early BWRs (EBR and BORAX) in particular. I was fortunate to find a portion of a BWR/1 fuel assembly last year and some initial criticality awards from Dresden 1.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
They would be using a plutonium source instead of americium. So of course the museum continued using the Pu-Be source until they ended the program
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
This reminds me of my favorite Seaborg anecdote. At some point in the 60s, Oak Ridge apparently wanted to switch the neutron source for their dime irradiator demonstration from Pu-Be to Am-Be. They went to ask the AEC for permission when Glenn Seaborg popped in and made a comment that he assumed
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
See, other than this, I try not to collect radioactive material (it makes my RSO cranky). But civilian nuclear power has an interesting and long history of objects and commemorative stuff, which lets me get close (and appreciate the history) without making the health physicists upset
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I think we all have those. It's especially painful when the same item pops up later for a dramatically inflated price.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Unfortunately, the boring way. I sold part of my vintage fountain pen collection. The seller had it on eBay for quite a while and then failed to auction it because they set the starting bid way too high. I finally convinced them to take an expensive (but more manageable) offer.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
@nuclearanna.bsky.social @funranium.bsky.social @grantwtrent.bsky.social et al might enjoy this one.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
This isn't a fuel pellet, but I am extremely fortunate to be the new custodian of this one. This is a sample of graphite from CP-1, the first nuclear pile to go critical. They are ordinarily quite painful to obtain, and I will treasure this as part of the nucleus (hehe) of my collection.
A block of graphite encased in lucite from the first nuclear reactor, CP-1
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
It has occasionally happened that utilities have had high dose outages early in the year (where welders receive at least their 2rem admin limit) which placed pretty severe staffing constraints for later in the year.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I visited a vendor once that required everyone to back into parking spaces. That was a weird one
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
So I guess I'm saying, take the off the wall course.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I took an art history class in undergrad that was fantastic. Although one of my favorites (and one I still think about) was the Sociology of Technology course that double billed as engineering ethics. That one was fantastic. Actually, now that I think about it, so was the classics course I took
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I mean, they were planning to decommission anyway, it just sped up their timeline a bit. And agreed!
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Reposted by @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social
diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Further chronicles in fuel pellet paperweights, I picked this one up recently. CIPCO (the Central Iowa Power Cooperative) was part of the group that built Duane Arnold Energy Center. Decommissioned in 2020 after the Iowa derecho and currently working towards restarting power production.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Further chronicles in fuel pellet paperweights, I picked this one up recently. CIPCO (the Central Iowa Power Cooperative) was part of the group that built Duane Arnold Energy Center. Decommissioned in 2020 after the Iowa derecho and currently working towards restarting power production.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
You're forgetting the FLEX cup and the redundant non safety cups that we don't take credit for
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Look for banded iron formations!
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
NMUSAF in Dayton
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I want control drums to come back. But also I like the mostly non deranged industry we have now
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The B-36 in all of its forms was slightly insane, so the nuclear version was very on brand
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Jump hours are always fun, although it's a little too monochromatic for me.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Doing that with a cattle dog would be like doing it to a velociraptor. The labrador on the other hand, absolutely.
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
This is like asking people in my line of work to rank their favorite and least favorite nuclear reactor design. Which gets surprisingly deep into the weeds, even just among the different LWR reactor designs actually built in the US
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Also a near zero Poissons ratio for extra fun. Ductility kind of sucks though
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Please tell me you're joking. It's bringing back memories I'd prefer to forget
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Beryllium fidgets?!? I guess it's vaguely better than DU fidgets
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Constellation and its predecessors have done a good bit of community outreach, right? And the plants bring benefits to their communities. Data centers don't have that level of good will
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diabolicalengineer.bsky.social @diabolicalengineer.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
I need this desperately. The last year and a half has been this constantly and it's such an evocative description
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