Thorium Reactors - <AUTHOR> http://rein.pk/thorium-reactors <comment><USER2> _A "fast breeder" version of a molten salt reactor has fast neutrons in the reactor core. These neutrons easily interact with the actinides, transmuting them into fissile isotopes and then fissioning them to produce energy. In other words, molten salt reactors burn actinides. The same is not true for traditional uranium reactors because they have thermal (slow-moving) neutrons in the reactor core. Neutrons at these slower speeds don't interact with the actinides, so you can't burn actinides in a traditional uranium reactor._

This is no different from a panoply of fast breeder reactors which are NOT molten salt reactors, particularly liquid-sodium cooled (solid-fuel) reactors. The difference is that liquid sodium reactors have dozens of commercial-scale demonstrations, and hundreds of billions of $$$ of R&D investment -- whereas the molten salt fast breeders (chloride salt reactors) are nothing more than paper models to date.

 _As a side note, it looks like using thorium as a fuel is not actually critical. Thorium can be used as fuel in molten salt fast breeder reactor, which is a benefit for long-term sustainability, but thorium has little relation to the cost of constructing a new reactor today._

There's a plausible suggestion that liquid-fuelled reactors could be cheaper than LWRs. E.g.: they are far more compact (smaller), and the nuclear components apparently have less complexity. (Speculative)

But the point is an important one. The "big" selling points of thorium -- fuel efficiency, and spent fuel -- are very long-term issues. It's safe to argue they can be deferred. ("Thorium is premature optimization")

 _As of this past month, China now has a $350m institute with 140 PhDs plugging away on molten salt fast breeder reactors._

Actually they are thermal reactors (not fast breeders), and the focus is on solid-fuel reactors with molten salt as a coolant (although they are also considering molten-fuel reactors, as a lower priority).

<comment><USER3> What you say about U/Pu fast breeders is true, but there are other pertinent differences between those and LFTR:

1\. LFTR safety is based on passive cooling. Pu breeders do not share this property. Fukushima-style accidents involving loss of active cooling power for decay products are not a failure mode of LFTR.

2\. MSR reactors don't suffer from the safety problems introduced by the use of liquid sodium.

3\. MSR reactors don't suffer from the control complications introduced by Xe poisoning in solid fuels.

4\. MSRs involve a continuous liquid process. Essentially all industrial chemical processes work that way, and that's because liquids are very convenient to work with. There are good reasons to think this will pay off in multiple cost-saving ways.

Another way of looking at the billions spent on Pu breeders is that it might be an indication that other technologies are worth a bet. Orders of magnitude less have been spent on MSR than on U/Pu breeders.

I'd say the big selling points of Th are not fuel efficiency and spent fuel, for exactly the reasons you note. The big selling points are the promise of lower cost and public acceptance (both of these promises come to a large extent from the real safety advantages of MSR over conventional reactors).

The hard one, public acceptance, will only happen if we can figure out how to sell it, but luckily, making that effort is something that those of us who think we need nuclear power have a duty to choose to support, not something that's in the lap of the gods.

Re China: it's possible my memory is playing tricks on me, but I believe that one of the guys at the top of that program, when he came to a North American conference to speak about it, said that MS as coolant was the initial focus simply because that is a natural early step, but MS fuel was very much a long term goal (it's on youtube if somebody wants to check). Edit: I just checked (somebody already linked to it), and my memory was playing tricks: he said that they're developing both in parallel, with the priority initially on MS as coolant, because that is "more technically ready". It still seems that MS as fuel is where they want and intend to go eventually.

<comment><USER2> Oh, thank you. I intended only a very narrow point about _chloride_ reactors being untested (not MSRs: just _fast-spectrum chloride MSRs_ ). I didn't mean to provoke a debate between molten-salt and liquid metal reactors. I claim neutrality. :)

 _LFTR safety is based on passive cooling. Pu breeders do not share this property._

I'm unfamiliar with the details, but I read that liquid-sodium reactors are capable of fully-passive decay heat removal, e.g. [0] (slide 6). Certainly sodium has a much higher boiling point than water.

By the way, fast-spectrum MSRs are really Pu breeders -- that's the point of actinide burning!

 _3\. MSR reactors don't suffer from the control complications introduced by Xe poisoning in solid fuels._

This is not a relevant issue with _fast-spectrum_ reactors, e.g. [1] (c.f. [2]):

"The xenon-135 and samarium-149 mechanisms are dependent on their very large thermal neutron cross sections and only affect thermal reactor systems. In fast reactors, neither these nor any other fission products have a major poisoning influence."

 _4\. MSRs involve a continuous liquid process. Essentially all industrial chemical processes work that way,_

Pretty sure it's a batch process?

[0] [http://rpd.ans.org/presentations/DesignFeatures_Economics.pd...](http://rpd.ans.org/presentations/DesignFeatures_Economics.pdf)

[1] [http://www.hss.doe.gov/nuclearsafety/techstds/docs/handbook/...](http://www.hss.doe.gov/nuclearsafety/techstds/docs/handbook/h1019v2.pdf)

[2] Xe-135 absorption: [http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/sigma/getPlot.jsp?evalid=15174&m...](http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/sigma/getPlot.jsp?evalid=15174&mf=3&mt=102&nsub=10)

<comment><USER3> Ah, I did notice you were talking about fast reactors, then hastily slid back to thermal ones! Sorry. I guess my error reflects the fact that I think the thermal LFTR is more important.

Re passive cooling in sodium breeder reactors: that's certainly interesting. I'd not heard about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great article, I would love to see more of this kind of stuff on HN.

The 350 million dollar question is why the government _has_ to be the sole source of funding. Obviously the cost is very high, the regulations are very intense, but where are the VCs willing to tackle this kind of "startup" (in reality it would likely be more of a public/private partnership). It's a longer view with higher cost but the payoff could be massive. Big innovation isn't going to happen if it requires congress to agree on supporting it for 10-20 years.

<comment><USER5> Reactor designs are licensed by the NRC, new reactor designs require quite a long review process (as people really have a lot of "What if a ... happened?" questions that need answers) So funding a new reactor design is a multi-decade process. That is pretty far outside the "VC" range of funding since their funds want to be 'done' in 10 years, not just "almost approved for considering to build."

And the thorium folks, much as I love them, do themselves a disservice by not addressing the fuel cycle problem. If a uranium 'water' reactor leaks the radio-isotopes in the water decay rapidly, and are easily blocked by modest shielding. So that steam that escapes into the big containment dome? Well its radioactive initially but a couple of days later its not. This is not true is U233, a necessary byproduct of a thorium reactor fuel cell and present in the molten sodium leaks out. As sodium reacts violently with water, and molten sodium leak will cause an explosion and disperse highly dangerous, and difficult to shield U233 contaminated with U233 [1]

So when a thorium reactor does have a problem, it will be very serious very quickly. Not a lot of understanding on how to protect against that yet.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-232#Uranium-232>

<comment><USER2> You're confusing molten-salt reactors with molten-sodium reactors (different beasts). Molten fluoride is also reactive with water (hydrogen fluoride anyone?), but often MSR proposals don't involve water (they go for helium or CO2 gas turbines), and the ones that do separate steam far away from nuclear components, through intermediate coolant loops. Sodium reactors do the same thing. The risks really are manageable (in theory).

Radioactivity is dominated by short-lived fission products, not U-233/U-232 and company. U-232 is very radioactive, yes; but in a nuclear reactor, there exist vicious things far more radioactive than that. (Note that U-232 is a _trace_ contaminant, but fission products are present in bulk amounts. U-232 is highlighted only because it's impossible to separate from U-233, a point of theoretical (and meaningless) debate involving nuclear weapons. Otherwise it's unimportant.)

<comment><USER5> Yikes, I am mixing my reactor breeds (pun intended!) Thanks for that.

My understanding of the danger in the thorium fuel cycle and the U232 specifically is the _energy_ of its gamma radiation which is difficult to shield.

<comment><USER2> It's relative. It's difficult to shield relative to U-235 (for example), which means that handling raw fuel is more difficult. (It requires robotic manipulators -- hot cells, "waldos" [0] -- unlike conventional fuels which can be handled manually [1]). This is barely relevant for MSRs, because there is no fuel fabrication step (no fuel pellets). It _is_ a difficulty for solid- fuelled thorium reactors.

It's of no importance in nuclear reactors, because there there rest vastly greater amounts of _vastly_ more radioactive monsters.

The reason people talk about U-232 is this confusing debate about nuclear weapons -- there's a weak (I think spurious) argument that thorium is weapons- resistant, because the U-232 gamma radiation makes it difficult to machine/work with weapons cores. It's really not relevant to molten-salt reactors.

[0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_manipulator>

[1] proof by photo: [https://inlportal.inl.gov/portal/server.pt?open=514&objI...](https://inlportal.inl.gov/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=1269&mode=2&featurestory=DA_528176)

<comment><USER3> U-232: I'm not sure that's really the good argument. The better argument is that it doesn't matter whether it is weaspons-resistant, because it is much easier to enrich U 235, even for U-poor countries. Is that argument also flawed? Unfortunately, I suspect some of the relevant knowledge is secret.

<comment><USER2> _U-232: I'm not sure that's really the good argument. The better argument is that it doesn't matter whether it is weaspons-resistant, because it is much easier to enrich U 235, even for U-poor countries._

Yes, that's right. That's why the "debate" is spurious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not any kind of nuclear expert, but it sounds like the author is comparing Molten Salt Reactors to 1970s era traditional reactors:

"and the decay heat from these products requires continuous cooling for weeks even after core shutdown. That cooling process also must be human managed and actively powereed."

My understanding is the reactors currently under construction in the US are being built with passive fail-safes that make them much safer than the 1960s/70s reactors. Is this incorrect?

<http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html#New_build>

<comment><USER2> _My understanding is the reactors currently under construction in the US are being built with passive fail-safes that make them much safer than the 1960s/70s reactors. Is this incorrect?_

Modern passive heat-removal systems are limited: the ESBWR mentioned on that page -- one of the most "advanced" -- has about 72 hours of heat-absorption capacity. [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Simplified_Boiling_Wa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Simplified_Boiling_Water_Reactor#Passive_safety_system)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the info.

`one of the most "advanced" -- has about 72 hours of heat-absorption capacity.` That is still a pretty decent "oh shit" buffer. I imagine Fukushima or Chernobyl would have benifited from 72 hours extra to get their act together.

<comment><USER2> _I imagine Fukushima or Chernobyl would have benifited from 72 hours extra to get their act together._

Well, I'm not sure. Chernobyl isn't relevant because its issue was one of supercriticality (milliseconds, explosions), not decay heat (hours, gradual melting). In Fukushima, there actually were passive systems, not as sophisticated as ESBWR, and some failed instantly (a steam injector in reactor #1). And IIRC off-site power too a lot longer than 72 hours to restore, but I don't know if the explosions contributed to this. I'm not a nuclear engineer so I can't meaningfully assess this. But there is data here.

As a curiosity, ESBWR is actually a direct descendant of the BWR/3 at Fukushima, from the same designer (GE Nuclear). Not a scare tactic: I'd be pretty happy living next to an ESBWR.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure, but in the Wikipedia article I found that the electricity problems in the Fukushima plant lasted from March 11 to March 22 at least (the problems continued for a longer time). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disas...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Cooling_efforts)

So 72 hours = 3 days would be not enough alone, but I also don't know how the other actions had made the situation better or worse.

<comment><USER8> The amount of cooling needed is not constant over time (cf. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_heat>), which is one of the reasons passive cooling systems are designed for days rather than weeks.

The first seconds/minutes are the most critical and after 72 hours the residual heat is down to a level which can be much more easily handled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One issue with the review of previous nuclear disasters: Chernobyl was qualitatively different than Three Mile Island and Fukushima. The latter 2 designs were both water cooled and water moderated; both suffered loss of coolant (LOC) events which resulted in the core melting from residual decay heat as described in the article, with Fukushima experiencing subsequent detonations of hydrogen gas formed from reactions with the heated fuel rods (some have claimed that this happened at TMI as well, but clearly not to the same scale). The Chernobyl design (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBMK>) is also water cooled, but is moderated by graphite, which is much more dangerous (and scary that there are still many of these in operation). Instead of a loss of coolant event, Chernobyl experienced an exponential power spike which pushed operating power up to 10 times normal, resulting in a series of steam explosions in the coolant lines that blew off the 2000 ton cover of the reactor, sprayed part of the core out the top to contaminate the immediate vicinity (i.e. large chunks of the graphite moderator lying on the ground outside the reactor building), and set the graphite moderator on fire. The fire then spread many more fission products into the atmosphere with the smoke to share the fun with people in a much wider area.

Despite what has been written about Fukushima recently, I expect that it was a couple of orders of magnitude worse than Three Mile Island, which did not result in significant amounts of radioactive material escaping from the site (depending on whose analysis you believe); Chernobyl was between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude more severe than what we know about what happened at Fukushima at this point as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER10> Good review but "qualitatively different" is a bit of an understatement.

tl;dr: Chernobyl/RBMK reactors are inherently dangerous in nuclear design and in operation without suitable containment structures, unlike Western reactors like TMI or Fukushima.

TMI and Fukushima are comparable to a degree but it is important to note that TMI is a Westinghouse pressurized water reactor whereas the Fukushima plants are GE boiling water reactors. TMI had a LOC event due to a stuck pressurizer vent valve that went undetected after a reactor scram which, combined with incorrect assumptions in the operating procedures, led to a core melt. Fukushima experienced station black out which means loss of both offsite and backup power. The reactors shutdown and operated as designed for this scenario but the design basis assumption is that power would be restored in 4 or 5 days (don't know the exact number). It actually took more than a week to restore power due to the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami. Core cooling was maintained by discharging steam into the containment cooling pools but this method can not be run indefinitely and as the pools overheat it threatens the containment. Without a source of power the H2/O2 recombiners could not safely burn off the hydrogen which led to explosions of the reactor service buildings.

In contrast, the RBMK reactors are graphite moderated but water cooled. The reason for this design was they were developed for civilian power generation by scaling up military reactors used for plutonium production for nuclear weapons (graphite moderator allows fuel extraction without shutdown). During low power operation, the RBMK design has a positive reactor power void coefficient. What this means is that an increase in power lowers the density of the water coolant which allows more neutrons to escape into the graphite moderator where they are slowed down and thus split more atoms. In other words these reactors have an inherently dangerous operating region where an increase in power can lead to more power in a positive feedback cycle. This is what destroyed the Chernobyl reactor. (Note that water moderated reactors such as TMI or Fukushima have a negative power void coefficient where an increase in power reduces the density of the coolant and moderator which allows neutrons to escape the core without causing a fission thus dropping power, the opposite of an RBMK)

Of course the designers were aware of the positive power void coefficient, so they added safety systems to prevent reactor operation in bad regions. On the night of the accident, a maintenance shutdown was scheduled but on scram the operators wanted to run a turbine spin down test, i.e. after the scram, see how long the residual steam could drive the turbines before backup systems had to be operational. Previous attempts to run these tests had failed and the operators were pressured by Moscow to get it done or else (Siberia?). To maximize the chance of a successful test the operators maneuvered the reactor into the low core flow, low power region of the reactor's operating domain with the dangerous positive void coefficient and thus positive power feedback. To get the reactor into this state the operators had to override numerous safety systems designed to prevent such operation. At the commencement of the test there was a power excursion that led to a power runaway that cause a steam (not a nuclear) explosion that blew the lid off the reactor.

One final important point, the Chernobyl reactors (and all RBMKs) are not housed in any containment structure like Western reactors (they are too big). The containment buildings of reactors like TMI or Fukushima are designed to withstand and contain the operating energy and nuclear material should anything go wrong and as these accidents have shown, they work. The Chernobyl accident was made much worse because the lack of containment allowed widespread dispersion of radioactive material due to the explosion and subsequent graphite fire.

<comment><USER9> By qualitatively different I mostly meant to point out that TMI and Fukushima were both LOC accidents at water moderated reactors, while Chernobyl was of a much more dangerous variety. This was motivated by the fact that the OP glossed over that important point, and now you have filled in even more of the blanks; thanks.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I just wanted to expand on how completely different these reactors and accidents were. Also, it was a minor point but LOC Accident (TMI) is different than a Station Black Out (Fukushima), these are defined accident scenarios in the design basis documents for the reactors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thorium has an enormous potential, but R&D + regulations cost will be huge. In case of the nuclear energy, they were covered partly by military, but that would not be the case for Thorium.

I would be extremely happy, if instead of paying for war we would bet on that technology, but unfortunately it is rather unlikely that it will became commercial available soon. Still looks more promising than fusion reactor - ITER.

<comment><USER12> Yup. Thorium isn't all sunshine and roses, there are some difficult fundamental problems requiring novel research to tackle, aside from all of the complex engineering issues of designing a real reactor. Uranium/Plutonium fission power is already billions of dollars and decades ahead of Thorium in those regards, so it'll likely be quite some time before a Thorium power plant is able to compete head to head with a Uranium one.

More so, fission power in the developed world has been in a bit of political trouble for the last 3 decades or so, no one is building new fission reactors of any sort. Maybe the developing world can trailblaze the technology and prove that it's an order of magnitude or more superior to fission power, which might re-ignite interest for fission power in the US, Europe, and Japan.

<comment><USER13> could you outline the problems with thorium reactors that you know of? i've been searching high and low to figure out what they are. obviously they exist, but they often seem brushed over and ill-defined. any extra light you can shed on it would be useful. thanks!

<comment><USER14> In every article about thorium reactors, I never see any real discussion of drawbacks, or why uranium triumphed over thorium early, so I asked here the last time this author's article was linked. I got good answers: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912614>

The short version is that the typical thorium reaction still requires/produces U-232, which is weapons grade uranium, so you have all the same problems as before regarding proliferation concerns; and more seriously, the product U-233 produces a lot of gamma radiation, which is really deadly at a distance and terribly difficult/expensive to shield against by comparison to the radioactive products of U-235/238 fission reactors.

Also, there's a general engineering issue that lots of work and research has been done on current reactor designs, while little has been done on thorium reactors, comparatively. Thorium looks good on paper, but there are bound to be a bunch of practical issues that come up that raise the expense and mitigate the advantages. Basically, uranium fission is far more advanced, practically speaking, so a better bet for commercial applications.

ETA: And on reading the article linked above, I find that Mr. Reinhart addresses neither of these two issues.

<comment><USER3> "there's a general engineering issue...": This is quite right. However, that is a general-purpose argument to dismiss any new technology. I don't think the rational response to that is to not develop new technologies that show promise to be significantly better than the old ones, as this one does. While nobody could disagree that we don't know for sure how much it will cost before actually commercialising it, if we want to learn more about whether it is worth a try, the argument has to focus on the specific issues, such as the one you raise in your previous paragraph. (I think it is worth a try, because there are reasons to expect that it will be cheaper and safer.)

To address your specific point about U 232: First, you have 232 and 233 reversed: it's the U 232 and not the U 233 that causes significant gamma emission [1], and the U 233 that is bred from the Th for use as fissile nuclear fuel. U 233 production from Th 232 also unavoidably produces a small amount of U 232. The gamma emissions from the U 232 are a problem for handling of U 233. However, the gamma rays (easy to spot from space) and the tricky handling are both unattractive properties for U 233 as a weapons material. The pro-Th argument goes that this means that it is much easier to enrich U 235 than it is to work with U 233. If that is the case, the proliferation properties of U 233 are arguably not relevant to the LFTR debate (I'm personally not yet convinced that it is the case).

You say that the gamma rays are "really deadly at a distance". Can you cite a reference please? I don't think it is necessary to fully shield the gamma rays, unless you are building a nuclear weapon and don't want it to be seen by a monitoring satellite. Certainly the gamma emitters here don't constitute a nuclear waste issue, because the reaction takes place quickly.

[1] [http://www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/sgs/pdf/9_1kang.pd...](http://www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/sgs/pdf/9_1kang.pdf)

<comment><USER14> This isn't an area of my expertise. I was only trying to summarize the response to my earlier question. I think I understand the issues generally, but please look at the linked conversation for more details.

I agree that engineering inexperience with thorium isn't a reason to dismiss it. I just find it a bit telling that thorium boosters like Reinhold don't address that discrepancy, in the same way they tend to be silent on the issues with U-232/233.

Regarding gamma radiation, by "deadly at a distance" I mean that they're a coherent threat to health at a much greater distance because gamma radiation travels further than alpha or beta radiation because it's much higher energy. Likewise, that greater energy imposes a much higher cost on shielding: a sheet of paper blocks alpha, heavy clothing blocks beta, but you need significant amounts of dense material like lead or packed earth or granite to block gamma radiation. Presumably, this imposes a significant extra expense on a thorium reactor that's breeding U-232. My source to back up my vaguely recalled knowledge is this: [http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/understand/protection_basics.htm...](http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/understand/protection_basics.html).

<comment><USER15> Gamma radiation is not "higher energy" than alpha or beta radiation. And the energy of particle is not by itself significant as far as radiation damage is concerned - what matters is how that radiation is deposited in you as the particle passes through you. An extremely high-energy neutrino could pass through you with no effect whatsoever.

Materials such as a sheet of paper or piece of cloth have a higher stopping power (loss of energy per unit distance) for alpha particles (helium nuclei of charge +2) and beta particles (electrons of charge -1) than for gamma rays (photons - uncharged particles).

This is why an alpha emitter is much less significant if it's outside your body, but much more significant if it's in your lungs - because it dumps all its energy inside you where it can cause damage.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure if this is semantics or not. Yes, low energy and high energy radiation both can cause bad damage and a DNA hit from one is as bad as that from another, but that isn't the point. Standing in a 20KV beam is going to do you more damage than standing in a 500KV beam on a photon by photon basis - but only because more of the 500kV beam will go straight through you. An I missing your point though?

Edit: Yes I am. Your talking about alpha versus gamma, not low energy damage versus high energy damage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There plenty of good things about Thorium, however the advantages are generally overstated. Yes it's more common but uranium is plentiful and a small fraction of operating costs. Yes, it produces less waste but The difference is minimal. In theory it's safer, but current designs are vary safe with a multi decade track record where Thorium's is unproven.

So, while there are benefits the ROI on a multi billion dollor Thorium R&D progect are probably negative.

<comment><USER18> _> Yes, it produces less waste but The difference is minimal._

As far as I understand, the difference is _orders of magnitude!_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#Benefits_and_challenges>

 _> So, while there are benefits the ROI on a multi billion dollar Thorium R&D progect are probably negative._

It could be possible to rebrand Thorium and overcome many of the PR challenges of nuclear power. A solution to a substantial part of the global warming problem is indeed worth hundreds of billions.

<comment><USER19> What do they mean by "long-lived waste"?

Things that are highly radioactive stop being radioactive very quickly. Things that are lowly radioactive stay radioactive for a long time, but at low levels so you don't worry much about them. There's a middle "unsweet spot" of things that are radioactive enough to worry about but not radioactive enough that they quickly burn out.

So where does thorium fit in that taxonomy?

<comment><USER2> _What do they mean by "long-lived waste"?_

Actinides of half-life 100-100,000 years or so. These have a compounding disadvantage in that they are alpha-emitters, hence disproportionately radiotoxic (e.g. by ingestion) compared to gamma- and beta- emitters like common fission products. _Orders of magnitude_ disproportionate.

The theoretical advantage is huge: (this graph is from a French nuclear research lab which appears to be temporarily offline)

[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m6Jl1KpnH3E/TiwB5Ppo85I/AAAAAAAAAD...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m6Jl1KpnH3E/TiwB5Ppo85I/AAAAAAAAADE/wJvHAVmTN28/s1600/img18.gif)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There was an interesting study by the national nuclear laboratory of the UK comparing thorium and uranium:

[http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy- demand/...](http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy- demand/nuclear/6300-comparison-fuel-cycles.pdf)

the article is difficult to understand for a layman as myself but an important fact (among others) is that the uranium reserves on earth are considered to last for 100 years at 2008 levels of consumption. furthermore if demand rises, higher prices will make accessing more reserves economically viable. hence resource availability doesn't appear to be a concern for the near term future.

<comment><USER2> _the article is difficult to understand for a layman as myself but an important fact (among others) is that the uranium reserves on earth are considered to last for 100 years at 2008 levels of consumption._

An even more important fact is that uranium nuclear power is a couple of percentage points of 2008 energy consumption, and energy demand itself is growing exponentially. The metrics the DECC bureaucrats are plodding through are no-growth extrapolations of past trends. If clean energy is to be a reality, and if nuclear power is that clean energy, then we _must_ scale it up by three or more orders of magnitude, and sustainability within the century is (potentially) a critical issue. DECC bureaucrats aren't considering this in that report; they are being conservative, in a bad way.

Don't look to government bureaucrats for revolutionary vision ;)

<comment><USER21> "Don't look to government bureaucrats for revolutionary vision"

Which bureaucrats should we look to? ;)

You seem rather negative towards bureaucrats.

Some bureaucratic positions are influential. Some people have visions which they can't do on their own or in a company. Some people figure out that the best way to achieve those visions is to become an influential bureaucrat. Vannevar Bush is one of those. He had a vision of how he wanted the US to fund science research. That vision became the NSF. His bureaucratic work started much earlier. For example, he was a key figure in organizing the Manhattan project.

Other bureaucrats with vision include: Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover (Hoover Dam, and more importantly the interstate compact which lead to it), the Health and Environmental Research Advisory Committee of the DOE (to start the Human Genome Project), J. C. R. Licklider (his DARPA memo on the "Intergalactic Computer Network" lead to ARPANet lead to the Internet), and Viktor Zhdanov, Deputy Minister of Health for the USSR (call for the WHO to undertake a global initiative to eradicate smallpox; the previous smallpox vaccination programs were also government driven).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Back in May 2012, I happened to be on a drive while National Public Radio here in the United States was broadcasting a Science Friday story, "Is Thorium A Magic Bullet For Our Energy Problems?"

[http://www.npr.org/2012/05/04/152026805/is-thorium-a- magic-b...](http://www.npr.org/2012/05/04/152026805/is-thorium-a-magic-bullet- for-our-energy-problems)

Many of the issues considered in that story are glossed over by advocates of thorium reactors. The author of the blog post kindly submitted here explicitly admits, "My last article about thorium as an alternative nuclear reactor fuel drew way more readers than I expected. I intentionally glossed over the complexities of specific reactor designs for the sake of simplicity, but in this article I want to go deeper." He mentions a number of interesting technical trade-offs involved in using thorium reactor fuel and the latest reactor designs as compared to earlier nuclear reactor designs, but the tone is still largely a tone of credulity, without a lot of examination of non- nuclear means of generating electrical power.

The Physics Stack Exchange discussion of thorium reactors is interesting,

[http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/20034/what- practi...](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/20034/what-practical- issues-remain-for-the-adoption-of-thorium-reactors)

as is the article from The Guardian in June 2011, "Don't believe the spin on thorium being a greener nuclear option."

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/23/thorium- nu...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/23/thorium-nuclear- uranium)

Advocacy groups are already mobilizing to cast doubt on thorium reactors, with webpages like "Thorium Fuel – No Panacea for Nuclear Power"

[http://ieer.org/resource/factsheets/thorium-fuel-panacea- nuc...](http://ieer.org/resource/factsheets/thorium-fuel-panacea-nuclear- power/)

(with a link to an interesting fact sheet,

[http://ieer.org/wp/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/thorium2009fac...](http://ieer.org/wp/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/thorium2009factsheet.pdf)

that gets into the practicalities and economics of using thorium as a reactor fuel).

It's not clear yet that thorium offers any economic or political advantages over the uranium that fuels the nuclear reactor that provides much of my home electricity. The two nuclear reactors here in Minnesota result in lower-than- average cost for electricity here, compared to the rest of the United States, and have had a perfect safety record. Ongoing concern about where to store high-level radioactive waste on a long-term basis has made many politicians here reluctant ever to approve another nuclear plant in this state, despite the perfect safety record and inexpensive electricity we enjoy with the current plants. Minnesota, as a matter of state policy, is strongly promoting wind energy, fitting the wind-swept prairie geography of much of the state. I'm not aware of any part of the world where local politics would make a thorium plant more likely than another wind power plant or natural-gas-fired power plant. So maybe thorium power generation is a technical solution looking for a problem.

<comment><USER23> Not necessarily disagreeing with your main thrust, but this sentence: "So maybe thorium power generation is a technical solution looking for a problem." goes a bit too far. Certainly, there are it might be a _political_ solution in search of a problem, but there are technical problems around waste, proliferation, and safety that MSRs at least attempt to address, and they also don't produce greenhouse gases the way fossil-fuel-driven generators do, and have fewer outstanding technical question-marks than renewables (at least as baseload power, a role for which huge technical challenges will need to be solved before they can be considered viable). That still may not be good enough, but there are clearly problems in current energy production that will need to be solved somehow.

Also, aside: that guardian article isn't terrible, but the author gets half- lives backwards the way lots of authors seem to, implying that elements with long half-lives are bad, I suppose because we'll need to bury them for longer. It's the elements with short half-lives that are scary; they decay really fast and give people radiation poisoning/cancer/whatever. An element with a 16-million-year half-life is barely emitting anything at all; that's the category of waste that can, as the author of this post says, be buried in a shallow pit in the desert.

<comment><USER24> I would argue that for the purpose of nuclear waste disposal the relation between half life and problem is a bit more complicated than "getting it backwards." The short half life isotopes are easily disposed of, because we know how to build an organizational structure, that oversees the disposal. For example, to securely store nuclear waste with an half life of a decade on can simply coat it in some plastic and put it in a mine with a warning nailed to the entrance. With very large half life times on the other hand there is no big problem to begin with, as you stated.

But the intermediate timescale poses problems, since there the nuclear waste is radioactive enough to be dangerous and we do not have a good idea how a facility looks like, that can survive one hundred thousand years.

<comment><USER23> Yes, I was mostly just pointing out that the "Ooh! 16 million years! Scary!" attitude is bothersome, but you're right that I'm over-simplifying. My recollection was that the thorium cycle produces a mix of very-short-lived, deadly, gamma-emitting isotopes (U-232, I think? and possibly others) and very-long-lived, low-risk stuff, with less intermediate-half-life transuranic material left over, which made it rather preferable to the uranium fuel cycle as far as waste disposal was concerned, but I may be misremembering. Either way, the Guardian article doesn't deal with the issue in much depth or in a way that makes it sound like they know what they're talking about, so I don't trust their assessment of the relative merits of LFTRs vs. conventional uranium LWRs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The troubling attitude in TR advocacy is the claims of inherent safety.

A sustainable energy-positive reaction can't be inherently safe. You can argue if it has better failure modes than the alternatives but it's harmful to ignore a multitude of factors which could be not yet considered.

The previous catastrophic failures with other reactor designs were also not exactly forethought. For instance, xenon poisoning was little studied in the beginning of nuclear era. It is not implausible some critical piece of knowledge is missing in the current evaluation of "safe" designs.

Another thing is too much reliance on the neat presentations. E.g. this blog refers to a freeze plug as a kind of panacea of any mismanagement. What if freeze plug fails for whatever reason? Like, tectonic activity breaks the pipework, or it's sabotaged, or groundwater leaks into the dump tanks?

</comment><comment><USER26> I recommend the Thorium Remix 2011 for a good overview: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4>

</comment><comment><USER27> Apologies for the off-topic comment, but I really love the layout and style of this blog. Any chance it's not a custom jobby and someone knows where it's from?

<comment><USER28> I agree its amazing. Reminds me of svbtle.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, very similar, but I like it even more than svbtle.

<comment><USER29> I hate the misuse of the pk ccTLD, though. In general I don't care that much, but anything related to nuclear technology related to Pakistan produces an automatic "reach for the safety catch on my Browning" stress response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Indian Thorium Breeding Technology: <http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/bhattacharyya1/> Since we don't have enough Uranium and no one would sell us, It's pretty much our only strategy.

<comment><USER2> You've been free to buy uranium from since George W. Bush backed you in a treaty modification with the nuclear suppliers group. You had been blacklisted before that, because your nuclear weapons pissed off the world (don't blame the world).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo- US_civilian_nuclear_agree...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo- US_civilian_nuclear_agreement#NSG_waiver)

A quick google search turns up the Australian PM agreeing to sell you uranium:

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-18/gillard-visit-paves- wa...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-18/gillard-visit-paves-way-for- india-uranium-sales/4319654)

 _"Prime minister Singh and I have agreed that we will commence negotiations for the nuclear safeguards agreement, the civil nuclear cooperation agreement given Australia is now prepared to sell uranium to India," she said._

<comment><USER31> well, that's one statement from the PM. it hasn't got through parliament yet, and this highly controversial proposal will face stiff opposition. Successive polls have shown that most australians are opposed to exporting our uranium to nuclear weapons states (tho I'll admit most respondants probably haven't connected the dots, since one major customer is us[a]).

In the case of India, these concerns are magnified by the ongoing regional arms race and the recent violent suppression (including murder) of Indian opponents to the industry.

<comment><USER2> It's only been a few years since India was "pardoned", and Australia is just one of many potential suppliers. The broad point is, the entire world uranium market is open to India, which was not the case until recently. India's preexisting nuclear strategy is no longer valid.

Here's another sale: a settled Russian deal to supply uranium for a Russian- built VVER reactor, for its entire lifespan. (Admittedly the implication is the uranium deal is somehow _tied_ to the Russian reactor sale, which is somewhat limiting). Not much politics here! (Not much politics in Russia either).

[http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/first-unit-of- kudankul...](http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/first-unit-of-kudankulam- plant-undergoing-tests/article4210508.ece)

<comment><USER31> yes, the russians will on-sell to anyone: its probable that australia's decision to supply russia, while not as politically charged, was a greater proliferation hit than any future decision on india :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> There was a TEDx talk I saw a while back by two MIT graduates working on a "Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=AAFWeIp8JT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=AAFWeIp8JT0)

It looks promising and they have formed a start-up, <http://transatomicpower.com>

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/pikeresearch/2012/09/27/a-pair-o...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/pikeresearch/2012/09/27/a-pair- of-mit-scientists-try-to-transform-nuclear-power/)

</comment><comment><USER33> His final point about a nuclear kickstarter project is made in jest, but may be truer than he realizes...

<comment><USER34> It's a wild idea... but has anybody tried it? Other than all the obvious reasons why a nuclear Kickstarter project might not work, why the heck not???

It would be an interesting experiment to see the response, if nothing else.

NOTE: IANANE (I am not a nuclear engineer).

<comment><USER34> Oh, I spoke too soon - try searching "reactor" on Kickstarter. Looks like the idea is floating around (and some documentaries regarding same).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Blake Masters has a great overview from Peter Thiel's Stanford CS183 class about the future of Thorium and why it may be a very promising cleantech energy solution:

[http://blakemasters.com/post/23787022006/peter-thiels- cs183-...](http://blakemasters.com/post/23787022006/peter-thiels- cs183-startup-class-14-notes-essay)

</comment><comment><USER36> As far as I know, there are no (public) models on Th reactors. The most advanced is an analytic simulation (without CFD) from a Chinese nuclear engineering lab, but nobody has a real clue about the precise input variables anyway, therefore no MC is even in sight, as of today. But marketing is well advanced.

And as the Japanese say, assuming we do have a functionally correct model and a Th reactor design (or designs, since there are several configurations), that still doesn't say anything about the economic aspect (I do not mean the old economic model, where the byproduct of plutonium factories were sold as energy).

</comment><comment><USER37> See this recent EnergyFromThoriumFoundation facebook album for a historic brochure about ORNL's Molten Salt Reactor Experiment between 1965-1972.

[https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15726934/Historic_Molten_Salt_React...](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15726934/Historic_Molten_Salt_Reactor_Experiment_Brochure_ORNL_1965-1972.pdf)

[http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152449471560377.9...](http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152449471560377.951501.10150132132910377&type=1&l=91f3ea2327)

</comment><comment><USER31> s/weapons//g

hmmm.. thorium reactors would still produce unmanagable high level nuclear waste (tho not as bad, not as much), and would still open up significant weapons proliferation vectors, both material and capacity. As for safety, these designs merely substitute one catastrophic failure mode (meltdown) for another (volatility of the continuous onsite reprocessing)

inarguably, thorium designs offer stepwise improvements to the major disqualifications of catastrophic failure, unmanagable waste production and WMD prolifertaion. But I'm concerned that we should judge the nuclear industry on its present day detriments and hazards, not the promises of future designs.

there's a big thorium mine down the road from me - well, a big rare earths mine, where the dominant product is thorium. They're planning to come and bury all the (enriched) thorium back on site after extracting the lucrative rare earths. I read that as a pretty clear indication of the state of the market. (incidentally, and as far as minesite impacts go, the thorium mine is going to be at least as hazardous as a comparable uranium mine)

When Chernobyl went off, we were told don't worry, it's an outdated design, the new reactors would never do that. When Fukushima went off, we were told don't worry, it's an outdated design, the new reactors would never do that. Who can guess what they'll tell us when Indian Point goes off?

this is an industry that has consistently over-promised and under-delivered. Remember "energy too cheap to meter"?

by their deeds, not their words. let's try to manage the industry by the realities of today, not the promises for tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER38> Of course thorium reactors is not a proven technology but if there is a scientific consensus saying it is promising, I don't see why utility companies and civil nuclear reactor manufacturers try to make it viable. They have everything to gain, in my opinion.

Tldr of the article: [http://tldr.io/tldrs/50f73bbe983c81b86a00012b/thorium- reacto...](http://tldr.io/tldrs/50f73bbe983c81b86a00012b/thorium-reactors)

</comment><comment><USER39> As much as I am interested in the topic. I could only read a few paragraphs, due to being irritated by the cheesy couple picture in the corner.

</comment><comment><USER40> The future is fusion

<comment><USER2> The near future is fission. Fission reactors are compact, dense, cheap, and actually work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I've got one question...

The main issue is that now at Fukushima there are products like Cesium-90 in the sea, contaminating the entire sealife, which have crazy long half-life (ninety years). Thankfully they're "heavy" so they go down towards the center of the earth, but only at about 5 cm per year. So in ten years the're going to be highly radioactive Cesium-90 at 50 cm behind rocks still polluting the sealife.

In case the worst sh _t happens: the worst SNAFU conceivable...

Would MSRs also generate highly products like Cesium-90?

I mean: I don't care about all the security and the great design meaning an uncontrolled reaction shall never happen.

I know: it won't happen. Just like Fukushima. It didn't happen because it couldn't.

We got your point. It IS safe.

But I tell you: a sh_t you didn't expect is going to happen (maybe an asteroid striking your reactor or whatever).

What then?

Would MSRs pollute less than Uranium based reactors in the worst of the worst scenario?

If so I'm all for it.

<comment><USER3> It's intermediate half-lives that are problematic. Very long half lives (for example, billions of years, like Th 232) are not a problem, because they have low activity (few particles emitted per second). Very short half lives (for example, minutes) are not a long-term problem, because they are entirely gone after those minutes. It's the middling half lives that get you: short enough to be highly active, long enough to stick around for years.

So, Cs 137 and I 90 stick around for a few hundred years. That's bad, and LFTR still produces these.

On the other hand, it's a lot better than the situation with conventional U reactors, because those produce transuranic elements with intermediate half lives measured in tens of thousands of years. There is a qualitative difference to human civilisation between 300 years and tens of thousands of years. LFTR produces those transuranic elements too, but in orders of magnitude less quantity -- that combined with the liquid phase leads us to expect that would be a much smaller problem than with conventional reactors.

Wikipedia suggests some other LFTR advantages here, which I haven't thought about:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reacto...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor)

Low mobility of radioactivity. Even if there is an accident beyond the design basis for the multiple levels of containment and passively cooled systems, fluorides do not easily enter the biome. The salts do not burn, explode, or chemically degrade in air and react only slowly with water. Fluorine combines ionically with most fission products to form stable fluorides. This is not only an MSFR's first level of containment, but also serves as a high inherent safety level during any beyond-design basis event. Fluoride is especially good at holding biologically active "salt loving" wastes such as cesium-137 and strontium-90, which are permanently bound as stable, nonvolatile CsF and SrF2. The fluoride salts of radioactive actinides and fission products are generally not soluble in water at lower temperatures. Even though Caesium fluoride is one of the fission product fluorides that is highly water soluble, its extremely high boiling point and chemical stability, combined with the lack of stored energy sources (hydrogen, steam, etc.) in the LFTR, prevent it from being blown into the air and carried with the wind to contaminate a large amount of land.[citation needed]</comment></comment>


Stanford Researchers Find Connecting Metadata With User Names is Simple - <AUTHOR> https://threatpost.com/stanford-researchers-find-connecting-metadata-with-user-names-is-simple/103272 <comment><USER2> Interesting research that seems directionally true, but I wonder if this overstates the case. The sample set is people who are willing to download an Android app and share data with Stanford researchers. Those people likely have more info online than the average person.

<comment><USER3> Hey. One of the authors here. Our data set for this experiment is not the set of numbers owned by people willing to download the app, but the set of numbers that they have called and received calls from. This means that a large amount of the data set is things like spam numbers, voicemail numbers, and customer service numbers. Its not too hard to figure out that you bank with Bank X if you are receiving Two Factor Authentication texts from them, for example.

There are potential biases in the data set, but we don't think that they dramatically affect the results that we are seeing. Your mother probably receives spam phone calls and reminder texts from airlines just like I do.

<comment><USER4> The article only seems to suggest you matched names to phone numbers by googling or paying to look them up, I read nothing about meta research of putting together profiles of people based on data/sms traffic and calls they received.

A future project you guys should attack Basebands and see what kind of evil you can do because our govts are already doing it to track us

<comment><USER3> The reporting on our work has been of mixed quality. Check out our actual blog-post here: [http://webpolicy.org/2013/12/23/metaphone-the-nsas-got- your-...](http://webpolicy.org/2013/12/23/metaphone-the-nsas-got-your- number/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=metaphone-the-nsas-got- your-number) for more accurate details.

We used data collected from voluntary users' phone logs as our phone number data set. This means that if Joe called number X a few weeks ago and then decided to participate in our study, number X was in our database. We then used a couple techniques too see how well we could identify who number X belonged to.

We didn't put together actual profiles of users, though that is a possible next step. However, I think it is clear that putting together profiles of users is possible given how easy it is to identify who you are calling and receiving calls from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd love to see an analysis of the other 9 they could not match to see what traits they share in common that make them difficult to analyze.</comment>


The incremental degradation of my beard trimmer - <AUTHOR> http://briandelaney.me/the-incremental-degradation-of-my-beard-trimmer

<comment><USER2> Funny, I've used that same Bodygroom product for about 6 years. I've had 3 generations of the product and obviously had the same experience. Although the most recent generation is the best designed, it's the yet worst yet. The pivoting head pulls on my hair.</comment>


Japanese Toilets: The Future Called 30 Years Ago - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/2014/04/04/the-future-called-30-years-ago/ <comment><USER3> After using the toilet, do you wash your hands, or just wipe them?

You've just demonstrated why washing toilets are superior. I cannot understand our misplaced, hollow pride in not adopting something which simply works better. I've even heard some especially crazy people try to say the japanese toilets are "perverted" \- the hold tradition has on some people is just insane.

Japanese toilets are simply better. For some bizarre reason we've resisted adopting them here. It boggles the mind.

<comment><USER4> I gave in and ordered a bidet a year ago. Not wanting to commit to some of the expensive options, I opted for the $25 Astor Bidet:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TPGPUW/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TPGPUW/)

Installation involved adding a T-adapter to my sink's cold water line. The whole setup takes about 5-10 minutes if you know what you're doing, or about 30 if you don't. Even if you know nothing about plumbing, you can install this thing with some patience (and probably in well under an hour).

I've been very happy overall. There are lots of similar bidets for varying prices, but the core functionality can be had for $25. I haven't felt the desire to spend any more, this thing just works.

We go through a lot less toilet paper, though we still use some for the drying. This may be too much information, but I do feel subjectively much cleaner. When we travel somewhere without a bidet, it's definitely on the edge of my mind that I miss my setup at home.

I do get weird looks when we have company, but who cares. Continue smearing poop on your butts, heathens.

<comment><USER5> "Continue smearing poop on your butts, heathens."

It is odd that whilst we use specially designed water jets and cleaning products to bathe our approach to bottom hygiene is just to keep scrubbing till there is nothing visible left.

Anyway looks like a good device, thanks for the link.

<comment><USER6> Not having foot taps is another huge bug bear of mine. Especially in public places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find health faucets [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet_shower](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet_shower) quite effective, except that one time it went terribly wrong.

These are essentially telephone showers installed next to the toilet. You switch them on using a valve/trigger and then manually direct the fire. Simple, cheap and no fuss.

This little guy, however, turned out to be a closet fire hose. It pretty much went from 0 to 1000 gallons per sec in an instant and just wouldn't let up, the valve was stuck. The extension cord was twisting and coiling around like crazy with the released pressure, the shower head was going at full blast in my hand, initially directed at my rear, it was continuously pushing my hand away from anything that I was trying to point it to, it give me a visceral understanding of how jet engines work.

Working out a sequence of operations in my head to get out of such a situation while caught in a compromised and inflexible position, with only one hand free, was quite a challenge. I am not quite sure if I should be thankful that it wasnt autonomously powered and directed.

My first Japanese toilet experience happened @ Google (I was interning there at that time). When the water touched the derriere, it made me flinch and jump with surprise, as I wasnt quite sure what to expect, this was several years ago and Japanese toilets were still an unfamiliar opbject to me. And it really tickles the shit out of you ! (no pun intended) I guess there are ways to choose between a laminar and degrees of non laminar flow (all those controls must be for something), I would expect the former to be somewhat less flinch inducing.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is one of those things that long-time expats that live in Japan often take back with them when they leave. Another is the practice of removing your (utterly filthy, inevitably) outdoor shoes when you enter the house.

I read Shogun as a kid (great book, for a little kid) and going back home to the USA and using the toilet there always reminds me of the scenes where the European sailors that shipwrecked in Japan sit around scratching their fleas and scoffing at the Japs' grotesque habit of bathing every day... _gross_

<comment><USER9> Never met any Americans/westerners/etc who wear shoes in the house. They all walk barefoot.

<comment><USER8> Yes, the overwhelming majority of Americans in the USA do wear shoes in the house. I myself did it too, until age 19 (when I moved to Japan).

[http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Consumer/story?id=5177409](http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Consumer/story?id=5177409)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/18ekqf/as_a_canad...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/18ekqf/as_a_canadian_do_americans_really_wear_their/)

[http://www.quora.com/Do-real-Americans-wear-shoes-indoors- as...](http://www.quora.com/Do-real-Americans-wear-shoes-indoors-as-portrayed- in-sitcom-TV-shows)

[https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101011193926A...](https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101011193926AA37Ox3)

<comment><USER10> It is actually a really strange thing. There seems to be pockets of people in various countries that either wear shoes inside or not but can't imagine doing the opposite and assumes everybody in their city/state/country is like them.

Interesting point: You also never see people on TV shows and movies taking their shoes off when they go to a house but I imagine this might be mainly due to the show not wanting to break up the action.

<comment><USER11> The question is: do you often see people taking their shoes off when they go to a house on Japanese TV shows and movies?

<comment><USER8> Yes, you do. It would be weird enough not to that it would jar the suspension of disbelief.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I first came to Thailand, I was appalled when one of my friends told me the pistol nozzle (like we use in the US for doing dishes) next to every Thai toilet[1] was for spraying yourself after using the bathroom.

This was disgusting to me at first.

Echoing a few other comments, I feel like a bidet is something you have to experience yourself before you trust it. Once you do though, I think you are forever changed.

On my last trip back to the states, I remember feeling perpetually disgusted that all I had to clean myself with was paper. It's disgusting - <USER2> even... you're just smearing waste all over yourself.

If you don't feel like spending the money to install a Japanese bidet, a Thai "bum gun" might be a more wallet-friendly option.

[1] - [http://thatluckyboy.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/05/bum_gun_t...](http://thatluckyboy.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/05/bum_gun_tribute1.jpg)

<comment><USER13> Those are ubiquitous in Northern Europe as well—yes, including all public bathrooms.

<comment><USER14> Are you sure about Northern Europe? I live in Sweden and I haven't encountered anything like that here. (They are common in Finland, though)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One thing I haven't really understood is why exactly is a Indian toilet seat seen as inferior to the English toilet seat.

\- True that the English seat occupies less space, but its adoption has not always been based on space savings.

\- True that sitting appears more gentleman like, rather than sitting half subtended in air, but hey who is watching?

\- True that elderly find the english version easier to use because of the supporting nature of the seat, but its not a hard rule. A hybrid of both (Anglo-Indian) seat is more suited to them, and ailing patients.

\- The Indian version is more hygienic, as no part of your body directly touches any part of the seat. Besides superior genital cleanliness over time due to wider leg positions.

\- The Indian version is decisively easier to clean/maintain compared to the English version.

\- Moreover the Indian version, is more suited to over-weight people than a English version.

\- And relatively, due to its production in labor intensive market such as India/China, the Indian version is cost-efficient, suited for developing nations, who still have a fairly large population that needs proper sanitation structures.

<comment><USER16> \- Plus squatting is a better posture for properly emptying yourself.

Although sitting for longer than 5 minutes is painful and gets worse with age.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, that drawback can be seen as a JUST motivation for not taking your time in the toilet always. Even 5 minutes saved one time, is equal to 10-15 minutes everyday. 70-100 minutes a week and around 60-90 hours a year to put that into perspective.

<comment><USER17> I find my time on the toilet quite productive, it's usually when I have Eureka moments.

<comment><USER15> I figured so, occasionally it is the same for me. But I didn't say everyone should be saving time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Another thing that gets overlooked is the built-in faucet at the top to rinse off hands such that every tank of water gets used twice:

[http://demenglog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/toilet- seat-...](http://demenglog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/toilet-seat- topcimg0688--large--my-japan-blog-pwtuo0c4.jpg)

<comment><USER19> And _another_ thing that gets overlooked is that the toilet is always in a separate room from the rest of the bathroom (washbasin and tub). It seems weird at first that you have to go down the hall into a phonebooth-sized compartment to do your business. But then you go back to visit family in America and can't stop noticing that you poop 3 feet away from where you brush your teeth...

<comment><USER20> I actually have that in my apartment in SF. It may be because it's a three bedroom place with only one bath though. It's nice because someone can use the toilet while the shower is in use, but then you have to walk to the kitchen to wash your hands....wish someone had the foresight to add the faucet-top toilet ;)

<comment><USER21> why not add it yourself?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you're thinking about buying one of these, I can highly recommend the Toto S300e ([http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009IJ2LM4](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009IJ2LM4)) or, if you live in Asia, the TCF4722CS ([http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=23047236820](http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=23047236820)).

These 'washlet' toilet seats can be retro-fitted to normal toilets. It's really easy as long as the flush-water inlet to your toilet has a standard fitting. Oh, and assuming you have a suitable power socket near the toilet. The manual recommends a GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) socket.

<comment><USER18> There are also cheaper compromises that only replace the toilet lid instead of the entire toilet and without requiring a hot water line. I bought this version last year for $250 but it's $350 now:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005XNW1Q0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005XNW1Q0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005XNW1Q0&linkCode=as2&tag=0xgfeujusf-20)

<comment><USER22> "There are also cheaper compromises that only replace the toilet lid instead of the entire toilet and without requiring a hot water line."

Both the models I recommended are of this type (they are just a seat, and they don't require a hot water line).

I considered the model you recommended. The main reason I went for the higher- priced models is that they are higher-power, and can heat the incoming water in real-time. The more inexpensive Toto models are lower power, but compensate by having a built-in tank to store water. I guessed (but did not verify) that, on occasion, the tank could run out of hot water before I was done.

Does the tank on the B100 always have enough hot water for you?

<comment><USER18> > Does the tank on the B100 always have enough hot water for you?

Yup, it was enough for my pregnant wife when she was staying at home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I remember my first visit to a Japanese toilet. I noticed all the buttons after I finished my business and stood up.

 _Wow! What do these do?_ I bent over the toilet bowl and pushed a button at random...

<comment><USER24> All Japanese models have a pressure sensor built into the seat so that no water comes out unless someone is actually sitting on the toilet.

<comment><USER25> That was decidedly not the case when I first visited Japan in 2001. The jet of water that hit the door to the bathroom was quite wet by the time I figured out how to shut the toilet off.

<comment><USER26> A bidet in a London hotel around 2003 managed to hit me in the eye. I was a clear metre from the bowl. A mistake you make once and then not again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was about to sleep but definitely had to add my contribution to bum washing. Most Indian toilets have a water faucet next to your seat. You always wash with water using your left hand(Right one is reserved for more auspicious occasions like eating food or shaking hands). I still remember the horror of my first trip to US and finding that you have to use rough sheets of paper to essentially scrath it off. But on the flip side, toilets in India are always damp and dirty with filthy cess pools of mold and .... God help you if you ever have to use a public toilet in India.

</comment><comment><USER28> You will probably hate me for giving some graphic details but I had never used Toilet paper for the first 21 years of my life.(I am 22 BTW). I didn't even use a bidet. Just my left hand and water. I know this might be considered very disgusting but it is very common from where I am.

<comment><USER29> I'm curious: Did you first try using toilet paper in another country/region, or it something that has recently been introduced to where you grew up?

<comment><USER28> I still don't use toilet paper. I used one when I had access to it(in a hotel). I knew toilet paper existed as once when I saw it in movies or read about it.

<comment><USER30> Can I inquire as to where you grew up? I've genuinely never heard of anyone using just their hand, but I suppose it makes sense for poorer parts of the world. (no offense intended whatsoever)

<comment><USER28> India. No offense taken. FWIW, I can afford toilet paper. I just don't use it as I am habituated to using my hand. In case you are wondering, I can guarantee that the number of people who use their hand to clean their bottoms is much more than the combined population of USA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> _Sorry to sound 'negative', but..._

I don't know if this is the way the future is going to pan out - water is an increasingly scarce resource and, as it is, we waste a gallon or so of water to lift one's leavings up and over the u-bend.

Of all people Bill Gates is probably the expert on what toilets will really be like in the future, allegedly water, toilets, sanitation and health is something he is most interested in.

Personally, although I am not into 'standing desks' I am into 'standing toilets', as in the humble urinal. One's aim is easier and there is no seat to remember to put down for the next user. Less water is wasted. I would want one at home so as to avoid 'female complaints' regarding the state of things. Ideally the outflow from the adjacent sink would keep it clean so water wastage really would be minimal. It would be in a room of its own, a very small room with no need for anyone female to ever enter it.

I recently replaced an extractor fan in a bathroom. I thought that a quiet fan would be preferable and I was disappointed with the noise made. However, then I realised the real purpose of the fan, it is to make noise to disguise the sound of one leaving one's leavings. I believe that the Japanese toilets have some of this functionality too. Can anyone confirm that?

<comment><USER32> I suppose it depends on where you live. If you live in Arizona it might end up being an issue due to the energy cost of processing the water for reuse. However, if you live in Chicago you aren't going to have a shortage of water anytime soon.

I don't really get these water shortage scares people talk about. I can see how it is an issue in remote/poor areas around the world, but a country like the US has nothing to worry about. If fresh water reserves get low we can always desalinate seawater. There are engineering challenges and energy costs to do that, but both are solvable issues. No one is going to die from thirst.

<comment><USER33> I think a large part of the problem is that it's a "tragedy of the commons" situation. We won't see a huge investment in better recycling and desalinization until it's absolutely required, which would mean that we've already destroyed some aquifers permanently, in some places causing entire aquifers to become unrecoverable [0].

No one is going to die from thirst? Maybe. But a lot of the water loss is in the food-producing middle of the country. People are already starving in the US, and increased food prices will only exacerbate the situation. [1]

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquifer#Subsidence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquifer#Subsidence) (sections subsidence, saltwater intrusion, and salination)

[1] [https://water.usgs.gov/edu/gwdepletion.html](https://water.usgs.gov/edu/gwdepletion.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In the spirit of too much information that is this thread. I was given a lavette bottle after giving birth, and I've continued using it quite often.

[http://www.amazon.com/Lavette-Bottle-Perineal-Irrigation- DYN...](http://www.amazon.com/Lavette-Bottle-Perineal-Irrigation- DYND70125H/dp/B000VSXSX2/)

It's an even cheaper alternative to the cold water attachment, it's portable, and you can fill it with warm water.

<comment><USER35> This seems interesting. It looks like a regular sports bottle. The comments on that item suggest there are more and smaller holes than a single large opening, for a better flow for this application. Is that the only difference?

How does one use it? Is there a straw inside that draws from the bottom of the bottle? Do you need to position it upright, or upside down?

These two seem more natural to use, If you didn't have your bottle already, would one of these be more interesting?

[http://www.amazon.com/Hygienna-Solo-Portable-Cleaning- Soluti...](http://www.amazon.com/Hygienna-Solo-Portable-Cleaning- Solution/dp/B00CDPCHLU/) [http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Bidet- BB-20-Portable/dp/B004IW5IT...](http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Bidet- BB-20-Portable/dp/B004IW5ITO)

<comment><USER34> The number, shape, and size of holes seem well suited for the bottle's purpose. There's no straw, but you can hold it upright or upside down as long as it's not close to empty.

I think I would buy the same one I have over one of those. For this application, I think I value simplicity.

Women might have slightly different requirements for this than men too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Japanese (and increasingly Korean) toilets are amazing. I love visiting my in- laws and just using their toilets and feeling unbelievably civilized.

My wife, refuses to get one, or even the fancy seat attachments because...tbh...they're freaking expensive. I can basically refit all the toilets in my house for less than the discount price for a single seat...and that's not including the cost of the electrician to put a power source near just one of my toilets.

There's also lots of research in her home country that women shouldn't use the bidets in these toilets for various reasons particular to their anatomy.

To compare, a Glacier Bay 2-piece high efficiency dual flush elongated toilet is <$100 at my local home depot.

Toto Washlet S350e seat with heated seat and warm water bidet is $1,700. I frequently see cheaper Korean versions at my local Asian Market for $800-1200. I saw one at Costco for $650 the other day.

If they want to penetrate the market, they need to drop the price significantly, corner the market, then start cranking the price up faster than inflation.

</comment><comment><USER37> In case anyone was curious, ビデ is read as "bidet" (i.e. squirt water up your ass).

This among the many reasons why it's helpful to at least learn to read kana before visiting, as it makes a lot of things easier--there are an awful lot of English words written in kana that you can decipher (well, French in this particular case, but you get the point I hope).

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually bidet button is usually for women, I wouldn't advise pressing it unless you are one, or you will get a blast of water significantly forward of the desired target. おしり(oshiri) is the button thats useful to both sexes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Maybe the hold traditional toilets have on us is another example of the triumph of "worse is better."

Whatever else you want to say about them, they are closer to the UNIX tradition than Japanese toilets.

</comment><comment><USER39> Japanese baths are great, too - you can wash your body before getting into the tub, so you're not stewing in your own filth.

<comment><USER40> In Iceland you are required to wash before entering a swimming pool. you're likely to be stopped by an employee if you don't

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Toto makes _travel washlets_. Imagining travel without one is like trying to remember how we used to code before Google and Stackoverflow: yes we did it, for sure, but I just can't fathom how. It's also a relatively cheap and easy way to get acquianted with this nice facet of civilization. There are other travel washlets, not made by Toto, skip those. Search eBay for toto travel washlet, less than $100 shipped.

I had a particularly bad day at a London client onsite and out of sheer desperation Googled for travel washlet (I have one normal at home and was missing it badly), not that I had any idea how you would even construct one but lo and behold, there it is.

<comment><USER20> I would imagine peri bottles (or close enough, any kind of squeeze bottle) would do something similar in a pinch. I've only heard girlfriends with kids rave about them since it's usually only used after pregnancy, but (to be a bit TMI) pre-IUD years when I had periods, travel squeeze bottles totally saved the day for when wet wipes felt inadequate and I couldn't easily shower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Make sure you flush before you hit the "blow hot air" button. :/

</comment><comment><USER43> I wonder what the effect on overall hygiene is? I wash my hands after every bowl movement, in total (shower, etc) I wash them every 5 hours. Will people now wash their hands less?

</comment><comment><USER44> The future? What about the past?

Washing your butt so it's clean = yeah, that's pretty cool.

Eating the right food (and being lucky to have good digestion) so that normally the paper you wipe with comes up white = priceless.

Of course you'll have to wash your hands, but still, we're not hardwired to make a mess every time we defecate. Maybe you could say that's excessive smoke indicating the engine isn't running right. Japanese toilets aren't a fix, they're a workaround.

</comment><comment><USER45> By the way "bidet" is a french word in the first place and it has nothing to do with washing your arse :) Bidets are small bathtubs-shaped vessels where you actually wash your feet. The reason they existed is because in the past people didn't wash their whole body every single day, and instead they cleaned at least the most dirty / odorant parts of their bodies this way, more often.

<comment><USER46> Actually, the "bidet" is an invention from the early 1700s that was specifically designed to wash intimate parts. The etymology of the word indicates that the bidet is something one rides, by analogy with a small horse.

[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bidet](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bidet) [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet_(meuble)](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet_\(meuble\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> FWIW this was one of the 'tour questions' on Google which had (at least when I was there) several bathrooms equipped with washlets. It really is a nice thing, and one of the engineers put a WattsUp meter on one to see if it was wasting power (answer quite economical). Of course in California using water to wash yourself in a drought is probably the wrong thing to do ...

</comment><comment><USER48> I tried, liked and missed Japanese toilets. I certainly wasn't going to be installing a $1000 Toto in my house, but I waited too long to take a chance on a cheap bidet. For <$50 you can get a bidet on Amazon which, though little more than a valve and a spout, works pretty well.

<comment><USER4> $25 and has been good enough for me. No warm water line, but you can spend $20 more for one that has that if you care.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TPGPUW/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TPGPUW/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Questions, I couldn't find an answer to:

How do you make sure that the water doesn't merely distribute your feces all over your butt?

How do women prevent that feces get sprayed onto or even into their vagina, since the water seems to be coming from the rear side of the toilet?

</comment><comment><USER50> On reading that it seems like you use paper still. I didnt realise this. Do you use the normal paper before or after the water? Seems like after water and drying to me, but potentially much less?

Also, does it do away with the need for women wiping after a pee?

</comment><comment><USER51> Never been to Japan, but from description its the same type of toilets they have in South Korea. Yeah, feel much cleaner, I wonder how is it hard to get same setup in US

</comment><comment><USER52> This guy uses the bidet before wiping? Whenever I'm in Japan I wipe before bidet, that way at least the initial blast of water doesn't spread too much gunk.

</comment><comment><USER53> The most important thing to make Japanese office life happy is to provide a latest Japanese toilets. They do care about it a lot!

</comment><comment><USER54> I have one. I'll never go back.

</comment><comment><USER55> "disinterested"

>:(</comment>


Ask HN: Help Get Each Others Startups on Digg? - <AUTHOR>

Hey,
This idea came to me this morning. Most of us are in the same boat, or at least trying to get there. We all have or are considering perusing startups - mostly web-based ones. Promotion is obviously one of the hardest issues to tackle in the process. I've been a big fan of this community for a good amount of time - mainly because we all have the same focus, and we all contribute so much to help each other. I think, and this is not just for myself, that we should all promote each others sites on Digg - for simple, and effective promotion. Lets make it a precedent for members to post their startups and on top of the constructive reviews and criticism we offer, we can help move the site up Digg for free exposure. Why not?
Again, please don't think I'm doing this just to spam my site around. Of course I'd love the exposure but I truly think we could help each other out with this; as we do with everything else.
If you like my idea, please Digg my site below. And feel free to start posting similar links.
Thanks, Mike
http://digg.com/tech_news/Streetread_Google_Reader_meets_Wall_Street_3 <comment><USER2> I think you'll generally find that Digg is a big waste of time in terms of promoting a site. It takes a reasonable amount of effort to get anywhere near the front page, and then when you do you get a crush of mostly unqualified traffic from users who are not likely to ever visit your site again.

Self-submissions and "Digg groups" rarely ever work to elevate you above the bowels of the "Upcoming" pages. One of the things that Digg seems to be particularly good at is detecting this sort of activity.

Your time is better spent improving your app and promoting it where it is relevant. Wait for someone else to take an interest in it and let them submit to Digg/Mixx/etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree completely, but getting there is a decent start and does help circulate promotion. Why not help each other out?

<comment><USER2> Yes, it's helpful. Just like buying a lottery ticket theoretically means that you stand a chance to win $x^n.

If you can get some interest, then by all means go for it. I just think that you will find that the "exposure" is worth less than the effort required to gain it (and I recognize that the effort is low).

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I've gotten plenty of exposure, I just thought the small effort might go a long way. Plus like I said, it just seems like a good boost we could help each other with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Dugg it, I think I saw you somewhere else a few weeks ago, metafilter?

A stumble question for anybody who knows. I was getting a bunch of traffic from Stumble Upon and decided to throw up a digg button. Of course, it was late and I didn't test it properly, so it essentially broke my site and nobody stumbled it anymore.

Once a site has been stumbled once, and not thumbed up, is there any way to get it going again?

My site is www.hearwhere.com

</comment><comment><USER4> Start with Stumble Upon. Less work and more traffic.

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you get a site popular on Stumble Upon - just get tons of people to favorite it?

<comment><USER4> pretty much. There's no "front page" to get to on stumble upon. Every person who thumbs the site up essentially forwards the stumbled page to everyone on their friends list. Interesting sites propagate through stumble upon very quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea my last site got "stumbled" a bunch of times. Serious amount of traffic but I read that you really are only getting half of what your stats say because of how the software works. Not sure. Still good though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do Unto Other Social News Sites As You Would Have Them Do Unto You?

To try to vote-stuff Digg would be to condone vote-stuffing of News.YC, too.

Alternate suggestion: just submit your site here for peer review. Include a Digg-this button on your entry page, as appropriate. Then those moved to Digg it will... without any unseemly quid-pro-quos or voting bloc behavior.

</comment><comment><USER6> Dugg! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: A site that tracks what technologies a startup uses? - <AUTHOR>

I spend a lot of time looking at startups and wondering what technologies they use. An online database of startups and the things they use to move bits around would be very, very useful in my opinion. Does anyone know if this sort of thing exists? <comment><USER2> I think it would be so useful startups would do whatever they could to stay off it.

Nobody needs their secret sauce exposed like that ;-)

<comment><USER3> The platform their stuff is running on is hardly secret sauce :)

<comment><USER2> Only if you are running the same stuff every other startup is ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> But most folks are. Regardless, I'm surprised no one has started compiling this yet...

<comment><USER2> I'll keep my mouth shut ;-)

Even though I don't work at a startup (quite the contrary, it's a big telco in Brazil)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Federer as a Religious Experience (David Foster Wallace) - <AUTHOR> http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6940897/federer-religious-experience

<comment><USER2> Ah, a blast from the past. This is a classic that gave me a better appreciation for DFW, literary non-fiction and the game of tennis.</comment>


Sorry, but Uber Isn't Conspiring to Fix Ridesharing Prices - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/archives/2016/04/08/sorry-but-uber-isnt-conspiring-to-fix-ri <comment><USER2> "This policy not only benefits drivers, it also benefits customers. Because of dynamic pricing, people can usually get an Uber or Lyft within ten minutes, even in times of high demand. It is simple economics." \- unless you can't afford it.</comment>


HN Notify - <AUTHOR> http://hnnotify.com/ <comment><USER2> Surely I can't be the only one wondering why this kind of functionality isn't just built-in already (with option to enable/disable accordingly)? I mean, the site has been around for about 7 years now, and the whole 'community' aspect seems to be a big selling point, so it just seems odd...

<comment><USER3> An interesting thought. Perhaps users constantly coming back and checking their comments for replies, increases time on site, and the possibility users will interact further and view other posts.

But, the reality is probably that pg is just super busy and does not have the time and bandwidth to build features out. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Reddit does not send notifications on comment replies either.

<comment><USER2> > But, the reality is probably that PG is just super busy and does not have > the time and bandwidth to build features out.

I totally get that, it's the reason I mentioned the 7-year time window though. You'd think that something like that would've been done at some point during all that time by some interns or something by now, even if it was a super low priority. I'm guessing that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy must just be really strong with PG in that case. Or possibly have some deeper reasoning like you mentioned.

> Reddit does not send notifications on comment replies either.

It doesn't _send out_ notifications to your email or whatever, but it does still have a little inbox notification that lights up when you get new replies. Does something similar to that get unlocked here with enough karma? If that's the case, then I wouldn't know...

<comment><USER4> There's no little indicator, however you can click the "threads" link up at the top to see all of your comments and their replies.

<comment><USER5> came here to say that

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool! Any chance to open source it?

I've been running HN alerts via Zapier (my startup) + a webhook polling trigger with a URL like [http://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?&q=yo...](http://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?&q=your_term_here&sortby=create_ts+desc) (which is of course hnsearch.com's API). You can get them delivered via SMS/Twilio, IM/Gtalk/Jabber or plain jane email.

<comment><USER7> It's super simple to write your own. Periodically check [https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments](https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments) and when a new comment appears, get the parent's author and send a notification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I created HNMention ([http://www.hnmention.com/](http://www.hnmention.com/)) a while back.

It will notify you when someone mentions you in comment like how mention works on Twitter (@username).

</comment><comment><USER9> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3004254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3004254)

</comment><comment><USER10> Just wanted to say, thank you for this! I've been using it for a while and it's so useful :)

<comment><USER11> Thanks from me also to the author, I can't remember since when I've been using this - super useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice! What would also be cool would be the following:

-1- Being able to follow a thread you haven't commented on. -2- Being able to follow a comment that is not yours.

The reason behind number 2 is that sometimes, you see an interesting comment and you'd be interested to know what people think about it, so you'll follow it and be notified whenever people reply to it.

<comment><USER13> From the form, it seems you can "subscribe" to any HN handle, not just your own...?

I don't know if you can use the same email for different handles, but with gmail for example you can produce an infinity of different email addresses.

<comment><USER12> I tried to put my e-mail address and "bambax" as HN Username, it returned "bambax is already a registered user of HN Notify."

So you can't use it if the person you want to "follow" is already registered.

Now, I tried "pg" and it subscribed me. The result of this is that if "pg" wanted to subscribe, he wouldn't be allowed.

I tried to unsubscribe. Unsubscription is e-mail based and not handle based. i.e: You can't unsubscribe from just one user, you unsubscribe from all the users, since you're taking out the root (e-mail address).

Now I have to subscribe again to get my own replies.

PS: Been notified of your reply by HNNotify :)

<comment><USER13> Ok, so obviously it needs work! I just subscribed while making the parent comment BTW, and find the service useful.

It would make a lot of sense to allow handles to be monitored by many different people; some users are super popular and I guess many people would like to "follow" them...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is truly super!

I did something similar for RSS feeds and twitter: [http://update- me.herokuapp.com](http://update-me.herokuapp.com) \- it is an RSS reader via Twitter. It DMs you post updates to feeds you subscribe to.

Could I request access to your API? I'm thinking of adding a HN subscription feature to @updt_me, something along the following lines:

1\. User sends a tweet subscribing to thread ID, e.g. @updt_me START HN 6499036

2\. @updt_me pings hnnotify with a callback to setup a subscription for the thread.

3\. hnnotify pings @updt_me with thread-updates via the callback. POST payload, I think?

4\. @updt_me DMs update to the user's twitter inbox! YAY!

I'm sure there's a simpler process than the one I outlined above. If you have any ideas, I'll be glad to hear them! :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Say, what's the etiquette with scraping Hacker News? I thought it was forbidden, and I've seen HN-based tools that closed down because they got blocked. But if this tool is going to crawl HN regularly, presumably they've got that figured out.

</comment><comment><USER16> was literally just thinking about this earlier today

would be nice if there was a chrome extension that added this via reddit-like functionality instead of having to send me an email

</comment><comment><USER17> Ahh. I had a similar desire to code something like this up, but didn't because I found there was some sort if service available on your account called notifo. Wonder what happened to it...

Gl with this service. I definitely wanted it when I've done "ask hn" type things.

How sure are you that the message will get to the notified's inbox? Email delivery is not easily done.

<comment><USER17> Well a little ddg-ing and I got my answer. Looks like notifo is no longer.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for taking the time to check up on it. Also, I love DDG, but I haven't found an appropriate verb to describe the action yet. So far, I've been using 'duckducking'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> You should make one for Stack Overflow: when you ask a SO question, you're literally stuck until someone answers it.

<comment><USER14> Do SO questions come with their own RSS feeds?

If yes, then try using [http://twitter.com/updt_me](http://twitter.com/updt_me) to 'follow' the questions - you'll get a DM whenever there are new answers in the RSS/Atom feed! :)

It's a self-learning project I built over a weekend, so it's kinda rough around the edges, apologies in advance! Do let me know what you think.

<comment><USER19> They do! Also, it turns out you can turn on email notifications to your answers for any question at any time, but only every 3 hours, ever day, or every week. I want them the second they happen, so I'm gonna try your RSS function!

<comment><USER14> Well, to be honest with you, I poll feeds with an hourly cronjob. So you may not get the DMs the second they happen, but you'll get them within the hour for sure... :-)

Good luck and tell me what you think. Also, any feedback would be truly really appreciated.

<comment><USER19> Appreciate the feedback - I still may try it, but that's not going to cut it for me. I'd still love to see it working though, so next question I ask I'll hook it up

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Nice service, well done!

Needs a verification email, though. I get people signing up my email for pissweak revenge, and I have someone who signed up to iTunes using my email addres by mistake, and Apple spam doesn't have an unsubscribe link ...

</comment><comment><USER21> I definitely don't need more notifications! :)

I don't, but I like projects that expand the functionality of an application. For example things like [https://www.hnsearch.com](https://www.hnsearch.com) .

</comment><comment><USER22> I was just thinking the other day how much I missed notifo doing this.

would be nice if it could send notifications via one of the HN iphone clients or at least text message though</comment>


Why America Shouldn't Dominate the World - <AUTHOR> https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2020-02-10/price-primacy <comment><USER2> Meh, better to let China rule the world. It's not like the US wanted to do all the heavy lifting in the Balkans, Libya and Syria. We should have just let the EU flail about and then charged them for our services like the KSA in 91. Get their 2% gdp one way or another.

And not that an EU with 10x the GDP of Russia be able to protect itself. Let us carry 60% of that burden and sit in our corner be a good boy.

<comment><USER3> You're so clueless I hope you're a troll !

The US military runs a very profitable protection racket, Trump made it just more obvious than the previous presidents.

Do you really think the US military has bases in 90% of the world just because they are good boys and want to promote democracy, really ?

<comment><USER2> You economic determinists are so precious, the world passes you by like the water under your bridge.

I'm going to go drive my Ferrari now, from all my gains from the Balkans, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd vote to let Canada run the world. Killem with kindness! Plus adding Boxing Day would be a big plus.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Scale the paywall: [https://archive.is/zAH7Z](https://archive.is/zAH7Z)</comment>


How one 1983 exercise nearly triggered WWIII - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/wargames-for-real-how-one-1983-exercise-nearly-triggered-wwiii/ <comment><USER2> It's amazing how eager some people are to call something, anything, WWIII. But it's not doing it for me anymore, I'm beyond the shock value. Therefore I hereby suggest that we consider WWIII as the war that never materialized, and close the book altogether. Let's aim for World Peace I instead.

<comment><USER3> "Let's aim for World Peace I instead."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time)

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The US was even funding the mujaheddin fighting them, [...] (those trainees > including a young Saudi inspired to jihad by the name of Osama bin Laden)

Looks like Ronald Reagan was just as responsible for ISIS as George W. Bush.</comment>