What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Ent]

Were naval vessels, perhaps the smaller ones, equipped with boiling-water reactors, rather than the pressurized-water reactors needing heat exchangers?

Yes. Part of my work was in the maintenance of the nuclear reactor coolant systems on some of the first nuc subs.
The old 'raise the rods to boil the water to make steam and shove it through pipes' systems. 'Lower the rods to slow down the nuclear interactions, to cool the system again'.
They were all pressurized steam piping systems.

We needed to run all the water in those systems through an intriguing filtration system to be sure we 'removed any radioactive materials' from the water before we discharged it at sea.

Some folks were very concerned we were 'discharging radioactive water'. (better stated, simply 'water that had passed through a radioactive system at some point.)

The fact was, the water we discharged had a lower measurable radioactive content level than the tap water people were drinking.

Now the filters that removed the content from the water? Those were an entirely different matter, of course.

Those were fun times in several ways.
I also got to play around with the radioactive isotopes and calibration of the instruments that measured the radiation levels. Fun fun fun.
And yes, in spite of so many fears by so many people in those days, babies were still able to be made.

Fond memories. Vietnam. People back home and their attitudes and excesses. "What a world, what a world." (Wicked witch of the West, 1939 Wizard of Oz.)

 

[Olorgando]

The old 'raise the rods to boil the water to make steam and shove it through pipes' systems. 'Lower the rods to slow down the nuclear interactions, to cool the system again'.
They were all pressurized steam piping systems.

The rods would be the control rods containing neutron-absorbing elements. The difference between the BWR and the PWR systems is that the steam produced in the former is used directly to turn the turbines (and generators), so there is no barrier between the nuclear core and the turbine. The latter have a closed water circulation system (with very high pressure) in which the primary water circuit that is in contact with the nuclear core gives off its heat to a heat exchanger (not sure if the primary circuit produces steam, I think not), with the heat produced in the exchangers producing the (secondary circuit) steam that drives the turbines.

 

[Deimos]

Yes. Part of my work was in the maintenance of the nuclear reactor coolant systems on some of the first nuc subs.
...

Those were fun times in several ways.
I also got to play around with the radioactive isotopes and calibration of the instruments that measured the radiation levels. Fun fun fun.
And yes, in spite of so many fears by so many people in those days, babies were still able to be made.
..
.

While going to university my brother worked for Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals for a couple of years, packing radioactive isotopes for shipment to the hospitals.
When he would come home we would ask him to stand him at the end of the hall (after we went to bed) and use him for a night-light.
.
.
.
I lied.
We really never asked him to do that.....he volunteered.

 

[Ent]

The rods would be the control rods containing neutron-absorbing elements. The difference between the BWR and the PWR systems is that the steam produced in the former is used directly to turn the turbines (and generators), so there is no barrier between the nuclear core and the turbine. The latter have a closed water circulation system (with very high pressure) in which the primary water circuit that is in contact with the nuclear core gives off its heat to a heat exchanger (not sure if the primary circuit produces steam, I think not), with the heat produced in the exchangers producing the (secondary circuit) steam that drives the turbines.

Yep, that is correct.

 

[Ent]

I found him a skilled writer-- much more so than Clancy .

OK.
I'm reading Master Sniper now. This is a 'first book' for him? Indeed he does have some writer skills. On several levels.
(Note I didn't say 'writing skills', but 'writer skills.' More on that later perhaps.)

Got to the end of 5, our first real 'meeting of' Repp. Unusual. Hard for most early writers to withhold a main player that long, yet sustain the story. (His name is only mentioned twice prior to this point, and with no particular context, though there's an inkling he's going to figure later.)

Hunter's already set a great deal afoot playing significantly into later in the game. Assuming my guesswork is right on certain points, he could have been a little more subtle perhaps. We'll see. If so, I'll look forward to seeing how he develops in his subtlety in his later works.

Noteworthy: I'm talking more about the 'content of the work' than the raw skill-sets relating to his handling of his written word.
Unusual for me so early in the game. Normally I'm still determining whether I'm scrapping the book or not.
There hasn't been a single sentence setting my teeth on edge - and he employs some unusual methods to both develop characters and set them into their situations and backgrounds well.

I'm intrigued.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I'm glad you're enjoying it.

 

[Vorondil]

A Fearful Freedom, its about a wounded British soldier who got left behind during the fall of Singapore in WW2.

 

[Ent]

its about a wounded British soldier

Apparently a true story, if I read the presentation materials rightly. Would certainly bring out an aspect and perspective of war we rarely pay attention to.
Let me know your take on it.
(This particular thread keeps loading me up with new avenues to explore..!)

 

[Vorondil]

Apparently a true story, if I read the presentation materials rightly. Would certainly bring out an aspect and perspective of war we rarely pay attention to.
Let me know your take on it.
(This particular thread keeps loading me up with new avenues to explore..!)

Well I can already tell you that I would not like to fight in Burma and places like that, and that the Japanese were almost inhuman in their treatment of, well, anyone they felt like being nasty to at the time.

 

[Ent]

I can already tell you

Indeed, hatred comes from many sources. It also knows no bounds in its forms and expression. Ent was blessed to live beside a Japanese couple who were deported to one of the camps in California. They and all the members of their extended family were among those who lost everything in the war. They watched one man that was with them on the train to the camp choked to death by a large American female guard, screaming "you killed my son, yoiu killed my son." Of course...that particular person had nothing to do with the death of her son, but her hatred was unleashed at a race.

The wife was directly from Japan...she actually met her husband while they were in the camp, through one of the cloth walls separating the men from the women. Her own country hated her for being 'American'. America hated her because she was "Japanese". She felt very, very alone.

Indeed, inhumanity is different than atrocity in some ways...but perhaps only in form. There are many ways to kill, and many ways to die.
We see all of them still in play daily, in many corners of the world. We have never existed without it.

War is never a good thing.
But mankind is incapable of growing out of it.

 

[Vorondil]

Indeed, hatred comes from many sources. It also knows no bounds in its forms and expression. Ent was blessed to live beside a Japanese couple who were deported to one of the camps in California. They and all the members of their extended family were among those who lost everything in the war. They watched one man that was with them on the train to the camp choked to death by a large American female guard, screaming "you killed my son, yoiu killed my son." Of course...that particular person had nothing to do with the death of her son, but her hatred was unleashed at a race.

Actually, what made the Japanese so inhuman is that it was not hatred that made them torture and kill a lot of people, it was just that the people the they killed did not matter. I'm not saying all Japanese thought this way, I mean the ones who tied people to trees and tortured them for no good reason were inhuman and orcish.

 

[Ent]

orcish.

Oh, my. The Orcs are now offended, having been singled out. Anticipate some blowback. 😆
I certainly don't disagree with you. I'm just not sure we can separate hatred from a conclusion that lives don't matter. It is very likely the two issues are completely intertwined. (And there are other factors involved as well.)

I suppose this is all a discussion for another forum though... perhaps The Floating Log under a thread of "what drives human inhumanity?" or "What sears the mind to the point that human lives just don't matter?" It's a very deep subject.

Problem is keeping it out of both the political and religious arenas...

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

The book Flags of our Fathers will give some perspective on what caused this kind of behavior in the Japanese army.

 

[Deimos]

Oh, my. The Orcs are now offended, having been singled out. Anticipate some blowback. 😆
I certainly don't disagree with you. I'm just not sure we can separate hatred from a conclusion that lives don't matter. It is very likely the two issues are completely intertwined. (And there are other factors involved as well.)

I suppose this is all a discussion for another forum though... perhaps The Floating Log under a thread of "what drives human inhumanity?" or "What sears the mind to the point that human lives just don't matter?" It's a very deep subject.

Problem is keeping it out of both the political and religious arenas...

I'm going to mention religion, but only because it's necessary to understand the backdrop of the story.
Christian missionaries to areas of the world that had tribal societies (Africa, Middle east, Interior of Australia, South Am etc) reported that very often the indigenous people had no problem accepting the tenants of Christianity. They already had been accustomed to worshipping a deity (or deities) and obeying a moral code.
(btw All societies from the least developed to the most developed have a moral code whence their "civil" laws are derived, e.g. not stealing, not arbitrarily killing someone... unless you were the boss/chief/HMFWIC...RHIP 😉)

The difficulty the missionaries had was in convincing the people of Tribe A that Tribe B was also people and not animals.
Tribe A looked at Tribe B as their enemy (and vice-versa) because they were very often competing for the same limited resources.
That alone made the opposing tribe a threat to the other tribe's existence, to be enslaved or obliterated.
In every society there is a word or expression that means "my people/tribe " and also a word/expression that means "not my people/tribe".
A "people" will also have derogatory names for the "not my people/tribes", e.g., dogs, jackals, snakes etc.

In many languages (including English) the word 'foreigner' has several meanings besides "someone from another country".
It can mean a "stranger" (often the first definition in some languages ) and also "enemy".
No society could know if a stranger (or worse, a group of strangers) that showed up on its doorstep was there in goodwill, or to steal the livestock/ women, strip the cropland, or just plain take over and enslave the current inhabitants.

Hence the not surprising attitude toward foreigners, they are a threat, they are animals, and killing one or many is no differnt than killing a snake or herd of wild boars that are tearing up your crops and fouling your water supply.
The Missionaries had a very tough time convincing, say, a middle eastern tribe that they shoudn't kill another tribe for using a well belonging to the first (recall the scene in Lawrence of Arabia when Lawrence first meets Sherif Ali at the well).

And sadly, as Ent observed not only has that attitude not changed, it's not likely to be easily changed, ever.
It requires a constant and conscious act of the will to treat the stranger civilly, as you would want yourself and family to be treated.

 

[Ent]

It requires a constant and conscious act of the will to treat the stranger civilly, as you would want yourself and family to be treated.

Thank you for the input, Deimos.

In short, though himanity likes to think it's risen 'above the animals', it yet behaves just as the animals do both at a fundamental level, and without even realizing it. (In fact, most would decry the truth they do... as wars continue, republicans hate democrats, races continue to hate other races, and peoples within races continue to hate other peoples.)

the one who has truly divested themselves from the animal level of thinking is a very rare bird indeed.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Now, let's get back to books!

For some "impending doom"- laden reading, I highly recommend the interwar novels of Alan Furst. I think I may have mentioned him here before. They're interconnected, in a way, in that one character may run into one from a different book, but any can be picked up and read out of "order".

 

[Deimos]

@Ent... please keep in mind that, tho' "republicans hate democrats", the converse is also just as true 😉

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I see my "hint" didn't take, so . . .

Let's keep politics off the forum, OK?

 

[Deimos]

I see my "hint" didn't take, so . . .

Let's keep politics off the forum, OK?

Sorry, I made my post before I saw your "hint".

 

[Vorondil]

I'm back in Middle Earth again with The Children Of Hurin.