Lawrence Berkeley National Lab | Berkeley, CA | Scientific Engineering Associate

We use computer vision and machine learning to improve gamma-ray radiation detection and mapping. For example, we have used these techniques to map contamination, in real-time, in 3-D in Fukushima, Japan. We integrate LiDAR and visual sensors with gamma-ray detectors on handheld and aerial platforms (UAVs).

We are looking for an engineer who is interested in working with computer vision sensors. This can include: building multi-sensor packages with small computers, designing and implementing algorithms and analyzing data. We use ROS, Linux and scientific Python. Some interest/background in physics could be helpful. https://lbl.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&...

it might be an ode to boings skunkworks witch designed a lot of their specialized planes, like the SR-71 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works

Lockheed Martin, not Boeing.

This is similar to nuclear gamma-ray imaging, such as in medical application, where the number of counts is inherently low because the high energy photons are more penetrating and thus escape the camera.

It was said that "Trane was the father, Pharoah was the son and I am the Holy Ghost" by Albert ayler, referring to three different saxophone players. I suppose this completes the religious metaphor

Commercial power reactors are very expensive initially (multiple billions). This is a huge barrier to entry for most power plants. So the thinking is if the size can be reduced so can the cost.

The military is interesting because they already have small reactors in submarines and ships. And they have access to the highest grade fuel because they don't have to follow power plant regulations. So it seems like if these modular reactors would be useful to them, they could easily adapt these reactors for land use.

This startup is hard to gauge because there's so few actual details about their design. For example, how are they going to use thorium as a fuel? You can't just use thorium without a strong neutron starter source or some other fuel engineering.

'It can burn any fuel' is just code for 'we have no real core design yet'. But it doesn't matter, because no nuclear fuel is significantly better than any other, and they're all thousands of times better than alternatives.

Thorium is always used in mixed cores. An accelerator-driven thorium reactor will contain uranium from breeding even if no uranium is ever loaded into it.

There are core designs for low enriched uranium loading, mixed thorium loading, and spent fuel loadings. Have to make sure a fuel design works before it's claimed to work.

With 12 years of burnup? I've been having trouble getting burnup codes to handle thorium. What are you using? Apparently I should be using Serpent.

But anyway, 12 years is too long, even if it's feasible. Something like 4 years should be better, due to the learning curve on these. For instance, think of a reactor in the field as a ship on a long trip while technology at home continues to improve

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wait_Calculation

Edit: The lower the enrichment, and the lower the excess reactivity, the better.

The concept is to start small to overcome cost and regulatory barriers more quickly and for less.

And yes, we kick start using thorium with low enriched uranium or spent fuel to build up U233. Then we just keep reusing the thorium fuel over multiple refueling periods without reprocessing or separations until it is depleted.

It's interesting that a lot of these instruments are electronic recreations of pre-existing instruments. As a saxophone player who has played an EWI, the electronic versions take time to learn and often end up feeling not as expressive.

Also their interface for tracking plays has gotten significantly worse. And you have to pay extra to get most of the same information you get for free from youtube.

>And you have to pay extra to get most of the same information you get for free from youtube.

Well Youtube has advertisements, and soundcloud doesn't. Someone is still paying for you to get that information, it's just not you, on youtube. I do agree that their interface has gotten worse, though. Especially for tracking.

Directions are routed away from the bridge while it's closed, so maybe they removed it for this reason.

To everyone bashing Intellectual Ventures, the key here is that TerraPower is a spinoff. They are becoming independent of IV precisely because they don't want to be a patent troll.

Also one LOL of having Bill Gates fund your nuclear company is you end up with the biggest Windows cluster for simulations.

Source: I'm a PhD student in nuclear engineering with friends working at TerraPower.

And we get some idea of the power requirements for Windows 10???

:-)

I saw a presentation about Blaze at PyData. The CEO of Continuum was the author of Numpy and said they are doing everything he would have done differently in Blaze.

Also, Blaze is attempting to abstract the concept of having huge arrays distributed across multiple systems, clusters, clouds, whatever. So imagine having large distributed arrays that you can easily perform computations on. Could be very powerful if it works as planned.