Nuclear bombs & Nuclear power plants

It is interesting, because I remember doing Duck & Cover drills at school for nuclear blasts. I also remember asking my teacher why. See, since I was already a science fiction kid growing up on such, I knew that if we were close enough to feel the blast, we were going to be close enough for the radiation...which would almost certainly kill us. She just told me to get under the desk and be quiet.

When the topic is brought up, people will bring up the Fukashima (sp?), Three Mile Island, or Chernobyl incidents. They just also leave out the important details....
Fukashima failed due to a crazy earthquake & tsunami.
Three Mile Island was far more fear than actual event.
Chernobyl was ineptitude and bad engineering.

We will also be prone to natural disasters, but they can be mitigated as much as possible. As for fear & ineptitude, those can be dealt with. We are certainly better engineers now.

As for the GND, I liked the analogy of the list to Santa. That's pretty much on track. I said it in Philosophy class in College and was immediately scoffed at, but I said "A theoretical belief without real-world application is a useless waste of time." The Prof remained quiet to see the classes response. Of course the Philosophy Majors got all bent out of shape, while kids who majored in the Practical Sciences (Bio, Chem, Engineering groups), just sort of nodded. Ideas are good and all, but without the ability to apply them, you're wasting your time. And my time. And all of our money.

~Jeordam