i love how half the pic is calm and serene, and the other half just absolute madness. Much like life

I didn't realise you were bootstrapping. Dealing with financial stress while building a company is a diff ballgame. I was under the impression you were funded by fiatjaf fund through Jack, HRF funds and opensats. What's the cost contributors for running a nostr client like this ? And what's the runway like ? What happens when funds deplete ? Are you heading for a revenue based model early in game or will you be raising funds again through grants / equity?

I really like how JFK handled tension with Khrushchev without appearing confrontational in '61. This led to private talks in '62 to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis and initiate global peace efforts between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Sadly, JFK died in '63, and Khrushchev was ousted in '64.

https://youtu.be/YUG9AAsq6Sk

I picked up this book 'Nuclear Power Explained' by Dirk Eidemuller to understand nuclear power and the historical context during the nuclear euphoria era. I’ll share a bit on the history part. Note: I haven't seen the movie 'Oppenheimer' yet.

Some key highlights :

In 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann's experiments accidentally found barium forming when they irradiated uranium with neutrons. Splitting uranium atoms was not a norm at that time. This new finding was the start of the nuclear era.

(Flashback to 1934 - Enrico Fermi conducted similar experiment in irradiating uranium with neutrons but did not spot anything)

Fission vs. Fusion

Fission splits heavy nuclei into smaller ones, whereas fusion combines light nuclei into heavier ones.

Fission is used in nuclear reactors and atomic bombs, while fusion is the process that powers stars (energy is produced when hydrogen nuclei combine to form helium). The goal of developing fusion-based power generation on Earth is still work-in-progress. Thermonuclear bombs (super bombs) use fusion as well.

Otto Hahn collaborated with Lisa Meitner, Germany's first female physics professor, who fled to Sweden due to Nazi persecution. Lisa encouraged Hann to repeat Fermi’s experiment with high precision. Lisa Meitner and her cousin Otto Frisch analyzed the results and coined the term "fission."

(Note : Women physicist were gaining popularity during that time - Marie Claire, nuclear physics, won 2 nobel price for her work)

1938 - Otto Hann and Lisa published their results. Nuclear physicists worldwide were in disbelief.

- Albert Einstein didn’t think it was possible.He said that the whole thing would be like shooting at “birds in the dark in a country where there are few birds.”

- Ernest Rutherford (who introduced the atom particle model in 1911 ) thought that it was an absurd idea to try to generate energy in this way. Note : both Rutherford and Bohr introduced the atom particle model, both had a central nucleus and electrons. Bohr’s model was more detailed and led to quantum mechanics and modern behaviour of atoms.

1939 - WW2 started on Sep 1, 1939

1941 - Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii

Flashback to 1933 -Leo Szilard thought of the nuclear chain reaction concept - whereby one nuclear reaction triggers a series of additional nuclear reactions, releasing a significant amount of energy. This is fundamental for nuclear reactors and weapons. He figured this out the same year he was fleeing from one country to another from Hitler. He tried to share this idea to Rutherford but got kicked out of the office.

When Otto Hann’s paper was released 5 years later, he became certain of this feasibility and built a patent for this.

Albert Einstein's E=mc^2 links energy and mass, and while this concept is based on space and time and initially unrelated to nuclear, it also explained nuclear fission's energy release.

Slizard, who was a long time friend of Einstein, reached out and shared the nuclear reaction theory and its potential for killer weapons. They were worried Nazis might build it first and bomb the US.

They wrote to President Roosevelt to establish research for nuclear weapons to counter a possible attack. To add to suspicion, Germany halted uranium sales from occupied Czechoslovak mines.

(Einstein later on said he regretted this letter after witnessing the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If he knew Germany wouldn't succeed in making an atomic bomb, he wouldn't have taken action)

Alexander Sachs, a friend of Szilárd and Roosevelt delivered the letter but Roosevelt was not interested. Concurrently Germany invaded Poland, the tension was rising.

Sachs apparently used the analogy of Robert Fulton proposing steamships to Napoleon (to up the notch on traditional sail ships) to convince Roosevelt of the need for a large-scale nuclear research program.

1942 - Roosevet finally agreed

The scientists formed a committee. Military were initially skeptical and wanted to cut costs. The scientists received $6,000 to start the Manhattan Project.

The First Nuclear Reactor: Chicago Pile-1 - a group of popular physicists, including Enrico Fermi and Leó Szilárd, designed the first nuclear reactor ever built by humans. It had 5.4 tons of pure uranium metal and another 45 tons of uranium oxide.

The first nuclear reactor is underneath an unused grandstand of the University of Chicago’s football stadium.

1942 - The first test was on Dec 2. If the chain reaction went awry, a worker would use an axe to cut a rope and release an emergency control rod above the reactor. There was also an automatic shutdown system, and someone ready to pour cadmium salt from above, which stops the chain reaction.

It was a success - the reactor ran at minimum power to initiate a nearly self-sustaining chain reaction.

This led to more reactors and bomb-grade plutonium to be produced.

(note : if you are reading up to here, plutoniums are man-made, and not mined from earth the same way uranium, minerals and ores are)

France was quickly occupied in the war, and its nuclear research material was brought to Germany.

The Soviet Union put in very little effort on the atomic bomb during this time as they needed to fight against the Nazis.

In Japan, too, nuclear research proceeded slowly.

In Germany, multiple research groups operated within the "Uranium Association" also known as “Uranverein”. Popular figures like Werner Heisenberg, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Walther Gerlach worked on it but failed to activate it.

In England, German- Austrian emigrants Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls initiated the “MAUD Committee'' (Military Application of Uranium Detonation) . Unfortunately England classified them as “enemy aliens" hence they went to Los Alamos to work on the US nuclear tech.

Their work led to the British-Canadian “Tube Alloys” secret project, which kickstarted the American Manhattan Project. This American Manhattan project under President Eisenhower introduced nuclear reactors to Iran, Pakistan and Israel. But more on that later.

After the successful experiments with the Chicago Pile-1, the American atomic bomb project proceeded at full speed. The Manhattan Project had more than 150,000 people working on it!

Everything was done under the highest military secrecy. With the exception of the leading scientists and military personnel, nobody knew what was actually being worked on until the news of the destruction of Hiroshima.

With two billion dollars (massive at that time), leading scientist and nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves quickly built a secret nuclear research center in remote Los Alamos, New Mexico, and established a nuclear industry as big as the entire American automobile industry during that era.

The Los Alamos Laboratory was called Project Y where the actual bomb design was being researched

University of Chicago’s met lab was a big research contributor during this euphoric nuclear era

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, known as "Atomic City," had large isotope separation facilities, two massive diffusion plants, one of which was the world's largest building at the time, and an electromagnetic separation plant. It provided the uranium for the Hiroshima bomb (little man). The Hanford site provided the uranium for the Nagasaki bomb (fat man).

April 1945 - Harry Truman became U.S. President.

(Four months later, he authorized nuclear attacks on Japanese civilians)

June 1945 - Szilard and Franck co-authored the "Franck Report" with fellow scientists. They cautioned against using nuclear bombs on civilians,

July 1945 - Szilard and other dozen researchers wrote to president Harry Truman to urgently warn him against civilian targets (The Szilard petition)

August 6, 1945

Hiroshima bomb ~140,000 people died

Nagasaki bomb ~70,000 people died

Robert Oppenheimer on this explosion : “Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.” (from the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text)

September 2, 1945 - WW2 ended

In October 1945, Oppenheimer resigned.

1946 - One year after the war, Leo Szilárd and Albert Einstein started the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists to inform the public about nuclear weapons and promote global peace.

Slizard also arranged conferences with scientists from both sides East and West to find better ways for security and peace.

After WW2, Soviet Union caught up with the US nuclear tech through espionage

1949 - Soviet detonated their first nuclear bomb in Semipalatinsk Test Site, in Kazakhstan.

In 1949, Fermi and Nobel laureate Isidor Rabi cautioned that this new weapon could have devastating consequences, approaching genocide.

1950 - 1953 - Korean war between communism (North Korea) and capitalism (South Korea). The US supported South Korea but decided against nuclear weapons due to ethical concerns. But the ideology war was becoming more apparent here.

1952 - Great Britain detonated its first atomic bomb

1952 - US developed the first hydrogen bomb - based on nuclear fusion and not nuclear fission. These super bombs were 800x stronger than the Hiroshima bomb. Instead of splitting the atomic nuclei to smaller ones, very light atomic nuclei are fused into heavier ones which enables a greater explosive forces

Oppenheimer spoke against the development of thermonuclear weapons/hydrogen bombs.

In the 1940s and 1950s, during the McCarthy era, there was widespread fear of communism. People worked to expose anyone they thought might be associated with communism. Senator Joseph McCarthy led investigations, and J. Robert Oppenheimer was accused of having communist ties.

In 1954 - Oppenheimer’s security clearance was revoked by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission after a highly publicized hearing accusing him of a communist past.

1955 - Einstein passed away. He was 76

1958 - Khrushchev became premier (Soviet Union). In his first full briefing after having a full view of the nuclear environment he said “ “I could not

sleep for several days. Then I became convinced that we could never possibly use these weapons, and when I realized that I was able to sleep again.”

There’s a long bit on him and JFK eventually working out peace in secrecy but that’s for the next book review on JFK

1960 - Szilárd met with Nikita Khrushchev in New York for two hours. He convinced the Soviet leader to support the idea of a hotline with the US to prevent accidental nuclear war.

1960 - France detonated its first atomic bomb

1961 - JFK came to power

1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis - lasted for 2 weeks.

The Cuban Missile Crisis began when the Soviet Union secretly placed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the US, raising the threat of nuclear conflict. It ended with an agreement between the US and Soviet Union:

1. The U.S. wouldn't invade Cuba.

2. The USSR would remove its Cuban missiles.

3. The U.S. would secretly remove its missiles from Turkey, easing tensions.

The end of Cuban Missile crisis started the peace journey between US and the Soviet Unions.

1963 - JFK was assassinated

1964 - Khrushchev was ousted

1964 - Leo Slizard died of heart attack

1964 - China detonated its first atomic bomb

1983 - another possible nuclear attack during the Cold War - Soviet satellites wrongly signaled an American missile attack. Stanislav Petrov, in charge, could have launched a nuclear counterattack but didn't because he thought it was a technical glitch. It turned out he was right; sunlight reflections caused the false alarm. Petrov's decision likely averted a disastrous nuclear war. But it’s worrying how easy it was for world disaster.

1991 - The Cold War ended when the Berlin Wall came down, a significant symbol of bridging the East and the West

-- Part 2 - nuclear as electricity instead of bombs.

Throughout this time there was a growing shift to use nuclear power as electricity. I separated both timelines to have a clearer view on it

1951 - first reactor in Idaho used to generate electricity instead of bombs (small test reactor)

Jan 1953 - President Eisenhower came was elected to office

Dec 1953 - President Eisenhower delivered his infamous "Atoms for Peace" speech to the UN, on the dangers of nuclear war and the potential of nuclear technology for human development.

He encouraged countries to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes (electricity).

Iran, Israel, and Pakistan being among the first to agree. American Machine and Foundry constructed their early nuclear facilities.

This change from military to civilian use was made possible by amendments to the Atomic Energy Act.

1954 - Russia built the first real reactor that converts nuclear power into electricity and supply it to the public power grid

1955 - On August 8, in Geneva, Switzerland, the largest scientific conference in history, called the “International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy,” began.

More than 1500 participants from East and West exchanged what were previously secretive results with surprising openness and aroused the curiosity of the world publicly.

1955 - The first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, was put to sea

1956 - the second nuclear power plant that produced electricity on an industrial scale in Calder Hall, near Windscale in England

1958 - the first commercialized power reactor in the US in Shippingport, Pennsylvania

In the 70’s - oil crisis promoted the use of nuclear as energy

1986 - Chernobyl (30 people died) - The Chernobyl disaster resulted from a poorly designed experiment at nuclear reactor Unit 4. They turned off safety systems, removed control rods, and ran the reactor at 7 percent power.

2011 - Fukushima disaster (19,759 died) - After a major earthquake, a 15-metre tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors. This led to a nuclear accident on March 11, 2011. All three cores mostly melted within the first three days.

There are a lot of learning from disasters. New reactor designs aim for safety and efficiency, but some projects face rising costs and delays. Managing radioactive waste remains a challenge. The future of nuclear power's role in global electricity is uncertain. If one day nuclear power is really safe, each home can have its own mini power plants.

There are 436 nuclear reactors in the world located in 32 countries as of May 2023

On average, nuclear powers 10% of global power needs. Some countries are heading for 20%

2 takeaways :

1. United States created and won the nuclear race because it welcomed immigrants - who turned out to be superstar nuclear physicist persecuted in their countries

2. International cooperation, advocated by many researchers since the discovery of nuclear fission, hopefully outweighs power politics.

* correction - JFK was shot a year later. Cuban Missile crisis lasted for 2 weeks in Oct 1962. JFK passed away on Nov 22, 1963.

Picked up a book on nuclear energy and its history to have a better understanding on the environment JFK was operating under - and recognising the gravity of his decision of going against the CIA, standing alone and risking his life - all in the pursuit of reducing global nuclear tension - so that we can live in peace.

He was shot dead less than a month after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended.

nostr:note1xtqkarfe76lq987davle39u0p97nx23cfvxxwhgvend05jhu0ntqhvj7n5

This never gets old. Love this movie

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/e-iUVnfj2wQ

good night, Derek

looks like a perfect Saturday afternoon

i don't know tbh. let me walk through my thoughts.

i get a clear pic of coracle, its vibe, and the community focus, its all coming together nicely. its easy to see how its going to grow as a social platform on nostr. If i were an investor, i would put my money on coracle.

i get a clear pic of primal, a subset of twitter - it has a good view of your posts, thread style easier to read. it's simple and clear. Easy to onboard general users.

Iris gives a full view of post and replies, so that's where to go if you want to catch up on people's contents - but layout and UX is its archilles heels. Iris has 3 diff target market buried in one client, too overwhelming.

Snort though - made a huge improvement on UX, but i don't know how it stands apart from the rest. I don't know what's the vibe yet. I dont know whats its story, i don't feel connected. I mean don't get me wrong, i think Kieren has been working super hard on this, and he is a really nice guy and so have you. But i don't see the story of where snort is heading, whats its competitive edge, what are unique words or the keywords i would remember snort by, what makes snort special. I think this has a lot to do with figuring out who Kieren is, whats his style and whats his vision for snort and translating that into snort. But i love snort. I just keep forgetting to use it

I really like how nostr:npub1jlrs53pkdfjnts29kveljul2sm0actt6n8dxrrzqcersttvcuv3qdjynqn is cutting out noise even though many features excites him, and has a clear vision of what he wants. I think that's a good reminder and learning curve for all of us

big hugs for baby Atlas

so glad to be able to get back to my 2 mins plank routine

That would be really valuable. And if you can squeeze in time from your already super hectic schedule, or anyone else, maybe can put it up on mainstream media :

"The rise of decentralise social media : overcoming the harms of Facebook, Instagram and Threads"

"A new era of privacy and control"

"Take back what they stole from you"

Btw, off topic, hopped in on zap stream last night for a bit - pretty amazing seeing it first hand. you do great work here. thank you for what you do.

i checked it out once - didn't stick. But would be good to have competitive differences between all 3 protocol based social platform

both far right and far left are so angry - its very alarming

tmr is International Podcast Day. Did not know there was such a day, but here's an early wish - a very happy international podcast day to all our superstar podcast hosts here! My daily walks would not be the same without you ▶️❤️

Coracle - love it, but occasionally notes written don't get published and MIA.

Primal - love it, but don't get notified on some notes.

Iris - used to love it, prolly a case of don't fix what's not broken but might be a background tech spec issue idk

Snort - i like it but i keep forgetting abt it

def a narrow bandwidth. Pablo signal is positive resonance and low noise floor =)

thinner hides have many variations of designs and you can run it under a regular heady duty sewing machine

awww this sweet ol' gal hikes too.