This is an interesting "movement" on civilian nuclear energy.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has taken a historic step by voting to issue construction permits for Kairos Power’s 70-MWth Hermes 2, a “low power” advanced test facility comprising two 35-MWth molten salt reactors. “Following the Commission’s vote, Hermes 2 is now the first electricity-producing Gen IV plant to be approved for construction in the United States,” said Kairos Power.

Their design is not what I've talked about although you'd be forgiven for thinking it is since its a molten salt reactor.  Rather than use the salt as a fuel carrier (and thus be able to easily use thorium as the ultimate fuel, although started on either uranium or plutonium) it instead relies on Triso fuel, which is a ceramic pellet-style fuel that is entirely-conventional in its make-up.  Triso pellets have a fairly-decent set of operational advantages but are actually more-difficult to reprocess than conventional fuel pins (and not by a little either), and thus today its a one-time through fuel which sucks from a perspective of nuclear waste handling.

However, there is a forward path that I do like, which is inherently part of using molten salt as a coolant and operating fluid (to transfer the heat); it runs at very high temperatures compared with water-moderated units, and thus is directly compatible with using process heat for things like, as an example, Fischer-Tropsch in a combined plant that produces both synfuel and electricity.  In addition the higher primary loop temperature improves thermodynamic efficiency by quite a bit and thus enables operating these at reasonable efficiency levels where huge volumes of water are not available.

They're not intending to use primary heat for synfuel or similar purposes in what has been licensed but there's nothing stopping them from doing so down the road, nor would it in any reasonable world require any sort of "new licensing" since using the process heat for that purpose doesn't change any element of the actual reactor section (it just taps off some of the heat that then goes to make the steam that turns the turbines and thus make power.)

So yes, this is a step forward toward an actual sane energy policy.  A small and very-incomplete step, and one that in terms of fuel cycle is actually backward and thus bad, but nonetheless deploying more energy resource and one that can be exploited to resolve foreign requirements for petroleum-based fuels is good, never mind that unlike wind and solar spinning generators, no matter the input energy -- nuclear, coal or hydro -- add flywheel mass to the grid which is an essential element for grid stability.

We'll see how this all turns out and whether, on a cost basis, it ultimately proves up as worthwhile for wide-scale deployment, but this is the sort of innovation that does indeed move the ball forward -- even if it has downsides (as Triso fuel does in the fuel cycle and thus waste department.)

Jimmy Carter made 100, but he didn't get to inauguration day.  His passing was not a surprise and one can't argue when you make triple digits on spins around the glowing orange orb.  Not many people do.

He was much-maligned for the inflationary mess of the 1970s -- and lost to Reagan in 1980 largely as a result.  But the blame wasn't mostly his; Nixon and Ford did that and dumped it on him; he got charged with it although he was unable to end it in time to matter.  Of note he didn't turn around and try to slay either Nixon or Ford for it either, as have recent Presidents when things have dropped in their laps -- he just went to work as best he could.

There was also a bad mission to rescue the US hostages held in Iran, but whether you can reasonably charge that to him is an open question.  Weather is always a possible confounder and it was absolutely a big part of why the mission failed.  Nonetheless, if you're in the left seat and the plane crashes, its deemed your fault (whether you put the water in the fuel tank or not) and thus it was.

His most-impressive foreign policy accomplishment during his term was a peace deal between Egypt and Israel.

More-negatively, however, was his Executive Order that killed civilian nuclear fuel reprocessing in the United States.  He firmly believed that civilians could not safely operate power reactors and that his action would shut down the industry.  Time has proved both of these beliefs wrong in that the industry did not disappear and we did not all glow in the dark, but the mess left in terms of spent fuel, which now has nowhere to go and the only safe place for high-level reaction products is to put it back into a reactor and burn it up means as a direct result of his action we have no other sound answer.  Ronald Reagan rescinded that E/O immediately when he took office but the damage was done; no commercial enterprise would risk being dispossessed of billions of investment building out that capacity again and to this day the government hasn't stepped in to do it in their place.

I've been to Carter's library.  Its curious that there is a decent display commemorating his nuclear service before becoming President but not one mention, at least in the public areas, of that E/O and his reason for it.  I looked expecting to find it, but did not.

No matter how you feel about Carter's Presidency, however, he was fundamentally a decent man.  Unlike most recent Presidents who upon leaving office sought to enrich themselves and maintain their political influence when he left office he went out and built low-income housing for Habitat for Humanity.  Not with money grifted off with this or that -- with a hammer.  He also stayed well-clear of going after other administrations almost to a fault; while I don't think he ever voted for a Republican you never saw him campaigning or trying to slam whoever was in office.  It was exceedingly rare to see him comment on the political issues of the day.

What you did see him do post-Presidency was campaign ceaselessly for peace and human rights.  Negotiating on behalf of other Presidents he obtained the release of political prisoners in several nations including North Korea.  He was a leading element in eliminating a parasitic disease in Africa, identified as spread through unfiltered drinking water.  He never shied away from a poor nation or community, whether here or abroad and was building houses with Habitat for Humanity all the way up to 2019, marking 30 years of service helping to build and repair over 4,000 homes.

One thing you can say about President Carter is that he didn't just profess belief as a Christian -- he lived it, both as a Sunday School teacher and through his personal works, rather than seeking personal aggrandizement and money, and was married to his wife Rosalynn until she passed after 77 years of being together.

A great President perhaps he was or was not, but what President Carter was, and this is without dispute, is an outstanding human being.

Rest in peace Mr. President.

the two-lens kit.

I've long been a photographer -- back to my Jr. High days (and good enough at it that I did the photography for much of the yearbook sports during that time.)  Had my own darkroom gear (B&W; I wasn't rich) at that time as well and bought Tri-X by the big roll to defray costs, loading my own 35mm cartridges.

Digital came "of age" in real terms in the 2000s; before that you could get it, but it wasn't worth it.  It still has a dynamic range penalty, but that has narrowed a lot over the years.  dSLRs were my thing, but there's a damnable element to this, especially with full-frame (as with 35mm, which is the same size) in that lenses, especially good ones, are both frightfully expensive and heavy because good glass in large amounts counts both money and mass -- there's simply no way around it.

In addition the general rule has never changed in that primes (one focal length) tend to be faster (larger maximum f/stop) and better, since nothing internal has to move fore and aft except for focus, but they're expensive and of course you need a lot of them.  Zooms tend to cost more (more elements in them), have more moving parts and can't be optimized over the whole range, tend to have narrower apertures and thus all things being equal the maximum resolving power (image quality) tends to be less.  You can defray some of that -- but not all -- with application of money.

This leads to a conundrum: What are you going to point the camera at today, do you know this in advance, and what do you carry so you have appropriate choices in depth-of-field, light gathering and magnification -- and what compromises will you make in each?

The "holy grail" is to have one lens that covers at all on a given camera.  Forget it.  Not even Jesus can pull that one off.  And until fairly recently it was basically impossible to cover even 80 or 90% of it with two lenses.  Thus you were stuck with three, four or more -- and had to carry them if it was possible you'd run into a need and they're both big and heavy, never mind expensive.

Well, to a large degree this is now a solved problem.  No, it is not every case; specifically, moving subjects (e.g. sports or moving wildlife) in limited light remains a problem, as does extreme wide-angle stuff.  Nor can you solve the money problem; sorry, good glass has always been expensive, the better it is the more-stupid expensive it is, especially when you want it in longer lengths at reasonable apertures.  But -- in terms of "I need five" well, maybe not.

Maybe now its two for the 85% or 90% of things you want to do.  Really.

I'm speaking of the Canon RF full-frame line with the trade-off point in the body area being the R6 MkII.  Is there better and faster?  Probably, but its at the margin; that body will do most things and it can also shoot 4k video very competently (including at high bit rates) in addition to stills.  It, like all mirrorless cameras, takes getting used to if you're coming from a SLR of any sort because the viewfinder is in fact electronic so what you see in there is a television image rather than the image.  This, however, means the camera can superimpose data on the image which can be very helpful -- but can also frustrate until you learn how to set it up (and no, what you wanted in terms of "back button focus" and such on an SLR is not what you want on these -- trust me on this, you will have to relearn how you want the camera set up and until you do you're going to get really, really frustrated and swear a lot!)  Incidentally a ~$100 adapter (just the flange difference and pin pass-through) allows the RF bodies to work w/o limitation with all the older EF glass, so if you own that glass already, particularly for special circumstances that's a huge advantage.

On to the glass.  Two lenses: the RF 24-105 L in either the f/4 or f/2.8 (bring money and mass) versions.  The f/4 is half the price, uses a standard 77mm filter (e.g. UV filter, polarizer, etc.) where the f/2.8 uses a more-expensive 82mm and is double the mass as well as double the money.  Both are excellent and if you need the lower-light capability for moving subjects (more on that in a minute) or want the better-bokeh from the faster lens while being willing to put up with the extra pound and a half of glass then bring the money, and lots of it.

The second is the  RF-100-500 (!!) f/4.6-7.1 L.  NOT cheap, but hear me out.  Yes, I know, you say that aperture is a problem.  It is if the subject is moving and light is low.  Thus you can't get beyond about 90% of the use cases outdoors, and for some people -- especially if you shoot indoor sports, this is just not going to work and you have to bring even more money and mass for those situations since you need a wider aperture.  But if that doesn't apply then yeah, this does the job out to many wildlife shooting circumstances.  Not all, but many.  It too takes a 77mm filter, comes with a very nice hood (as does the 24-105, both of which can be put on backward for storage or if you don't need them at the moment), and while it is heavy (3lbs) its not stupid heavy.  It also comes with a foot that you probably want to put an ARCA plate on for your ballhead as it balances better there than on the camera but this lens is surprisingly hand-holdable in many circumstances as its stabilizer is astoundingly good.  At 500mm shots down in the 1/30th-1/60th of a second  range can be sharp handheld with no motion blur at all provided the subject is not moving.  The newer RF bodies are a game-changer in another respect in that their autofocus performance at these narrower apertures is outstanding where you'd otherwise expect it to be marginal -- or refuse to lock at all.  The 100-500mm has dual autofocus servos in it which undoubtedly helps a lot; playing around with it pointing it at squirrels and such in the back yard and beyond it grabs focus instantly and very, very reliably.  I though my older Tamron was really good both on my 5d3 and R6 MkII but this lens, in combination with the RF body (it won't mount on the 5d3 of course as the flange distance is wrong) is in a whole different league.

Thus two lenses, one full-frame body and you have coverage from reasonable wide-angle all the way out to the "super telephoto" range -- provided you have decent light and can afford the check.

This does present one problem however -- my "small" pack that used to hold a dSLR with a 24-105L, my 70-200mm f/4L and a few accessories (extra battery, charging dock for the batteries on USB, couple of extra cards, etc.) is just a bit too small to hold the camera and the 100-500mm.  My medium Ape Case easily does the job and can also take my X1 Carbon in the pocket along with a bunch of accessories (including my Sennheiser mic kit for video) so it probably winds up being "the obvious choice" but this does mean that my "smaller and lighter" option is gone until I can find a replacement sling case -- slightly larger, as I need just a bit more volume.  The problem is on the width side, not length, as the 100-500mm is a bit larger in diameter and simply won't go with any reasonable configuration.

Ah well, I'll figure it out -- and the Ape Case (which incidentally I highly recommend except for the fact that they very-much advertise that there's a camera in there, so you can't leave it unguarded ever or someone will take a five-finger discount) will do for the time being.  The medium one incidentally clears under-seat even on small plane flights where the large (which I also own) does not, so that gets your high-value camera and computer gear in the plane with you in virtually every circumstance if you travel, and there's enough room to get a change of clothes and such in the event your checked bag goes missing for a day.

In any event for those of you who are looking to do the same or more with less this is a decent set of options and one that, a few years ago, was simply not possible.  There were 100-400mm zooms from Canon before and of course the Tamron 150-600mm (which I shot both solar eclipses with and is an awesome piece of kit, especially for the money) but its big, its heavy, the corners are not as good as I'd like especially at 600mm (there are always compromises when the lens doesn't cost $12,000!) and it is definitely not conducive to hauling it around unless you strongly suspect or know you're going to need it and it really wants at least a monopod for support simply due to its size and mass -- handholding that beast is not fun and flat-out forget it in anything other than excellent light conditions.

Incidentally if you need more reach rather than buy the 1.4x extender (which you can do) or wildly increase cost by buying a longer prime with a five-digit price tag I would seriously consider adding the R7 body to your kit instead.  Why?  Well, you do give up some amount of light gathering as its an APS-C sensor (smaller and thus more-dense) but you get 1.6x focal-length extension on all the lenses so that 100-500 becomes a 160-800mm lens while maintaining its f/7.1 aperture.  Plus you have a backup body (albeit in APS-C) if your primary pukes and its a hell of a lot cheaper than buying longer prime glass and unlike the 1.4x extender there is no image quality loss.  You could also choose to have "instant range" capacity, if that's your thing by mounting the 24-105L on the R6ii and the 100-500mm on the R7; now its "grab one" instantly provided you can rig your carry bag to work with that.  Incidentally if you shoot video the R7 reads out considerably slower than the R6 MkII and the light-gathering penalty becomes more-severe with video in many instances so if shooting in 4k or available light you're much more-likely to run into motion artifacts (especially if panning) and IQ degradation with the R7 so for video the R6MkII is the far better choice.

IMHO this is a much more "social" setup in all respects than the older dSLR pro-level bodies plus appropriate lenses (e.g. 5d3, 5d4, etc.) and makes hand-holding very reasonable in circumstances where it formerly was not.  It isn't cheap but then again quality never is.

Recommended.

As a site that runs advertising (on the "ad" side, which this post is) you likely see said advertisements; they're from Adsense, which is a Google property.

You might imagine that I frequently get solicitations from other ad networks that are not affiliated with Google trying to sell me on switching to their programs.  I've checked a few out over the years and found them to either have ads that are ridiculously out of scope from reason (you know the type: "Doctors say do this NOW before you go to bed in order to .....") or are in some other ways inferior.

This site has a fairly strong TOS and privacy policy -- among them are that your login and other system-level data are off limits.  That doesn't mean Adsense can't figure out who you are -- it probably can, but that's because there are tracking cookies all over the place and your browser "fingerprint" is by definition sent to every site you connect to -- which include all the ad requests your browser makes.  This is inherently how the Internet works; even if you block all that the IP address from which the connection comes is inherently part of what the other end gets, and if its IPv6 it is likely globally unique to your device in some fashion.  It also, of course, does not mean that if someone subpoenas me I won't provide the data -- of course I will, if a proper judicial request is made.  But responding to a judge's order is rather different than selling you out for a few pennies to an advertising entity who, for all you know, is then going to sell that data to an insurance or other type of firm that will use it to screw you.

Recently I've started to get solicitations from various "newer" ad networks who want access to login specificity.  Not your credentials, but enough to tie your ad experience directly to your signed-in status and, presumably, to you.

This is something that I explicitly state I will not do here -- my TOS explicitly states that any such advertising cookies an ad network generates and sends to you are outside of our control and we neither have them or interact with them.  These folks want me to tie them to your account here via my explicit cooperation.

No, I won't do that -- but I'll bet other sites are and will, because if I'm being solicited by these guys so are others and you can bet some of them will bite on it in exchange for more ad revenue.

This is IMHO a serious problem and while it is not going on here because I won't participate in this sort of thing you can bet some other sites, if you have to sign into them, will do exactly that.