Japan Readies Robot For Work At Crippled Nuclear Reactor 78
angry tapir writes "A Japanese robotics lab has developed a new emergency response prototype that will soon be put to work at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northern Japan. The robot, called 'Rosemary,' is about the size of a lawn mower and has four extended treaded feet that swivel up and down to help it climb over obstacles."
Me: Cringely is a moron (Score:5, Informative)
The guy is a professional troll (actual name Mark Stephens). Literally, he writes stupid shit designed to inflame people. He's wrong all the time (he predicted big Y2K problems on account of Windows NT), he's a liar (claimed to have a PhD from Stanford, was in fact a TA) and so on.
Don't give his dumb ass the ad revenue from links.
Just as a simple counterpoint, his data about earthquakes is totally fucked. This was the biggest quake on record in Japan, previous winner was an 8.6 in 1707. Also, while quakes happen over there all the time, they don't all happen in the same spot. For example in 2003 there was a pretty big one in Hokkaido, an 8.3, that only caused one death. However if you look at a map you find that Hokkaido is quite a distance from Tohoku where the last quake was off of. So even if a quake happens in 10 years (like he has any idea if that will happen) there's no saying if it happens in the same place.
Guy is a moronic troll that has made a good living of it for years. Stop feeding him.
Re:Me: Cringely is a moron (Score:5, Informative)
Seconded, and further: Even if another 9.0 happened in the same place, it wouldn't magically release all the radioactive material. The scary problem was when it required huge amounts of very high pressure water to cool. At this point the reactors are in cold shutdown. The fuel might fall over and a few rods may break open. The situation might get a little worse, but no quake can release any significant percentage of the fuel at this point.
Also, Cringley's a fucking dumbass troll and should be ignored. Normally I hate taking the bait, but this issue's too easy to get people stirred up, so extra debunking is in order.