7 ms·

When I was a kid, my parents took me on a tour of the Seabrook nuclear power plant. The thing that impressed me the most was the control room. I just couldn’t f

When I was a kid, my parents took me on a tour of the Seabrook nuclear power plant. The thing that impressed me the most was the control room. I just couldn’t fathom how anybody could know what all the different buttons and dials did. Growing up and watching Homer in his role of safety inspector on the Simpsons only further reinforced that feeling. Now I’m a computer programmer and I feel like some of the projects I have worked on could make a nuclear reactor feel simple by comparison. I also have had many an occasion where I have felt like Homer Simpson.

gerdesj 5y ago
"Now I’m a computer programmer and I feel like some of the projects I have worked on could make a nuclear reactor feel simple by comparison." So you are faced with a certain amount of complexity. Do you really have any idea just how complicated a nuclear reactor (and associated engineering is)? Let's start off with a simple problem: You need a shit load of concrete in structures like this. At what sort of volumes does concrete curing become dangerous? It's exothermic and there is a danger of fire (yes fire) in a concrete structure that is poured too quickly. This is one small worry in the Civil Engineering bit. Geotechnics - ground stability across a large structure is a whopping set of problems. The sheer size of the thing will move the topsoil, subsoil, strata around. The distribution of water will change too. Now you have the Structural Engineers diving in. Some of the structures involved are huge and involve multiple materials. Nuclear plants are often near the sea for the water cooling benefits but you also get additional corrosion to think about, including concrete cancer and what salts do to steel and other metals. Also you generally get extra weather to worry about. I have not even scratched the surface of the complexities involved in designing, building and operating a nuclear power plant. Those two engineering disciplines I mentioned alone are at least three years at Uni for a degree and a good 5-10 years time served before you do anything close to critical.
- bombcar 5y ago
  Building and running are two different levels - a very complex setup to build can be very simple to actually use. Likely a large amount of complexity in these control setups is the lack of efficient screens for displaying data - compare a modern airliner to a 1960s.
  - gerdesj 5y ago
    freetime2 is a self described programmer and not an end user. I was responding to a "builder". I felt they were comparing themselves to a huge multi disciplined stack of actually Chartered Engineers, let alone all the rest of the technicians and staff of a nuclear power station. I thought a little change of perspective was in order. Just another small example of the complexity involved, without even involving the nuclear bit - the equations involved when worrying about the forces on a simply supported beam are up to fourth order differential equations. OK there are tables of standard stuff but when the structure gets complicated then it gets ... complicated. The electrical requirements are staggering and so are the hydraulics. The logistics. Simply feeding the staff on site at all points of a plant's life is a hard problem with multiple sub problems.
    - freetime2 5y ago
      My intent was to compare the number of number of variables and processes that I need to understand to do my job with that of an operator in a nuclear power plant. And I was thinking more about how something can appear so bewildering at first, but though years of study it can become second nature. Human capacity to understand complex problems is amazing… but sometimes that complexity still gets the better of us. I’m perfectly happy to concede that I don’t know anything about operating a nuclear power plant and that my comparison may just be the Dunning Kruger effect speaking. But if you want to go into all the various engineering disciplines that go into building a nuclear power plant, I think it’s only fair to go into all the disciplines that allow my applications to run. Microprocessors, the Internet, etc. The apps that we interact with daily for communication, shopping, etc. are miracles of collective human engineering every bit on par with nuclear energy.
      - moritonal 5y ago
        That's an interesting point, but it's worth noting that coding benefits from being vastly easier to package and share. The architects of a plant would have to interact a lot more with a concrete specialist than you have to with the TCP spec to spin up an Http server. Because our industry demands a packaged product, we are quite good at it. I do however believe you are wrong. Biased from the perspective of a SE, I'd think a whilst a simple banking app involves more agreed protocols and touch points, it is less complicated than a nuclear reactor. I wonder, between the two, how many specs and manuals would you have to read to design either.
sandworm101 5y ago
Go to any recording studio, or large concert. I'd bet those mixing boards have more switches and dials than a nuclear reactor. https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/media/2019/05/060119-insync-LegendaryConsole.jpg https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/media/2019/05/060119-insyn...
- freetime2 5y ago
  Wow that’s an impressive array of buttons and dials. I’ve gotta say though I was listening to a 90’s hits playlist yesterday, which I think was probably the peak production budget era, and the differences in production quality from one recording to the next was stunning. All that expensive equipment in the hands of an expert must be good for something! The ones that stood out most as being good were some Red Hot Chili Peppers songs produced by Rick Rubin. A lot of other 90’s Alternative recordings were dreadful by comparison.
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    https://soundgirls.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/20160919_211500-e1610377808750.jpg https://soundgirls.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/20160919_2... This is a typical setup at an average venue. Note this guy is not running the sound that the audience hears. This is the monitor mixing station. He is mixing the sound that the band hears on stage in thier earpieces. There is a whole other rig in a separate space mixing to the front of house speakers. The total number of audio channels for a typical stage show is staggering.
    - deanCommie 5y ago
      Dumb question: Shouldn't he be wearing headphones? Otherwise, how would he know what the band hears? Dumb question 2: I thought each band member typically gets their own mix emphasizing their instruments so they can adjust better? Dumb question 3: How many of these knobs would actually be touched over the course of a performance? I'm assuming the overall process is something like: * Phase 1: Initial default calibration for the specific genre/band * Phase 2: Fine-tuning during practice/sound-check * Phase 3: Some additional adjustments during the first song to account for...i dunno last minute changes? * Phase 4: Changes during every song?? This is the part that I'm curious about.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Don Norman once had a picture, in an early edition of The Design of Everyday Things, that showed an innovative tactic that reactor engineers used to differentiate control handles: https://pictures.abebooks.com/JVALLES/3324134975.jpg https://pictures.abebooks.com/JVALLES/3324134975.jpg
- freetime2 5y ago
  I hope they incorporated that into their jargon as well. “Increasing Heineken flow rate to 50%. Michelob readings are nominal”.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Reminds me of the classic April 1979 Saturday Night Live "Pepsi Syndrome" aka "The Amazing Colossal President" skit, where Jimmy Carter gets irradiated, and Rodney Dangerfield tells how big he is. In my opinion, it's one of the funniest, most memorable old school SNL episodes of all time, including Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Richard Benjamin, Tom Davis, Al Franken, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, and Gilda Radner. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=533858710873763 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=533858710873763 I'm sorry for the Facebook link, but for whatever reason it's impossible to find on youtube, and not included in the SNL archives. My theory is the Pepsi company got pissed off about it, and threatens anyone who publishes it with legal action. Script and screen snapshots: https://tmi.papost.org/the-pepsi-syndrome-saturday-night-live/ https://tmi.papost.org/the-pepsi-syndrome-saturday-night-liv... >Dr. Edna Casey: It means, Mrs. Carter, your husband, President Carter, has become [ camera zooms in on Dr. Edna Casey ] The Amazing Colossal President. >Rosalynn Carter: Well how big is he? >Dr. Edna Casey: Well Mrs. Carter, it’s difficult to comprehend just how big he is but to give you some idea, we’ve asked comedian Rodney Dangerfield to come along today to help explain it to you. Rodney?
- gonzo41 5y ago
  Fighter jet cockpits since ww2 have had the same elements of design, Everything feels different so you know what you're grabbing from color and feel.
- smilespray 5y ago

gerdesj 5y ago

"Now I’m a computer programmer and I feel like some of the projects I have worked on could make a nuclear reactor feel simple by comparison." So you are faced with a certain amount of complexity. Do you really have any idea just how complicated a nuclear reactor (and associated engineering is)? Let's start off with a simple problem: You need a shit load of concrete in structures like this. At what sort of volumes does concrete curing become dangerous? It's exothermic and there is a danger of fire (yes fire) in a concrete structure that is poured too quickly. This is one small worry in the Civil Engineering bit. Geotechnics - ground stability across a large structure is a whopping set of problems. The sheer size of the thing will move the topsoil, subsoil, strata around. The distribution of water will change too. Now you have the Structural Engineers diving in. Some of the structures involved are huge and involve multiple materials. Nuclear plants are often near the sea for the water cooling benefits but you also get additional corrosion to think about, including concrete cancer and what salts do to steel and other metals. Also you generally get extra weather to worry about. I have not even scratched the surface of the complexities involved in designing, building and operating a nuclear power plant. Those two engineering disciplines I mentioned alone are at least three years at Uni for a degree and a good 5-10 years time served before you do anything close to critical.

bombcar 5y ago
Building and running are two different levels - a very complex setup to build can be very simple to actually use. Likely a large amount of complexity in these control setups is the lack of efficient screens for displaying data - compare a modern airliner to a 1960s.
- gerdesj 5y ago
  freetime2 is a self described programmer and not an end user. I was responding to a "builder". I felt they were comparing themselves to a huge multi disciplined stack of actually Chartered Engineers, let alone all the rest of the technicians and staff of a nuclear power station. I thought a little change of perspective was in order. Just another small example of the complexity involved, without even involving the nuclear bit - the equations involved when worrying about the forces on a simply supported beam are up to fourth order differential equations. OK there are tables of standard stuff but when the structure gets complicated then it gets ... complicated. The electrical requirements are staggering and so are the hydraulics. The logistics. Simply feeding the staff on site at all points of a plant's life is a hard problem with multiple sub problems.
  - freetime2 5y ago
    My intent was to compare the number of number of variables and processes that I need to understand to do my job with that of an operator in a nuclear power plant. And I was thinking more about how something can appear so bewildering at first, but though years of study it can become second nature. Human capacity to understand complex problems is amazing… but sometimes that complexity still gets the better of us. I’m perfectly happy to concede that I don’t know anything about operating a nuclear power plant and that my comparison may just be the Dunning Kruger effect speaking. But if you want to go into all the various engineering disciplines that go into building a nuclear power plant, I think it’s only fair to go into all the disciplines that allow my applications to run. Microprocessors, the Internet, etc. The apps that we interact with daily for communication, shopping, etc. are miracles of collective human engineering every bit on par with nuclear energy.
    - moritonal 5y ago
      That's an interesting point, but it's worth noting that coding benefits from being vastly easier to package and share. The architects of a plant would have to interact a lot more with a concrete specialist than you have to with the TCP spec to spin up an Http server. Because our industry demands a packaged product, we are quite good at it. I do however believe you are wrong. Biased from the perspective of a SE, I'd think a whilst a simple banking app involves more agreed protocols and touch points, it is less complicated than a nuclear reactor. I wonder, between the two, how many specs and manuals would you have to read to design either.

sandworm101 5y ago

Go to any recording studio, or large concert. I'd bet those mixing boards have more switches and dials than a nuclear reactor. https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/media/2019/05/060119-insync-LegendaryConsole.jpg https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/media/2019/05/060119-insyn...

freetime2 5y ago
Wow that’s an impressive array of buttons and dials. I’ve gotta say though I was listening to a 90’s hits playlist yesterday, which I think was probably the peak production budget era, and the differences in production quality from one recording to the next was stunning. All that expensive equipment in the hands of an expert must be good for something! The ones that stood out most as being good were some Red Hot Chili Peppers songs produced by Rick Rubin. A lot of other 90’s Alternative recordings were dreadful by comparison.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  https://soundgirls.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/20160919_211500-e1610377808750.jpg https://soundgirls.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/20160919_2... This is a typical setup at an average venue. Note this guy is not running the sound that the audience hears. This is the monitor mixing station. He is mixing the sound that the band hears on stage in thier earpieces. There is a whole other rig in a separate space mixing to the front of house speakers. The total number of audio channels for a typical stage show is staggering.
  - deanCommie 5y ago
    Dumb question: Shouldn't he be wearing headphones? Otherwise, how would he know what the band hears? Dumb question 2: I thought each band member typically gets their own mix emphasizing their instruments so they can adjust better? Dumb question 3: How many of these knobs would actually be touched over the course of a performance? I'm assuming the overall process is something like: * Phase 1: Initial default calibration for the specific genre/band * Phase 2: Fine-tuning during practice/sound-check * Phase 3: Some additional adjustments during the first song to account for...i dunno last minute changes? * Phase 4: Changes during every song?? This is the part that I'm curious about.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

Don Norman once had a picture, in an early edition of The Design of Everyday Things, that showed an innovative tactic that reactor engineers used to differentiate control handles: https://pictures.abebooks.com/JVALLES/3324134975.jpg https://pictures.abebooks.com/JVALLES/3324134975.jpg

freetime2 5y ago
I hope they incorporated that into their jargon as well. “Increasing Heineken flow rate to 50%. Michelob readings are nominal”.
DonHopkins 5y ago
Reminds me of the classic April 1979 Saturday Night Live "Pepsi Syndrome" aka "The Amazing Colossal President" skit, where Jimmy Carter gets irradiated, and Rodney Dangerfield tells how big he is. In my opinion, it's one of the funniest, most memorable old school SNL episodes of all time, including Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Richard Benjamin, Tom Davis, Al Franken, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, and Gilda Radner. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=533858710873763 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=533858710873763 I'm sorry for the Facebook link, but for whatever reason it's impossible to find on youtube, and not included in the SNL archives. My theory is the Pepsi company got pissed off about it, and threatens anyone who publishes it with legal action. Script and screen snapshots: https://tmi.papost.org/the-pepsi-syndrome-saturday-night-live/ https://tmi.papost.org/the-pepsi-syndrome-saturday-night-liv... >Dr. Edna Casey: It means, Mrs. Carter, your husband, President Carter, has become [ camera zooms in on Dr. Edna Casey ] The Amazing Colossal President. >Rosalynn Carter: Well how big is he? >Dr. Edna Casey: Well Mrs. Carter, it’s difficult to comprehend just how big he is but to give you some idea, we’ve asked comedian Rodney Dangerfield to come along today to help explain it to you. Rodney?
gonzo41 5y ago
Fighter jet cockpits since ww2 have had the same elements of design, Everything feels different so you know what you're grabbing from color and feel.
smilespray 5y ago