4 ms·

It wasn't a secret like the article admits later on.

by wkat4242 11mo ago

Yokolos 11mo ago
Seems like a distinction without a difference to me? > And aside from a license renewal snafu in 1980, the device made no waves until its existence was shared with the local newspaper—it wasn’t a secret, just unpublicized.
- quinndexter 11mo ago
  I think "secret nuclear device" and "license renewal" are kind of conceptually incongruous, even if only at a surface level.
  - Yokolos 11mo ago
    The license renewal has nothing to do with anything. It's not related to the incident where its existence was revealed. This is about "secret" vs "unpublicized", not "secret" vs "license renewal".
- IshKebab 11mo ago
  In this context "secret" implies they didn't tell the government. Merely not publicising an internal project is totally normal and doesn't warrant "secret project!!"
  - alpinisme 11mo ago
    I guess that depends on how hysterically you read the word secret (including projecting hysterics on others using it). But we at work have a lot of secret projects. Basically everything is given a project code name until it’s public and if you work in R&D you are told not to discuss your work on such projects either outside the company with friends or inside the company with people who don’t work in R&D. That is the closest to the definition of secret I can imagine. And it sounds like this nuclear lab was in a similar category. If someone freaks out about it, it’s because they think you’re abusing normal, run of the mill product development secrecy, whether to develop a product that shouldn’t exist or to hide a practice that is never intended to be public and is just called secret to avoid scrutiny from an interested public (who, in this hypothetical scenario, feel that they have a right to be interested — think research into dangerous pathogens next to an unprotected public aquifer).
    - jpalawaga 11mo ago
      Is there a penalty to discussing the secret projects? Like if your manager/director/vp knew you were talking specifics without some authorized, what would happen? It sounds like there is no penalty to the nuclear labs except, if you blab to the wrong person, it’s going to stir up trouble.
      - alpinisme 11mo ago
        I’ve never heard of anything more happening than being reminded not to do that (pretty much the only time it happens is when someone is talking with product support and lets slip a feature or product they’re working on will solve a complaint about an existing product). I’m sure you’d be fired if it was thought you did it intentionally to spread knowledge of the secret though. I guess in this case the question comes down (for me) to whether employees at this lab were asked by their managers not to tell friends and acquaintances what they worked on. Even if not with an explicit threat of harm, asking someone not to tell something is pretty much exactly what asking them to keep it a secret means.
  - fragmede 11mo ago
    yeah but is this internal project one where we kidnap homeless people and torture them in the name of science or is it because we spent $50,000 to make a new logo? Some secret are meant to be kept. Others are meant to be blown wide open. Others... Other just are, and nobody need to know. Posting that a particular woman's a slut is a shitty thing to do on Facebook, but if one of my male friends is feeling extra lonely and ready to end it all, there's a date or two I could set him up on.
jandrewrogers 11mo ago
There are no secrets in a legal sense e.g. NDAs. However, there is a culture around private nuclear labs of giving no hint of their existence so that they can hide in plain sight. The objective is to avoid attention, not to be secret per se, though the effect can be similar.
- retrac 11mo ago
  Here in Toronto, every once in a while, someone has a meltdown (if you'll forgive the expression) when they rediscover that there is a CANDU nuclear fuel manufacturing plant in their dense and quiet suburb. Now CANDU reactors run on natural uranium. So they're forming metal pellets out of uranium powder. The main risk is direct chemical toxicity from the uranium, not the radiation. But for many people "nuclear fuel" might as well mean hot nuclear waste. The mystical level of dread it inspires in some is hard to overstate. Just to avoid drama from the neighbours it's understandable they try to keep quiet.

It wasn't a secret like the article admits later on.

Seems like a distinction without a difference to me? > And aside from a license renewal snafu in 1980, the device made no waves until its existence was shared with the local newspaper—it wasn’t a secret, just unpublicized.

quinndexter 11mo ago
I think "secret nuclear device" and "license renewal" are kind of conceptually incongruous, even if only at a surface level.
- Yokolos 11mo ago
  The license renewal has nothing to do with anything. It's not related to the incident where its existence was revealed. This is about "secret" vs "unpublicized", not "secret" vs "license renewal".
IshKebab 11mo ago
In this context "secret" implies they didn't tell the government. Merely not publicising an internal project is totally normal and doesn't warrant "secret project!!"
- alpinisme 11mo ago
  I guess that depends on how hysterically you read the word secret (including projecting hysterics on others using it). But we at work have a lot of secret projects. Basically everything is given a project code name until it’s public and if you work in R&D you are told not to discuss your work on such projects either outside the company with friends or inside the company with people who don’t work in R&D. That is the closest to the definition of secret I can imagine. And it sounds like this nuclear lab was in a similar category. If someone freaks out about it, it’s because they think you’re abusing normal, run of the mill product development secrecy, whether to develop a product that shouldn’t exist or to hide a practice that is never intended to be public and is just called secret to avoid scrutiny from an interested public (who, in this hypothetical scenario, feel that they have a right to be interested — think research into dangerous pathogens next to an unprotected public aquifer).
  - jpalawaga 11mo ago
    Is there a penalty to discussing the secret projects? Like if your manager/director/vp knew you were talking specifics without some authorized, what would happen? It sounds like there is no penalty to the nuclear labs except, if you blab to the wrong person, it’s going to stir up trouble.
    - alpinisme 11mo ago
      I’ve never heard of anything more happening than being reminded not to do that (pretty much the only time it happens is when someone is talking with product support and lets slip a feature or product they’re working on will solve a complaint about an existing product). I’m sure you’d be fired if it was thought you did it intentionally to spread knowledge of the secret though. I guess in this case the question comes down (for me) to whether employees at this lab were asked by their managers not to tell friends and acquaintances what they worked on. Even if not with an explicit threat of harm, asking someone not to tell something is pretty much exactly what asking them to keep it a secret means.
- fragmede 11mo ago
  yeah but is this internal project one where we kidnap homeless people and torture them in the name of science or is it because we spent $50,000 to make a new logo? Some secret are meant to be kept. Others are meant to be blown wide open. Others... Other just are, and nobody need to know. Posting that a particular woman's a slut is a shitty thing to do on Facebook, but if one of my male friends is feeling extra lonely and ready to end it all, there's a date or two I could set him up on.

jandrewrogers 11mo ago

There are no secrets in a legal sense e.g. NDAs. However, there is a culture around private nuclear labs of giving no hint of their existence so that they can hide in plain sight. The objective is to avoid attention, not to be secret per se, though the effect can be similar.

retrac 11mo ago
Here in Toronto, every once in a while, someone has a meltdown (if you'll forgive the expression) when they rediscover that there is a CANDU nuclear fuel manufacturing plant in their dense and quiet suburb. Now CANDU reactors run on natural uranium. So they're forming metal pellets out of uranium powder. The main risk is direct chemical toxicity from the uranium, not the radiation. But for many people "nuclear fuel" might as well mean hot nuclear waste. The mystical level of dread it inspires in some is hard to overstate. Just to avoid drama from the neighbours it's understandable they try to keep quiet.