Libertarianism

A brief and random thought. Plato proposed that the best system of government is a benevolent tyrant, to which I would also attach 'competent' as a prerequisite as well. It occurs to me that libertarianism, when you boil it down to its ultimate precepts, is a call for exactly this situation. The smaller you make government, the less it is able to restrain the actions of its citizens. If you place all the decision-making power in the hands of individuals without effective oversight, then inevitably some people will start asserting control over the system, via economic or physical means. Libertarianism thus boils down to a thoroughly unsubstantiated belief that people who achieve power in an unregulated system will exert that power benevolently.

Wicked Lasers sucks surprisingly hard

I ordered a Spyder Pro Arctic laser from Wicked Lasers on June 15th. It is now September 24th. They have promised about eight times that I would have it within a week or two in the intervening time. Most recently, they posted a shipping schedule on their website promising that anyone within various order ranges would get their lasers by specific dates. The date my laser was due according to that schedule was September 13th.

This has without a doubt been the worst customer service experience of my life. They have a 'live chat' link on their website that just has you fill out an email comment card. Emailing them gets a canned response and then maybe if you're lucky and you wait an extra week someone will eventually write a one-line reply saying "It's coming!" Would I buy from these clowns again? Hell no. The laser looks awesome on the website, but you know what? If I can't get my physical hands on it, then screw how it looks on the website.

Photovoltaic reactor?

Random thought of the day. If you stuck photovoltaic cells all over the inside of a nuclear reactor, how much additional energy would you capture? That would be converting the output energy directly into electrical power, whereas the current design has to capture the output energy as heat going into water, then transfer that energy through conduction to another pipe of water, then transfer that energy through mechanical means (turning a turbine) into electrical energy. It seems like photovoltaics might capture a worthwhile amount of energy.