seph-on-an-irrational-planet

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

most recent windows 11 update is wiping SSDs

there's been multiple reports of people's computers not booting properly after the windows 11 24H2 KB5063878 update due to it essentially wiping the hard drives (specifically SSDs) on computers and laptops. users have reported their SSDs aren't able to be read/recognized and unable to be seen in bios settings either.

sources: - https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/08/20/microsoft-is-investigating-windows-11-kb5063878-ssd-data-corruption-failure-issue/ - https://www.nichepcgamer.com/archives/windows11-24h2-issue-with-writing-to-the-ssd-is-this-caused-by-kb5063878-kb5062660.html

it's safe to assume all SSDs can be potentially affected by this update, so if you haven't updated yet turn off autoupdates

the bug caused by this update is seemingly triggered by installing/moving/deleting large files (50+ gb), which as simmers is what a lot of us do very pften

if you're unsure what windows version you currently have:

go to settings > system > about (at they very bottom) > and scroll down to see the current OS version

if you do currently have windows 11 24H2:

in settings, click 'Windows update' > 'Update history' > and under 'Quality Updates' check to see if the KB5063878 update is in the list of recently installed updates

don't panic, you can uninstall this update!

while in 'Update History', scroll to the very bottom and click 'Uninstall updates', and click 'Uninstall' for 'Security Update for Microsoft Windows (KB5063878)'

from there, give it some time to remove the update and after pause updates for as long as possible (5 weeks is the longest i think), but it will force an update if there's a big/official update for the fix

if you've already been affected and your computer is not starting or giving errors regarding your hard drive, i recommend visiting small pc repair shops to try data recovery as some have reported placing their SSD in an enclosure seems to work to recover the data

hopefully this is helpful is any kind of way! friendly reminder to back up your data to an external drive routinely!

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

I favour the novels’ idea of Time Lords being spun from Looms – the same way that characters are spun in stories.

– Sylvester McCoy (from the foreword of I, Who)

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

looms only bc no 2 people could’ve produced this guy alone but ‘ladled out of a genetic soup and raised by 44 lunatics’ just about tracks

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

i love finding out what degrees my mutuals have. like what the fuck do you mean you do law? you’re a doctor who blog

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

Breeding blankets for fusion reactors

So, barring a few ambitious projects involving helium-3, fusion reactor power plants will use hydrogen isotopes as fuel: a 50/50 mixture of deuterium (hydrogen-2) and tritium (hydrogen-3). Deuterium is very stable and relatively abundant, as far as these things go, and can be extracted from ordinary seawater.  Tritium, however, has a half life of just over 12 years, so it doesn't occur in nature.

Fortunately, you can use your fusion reactor to synthesize its own tritium fuel, via the transmutation of lithium-6. You use the powerful neutron flux from the fusion plasma to “breed” tritium in lithium, extract it, then feed it back into the reactor. The figure of merit for this process is the tritium breeding ratio (TBR), which is simply the ratio of tritium bred to tritium used. The goal is to get a TBR substantially greater than 1.

This figure shows the physics of tritium breeding, where neutrons from the deuterium-tritium fusion plasma are absorbed by lithium, which then splits into helium and tritium. [source]

Generally speaking, most concepts for tritium breeding involve wrapping a lithium “breeding blanket” around the outside of the reactor, with as few gaps as you can manage. A deuterium-tritium reactor is constantly generating fast neutrons. You want to keep as much of that emission as possible inside the breeding blanket, for both tritium and power generation.

There are a few different ideas for breeding blanket designs, several of which are going to be tested on ITER, the massive reactor being built in France. One concept is a thick sheath of lithium ceramic that surrounds the vessel, either as solid slabs or pebbles.  As tritium breeding occurs under the blanket, water or liquid helium is circulated through it, cooling the lithium and potentially extracting heat for electricity generation.

While such a blanket might be relatively “simple” (lol) to build, there are some pretty fundamental challenges. Neutrons will penetrate most materials with ease, and it might be tricky to extract tritium that's been bred deep inside of solid lithium.  Ideally, you could do the extraction without pause, even as breeding is ongoing. For some designs, though, you have to cycle out breeder units for harvesting as they get a full load of tritium.

Another concept is “liquid breeding." This concept uses a molten mixture of metallic lithium and lead, or a lithium salt compound like FLiBe (fluorine-lithium-beryllium). The liquid would be pumped through a “breeding zone” around the vessel, where the neutron flux is thickest. The tritium will then be continuously extracted from the breeding fluid as it flows back out.  As part of the process, you can run the hot liquid through a heat exchanger, heating water to power a steam turbine. 

Liquid breeding does raise some prominent engineering challenges. Hot, molten breeding fluid will be very hard to handle – not just because of the heat, but also because you're trying to pump a massive quantity of viscous fluid into a very tight breeding zone. Moreover, molten lithium-lead might react explosively with air. If your breeding system springs a leak, you’ll have a serious mess on your hands!

It’s still unclear which of these breeding strategies will bear fruit. From conception to implementation, there are still a lot of unknowns!  Both liquid and solid breeding will be conducted in France, and a number of private fusion companies have plans to breed tritium in their machines as well.

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

genuinely is cracker barrel stupid

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

Ouran high school was my favourite anime when I was like 14 which is really funny because thats also the age I basically was in a Haruhi fujioka situation. Not like fully literally but the meat of it was the same

I was the one single middle-class kid in a super high-end rich kid private academy with like pressed uniforms and building wings and everything. I didnt get any sort of scholarship, my dad just got a job as a teacher there and teachers kids got to enroll for free because the tuition was like 30 grand a year and you arent affording that on a teacher salary. So I understand her on a very visceral level and perhaps enjoyed OHSHC so much because she was SOOO me fr. These damn rich people

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

Someone on Amtrak’s social media team deserves a raise like N O W. 😂

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

i keep seeing think pieces about why later millennials and gen z aren't drinking as much as previous generations and i definitely think there are a bunch of nuanced, overlapping reasons for why that is. but one that i don't see explored often enough in these articles/threads is that at a lot of places, a simple cocktail will cost darn near as much as an entree

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

i’m gonna hit brandon sanderson with a hammer. i hate him. i hate him. i hate him. i hate him. i’m gonna throw bricks at his house. i hate him. fuck. how do you fuck up that badly? how do you fuck it up THAT badly? fucking. are you kidding me. i hate him.

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

Do you block people in the same fandom as you just because you don't like their takes?

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

Figured it out. It’s not tagged properly as a NA novel in its categories and is instead tagged as a ‘NA adaptation of an unproduced television story’ which is a useful tag and a good tidbit of info but it should also fall under the NA novels.

fan wikis are an embarrassment. i search "spoon" and it suggests "hey this character is vaguely called something similar!" no you moron. i want a page listing all incidents of spoons as a cultural phenomenon in this tv show. you are not tardiswiki. you will never be tardiswiki

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible doesn’t even have a page what are we doing

fan wikis are an embarrassment. i search "spoon" and it suggests "hey this character is vaguely called something similar!" no you moron. i want a page listing all incidents of spoons as a cultural phenomenon in this tv show. you are not tardiswiki. you will never be tardiswiki

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

It’s not quite The Office (though Gallifrey bullshit might as well be) but The Invasion of Time has the Doctor turning to the camera and going “not even the sonic screwdriver is going to get me out of this one”

taken together, do 'Feast of Steven' and 'Before the Flood' imply that the Doctor does in fact have the ability to break the fourth wall whenever they want but is simply choosing not to

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, has just died and I am seeing a woeful lack of crab raves on my dash.

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

fan wikis are an embarrassment. i search "spoon" and it suggests "hey this character is vaguely called something similar!" no you moron. i want a page listing all incidents of spoons as a cultural phenomenon in this tv show. you are not tardiswiki. you will never be tardiswiki

[seph-on-an-irrational-planet]

Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, Branson, Missouri

@ominous-signs