whereas increasing the stack size by using the command
ulimit -s 900000
allowed the program to run apparently without a crash:

EDIT: Nevermind, I had created a bomb. Oops.

Evidently Apple uses computed tomography to scan the insides of their devices when they are undergoing testing. Seeing as how I also use CT to scan cargo containers, I thought that was pretty  damn cool.

A court on Monday barred the disgraced architect of Pakistan’s atomic weapons program from speaking about nuclear proliferation, less than three weeks after he implicated the army in the sharing of nuclear technology with North Korea.

That’s right–the Pakistani court has the ability to refrain a person from talking completely about a subject because they don’t want to have to admit what happened.  Great.

There are a few disturbing bits of information that are contained in this article.  First of all, leaking any sort of researched secrets is a bad thing to do.  The fact that Khan did so obviously makes him a untrustable scientist, much like Klaus Fuchs in the early atomic age.  But more revelations made by Khan makes him seem much more innocent than originally thought.  He claims that the Pakistani government allowed the shipment of centrifuges to North Korea aboard a North Korean plane with full military knowledge.

The fact that the Pakistani government may have willing provided other countries with their own nuclear secrets is a very scary thought.  Most countries attempt to keep their nuclear secrets to themselves.  Evidently the Pakistani government thought they had something to gain when they gave out their centrifuges to North Korea.  Korea managed to produce a bomb, so I assume that is what Pakistan was going for.  Either way it’s very scary to think that Pakistan is just handing out nuclear secrets/equipment left and right…

Quote from the Purdue News Service:

Purdue University on Friday (July 18) announced that an investigative committee with members from five institutions has concluded that two allegations against Rusi Taleyarkhan, a professor of nuclear engineering, constituted research misconduct.

I can’t really comment on this too terribly much as I’m a student in the School of Nuclear Engineering.  That being said, I hope that this doesn’t tarnish the reputation of Purdue or NE there–there is only so much they can do and they couldn’t be expected to do more than they already have.  So, that all being said, read up on it and see what you think.

I hate to keep a Cold-War mentality about these sort of things (especially since I wasn’t really around during the Cold War) but I can’t see how getting rid of our nuclear stockpile is going to help us in the long-term.  I personally like LGF’s comment:

He’s going to achieve this amazing feat by making sure the US adheres to nonproliferation treaties. [excerpt from article]

Because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-Il will look at the US adhering to those treaties, and be embarrassed into getting rid of their weapons programs.

Or something like that.

No ‘rouge’ nation/state/terrorist group/club is going to stop attempting to acquire or produce nuclear weapons because the US is sticking to treaties that we should be sticking to right now.  That’s a rather ridiculous idea, to be frank.  I would think that if a terrorist group realized that the US was no longer going to have nuclear weapons they would be more inclined to attempt to get and use a nuke against the United States.  After all, if the US doesn’t have nukes anymore it makes it much tougher for us to inflict massive amounts of damage without taking over their country and attempting to regulate it in a Western democratic style.

Obama has a great quote in the article itself:

“All of this will demand the greatest resource that America has, and that’s our people,” Obama said. “In the Cold War, we didn’t defeat the Soviets just because of the strength of our arms. We also did it because at the dawn of the atomic age and at the onset of the space race, the smartest scientists and most innovative work force was here in America.”

That’s correct.  Starting with the beginning of the Manhatten Project and ending sometime in the middle to late 20th century, America had the best scientists and engineers.  Is that honestly the case anymore?  More and more people are shying away from careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and we’re rapidly losing to countries like China who send their best students to America to benefit from our great colleges.  I honestly wonder if we have the capability to make the same kind of technological advances that we made with what seemed like such ease during that period.

I’d also like to take a second to expand on my personal annoyances with Obama.  For one part, he seems to be against nuclear energy.  Then again, he’s also for nuclear energy.  Would he please pick a side?  It’s rather ridiculous.  If you’re going to be against it then just be against it.  I did get a bit of humor out of this article being that I go to Purdue, I’m in Nuclear Engineering and, oh yeah, Obama made this statement in West Lafayette.  For those who don’t know, West Lafayette is the home of Purdue as well as Indiana’s only nuclear reactor, PUR-1.  Well, at least he targeted his comments well.  I will spare everyone reading this my rant on why we don’t have more nuclear power plants–but I’m sure I’ll return to that topic eventually.

Anyhow, we’ll see if Obama actually follows through on this claim or if it’s just more pandering, this time to the more liberal sides of the party.  I can only hope that he’ll realize what a large mistake he’s making.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has formally ordered the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to conduct an inventory of all U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon-related materials to make sure all items are accounted for, according to a Pentagon memo released Thursday.

What’s that, Secretary Gates? You mean that we have to take care of the most powerful weapons known to mankind? I am absolutely horrified with the casual manner that the United States seems to act with in respect to their nuclear weapons. The know-how to make a nuclear weapon is no longer hard to come by–the nuclear physics is relatively simple and could be figured out by a few graduate students in physics and nuclear engineering. The really hard part of building a nuclear bomb is getting the appropriate nuclear material. Seeing as how we have somewhere near 5000 nuclear warheads (according to Wikipedia) around in the United States alone, I would hope this is a top priority.

Just as big of a priority, of course, is the fact that there are over 400 nuclear power plants active in the world, with almost all of those running on a uranium fuel. Why we aren’t policing those as well, I’m not sure–Uranium bombs are generally not as powerful, but they’re a lot easier to make, disassemble, transport, and reassemble.

I think the most interesting thing from this entire article, however, is the fact that Secretary Gates is giving the US Forces sixty days to locate all of our nuclear warheads and to report back. This brings up two very very interesting questions–First of all, why does it take sixty days to count all of our most powerful weapons? Secondly, if we were in a war situation and needed to launch our nuclear missiles at a country, how long would it take the Air Force/Navy to respond then? If missiles from Russia are supposed to take around twenty minutes to hit the mainland United States, shouldn’t we theoretically be able to do a relatively close count of our nuclear weapons in, say, double that time? The only exceptions, I would assume, would be nuclear subs sleeping out in the ocean, only getting signals every once in a while. Other than those subs, every nuclear weapon depot and Air Force base with nuclear bombs should be able to perform an accurate count in less than a day. I think the sixty days are just a great ‘out’ given by the Defense Department, basically saying “If you can’t find your nukes right now, you better find them in the next 59 days or else you’re going to be in trouble.”

The pessimistic side of me says that I shouldn’t be surprised: that it is the government, and I should let it go. The realistic side of me, however, says that these are nuclear weapons capable of slaughtering millions of people with ease and maybe, just maybe, we should keep track of them.