January 10, 2008 -
This game is rated M for... Mushroom cloud? We joke, of course.
But the FBI recently paid a visit to a Texas gamer who was attempting to build a small nuclear reactor in his basement. They were accompanied by local cops as well as officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The man, described by NBC-5 as an "out-of-work computer whiz who redesigns (GP: mods, perhaps?) video games" is apparently a science buff with a fascination for all things nuclear.
The FBI searched his home but found no cause for concern. The feds did, however, take the man's reactor project with them when they left, at the request of his parents.
Why did the young man embark on such a project? He told the TV news:
[Radiation is] in your tap water, you know, in the dirt. You could hold a Geiger counter up to a banana and get a count off of it. People do it in universities all the time. It's just not usual that somebody does it outside of a university.
Authorities were alerted following a blog entry in which the man described possessing uranium and indicated that the background radiation of his home had doubled. Of the raid on his home the gamer-turned-scientist said:
[FBI agents are] just doing their job. That's their job to come and check on stuff like that. When they left, it had been deemed that, you know, everything was within reason.... I think I'll keep it cool for awhile.
GP: It's interesting that the TV news report makes so much of the man's gaming, even showing him playing Call of Duty 4 at his PC.
Comments
Re: Gamer Builds Nuclear Reactor in Home; FBI Pays a Visit
The guy ended up getting testicular canced. not sure if it was related to his project
also only gamers are dangerous, as we all know since all other criminals have since retired their naughty ways and crochet for a living.
Lives with him mom.
A true follower of our kind.
IN other news, radiation not quite as dangerous as anti nuclear hysteria has convinced people it is, film at 11.
I hate to get all scientiffical, but that is semi-true. Radation is everywhere, but not in the amounts one finds in a reactor.
(1) Individual is intelligent enough to build own reactor.
(2) Government wants sole Rights to nuclear power.
(3) Government wants to infringe on citizen's IP Rights to creating their own personal power source.
(4) Government links video games to being evil.
(5) Government links intelligent citizen who can build a reactor to video games.
(6) Government deems intelligent citizen who can build a reactor an "evil genius" because video games are evil and citizen plays video games.
(7) Government confiscates reactor and "leaks" (no pun intended) to the news media that they have stormed the home of an "evil genius" (because he played video games and video games are evil) and taken away his nuclear bomb... er... reactor.
(8) Government has successfully violated IP Rights of citizen and assured that they are the only ones with power to bill citizens for nuclear energy.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Pardon my ignorance, but does that mean in the USA energy/power is nationalised, rather than privatised? Just curious - an honest query rather than a loaded question...
i give this guy kudos for building a nuclear reactor, rising energy prices are a bugger these days, however i suspect he'd've had more luck if he'd not posted this information, finished it, patent'd it, got a small piece of land out in the open, and set up his own energy company.
why, i ask, do the news make so much of gamers being smart?
direct comparrison of smartness with 'he who must not be named' and the average gamer, and we win.
actually, the unmentionable one is quite smart, just lacking in wisdom/plain common sense.
My thoughts exactly.
@ Monkeythumbs
Energy is privatised, but heavily under the direct supervision of the government. They get paid large dues and taxes from energy companies. If private citizens are creating their own power, they have to pay taxes on it.
If you are caught building your own nuclear reactor to power your home or your own bio-fuel to fuel your car, they will confiscate if you don't pay the heavy taxes. Chances are that you will be unable to pay those taxes.
Also in the US, if you do manage to get a liscense to power your own house (it is possible, but I don't know of anyone who is totally independent of outside power) you cannot, as a private citizen, make more power than you can personally use. You have to give any excess power back to the state without any compensation. You cannot even give that power to your neighbors as that is outside the liscense.
It sucks horribly.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
"It’s interesting that the TV news report makes so much of the man’s gaming, even showing him playing Call of Duty 4 at his PC."
@GP: No it's not. I'd stop short of saying they have an AGENDA, but the MSM still goes to some lengths to portray gaming as abnormal. There's no surprise here at all. You've got a person doing something the average viewer would be shocked by/not want in their neighborhood, so the fact that he games is raised clearly. It's SOP.
Many of the nuke plants in the united states are privately run.
The Nuclear regulatory Commission is just that, a Regulatory group that the government created to watch and enforce standards in the nuclear power industry.
I don't know which state you live in, but I have solar panels at my home and during the summer when I generate more power than I consume, the power company buys back the extra electricity I feed into the grid.
"The feds did, however, take the man’s reactor project with them when they left, at the request of his parents."
his parents wanted that reactor out of the house, i dont think the feds cared as much. 'course that's just my interpretation.
Yeah, the company i intern at does the same thing with power on the weekends.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
Just FYI.
I tried to do what he did and get a sample of every stable element on the periodic table then glue them to a large periodic table.
Some of the stuff aint easy to get.
If that were true anyone with a windmill generator on their house should be imprisoned.
My mistake.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
I noticed the same thing too. I don't think it's really that big of a deal that they visited him, because they only ended up taking it away at the request of his parents. They were only there to make sure nothing was going to explode.
The woes of the home power supply aside, I dislike that they included him being a video gamer in the media report. That seems completely unrelated, and the only reason I can see for that fact being included is the media trying to reinforce the "gamers are weird and we want nothing to do with them" mindset.
Do you have to sell it to the electric company or can you keep it or give it away?
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Step 1 Train an army through murder simulators
Step 2 Build Nuclear Reactors to get WMD
Step 3 Take over the world
They should be worried
Very worried
Because soon they won't be able to stop us
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Step 4: Profit!
That's why it's called "weapons-grade" nuclear material.
Yes, our founding fathers must be so proud.
Everyone I know plays it on console
Brownies for all! *Activates Brownie Fountain*
He stated that the nuclear background in his house doubled. That's nothing, I live (like one of the commentors here, Soldat Louis I think) in Brittany. The rock under us is granit. The average radioactivity here is twice what you would get in, say, Paris, or London.
That's no threat. What is a threat is called panic mongering. See Greenpeace, they started out with noble objectives but now...
Also, I think you might be amused to know that the wave of cancers in Western Europe associated with some events linked to the plot of STALKER happens to have started before the actual accident. It's not genetic premonition, it's progress in cancer detection.
You typically have to feed it back into the grid. Actually it may also have something to do with zoning laws.
Part of the issue is zoning laws. 2 houses can't share the same power tap because of the zoning. However a group of town houses can. Large apartment building can have individual metering or the whole building metering.
Sometimes you will see neighborhoods forming co-ops to get better deals on power, they collectively pay, then give everyone access to the same pool. This actually becomes a necessity in some more rural areas.
You can make a nuke with uranium. You can also make it with plutonium, and weapons grade plutonium.
The higher the grade the less of the material you need for a bomb.
Quite frankly, its not that damn hard to make a nuke. It won't be elegant, clean, compact, high yield, or guaranteed to work. The best part is, if it doesn't work you have a plain old dirty bomb, which is nasty on its own.
yea it doubled, but he wasn't done. you don't know the guy do you? have you hung out with him? does he have the training? does he have back ups to ensure saftey? I doubt you know ANY of this, and neither do I. so why risk having a guy who may or may not mess a whole lot of shit up. would he stop just knowing he can? or will he keep going to see how much he can do? I know the rise in cancer rate is also related to the rise in cancer detection, just like the rise in STD's and the rise in drugs. you are just hearing about it more. but this is something no one person should be doing on their own. he even said it himself that it is something that should be done in a university with people. he just seemed to do it for shits and giggles it seems. do I know that for sure? no. do you know that for sure? no. but why risk it all because he may or may not be an ok guy.
I hate it when people scream foul when police/fbi barge into someones place because of probable cause and a warrent. even this guy said they were only doing their job and he was ok with it. that kinda shows he may be an ok guy, but before this happened would anyone have known that for sure? probably not. so, again, why risk such a thing that may effect people living around him?
It is not always true that one cannot sell the excess power to the state. Several states have laws that require the re-purchase of excess power at precisely the cost that private users pay. Most have a grid-tie meter that can run backwards. While most of your statements were true, it is legal to produce your own fuel for your own use that is not transported, sold or used to power machinery that travels on public roads. This means that you can make biodiesel for use in your home furnace or your farm's tractors but not for your truck which is licensed to run on the roads unless you pay taxes on the fuel which is still much cheaper than paying for it at the pumps.
It sure would be nice to only have to pay roughly $50/year for a self-sustaining electrical supply... but what are the chances any municipality in the nation lets you put one in? Heck, many places don't even let you install geothermal heat pumps without a special hard-to-get license.
It's like a license to own a 50 cal. rifle. Sure you can legally get one, but good luck finding anyone who will give you one.
I am anonymous, it doesn't look like it means anything but it does.
It simplifies things. Call me anonymous rather than a paraphase please, it works better for post referal.
And about your complaints:
"They're just doing their job," the man said. "That's their job to come and check on stuff like that. When they left, it had been deemed that, you know, everything was within reason."
That about sums it up.
Yes, it does. he says they were doing their job. they found out it was within reason at that time. would i have not wanted them to check on it? no. You qouting what he said is what i already stated. i don't view this as fear mongering. i view it as someone who said they were doing something they probably shouldn't have. they checked it out, it was ok but it was good to make sure. take the thing away he shouldn't really have in the first place, to which he admits, end of story. no harm done. I just meant i wouldn't want them to just brush it off all because they don't know he knows what he is doing. I had no complaints, just to those who think this was wrong of them to check up on. it was well within reason to, it was their job to, as you qouted, the end.