One thing I do miss from the early internet was less anonymity being the norm on Usenet/forums/etc. Discussions tend to stay more civil when both parties know there's a "real" person on the other end.
Otherwise, my memory of early 90s internet supports exactly your conclusion. There may have been better opportunities for small discussions, but big ones devolved the same way they do today.
Yes. It's a little different between England & Wales, Scotland, and NI, but public rights of way (footpaths and bridleways) are very much a thing.
My experience is that it works well in general, but some landowners are better than others, and some highway authorities (which enforce the laws) are more zealous than others. Most of the issues I see around me is farmers allowing crops to grow through low use footpaths such that they become impassable.
The other tricky bit of PRoWs is that any path used by the public for 20 years continuously, without force, secrecy, or the landowner's permission, is legally presumed to be a public right of way, even if it isn't shown on the definitive map kept by the local authority. That can lead to legal fights e.g. [1] and [2]. There are also 'permissive footpaths' where landowners have agreed to allow the public to pass, but not become a PRoW. There are also s106 agreements (planning obligations) where developers must allow the public to use land as a footpath. The Thames Path has a mix of these.
In Scotland, there is a more general 'right to roam' which allows anybody to access most land (excepting buildings and their curtilages, military sites, and other obvious exceptions), but there are affirmative duties to maintain PRoWs that don't apply to open access land making them still relevant. England and Wales have some limited open access land as well, but much much less of it. NI has no open access land and (subjectively) fewer public footpaths.
No, it isn't. It is called 'City of London Corporation' in the sense of being a municipal corporation, but effectively it's just a local authority... except that businesses still get a vote along with citizens.
Their SNM license was for “up to 93.5% enriched”[1] and their decommissioning plan describes them as MTR-type Al-clad plates. So I’d take a reasonable guess that these are at 93% nominal enrichment, like ATR and HFIR fuel plates.
Respectfully, have you ever actually read an NTSB report? They're incredibly thorough and consider both causes and contributing factors through a number of lenses with an exclusive focus on preventing accidents from occurring.
Also, they're basically inadmissible in court [49 U.S.C.§1154(b)] so are useless for determining financial liability.
> I suspect that the push for civilian SMRs is a disguised subsidy for the naval reactor programme
It absolutely isn’t. There is very little crossover between the RR SMR (which is 470 MWe, not really an ‘SMR’ by IAEA definition) and a submarine reactor core. Sub cores are smaller and optimised for different conditions. They’re vastly different tech. The teams at RR working on these are totally distinct with no crossover.
RR just got £9B for sub NSSS work. They don’t need a back door subsidy when they have a big cheque coming right through the front door!
If anything, UK govt is prioritising domestic technology, whether or not that’s the best from a purely economic point of view.
> several other huge fraudsters here (eg Caroline Ellison) get to walk
Caroline Ellison pleaded to two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Looking at the Federal Sentencing Guidelines[1], even accepting for her being a cooperating witness, she's very likely going to prison too for a fair amount of time. Just for (probably much) less time than SBF.
Otherwise, my memory of early 90s internet supports exactly your conclusion. There may have been better opportunities for small discussions, but big ones devolved the same way they do today.