Slashdot Mirror

I am not from the USA and have never considered most of your countryfolk to be aware of where the world is far less what is happening in it. I have seem the occasional clip of one of your talking heads and the BBC sometimes has them on for insights into what is happening in your country. Perhaps we just get the amateurs talking to the foreign press.

The area around Chernobyl and Pripyat is fast becoming the best collection of natural history in Europe if not the world. The videos and pictures from there vary from the sombre to the absolutely fantastic. No multinational (read US corporation) is going to try and build factories, take wood or anything else from there. Animals killed there and sold elsewhere are easy to identify. Radioactivity is higher than normal all over it but very little of it now is unsafe for the next 100,000 years.

There is plenty on the web about it - my early favourite was http://www.kiddofspeed.com/ although there are occasional questions as to whether they are real.

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Having watched Internet reaction to the same material on Pripyat presented by Kiddofspeed for ten years now, I have to say that we've made some serious strides as a virtual culture, and not necessarily in a good direction.

When the series first appeared it was truly a phenomenon. Elena's commentary is brief and completely authentic, as a young modern explorer chronicling a bizarre place frozen in time. With a measure of curiosity and intelligent caution she takes us to the lonely places, takes but a few steps into the most dangerous places, and the album as a whole is presented as just what it is. The Kidofspeed series and her wonderful russenglish commentary stands as one of the greatest photo essays of the generation.

A great many reactions fixed on her as a person, simple and undisguised male adoration of this adventurous motorcycle-loving young female, and a vicariously shared sense of wonder of visiting forbidden, dangerous lonely places. It was real.

No trace of that now. This is kinda fake. Slashdot may still be mostly male, but we've managed to purge --- it seems --- that aspect of human sentiment completely. Is it because we have achieved a level of sterile, grey political correctness? Have we sold our human souls for a dear price?

"I hereby reject Kiddofspeed because it is not a Slashdot-approved link to a cited peer reviewed journal."
"tourist"
"Motorcycle! Dangerous!"
"Blah blah so-and-so should MOVE there if he feels that way!"

Pripyat is what it is, just like that burning coal town Centralia PA. Not the end of the world or even the complete destruction of life, just a visible warning of what we should not let happen again.

Elena, you're still my hero, I love your art and you're still a FOX.

Is this it?

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

This is a mirror of the original Angelfire site.
I saw this years ago.
Haunting, sobering stuff.
Please take a look....

CAPTCHA: policy [how apt!... (-_-) ]

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

Regardless of any controversy over how the pictures were taken, they and the commentary are interesting nonetheless.

Will motorcycle tours be offered?

The excellent photo-journal of this girl who rides her motorcycle within the dead zone will answer all your questions, and then some.

Basically, the official dead zone is a much larger area than you think, and even within the dead zone there are various degrees of risk/safety to consider. The old people that have come back are basically farmers, from the various pictures she took. And even then, if someone were to bring them food, the risk wouldn't be the same for someone who's only driving by and someone who's actually living there.

More to the point, if people aren't allowed in the exclusion zone then explain how this girl was able to ride around in there?

I'd almost managed to forget about Chernobyl Girl. Thanks a lot for reminding me.

I'd love to visit Chernobyl. I was absolutely fascinated by the descriptions and photos of Elena's trip.

Yes, as I recall it was determined to be a hoax, in that she hadn't quite been where she said and some other things were bogus that I don't recall offhand. However, it's still a remarkable piece of photo-journalism (and an excellent lesson on how a well-staged emotional piece can sway mass perceptions, accurate or not), and it's still available online.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

Take a look at her other sites too.

If you want a closer (and way more personal) look, check out the photos and stories at kiddofspeed.com.
This is from a woman doing solo motorcycle trips through the dead zone, talking to people that live in the surroundings and hearing their anecdotes, going in the buildings (not the reactor of course).

Impressive and much more 'real'. Worth checking out.

That is, "clean-ish".

    If 70% of their generation is hydro or nuclear, that still leaves 30% that isn't.

    Hydroelectric plants have their drawbacks. To build them, a large area has to be dammed up. This changes the flow of a natural river. Large areas upstream are flooded to make it. Downstream, the natural flow is frequently reduced, which can cause many other problems.

    Nuclear plants are clean, except they usually have a large warm water outlet that changes the environment around it. That water is frequently contaminated with heavy metals. Not nuclear waste, but corrosion from the metal pipes from the inlet, through the heat exchanger and generators, on out to the exhaust. The spent fuel rods aren't exactly the cleanest thing either, but they end up going somewhere.

        I won't say that changes away from dirtier plants isn't a good thing. We just have to really consider what we're doing, rather than blind faith in "new tech will save us". IF someone invented a new power generator tomorrow that seemed to have no emissions and would run seemingly forever, I'd still want to know what the drawbacks are. Oh like, 1 in 4 people within a 100 mile radius will die because of a previously unknown radiation. Bah, that'd never happen.

So true. Here is a site that I always find relevant when discussion veers into this specific incident.

I don't think humans are currently responsible enough to use lots of nuclear fission plants. Check this site out, follow the links on the bottom of the pages to go to the next horror story after another. http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/

So, basically what I'm saying is that I don't worry about nuclear power because there is nothing to worry about. Aside from one major accident (And that in Russia) there have been no major accidents (where containment was lost) at any nuclear power station.

...that's a pretty bug fucking "oops" you're trying to scoop under the rug there.

Here is a cool site - a hot chix0r on a hot bike drives thru Chernobyl. The pictures are gripping, and not just because the hot chick is in some of them. Check it out.

There's this website where this woman chronicles her motorcycle rides through the area around Chernobyl. The last time I visited the site was several years ago; it appears she's returned since then. It's very fascinating, and without a doubt, eerie. If I remember correctly she mentions having spotted wildlife on a few occassions.

...or looking for an intriguing read on a Friday morning, this young lady Elena describes her motorcycle ride to and through the so called Chernobyl "dead zone", with pictures. Interesting read.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/. Beautiful and scary at the same time.

As I recall, some of the photos were determined to be setups. Regardless, http://www.kiddofspeed.com/ is a marvelously effective photo essay, so frankly I don't *care* if some parts are less than authentic.

As to the deformed calf, it's possible within the species; genes for similar deformities already exist. Could be whatever was a weak point in the genome that gave rise to similar mutations, is also a weak point that can be assaulted by radiation. (A theory I made up this very instant, but even so seems quite logical.)

Or it could be a matter of radiation exposure at a certain stage of development; frex, if you expose canine fetuses to high radiation during the first trimester, they can be born hairless and with stunted limbs.

I live in an area with relatively high levels of natural radiation due to uranium deposits. We see a lot of deformed carrion beetles (big black desert "stink beetles"), which I've never observed anywhere else. Some of the deformed beetles behave normally, others seem sluggish and confused; some have very thin shells, or are oddly shaped (some seem to get along all right, others aren't really viable), or are oversized. As I've not observed oddities in other insects, it's hard to pin this on the background radiation, but a person sure has to wonder.

Just in case anyone missed it the first couple of times it went through /., there's a great website a photographer put up of her trip through chernobyl - http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

Really surreal and well worth a look.

This gal's website has always fascinated me. She takes motorcycle trips right up to the Chernobyl reactor. She has been talking about the abundance of wildlife and vegetation need the reactor for years now. I completely forgot that Chernobyl actually operated as a functioning reactor for years and years after the meltdown of one of their units in '86. How would you like to have that job in the post-meltdown world? Forget the 30 foot bears...how about the 30 foot tumors spouting from the sides of your head. Here is her link: http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

I'm sure just about everyone has seen this by now, but just in case you haven't, here's a nice site about a lady who rode her motorcycle around the disaster zone and took a bunch of pictures.

you can see her second visit here:

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-land-of-the-w olves/

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

It's done the rounds before, but maybe new people haven't seen it yet. Possibly apocryphal, left to reader to decide.

Also has some AMAZING pictures of the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine at the end of last year. Very much well worth a look.

That grass looks pretty green to me...

Just because humans can't live there without getting cancer doesn't mean that other life forms aren't able to.

you should see this. I want to visit this place :)

The highlight of the story for me is the fine example of eastern European cycling prowess ("scooturo") or as she calls it, a "son of a ditch".

Of course, I would love one!

So therefore I will attract her with my castle in the swamp and save you poor sods the heartache.

America is the home of the egotistical, the hypocrites, the polluters of the world.

According to UCS, nuclear is down to 21% of our energy production and falling as old plants get retired. Russia used to have a pretty active nuclear program as well, but they've had a few problems.

Meanwhile coal is doing 54%. If the Clean Air Act had not been watered down, we would have much cleaner air.

In Alaska, we often see a hazy sky, caused by pollution from Siberia and points east.

For the long term, we should probably be more worried about the Soviet nuclear waste the Soviets and now the Russians have accumulated in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. Then there's the nuclear plants, two of them in Siberia, that we're down wind of. They were built by the same government which brought us Chernobyl.

If you're looking for things to worry about, you'll never run out.

Of course, I meant Chernobyl.

Heres a link to the motorbike girl photo set where its described.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter19.html

Thus killing all of the bears, deer, birds, etc. that roam in the parks. Great idea.

This was posted way down in the comments, and I'll repeat it here so perhaps someone will see it. You can follow along with a Motorcycle ride through Chernobyl.

Someone posted the link to the woman in question in an earlier post:

Here

The original site was hosted on angelfire which is now down, but a mirror can be found here.

Unfortuantly as I posted a little earlier the story's a fake.

...is one of my favorite chronicles of Chernobyl after the explosion. It's a little story (with pictures) about a woman that rode her motorcycle through Chernobyl and documented what she saw and how it made her feel. Very good read IMHO.

Here's the link (hopefully you people won't kill their server)
If I get a mirror put up, I'll post it.

Ah ha found it... domain name was kidd with a double d

Kidd of Speed's photo journal of Chernobyl

Ghost Ride

This project really grabs my imagination. I wish I had a GPS so I could visit some of the NZ ones.

Of course the Greens are mostly anti-technological progress.

Really? Who is pushing alternate energies, wind power, solar technology etc.? Whose electorate is the most likely to be "online" (78 percent)? Or do you mean their hostility towards a 60s technology that turned out to have incalculable risks and where still no one knows where to put the highly radioactive waste with a half-life of ten thousands of years? That cost US government and population at least half a trillion dollars?

Or is it their refusal to allow corporations like Monsanto insane profits (from bio-patents) from increased use of pesticides (by e.g. marketing herbicide-resistant genetically engineered maize, and plants that produce pesticides themselves)?

According to kiddofspeed, being /.'ed was similar to being invaded by a horde of mongols.

Which photos? I just ran through the lot at kiddofspeed.com and didn't see any of the bike in the actual town.

I don't have an answer to that, but that leads to another question - Who took the pictures with her in them?

So if she just carried along a helmet, how did the motorcycle get into some of the pictures? Some other random abandoned Soviet highway? I have no idea if the site is a hoax, but Mycio's post gives me no reasons to think it is. "Motorcycles are forbidden", right, and Russian officials don't take bribes either.

This has a rather chilling photo tour of the region...

I came upon the site of Elena's site a while ago, chronicling her travels through Chernobyl on a motorcycle.

This is *really* worth a look for anyone interested.

This is just a rip off from the kiddofspeed.com