Smoked them like a bad cigar.
Scratched their back with a hacksaw.
Their face was shaved with a rusty razor.
Gawker doesn't know whether to cry or wind their watches.
At any rate, when it comes to Gawker, one could say Elvis has left the building.
Buy Thiel a drink, and get his dog one too!
Anyhow, let us now give thanks to Toronto for gifting us Kessel.
Contrary to popular belief, there are stupid scientists. There's no rule that says scientists have to be brilliant and smart, they can be stupid and dimwitted too.
Now explain how a person who states that he doesn't believe in science can be a scientist. Most of us have a belief in science as a mandatory requirement.
I believe the word for that is *irony*. Delicious, hilarious irony.
I believe you are correct.
We have allowed the idiots to take charge long enough. When denying science becomes a platform and litmus test for those who dare to call themselves "conservative" it's time for the adults to take charge again.
Accepting science is not a liberal or conservative value. Denying it apparently is.
First off, you might want to reread what I said--'cost' does not always mean monetary cost, and I was trying to underline its human costs--and then reread the summary at least. It looks like they're proposing a new tool, using past examples, to enable better decision-making at the time of the disaster.
All costs are financial in one way or another. A human life prematurely lost is lost money, and an old life lost is often a gain, or at least less of a drain on money. This is such a minor part of the argument, I don't see much need to belabor it. But that's why we call it cost.
Secondly, I had to get at least some training in how to handle suddenly-happening disaster situations because I might be working in some rather dangerous labs, so I can quite definitely tell you that no, you can very much know what might happen and what the rough odds are, and the people who opt to go in and get more intel know exactly what they're doing when the facility has properly-trained staff.
Rough odds is an understatement. I've worked in a lot of dangerous situations, and you prepare yourself as best you can, but if the facility is in total destruction mode, will you - the person who presumably knows all of the things that can go wrong - still be alive?
Will all of the possible failure modes be discovered? The physical plant at Fukushima suggests otherwise, and let's not forget the human caused destruction at Chernobyl. Without that one dumb experiment, the plant would probably be happily generating electricity today.
If you don't have a decent idea what 'burning and/or exploding reactor buildings' might result in, you have no business being responsible for them.
Which certainly argues for erring on the side of caution. As noted before, the evacuation was not a simple "JEEZUS K RYST! Get everyone the FSCK outa here NOW!
It started with the area right around the plant, got it extended a couple times as the situation deteriorated with the cooling systems failing, than finally as the reactor buildings were exploding, was taken to it's fullest extent. This seems like prudent decisions (one of the few with regards to that Power Plant that had 100 percent chance of failing) not the "Run away! Run Away! concept that this study suggests happened.
Now I know a little bit about nuclear power. If I was having a picnic with the wife and kids, say 5 kilometers away from a nuc power plant, and I saw smoke followed by an explosion that blew apart the building the reactor was housed in, I would hot-tail it as far away as I could get, and would try my darndest to head in the direction away from the wind. I take it you would stay there and enjoy the show, calmly explaining that it wasn't possible for a nuclear explosion, and all of that radioactive exposure doesn't really matter unless it's a huge dose? Something tells me you too would leave the area, and long before you had 100 percent situational awareness.
That's why I place so little value in studies that are done by people who have no responsibility for the command decisions, and never will. Who with the perfect hindsight of armchair analysts write a sentence or two about how they are not casting judgement, then write a whole article that casts judgement.
Perhaps these folk with all of their knowledge of exactly how things are and how they will unfold need a promotion to the people making the decisions, and then bearing the repercussions if one of their shelter in place decisions costs a lot of people their lives or health.
Of course there are costs for large scale evacuations. That's why you design as much as possible to avoid the need for them.
Thirdly, you're not considering the converse situations, which have also happened. Unnecessary evacuations are crying wolf, and that's an incredibly well-understood problem.
Okay, looks like I need you to give the reasons why there was no need for ev
The hilarity is that all the people screaming about gamergate, the alt-right, neonazis, and trying to cast gawker as a martyr for freedom of the press are the exact same people who lost their shit over the fappening. They're perfectly alright with publishing stolen sex tapes and nudes... as long as it's not of an attractive woman.
Talk about a thread hijack. Trying to figure out how my pointing out the financial advantages of bankrupting a business, then buying it at firesale price is somehow related to GamerGate , NeoNazis, or whatever the fuck the fappening is. What's next, Dogs and cats living together?
Hell, that vicegrip process is roughly how I bought my house. Took a downturn in the local economy, and a house that had been sitting a while for sale. The owners had built a new house, and were in a bit of financial trouble with two mortgages. I let them sweat it out, as every month without being sold, it got a little worse for them. Finally they got desperate, and I got the place for 50 K under market value. Only difference is I didn't personally drive them to the edge of bankruptcy, I merely played the game to my financial advantage.
Y'all can get back to bitching about Hellery's emails and O'Blama's birth certificate and whatever the fuck the fappening is. now.
The anger directed at Thiel over the Gawker case is reminiscent of the anger about the DNC's hacked emails. Those who are angry completely overlook that if Gawker/the DNC hadn't done anything wrong, there wouldn't have been any fallout in the first place. Gawker never would've been sued for publishing Bollea's sex tape. There would've been no evidence of the Democratic party leadership tampering with the primary process. They don't want to hear the message, so they do their best to ignore it and try to shoot the messenger.
I hear your message - maybe not the one you intended. You do know that both parties were hacked don't you? You do know that the Republican Party actively tries to ensure that only the "right" Republicans are representing. Google "war on moderate Republicans". Both parties pull this crap. Are you pleased that only the DNC hack has been made public?
My statement has not Republican or Democrat content, there are many different color crayons in the box. I have no dog in this fight, merely point out a financially savvy path to prosperity.
So he builds a rocket expected to reach 1,500 feet.... When there is an 11,500 foot mountain 50 miles from Amboy with a trail right to the tippy top.and a 360 degree view of the horizon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Call me crazy but I really don't think this has anything to do with 'flat earth', science or rockets. He got his picture in the paper. End of story.
He wants a reality show series on the Discovery Channel that comes on right after Ancielt Aliens.
Contrary to popular belief, there are stupid scientists. There's no rule that says scientists have to be brilliant and smart, they can be stupid and dimwitted too.
Now explain how a person who states that he doesn't believe in science can be a scientist. Most of us have a belief in science as a mandatory requirement.
I mean... he has a hypothesis and he's testing it. Sounds like science. Still a nutjob.
What exactly ie the hypothesis? For the life of me, I can't think of anything that would prove the earth flat or globular at 1500 feet.
This is just more 21st century American reality Television race to the bottom bullshit where we make stupid people famous. And my gawd, it shows. The best thing to come out of it might be his life serving as a warning to others.
This is merely an excellent way to acquire new businesses. If the math is there, and you want it, Bankrupt the business first, then buy it. My free market senses are tingling with the new business model. What is more, it is approved in the Holy Bible - reference Uriah the Hittite, killed by King David, who was already yencing Uriah's wife, knocked her up, and after having Uriah out of the way, married her.
So all is good.
I'm not sure what your comment has to do with mine. Of course you don't know everything ahead of time, decision makers make judgement calls based on the available information (and hopefully contingency plans made ahead o time). Judgement calls. Unlike what GP claims, over-reacting is neither required nor particularly frequent. "Limited information" does not mean you must evacuate the whole country, or any specific geographic area.
That's a fine slippery slope we have here. The people making decisions almost certainly don't have evacuation of the entire country in mind - I mean, how would that even be done?
They estimate possibly 1000 deaths had the area not been evacuated. Slashdotters can either declare this fake news or believe that 1000 deaths were worth the savings in money.
But how would one even tell? Being that the whole thing is conjecture? Here on Slashdot we are blessed with instantly knowing, based on our outlook.
If you're an official in Florida, or anywhere along the east coast, you should have hurricane plans ready BEFORE hurricane season, when you have time to discuss and plan carefully. Those plans should have triggers assigned ahead of time "when a category 3 storm is 300 miles away, activate chapter 4 of this plan".
The best part of that scenario is that we have a lot of experience with hurricanes, and that given the different strengths, storm surges and even the time it hits land relative to high or low tide, you have a much better idea of the path of destruction. The unknowns are the exact location of landfall, and the details.
With a unplanned powerplant excursion, much less is known. In addition, there is often a veracity problem where many do not believe what they are told.
Now if we take say the Fukushima misadventure, the original evacuation order was for 3 kilometers around the plant at 9 p.m. on March 11 after the emergency core cooling system mostly failed.
Then on the 12th, after the emergency batteries ran out on reactor 3, and the fuel rods are exposed, and it started venting steam, the evacuatino zone was extended to 6 kilometers, then 20 kilometers.
On the 25th, the evacuation zone was made voluntary between 20 and 30 kilometers.
In the meantime, on the 14th, Reactor 3 suffers an explosion that damages reactor number 2's cooling system. Then on the 15th Reactor 4 has an explosion, and number 3 suffers a second explosion. Unit's 2 and 3 have white smoke issiung form them.
Now explain exactly how the people in charge over reacted.
All cities, states, and countries should have generic "evacuate an area" plans, because all may have something happen that requires an evacuation. (We teach disaster preparedness to government officials at TEEX). In our courses, we have the responsible parties practice the plans, then watch themselves on the video and phone recordings and see what they could improve. Most think they passed along information that they never actually said, that's a very common error.
Ten years after Chernobyl, thousands of people who had been forcibly evacuated still didn't have new homes. That's a failure of planning. The government should have had in place plans to be able to house people affected by some sort of emergency.
That some sort of evacuation might be needed in some part of the country was entirely predictable. The failure wasn't caused by lack of information during the event. They had years before and after to figure out how to house people affected by some sort of disaster.
Nothing about it was "unavoidable", who to evacuate when, for how long, was all judgement calls based on both safety and PR.
It is fascinating how some slashdotters know for certain that every single thing that happened was well known at the time. That all future events went exactly to plan.
Wind direction. What exactly caused plant 1 to explode? Then plant 4. What credibility should be placed on where you get your information? You have the double whammy of a huge amount of destruction caused by the tsunami.
Then you are an official who makes the decision. You know that if you make the decision to shelter in place, and the situation gets worse and many people die because if your decision, you may end up having the rest of your life completely destroyed, if not end up in prison, or in some countries, you are executed.
Unlike random people on Slashdot, most officials in these matters have to make decisions based upon a whole lot less situational awareness than they would like. So you make a decision based on what you do know. Unfortunately, they are not know it alls.
So pissing off bean counters is a lot less of a price to pay.
Having a rough idea what your actual benefits and costs are help you make a good decision...and at the very least, it might be a Good Idea to not evacuate when the cost in life expectancy is more than that of staying put.
Having a rough idea is the problem. Both Chernobyl and Fukushima, and even TMI, experienced the "Fog of War", which of course is that situational awareness only barely exists.
It is criminally easy for us to declare that there was no need to evacuate after the main disaster passes. we know what happened, the authorities did not know what would happen, they just had burning or exploding reactor buildings.
Authorities have to make decisions based upon what they know when they have to make those decisions. And heaven help the person who decides that "we shall save money and not evacuate", and then something really untoward happens and a lot of people are killed.
To save the most lives in total we want to mostly fund projects which save a lot of lives per resource spent (we measure resources in dollars, for convenience).
The J-value used in the nuclear paper takes it a step further by also considering *quality* of life. At Chernobyl, fourteen years after the accident thousands of people were still awaiting the new homes they were promised. Many people would have been better off staying put rather than being forced to leave their communities and spend a decade or more as refugees.
The problem of course, is that the whole shelter in place because it's cheaper assumes that the outcome of the disaster is known at the very beginning of it.
Was the final situation at Chernobyl known in detail the second the reactor took it's excursion? Did the authorities know the exact future condition of the reactors the second the tsunami breached the seawalls at Fukushima?
Exposure to radioactive materials is a localized thing. 50 feet away, or even 10 feet away isn't a big deal unless the radiation is super intense. But we don't really know where the particles will end up.
A fun look at all of this is the Youtube videos by Bionerd. Check her stuff out. She traipses around the reactor buildings and the area, measuring radiation and having fun doing it.
Regardless, the fatal flaw of this whole idea is that hindsight vision is always 20/20.
I'm not particularly fearful of radioactivity, but if I saw reactor building 1 explode in Fukushima, I would not need an order to evacuate, I'd be in the car as soon as I could.
I've set my minimum threshold to filter most ACs, but really it's so rare I see an AC post that has anything of value - usually it's racist, homophobic, 'first', or someone being vitriolic and not wanting the backlash attached to their account - that I'd be happy to see Slashdot eliminate AC posts.
It's not like we're posting anything here we should be afraid of bringing the cops to our doors with a warrant, or that if we were posting as 'AC' would really help anyway.
So rarey occasionally there is something of worth. But it's seldom worth the crap you have ot wade through. If an AC replies to me and it's reasonably civil, yeah I'll chat back. But right after using my mod points it goes back to reading ar 2 or above.
Elon is incapable of building a real business without stealing money from taxpayer subsidies. When he can pull off an actual project where sales exceeds costs, that will be an achievement.
And you are incapable of an original thought. Now I'm going to slide that little bar above to teh left and make you disappear. Bye Coward!
It's also not a bad idea to know how to feed yourself either. I grew up in the mid-west and if I had to I could grow and hunt for food, make jelly, can vegetables and fruit, and dig a well.
I could probably also build a some crude wind turbines to generate power and charge a battery bank.
I loves me my technology, but I also do foraging, gardening, curing, and other charcuterie and even canning as a way to connect with the earth. There is also a tradition with my relatives and old school friends of sharing food that we made. That Eastern European thing of breaking bread and all.
I recently finished up a big batch of Concorde Grape jelly, and do a kickass dry rubbed bacon. Tomorrow I start the fall sausage making with smoked Hungarian hot sausage, sage breakfast links, and patties. I don't hunt any more, but friends will drop off venison that I make bologna out of. Smoked trout makes for a good snack as well, and I make something called Salmon candy, which does involve the store bought stuff. cured, smoked and sweet. Damn it - now I'm hungry.
As for the windmill generator, Farmers were at the forefront of off-grid power generation. Before the Rural Electrification project in the 1930's, the windmills were in use generating power to banks of batteries. There was a whole sub industry of building radios and home lighting that ran on 12 volts.
If this was in the USA, the kid who uploaded a nude photo of himself/herself would be charged with possessing and making kiddie porn.
Usually, the DA's in such cases decline to prosecute, probably because the whole trial would get pretty complicated pretty quickly. In the end, the dumbass kid is just told to knock it the hell off.
Why should it be? The kids uploaded the videos by themselves of their own volition.
If youtube decided to censor these videos it would run up against free speech provisions of the US constitution.
First thing is, this was the UK, who doesn't answer to the US constitution.
If it was actually decided that the images constituted kiddie porn, it wouldn't absolve the children of legal responsibility, at least in the USA. I don't know if any of the publicized cases went to trial, but there have been threats of arrest against teenagers who posted naked selfies.
In the UK (where The Times is) this material could be illegal for some people. The law states that for something to be child porn it doesn't necessarily have to contain nudity or be suggestive, only likely to stimulate the viewer. So children's clothes catalogues in a parent's hands are fine, but under some single guy's mattress could be child porn.
Yes, it's that crazy.
Some times I wonder if the old projection issue might be showing up, in similar manner to how anti-gay family values politicians have a striking tendency to be found doing exactly what they rail against at other times.
It's interesting how many people on Slashdot adhere to the Republican/Trump Agenda.
So y'all need to stop complaining about what you voted for. It is no secret at all that Republicans have been gunning to kill Net Neutrality, even when the country was dying in the grips of th e Kenyan Terror baby, and Acorn. it is a great opportuninty for the people they work for to make a lot of money. This is good.
You won, now enjoy the spoils of your hard earned victory.
This made me chuckle at first, but I'm now more concerned it's going to end up on Breitbart as breaking news.
Then my job here is done....
It's a funny world, with all different manner of thought processes. Some of which are from people who will refuse to believe rational truths, but will believe any half baked contrary idea.
The latest foolishness is that there was some hippie stagehand accidentally caught in a helmet reflection during an Apollo 17 visit to the moon https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If this was an accident, it was an interesting one, because the helmet shield is reflective and spherical in shape, and that means that the person taking the photo will always be in the image. when taken from a front angle. So it could not have been an accident. The so-called hippie took the photo.
We can enlarge the helmet reflections in any of the photos, and there the photo taker is. When we have to enlarge it a lot, the fuzzy indistnct reflection might look like just about anything. I have one that looks like the other astronaut is dancing at a ho-down.
When in fact, all of the technology was in place to successfully take humans to the moon and bring them back safely. The orbital mechanics was proven, the computing devices were working, and the suits worked, the containment structures worked, and the Saturn 5 monster worked very well.
Seems a shame to have all of those nice toys just for Stanley Kubrick to make a fake documentary in the desert.
By the way If a stagehand got in the way of a photo, Kubrick would have noticed and the image would have never been used.
But as I've already said, there are a lot of sad people arguing out of personal incredulity - where the inability to understand how something could have happened means it didn't.
That's why we have shows like "Ancient Aliens", and that's why I reserve to right to ridicule them when ever I get a chance.
Slashdot Mirror
One could say Thiel also:
Smoked them like a bad cigar. Scratched their back with a hacksaw. Their face was shaved with a rusty razor. Gawker doesn't know whether to cry or wind their watches.
At any rate, when it comes to Gawker, one could say Elvis has left the building.
Buy Thiel a drink, and get his dog one too!
Anyhow, let us now give thanks to Toronto for gifting us Kessel.
"scientist", really?
Contrary to popular belief, there are stupid scientists. There's no rule that says scientists have to be brilliant and smart, they can be stupid and dimwitted too.
Now explain how a person who states that he doesn't believe in science can be a scientist. Most of us have a belief in science as a mandatory requirement.
I believe the word for that is *irony*. Delicious, hilarious irony.
I believe you are correct.
We have allowed the idiots to take charge long enough. When denying science becomes a platform and litmus test for those who dare to call themselves "conservative" it's time for the adults to take charge again.
Accepting science is not a liberal or conservative value. Denying it apparently is.
First off, you might want to reread what I said--'cost' does not always mean monetary cost, and I was trying to underline its human costs--and then reread the summary at least. It looks like they're proposing a new tool, using past examples, to enable better decision-making at the time of the disaster.
All costs are financial in one way or another. A human life prematurely lost is lost money, and an old life lost is often a gain, or at least less of a drain on money. This is such a minor part of the argument, I don't see much need to belabor it. But that's why we call it cost.
Secondly, I had to get at least some training in how to handle suddenly-happening disaster situations because I might be working in some rather dangerous labs, so I can quite definitely tell you that no, you can very much know what might happen and what the rough odds are, and the people who opt to go in and get more intel know exactly what they're doing when the facility has properly-trained staff.
Rough odds is an understatement. I've worked in a lot of dangerous situations, and you prepare yourself as best you can, but if the facility is in total destruction mode, will you - the person who presumably knows all of the things that can go wrong - still be alive?
Will all of the possible failure modes be discovered? The physical plant at Fukushima suggests otherwise, and let's not forget the human caused destruction at Chernobyl. Without that one dumb experiment, the plant would probably be happily generating electricity today.
If you don't have a decent idea what 'burning and/or exploding reactor buildings' might result in, you have no business being responsible for them.
Which certainly argues for erring on the side of caution. As noted before, the evacuation was not a simple "JEEZUS K RYST! Get everyone the FSCK outa here NOW!
It started with the area right around the plant, got it extended a couple times as the situation deteriorated with the cooling systems failing, than finally as the reactor buildings were exploding, was taken to it's fullest extent. This seems like prudent decisions (one of the few with regards to that Power Plant that had 100 percent chance of failing) not the "Run away! Run Away! concept that this study suggests happened.
Now I know a little bit about nuclear power. If I was having a picnic with the wife and kids, say 5 kilometers away from a nuc power plant, and I saw smoke followed by an explosion that blew apart the building the reactor was housed in, I would hot-tail it as far away as I could get, and would try my darndest to head in the direction away from the wind. I take it you would stay there and enjoy the show, calmly explaining that it wasn't possible for a nuclear explosion, and all of that radioactive exposure doesn't really matter unless it's a huge dose? Something tells me you too would leave the area, and long before you had 100 percent situational awareness.
That's why I place so little value in studies that are done by people who have no responsibility for the command decisions, and never will. Who with the perfect hindsight of armchair analysts write a sentence or two about how they are not casting judgement, then write a whole article that casts judgement.
Perhaps these folk with all of their knowledge of exactly how things are and how they will unfold need a promotion to the people making the decisions, and then bearing the repercussions if one of their shelter in place decisions costs a lot of people their lives or health.
Of course there are costs for large scale evacuations. That's why you design as much as possible to avoid the need for them.
Thirdly, you're not considering the converse situations, which have also happened. Unnecessary evacuations are crying wolf, and that's an incredibly well-understood problem.
Okay, looks like I need you to give the reasons why there was no need for ev
The hilarity is that all the people screaming about gamergate, the alt-right, neonazis, and trying to cast gawker as a martyr for freedom of the press are the exact same people who lost their shit over the fappening. They're perfectly alright with publishing stolen sex tapes and nudes... as long as it's not of an attractive woman.
Talk about a thread hijack. Trying to figure out how my pointing out the financial advantages of bankrupting a business, then buying it at firesale price is somehow related to GamerGate , NeoNazis, or whatever the fuck the fappening is. What's next, Dogs and cats living together?
Hell, that vicegrip process is roughly how I bought my house. Took a downturn in the local economy, and a house that had been sitting a while for sale. The owners had built a new house, and were in a bit of financial trouble with two mortgages. I let them sweat it out, as every month without being sold, it got a little worse for them. Finally they got desperate, and I got the place for 50 K under market value. Only difference is I didn't personally drive them to the edge of bankruptcy, I merely played the game to my financial advantage.
Y'all can get back to bitching about Hellery's emails and O'Blama's birth certificate and whatever the fuck the fappening is. now.
The anger directed at Thiel over the Gawker case is reminiscent of the anger about the DNC's hacked emails. Those who are angry completely overlook that if Gawker/the DNC hadn't done anything wrong, there wouldn't have been any fallout in the first place. Gawker never would've been sued for publishing Bollea's sex tape. There would've been no evidence of the Democratic party leadership tampering with the primary process. They don't want to hear the message, so they do their best to ignore it and try to shoot the messenger.
I hear your message - maybe not the one you intended. You do know that both parties were hacked don't you? You do know that the Republican Party actively tries to ensure that only the "right" Republicans are representing. Google "war on moderate Republicans". Both parties pull this crap. Are you pleased that only the DNC hack has been made public?
My statement has not Republican or Democrat content, there are many different color crayons in the box. I have no dog in this fight, merely point out a financially savvy path to prosperity.
So he builds a rocket expected to reach 1,500 feet.... When there is an 11,500 foot mountain 50 miles from Amboy with a trail right to the tippy top.and a 360 degree view of the horizon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Call me crazy but I really don't think this has anything to do with 'flat earth', science or rockets. He got his picture in the paper. End of story.
He wants a reality show series on the Discovery Channel that comes on right after Ancielt Aliens.
"scientist", really?
Contrary to popular belief, there are stupid scientists. There's no rule that says scientists have to be brilliant and smart, they can be stupid and dimwitted too.
Now explain how a person who states that he doesn't believe in science can be a scientist. Most of us have a belief in science as a mandatory requirement.
"scientist", really?
I mean... he has a hypothesis and he's testing it. Sounds like science. Still a nutjob.
What exactly ie the hypothesis? For the life of me, I can't think of anything that would prove the earth flat or globular at 1500 feet.
This is just more 21st century American reality Television race to the bottom bullshit where we make stupid people famous. And my gawd, it shows. The best thing to come out of it might be his life serving as a warning to others.
This is merely an excellent way to acquire new businesses. If the math is there, and you want it, Bankrupt the business first, then buy it. My free market senses are tingling with the new business model. What is more, it is approved in the Holy Bible - reference Uriah the Hittite, killed by King David, who was already yencing Uriah's wife, knocked her up, and after having Uriah out of the way, married her. So all is good.
Say what you will.
Thiel may be easy to dislike, but he beat Gawker like a rented mule.
You must be from the 'Burgh.
I'm not sure what your comment has to do with mine. Of course you don't know everything ahead of time, decision makers make judgement calls based on the available information (and hopefully contingency plans made ahead o time). Judgement calls. Unlike what GP claims, over-reacting is neither required nor particularly frequent. "Limited information" does not mean you must evacuate the whole country, or any specific geographic area.
That's a fine slippery slope we have here. The people making decisions almost certainly don't have evacuation of the entire country in mind - I mean, how would that even be done?
Regardless here is the assessment from another group http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...
They estimate possibly 1000 deaths had the area not been evacuated. Slashdotters can either declare this fake news or believe that 1000 deaths were worth the savings in money.
But how would one even tell? Being that the whole thing is conjecture? Here on Slashdot we are blessed with instantly knowing, based on our outlook.
If you're an official in Florida, or anywhere along the east coast, you should have hurricane plans ready BEFORE hurricane season, when you have time to discuss and plan carefully. Those plans should have triggers assigned ahead of time "when a category 3 storm is 300 miles away, activate chapter 4 of this plan".
The best part of that scenario is that we have a lot of experience with hurricanes, and that given the different strengths, storm surges and even the time it hits land relative to high or low tide, you have a much better idea of the path of destruction. The unknowns are the exact location of landfall, and the details.
With a unplanned powerplant excursion, much less is known. In addition, there is often a veracity problem where many do not believe what they are told. Now if we take say the Fukushima misadventure, the original evacuation order was for 3 kilometers around the plant at 9 p.m. on March 11 after the emergency core cooling system mostly failed.
Then on the 12th, after the emergency batteries ran out on reactor 3, and the fuel rods are exposed, and it started venting steam, the evacuatino zone was extended to 6 kilometers, then 20 kilometers.
On the 25th, the evacuation zone was made voluntary between 20 and 30 kilometers.
In the meantime, on the 14th, Reactor 3 suffers an explosion that damages reactor number 2's cooling system. Then on the 15th Reactor 4 has an explosion, and number 3 suffers a second explosion. Unit's 2 and 3 have white smoke issiung form them.
Now explain exactly how the people in charge over reacted. All cities, states, and countries should have generic "evacuate an area" plans, because all may have something happen that requires an evacuation. (We teach disaster preparedness to government officials at TEEX). In our courses, we have the responsible parties practice the plans, then watch themselves on the video and phone recordings and see what they could improve. Most think they passed along information that they never actually said, that's a very common error.
Ten years after Chernobyl, thousands of people who had been forcibly evacuated still didn't have new homes. That's a failure of planning. The government should have had in place plans to be able to house people affected by some sort of emergency.
That some sort of evacuation might be needed in some part of the country was entirely predictable. The failure wasn't caused by lack of information during the event. They had years before and after to figure out how to house people affected by some sort of disaster.
> The most dangerous material around Chernobyl is Plutonium. > If it gets into your organism, you most certainly die due to it.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. Plutonium is dangerous, and as far as we know it's never killed anyone.
The Japanese might not agree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Nothing about it was "unavoidable", who to evacuate when, for how long, was all judgement calls based on both safety and PR.
It is fascinating how some slashdotters know for certain that every single thing that happened was well known at the time. That all future events went exactly to plan.
Wind direction. What exactly caused plant 1 to explode? Then plant 4. What credibility should be placed on where you get your information? You have the double whammy of a huge amount of destruction caused by the tsunami.
Then you are an official who makes the decision. You know that if you make the decision to shelter in place, and the situation gets worse and many people die because if your decision, you may end up having the rest of your life completely destroyed, if not end up in prison, or in some countries, you are executed.
Unlike random people on Slashdot, most officials in these matters have to make decisions based upon a whole lot less situational awareness than they would like. So you make a decision based on what you do know. Unfortunately, they are not know it alls.
So pissing off bean counters is a lot less of a price to pay.
Before someone says it, the initial evacuation could not have been avoided. There was no way to know how bad the situation was going to get.
Oh, on Slashdot, they know - somehow they know.
Having a rough idea what your actual benefits and costs are help you make a good decision...and at the very least, it might be a Good Idea to not evacuate when the cost in life expectancy is more than that of staying put.
Having a rough idea is the problem. Both Chernobyl and Fukushima, and even TMI, experienced the "Fog of War", which of course is that situational awareness only barely exists.
It is criminally easy for us to declare that there was no need to evacuate after the main disaster passes. we know what happened, the authorities did not know what would happen, they just had burning or exploding reactor buildings.
Authorities have to make decisions based upon what they know when they have to make those decisions. And heaven help the person who decides that "we shall save money and not evacuate", and then something really untoward happens and a lot of people are killed.
To save the most lives in total we want to mostly fund projects which save a lot of lives per resource spent (we measure resources in dollars, for convenience).
The J-value used in the nuclear paper takes it a step further by also considering *quality* of life. At Chernobyl, fourteen years after the accident thousands of people were still awaiting the new homes they were promised. Many people would have been better off staying put rather than being forced to leave their communities and spend a decade or more as refugees.
The problem of course, is that the whole shelter in place because it's cheaper assumes that the outcome of the disaster is known at the very beginning of it.
Was the final situation at Chernobyl known in detail the second the reactor took it's excursion? Did the authorities know the exact future condition of the reactors the second the tsunami breached the seawalls at Fukushima?
Exposure to radioactive materials is a localized thing. 50 feet away, or even 10 feet away isn't a big deal unless the radiation is super intense. But we don't really know where the particles will end up.
A fun look at all of this is the Youtube videos by Bionerd. Check her stuff out. She traipses around the reactor buildings and the area, measuring radiation and having fun doing it.
Regardless, the fatal flaw of this whole idea is that hindsight vision is always 20/20.
I'm not particularly fearful of radioactivity, but if I saw reactor building 1 explode in Fukushima, I would not need an order to evacuate, I'd be in the car as soon as I could.
>Bye Coward!
I've set my minimum threshold to filter most ACs, but really it's so rare I see an AC post that has anything of value - usually it's racist, homophobic, 'first', or someone being vitriolic and not wanting the backlash attached to their account - that I'd be happy to see Slashdot eliminate AC posts.
It's not like we're posting anything here we should be afraid of bringing the cops to our doors with a warrant, or that if we were posting as 'AC' would really help anyway.
So rarey occasionally there is something of worth. But it's seldom worth the crap you have ot wade through. If an AC replies to me and it's reasonably civil, yeah I'll chat back. But right after using my mod points it goes back to reading ar 2 or above.
Elon is incapable of building a real business without stealing money from taxpayer subsidies. When he can pull off an actual project where sales exceeds costs, that will be an achievement.
And you are incapable of an original thought. Now I'm going to slide that little bar above to teh left and make you disappear. Bye Coward!
It's also not a bad idea to know how to feed yourself either. I grew up in the mid-west and if I had to I could grow and hunt for food, make jelly, can vegetables and fruit, and dig a well.
I could probably also build a some crude wind turbines to generate power and charge a battery bank.
I loves me my technology, but I also do foraging, gardening, curing, and other charcuterie and even canning as a way to connect with the earth. There is also a tradition with my relatives and old school friends of sharing food that we made. That Eastern European thing of breaking bread and all.
I recently finished up a big batch of Concorde Grape jelly, and do a kickass dry rubbed bacon. Tomorrow I start the fall sausage making with smoked Hungarian hot sausage, sage breakfast links, and patties. I don't hunt any more, but friends will drop off venison that I make bologna out of. Smoked trout makes for a good snack as well, and I make something called Salmon candy, which does involve the store bought stuff. cured, smoked and sweet. Damn it - now I'm hungry.
As for the windmill generator, Farmers were at the forefront of off-grid power generation. Before the Rural Electrification project in the 1930's, the windmills were in use generating power to banks of batteries. There was a whole sub industry of building radios and home lighting that ran on 12 volts.
If this was in the USA, the kid who uploaded a nude photo of himself/herself would be charged with possessing and making kiddie porn.
Usually, the DA's in such cases decline to prosecute, probably because the whole trial would get pretty complicated pretty quickly. In the end, the dumbass kid is just told to knock it the hell off.
There were no nude pictures.
It doesn't necessarily have to be nude. There was a local guy who got nailed for having fully clothed underage girls on his computer that he took.
Why should it be? The kids uploaded the videos by themselves of their own volition.
If youtube decided to censor these videos it would run up against free speech provisions of the US constitution.
First thing is, this was the UK, who doesn't answer to the US constitution.
If it was actually decided that the images constituted kiddie porn, it wouldn't absolve the children of legal responsibility, at least in the USA. I don't know if any of the publicized cases went to trial, but there have been threats of arrest against teenagers who posted naked selfies.
In the UK (where The Times is) this material could be illegal for some people. The law states that for something to be child porn it doesn't necessarily have to contain nudity or be suggestive, only likely to stimulate the viewer. So children's clothes catalogues in a parent's hands are fine, but under some single guy's mattress could be child porn.
Yes, it's that crazy.
Some times I wonder if the old projection issue might be showing up, in similar manner to how anti-gay family values politicians have a striking tendency to be found doing exactly what they rail against at other times.
So y'all need to stop complaining about what you voted for. It is no secret at all that Republicans have been gunning to kill Net Neutrality, even when the country was dying in the grips of th e Kenyan Terror baby, and Acorn. it is a great opportuninty for the people they work for to make a lot of money. This is good.
You won, now enjoy the spoils of your hard earned victory.
This made me chuckle at first, but I'm now more concerned it's going to end up on Breitbart as breaking news.
Then my job here is done....
It's a funny world, with all different manner of thought processes. Some of which are from people who will refuse to believe rational truths, but will believe any half baked contrary idea.
The latest foolishness is that there was some hippie stagehand accidentally caught in a helmet reflection during an Apollo 17 visit to the moon https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If this was an accident, it was an interesting one, because the helmet shield is reflective and spherical in shape, and that means that the person taking the photo will always be in the image. when taken from a front angle. So it could not have been an accident. The so-called hippie took the photo.
We can enlarge the helmet reflections in any of the photos, and there the photo taker is. When we have to enlarge it a lot, the fuzzy indistnct reflection might look like just about anything. I have one that looks like the other astronaut is dancing at a ho-down.
When in fact, all of the technology was in place to successfully take humans to the moon and bring them back safely. The orbital mechanics was proven, the computing devices were working, and the suits worked, the containment structures worked, and the Saturn 5 monster worked very well.
Seems a shame to have all of those nice toys just for Stanley Kubrick to make a fake documentary in the desert.
By the way If a stagehand got in the way of a photo, Kubrick would have noticed and the image would have never been used.
But as I've already said, there are a lot of sad people arguing out of personal incredulity - where the inability to understand how something could have happened means it didn't.
That's why we have shows like "Ancient Aliens", and that's why I reserve to right to ridicule them when ever I get a chance.