According to the document, 74 people (57 military and 17 civilians) were killed on the launch pad, and 49 injured. With 16 more people, who later died from their injuries, the official death toll rose to 90 dead. Bodies of two soldiers were found outside of the perimeter of the Site 41 after the official list of victims had been submitted, bringing number of dead to 92 people (74 military and 18 civilians).
Among other things, the commission found that many more people were present on the launch pad than should have been — most were supposed to be safely offsite in bunkers.[citation needed]
But 250 were on the pad, so most of them actually survived? I don't really trust these two sources.
If I'm reading this correctly, something like 250 people died. There seems to be disagreement whether one, or three, guys who were on the pad and survived had gone for a smoke break shortly before the accident.
It's possible to have rocket launch failures where the rocket doesn't explode. And even if it does explode and they have enough warning, e.g. the Apollo craft had the Launch Escape System to get the payload (including astronauts...) out of harm's way.
Generational ships with thick hulls. It would take a horridly long time to get there and be horridly expensive to build, but why is it "not possible according to physics"?
And before you say "because no gravity", spin the damn thing centrifugally a bit. And before you say "radiation would kill everyone", like I said build it with a thick hull. Couple inches of lead or something, and a lot of launches to assemble everything in orbit.
There is a difference between an enthusiast and a space nutter.
Funny, because you seem to mercilessly rip into anybody who wants to do anything more than continue sending an unmanned probe out to one of our planets every couple years.
I believe that many of the same people who would resort to shooting down a drone as their 1st reaction wouldn't hesitate to do the same to a person at the slightest provocation.
Well, that's a rather pessimistic view. I'm sure some would, but I would hope not many.
And those people are far more dangerous than suspected peepers.
Fair enough. Which kind of raises the point that without the drone, said peepers probably wouldn't be bold enough to be physically looking in their windows. And if they had access to a good telescope angle, why bother with the drone either.
It's like the Greater Internet Fuckwit Rule: anonymity emboldens the behavior. To which a prompt retort of buckshot that hurts nothing except the drone...well, you could do a lot worse as far as responses go. And it's effective.
Helicopters are not drones. Drones don't have people inside.
And even if somebody was remote-controlling a full-size helicopter, which was flying 30 feet over your yard (!), you couldn't shoot it down safely if you wanted to.
..... US degenerating to a communist state, Hillary seizing all the guns
Wait, this whole list is going to happen in the next 8 years? Damn.
ISIS bioterrorists deploying global anti-human microbes, launching dirty bombs and mass-executions, and North Korea nuking us all......
What people don't seem to think about is that biological attacks are probably worse than nuclear. A nuke kills a lot of people in a limited area and makes that area uninhabitable for...what, 50 years or so? (as long as you're not like right next to the sarcophagus at Chernobyl the place isn't really a deadly toxic wasteland anymore) Versus infect say a few thousand people with some virulent disease, and good luck keeping them contained.
Dammit, now I'm wondering where the closest biological weapon research facility is to Syria. I bet it can't be that far away. And this is ISIS we're talking about; they'd use it in a heartbeat.
6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone: Someone Else's data collection.
How so? If you want, you can install a Gapps-free ROM on a Nexus phone.
Here's another one:
12. In the future, you won't be allowed to run what you want on your own hardware that you bought and paid for.
Except the "joke" is that "in the future" is more like "3 to 5 years from now when they finish tightening the noose." TPM, SecureBoot, AppStores, and whatever they call that thing where Intel motherboards have an extra secret chip that decides what you're allowed to run on a per-instruction basis.
5 years my ass. It'll take at least 5 years just to get people to start buying them, and then another couple for the insurance prices to come down. Then a few years after that they'll finally be really dependable enough to take a nap in while they're in motion.
5 years is crazy optimistic. I'd say 10. More likely 15.
I stopped using Yahoo Mail right about the time when they started every couple weeks, dropping all my incoming emails for 3 days at a time:P Had been using that account for like 9 years at that point.
I mean, damn, guys, if there's ONE feature I require from my email service...
and a text is laborious to compose with T9 and switching to multitap for unknown words.
Are you kidding? Even after using Swype for the last year I bet I could get pretty much equivalent speed with a solid T9 physical keypad. No having to go back and correct the wrong predictions. When I got a physical-full-qwerty keypad on my previous phone the keys were gummy and required harder presses so I was definitely slower on that than the previous-previous T9.
Also, why the hell don't smartphones have a "delete forward" button? It's so annoying to repeatedly try to tap one character over from characters like 'i', 'l', 't', etc. instead of just one keypress deleting the other direction:P
One of the main reasons I LIKE email is that it gives the sender time to organize their thoughts. Much better than listening to some user or boss hem and haw and backtrack and contradict themselves wasting endless minutes of my life.
Plus those times when you're composing an email and, as you're busy figuring out how to phrase it, you realize how to solve the problem on your own. Efficient!:)
I'm more worried about "our" guys these days than any foreign country. The government has a much easier time fucking me personally over than Russia, China, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the document, 74 people (57 military and 17 civilians) were killed on the launch pad, and 49 injured. With 16 more people, who later died from their injuries, the official death toll rose to 90 dead. Bodies of two soldiers were found outside of the perimeter of the Site 41 after the official list of victims had been submitted, bringing number of dead to 92 people (74 military and 18 civilians).
Among other things, the commission found that many more people were present on the launch pad than should have been — most were supposed to be safely offsite in bunkers.[citation needed]
But 250 were on the pad, so most of them actually survived? I don't really trust these two sources.
More specifically the Nedelin catastrophe
another link
If I'm reading this correctly, something like 250 people died. There seems to be disagreement whether one, or three, guys who were on the pad and survived had gone for a smoke break shortly before the accident.
"Hobbiest" is the one who is "most hobby", duh.
It's probably only designed to detach the way it does during the mission once. You've heard of explosive bolts?
It's possible to have rocket launch failures where the rocket doesn't explode. And even if it does explode and they have enough warning, e.g. the Apollo craft had the Launch Escape System to get the payload (including astronauts...) out of harm's way.
Still waiting for your explanation for why that is impossible according to physics, by the way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Why not? I'm not saying it would be easy. Which laws of physics make it impossible, as you constantly insist?
Generational ships with thick hulls. It would take a horridly long time to get there and be horridly expensive to build, but why is it "not possible according to physics"?
And before you say "because no gravity", spin the damn thing centrifugally a bit. And before you say "radiation would kill everyone", like I said build it with a thick hull. Couple inches of lead or something, and a lot of launches to assemble everything in orbit.
There is a difference between an enthusiast and a space nutter.
Funny, because you seem to mercilessly rip into anybody who wants to do anything more than continue sending an unmanned probe out to one of our planets every couple years.
Admittedly the specific case in this article, shooting the drone was a bit of a dick maneuver.
I believe that many of the same people who would resort to shooting down a drone as their 1st reaction wouldn't hesitate to do the same to a person at the slightest provocation.
Well, that's a rather pessimistic view. I'm sure some would, but I would hope not many.
And those people are far more dangerous than suspected peepers.
Fair enough. Which kind of raises the point that without the drone, said peepers probably wouldn't be bold enough to be physically looking in their windows. And if they had access to a good telescope angle, why bother with the drone either.
It's like the Greater Internet Fuckwit Rule: anonymity emboldens the behavior. To which a prompt retort of buckshot that hurts nothing except the drone...well, you could do a lot worse as far as responses go. And it's effective.
You're really using the argument "maybe I am wrong but there are a lot more people on the other side of the argument who are also wrong"?
Way to take the high road there, buddy.
Helicopters are not drones. Drones don't have people inside.
And even if somebody was remote-controlling a full-size helicopter, which was flying 30 feet over your yard (!), you couldn't shoot it down safely if you wanted to.
Stop making obtuse comparisons.
It's not just the spying; if the operator were to decide to "land" the thing on you, it could do some major harm, depending on the size of the drone.
..... US degenerating to a communist state, Hillary seizing all the guns
Wait, this whole list is going to happen in the next 8 years? Damn.
ISIS bioterrorists deploying global anti-human microbes, launching dirty bombs and mass-executions, and North Korea nuking us all......
What people don't seem to think about is that biological attacks are probably worse than nuclear. A nuke kills a lot of people in a limited area and makes that area uninhabitable for...what, 50 years or so? (as long as you're not like right next to the sarcophagus at Chernobyl the place isn't really a deadly toxic wasteland anymore) Versus infect say a few thousand people with some virulent disease, and good luck keeping them contained.
Dammit, now I'm wondering where the closest biological weapon research facility is to Syria. I bet it can't be that far away. And this is ISIS we're talking about; they'd use it in a heartbeat.
6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone: Someone Else's data collection.
How so? If you want, you can install a Gapps-free ROM on a Nexus phone.
Here's another one:
12. In the future, you won't be allowed to run what you want on your own hardware that you bought and paid for.
Except the "joke" is that "in the future" is more like "3 to 5 years from now when they finish tightening the noose." TPM, SecureBoot, AppStores, and whatever they call that thing where Intel motherboards have an extra secret chip that decides what you're allowed to run on a per-instruction basis.
5 years my ass. It'll take at least 5 years just to get people to start buying them, and then another couple for the insurance prices to come down. Then a few years after that they'll finally be really dependable enough to take a nap in while they're in motion.
5 years is crazy optimistic. I'd say 10. More likely 15.
Yahoo always requires a phone number.
I stopped using Yahoo Mail right about the time when they started every couple weeks, dropping all my incoming emails for 3 days at a time :P Had been using that account for like 9 years at that point.
I mean, damn, guys, if there's ONE feature I require from my email service...
They don't *require* you to give your phone number. Just give them a different email address. You must have at least one already.
and a text is laborious to compose with T9 and switching to multitap for unknown words.
Are you kidding? Even after using Swype for the last year I bet I could get pretty much equivalent speed with a solid T9 physical keypad. No having to go back and correct the wrong predictions. When I got a physical-full-qwerty keypad on my previous phone the keys were gummy and required harder presses so I was definitely slower on that than the previous-previous T9.
Also, why the hell don't smartphones have a "delete forward" button? It's so annoying to repeatedly try to tap one character over from characters like 'i', 'l', 't', etc. instead of just one keypress deleting the other direction :P
One of the main reasons I LIKE email is that it gives the sender time to organize their thoughts. Much better than listening to some user or boss hem and haw and backtrack and contradict themselves wasting endless minutes of my life.
Plus those times when you're composing an email and, as you're busy figuring out how to phrase it, you realize how to solve the problem on your own. Efficient! :)
Foreign countries are always trying to hack infrastructure. What's new
I'm more worried about "our" guys these days than any foreign country. The government has a much easier time fucking me personally over than Russia, China, etc.
My commute would be more gas efficient if I had precisely the amount of gas I needed to get to work and back
How is that?