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Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

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Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this vilification of the media is far overblown. Specifically: I cannot imagine that a quality news site (say the NY Times, Atlantic, or WSJ) would not mention such uncertainty. More easily provable: I challenge you to find a single article of about a disaster that includes unwarranted product recommendations (i. e. not "authorities are asking citizen to stock water and other necessities in preparation for the…

> Specifically: I cannot imagine that a quality news site (say the NY Times, Atlantic, or WSJ) would not mention such uncertainty. What about that news article that WaPo published about the guy who found some malware on his laptop and was blown out into this https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russi... I don't know how you could go from a virus on a laptop to "Russia is hacking into our power grid"…

Glenn Greenwald wrote an excellent piece about this and another similar "Russian fear-mongering" story from the Washington Post.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/washpost-is-richly-rewar...

Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#62

I do have to complement the authors of this article. It presents the facts and leaves out political rhetoric and noise. I'm pleased with the title too; if the article were featured on a mainstream news site in the USA, it would have declared it as a definitive event and give a list of what products to buy from their advertisers.

I feel this vilification of the media is far overblown. Specifically: I cannot imagine that a quality news site (say the NY Times, Atlantic, or WSJ) would not mention such uncertainty. More easily provable: I challenge you to find a single article of about a disaster that includes unwarranted product recommendations (i. e. not "authorities are asking citizen to stock water and other necessities in preparation for the…

I agree with many of your points and feel that this topic does seem a bit sensationalized here. But my conclusions had nothing to do with the grammatical peeves you're also pointing out, which feel a bit unnecessary amidst the actual facts being discussed.

Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#63

It's interesting the author mentioned the nuclear generators and whatnot used in lighthouses and for small portable power generation. Those use strontium-90 and other byproducts of nastier energetic fissions which if my amateur nuclear physics brain is functioning correctly don't produce iodine-131. Iodine-131 is a byproduct of uranium-235/238 decay & fission. Since practical fusion doesn't yet exist, iodine-131 can…

Kind of off topic, but mind sharing how you molded such an amateur nuclear physics brain?

Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#64
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracked it down to a fucking "typingAnimationFrame" function, woot... lets melt peoples computers because we can't write efficient basic animations.

Perhaps a smarter browser implementation could detect this sort of thing?

I was wondering if there is a tool / extension that provides a dashboard that would detect this instead of "it feels slow".

Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this vilification of the media is far overblown. Specifically: I cannot imagine that a quality news site (say the NY Times, Atlantic, or WSJ) would not mention such uncertainty. More easily provable: I challenge you to find a single article of about a disaster that includes unwarranted product recommendations (i. e. not "authorities are asking citizen to stock water and other necessities in preparation for the…

What I wish sometimes is that Chomsky would echo Trump's belief that the media is the enemy, because he's been saying it for decades. He won't, of course.

He doesn't "echo" those exact words because he doesn't peddle things like something being "the" enemy. What he has been saying for decades is how the media are being used, not the media having some sort of agenda. He's just not on that childish a level where the interests behind the curtain get ignored, is all. So what's there to "echo"? He's been criticizing the media for decades, often together with other authors -- but how does that and someone else offering nothing even remotely close to that thorough a criticism, but just saying "something negative", even play in the same ball park? That's like saying building a cathedral and putting a shoe on a rag are the same thing, because it's all just "using objects to change the physical space" or something.

Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Specifically: I cannot imagine that a quality news site (say the NY Times, Atlantic, or WSJ) would not mention such uncertainty. What about that news article that WaPo published about the guy who found some malware on his laptop and was blown out into this https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russi... I don't know how you could go from a virus on a laptop to "Russia is hacking into our power grid"…

Yeah, that was stupid. There's also a big fat note at the top of that article now, and there were probably more articles about the retraction than there were about the original article.

For me, the trustworthiness of news sites comes down to whether they issue corrections when they run questionable stories. It's the easiest binary test I know of. Mistakes and ignorance happen, it's only stubborn refusal to ever admit to being wrong that is unacceptable.

Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the site developer isn't very good. Why don't you send them an email telling them how they can fix it?

It's one thing to be inexperienced. It's entirely another to be this incompetent.

This comment is a pretty good demonstration of the Fundamental Attribution Error.

Remember that time you wrote a badly buggy site or piece of software? Remember how you probably did your best to not write bugs?

Would someone calling you incompetent really have been helpful to anyone at that time?

Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#68

I do have to complement the authors of this article. It presents the facts and leaves out political rhetoric and noise. I'm pleased with the title too; if the article were featured on a mainstream news site in the USA, it would have declared it as a definitive event and give a list of what products to buy from their advertisers.

I feel this vilification of the media is far overblown. Specifically: I cannot imagine that a quality news site (say the NY Times, Atlantic, or WSJ) would not mention such uncertainty. More easily provable: I challenge you to find a single article of about a disaster that includes unwarranted product recommendations (i. e. not "authorities are asking citizen to stock water and other necessities in preparation for the…

"There's only one WC-135, so the plural is wrong."

Wikipedia claims this: "10 original WC-135B, plus 1 converted former EC-135C. Two aircraft currently in active service."

So... is there one WC-135, or two or 10 or 11?

>> the "mainstream media" is doing an excellent job regarding these reports: not reporting on them.

I just checked up on CNN and I can read about "Kung fu granny", "Comic con in Saudi Arabia" and nothing about the above radiation incident. Media doing an excellent job? Maybe.

Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that what qualifies as incompetence is extremely subjective. Saying "this person's work is incompetent", I think, usually amounts to nothing more than "this person made mistakes in their work that turn out to be obvious to me because of the particulars of my circumstances." Take me for example. I work as a software developer at a company that hires devs who studied computer science or math mostly from low…

> Not only is the label of incompetence highly subjective, it is also useless at best This just isn't the case. The label of incompetence can give you correct, meaningful answers to questions like - This person wants me to work with them. Am I likely to get anything out of this? - If I devote my time to trying to educate/train/help this person, will I see any results from that? Will they end up with any additional kn…

Which are all questions that can be answered more accurately and in more detail with better mental models of a person than "incompetent".

Are you really attempting to answer those questions or are you just making justifications for some kind of ego masturbation?

Re: Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. It is one thing to give reasonable criticism of a specific incidence of news media misconduct. It is another thing to blanket condemn every news organization based on inaccurate hypotheticals and personal opinions with no proof. Democracy is in trouble when people lose faith in the media and independent journalism is suppressed. By all means, be a skeptical and informed consumer of the news, but d…

I feel like people have all of a sudden rushed to defend the media now that Trump is attacking it. But I feel like we've lost sight of who is probably chiefly responsible for Trump to begin with: A media framework which rewards views, leading to focus on the most outrageous and entertaining "news" over important information. The media is VERY important, I agree. But I feel we've recently decided to forget how awful t…

Many people, myself included, have supported the media long before Trump became president. It is easy to forget now, but Obama was also known at times for having an adversarial relationship with the media. Of course there are click bait articles and examples of bad journalism to look at. Just as there are examples of good and bad work in every profession. But pointing out singular incidents of questionable journalism to prove that the news media is "all hype and no substance," meanwhile ignoring the important, significant, and often times dangerous work that journalists do to keep the public informed is, at best, ill advised.

Go and read the Pulitzer prize winning journalism that has come out in the last two years. I would be shocked if you could walk away saying it is hype. Or even look at another story from the last few weeks, Michael Flynn's pre-election sanction discussions with the Russian Ambassador and subsequent firing. People might have different opinions on the issue or different feelings on the way the information was leaked, but it can't be argued that it was a serious story of national importance. Meat loaf isn't the only thing out there.

Your criticisms of some media practices are valid and have been made many times before. They will and should be made again. But finding a bad article and saying "see the media is terrible don't trust them" is not the answer. If you see an article that seems silly, look at other sources to find one that's not. If you see an article that seems biased, read about the story from several other sources to get the full picture. Or even better, do that even if you don't think the initial source seems biased. Become a savvy news consumer who stays outside of ideological bubbles by purposely popping them.

And I will also say this... when something important is under attack, it is possible to try and save it even if you have concerns about certain aspects of how it functions. It's hard to prune weeds from a garden that has been burned to the ground.

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