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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?

#171

Post by Shivetya »

rtx wrote: post #60
omnius19 wrote: post #52

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…

People lost faith in media after their support for Iraq war. I haven't seen anything from them which shows they are trying to improve.

I would they lost some for their support but also others for later portrayal that was inaccurate in both directions. The media in the last decade has clearly taken a political side and they don't seem to understand that. There were even stories this week of the media reporting on the media! When the press becomes the story it has failed.

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

#172

Post by chris_overseas »

pratyushag2 wrote: post #126
chris_overseas wrote: post #122

I travelled on a (non-nuclear) icebreaker out from Murmansk back in 2012. On the way out to the open ocean we passed several moored nuclear powered icebreakers and other vessels in various states of decay[0]. It was both fascinating and disturbing to see - many of these had not yet been decommissioned and it seemed to me that they were huge disasters waiting to happen. In Murmansk itself there is a nuclear icebreaker…

These are incredible pictures. What kind of camera did you use to click these?

Thank you. For this trip I was using a Canon 5D Mark III as my main camera, some were probably taken with my backup at the time (a Canon 40D). I had about 6 lens ranging from ultra wide angle to long telephotos. The photos should all have EXIF data intact if you want to see more details on a particular shot.

[edit]: while I generally agree with the sibling posts that it's not always the camera that matters, having a high end DSLR makes all the difference in the world for certain types of shots and situations. Others have pointed out many of the benefits but one of the biggest for me is the handling. Having dedicated (and programmable) buttons and viewfinder displays for all the key features mean that it's extremely quick to change camera settings (ISO/aperture/focal points/exposure compensation etc) to suit the moment, without having to hunt through menus or look at the screen. It takes a lot of practice before this becomes second nature though. I've seen a lot of people buy a high end camera thinking it will magically produce better results than a point and shoot. These people often end up disappointed because their results actually end up far worse because they haven't taken the time to learn how to use their equipment properly.

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

#173

Post by VLM »

carterehsmith wrote: post #68
matt4077 wrote: post #49

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…

"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 nothi…

The air force claims exactly 2 in active service

The mission is split into aircraft operators and mission/equipment people. The aircraft operator of this model is a very small part of the overall mission, which has about a thousand people and all kinds of very fascinating gear aside from those two specific planes, I'm sure.

http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Artic...

http://www.25af.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/6260...

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

#174

Post by semi-extrinsic »

alistairSH wrote: post #159
hunta2097 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to know how to piss off a photographer? "These are great pictures, you must have a great camera!" Caveat: You can take great pictures with a camera-phone but you can't take every type of shot. I think any DSLR with a good choice of glass (lenses) would be able to reproduce most of these shots. More expensive camera bodies are only slightly better in the optical sense but are MUCH better constructed. Framing, ape…

Most photographers take a prolific amount of pictures Digital cameras are a wonderful thing! A good mirrorless could take most of these shots as well, though I suspect by the time you installed a lens long enough for the wildlife shots[1], it wouldn't be much lighter than the DSLR. 1 - I didn't check the EXIF data, but assume he was using at least 200mm, probably longer, for those shots.

The biggest question to my mind, when it comes to camera shootouts, is how close could you get to this kind of quality with a superzoom?

Take a Canon SX60, having a lens that's 21-1365mm (sic) 35 mm equivalent. Admittedly the sensor is much worse, etc., but this covers most of that 6 lens range (apart from wide apertures at high tele).

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

#175

Post by magpi3 »

simplemath wrote: post #125
0xcoffee wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you follow an author? Are there any special techniques or do you just manually keep track?

Man, welcome to the future. Well, mostly unless said author has a persistent social media profile, you manually do it

You could use Google Alerts, which will send you an email every time the author name appears in a news item.

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

#176

Post by VLM »

cocoablazing wrote: post #160
cperciva wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could get I-131 from a warhead fizzling. I don't know exactly how weak a fizzle it would need to be in order to escape seismic detection and whether that would be large enough to produce the measured amount of I-131 though.

If a warhead fizzled, it would have destroyed the submarine carrying it, which would have detonated hundreds of tons of rocket fuel and the rest of the explosives on board. We would have known about the explosion the same way we did the Kursk.

Why does it have to fizzle aboard the sub?

Whoops launched the nuclear torpedo instead of the training torpedo good thing the self destruct routine is an intentional near zero yield fizzle. My guess is the board and court martial would so classified we wouldn't hear about it for a century.

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

#177

Post by jefe_ »

Really shows the size and capability of U.S.A.F. when they have a plane and team they can casually deploy to what appears to be a highly specific situation. The article says the aircraft is specifically designed to use atmospheric data to determine cause and nature of nuclear incidents. Imagining the manpower and testing and everything that goes into designing and implementing a system like this, and then multiplying it by all of the other teams and special aircraft and systems at their disposal, it really is impressive. All done over a period of 70 years.

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

#178

Post by jdietrich »

alistairSH wrote: post #159
hunta2097 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to know how to piss off a photographer? "These are great pictures, you must have a great camera!" Caveat: You can take great pictures with a camera-phone but you can't take every type of shot. I think any DSLR with a good choice of glass (lenses) would be able to reproduce most of these shots. More expensive camera bodies are only slightly better in the optical sense but are MUCH better constructed. Framing, ape…

Most photographers take a prolific amount of pictures Digital cameras are a wonderful thing! A good mirrorless could take most of these shots as well, though I suspect by the time you installed a lens long enough for the wildlife shots[1], it wouldn't be much lighter than the DSLR. 1 - I didn't check the EXIF data, but assume he was using at least 200mm, probably longer, for those shots.

>A good mirrorless could take most of these shots as well, though I suspect by the time you installed a lens long enough for the wildlife shots[1], it wouldn't be much lighter than the DSLR.

That's one of the big advantages of Micro Four-Thirds - if you're willing to sacrifice a bit of sensor area, you get very bright and lightweight telephoto lenses.

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

#179

Post by makomk »

nl wrote: post #119
shard972 wrote: post #54

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"…

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" unless you are being intentionally dishonest or have such an agenda that you jump at any scrap to make a story. That was terribl…

Most people who read the original article will never see the retraction. So they get all the page views and ad impressions from running a sensational story that goes viral, most of those people will continue to believe it, and even if some do find out it's false there's this idea that they shouldn't even look down on WaPo for this because they eventually retracted it. It's win-win-win for them!

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

#180

Post by bokglobule »

nl wrote: post #119
shard972 wrote: post #54

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"…

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" unless you are being intentionally dishonest or have such an agenda that you jump at any scrap to make a story. That was terribl…

I think the behavior of today's media is perfectly understandable if you substitute some terms. For example-

Instead of "stories" think of "memes"

Instead of "reporters" think of "salespeople"

Instead of "readers" think of "customers"

Instead of "publishers" think of "businesses"

With that map in mind, it's not hard to understand why many, not all, but clearly many do the shoddy reporting that they do. Like so many things in today's world, it's no longer about pride in your craft, but instead it's about making money. The result is it's increasingly difficult for the average person to tell the real news from the fake because the traditional sources of real news have abandoned this in favor of sensationalism. But on the upside, the Internet may yet save us by providing smaller outlets a chance to provide better reporting. I was very much intrigued by the WH using Skype to pull in reporters from smaller cities and areas that don't normally get a chance to participate.

During the recent Trump news conference, another aspect of what's going on jumped out at me. At one point in the news conference, the camera pulled back to show the room of reporters. What I found jarring was the age of the reporters; to my eye they looked like they were high schoolers. I was hoping to hear well thought out questions but instead most of them asked the same robotic questions on Russia. I don't think the media organizations are doing the American people (and the world) a great service when they send the least experienced staff members to events like this.

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