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What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

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Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#341
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those skills which led you to master programming will enable you solve countless problems the apocalypse will bring.

So problem solving? That does seem pretty useful, yep. Management skills could be crucial too. But there’s prob gonna be people around who are better at it. Hopefully survival in the post apocalypse doesn’t hinge on time estimates. Then we’re all doomed.

> Hopefully survival in the post apocalypse doesn’t hinge on time estimates.

Don't worry, we're implementing Survival KANBAN. Challenges and allocations will happen naturally on a board, while management tracks concurrent Survival In Progress to make sure we're not creating more survivors than we can handle.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#342
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro: A bunch of them are nutty doomsday preppers, with a lot of food supplies in their basements. Con: The polygamy, child abuse, and endless fast and testimony meetings get kinda old after a while.

What's wrong with polygamy?

Eh, it strongly correlated with civil war in nearly every run down country in the world?

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#344

I live on O'ahu and was holding my phone when the emergency alert came in at 8:07am. I yelled "Oh my God!" and ran to show my wife the message. I've run through this scenario a few times in my head before and I knew every minute was critical -- so I went into action mode immediately. I told my two kids to get dressed now because we were leaving in exactly 1 minute. The reason we were leaving is our house is single-wa…

There is a big misconception about nuclear attacks. Full scale nuclear war with a adversary like Russia is indeed an apocalypse scenario, but a single lowish yield nuclear detonation by a nation like North Korea is very very survivable, if you are prepared.

I have a similar evac plan with a bug-out bag that I gave my wife to keep at her work. For nuclear attack specifically, she is instructed NOT to leave her work and hunker down in their concrete basement for two weeks. Even being much closer to an estimated ground-zero, she is far safer in their well-shielded basement than trying to get home in the open fallout zone. The bag has enough rations, batteries, water, first-aid, etc for that period. Fallout zone radiation levels take about 2 weeks to drop to safe levels, at which time she has a printed google map for her to walk the 20 miles home.

My job is to grab the kids at school and hunker down in our basement where we have more exhaustive supplies, and ultimately get the hell out of town together.

Fallout is the biggest killer. Using http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/, and unfortunately fallout is highly dependent on wind direction - an important unknown on that day.

Given the unknowns and the likelihood that roads will be quickly impassible, it is best to prepare at home. It takes two feet of concrete or packed dirt to block radiation to a safe level, and that includes ABOVE you. Wood provides almost no protection. ...but if you do have a basement, then you can make a plan to place very heavy items (appliances & server racks) on the first floor above you and vehicles and stones/dirt/etc around that part of the house.

Fallout settles on surfaces, so it's a good idea to trim bushes and trees directly around that shelter - you want the fallout to hit the ground, not settle at a higher angle above you. ...and if you're in Hawaii or other coastal area and have easy access to a boat, that might be the best option because fallout sinks and there are no traffic jams at sea.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember an occasion when I lived with a partner - the fire alarm had gone off and I immediately got out of bed and started putting my pants and shoes on. She asked why, I said "so we can go outside. What are you doing? Let's go." She said she didn't understand the point - if it was a REAL fire, wouldn't they just come get us or tell us? I don't know how prominent this thought process is, or why so many people don'…

I think it makes sense to be prepared to evacuate by doing things like getting dressed or packing your bags. But you don't have to leave every time the alarm goes off. If you don't smell smoke, hear a rushing/roaring sound or feel heat coming from somewhere it probably is a false alarm.

By the time you feel heat or hear roaring or see smoke your hallway is already on fire. In some buildings that's your only escape route.

Please don't give dangerous advice.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#346
post #7

I find it really annoying that top two articles on HN are completely separate from engineering. Since when have posts from news sources been able to not just make it to the front page, but dominate the front page? Years ago, coming to this site helped me to become an engineer and changed the way I think about problems. But now I don't get that, and instead get plenty of feel-good articles and useless posts that don't…

user: bvod

created: 447 days ago

karma: 94

Some sincerely-intended, friendly advice...

Whilst I understand it's possible that you may have contributed more to HN under a different username, your complaint would be taken vastly more seriously if it came from an account that had a solid history of posting quality articles and comments of the kind of which you've said you'd like to see more.

This community is only as good as people make it through their article submissions and comments, and it's up to all of us to do our part.

And as others have pointed out, the flag link is there for stuff you don't think belongs here.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't in Hawaii, but I also imagine that I would assume that an alert like this is a false alarm. I've just lived through too many scenarios like this, albeit not on the same scale (think false fire alarms.) Upon reflection, however, this seems like the definition of survivor bias.

I remember an occasion when I lived with a partner - the fire alarm had gone off and I immediately got out of bed and started putting my pants and shoes on. She asked why, I said "so we can go outside. What are you doing? Let's go." She said she didn't understand the point - if it was a REAL fire, wouldn't they just come get us or tell us? I don't know how prominent this thought process is, or why so many people don'…

I was in a club once (in a basement) and the fire alarm went. Music stopped, everybody looked around confused for 30 seconds, no one saw an immediate fire, and then the music started up again twice as loud to drown out the alarm.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#348
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The USA has actively created plenty of shitholes - in places where the faces are not pure European white - and that gets zero public reaction. The current POTUS uses the word shithole to describe a group of countries and he's X, Y and Z. Yeah, Trump is a moron. But the hypocrisy of the press and the public is a moral violation.

While I agree that Trump is not the stable genius he thinks he is, the drone war existed before. We are speaking of a nobel peace prize winner who seemingly did not have either the ability to recognize the hell he helped create or the b----s to stand against his military advisors to stop it. You can blame Trump for a lot but even when there were smarter people in power, it wasn't much better. I want to believe that C…

Correct. Trump says "shithole" and the MSM lathers the public into a frenzy. Yet, the previous administration(s) actively created shitholes - which btw taxes dollar also go to fixing - and the response to that has been crickets from the MSM and the proles.

Trump can be a fool. But there is quite a bit of truth to his perception of the MSM, and how that impacts public opinion. Fake News isn't just about facts. Fake News is also about what the MSM highlights v what it does not. Not everything that gets report is news. Unless of course it fits a narrative, drives advertising dollar and/or masks the need to report on something more important.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The USA has actively created plenty of shitholes - in places where the faces are not pure European white - and that gets zero public reaction. The current POTUS uses the word shithole to describe a group of countries and he's X, Y and Z. Yeah, Trump is a moron. But the hypocrisy of the press and the public is a moral violation.

The USA has contributed to the development of plenty of flourishing economies. Panama is a rich nation thanks in large part to international cargo shipment. American tourists spend heavily in several other Latin American and Caribbean economies. South Korea is one of the most highly developed nations in the world, despite having been relatively poor prior to the Korean War. Canada and Mexico have benefited for years…

Iraq comes to mind.

I'd like to add, I never said there were no positives. My point is, shithole is a word. And if the use of a word is going to draw this kind of fire then the actions (that create shitholes) create 10x the amount of attention. But that doesn't happen. And obviously that is wrong.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#350
post #337

> and an employee pushed the wrong button I would assume that was how it was explained to the governor, and that the actual system is software based (right?) - there couldn't possibly be an actual physical 'ballistic missile alert' button right next to the 'shift change' button. In which case, the triggering of this alert is probably a bit more complex. However, this is treated as a sensitive system so there likely w…

According to the Washington Post, it was a dropdown with two options next to each other - "Test missile alert" and "Missile alert". It's really that bad. https://twitter.com/ericuman/status/952719318688718850

It's shocking it doesn't happen more often then.
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