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New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

nytimes.com

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Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#121

Post by djohnston »

macintux wrote: post #94
AznHisoka wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope the mention of extraterresterial wasnt tongue in cheek though. Because it might be a legitimate threat someday.

It’s hard to imagine a scenario where ET arrives and is both threatening and something we can defend against. I imagine when the aliens arrive we’ll be so far behind the technology curve that there’s not much point in trying to defend ourselves.

agreed, if they arrive on our doorstep we've already lost in a military sense, although as in War of the Worlds, maybe some of our microbial friends would come to the rescue

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#122

Post by eoShe7th »

disabled wrote: post #83

This was most likely a TDOS attack, as the Ukraine Power Grid attack on December 23, 2015 was a TDOS attack performed by the Russians [1]. Plus, the 911 call centers in various states being out of commission this night/morning, with busy signals, adds to this suspicion [2]. Additionally, there was a BGP network hijacking incident to the US Department of Energy today [3]. [1] https://www.wired.com/2016/03/inside-cunni…

Sounds like a right wing style conspiracy theory to me.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#123

Post by groestl »

gammateam wrote: post #114
mrfusion wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a PSA for you: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA

Looks more like a user experience problem than the content creator's problem Youtube doesn't post process vertical videos correctly, while Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and many other sites keep the processed video in its flexible aspect ratio - primarily for their mobile users who would have no UX problem. Interesting how that hasn't made it into the discussion, I feel like people will just stop talking about it when…

Funny you should say that mobile users on Reddit have no UX problem with vertical videos. Here is how the above link looks like on my mobile device. Original link (to classic reddit UI), mobile version horizontal, mobile version portrait, respectively: https://imgur.com/a/JU4v3rn

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#124

Post by hiccuphippo »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #90
sjwright wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why IQ would necessarily correlate with knowledge about meteor strike safety best practices. On the other hand, if innate curiosity about environmental phenomena is at all correlated with IQ, it could result in a lowering of the average IQ instead.

> meteor strike safety best practices Which are similar (for the first minute anyway) for nuclear strike best practices. You would hope that there is still some knowledge of these. The probability of nuclear strike is low at any given time, but at the moment that you experience a unexpected extremely bright light in the sky it's higher.

>You would hope that there is still some knowledge of these.

Duck and cover.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#125

Post by ip26 »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #69
snidane wrote: post #64

Living in Astoria, NY and this happened a mile away from me. At first my TV blips, my spotify shuts down and outside you could see this very bright turquoise light all over the place. It was bright like it was a daytime just in the green blue color. At first I thought it must had been some fireworks nearby, New Year is coming, right? But there was no fireworks noise, no party noise, nothing, just this bright green li…

> In the end I rushed to the rooftop, scared as f I'm glad that you were ok. I would probably have over-reacted by diving under the bed. The lesson that I took from the footage of the Chelyabinsk meteor (1) is this: When people see a sudden bright light in the sky, the usual reaction is for them to go to the window to see what it is. So then the blast wave arrives in time to give them a face full of flying glass shar…

Knowing what's going on kind of dictates your response. If it's a forest fire, for example, swift action is much preferable to hiding under the bed. Hence looking out the window.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#126

Post by BoiledCabbage »

jp555 wrote: post #108
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-nuclear EMP devices are surely real. They can fit in somebody's basement, don't have to be delivered by missile.

My high school physics says that’s BS, but EMP scare tactics does make for a great info-war weapon. It’s quite the boogeyman if you don’t have much science background. Stuxnet like attacks are way way more plausible and likely.

> if you don’t have much science background

Like HS physics

It comes across as somewhat condescending and naive to refer to a HS class as having a notable amount of science background. And a reason to dismiss other sources of information.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#127

Post by gammateam »

groestl wrote: post #123
gammateam wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks more like a user experience problem than the content creator's problem Youtube doesn't post process vertical videos correctly, while Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and many other sites keep the processed video in its flexible aspect ratio - primarily for their mobile users who would have no UX problem. Interesting how that hasn't made it into the discussion, I feel like people will just stop talking about it when…

Funny you should say that mobile users on Reddit have no UX problem with vertical videos. Here is how the above link looks like on my mobile device. Original link (to classic reddit UI), mobile version horizontal, mobile version portrait, respectively: https://imgur.com/a/JU4v3rn

okay. then reddit should fix their UX problem shrug emoji doesn't change the point

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#128

Post by vkou »

Casseres wrote: post #116
rurp wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nukes are going off in a major US city it probably doesn't matter much where a person is standing.

You don't have to be very far from the epicenter to survive a nuclear blast.

A 500 kt warhead will kill most people within 3 miles of it, and will continue killing people up to ~6 miles.

These days, a single missile carries 5-10 warheads. They split and spread out over the strike area a few seconds before detonation. One missile can, thanks to this, kill most of the people in a multi-million-person metro area.

Between the two of them, the United States, and Russia are currently pointing 4,000 nuclear weapons at each other, on hair-trigger alert. With another 8,000 in reserve.

It is not clear to me how a scenario where a single nuclear warhead exploding in is not either a part of, or an immediate trigger for all-out nuclear war.

You tell me how survivable that is.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#129

Post by kolinko »

jaredwiener wrote: post #119
kolinko wrote: post #92

If you see bright light, duck and cover. If you go to the window, and it was some kind of a huge explosion, once the shockwave reaches, the windows will shatter and you will get seriously injuired.

I was probably two miles or so away in Manhattan -- there was no noise, no hit to the electricity, nothing. I was watching TV and then saw an otherworldly color sky out he window. The actual source of the bright light was blocked by a building, so it looked a little like what I imagine the aurora borealis looks like. Then it started to rapidly change colors and flicker -- like fireworks, but without the noise. In NYC…

Ah, sorry - not criticising, just reminding :) There was an article on HN recently on how important it is to follow this, and how life saving it can be.

If there is a flash and you hear no sound, it doesn’t mean it’s safe either - sound travels 300m/s, so if there was an explosion 2.5miles away, you would only see bright visuals on the sky, no sound, for the first 10-13sec, and then the shockwave would hit...

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#130

Post by mzs »

snidane wrote: post #64

Living in Astoria, NY and this happened a mile away from me. At first my TV blips, my spotify shuts down and outside you could see this very bright turquoise light all over the place. It was bright like it was a daytime just in the green blue color. At first I thought it must had been some fireworks nearby, New Year is coming, right? But there was no fireworks noise, no party noise, nothing, just this bright green li…

video

"The transformer explosion in Astoria was... right outside my window. So bright I couldn’t look directly at it."

https://twitter.com/nickriccardo/status/1078479911952756737

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