September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time • Hacker News Board

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#351

Post by burgerzzz » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:10 PM UTC

farmerstan wrote: post #56

rebuilder wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure at all the pandemic is going to be more significant historically. The 9/11 attacks did what Al-Qaeda intended them to - got the USA mired in an expensive, unwinnable war, which ultimately broke the US will to fight and seems to have resulted in a major reconfiguration of US foreign policy.

This. Al qaeda won. They destroyed the way of American life before 9-11. We are a different country now. So much government control over the last 20 years because of the 9-11 like TSA, Patriot act, massive government surveillance all in the name of “Homeland Security”. Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers exist precisely because of 9-11. The distrust from all of the secret government acts is only part of the equation. The t…

We were told the vaccine was the end all be all solution that stopped the virus. Many have opted to forego it and accept the risk. What’s so wrong with that? Now it turns out the vaccine isn’t as effective as originally thought, and the folks who decided to not get the jab are now somehow devoid of critical thinking skills? Explain what I’m missing. Or is it really not about death, but the bottom line?

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#352

Post by tclancy » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #28

dharmab wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the time I got out of training, the news cycle had moved on so it wasn't until the first anniversary of 9/11 that I saw the news footage of the event for the first time. This might seem strange to some younger readers, but remember in 01-02 internet video (and, indeed, internet faster than dial-up) was not ubiquitous. My family has a VHS tape recording of the news that day because that was how the average person…

> This might seem strange to some younger readers, but remember in 01-02 internet video (and, indeed, internet faster than dial-up) was not ubiquitous. And even if you used internet video (or, heck, even read news online), none of the sources (origins sites and Google and other portals) had the capacity to deal well with the major surge of associated with a event like 9/11. Everything online was spotty or broken unde…

We were using robots.cnn.com to get any news. Our work didn’t think it was worth stopping to go home or grieve or anything. Tech jobs.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#353

Post by Supermancho » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #158

photochemsyn wrote: post #62

When reviewing 9/11 attacks (likely the biggest and most disastrous intelligence failure in U.S. history, give or take Pearl Harbor), it's worth remembering that it could have been much worse. If the first plane had hit Indian Point nuclear reactor what, 30 miles from NYC and upwind? It's likely a Chernobyl/Fukushima disaster would have resulted with an exclusion zone well into NYC. That was reportedly part of the pl…

> Additionally, the fact that members of the Saudi government aided and assisted the hijackers... Details? My understanding is a huge fraction of the Saudi population have jobs that amount to government sinecures (while immigrants do most of the real work). Are we talking about high-level members with real leadership positions, or some minor member of the royal family working in some ministry doing nothing and going…

Details are on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandar_bin_Sultan_Al_Saud):

A court affidavit filed on 3 February 2015 claims that Zacarias Moussaoui was a courier between Osama bin Laden and Turki bin Faisal Al Saud in the late 1990s, and that Turki introduced Moussaoui to Bandar.[76] Zacarias Moussaoui stated on oath and wrote to Judge George B. Daniels that Saudi royal family members, including Prince Bandar, donated to Al-Qaeda and helped finance the 11 September attacks.[77] The Saudi government continues to deny any involvement in the 9/11 plot, and claims there is no evidence to support Moussaoui's allegations in spite of numerous previous intense investigations, noting that Moussaoui's own lawyers presented evidence of his mental incompetence during his trial.[76] Leaked information from the redacted portion of the 9/11 Commission Report states that two of the 9/11 hijackers received $US130,000 in payment from Bandar's bank account.[78]

Are these in dispute?

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#354

Post by cronix » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

atombender wrote: post #300

simonh wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saudi politics and personal relationships are a mess. It is true that Bin Laden is a member of a very powerful family in Saudi and so obviously has a lot of personal connections there as do his close associates. He is however estranged from that family and has been for a very long time, but may have some in Saudi who have grievances against the house of Saud and are sympathetic to the jihadis. Al Qaeda and many other…

> Bin Laden is a member ... He is however estranged That's a curious way to phrase it, given that he died in 2011.

Saying "he died" is kind of a curious way to frame things, too. "Died" offers a completely different connotation than "killed."

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#355

Post by HWR_14 » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

mannanj wrote: post #149

HWR_14 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little disingenuous to use 20 years of history to say it's a more significant event and then using the follow on results. In another 18.5 years, people could be talking about how the pandemic triggered the second US Civil War, or led to a complete reimagination of US race relations, or ushered in a communist takeover or something.

How are you supposed to figure out if an event is significant or not without looking at its historical significance on the years to come?

If you want to compare the relative historical significance of two events, you should probably limit yourself to the same timeframe. Look at how little had changed in the first 1.7 years after 9/11 and compare it to how much has changed in the pandemic.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#356

Post by maybelsyrup » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

cronix wrote: post #349

maybelsyrup wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never forget: the CIA, at the highest levels, knew that two of the 9/11 hijackers had multiple-entry visas to the US and were living in the country in the year before the attacks. They knew they were al-Qaeda, and they knew they were important enough to have been at a big AQ powwow in Kuala Lumpur in 2000. CIA management prevented this information from being disseminated by FBI agents posted inside "Alec Station", th…

Bill Binney (Tech Director/NSA) wasn't promoted. He quit just after 9/11 after He leaked that we had all of the intel to discover and piece together 9/11 in our systems, but the administration was prioritizing bulk collecting data over actually analyzing it. > In September 2002, he, along with J. Kirk Wiebe and Edward Loomis, asked the U.S. Defense Department Inspector General (DoD IG) to investigate the NSA for alle…

Thanks for posting this. Binney is really an unknown who deserves more recognition than we could probably give him -- at least as much as Snowden, if not more.

I'm slightly more inclined to believe that the NSA's pre-9/11 behavior was actually "negligence" (as opposed to something else) than the CIA's, but it's still terrifying that these people missed what they missed. I've been pulled over by the cops on less than the hijackers had during their many, many months in the US.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#357

Post by photochemsyn » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

542458 wrote: post #107

photochemsyn wrote: post #62

When reviewing 9/11 attacks (likely the biggest and most disastrous intelligence failure in U.S. history, give or take Pearl Harbor), it's worth remembering that it could have been much worse. If the first plane had hit Indian Point nuclear reactor what, 30 miles from NYC and upwind? It's likely a Chernobyl/Fukushima disaster would have resulted with an exclusion zone well into NYC. That was reportedly part of the pl…

Re: Indian Point - containment buildings are pretty armoured by design. The Indian point containment vessel walls are several feet of high-grade steel reinforced concrete. You might be thinking of the skinny, low quality rebar used in common construction at this point - this isn’t that, the rebar here is 2.25 inches thick, made of good-quality steel, and spaced every fifteen inches or so. The containment building is…

I can imagine the reactor shell itself surviving intact, but as with Fukushima, loss of the secondary cooling system (and its power supply) could well have resulted in a runaway reactor situation followed by a hydrogen explosion blowing the cap off, again as with Fukushima.

It might not have impacted NYC though, I just checked and the exclusion zones would likely have been well outside NYC city limits, but still, an epic disaster would have been the likely outcome.

Nuclear reactor security has been increased since then, but they're a major target today.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#358

Post by kolanos » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

dharmab wrote: post #168

mlcrypto wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many coincidences. Also we couldn't mobilize any fighter jets at all when a plane goes off course?

This is covered in the 9/11 commission report. Quoted below: The protocols did not contemplate an intercept. They assumed the fighter escort would be discreet, “vectored to a position five miles directly behind the hijacked aircraft,” where it could perform its mission to monitor the flight path of the aircraft. In sum, the protocols in place on 9/11 for the FAA and NORAD to respond to a hijacking presumed that: (1)…

In 1999 there was a professional golfer named Payne Stewart who died on a Learjet flight along with five others after it depressurized mid-flight. The plane continued flying on auto pilot and the FAA scrambled three separate fighter jet interceptions, involving five F-16s, the first one making visual contact with the Learjet approximately 20-30 minutes after the Learjet pilots became unresponsive. There was speculation at the time that the FAA was prepared to shoot the flight down if it was at risk of crashing in a populated area. The Pentagon later denied this, however, the Canadian government said this was their policy should the flight enter their airspace. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_cras...

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#359

Post by orf » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

tommymachine wrote: post #324

orf wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

life is like, temporary dude. so like just ignore the pandemic and like just focus on freedom man. masks are for sheep and my personal freedom to be able to visit a mcdonalds without a mask means more to me than the potential side effect of indirectly killing someone. you see i don't care about the endless restrictions of my freedom placed upon me post 9/11, i care about this highly specific and politicised position…

Patriot Act is unconstitutional. You think I watch Faux News? By the way, the first article on your site has nothing to do with the title. You don't even mention lossless audio format in the entire body, just pure UX gripes with the app (design and bugs). You must be real smart though. Have you thought about applying to work at the White House?

No, they require masks to work there. I can’t abide by that, haven’t you heard that the co2 from your breath while wearing a mask gives your children autism? Infowars told me. I can’t handle that level of risk to my personal freedoms. What's next, background checks when buying automatic weapons??!!?

Sorry I might be late replying, I’m going to get KFC without a mask for my elderly, uninsured grandparents who also believe the Chinese Virus is a hoax perpetrated by Biden to control our minds and remove our freedoms. But thankfully the heat death of the universe means that’s all inconsequential!

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#360

Post by slapfrog » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:27 PM UTC

ascar wrote: post #340

542458 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: Indian Point - containment buildings are pretty armoured by design. The Indian point containment vessel walls are several feet of high-grade steel reinforced concrete. You might be thinking of the skinny, low quality rebar used in common construction at this point - this isn’t that, the rebar here is 2.25 inches thick, made of good-quality steel, and spaced every fifteen inches or so. The containment building is…

My dad told me that when he studied construction engineering in the late 70s at TU Munich one of their assignments was to calculate if the Isar nuclear reactors are built strong enough to hold off a Mach 2.2 impact of a Phantom II. If I recall correctly the correct answer was that they were quite a bit stronger than necessary for that. However, I always wondered if a large civilian plane like a 747 with a speed close…

This video shows an F-4 Phantom being slammed into a concrete wall using a rocket sled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4wDqSnBJ-k

At about 2 minutes in they show the aftermath. The plane is just gone, while the wall is a bit discolored...