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Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

zetter.substack.com

101–110 of 141 posts

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#101
post #99
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The dumbasses digging radioactive dirt probably didn’t even know about Chernobyl to begin with. Not probably. Definitely. Saw a couple of interviews with people who worked there while Russians took over the place. They said that most of the had no idea where they are (i.e. what Chernobyl is, what happened there, etc)

I’m going to call BS on this. Even if such videos existed, it’s completely implausible for something like that to true. Imagine asking random New Yorker’s what 9/11 was. Chernobyl is pretty close to being equivalent in terms of fame and media coverage. I’d be extremely surprised if you could find even 1% of people from a random sample who, when asked about Chernobyl, would respond with at least some vague statement a…

such videos existed. personally saw it. a couple of station employees been interviewed in ukrainian about how things went down while russians occupied the area. filmed outside. intermixed with deserted russian camp with bunch of trash and some trenches.

chernobyl happened almost 40 years ago. there were a couple of generations in russia ever since. chernobyl wasn't even in russia. why would random russian rural dudes (majority of army. people from major cities are rare) will know that it happened ?

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#102
post #39
post #2

> The IAEA sent experts to do a radiological survey in the CEZ in April, but their focus wasn’t on determining the cause of the spikes. Investigators instead wanted to determine if Russian soldiers who dug trenches in a small section of the CEZ had released dangerous levels of radiation in that area that could have sickened the soldiers or anyone else who passed through that area. (The IAEA determined the radiation l…

The story of Russians digging holes and getting radiation poisoning was propaganda, just like Ghost of Kiev. The levels of radiation in the soil are not high enough to cause radiation poisoning, except for very few hotspots that they'd have to go looking for. It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled. I'm more inclined to believe the IAEA. Also, >They concluded that…

This feels like arguing that asbestos isn't dangerous in many forms (it isn't or doesn't have to be) and then denying that people got sick at an asbestos shoveling contest.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone knows about Chernobyl. Most likely what they didn't know was where they are. I saw too many videos of soldiers asking locals for directions in the first days of war.

I won't underestimate the ignorance of young people about anything happened before they started to realize that the world is larger than their home. This is about all generations. And specifically: > Everyone knows about Chernobyl. And everyone knows about Tienanmen, the difference in what they know is made by the country where they live. Compare this poll from 2019 with the expected values from Western Europe where…

It's just a terrible title. The question was "On April 26, 1986, there was an explosion at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. How did you learn about this accident?"

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#104
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of sensors don't just give very high readings at once by chance. There is a reason. If it had just been one sensor that would be another matter (and perhaps it needs to be replaced...) It doesn't make sense as a prank in that it was only a few sensors and not persistent, it's not like they drew a dick with the results or set them to over 9000.

A question I'm not seeing is: what types of sensors are they and what can trigger them? Can they detect X-rays? EM Interference? Can dust or high humidity cause false readings? Maybe it's the kickoff of dust but not necessarily because the dust is radioactive

Or radio jammers?

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#105
post #54
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of sensors don't just give very high readings at once by chance. There is a reason. If it had just been one sensor that would be another matter (and perhaps it needs to be replaced...) It doesn't make sense as a prank in that it was only a few sensors and not persistent, it's not like they drew a dick with the results or set them to over 9000.

Looking at the reported patterns of the spikes (just a few widely seperated sensors having their stored aggregated data routinely being corrupted at similar times of day) there's another highly probable cause. Brittle software and data management. According to the linked third party piece and the Wired reporting things are going wrong at the first aggregate server that collates all the sensor data. The first port of…

Hm. if the sensors are free running counters and interruptions to the collection infrastructure cause the counts from multiple time intervals to be combined this would result in a false rate spike.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#106
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You underestimate Russia's induced ignorance about Chernobyl. Most of these 20-year-olds were from remote, shit-poor areas of Russia, and even if they went to school of some sort, it didn't matter much. You think those textbooks mentioned the incident? No. To this day, Chernobyl is a pain point for Russia - f--k knows why because it didn't even happen there . When HBO's Chernobyl came out, Moscow went into a full-blo…

That hysteria wasn't caused by the ignorance of Russia's population. Everyone knew about the disaster for a long time. I know this because I lived there until recently.

[deleted]

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do you know about The Red Scare in the US? I'm American and barely know anything about it. It's just not really talked about and not, as far as I know, due to fear of being imprisoned for it. Ugly history is often "forgotten" even when there is no compulsion to "forget" it.

I'm also American and The Red Scare was taught in my high school. That being said, the Battle of Blair Mountain, the Tulsa Race Massacre, and the MOVE bombing were left out of my curriculum.

And there can be other distracting factors. The biggest massacre of Native Americans in what eventually became the Continental US is largely forgotten by the modern US in part because it occurred during the Civil War at a time when there was no TV, internet, etc.

The date: 29 January 1863.

It gets remembered by various names and various sources give different counts for how many died. Wikipedia says 250 Natives were killed. Other sources say closer to 500.

https://boaogoi.org/

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#108
post #98
post #2

> The IAEA sent experts to do a radiological survey in the CEZ in April, but their focus wasn’t on determining the cause of the spikes. Investigators instead wanted to determine if Russian soldiers who dug trenches in a small section of the CEZ had released dangerous levels of radiation in that area that could have sickened the soldiers or anyone else who passed through that area. (The IAEA determined the radiation l…

>Greanpeace I can’t say I’m inclined to trust a source with the unofficial motto of “It does not matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” Not to mention how they consider doing things like paying people to torture animals on film for propaganda campaigns acceptable, and multiple incidents of them ramming ships.

Is this true?

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#109
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Greenpeace investigated, so they are not a credible source after all the lobying and protests they did in Germany and which closed down nuclear power stations. The Ukrainians invited Grrenpeace likely to amplify the concerns. It was likely another propaganda attempt, as opposed to actual research.

The pictures from their report are a bit problematic. They sprinkled in pictures of the power plant among the pictures of the trenches. https://media.greenpeace.org/shoot/27MDHUHQAT5X

Looks quite professional, but I have zero trust for an organisation who's fundamentalist members scream and chain themselves to railings and raiway tracks.

https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/59219/tschuss...

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#110

Qui bono? "OK, guys, we'll just hack into these radiation sensors to manipulate the data feed, and make them display highly elevated level of radiation for a few minutes. Then we'll reset them back to normal... muwuhahahaha [evil laugh]...."

I don’t want to imply that this is what happened here. But that scenario has absolutely happened.
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