Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

ki4u.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 130 posts

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#111

Post by oceanplexian »

BaculumMeumEst wrote: post #17

i think its better not to spend time and energy coming up with ways to prolong your suffering in an unlikely scenario but that’s just me. that’s to say i don’t have a plan, but rather it’s much shorter and weighs on me less

I think people are assuming that a nuclear disaster would be the end of the world.

There are all kinds of scenarios where a nuclear disaster comes into the picture but society is intact, while also massively disrupted. In such a case more people would lose their lives from panic, starvation, infection, lack of clean water than anything exotic like radiation or a nuclear blast. This is why I have some preps; it’s not to survive if the world turns into a Walking Dead episode but as a way to prevent dying over something mundane before help arrives a few weeks or months later.

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#112

Post by kaoD »

newbYhrly wrote: post #106
kaoD wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only thing that makes me want to learn radio. I don't want to buy expensive gear, but being able to build my own DIY QRP (low-power) DX (long-distance) CW (Morse) transceiver? Count me in. Too bad there doesn't seem to be extensive information to introduce us digital engineers to the hobby. I don't want a kit. I want to learn the fundamentals so I can be ready when the society collapses and the ham überme…

There won’t be Rpis, old phones, and WiFi gear laying around?

It's global thermonuclear war. There won't be internet, cell reception, or even a power grid.

The radio in those is pretty short distance (ham can do 1000s of Km) and they draw a lot of power that you'll want to save since (if you're lucky) you'll be running on car batteries in remote areas.

But now I'm wondering how the aftermath will affect propagation conditions.

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#113

Post by stareatgoats »

aussiesnack wrote: post #91
stareatgoats wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, good to hear some agreement, and I share your hope even if I'm growing more pessimistic by the day. It always creates a stir to point out the absurdity of our current predicament. If I was a psychologist I might conclude that this is because many actually share my deep sense of despair, but can see no other solution that to trod on "in the machine" so to speak. I can sympathize, but we need to start doing som…

I'm an abjurer of optimism and pessimism equally, but hope can be useful. In a way the situation is even worse than your original comment suggested. More than just the indifference of being 'out of vogue', there's a lot of active hostility to the very notion of peacebuilding , as some responses suggested. But in the end, the main alternatives to active institution-and-culture-building are either to passively await a…

> Peacebuilding (...) is really all there is.

Completely agree.

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#114

Post by bearmode »

lostlogin wrote: post #107
jamal-kumar wrote: post #5

I suppose this is of special interest now since Poland, a NATO member, got hit by what sounds like an errant missile from Russia recently. [1] Reading the first part, I think the best thing that could happen in the event some big red buttons get pushed is that if you're next to a military base you're probably going to be vaporized along with it if you can't evacuate. Trying to survive that kind of thing sounds way wo…

It seems to have been an errant middle from Ukraine, fired by Ukrainian forces, not from Russian forces. https://www.reuters.com/world/poland-blast-caused-by-missile...

Its errancy isn't overly clear.

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#115

Post by MrRiddle »

deepsun wrote: post #96
gdy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'A ukrainian official alleged...' There, fixed that for you. 5V55K has the range of 47 km, Russia is much further from Poland than that. Ukraine, on the other hand, uses Soviet S-300.

What are you talking about? They launched dosens (hundreds since Feb 24th) of Kalibr missiles, all the way from Caspian and Black seas.

Everyone now admits it’s Ukrainian, but all media initially reported it was stray Russian missile.

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#116

Post by gdy »

deepsun wrote: post #96
gdy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'A ukrainian official alleged...' There, fixed that for you. 5V55K has the range of 47 km, Russia is much further from Poland than that. Ukraine, on the other hand, uses Soviet S-300.

What are you talking about? They launched dosens (hundreds since Feb 24th) of Kalibr missiles, all the way from Caspian and Black seas.

And when Ukrainian military tries to intercept them, stray Ukrainian S-300 missiles sometimes kill civilians on the ground. Awkward, right? Better say that Russians are repurposing ground-to-air missiles and firing them at Ukrainian civilians.

This time it was Polish civilians and the lie won't fly.

"Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile" [0]

[0] https://apnews.com/article/g-20-summit-nato-biden-andrzej-du...

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#117

Post by ccvannorman »

yamtaddle wrote: post #27
andirk wrote: post #16

My dad said they would do air raid drills in elementary school (50's, 60's) due to the fear of a nuclear attack. They were taught to get under their desks.

Now it's active shooter drills from kindergarten on. :-/ There was a brief, happy span of a couple decades without duck-n-cover or shooter drills, though.

I went to school during those decades. For us, it was listening to how bad drugs were (grouping in Marijuana with Heroin and the rest) by a police officer lecturing us (they called it DARE - DARE to keep kids off drugs.) I would have preferred duck and cover personally

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#118

Post by lazyfanatic »

MisterMower wrote: post #110
otikik wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are 8bn people. Of course there’s gonna be some wackos on that lot. Not so many with access to nuclear weapons, fortunately. Worms might not be a very detailed geopolitical simulator. The ninja rope was nice thoug.

> Of course there’s going to be some wackos on that lot. Not so many with access to nuclear weapons, fortunately. How would we know, one way or the other? I mean, it only takes a few wackos to trigger such a scenario. And there are clearly a lot of wackos among 8 billion people. Doesn’t seem far fetched to me at all.

Isn't it something like 99 percent of species go extinct?

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#119

Post by unsupp0rted »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #76
unsupp0rted wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently getting under their desks was on the off-chance their school is far enough away to avoid being incinerated but still close enough for a pressure wave to blow out all the glass in the windows and turn it into projectiles.

Honestly, seems like a couldn't-hurt move. Too close? Incinerated. Doesn't matter. Goldilocks nearby enough for glass shrapnel? Dodged some glass by being under desk! Win! Far away? Heard a distant boom while under desk. Hard to fault really.

The tradeoff is raising generations of children terrified of nukes destroying their world at any moment. Better safe than sorry, as you suggested, but it's not a zero cost strategy.

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#120

Post by bsagdiyev »

kaoD wrote: post #82
bsagdiyev wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me just login in to the intern... oh right. Well the radios should still wor... no? Shit. I need to pay for clean water from my neighbor.

This is the only thing that makes me want to learn radio. I don't want to buy expensive gear, but being able to build my own DIY QRP (low-power) DX (long-distance) CW (Morse) transceiver? Count me in. Too bad there doesn't seem to be extensive information to introduce us digital engineers to the hobby. I don't want a kit. I want to learn the fundamentals so I can be ready when the society collapses and the ham überme…

Do it. I got my license from a free course and test in San Diego and have enjoyed it ever since. Finding info can be pretty easy but I'm on my phone so can't provide links right this second.
Post reply on HN