News / Nuclear Power in Poland? Yes, please! Absolutely nobody disagrees! [73]


There is common thing between "green" freaks - once they beleived in something, they not spending their time to research consequences, they starting their missionary job immediately. ;)

Well. Lead is poisonous. "Green" freaks was unable to pass by... Their RoHS initiative already passed into law. Now electronics manufacturers cannot use any lead-containing solders or components. But, unfortunately, pure tin is not usable as solder, it produces microscopis whiskers that cause short circuits on PCBs and at low temperatures slowly transforms to gray powderish substance. So, lead-free replacements of well proven 63Sn36Pb eutectic alloy now in use - and it is MORE TOXIC than original one due to added Sb, Cd, etc... In addition, higher melting temperatures and not so good adhesion of lead-free solders create a lots of problems to manufacturers and shorten average life of electronics (creating additional waste) - but who cares? They won their battle with lead, they really happy!

Another beloved toy of freaks is "carbon footprint".. Will not comment on this...

Now, when I heard that someone tries to say that "everyone should do at least something to protect environment", I always want to say that safest thing that he/she can do is to kill yourself. ;) This for sure will not create any additional harm to environment, will save a lot of resources, and specialists whose work is to determine safety of something will work under slightly lower pressure from crowds that didn't understand what they really want to do. ;)

News / Nuclear Power in Poland? Yes, please! Absolutely nobody disagrees! [73]


"Smart mix of renewable energies" for now sounds like a smart way to fill someone's pocket with taxpayers' money.

There is NO viable alternative to nuclear (and thermonuclear in future) power generation, at least I do not see it.


Wrong. According to some studies I seen in the past, there is enough of 235U already extracted (including that is in military arsenals now) for 100+ years if regular "thermal neutron" reactors will be used. But, there is a huge stockpiles of 238U ("depleted uranium" that remains after 235U extraction from natural isotope mix), mostly in highly corrosive UF6 form, which is just stored for now (Russia starting to slowly convert their depleted UF6 stocks to uranium oxide that is much safer in storage and commercial grade HF - process may be speed up somewhat, but problem is that industry simply not need in so much HF now and storage of excess HF is not too much less expensive than storage of UF6). If we move to a breeder reactors, curent 238U stocks is more than enough for all energy needs during next 1000+ years (based on current trend in energy consumption growth). All we need to do that - new technologies to deal with irradiated nuclear fuel, to extract fissile 239Pu from them without so much liquid radioactive waste and strict control over extracted plutonium (as it is fissile and theoretically can be used for nuclear bomb - though reactor grade Pu is not very suitable for low-tech bombs).

There is at least one alternative to uranium - it is Thorium 232. There is MUCH more thorium on Earth (3 to 4 times), compared to Uranium. And there is no need in expensive processes of isotope separation, as it consist almost entirely of usable 232Th. One more positive thing - thorium is not fissile by itself, and absolutely useless for military, so you can deal with it as with any slightly radioactive metal, until it is irradiated in reactor.

WIth breeder type reactors, we may have tens of thousands years until all already known thorium deposits will be used up. And it is expected than energy from thorium reactors will be approx 10 times cheaper, compared to uranium reactors (including all safety measures to cost).

And there is some very interesting projects of sub-critical electro-nuclear reactors, that cannot explode at all under any circumstances - they produce energy only with external source of neutrons (external proton accelerator used for this purpose). Once you turn accelerator off or something went wrong with accelerator - reaction stops instantly.

India have litle uranium deposits, but have LOTS of monazite sands, that contains thorium along with other rare earth metals. So, Indian nuclear program already oriented to thorium fuel. Norway also nave huge deposits of thorium-containing minerals and expressed interest in thorium energy, but "greens" killed national research program in field of safe subcritical thorium reactors.


Wrong again.

For now, by producing solar cells, you actually WASTE some energy. Just because full cycle of manufacture (from minerals in their natural deposits to solar battery ready to install) will consume more energy than it will be produced by that solar batery during all their useful life (I mean typical european climate, not some african desert). To me, whole "solar energy" project looks like two processes of moving - first one is moving taxpayers money to pockets of solar panels producers, and second is moving related waste from EU to China. I have few really obscene words for "greens" who promote all this crap.

For hydroenegetics you'll have to flood lots of precious lands to keep enough water for a summer and winter seasons. I never tried to calculate, how much energy you can get (in typical European climate) from these lands if it will be used to grow some oil-rich crops to produce biodiesel, but suspect that result will be not so good to those who blindly believe in hydro... Russia widely uses hydroenergetics, but there is a lot of convenient places to do so - and I do not see something similar in modern Poland or Germany.

Windmills..... Well, it is good idea somewhere near Gibraltar, where winds are almost constant and relatively strong. Try to get some weather statistics for your own territory and figure out how much windy days you have. In a most places whole idea will be useless.

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

As I can hear, pilot's russian is not very perfect, and I do not hear other side here.

But anyway, "dymka" in a russian meteorology is term for a not very dense fog, with visibility over 1 km. When visibility is less than 1 km it would say "tuman".

Can anyone confirm that this recording fragment is from this particular flight, and figure out exact time of this record?

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


I do not hear other side there - may be it really means 0.8 km ("nol'-vosem' kilometra" as it typically said in Russian, but most will prefer to say 800 meters)?

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


I will agree and not agree at same time.

Yes, it was known that provocations is possible at any time (and from any side, of course - there is a lot of hot heads with arms in the hands at both sides, and they, especially militia, not always wait for a order before pushing the trigger). Georgians and Ossetians really don't like each other after a number of armed conflicts and numerous civilian casualties from both sides. I cannot keep Ossetians guilty in this conflicts - when georgians demanded independence, they let everyone (who wanted to hear) to know that they want to remain united with their own people in North Ossetia. Georgian nationalists completely ignored that, declared that Ossetian autonomy doesn't exist anymore, and tried to take full power on that territory by armed force (by the way, on territory where Ossetians lived for centuries, on a Caucasus it is a _very_ important fact). Many civilians from georgian population of Ossetia participated in that attempt. Result was quite disappointing for georgians.

But, I think, nobody expected full scale attack on russian peacekeepers and ossetian civilians, with use of heavy weapons and tactical missiles. Most likely Saakashvili decided to make an atempt to solve both territorial problems and problems with their popularity at once.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


By the way, I'm army officer in a reserve. Tank forces. And I was little bit surprised - what do you think we would need to do whole month instead of just fueling tanks, loading ammo and moving tanks and supporting vehicles from boxes? ;)

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


By the way, it was recognized by foreign countries as georgian territories, but they really should become an independent states at the moment of decomposition of USSR (by laws that was active in that moment - autonomous republics within one of 15 republics that is planned to separate had the right to decide - should they remain as autonomy in that republic, or become new subject of USSR). For example, Abkhaz autonomous republic had referendum, that was willfully boycotted by ethnic Georgians so only Abkhaz people participated and they decided to keep Abkhazia as a subject of USSR. Almost at same time Georgian part of Abkhaz ASSR population participated in georgian referendum - that was about independency. That one, in turn, was boycotted by Abkhaz population.

So, real status of this two autonomies was not so clear from beginning. And once Kosovo precedent destroyed principle of invariance of borders, georgians had no way, except force like with now not existing Adjaria, to keep this de-facto independent autonomies.

What to South Ossetia - it was included to Georgian SSR purely by administrative reasons. Before tunnel was built, there was problem to get from southern part to northen part during winter. So, Ossetia was split to two autonomies separated by Caucasus mountains - one withhin RSFSR, another within Georgian SSR.

Just like Crimea that was handed to Ukrainian SSR from RSFSR by Khruschev due to complicated administration of area that was separated by water from RSFSR. By the way, also, that "movement" was in fact illegal according to laws that was in effect that time.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Just to remember - Latviešu strēlnieki was widely used until 1920 by communistic regime to shot to civilians during suppression of uprisings (Yaroslavl, Murom, Rybinsk, Kaluga, Saratov, Novgorod, etc...). They was also more enthusiastic about killing civilians that times.

BTW, one of creators and first boss of Gulag was Fedor Eikhmans, also former "latvian riflemen". Directly responsible for mass repressions and countless deaths.

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


Well... **** happens with TU-154M fuel dropping nozzles, but we had another toy - word "gnat" that is well known for everyone except russians. ;)

For your information - closest thing to your mystic "gnat" is verb " gnat' " (with soft sign at end - гнать).

ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B3%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C

" davaj gnat' " may be understood as shortest possible form of something like "let's force them to go out of here". Of course, pretty good idea for a place where accident happened and is not yet investigated by experts, but some unrelated people already come to scene.

If you are not happy with this meaning - it may be understood as "let's distill (probably alcohol)" or "let's drive very quickly" (but this form it is not used often).

In a slang, " gnat' " means - tell some nonsense, like being drunk or under heavy drugs.

Life / Do Russians and Poles get along? [53]

It pretend to be Russian (see Kokoshnik on their head, though I cannot remember such style of decoration to being traditional for any region). ;)

The only time I seen such furious face (and very similar scene) is while being university student. ;) Ukrainian girl come back home to campus and found that their boyfriend (hot guy from Azerbaijan) almost completed to undress their roommate (looks like she was too quite enthusiastic about this). ;)

Fortunately, there was no sharp or heavy objects handy. ;) Little hair loss and roommates swap - all that happened. ;)

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


Yeah. Maybe you will look at some last December video from Smolensk - there will be snow, and that will be one more Russian lie about weather conditions. ;)

In a video fragments taken shortly after crash (fragments of plane still burning) I can see fog, and visibility is comparable to those 400m that was stated.

And, in addition, there was whole bunch of polish reporters that land shortly before on a Yak... They been there and should know for sure what weather been there right after their own landing and in time of planned TU landing.

But I don't think you will take anything into account - looks like you live in some parallel world.

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


Don't think so. Just browse last news. There was short note on a news tape that investigators have no information yet that there was any "pressure" to pilot from their VIP passengers.

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Maybe just because Smolensk-South (ICAO: LNX) is a defunct small airport that was built for light planes for a regional flights. In 2008 it was planned to reconstruct this airport sometime in 2011 by lenhtening landing strip, building some additional facilities and installing modern navigation equipment.

To date, all flights to Smolensk is landed at Smolensk-North airstrip.

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


Why so narrow list? Let's add torsion fields, Planet X A.K.A. Nibiru, UFOs and the rest.....

Don't know where you got information that there was no fog, I read Smolensk forums just minutes after tragedy, and people told there that they cannot clearly see cars on ground from 9th floor window.

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/aircraft_detail.cgi?aircraft=Tupolev+TU-154

There are 29 crash records for the Tupolev TU-154 (all modifications) in database. And only 4 of them (as I can see) can be clearly attributed to aircraft problems. There is 19 crashes since 1990 and only 10 accidents with 154M during all time. Where you got your numbers, of course?

By the way, there are 84 crash records for the Boeing 737 for approximately the same period (6285 planes built vs 1015 TU-154)... Have no time to browse all B737 records to figure out how many crashes is due to technical problems and how mane due to people stupidity... But anyway, TU-154 records is looks not so bad, compared to others...

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Russian "Zvezda" TV channel shown some video fragments from crash site. Plane looks like torn into pieces, there was little chances to survive. They hit trees just in hundreds of meters from runway.

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


Was it same plane that (relatively recently) failed in Mongolia during president visit?