Ultradave

Exactly my point, which you seem to have missed completely.

Could we maybe knock off these racist accusations? Russian is not a race. Ukranian is not a race. It's the same as saying American or British or French is a race. That's just nonsense and all it's doing is inflaming passions. Plus it's tiresome to wade through while trying to catch up. Dave

I’m more used to mr/hr rather than SI units so to compare a yearly background dose is about 200-350 mr/year depending on where you live. 2 mr/he if you are just driving and not breathing and spending a day or so is not that bad a dose. But the Russian soldiers were out in the open, digging and sitting in trenches so I expect their dose rate was significantly higher. Had to be for them to have acute symptoms. But those numbers give an idea of some area levels if someone is not being foolish and careless. Thanks for posting. Dave

Well, ok, they were even more stupid than I imagined them to be. Like WAY more. I kind of based my assessment on previous reports of Russian troops "traveling through" the area, raising up dust and breathing in some of it. HOWEVER, note in the article that they were digging and presumably occupying trenches in the area. So they no doubt inhaled a LOT more than they would have traveling through, AND they were pretty much hugging the radioactive dirt, so getting irradiated from inside AND outside. Idiots. There are reports of 7 busloads of soldiers transported to a radiation sickness treatment center with acute radiation exposure symptoms, after being evacuated from the Chernobyl area. Now acute radiation syndrome/sickness is a very wide ranging term. The body can take quite a dose of radiation before ANY symptoms appear (roughly 160 times your yearly background dose), and then 9 times THAT dose before you receive what is termed a 50/30 dose, which means that about 50% of people receiving that dose die within 30 days. The other 50% recover but would be susceptible to increased cancer risk the rest of their lives. A guaranteed fatal dose is about another factor of 10 higher than the 50/30 dose. At doses from the onset of symptoms up to the LD 50/30 dose symptoms vary from mild nausea to incapacitating nausea, diarrhea, crushing fatigue. At the extremely high doses there are neurological issues, breakdown of blood (ionizing radiation breaks down the water in your blood and tissues and it recombines into peroxide - pleasant thought, eh?) Those guys are most likely already dead by now if they received that kind of dose. A few sources for the evacuation and trench digging. The rest is my own knowledge from working in the radiation protection and emergency response field for many years. All those levels are rough but should get the idea across. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/retreating-russian-troops-leaving-chernobyl-26596437 https://www.newsweek.com/chernobyl-russia-troops-ukraine-yemelianenko-nuclear-1693714

Significant. U is not very radioactive. Long half life = less radioactivity per unit time. The danger from the alpha emitters that may be present should be minuscule compared to the fission products that are present. Dave

Well, maybe. I don't know and they aren't saying. They wouldn't have gotten sunburned. But they will have internal exposure which will continue. The comment that it was "suicidal" may be a bit of hyperbole. But who knows. Likely we will never know. Dave

Well, yeah. Kind of obvious. There's no "likely" about it. If it's radioactive, and you inhale it, you WILL be irradiated from internally ingested radioactive particulates. Alpha particles, yes, can be stopped by a piece of paper, or, say, your lung tissue. Also an alpha particle is massive - it's a helium nucleus, so causes much more damage than other radiation. There shouldn't be any alpha emitters in the dust/soil around Chernobyl. Beta radiation is an electron, or positron (a + charge electron- antimatter actually). A beta particle also has little penetrating effect. Your skin will stop it. So for example everyone was horrified at Fukushima workers wading through water that was beta radioactive - but at the levels there it was probably a sunburn effect. Gamma rays are highly energetic electromagnetic radiation - think highly energetic X-rays. They can pass through a lot but they will definitely interact with flesh and the lower energy ones will be more likely to be stopped, depositing all their energy, where a greater percentage of higher energy ones will pass through. But you can't think of it as just passing through without interacting. It WILL interact, but it just won't be slowed much. But every atom it hits it will deposit some energy along the way. The problem with any radiation when you ingest it is that 1) it irradiates you internally, and the human body internally is very delicate once you get past protective skin 2) isotopes will concentrate in certain areas/organs due to their physical (non-nuclear) similarity to beneficial elements. For an example most are familiar with, in an active release it's Iodine-131 that is the biggest immediate concern. Iodine concentrates in the thyroid. That's why KI pills are issued - to flood the thyroid with good iodine so there are no receptors for I-131. And the half life of I-131 is pretty short, and it would pass by quickly. Biological half life is short too, so KI pills are effective (note they are effective for ONLY that scenario and isotope). And with all that thyroid cancer is among the most treatable and survivable of cancers. But I digress. Strontium is one concern here. It's a fission product and in all spent fuel - which Chernobyl distributed all over Europe in varying amounts. It is physically/chemically similar to calcium so it will concentrate in bone marrow and bones, which can cause various issues with T-cells and B-cells that fight infections, mutating them and/or killing them. It releases betas and low energy gammas. Guess where else it shows up? Milk. Because, calcium. Cows eat the grass, and pass it into the milk. There are still areas that are restricted to grazing because strontium can be detected. There is probably little external danger even after stirring up dust, AS LONG AS PROTECTIVE GEAR IS WORN, and after you pass through the gear is removed and decontaminated or disposed of properly. But they didn't do that. So likely they all breathed in fission products. How much, and how much of an effect, is anyone's guess really and probably won't show any effects for years. I kind of doubt (but don't know for sure) that anyone would have received an acute dose that would make them ill or kill them. There ARE people living in the exclusion zone who moved back or never left, so the levels are not THAT severe. But, in general, don't inhale radioactive particulates. Dave

Normally that's what I do. I was checking something for Beta testing. Dave

I have run BS in Parallels desktop on my MacBook Pro and while I haven't put a timer on it, the load times were pretty similar, subjectively. Certainly nothing like that huge disparity. It doesn't run that well in Parallels. Graphics are pretty lame, but I'm sure that's because my Mac has onboard graphics, which doesn't seem to matter on the Mac side but does make a big difference in Windows. But that also might lend some more credence to the GPU driver idea, since that's not a factor in mine. Dave

This is exactly what my wife and I have been saying. We seem to think, and Putin reinforces, that there are red lines we (being NATO/US/EU) cannot cross, but that it's about time there were some red lines laid down to Putin. Past time, IMO. Dave

We had constantly drilled into us that we'd better be ready every day, that we were "come as you are, no notice deployment". That meant training, maintenance, medical, even everyday personal affairs, had to be up to date all the time and we trained and trained and trained and cross trained endlessly. It costs the DOD a lot of money. Not as sexy as buying new jets or submarines, but probably MORE important to keep the equipment and troops you have in top readiness than buying new stuff. Dave

In the second video those shells don't look like they have fuzes on them - blunt tips. But still, you wouldn't treat them like that. Explosions look fake. If that many shells exploded that camera would be toast. Unfuzed, they aren't much danger. We had truckloads roll over or be involved in vehicle crashes. Fuzes were carried separately in wooden crates and the fuzes added to the rounds at the gun position. A fuzed round, at least for the US anyway, requires "setback" (the shock of firing, which is WAY more than any crash or drop) and a couple of rotations, to arm itself, so even dropping fuzed rounds is only likely to break the fuze, as was mentioned. Dave

If only there was a way within Russia's control that relations could be improved

That's too bad because I have the same good performance here on a 4 year old MacBook Pro with 12.2.1 Monterey and it runs great with all the graphics settings on best. Dave

Some improving news on the nuclear reactor front. Half the staff at Chernobyl has been able to rotate out and go home replaced by off duty staff. More rotations to come. And I'll note here again since it's been a number of pages, that the last paragraph that mentions safeguards information from Chernobyl not being received by the IAEA. The safeguards they are talking about are not reactor operations. They are non-proliferation safeguards to prevent the diversion of nuclear material. I don't consider this much of an issue. The spent fuel is not terribly useful for any weapon purpose, even a dirty bomb, since due to the long time period since shutdown, it's not terribly radioactive anymore. Also, Russia has no need of it. Can't believe Ukraine would bother with it either. Dave https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-27-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine

An informal agreement (at least apparently. Not sure there's any actual evidence of it (I could be wrong and not suggesting such a statement or informal promise wasn't made). And it totally ignores that fact that Russia in a signed pact, GUARANTEED Ukraines safety and soveriegnty in return for Ukraine giving up the nuclear weapons that were stationed and stored in their territory. Dave [edit] Second part was poorly written, I think. It's the Russians I'm accusing of totally ignoring their commitment and not you, if I was unclear.

Concerning relative losses, this is pretty interesting to explore. Starts with Russian losses and scroll way down for Ukrainian losses, totals, and by actual vehicle type. If you hover over the individual numbers it links to a pic or video documenting it. Disclaimers at the top about accuracy. If nothing else, a ton of quick pics showing destroyed equipment. I haven't seen anyone post a link to this but may have missed it so apologies if so. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html Dave

If that's the case they can just say, "Ok, done" Dave

A nonsense pretext, of course. Putin is just making it up after the fact. And Ukraine is a signatory to the NPT, so they have no need to "give in" and make any further statement. By signing the NPT they already did. And Putin was one of the ones who supposedly guaranteed their integrity when they gave up the Soviet nukes based there. That worked well. I'm just pointing out that any discussion by Putin that Ukraine could somehow magically soon imminently develop a nuclear weapon is pure BS. And if for some pretty much unimaginable reason they decided to, we'd know. Dave

WHERE would they "acquire nukes" from? They don't have the capability to create them. They have no mechanism to create the needed material for a warhead. Dave

Yeah, my point exactly. The loss of these fuel supplies and ammo has got to be really hurting the advance. Tanks usually measure fuel economy in gals/mile rather than miles/gal. I didn't mean to minimize just "trucks" but that yes, the loss of the ammo and so many other supplies that keep mechanized forces moving has got to be putting the hurt on. Dave

I saw a number 2 days ago that among all the AFV, personnel and aircraft losses Ukraine claimed destroying over 100 fuel tanker trucks and some huge number of just “trucks”. The impact of those losses, even if exaggerated, is far, far greater than just the word “trucks”.

I am, yes. PhD in NE. Worked during my career on nuclear weapons (Army artillery experience - 82d didn't have any but nuclear weapons was my secondary specialty after artillery), nuclear reactor startup testing, radiation protection, and nuclear non-proliferation R&D. As Steve pointed out at one point - just because I jumped out of airplanes, it appears I'm not completely an idiot (or something to that effect ) Dave

Better news on the nuclear power plant front. Power is restored to Chernobyl. IAEA's biggest concern seems to be the overworked and isolated staff, with some maintenance being neglected. On the good side, safeguards information is being sent to the IAEA from everywhere except Chernobyl (again, a reminder that the safeguards being mentioned here are not reactor operation but concerned with the safeguarding of nuclear materials from illicit diversion) https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-20-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine Dave

Fruit was the only good thing in C's Nobody seemed to like apricots and I did so I'd gladly trade them a can of chocolate flavored sawdust (cake) for their apricots. Sweet sugar syrup to keep you going. Cold canned ham and eggs had to be the worst. After I had been there 2 years we got a new DIVARTY CO. He told the 3 battalion mess teams that EVERYONE gets 1 hot meal a day in the field, minimum, or they could be transferred to the battalion ammo trains. Got their attention. Things were much better after that and the field kitchens managed to find us and feed us. Dave