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35 Comments
- gaijin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12"The crystal is like Frodo's sword...It starts to glow when the bad stuff's around..."
Gotta love that analogy! - Migdilio, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Honest question: Does anyone know how the Digg promotion system works? This story made it to the front page in its 20th hour, with only 21 diggs. A week or so ago I submitted a story (different topic entirely) that had 31 diggs by the end of the 24-hour cycle, but it failed to make it here. I've been trying to figure out how it all works but have come up empty. Anyone have any info?
- Gunde, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Has it ever occurred to you that the real terrorists are the ones constantly telling you to be afraid? The very definition of terrorism is "scaring the population into submission by using fear to achieve a political agenda". Gotta love newspeak.
- ReaperUnreal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3On the second page of the article, they make it quite clear that even if something is detected, there's no real procedure to follow.
Step 1: Detect nuclear bomb.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit? - Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Wow, talk about paranoid.
- 1911wolf, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5This is something I mentioned to my recruiter back in '92. If someone wanted to cause lots of damage, all they need to do is float in a nuke on a cargo ship and detonate under the Golden Gate. He laughed. I don't think he's laughing much anymore.
- kwaldron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Here's a better idea. Make a cheap simple detector that doesn't have to be that sensitive. It should be under $50 (non-profit of course). It should have a USB connection and GPS. Get people to volunteer to buy a detector and give their computer time (minimal) just like for SETI. There could be a nation-wide set of detectors that are coordinated via the Internet. With sufficient penetration into enough households you would be able to track the movement of any and all nuclear materials everywhere on the continent for minimal government investment (development of the device and running the central computers). Add chemical and biological detectors to the device and pretty soon you have a very good early warning system for most of these threats.
Heck add a barometer and you start to get a good weather (tornado/storms) early warning system as well.
With GPS and enough of these in an urban area you could triangulate the location of a threat within a block easily and likely down to a few metres. - happyslinky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3..a group of do-it-yourself volunteer researchers are not waiting for the mushroom cloud. They say they are close to perfecting a portable device that could do much the same thing right now,...
(Reading this literally..)
Researchers, who are close to perfecting a cheap and portable nuclear bomb are roaming around the bay.
Everyone panic - Clbck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Maybe because one's fiction?
- drunkenrobot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3man, americans sure are xenophobic paranoid freakshows....
- RareSaturn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Did you read the article? It mentioned lead shielding.
- iFelix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1...is that america or americans?
- virtualmachine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm going to call Jack Bauer from CTU, he will have a use for this!
- floorman56, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or a power boat racing in at 50 mph
- cadich, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3That's because this story has been dugg by "power users" who have had a lot of their submitted stories on the front-page
- waytoorandomx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1We need one of these in Washington D.C. Occasionally I get the feeling we're being nuked, so I duck and hide behind my cubicle walls. It stinks.
- ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Holy *****, those guys need to get laid.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0it can detect a soviet era suitcase bomb? there was never any proof they existed, the only people who believe that a 20+ kilo spherical or ovoid bomb and its related shielding could fit in a suitcase are one guy who claimed to work for the soviet secret service, and homeland security, whom list them as 'hypothetical.'
the truth is that any suitcase nuclear weapon that's worthwhile would be the size of a steamer trunk and weigh around 50 kg. this is because the very smallest bombs have a poor yield, and only doubling their weight can significantly multiply the yield.
this doesn't change the threat of nuclear attack too much, but when articles start using terms like 'the detectors are f-ing useless,' and 'that would require a *****-load of lead bricks to shield it,' i kind of find the last straw in the term 'suitcase nuke' being chucked in there.
the article is a load of sensationalistic hyperbole. - palmdalian, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"Has it ever occurred to you that the real terrorists are the ones constantly telling you to be afraid?"
Exactly. If anyone has a chance, you should check out this episode of "the show." It was created when the airplane bombing scare happened, but he makes some really good points on terrorism.
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/08/081006.html - DCLXVI, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2"might reliably spot radiation spikes in container ships at sea from a kilometer away"
Provided they don't think up some highly technical thwarting methods like, say, putting the nuke in a sealed lead lined container. - iFelix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@ Migdilio
It also depends on the category, the more popular categories require more Diggs to hit the front page (I believe from my experience).
The story you mention looks like it may have been buried a lot by Digg users (wrong category perhaps or inaccurate (as they couldn't find the pictures when they clicked the link)), in which case it needs even more Diggs to make the front page.
No one really knows how the Digg algorithm works. - sbrown123, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5Gays and nukes are both extremely dangerous. For example, if you introduced a single gay person in to a god fearing community, Christian or Protestant, within six weeks they would all become gay.
- klepto, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3This is pretty freakin awesome.
- gsmithEIDW, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1To add further to this - maybe if digg aren't going to provide documentation, maybe the users can figure things out and
put an explaination here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg - gsmithEIDW, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Well this is asked a lot, you'd expect to find the answer here:
http://www.digg.com/faq#b
Unless digg have reasons for the process to not be totally open and transparent? Maybe if they'd improve the FAQ, then users could point other users to the relevant point and stop wasting time on this sort of tedious repetition. - dk911, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Honestly, I love 24 Hours, but truth be told, if a someone like Jack Bauer were running around doing what he does (which is take care of the business) he'd be shut down in an instant by some left-wing appeasement unit of government. His whole operation is to stop terrorist activities and he does so without regard to what the law states. He does so on gut instinct and the need to get ***** done, and quickly. His tactics are so non PC that he's the antithesis of everything that left-wingers think we should be. He'd be strung up, and left out to dry by the ACLU and so many other organizations because he doesn't worry if it violates their rights. It always amazes me because it gets such HUGE ratings, yet it's pushing the same "do it fast and do it without question" agenda that the "pre-emptive protection" of the Bush administration pushes. Why do people love it when Jack puts a knife to some terrorist *****'s eye, but scream if an actual government lackey does it? It's almost hypocritical...
- antron, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2one point twenty-one jiggawatts?!
- kaboegel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0exactly.. money well wasted
- ghostwave, on 10/12/2007, -9/+5Does this work on the same technology as "gaydar?"
- OmegaNine, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2I think it has something to do with how many diggs the people that digg it have, and the commants
- datastorageguy, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2No. To me, a terrorist is someone who wants to turn women and children into hamburger with a bomb or choke them to death with gas.
- streamx, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0There is no way (probably). Just logout... maybe it will be deleted after some inactivity ...
- zeblith, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3Don't forget buries?
- shafiu, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1now i know this out of topic,
but i want to know how can i delete my digg account.
i looked everywhere and still cant find a clue, except one guy asking the same question ages ago, and him receiving rude comments.
could someone please tell me, how to remove this account - zoltan, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2migdilio.. face it you suck at digg.
on a different topic some of those facts (like 75% of us ports cant detect abnormal radiation in a container) really scare me as a nailbiting terrorist hating american
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