hedgie13

Late 90s was horrible and difficult time. Russia is not by any means warm, cozy and polished place now, but it changed enormously since 90s.

Are Americans so ignorant to justify the publication of such an article?

Yes. They will also uncritically read everything what is written there.

OK, you win the Internet!

Mr. Kalashnikov might have liked it too.

Dangerous or not dangerous, 10 years of life spent in prison is a lot.

Let's see what happens next.

I wonder were on the spectrum of eugenics this foundation belongs: http://www.jewishgeneticdiseases.org/

Photographer brushes, textile mills, etc -- source of alpha radiation to get rid of static electricity.

It was used on Alexander Litvinenko because the Russians wanted to show that they were able and willing to take the life of former agents that attacked their interests.

Or maybe not. It is very well known that Russian security services brutally murdered Litvinenko, but there is remarkably little evidence. The only evidence, in fact, is that "everyone knows it". What if new data will make you reconsider this well known wisdom?

What motivates the use of a radioactive element that very few possess?

It is very widely used and easily available.

Granted, the source is not known for reliability, but than everyone laughed their asses of when discussing fake stone used by British in Moscow spy scandal. Until British admitted something like 5 years later ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/19/fake-rock-spy-r... ).

So I'll file it under "curious, possible, but so far dubious".

Well, turns out there is Federal Helium reserve:

http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/energy/helium/federal_heliu...

I think I'd prefer MiG-29 ride: http://www.skyandspacetravel.com/included_sky.html

Not as high, but much cheaper, sky is already pretty black and you get a chance to control the damn thing.

I am so tired of people suggesting that balloons "go to space".

Yes, Felix Baumgartner set a new record and his jump was a great accomplishment. But it was not a "space jump".

With future technology, perpetuum mobile may become possible.

Or maybe not.

Electric cars still may be a good idea in a long run. Even if they can not generate their own energy.

This sentence is a good sign that the author has no idea what he is talking about.

Solar constant is 1360 W/m². You can collect 1.3 kW (about 2 horsepowers) from 1 square meter if sun is directly overhead and conversion efficiency is 100%, no cloud, absolutely transparent atmosphere (no clouds).

Solar panels on a car can be useful, though -- to run a small fan when parked on a hot sunny day. Not much more.

"that the conspiracy will turn against itself in self-defense, clamping down on its own information flows in ways that will then impede its own cognitive function. You destroy the conspiracy, in other words, by making it so paranoid of itself that it can no longer conspire"

This was probably one of the big reasons USSR fell apart. The attempt to make everything secret made discussing real problems very difficult.

This may work.... Of course, the other serious question if nation states as we know can exist without conspiracies and if we would be better without them.

I will refer to my comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6173274

It is probably a bad law, but it certainly not criminalizing people for what they are doing with their genitalia in private. He was probably thinking about Saudi Arabia or Iran, but there is strangely little outrage against them.

The last time I checked USSR stopped existing about 20 years ago. Also:

is currently criminalising a whole class of people based on what they chose to do with their genitalia in private.

I do not think you know what you are talking about.

I think homosexuality is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia and Iran. No one is trying to exclude teams from these countries from Olympics. Also:

Milan, Venice and Turin had severed their “twin” relationships with Russian cities in outrage over the “anti-gay law”. However, Milan remains twinned with Dakar, Senegal, where any same-sex activity is illegal and punishable by 1 to 5 years imprisonment. Turin remains twinned with Kazerun, Iran, where any same-sex activity is illegal and punishable by death. Venice had only two twins; since it dumped St Petersburg in a show of solidarity that likely had the gay community in tears of emotion, it now has only one – Esfahan, Iran. Yeah, that’s right.

( https://marknesop.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/somewhere-over-th... )

In 1993, 10 years before US.

They clarified: the law does not prohibit being gay, the law just introduces fines for promoting homosexuality as a norm for children under 16. It is probably a bad law, but it is not saying what everyone protesting it thinks it is saying.

No, this is not true. It is probably a bad law, but "anything that publicly references gays" is not a crime. The law only establishes a fine (not prison term) for promoting homosexuality as a norm for children under 16. Personally, I do not see how you could do it without being prosecuted for violating "Obscene publications act" in UK or similar laws in US.

There was fairly similar law in Britain until 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28

Also, I should note there is no protests supporting gay rights in Saudi Arabia were homosexuality is punished by death.

Also see: https://marknesop.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/somewhere-over-th... , https://marknesop.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/warning-explicit-...

Biased, but biased in a different way then usual articles on this subject and therefore useful.

I am wearing paper bag for the rest of the day. Not enough caffeine in the morning.

Yes, but the weather was clear. No need for ILS in such weather.

True, they are less busy, but it does not mean GPS is not used for instrument approaches (as parent implied).

I fly airplane without IFR GPS (IFR student), but ATC is trying to assign us GPS approach all the time (when coming into airport with ILS). As far as I understand, GPS approaches are used, even if they are less critical in busier airports. Besides, sometimes ILS is not available in bigger airports as well.

There is more airports in US that have GPS only approaches than airports that have ILS approaches. For example: http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1308/05879R25.PDF

500 ft altitude with GPS only (without vertical guidance). LPV minimum is 300 ft.

Category III ILS minimum is 200 ft, Cat II -- 100 ft. But there are a lot of airports where ILS is not available.