Comment by fennecfoxen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fennecfoxen | Hacker News Reader

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AND WHILE I'M HERE TALKING ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS SYSTEMS and understandings thereof, allow me to rant about one of the most misunderstood videos of all time, Bert the Turtle ("duck and cover") -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60 -- Witness the crowds of people saying "lol but nuclear bomb! you're already dead!" Well, maybe you're right and you're already dead, but IF YOU'RE NOT DEAD YET then there's going to be a BIG BLAST WAVE OF DEBRIS heading your way IN A MATTER OF SECONDS, so you'd better look for some shelter, pronto. And get away from any windows, too, or you'll end up like those poor people watching the Chelyabinsk meteor, getting LACERATED by flying glass.

Some juicy details here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover

The short versions is this: in most of the area where a nuclear blast can kill you, there are simple things you can do to reduce its effects and survive. A building will protect from much of the blast wave, and even a blanket can greatly reduce the amount of skin burning. Nukes are not unstoppable bringers of universal instadeath.

But then you have to live in a world where people are nuking each other.

We already live in a world where people have nuked each other.

Those devices were quite small compared to the cold war arsenals. There were also only two of them, as compared to the 15,000+ today.

Except of course for the school children in one class with a teacher who remembered her Soviet era civil defense teachings and got them to duck and cover in time.

I had a flight a few months ago during which I was seated next to a fascinating woman whose mother had survived one of the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan during WWII. She had thrown herself facedown into a shallow ditch at the roadside, suffering tremendous burns on her back but staying alive. There's no question that it can pay to do your utmost when it comes to a matter of survival like that.

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