the BUK system is equipped with a civilian transponder safety lock which has to be manually disabled before a missile can be fired at an aircraft showing a civilian IFF.

Too fucking right it was deliberate.

The questions (two of) are:

1. Who disabled the safety lock, and on what authority?
2. Who fired the missile, and on what authority?

Neither of which will ever be answered.

Any punitive action taken over this will inevitably be aimed at the wrong party, will only serve to radicalise, and will only beget more death.

Welcome to 21st Century warfare.

not that easy to hide either, given that the *missiles* are 18 to 23 feet long.

FYI: the target acquisition radar systems on the Gadfly BUK missile systems are all equipped with built-in IFF decoders.

It takes a conscious effort and training in advanced operation of the Gadfly to disable the civilian IFF safety of a Gadfly system, which is there to prevent a missile being fired at a civilian aircraft.

Source: training.

the obscene and growing number of spanking brand new cars taking up space, never to be sold, being added to every single day in a never-ending and accelerating cycle of build-and-stack kinda pisses all over that argument.

The only thing that is likely to happen if more people rode bikes is that Shimano make more money.

this is the point that I think most commenters are missing - that we're talking less about a continuous sound, more a shock akin to an underwater bomb.

If you want to blow a safe without burning the contents, you drill a hole in it, fill it with water and insert a charge. Plug the hole, detonate the charge, what happens?

Water is practically incompressible. What happens is the overpressure from the detonation (and we're talking a BLASTING CAP here, nowhere near the power of a quarter stick!) is transmitted through the water until it meets the point of lowest resistance: the points where the door meets the superstructure - the lock and the hinges. Result? Door blown off hinges, safe contents slightly damp.

What do you suppose would happen to any creature inside that safe when the cap is detonated?

there are no plans to phase out ICE cars as long as there's iron to be extracted. There are vast graveyards of spanking brand new cars which will never be sold (don't ask me why, some weird fucking economic pressure I guess) and those graveyards are growing on a daily basis with no signs of the influx slowing down. Private motorised transport in the long term is the death knell for human civilisation as long as there is addiction to two things: fiat currency and petrochemicals.

??

By any metric, that is a serious amount of acoustic pressure. It doesn't matter if you rely on sound to find your way around or locate prey, if you encounter that underwater you're getting turned into jelly.

(walk into a pet store and tap on the fish tanks. Go on, I'm giving you permission).

think about this for a minute, you've just thrown a very important number out here: 30,000 feet. Six vertical MILES. A missile would not only have to cover that, it would also have to lock on and follow the target throughout the flight from the moment of launch. At Mach 3 (about average speed for a SAM), the missile has 26 miles (operational range) to track, lock, launch and terminate. From the moment of firing this can be anything up to 87 seconds. An airliner can move 15 miles in 87 seconds. Bring in the trig. Your long side (missile flat lead trajectory) is the root of 36+225=16.15 miles. You have shy of ten miles leeway, or one half minute (because that leeway is either side of closest approach assuming that the aircraft passes directly overhead), to decide if what you are tracking is an airliner with an international civilian IFF squawk or a transporter with a military code - something which a Gadfly TAR can accomplish instantly - then make the transaction between a fire order and firing the missile.

according to RT, the Ukrainian military themselves have at least 27 Gadfly launch systems, which equates to just over a hundred missiles. It's likely that whatever fired the missile (if it is confirmed) was at some point in the hands of the legitimate Ukrainian Government, and COULD ONLY HAVE COME ORIGINALLY FROM ITS MANUFACTURING BASE IN RUSSIA.

Yo Greenpeace, how many Arabs died for the oil you used to computer-generate the LEGOs in that movie you're trying to get unbanned claiming that it's because you offended Shell in some way when in all likelihood it's more to do with the recent movie release featuring those plastic blocks which are made from... you guessed it, oil byproducts!

Fucking hypocrites!

most of the DLC for KSP is community-driven. From parts to physics mods, I know of several people who play the game but not a single one who plays it with no mods. It's not unplayable with no mods, in fact everything you can do with mod parts you can do with stock parts (it's just more difficult), which is how it should be even for a game like KSP. For me mods add dimension to the game which in its essence is an electronic Lego.

Anywho, back to my classic Doctor Who with a still-in-shortpants Martin Clunes (omfg, I even remember the story!)

I don't fly. You can keep your sardine-tin planes, your TSA-Approved Gropamatic, your overpriced "premium" airlines, your rush-for-seating "budget" crampacking airlines. I'll take the quiet car on the train where the sign above the door says "TURN MOBILE PHONES OFF" and I can walk on and off without being patted down and subjected to Twenty fucking Questions about where I'm going, who I'm meeting, what's in the fucking gun case, or why I'm wearing an oak ghillie.

pisses me off when they do that. It's why I don't buy games-on-disc anymore, you don't get what you already paid for. If it's not a standalone like KSP or a free persistent MMO like Battlestar Galactica, fucking keep it.

...seems pretty open-and-shut to me.

what a load of bollocks.

I carry air rifles through major cities. They're in cases, but it's fairly obvious what's in the cases. I also carry a sidehandle baton - openly. TOTALLY illegal in England (though I've never been charged with carrying offensive weapons and here's why: my accepted justification is that considering what else I'm carrying (to legitimate destinations using lawful means) I would rather kneecap the cunt who's trying to steal my firearms (and who obviously has plans for future use of said firearms including potentially causing harm to one or more people) and face the music than let them away and possibly even coldcock me with my own weapons). It's not a case of meeting force with force, it's a case of seeing and reacting to a threat by preparing *before* it becomes necessary to react. Being in such a visible state of preparedness pretty much negates any thoughts anyone might have to trying to relieve me of my luggage anyway.