Aeronautikz

The Chernobyl disaster, or simply Chernobyl, was a nuclear reactor accident in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union. It was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history and the only instance so far of level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, resulting in a severe release of radioactivity into the environment following a massive power excursion which destroyed the reactor. Thirty people died in the explosion, but most deaths from the accident were attributed to fallout.

On 26 April 1986 at 01:23:44 a.m. reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant, near Pripyat in the Ukrainian SSR, exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Nearly thirty to forty times more fallout was released than had been by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The plume drifted over extensive parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and eastern North America. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. According to official post-Soviet data, about 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.

The accident raised concerns about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry, slowing its expansion for a number of years, while forcing the Soviet government to become less secretive. The now-independent countries of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus have been burdened with the continuing and substantial decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident. It is difficult to accurately tell the number of deaths caused by the events at Chernobyl, as the Soviet-era cover-up made it difficult to track down victims. Lists were incomplete, and Soviet authorities later forbade doctors to cite "radiation" on death certificates.


The Reason the USSR are idiots eh?

The operators violated plant procedures and were ignorant of the safety requirements needed by the RBMK design. This was partly due to their lack of knowledge of the reactor's design as well as lack of experience and training. Several procedural irregularities also contributed to causing the accident. One was insufficient communication between the safety officers and the operators in charge of the experiment being run that night. It is also important to note that the reactor operators disabled every safety system down to the generators, which the test was really about. The main process computer, SKALA, was running in such a way that the main control computer could not shut down the reactor or even reduce power. Normally the reactor would have started to insert all of the control rods. The computer would have also started the "Emergency Core Protection System" that introduces 24 control rods into the active zone within 2.5 seconds, which is still slow by 1986 standards. All control was transferred from the process computer to the human operators.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision for the PlayStation 3, Windows, and the Xbox 360. It is scheduled for release for Mac OS X in the third quarter of 2008. It is the fourth installment of the Call of Duty video game series, excluding expansion packs. The game breaks away from the World War II setting of previous games in the series and is instead set in modern times. The game is the first in the series to be rated Mature in North America. The title and game details were announced on April 25, 2007, and the game was released worldwide between November 6, 2007 and November 9, 2007. It became available on Steam on November 6, 2007 for pre-purchase, and was available to play on November 12, 2007. The game was in development for two years. It uses a proprietary game engine, and includes features that include true world-dynamic lightning, HDR lighting effects, dynamics shadows, and depth of field.

The story is centered around a fictional near-future conflict involving the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia, who are fighting against Russian ultranationalists in civil war torn Russia, and rebels that have staged a coup d'état in a small Middle Eastern country. It is told from the perspectives of a United States Marine and British SAS operative, and is set in multiple locations, including the Middle East, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Prypiat, Ukraine. The multiplayer portion of the game features various game modes, and contains a leveling system that allows the player to unlock additional weapons, weapon attachments, and camouflage schemes as they advance.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare received considerable praise and has won numerous awards from gaming websites, including IGN's "Best Xbox 360 Game." It was the top-selling game worldwide for 2007, reaching over seven million copies as of January 2008.

Gameplay

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a first-person shooter similar to previous games in the Call of Duty series, but set in the present-day instead of World War II.

The game's move to modern warfare introduces new weapons and technology to the Call of Duty franchise, including the M203 grenade launcher, M4A1 carbine, the AN/PEQ-2 Target Pointer for use in conjunction with night vision goggles, the MP5SD submachine gun, and the FGM-148 Javelin portable anti-tank guided missile. The player gains access to these over the course of the game, but may only carry up to two weapons in addition to grenades. Weapons from fallen foes can be picked up to replace weapons in a player's arsenal. Players also have additional abilities, including a grenade launcher attachment, night-vision goggles, and the ability to call in airstrikes.

The gameplay of Call of Duty 4 shares several features with previous iterations of the franchise. Once again, players fight alongside AI-controlled teammates. They help during the game's missions by providing cover fire, shooting down enemies, and clearing rooms for entry.

A character can be positioned in one of three stances: standing, kneeling, or prone; each affecting the character's rate of movement, accuracy, and stealth. Using cover helps the player avoid enemy fire or recover health after taking significant damage, as there are no armor or health powerups. When the character has taken damage, the edges of the screen glow red and the character's heartbeat increases. If the character stays out of fire, the character can recover. When the character is within the blast radius of a live grenade, a marker indicates the direction of the grenade, helping the player to either flee or toss it back to the enemy.

Similar to previous games in the series, the player takes on the role of various characters during a single-player campaign. The characters' involvement in the plot occurs simultaneously and overlaps the events in the game. As such, the player's perspective can change from one character to another between missions.

Each mission features a series of objectives; the player is led to each objective with the HUD, which marks its direction and distance. Some objectives require that the player arrives at a checkpoint, while other objectives require the player to eliminate enemies in a specified location, stand their ground to defend an objective, or plant explosive charges on an enemy installation. The player is often accompanied by friendly troops, who cannot be issued orders. Laptop computers containing enemy intelligence appear throughout the campaign, and can be collected to unlock game bonuses.

After the credits roll, a special epilogue mission is unlocked for play, featuring an anonymous four-man squad of SAS troops retrieving a VIP from terrorists who have hijacked an airliner. The SAS rescue the VIP and escape before the plane is destroyed.

Multiplayer

A player completes the objective of a Domination multiplayer game by capturing a flag.

Call of Duty 4 features team-based and deathmatch-based multiplayer modes on various maps. Each mode has an objective that requires unique strategies to complete. Players can call in UAV reconnaissance scans, air strikes, and attack helicopters, either an AH-1 Cobra for S.A.S. or USMC or an Mi-24 for OpFor or Spetsnaz, when they achieve three-, five-, and seven-enemy kill streaks respectively. A game ends when either a team has reached a predefined number of points, or the alloted time expires in which case the team with the most points wins. However in the rare case the points are even when the time expires, Sudden Death mode is activated in which there is no re-spawning and the team who either has the last man standing, or achieves the objective first are the winners.

Online multiplayer also tracks the player's progress and score in the online leaderboards. Players can compare their standing in Overall Score, Accuracy, Win & Loss and Kill & Death ratio with other players in their friends' list or around the world.

The player's performance in the multiplayer mode is tracked with experience points, earned by taking down other players, completing objectives, or by being a member of a winning team. As the player gains experience, they advance in level, unlocking new weapons, perks, challenges, and gameplay modes. The highest obtainable level is 55, but on the console versions of the game, the player has the option to play "Prestige" mode; this resets their level back to 1 and all earned bonuses are lost in exchange for a special in-game insignia. This process can be repeated up to 10 times with a different insignia being given each time, giving the player a total of 605 levels to achieve.

Completing a challenge grants experience points and may unlock weapon attachments. When a player's level increases, it may unlock new weapons, perks, or challenges. At lower experience levels, the player only has access to five pre-determined classes, and cannot create a custom class with the weapon of their choosing. However, as the player advances in levels, they earn the ability to customize their classes. This includes selecting their main weapon, side arm, and special grenade type. Additionally, the player can select a limited number of "perks" that can customize their character further. Perk effects include increasing damage by the player, being able to take more damage, or detonating a grenade after being killed in an act of martyrdom. The player is also given challenges to attempt, including achieving a certain number of kills with a specific weapon or shooting down a helicopter or performing a number of head shots.