Making a Functional Control Panel of the Chernobyl RBMK Reactor

Top of an RBMK at the Leningrad plant.
Control panels of a pre-digitalization nuclear plant look quite daunting, with countless dials, buttons and switches that all make perfect sense to a trained operator, but seem as random as those of the original Enterprise bridge in Star Trek to the average person. This makes the reconstruction of part of the RBMK reactor control by the [Chornobyl Family] on YouTube a fun way to get comfortable with one of the most important elements of this type of reactor’s controls.

The section that is built here pertains to the control rods of the RBMK’s reactor, its automatic regulations and emergency systems like AZ-5 and BAZ. The goal is not just to have a shiny display piece that you can put on the wall, but to make it function just like the real control panel, and to use it for demonstrations of the underlying control systems. The creators spent a lot of time talking with operators of the Chornobyl Nuclear Plant – which operated until the early 2000s – to make the experience as accurate as possible.

Although no real RBMK reactor is being controlled by the panel, its ESP32-powered logic make it work like the real deal, and even uses a dot-matrix printer to provide logging of commands. Not only is this a pretty cool simulator, it’s also just the first element of what will be a larger recreation of an RBMK control room, with more videos in this series to follow.

Also covered in this video are the changes made after the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant’s #4 accident, which served to make RBMKs significantly safer, albeit at the cost of more complexity on the control panel.

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hackaday.com/2026/02/11/making…

Flora, ossia oltre 25 milioni di euro per gestire le richieste d'asilo con la blockchain

Dal 2018, l'Ufficio federale per la migrazione e i rifugiati (BAMF) sta lavorando a un sistema blockchain, ora noto con il nome piuttosto altisonante di FLORA. FLORA sta per "Infrastruttura federale blockchain per l'asilo".

FLORA, ha da tempo superato il budget iniziale. Nel 2019, a seguito dello studio di fattibilità, il progetto "Gestione dei processi di asilo sulla blockchain" avrebbe dovuto costare complessivamente 4,53 milioni di euro. Nel frattempo, i costi totali per lo sviluppo e la gestione di FLORA fino alla fine del 2025 hanno raggiunto i 25.710.867,50 euro, ovvero oltre cinque volte la stima iniziale. Le cifre inizialmente previste erano già state raggiunte nel 2020, ancor prima dell'avvio della prima operazione pilota.

Lo sforzo necessario per progettare una soluzione basata su blockchain e conforme alla protezione dei dati per il coordinamento di processi che coinvolgono enormi quantità di dati personali è stato considerevole. Avvocati e informatici hanno cercato soluzioni per raggiungere questo obiettivo. Hanno condotto studi di fattibilità e perizie, e la conclusione – per dirla in parole povere – è stata: è un duro lavoro, ma è possibile.
L'Ufficio federale per la migrazione e i rifugiati (BAMF) ha poi dimostrato che è possibile. Ha anche dimostrato che il progetto è diventato di conseguenza costoso.

netzpolitik.org/2019/das-bamf-…

@politica

More #Russia whining that ‘not only did they shut down #Starlink, but also #Telegram.’ In addition to the traditional complaints about ‘communication paralysis’ and ‘sabotaging the front’ on military channels, we also have a bonus - even Yelena Mizulina, the chief censor of the Russian Internet, has spoken out. But instead of praising the Telegram blockade, she was surrealistically outraged that ‘it is symbolic that today is World Safer Internet Day. You could say it’s a holiday. It’s like a gift, right?’

Writer Yegor Kholmogorov, on the other hand, was extremely sceptical about the idea of moving to the government’s ‘Max’ messenger, grumbling that the only consequence of blocking Telegram would be ‘the collapse of a society incapable of any solidarity and filled with growing hatred’.

Reading such words, it is really difficult not to ask yourself the question: are they really that stupid? After all, everything they describe as ‘the collapse of society’ is 100% Putin’s internal policy since 2011, which they not only enthusiastically supported in relation to Russians, but even more so supported its export to Ukraine.

#Russia media, of course, pounced on Epstein’s archive to prove that ‘the West is morally rotten,’ as Putin has been claiming for years. Of course, they skip all the threads where Epstein’s underage victims are sent by Russian modelling agencies, his visa is arranged by FSB officer Bieliakow, and all the Russian threads, because they don’t fit.

And here, several popular Russian channels, including ‘Vault 8. Убежище №8.’ couldn’t resist and wrote that in Russia, this whole ominous ‘Epstein island’ is actually the whole country…

During dinner, we were shown a report on the Epstein files: Satanism, cannibalism, paedophilia, child trafficking from Ukraine to EU countries, etc. Conclusion: ‘SVO [special military operation] is a fight against global evil.’

At the same time, during the SVO:

— I listened to the stories of several female specialists in men’s health. One was raped by her grandfather, then later by her first husband. The second had a stepfather who was violent and raped her mother. The third had a father who, if he didn’t like something, would grab her by the back of her head and throw her face down on the floor.

Two of the three girls are very beautiful (the third is just beautiful), friendly, and intelligent, despite their backgrounds, but they have mental health issues of varying severity.

— I spoke with a philanthropist who, for a short time, participated with his beloved woman in sending toys and clothes to an orphanage. There were semi-criminal orphans there, one of the minors was a ready-made prostitute with the corresponding habits. The narrator did not like this, he set the police on the orphanage — they uncovered an organisation run by the orphanage management as a den for paedophiles of varying degrees of wealth. Unfortunately, the children had already been taught bad things. This is a story from one of Russia’s rural areas.

— I heard stories about all kinds of similar cases in the valiant Saratov and Samara regions. I heard local stories about parish schools in the countryside.

I won’t mention the fact that when male and female volunteers were recruited into the army, they were flooded with fraudsters, swindlers, corrupt officials, murderers, rapists, drug dealers, etc., including several well-known cases of cannibals, because this is simply a given. There are so many former convicts in some units that it is sometimes difficult to find someone without a criminal record.

It’s just that none of the participants in such stories are dollar billionaires, own islands, or are citizens of the Russian Federation.

Original: t.me/vault8pro/53759 (in Russian)