News that makes it hard to sleep. (Non Political)

No, There's a decontamination facility called SEG that does cleanup work. Right now, the NRC and state are finding out who they belonged to. That shit is a big deal to the people that matter. It'll be easy to figure out who. They had to leave the place n their dress-out clothes, which is what those were. They were in a car, and the car will be contaminated from wearing the hot dress-out in the car. They are still spreading it, lol. If they count his hands going in to the plant, they'll be hot from the steering heel. :) 40 years ago, an idiot stole used clothes from k-25, and contaminated his house and nearby laundry, it had to be demolished, and sent to a nuke landfill.
 
No, There's a decontamination facility called SEG that does cleanup work. Right now, the NRC and state are finding out who they belonged to. That shit is a big deal to the people that matter. It'll be easy to figure out who. They had to leave the place n their dress-out clothes, which is what those were. They were in a car, and the car will be contaminated from wearing the hot dress-out in the car. They are still spreading it, lol. If they count his hands going in to the plant, they'll be hot from the steering heel. :) 40 years ago, an idiot stole used clothes from k-25, and contaminated his house and nearby laundry, it had to be demolished, and sent to a nuke landfill.

Don't be so over dramatic. Yeah it's a bag of used dress out cloths. There's no way someone carried that out of a facility or wore dress out cloths out of a facility past the exit monitors and then bagged it in a rad bag which they then haphazardly dropped in the road. My guess is a rad waste management company dropped the bag off of, or out of a truck en-route to where ever they store that low level waste. Yeah, the risk to the public from such a bag is so low as to be non-existent but it's a good example of piss poor, WTF movement of rad waste.

Besides a dropped bag of low level rad waste I can think of other, much more dangerous, much more plausible rad threats out there that I won't discuss here ... and then there's yahoo's like this guy ...


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Lol. I ran a bunch of those same experiments, lol. I know how to not contaminate the neighborhood, tho. And no meth, lol. The review process they're going thru right now, as far as management, is gong to be painful. I've been tangentially involved in cleanups, and dealing with the regulators. One that made the papers, one of the fairly hot sources from one of our customers was lost in route. There was a shitstorm once it turned up at a Fedex facility near our main plant. I was part of a group who took a survey meter to the facility and checked it out. The Lead Pig the source was in had punched thru the side of the improperly assembled packing box, when a handling machine moved the box too fast, lol.

The shipping pigs are lead, 5" in diameter, with a hold down the middle for a source. I'm sure you're familiar with the ones used for checking welds. Those are 10,000 times more radioactive than our check sources. Our biggest check source was 30mCi, or 30 millicuries. One of the Civil defense meters I have would peg from it, and the other one didn't move, lol.

I have one for a Fallout shelter, to be wired so the sensor is outside, reads over 500R/hour, which will kill you in an hour. Only nuclear war, or a nearby Chernobyl will read on it. It's the "kiss your ass goodbye, this is going to suck! Meter. :) It needs one of the sources you guys use for 2"thick pipes to calibrate it. It was calibrated in 76, lol.
 
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Lol. I ran a bunch of those same experiments, lol. I know how to not contaminate the neighborhood, tho. And no meth, lol. The review process they're going thru right now, as far as management, is gong to be painful. I've been tangentially involved in cleanups, and dealing with the regulators. One that made the papers, one of the fairly hot sources from one of our customers was lost in route. There was a shitstorm once it turned up at a Fedex facility near our main plant. I was part of a group who took a survey meter to the facility and checked it out. The Lead Pig the source was in had punched thru the side of the improperly assembled packing box, when a handling machine moved the box too fast, lol.

The shipping pigs are lead, 5" in diameter, with a hold down the middle for a source. I'm sure you're familiar with the ones used for checking welds. Those are 10,000 times more radioactive than our check sources. Our biggest check source was 30mCi, or 30 millicuries. One of the Civil defense meters I have would peg from it, and the other one didn't move, lol.

I have one for a Fallout shelter, to be wired so the sensor is outside, reads over 500R/hour, which will kill you in an hour. Only nuclear war, or a nearby Chernobyl will read on it. It's the "kiss your ass goodbye, this is going to suck! Meter. :) It needs one of the sources you guys use for 2"thick pipes to calibrate it. It was calibrated in 76, lol.

Not sure which source material you're referring to in your shipping incident description above. I'm sure there was hell to be paid for shipping a source in an improperly assembled over packing box. But there's also blame to be laid on the worker running the handling machine. There's always plenty of blame to go around in such incidents.

Depending on the source (Ir-192 or Cobalt 60) the shipping containers are different sizes, the shielding material - as far as I know - is the same for both and it's not lead. DU (Depleted Uranium) is the preferred shielding material , as it's high atomic weight provides better shielding than lead by weight. So, the source containers can be smaller and easier to transport, handle and maneuver in the field.


Yeah, a 500R/hr detector is indeed a "Kiss your ass goodbye" level of detection. The drift on the detector calibration probably isn't that great over any given period of time. We used to use Cesium (Cs-137) to calibrate our detectors with. The calibration test itself and instrument adjustment isn't that difficult if you know what you're doing. Hell, I used to calibrate our instruments. The required calibration interval was every 6 months.

These guys at the link below could probably hook you up if you're looking to get your calibration checked or you just want to talk shop with some Rad heads!
Be careful what you say to them thought! You don't want to raise any flags. :bsflag:

 
I actually know some of those guys, having grown up in oak ridge. I don't need to get it calibrated, even though I fxed the problems it had after 60+ years of aging. They're vacuum tube based electrometers, and as you said, it's a "you're dead meter."Making any amount of Plutonium is illegal, and DU exposed to neutrons, makes plutonium. It's wild to think, that in the 40's 50's and 60's, We made Tons of Plutonium, one atom at a time, from U-238, which is what's left after you use K-25 or-Y12 To separate the 0.7% u235 from the 238. 'm sure you know all this, but this is for everyone. :) A mol of uranium is ~238 grams; and that's mostly 238. A mol is 6.22x10^23 atoms. That's a shitload, lol. A mol of plutonium mol is the same number, and we made tons; I heard the cost during the Manhattan project was $1 per neutron absorbed. That bomb we dropped on Nagasaki was 2 Billion dollars worth of neutrons. :) We had three more, and then it would have been a while.
 
The sources we used were americium, Sodium-22, and Germanium 168, all emit a near 511keV gamma. That's what our detectors were looking for, Yours are to penetrate steel, lol. Your sources would destroy our detectors. PET tolography works off Antimatter. :) Positrons are anti eletrons.
 
There was a really cool story, when I went to the IATA training class, so I could ship sources. I have a killer collection of nuke labels, lol. I asked a question" What was the worst nuke related issue that turned out to not be actually an issue", it involved the sources y'all use. When the us gets a shipment of the dozens of sources they make everyear, it comes in a huge 60 ft long pig, 8 feet in dia, 1 per fedex 747. from England, iirc. One came into Newark airport, and was sittng on the tarmac, waiting for a truck, and the snow melted on a 20 ft diameter area around it. It scared the ground crew, so there was an alert. The heat absorbed by the shielding melted the snow, but it wasn't radioactive outside. :) There was no issue, and they changed the training for the ground crew. :) It really amazed me the things you can ship on a commercial airliner. Li-ion is out, but a crate of grenades is fine, lol. (they have an attached safety, the pin) a bomb is fine with the proper paperwork, if it's safed. 'No fissile materials' was the one hard exclusion.
 
There was a really cool story, when I went to the IATA training class, so I could ship sources. I have a killer collection of nuke labels, lol. I asked a question" What was the worst nuke related issue that turned out to not be actually an issue", it involved the sources y'all use. When the us gets a shipment of the dozens of sources they make everyear, it comes in a huge 60 ft long pig, 8 feet in dia, 1 per fedex 747. from England, iirc. One came into Newark airport, and was sittng on the tarmac, waiting for a truck, and the snow melted on a 20 ft diameter area around it. It scared the ground crew, so there was an alert. The heat absorbed by the shielding melted the snow, but it wasn't radioactive outside. :) There was no issue, and they changed the training for the ground crew. :) It really amazed me the things you can ship on a commercial airliner. Li-ion is out, but a crate of grenades is fine, lol. (they have an attached safety, the pin) a bomb is fine with the proper paperwork, if it's safed. 'No fissile materials' was the one hard exclusion.
Sounds like an urban legend story that would be told around a classroom of impressionable students. What you were told is, IMHO, a tall tale. What you’re describing is endothermic (heat absorption) which would lower the temp not raise it to melt snow. It would have to be an exothermic (heat emitting) reaction - and a very strong one - to melt the snow around the container at that distance.

Reminds me; Here’s a good endothermic / exothermic discussion. If any of you haven’t seen it before it’s a good read.

 
The trippy thing about Uranium, is that If we'd waited another 10,000 years, the Natural uranium reactors we made would not have worked at all. Oak Ridge's x-10, Fermi's pile in Chicago, The production reactors at Hanford, all worked with Natural uranium, 10,000 years from now it won't, for the civilization that develops after we kill Humanity off. :) It'll take that long for the radioactivity to decay, lol. Nuke boy scout guy replicated the experiments that Fermi did in Italy, before he escaped Mussolini. An Alpha source, shining on Beryllium yields neutrons. Neutrons hitting Uranium yeilds Fisson neutrons and a strange 33 minute decaying gamma source. That is the signature of Plutonium; TransUranic elements are identified by their decay time.

I didn't set out to be a physicist, I'm an electronic Technician. :) I got a job in 94 doing Mass spectrometry, and I was hooked.
 
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No ron, it's neither endo or exothermic. Atomic fire is completely different. It's ttle billiard balls of energy(energetic photons) How much energy they carry is based on the momentum it carries. As it smashes into everything made of matter, it fransfers energy until it disappears. All the energy is transferred to the surrounding medium, as heat. Heavy dense things wll stop particles at high effeciency. The density is proportonal to the "stopping length" of a shielding material. To stop the stuff from Coalt or Strontium, You need denser than lead. Tungsten, or du is a good candidate.
Endo and exo are Chemical reactons, I do a bunch with those too. :)
 
The thing that really fucked me up about physics, besides Quantum Mechancs, was that Magnetic fields are Photons too.
 
The Terminator was a mix of the stories of Fred Saberhagen, and his beserker series. The cone shaped planet destroyer in OG trek was a beserker. They were life exterminating robotic killers. Destroying Planets and stars were were just collateral damage. They even killed the bacteria, lol.

I love those old Berserker books, I think I have the original(?) five Ace published books? And then a few Tor books. Really well-written and the vibe is very '60s space opera. I would say that the "Bolo" series of books by Keith Laumer have a similar vibe, A.I. tanks that get progressively bigger and more intelligent.

If you like more modern takes on sentient killing machines, try "The Forge Of God" and the sequel "Anvil Of Stars" by Greg Bear. Alastair Reynolds has a series of books in the Revelation Space universe that includes the Inhibitors which were an organic alien race that completely converted over to machine form and hunt intelligent life.

For a more humorous but still chilling, throws murphy's law into the mix: "Code of the lifemaker" by James P hogan. He also does a book on ai: The Proteus operation. The religious folk would go nuts If they released a movie of either. the opening scene of Of Proteus is an illustration of what can go wrong:
PROLOGUE

The planetismal began as a region of above-average
density that occurred by chance in a swirling cloud of
dust and gas condensing out of the expanding vastness
of space. Gently at first but at a rate that grew steadily
faster as time went by, it continued to sweep up the
smaller accretions in its vicinity until it had grown to a
rough spheriod of compressed dust and rock measuring
fifty feet across

James P. Hogan is one of my favorite sci-fi authors, I have almost all his books. His greatest story (series) is probably the Giants novels, with "Inherit The Stars" being the first I read of his. It is a very convincing take on how intelligent life might have started on Earth. The book begins with a bunch of scientists gathered under secrecy to try to unravel a mystery - a humanoid corpse in a space suit is found on the Moon, and it's 50,000 years old. They quickly figure out that its DNA is human and that the tech is completely alien to ours in the sense that all the standards are different. Great science mystery novel. The sequels are great, too, with the alien race they call the Giants. I actually talked to him a few times over email, I was suggesting (begging, hahaha) that he write a short story to explain one part of his Giants novels (about an ancient ship discovered under the ice), how that happened. He sounded like he thought it might be worth it after he got finished with some of his other books... and then he died. Of course, because I was such a big fan. If I'd hated his books he'd still be alive today writing more garbage that I didn't want to read, hahaahaha.

"Code Of The Lifemaker" is really good, too, though it isn't a strict A.I. story in the typical sense, the mechanical alien life form sort of comes into being accidentally over centuries of combined and recombined code of alien robots attempting to survive conditions on Titan after their robotic factory ship went off-course. It has a sequel, "The Immortality Option" that continues the story while detailing the origin of the society that created those robotic factories.

His book on A.I. that you quoted from is actually called "The Two Faces Of Tomorrow" which would make a great movie. That excerpt you included describes the acts of an expert system pre-A.I. type of computer that pulls that stunt thinking that it did a great job. The powers that be want to shut all of them down (they are integrated into many industries) and right at the time when the next gen of smart computers are being developed. It's one of the best depictions of A.I. that I've read. I would say that the TV show "Person Of Interest" (and "Westworld", both created by Nolan and Abrams) are at the same level.

"The Proteus Operation" is a time-travel novel. Not the first one to offer an alternate timeline where the Nazis won WWII. But it's a very cool take on it because the book starts with a very peaceful Earth where Germany never got going after WWI (and there was no WWII) and some people resent that they aren't in charge, etc., and want to go back in time and change things around (and then travel to that altered "improved" timeline and live their perceived better lives) by assisting the future-failed Nazi party in the 1920s so that they can be effective. And then, of course, shit goes off the rails because Hitler has his own plans, he nukes Russia, the Axis wins, with typical results. So now this shitty Nazi Earth of the 1970s figures out why/how this happened and decide to built their own time machine to go back and de-fuck what has happened, etc. Very interesting idea that would make a great movie as well.
 
We read the same stuff, lol. Went thru and searched out all the Henry Kuttner stuff, and I have large ebook collection from the alt.binaries.ebooks group, circa 94-2005. My library is stuffed. :)
 
Any other SF nerds out there?

For the non-casual reader, answer by Date, story, and Author.

For the hardcore: What story Was the idea for stargate from?

What actually happens if you disappear by making a hyperspace flight too close to a star?

What destroys a General products hull?

What is the first story reference to a personal, portable pocket phone?
 
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I could see things going that way in the future. Although Mandatory orange Bronzer seems more likely sooner, lol. We'll be a nation of Cheetos.
 
Any other SF nerds out there?

For the non-casual reader, answer by Date, story, and Author.

For the hardcore: What story Was the idea for stargate from?

What actually happens if you disappear by making a hyperspace flight too close to a star?

What destroys a General products hull?

What is the first story reference to a personal, portable pocket phone?

Man, I've read a lot of sci-fi over the years, including older stuff like H. Beam Piper stories and oddball shit like the Sector General novels and the Horseclans series and the classics like the Foundation Series and Falkenberg's Legion and Hammer's Slammers, but I don't recognize anything in those questions, hahahaa. To quote Kirk in "Wrath Of Khan", I must be going senile.

Though I will say that I believe the first reference to virtual reality or cyberspace was in Vernor Vinge's novella "True Names".
 
While we’re talking sci-fi I want to mention the movie Gattaca (1997). A very plausible dystopian future reality.


You're going to get a version of that. I mean, I can see insurance companies hating you if you didn't get genetic repairs before you were born because you'll cost them more to cover you and your crappy illnesses that could have been coded away. I can also see a hierarchy forming of the haves (genetic improvements) vs. the have-nots. On the other hand I can see a government mandate to erradicate certain illnesses that are the most devastating except of course for the philosophical nuts who think it's wrong to have that done so they'll prefer dooming their genetic line once they see that nobody wants to date someone who has a good chance of inheriting some shitty family trait. So those people will wind up grouping together to be "organic" or whatever and there will be a slow separation of the two over generations, to the point that it will eventually be visually obvious which type of human you are.

The TV series "Almost Human" (J.J. Abrams, highly recommended though of course since I really liked it it got cancelled after one season) had a version of that, though it wasn't a main plotline. The show was set in a future that could have been a prequel to "Westworld", androids exist and are pretty good though for the most part unconvincing compared to actual people. But there are also humans called Chromes who were genetically engineered for beauty, excellence and success and, let me say, casting Minka Kelly in that role was a no-brainer, hahahaha, damn. There is a little bit of stigma attached to the Chromes, regular people many times don't like them, but they are more capable than regular people.

I can totally see a real-world attempt at making Chromes once we get a decent handle on DNA and start wiping out easy shit like bad eyesight, deformities, diabetes, baldness, allergies, dwarfism, etc. Once everybody gets the crap cleaned out, the next level will be figuring out how to slightly evolve people (who have enough money) so that they're a little better physically, mentally, more endurance, more resistant to toxins and poisons (everyday shit to begin with), etc., they'll all start looking like supermodels and thinking like scientists. The charisma will probably be a tougher nut to crack, same with artistic ability. And there will probably be early failures and mistakes, the tweaks making some people psychotic or autistic or something.

But those efforts will also gain you the chance to regrow limbs that were lost or ruined, regenerate failed organs, revitalise skin, grow new teeth, bigger breasts, bigger muscles, probably fight dementia by repairing brain cells, whatever. Presumably wipe out cancer and reverse paralysis, too. As some have quipped before, we'll be the first species to drive our own evolution.
 
You're going to get a version of that. I mean, I can see insurance companies hating you if you didn't get genetic repairs before you were born because you'll cost them more to cover you and your crappy illnesses that could have been coded away. I can also see a hierarchy forming of the haves (genetic improvements) vs. the have-nots. On the other hand I can see a government mandate to erradicate certain illnesses that are the most devastating except of course for the philosophical nuts who think it's wrong to have that done so they'll prefer dooming their genetic line once they see that nobody wants to date someone who has a good chance of inheriting some shitty family trait. So those people will wind up grouping together to be "organic" or whatever and there will be a slow separation of the two over generations, to the point that it will eventually be visually obvious which type of human you are.

The TV series "Almost Human" (J.J. Abrams, highly recommended though of course since I really liked it it got cancelled after one season) had a version of that, though it wasn't a main plotline. The show was set in a future that could have been a prequel to "Westworld", androids exist and are pretty good though for the most part unconvincing compared to actual people. But there are also humans called Chromes who were genetically engineered for beauty, excellence and success and, let me say, casting Minka Kelly in that role was a no-brainer, hahahaha, damn. There is a little bit of stigma attached to the Chromes, regular people many times don't like them, but they are more capable than regular people.

I can totally see a real-world attempt at making Chromes once we get a decent handle on DNA and start wiping out easy shit like bad eyesight, deformities, diabetes, baldness, allergies, dwarfism, etc. Once everybody gets the crap cleaned out, the next level will be figuring out how to slightly evolve people (who have enough money) so that they're a little better physically, mentally, more endurance, more resistant to toxins and poisons (everyday shit to begin with), etc., they'll all start looking like supermodels and thinking like scientists. The charisma will probably be a tougher nut to crack, same with artistic ability. And there will probably be early failures and mistakes, the tweaks making some people psychotic or autistic or something.

But those efforts will also gain you the chance to regrow limbs that were lost or ruined, regenerate failed organs, revitalise skin, grow new teeth, bigger breasts, bigger muscles, probably fight dementia by repairing brain cells, whatever. Presumably wipe out cancer and reverse paralysis, too. As some have quipped before, we'll be the first species to drive our own evolution.
I don’t read sci-fi but I’m a voracious consumer of sci-fi movies. Yes, insurance and healthcare will eventually change dramatically. Not just genetic changes or ‘improvements’ but also cybernetic - a la Neuralink. Like with anything there will be pros and cons to the new found abilities to change who we are at a DNA level. I own stock in Crisper (CRSP) who are one of the companies that are working on that very thing.

Sci-fi mirrors reality and, in some cases, reality is shaped by sci-fi. Think Star-trek communicators and early cellular flip phones. Also, on the Battlestar Galactica series from the 1970s the show would always end with commander Adama recording his thoughts into his log via voice to text transcription. In the 1970’s that was very futuristic. Today I’m using that very capability to transcribe this post.

Speaking of regrowing limbs … in case any of you haven’t heard, a new drug to regrow teeth has just entered human trials. So, yeah, we’re already there! Absolutely we will be the first species to drive our own evolution.

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This is really scary...

Ya, that is fucking tragic. I live in the Los Angeles area, the closest Hooters left to me is now in Long Beach (really nice location right by the water) because I just heard that the South Gate location just closed? Goddammit, that place was at least mildly close. Burbank and Santa Monica are long gone. It was always my favorite place to go to watch sports especially during football season and NBA playoffs. If I had the money I'd reopen one of the closed locations because Hooters should be around more. There was a Tilted Kilt in Northridge that also closed years ago after not even being open that long because the owner was apparently one of those "set it on fire for the insurance money" geniuses, that place was fantastic.
 
Ug! I was going to mention Tilted Kilt, but wow! What a story about your local franchise!

Yeah, it's so hard to find good wings these days that I've lost sleep and had night sweats from wing withdrawal! I went into a BW3 in Terre Haute, IN on Memorial Day weekend to watch the INDY 500 and was so disappointed in the food quality, portions and the exorbitant prices that they were charging for the most bland food. Their nacho's were a joke and the wings were so overpriced that I didn't even order any. I will never set foot in a BW3 again. I wrote them a scathing, 1 Star Yelp review.

Has anyone else noticed the inflation in the fast food industry and the shrinkflation of portions at the fast-casual restraurants? I see it all the time, all over the nation in my travels.

It's tragic.
 
Its hard to tell, I dont go out much but when I do its mexican food and they all usually hook it up. A pub style restaurant around here had very good french fries. I ordered some several months ago and saw their fries were completely different. I asked why they changed their fries, waitress said "oh yea, covid"

???
 
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I very rarely eat from any chain restaurants, fast food or otherwise. If I’m on the road and looking to grab something to go real quick I’ll hit up Wendy’s for a spicy chicken sandwich, but that’s more about sustaining life than it is enjoying the food. It used to be that independent places could be hit or miss so the chains were at least a known quantity, but with Yelp and Google, you can pretty reliably dodge the bad ones, so much better to support the local small business than the major nationwide chains.
 
I very rarely eat from any chain restaurants, fast food or otherwise. If I’m on the road and looking to grab something to go real quick I’ll hit up Wendy’s for a spicy chicken sandwich, but that’s more about sustaining life than it is enjoying the food. It used to be that independent places could be hit or miss so the chains were at least a known quantity, but with Yelp and Google, you can pretty reliably dodge the bad ones, so much better to support the local small business than the major nationwide chains.

Enjoying food? Tommy's double chili cheeseburger. Wonderful, and life sustaining, hahaaha. When someone I know is complaining about some ailment that is bothering him my stock response is "Well, when's the last time you had Tommy's? Because I eat there like once every couple of weeks, or more, and I've never had to deal with that shit." They laugh, but they know I'm right, the data speaks for itself.
 
Any other SF nerds out there?

For the non-casual reader, answer by Date, story, and Author.

For the hardcore: What story Was the idea for stargate from? Hint: Heinlein short story.

What actually happens if you disappear by making a hyperspace flight too close to a star?
Hint: Niven story
What destroys a General products hull? Hnt: Niven story

What is the first story reference to a personal, portable pocket phone? Hint:Heinlein short story
OK, I've added some hints.
 
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