Danger's my birthright.

Buffy ,'The Killer In Me'


Natter 72: We Were Unprepared for This  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


-t - Sep 15, 2013 5:32:14 am PDT #5308 of 30000
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I am quite pleased with my cheesecake so far, now to see how it handles freezing. Quite a lot to do today, but I feel pretty energetic and it's not supposed to be hot, so maybe I won't leave too much undone...


hippocampus - Sep 15, 2013 5:59:31 am PDT #5309 of 30000
not your mom's socks.

Egad. HPF has asked for an astronomy party for her ninth birthday. I guess we're doing something right? Now what do we do?

Her birthday is the night of the Leonids, which will start after the 5 or 6 nine and ten year olds go to bed. And it will be cold with a full moon. We have one decent telescope. And a bunch of star cookie cutters.


flea - Sep 15, 2013 6:22:41 am PDT #5310 of 30000
information libertarian

I say outsource. [link] or [link]


Amy - Sep 15, 2013 8:37:08 am PDT #5311 of 30000
Because books.

Are we back?


Theodosia - Sep 15, 2013 8:39:17 am PDT #5312 of 30000
'we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn't end any time soon"

I'm back. I don't know about the rest of you.

Definitely having a CFS day. I got out early and did some very necessary food shopping, but my get-up seems to have gone.


meara - Sep 15, 2013 8:39:34 am PDT #5313 of 30000

YOLO.

Well, yeah, especially if you're drinking plutonium.

YAY BACK.

the BEIR VII lifetime risk model predicts that approximately 1 person in 100 would be expected to develop cancer (solid cancer or leukemia) from a dose of 0.1 Sv above background, while approximately 42 of the 100 individuals would be expected to develop solid cancer or leukemia from other causes.

Er, wait, am I reading that right? 42% of people are going to have cancer? And if you give them all .1 Sv above background....43% of them will?


Ginger - Sep 15, 2013 8:45:40 am PDT #5314 of 30000
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda

(I was posting this when we went down. I may have broken the board.)

Do I need to worry about the cousins (kinda cousins anyway, by marriage--step-cousins?) who are in Japan because the husband is a nuclear engineer in the US Navy working at Fukushima?

I'm sorry I worried you, Burrell. I meant the opposite -- that the CEOs over the nation's nuclear power plants would never visit Fukushima if it was as dangerous as the article implies. Apparently my sarcasm font was broken. If he's working there, he'll have an instrument on him that measures his exposure constantly. There are very conservative annual and lifetime limits on the amount of exposure people working with radioactive materials are allowed to receive. On the unlikely event he reaches his yearly limit, he'll be pulled out of there and not allowed to work anywhere he could be exposed.

Typo, we use the linear threshold model because it's the safest thing to do, and I'm not suggesting we stop acting as if it was true. Things like the annual and lifetime exposure limits I just mentioned are based on it. There are no reliable data, though, and what data we have leans towards the self-healing model you mention. As you've probably read, there are reputable researchers who claim a little radiation is good for you.

I remember it being listed as the most poisonous substance back when I read Guiness records for entertainment.

Plutonium's reputation as the deadliest substance on earth apparent dates back to the early days of the nuclear navy, when they we trying to make sailors treat nuclear materials seriously. Albert Stevens [link] was injected with a large amount of plutonium as part of a highly unethical experiment. He lived 20 more years.


Jesse - Sep 15, 2013 8:49:12 am PDT #5315 of 30000
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

I may have broken the board.

Nuh uh! [link]


-t - Sep 15, 2013 8:53:17 am PDT #5316 of 30000
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

It's weird that wanting to repost buffistas.info may make me actually register with tumblr, isn't it?

WHEW so glad to be back! Just in time for me to run off and try to accomplish some errands before it's time to watch football...


Hil R. - Sep 15, 2013 8:53:53 am PDT #5317 of 30000
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l

I don't wanna grade quizzes. I don't wanna deal with the student who wrote after one of the questions, "Sorry, but I wasn't in class the day you taught this. Can I come to your office hours to learn it?" I really don't wanna deal with the seriously over-stressed student who I know is going to have what looks like an anxiety attack when she sees that she got one problem completely wrong. And I don't wanna deal with the smoke detector in my basement that's beeping every 30 seconds.