My limit is 50 mSv, and there's no way I could by myself get that.
Even 100 mSv in a single dose isn't that much, you're probably more liable to die from pneumonia than a dose like that.
My limit is 50 mSv, and there's no way I could by myself get that.
Even 100 mSv in a single dose isn't that much, you're probably more liable to die from pneumonia than a dose like that.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Fair enough, it's been a while since I had my course in it, I do remember that the long term effects for low dose were disputed. Come to think of it, the point was that all the effects (which are listed in the chart) are for instantaneous exposure, while the limit of 50 is yearly, to show how low the limit was.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Doe that chart consider ingestion?
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Yes, equivalent dose has a 'biological' factor that includes what tissue is affected, so if you ingest your equivalent dose would be higher.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Thanks Khend. That was way easier to make sense of than most of the exposure comparisons I've seen made.
Also. . . .05 micro-sieverts from sleeping next to someone? I KNEW that guy was trying to kill me!
Last edited by LittleFuzzy; 03-20-2011 at 05:17 PM.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
xkcd, more than just a webcomic
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
The guy is SCHMART!Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
xkcd, more than just a webcomic
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Anti-nuclear alarmists move in from the left, but it feels half-hearted:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/op...19herbert.html
March 18, 2011
A Price Too High?
By BOB HERBERT
Catastrophes happen.
No one thought the Interstate 35W bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis would collapse. No one thought the Gulf of Mexico would be fouled to the horrible extent that it was by the BP oil spill. The awful convergence of disasters in Japan — a 9.0 earthquake followed by a tsunami and a devastating nuclear power emergency — seemed almost unimaginable.
Worst-case scenarios unfold more frequently than we’d like to believe, which leads to two major questions regarding nuclear power that Americans have an obligation to answer.
First, can a disaster comparable to the one in Japan happen here? The answer, of course, is yes — whether caused by an earthquake or some other event or series of events. Nature is unpredictable and human beings are fallible. It could happen.
So the second question is whether it makes sense to follow through on plans to increase our reliance on nuclear power, thus heightening the risk of a terrible problem occurring here in the United States. Is that a risk worth taking?
Concern over global warming has increased the appeal of nuclear power, which does not produce the high levels of greenhouse gases that come from fossil fuels. But there has been a persistent tendency to ignore the toughest questions posed by nuclear power: What should be done with the waste? What are the consequences of a catastrophic accident in a populated area? How safe are the plants, really? Why would taxpayers have to shoulder so much of the financial risk of expanding the nation’s nuclear power capacity, an effort that would be wildly expensive?
A big part of the problem at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power station are the highly radioactive spent fuel rods kept in storage pools at the plant. What to do, ultimately, with such dangerous waste material is the nuclear power question without an answer. Nuclear advocates and public officials don’t talk about it much. Denial is the default position when it comes to nuclear waste.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said again this week that the 40-year-old Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County, 35 miles north of New York City, should be closed. Try to imagine the difficulty, in the event of an emergency, of evacuating such an area with its millions of residents. “This plant in this proximity to New York City was never a good risk,” said the governor.
There are, blessedly, very few catastrophic accidents at nuclear power plants. And there have not been many deaths associated with them. The rarity of such accidents provides a comfort zone. We can look at the low probabilities and declare, “It can’t happen here.”
But what if it did happen here? What would the consequences be? If Indian Point blew, how wide an area and how many people would be affected, and what would the cleanup costs be? Rigorously answering such questions is the only way to determine whether the potential risk to life and property is worthwhile.
The 104 commercial nuclear plants in the U.S. are getting old, and many have had serious problems over the years. There have been dozens of instances since 1979, the year of the Three Mile Island accident, in which nuclear reactors have had to be shut down for more than a year for safety reasons.
Building new plants, which the Obama administration favors, can be breathtakingly expensive and requires government loan guarantees. Banks are not lining up to lend money on their own for construction of the newest generation of Indian Points.
In addition to the inherent risks with regard to safety and security, the nuclear industry has long been notorious for sky-high construction costs, feverish cost-overruns and projects that eventually are abandoned. The Union of Concerned Scientists, in a 2009 analysis of the costs associated with nuclear plant construction, said that once a plant came online it usually led to significant rate increases for customers:
“Ratepayers bore well over $200 billion (in today’s dollars) in cost overruns for completed nuclear plants. In the 1990s, legislators and regulators also allowed utilities to recover most ‘stranded costs’ — the difference between utilities’ remaining investments in nuclear plants and the market value of those plants — as states issued billions of dollars in bonds backed by ratepayer charges to pay for utilities’ above-market investments.”
The refrain here is familiar: “The total cost to ratepayers, taxpayers and shareholders stemming from cost overruns, canceled plants and stranded costs exceeded $300 billion in today’s dollars.”
Nuclear power is hardly the pristine, economical, unambiguous answer to the nation’s energy needs and global warming concerns. It offers benefits and big-time shortcomings. Ultimately, the price may be much too high.
Gail Collins is off today.
We need a comprehensive, long-term, forward-looking energy policy. We can't "afford" anything less.
My bet is we won't see anything significant in that respect until after the next Presidential election. This Congress has it's heart set on nothing...
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Badass of the week...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,7192950.storyOn the afternoon of Friday, March 11th, Hideaki Akaiwa was at his job, dully trudging out the final bitter minutes of his work week in his office just outside the port city of Ishinomaki in Japan's Miyagi Prefecture. What this guy's day job actually is, I honestly have no idea, but based on the extremely limited information I have on the guy I can only presume that his daily nine-to-five routine probably falls somewhere between the motorcycle chase scenes from the movie Akira and John Rambo's antics in the book version of First Blood on the ridiculousness/badassitude scale. But that's only speculation.
The one thing we know for certain is that Akaiwa was at work on the 11th, when suddenly, right as he was in the middle of jumping over a giant Gatling-gun-armed robot while riding on a rocket-powered jetbike he'd MacGuyvered together out of vines, tree branches, and a couple thumbtacks, something terrible happened – an earthquake. And not just any earthquake – a mega fucking brain-busting insane earthquake the likes of which the island of Japan had never had the misfortune of experiencing before. The ground shook, buildings crumbled, lights smashed apart, and the entire population of the country froze in fear as fault line below Japan rumbled for a ridiculous two-plus minutes.
But, amazingly, an 8.9 magnitude earthquake wasn't the worst thing to happen to the town Ishinomaki on that horrible day. No, that was afterwards, when the tremors from the earthquake churned up a raging tsunami that took a bustling city of 162,000 people and suddenly turned it into little more than a ten-foot-deep lake.
For reference, here's a NASA satellite comparison of the city before and after the tsunami. Needless to say, poor Hideaki Akaiwa, concerned for his family, rushed out of his office in time to see his city completely submerged under an obscene ten feet of water that buried everything from houses to businesses. He ran to the high water mark and stared helplessly into the sprawling lake that once used to be his home.
But it gets even worse. Hideaki's wife of twenty years was still buried inside the lake somewhere. She hadn't gotten out. She wasn't answering her phone. The water was still rising, the sun was setting, cars and shit were swooshing past on a river of sea water, and and rescue workers told him there was nothing that could be done – the only thing left was to sit back, wait for the military to arrive, and hope that they can get in there and rescue the survivors before it's too late. With 10,000 citizens of Ishinomaki still missing and unaccounted for, the odds weren't great that Hideaki would ever see his wife again.
For most of us regular folks, this is the sort of shit that would make us throw up our hands, swear loudly, and resign ourselves to a lifetime of hopeless misery.
But Hideaki Akaiwa isn't a regular guy. He's a fucking insane badass, and he wasn't going to sit back and just let his wife die alone, freezing to death in a miserable water-filled tomb. He was going after her. No matter what.
How the fuck Hideaki Akaiwa got a hold of a wetsuit and a set of SCUBA gear is one of the great mysteries of the world. I'm roughly twenty hours into Fallout 3 and I'm lucky to come across a fucking vacuum cleaner in that godforsaken post-apocalyptic wasteland, yet this guy is in the middle of a real-life earth-shaking mecha-disaster and he's coming up with oxygen tanks, waterproof suits, and rebreather systems seemingly out of thin air. I guess when you're a truly unstoppable badass, you, by definition, don't let anything stand in your way. You make shit happen, all the time, no matter what.
Regardless of how he came across this equipment (borrowing, stealing, buying, beating up a Yakuza SCUBA diving demolitions expert, etc.) Hideaki threw on his underwater survival gear, rushed into the goddamned tsunami, and dove beneath the rushing waves, determined to rescue his wife or die trying. I'm not exactly sure whether or not the dude even knew how to operate SCUBA equipment, but according to one version of his story he met his wife while he was surfing (which is awesome, by the way), so it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to say that he already had a little experience SCUBA diving under a more controlled situation. Of course, even if this dude didn't know how to work the gear I'm certain that wouldn't have stopped him either – Hideaki wasn't going to let a pair of soul-crushing natural disasters deter him from doing awesome shit and saving his family. He dove down into the water, completely submerged in the freezing cold, pitch black rushing current on all sides, and started swimming through the underwater ruins of his former hometown.
Surrounded by incredible hazards on all sides, ranging from obscene currents capable of dislodging houses from their moorings, sharp twisted metal that could easily have punctured his oxygen line (at best) or impaled him (at worst), and with giant fucking cars careening through the water like toys, he pressed on. Past broken glass, past destroyed houses, past downed power lines arcing with electrical current, through undertow that could have dragged him out to sea never to be heard from again, he searched.
Hideaki maintained his composure and navigated his way through the submerged city, finally tracking down his old house. He quickly swam through to find his totally-freaked-out wife, alone and stranded on the upper level of their house, barely keeping her head above water. He grabbed her tight, and presumably sharing his rebreather with her, dragged her out of the wreckage to safety. She survived.
But Hideaki Akaiwa still wasn't done yet.
Now, I'm sure you're wondering what the fuck is more intense than commandeering a wet suit, face-punching a tsunami and dragging your wife of two decades out of the flooded wreckage of your home, but, no shit, it gets even better. You see, Hideaki's mother also lived in Ishinomaki, and she was still unaccounted for. I think you all know where this is going.
First, Hideaki searched around the evacuation shelters and other areas, looking for his mom among the ragtag groups of survivors who had been lucky enough to flee to higher ground. She might have escaped, and he needed to find her. Now. He ran through the city like some post-apocalyptic action hero, desperately trying to track her down, but when a couple of days went by without any sign of her, he knew what he had to do. The water had only receded a few inches by this point, the rescue teams weren't working quickly enough for his tastes, and Hideaki Akaiwa fucking once again took matters into his own hands – rushing back into the waterlogged city looking for his mom.
So, once again Hideaki navigated his way through the Atlantean city, picking his way through crumbling wreckage, splintered wood, and shredded metal to find his elderly mother. After another grueling trek, he tracked her down on the upper levels of a house – she'd been stranded there for four days, and would almost certainly have died without the timely aid of her son. He brought her to safety somehow as well, as you might expect at this point.
Now, while most people would have been content in the knowledge that their family was safe, Hideaki Akaiwa isn't the sort of badass who's going to hang up his flippers and quit just because he'd taken care of his own personal shit – this guy made an oath to keep going back into the wreckage on his own to find people and help them to safety. Today this 43 year-old Japanese badass rides out every single day, multiple times a day, riding around on a bicycle with his legs wrapped in plastic to keep himself dry. His only equipment – a pocketknife, a canteen, a flashlight, a change of clothes, and a badass set of aviator sunglasses – packed into a trusty trio of backpacks, he rides out in search of people needing rescue, a modern-day, real-life action hero.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
The Japanese need to hold an election for a new Emperor.
Brevior saltare cum deformibus viris est vita
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_keidanren
Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, said the influential lobby would not fight the government if it decided to shelve a plan to lower the corporate tax rate, which at around 40 percent is among the highest in the industrialized world.
Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano suggested last week the government should reconsider the planned tax cut of 5 percentage points from April to prioritize spending on reconstruction and prevent the country's already massive debt pile from growing.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Indeed, they are in a corner. They've borrowed so much and raised taxes so much that something needs to give, but they have been paralyzed from making important changes until the timing couldn't be worse.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42371032...s-asiapacific/Report: Fukushima nuke workers expect to die
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12944317
Dog has survived 3 weeks on the roof of a house thats was found a mile out to sea. WTF, did the owners store fresh water and bags of food on top of their house?
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
I saw the video of that doggie's rescue.No idea how he lived that long, unless the flotsam recently floated into the sea and he was stuck on top....
TEPCO sounds like a royal screw up, and the regulators, too. Hard to believe the international community didn't show up long ago, without waiting to be asked by the Japanese.
It looks like the dog was able to crawl under the roof, maybe there was some foot floating around up there. Interesting that all the wreckage congeals like that.
But the real accomplishment is the dog knowing not to drink the seawater.
I think that's natural. You don't drink salty water.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
So what if someone changes their views/opinions over the years?Some of you sound like you're his parents or something: "we've all seen it"..these series of posts are the weirdest I've come across here..
Oh and that dog was adorable
Theoretically, I'm old enough to be Dread's (very young) Dad...but that is not the point.So what if someone changes their views/opinions over the years?
Oh and that dog was adorable
When I first wandered on the scene, Dread was quite a bit 'left' to what he is now. And if I recall the timeline correctly, that was his college days...so now he has shifted to the right.
I am not looking at this in a negative light..people change as they get older. Other posters for some reason seem to have a problem with it.
Brevior saltare cum deformibus viris est vita
The problem becomes when he changes into a sociopath who throws old and poor people under then bus.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
pets too
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
And babies too! I'm just sure he hates babies.
Like, you know, when he's not drinking their blood.
Only if they're poor babies.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Shit, there's been another quake. 7.1 or 7.4 depending on who you ask. I don't know tsunami physics, but since its closer to shore does that lessen the tsunami damage at all? Also, Fukushima reports no major damage currently, but thats just what the country needs of course. Another quake.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapc...pt=T1&iref=BN1
Thank goodness there's no shortage of those
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Not if he observes Kosher dietary restrictions...
. . .
The Fukushima Daiichi power plant is now considered a Chernobyl-level nuclear accident.
Now we only need to wait for the next S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game announcement.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
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