So there was a suicide bombing in Stockholm

[RandBlade]

Nobody has shown it to be not serving a purpose, wiggin has already shown holes in the logic of the article plus even that article said it "may not work ... in certain circumstances" - very different to "doesn't work"

[Khendraja'aro]

Nobody has shown it to be not serving a purpose, wiggin has already shown holes in the logic of the article plus even that article said it "may not work ... in certain circumstances" - very different to "doesn't work"

Well, that's the usual argument.

"No suicide bombers this month!" - "Well, the whole thing must work, then!"

"No pink unicorns this month!" - "Well, the leprechauns keep them at bay!"

[Nessus]

Point is the machine is objectively safe, so the end-user being a grunt is irrelevant.

Either we need proper and adequate safety training or we need the machine to be safe, we do necessarily not need both.

EDIT: Actually I think that was badly phrased on my part. The safer the machine, then the lower the threshold for what is "proper and adequate safety training"

Even if you take the magnetron out from your microwave oven, you'll have a hard time causing lasting damage quickly to yourself or other human beings. The same does not hold true for ionizing radiation; there's a reason why most civilized nations require you to have some training before you're allowed to play with it.

[Hazir]

Might be a little less bitter if they got some nookie, eh?

He was married, had children and was looking for a second wife. I think what might help more is if Brits would start having a closer look at what young men are indoctrinated with at their mosques and affiliated madrassas.

[RandBlade]

It's always the Brits fault somehow

Actually he got kicked out of his mosque here

[wiggin]

Even if you take the magnetron out from your microwave oven, you'll have a hard time causing lasting damage quickly to yourself or other human beings. The same does not hold true for ionizing radiation; there's a reason why most civilized nations require you to have some training before you're allowed to play with it.

Oh, please, I was 'trained' to work with beta radiation in a pathetic 30 minute video. All of my real training was on the job and involved a lot of common sense. That was with much higher doses than anything involved here.

It's not like the TSA personnel are personally selecting the beam intensity or exposure time or whatever - to them it's a black box with a button you push, and out comes a picture. I'm certain that the manufacturers have placed any number of safety features in so they don't get sued up the wazoo, with lots of fail-safe positions in the event of a problem.

There are valid, relatively minor concerns about the safety of these devices from an exposure perspective, and I think it's fair to demand they are fully investigated before the routine use of such devices. However, I am not concerned about the intelligence or training of the user in this case - if the device is adequately designed, you likely need minimal to no training to operate it safely. We don't make sure people are trained in the transport of hazardous substances before we let them drive cars, because despite the fact that cars are potentially explosive, the safety built into the device means that operators don't really need much training to keep it from happening.


As I've said before, I have my doubts about the actual utility of these scanners, given the costs involved and the potential benefit. But let's keep the argument centered on something that's a definite concern rather than contrived ones.

[Nessus]

Oh, please, I was 'trained' to work with beta radiation in a pathetic 30 minute video. All of my real training was on the job and involved a lot of common sense. That was with much higher doses than anything involved here.

It's not like the TSA personnel are personally selecting the beam intensity or exposure time or whatever - to them it's a black box with a button you push, and out comes a picture. I'm certain that the manufacturers have placed any number of safety features in so they don't get sued up the wazoo, with lots of fail-safe positions in the event of a problem.

There are valid, relatively minor concerns about the safety of these devices from an exposure perspective, and I think it's fair to demand they are fully investigated before the routine use of such devices. However, I am not concerned about the intelligence or training of the user in this case - if the device is adequately designed, you likely need minimal to no training to operate it safely. We don't make sure people are trained in the transport of hazardous substances before we let them drive cars, because despite the fact that cars are potentially explosive, the safety built into the device means that operators don't really need much training to keep it from happening.


As I've said before, I have my doubts about the actual utility of these scanners, given the costs involved and the potential benefit. But let's keep the argument centered on something that's a definite concern rather than contrived ones.

I was simply pointing out the difference between ionizing radiation and micro-waves and the relative harm levels, no need to get up my grill about it

And you were trained, sooo

[wiggin]

Sorry, I guess I was conflating Khendra's overblown concerns with your clarifications. Apologies.

(The bit about training was to point out that the legally mandated training - the stupid video - was utterly useless from a safety perspective, and that even with fairly high levels of ionizing radiation we have pretty lax rules.)

[Nessus]

(The bit about training was to point out that the legally mandated training - the stupid video - was utterly useless from a safety perspective, and that even with fairly high levels of ionizing radiation we have pretty lax rules.)

The mandatory training I got was pretty theoretical and not really applicable to daily working, they made us calculate dose rates and such from various device designs and how to shield them; my default stance when I started working with radiation sources was to just steer clear and watch what the more experienced people did, I don't think there's a better way of learning the day to day stuff. And we're actually baby-sat to a pretty high degree by the radiation safety people who inspect measurement set-ups and track our dosimeters and so on.

As I said before, if something does go wrong with these things then a goon won't be much worse than a radiation safety trained technician for several reasons, the main one being that you can usually only state that the shit is now firmly in pants and this unfortunate person got a larger dose than intended. I doubt anyone would build these things to be capable of delivering anywhere near a lethal or dangerous dose; you'd probably have to ban the person from flying and medical radiation therapy for the year or something, but that's about it. I still don't think we should let everyone and their aunt play with ionizing radiation willy-nilly, though, at minimum you have to be cognizant enough to be able to pull that person from the line and explain what just happened.

[Hazir]

It's always the Brits fault somehow

Actually he got kicked out of his mosque here

Are you denying there is a higher than average problem with extremism in mosques in the UK ?

[Khendraja'aro]

Even if you take the magnetron out from your microwave oven, you'll have a hard time causing lasting damage quickly to yourself or other human beings. The same does not hold true for ionizing radiation; there's a reason why most civilized nations require you to have some training before you're allowed to play with it.

You'll have a very hard time indeed since the dimensions of a microwave are designed to induce standing waves

[Nessus]

No!

[wiggin]

The mandatory training I got was pretty theoretical and not really applicable to daily working, they made us calculate dose rates and such from various device designs and how to shield them; my default stance when I started working with radiation sources was to just steer clear and watch what the more experienced people did, I don't think there's a better way of learning the day to day stuff. And we're actually baby-sat to a pretty high degree by the radiation safety people who inspect measurement set-ups and track our dosimeters and so on.

Wow, private institutions in the US are nowhere near that strict on radiation safety. (I'm told publicly funded institutions are stricter, and government institutions are really crazy strict - a friend of mine ran a lab at the NIH that just happened to be down the block from the NRC, and they got regular surprise inspections... and that was for some lowly P-32 and I-125, nothing like what the DOE labs have lying around.)

As I said before, if something does go wrong with these things then a goon won't be much worse than a radiation safety trained technician for several reasons, the main one being that you can usually only state that the shit is now firmly in pants and this unfortunate person got a larger dose than intended. I doubt anyone would build these things to be capable of delivering anywhere near a lethal or dangerous dose; you'd probably have to ban the person from flying and medical radiation therapy for the year or something, but that's about it. I still don't think we should let everyone and their aunt play with ionizing radiation willy-nilly, though, at minimum you have to be cognizant enough to be able to pull that person from the line and explain what just happened.

Fair enough.

[']['ear]

Oh, please, I was 'trained' to work with beta radiation in a pathetic 30 minute video. All of my real training was on the job and involved a lot of common sense. That was with much higher doses than anything involved here.

Same here, though I haven't actually used the stuff since ~96.

It's not like the TSA personnel are personally selecting the beam intensity or exposure time or whatever - to them it's a black box with a button you push, and out comes a picture. I'm certain that the manufacturers have placed any number of safety features in so they don't get sued up the wazoo, with lots of fail-safe positions in the event of a problem.

There are valid, relatively minor concerns about the safety of these devices from an exposure perspective, and I think it's fair to demand they are fully investigated before the routine use of such devices. However, I am not concerned about the intelligence or training of the user in this case - if the device is adequately designed, you likely need minimal to no training to operate it safely. We don't make sure people are trained in the transport of hazardous substances before we let them drive cars, because despite the fact that cars are potentially explosive, the safety built into the device means that operators don't really need much training to keep it from happening.


As I've said before, I have my doubts about the actual utility of these scanners, given the costs involved and the potential benefit. But let's keep the argument centered on something that's a definite concern rather than contrived ones.

Bingo bingo bingo bingo.

No!

[Flixy]

Point is the machine is objectively safe, so the end-user being a grunt is irrelevant.

Either we need proper and adequate safety training or we need the machine to be safe, we do necessarily not need both.

EDIT: Actually I think that was badly phrased on my part. The safer the machine, then the lower the threshold for what is "proper and adequate safety training"

Agreed that for the operator it's mainly a fancy camera, so if it is operated by a goon is not really an issue. What is an issue is that it is still ionizing radiation, which should be avoided if possible. So if the scans have no benefit, the should not be used.

The mandatory training I got was pretty theoretical and not really applicable to daily working, they made us calculate dose rates and such from various device designs and how to shield them; my default stance when I started working with radiation sources was to just steer clear and watch what the more experienced people did, I don't think there's a better way of learning the day to day stuff. And we're actually baby-sat to a pretty high degree by the radiation safety people who inspect measurement set-ups and track our dosimeters and so on.

Yeah same here. Theoretical course about different kinds of radiation, how to shield, what damage they do, calculating dose, and measuring activity of a known source. And all processes that involve radiation have to be vetted and we have dosimeters and everything. And then I don't even get near actual radioactive stuff myself, but just control the machine.

Heh, my boss once had a PET scan and kept setting of contamination alarms for almost a week This does bring up an interesting point about goons working with it - construction workers sometimes set off contamination alarms with, say, stuff from the gutter or building materials. The contamination alarms are extremely sensitive. Usually there's nothing going on at all (just scan it and see how active it is), but it scares the shit out of the construction workers who almost refused to work anymore - it's radioactive after all. How would these goons react when an alarm goes off, or something like that?

[RandBlade]

At work we sometimes have people paranoid that they can "smell gas". We burn a ton of gas at work but its all contained and safe but people freak out that they can smell it, so we actually got a gas engineer out to take measurements to see if it was safe. Measured out at 0.000 ppm or whatever, an absolute 0 rating. We could smell it, but it wasn't there.

[Khendraja'aro]

At work we sometimes have people paranoid that they can "smell gas". We burn a ton of gas at work but its all contained and safe but people freak out that they can smell it, so we actually got a gas engineer out to take measurements to see if it was safe. Measured out at 0.000 ppm or whatever, an absolute 0 rating. We could smell it, but it wasn't there.

That's because the smell comes from a chemical which our nose can detect at very low concentrations.

[Veldan Rath]

That's because the smell comes from a chemical which our nose can detect at very low concentrations.

Which I find a useful survival trait.

Happened in my building once...we all smelled gas...lo and behold...there was not a leak (basiclly same thing happened as what Rand posted). Now imagine if management just po poo it away and there WAS a leak?

[wiggin]

Veldan, you do realize it's not the methane itself you're smelling.... They normally add butanethiol (a sulfur-containing molecule that stinks) in very low quantities so people will notice gas leaks. Of course, I think the limit of human scent for butanethiol is something like .01 ppm, so if RB's numbers for the instrument sensitivity are correct, the machine is either wrong or the people are.

*assuming that butanethiol is the odorant used in the UK; could be THT or another odorant.

[RandBlade]

Indeed my impression too was that it is an additive that you smell, natural gas is by itself odourless. I don't know which additive it is that they use. I may be wrong, it may have just shown 000 ppm or whatever, however the machine showed the numbers point is that it was a string of zeroes - but you could definitely smell the gas. The gas smell came only when the machine was ignited and would last for about half an hour, after that it goes away however from the start the machine registered none.

[Veldan Rath]

Veldan, you do realize it's not the methane itself you're smelling.... They normally add butanethiol (a sulfur-containing molecule that stinks) in very low quantities so people will notice gas leaks. Of course, I think the limit of human scent for butanethiol is something like .01 ppm, so if RB's numbers for the instrument sensitivity are correct, the machine is either wrong or the people are.

*assuming that butanethiol is the odorant used in the UK; could be THT or another odorant.

So? The point still stands. When a whole building smells something that smells like gas (or the additive to make it smellable ffs) then the management should send out the maintenance team to make sure there is no leak. Granted by the time maintenance showed up the smell was gone, it was the puff from ignition that somehow made it into the building instead of venting properly, they should still be called.