Scientists said that, despite the public perception, radiation is a weak carcinogen. Dr. Ethel S. Gilbert, who served as a committee member for the National Academies' report on radiation health risks, explained that people often fail to distinguish between high and low doses. "They think that if you get exposed, it's bad," she said. "It's hard to understand that the dose is important." Gilbert described what researchers know about an exposure of 0.1 sieverts, which is more than 50 times the average annual dose of an American nuclear-power employee. From the industry perspective, such a dose is high, but not in terms of health effects. "Out of one hundred people exposed to 0.1 sieverts, we would expect one cancer from that exposure," Gilbert said. "But there would also be forty-two people who would get cancer for other reasons."Emphasis is mine. As usual.
The regulations assume that any exposure to radiation is bad for you, and cumulative. But the thing is, we evolved in a radioactive world. Just sitting in your average house at sea level, you're exposed to about 0.001 sieverts of radiation per year. If you live in a cave, it's more, because the very rock itself is radioactive. Dirt contains uranium and thorium and a bunch of other stuff, in concentrations that are not economical to extract. That's why energy-efficient homes can have a problem with radon: radon is a decay product of uranium.
"The dose makes the poison", goes the old saying; the technical term is hormesis. Below a certain level, we are finding, exposure to ionizing radiation can be beneficial; completely eliminating all exposure to radiation would probably lead to illness!
Of course, this doesn't mean everyone should go expose themselves to whatever ionizing radiation they can possibly find. Those safety regulations are there--and very pessimistic at that--for a reason: we don't really know what the limits are.
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RightNetwork? Where the hell do I sign up?
Hee hee hee, this is going to drive the liberals absolutely bugfuck.
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Geithner is trying to tell us that the economy isn't recovering because of Republican obstruction. That's right: the Democrats still control the House of Representatives, and they still have a plurality in the Senate (59 votes IIRC) but it's the Republicans who are standing in the way.
Just like it was the Republicans who stood in the way of ObamaCare?
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China is wrestling with the law of unintended consequences. "One Child Per Family" has brought out a whole bunch of socioeconomic problems that no one in the Politburo foresaw.
...gee, who would have expected that? 9_9
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When I was in college, some of my classmates made jokes about becoming truck drivers. At the time a place called "TrainCo" was advertising for students on local channels, and whenever some of these guys would mess up on a test they'd say ruefully, "Time to call TrainCo!"
...looking back at it now, I probably would have been a hell of a lot better off if I'd decided against getting a degree and had instead gone to truck driving school. Of all the times I've been unemployed since I began my technical career, regardless of how well or poorly the economy was doing, not once was there ever a dearth of ads seeking truck drivers. Not once. And even now, when I look at the want ads, there are all kinds of ads seeking truck drivers.
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People who loved Obama feel used and cheated. AAHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA....
Best part: the writer wants a President who feels her pain. She doesn't care if he knows how to do anything useful as long as he can emote well. HAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA....
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I didn't need any "study" to tell me that buying a hybrid is a bad investment.
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So that second OP theme for To Aru Majutsu no Index that I said I didn't like? It grew on me.
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I'm not even sure how long I've been awake. The past few days, I have not been sleeping regularly. The Xanax I took Wednesday really screwed up my sleep schedule, not that it was any great shakes to begin with. I think I got up around 7:30 PM last night, but I can't remember if I had a nap or not, so I have no idea how long I've been awake. I only know that I'm tired.
Pretty sure I didn't go to sleep after I got up, though; I went out for Chinese and had that, then watched anime. Didn't I? According to the post on Kiss X Sis ep 5, I didn't nap last night. Okay.
I played WoW a lot last night. Basically once I was done with the anime and the blogging, I started up WoW and just kept going and going until about 9-ish or so. Erogami added a couple levels and I worked on power-leveling blacksmithing.
That being the case, I guess I've been awake for 16 hours.
But: around 8-ish I put on shoes and went out for a walk, as I've been trying to do every morning. Today I made two laps of the construction: my street to Main street and back, twice. That's about a mile, all told, and it kept me moving for 15-20 minutes. It felt great.
Anyway, they're expanding and deepening the trench I mentioned in yesterday's main post. The last time I walked past it, it had been dug about 6 feet deep and a similar distance wide. The guy operating the excavator was carefully digging around the PVC pipe which carries the telephony cables. (Dang, the human nervous system is an amazing thing.)
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In 2004, when I was working on the '86 Fiero's engine, I needed precision measuring tools to figure out WTF was going on with the thing and what would need machining. So I got stuff from Harbor Freight: micrometers, telescope gauges, a digital caliper. And I keep them on my desk. So when I cleaned the desk the other day, I dusted off their boxes. Whee!
I haven't used them since I checked the wear of that engine's valves and guides. I didn't need them when I did the Escort engine, because--other than the rust in the #3 cylinder--it was in good shape.
Still, I like having 'em. It makes me feel like I know what I'm doing. Heh.