An exploration of ultracoffee, radiation safety, and more often than not a beer or two.
The first thing to keep in mind with a rocket launch is that you don’t get to do a lot of “aiming” between pressing IGNITION and ABORT. Aiming, AKA mission planning, is what you spent the previous several months/years doing. These seconds/minutes are the shitfuckdammit stage. [The sixteenth in an ongoing series of my compiled …
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All of these choices technically cause legacy waste to take up less space, even if one is just a bullshit accounting trick. All of them have been tried, all of them have lead to uptakes, but like all of these quizzes my word choice is important. So, let’s define some terms. [The fifteenth in an …
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I thought I would make a new end of year CHOOSE YOUR OWN RADIATION ADVENTURE, except I realized I kept running face first into “All Of The Above”. So instead, I want to discuss archetypical accidents to try to encourage you to not be the cause/victim in one. As we approach NYE 2020 with restrictions …
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I should preface that my primary vacuum tube experience is related to trying to fix the 1920s built-in wall radio made of redwood in a house my family rented when I was in elementary school. Readers, I never fixed that radio. [The fourteenth in an ongoing series of my compiled explainers for my CHOOSE YOUR …
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When I put these polls up, one of the most common responses is “Why on Earth would anyone ask *me* to do this?” That’s fair, but this is my game. ;) But for reactor siting? The number of different fields we talk to is astounding, lest we miss something. You never know when you might …
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No BBotE and shipping talk today. When people ask how I got into safety work or how to improve the safety culture in their research labs (industry is much easier to fix), I like to share this wisdom from my undergraduate advisor: “Working safely is not just something you do in addition to your research …
To reiterate, the good news here is zero chance of zombies. The bad news is that you have to cope with the living instead. Unlike the shambling dead, who are fairly goal oriented (re: your brains), the living have Opinions™ and they are often contradictory. [The twelfth in an ongoing series of my compiled explainers …
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A good place to start is that counting labs rarely (read: I have never seen one) end up on the top floor with beautiful views of your surroundings. No, you get the dungeon labs where sunlight & windows are a rumor, but the radon down there is quite real. [The eleventh in an ongoing series …
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When you’re regarded as a teacher/professor’s favorite student over their entire career, it makes it very likely the school administration or alumni association will drop you a line for help, no matter what you went on to do in life. This may encourage you to move far from home. [The tenth in an ongoing series …
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Mooching off of other departments is always a challenge, if for no other reason than they’re gonna mooch right back at you later. Of course, the things they’re most willing to give you is their garbage. As the saying goes, “It’s not waste if someone else has a use for it.” [The ninth in an …
Continue reading “CHOOSE YOUR OWN RADIATION ADVENTURE – The Counting Experiment”
Medical Emergency vs. Rad is the natural follow up to Fire vs. Rad because the responder priorities are exactly the same: Life, Property, and Environment. Though in some jurisdictions they swap the order of those last two. Life saving efforts are always top priority though. [The eighth in an ongoing series of my compiled explainers …
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This scenario is much like when the Local Color brings you a dead radioactive seagull, except this time your surprisingly competent coworkers may have captured an actual live, radioactive, and displeased animal to bring to you. It’s just another day in paradise. [The seventh in an ongoing series of my compiled explainers for my CHOOSE …
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The traditional answer to avoiding NIMBY crap, whatever your particular issue may be, is to build your facility three miles down the road from the ass end of nowhere. Unfortunately, the suburbs will follow you and suddenly it’s your fault that you’re in their backyard again. You can’t win. [The sixth in an ongoing series …
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It’s clear that folks have some experience clearing out the homes & offices of deceased friends and relatives who were eccentric. From the previous Radioactive Seagull Adventure, perhaps they were the Local Color. Inherit enough interesting things, you might get known as the Local Color too. [The fifth in an ongoing series of my compiled …
Continue reading “CHOOSE YOUR OWN RADIATION ADVENTURE – Collections of the Dead”
For this scenario, count your blessings that they bothered to call you at all. SURPRISE ACCELERATOR is the worst kind of accelerator. I wish I could say this has never happened in my career. But you already knew this one existed. It’s the modification that’s the problem. [The fourth in an ongoing series of my …
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