A funny story

D

drhowarddrfine

Ran into an old friend from decades ago. I first met him through a girlfriend who was friends with his wife. He was in the Air Force in England and was coming home for a while cause he broke his foot.

"How'd you break your foot?"

"I dropped an atomic bomb on it."

"What?"

"My job was to load atomic bombs on bomber planes. My hand slipped and the bomb dropped down on my foot."
 
That's why nitroglycerin became so unpopular.

He for sure was glad for the several safety levels to arm the bomb.
Otherwise he had quite a bit more than a broken foot.
 
That must have hurt for sure...

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%pupil -sceptical said:
He for sure was glad for the several safety levels to arm the bomb.
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To actually make these things work as expected is hard. Even harder is it to make them work reliably, so a lot of the safety is done by "in case of accident, just don't make it work right". The list of nukes which were damaged or blew up is long, unfortunately. Just search for it.
 
Use the translate app of choice on this...
Author is, by the way, the creator of the NDR "Klein" Computer, started as a 8 bit roll-your-own computer which was distributed by TV, each week he would introduce the next thing to do, over the summer vacation. In the end you had a working Z80. Later 68020. Just don't look at todays youth programm on TV.
 
eternal_noob said:
Can anyone tell me why can't i take a decent picture with this Cinnamon stick?

View attachment 19759

Source
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Well, that's the most radioactive 'cinnamon stick' I ever saw... 😁

I can make out the radiation warning sign, 'Co' and and '3340 curies'... old and oxidised cobalt-60 rod? So I guess that's gamma hitting your camera's CCD.

Man, I hope that thing is 50 years old... I'm guessing the photo of the hand holding it is faked up...

Drop and run...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhVSVXUB1rw
 
Crivens said:
Use the translate app of choice on this...
Author is, by the way, the creator of the NDR "Klein" Computer, started as a 8 bit roll-your-own computer which was distributed by TV, each week he would introduce the next thing to do, over the summer vacation. In the end you had a working Z80. Later 68020. Just don't look at todays youth programm on TV.
Click to expand...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NDR-Klein-Computer This is very interesting, I wasn't aware of the klein computer. It's a shame I can't read german, it would be interesting to read Klein's book. Cool project. I guess the equivalent in the UK was the BBC micro, and in more recent times the raspberry pi is a kind of modern equivalent, although personally I thought the 8-bit stuff was so much better than the pi.
 
Bionerd23 also did a review of a phone app using the camera as a radioactivity counter here:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNe1UBfJvoo

She has done a whole series of interesting videos on radioactivity and chernobyl in particular, although she has disappeared in terms of new posts for many years now. I think she is a nuclear medicine researcher, so she has some genuine expertise in the field, and is worth listening to. I thought some of her chernobyl escapades were a bit foolhardy though... like this episode, was it really a good idea to go poking around in the old plutonium lab ruins..! I hope for her sake she didn't get contaminated...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdhdCbDch6A
 
blackbird9 said:
This is very interesting, I wasn't aware of the klein computer. It's a shame I can't read german, it would be interesting to read Klein's book.
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Oh, it is in the shelf behind me...
Once upon a time, when Men were Men and Computers were soldered together on mums kitchen table, I got that from our village library. I spotted an error and penciled in a note about it. Now some years ago I aquired it in an antique shop, for me to read when I want. Point in case, the same page has a note about that mistake, in pencil, in _almost_ my handwriting. It took me a while to get out of that shock.

Here is something about the history and the computer (the media.ccc.de might even have a syncronized version) but the subtitles are pretty good here also.

And since we talk about radioactive things here - there is a story from the Bastard Assistant from Hell where the post guy delivers an isotope container to the wrong office (that of the BAfH) who puts it in a microwave, takes out the asbestos gloves and delivers a blazing hot container to the correct office - only to have the complete department being evacuated at once.
 
blackbird9 said:
She has done a whole series of interesting videos on radioactivity and chernobyl in particular, although she has disappeared in terms of new posts for many years now. I think she is a nuclear medicine researcher, so she has some genuine expertise in the field, and is worth listening to.
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By the gods, what have you dug up there?

One comes to ask: what kind of person, what personal history would make somebody go to such extremes and consider that normal?
I absolutely agree that one should not be afraid without need, that one should break out of the mass neurosis that captures 95% of the population in irrational fears.
But this here is a bit different. Sure, you have to do extreme things on YT in order to get your clicks. But for what is it good? On YT you're just an anonymous webpseudo - nobody knows you, nobody has a relation to you, and when you're gone, you're gone, dead or elsewhat.
 
PMc said:
By the gods, what have you dug up there?

One comes to ask: what kind of person, what personal history would make somebody go to such extremes and consider that normal?
I absolutely agree that one should not be afraid without need, that one should break out of the mass neurosis that captures 95% of the population in irrational fears.
But this here is a bit different. Sure, you have to do extreme things on YT in order to get your clicks. But for what is it good? On YT you're just an anonymous webpseudo - nobody knows you, nobody has a relation to you, and when you're gone, you're gone, dead or elsewhat.
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Hahaha. I think she was actually quite famous for a while, around the time fukushima happened and everyone suddenly got interested in nuclear again. I guess she decided to move on with her career / life and gave up the yt stuff, who knows. Yeah, I expect the ukrainian authorities didn't appreciate her trips round the exclusion zone quite so much!. She did make some entertaining videos though :)

Well, since Bionerd is a bit extreme, let's have a look at Brainiac75's 2015 classic 'radioactive stuff' video. For anyone who's into physics, chemistry, geology... this stuff is gold. It's all good :)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq0IXYs7Ye0&pp=ygUaYnJhaW5pYWMgcmFkaW9hY3RpdmUgc3R1ZmY%3D
 
Crivens said:
Oh, it is in the shelf behind me...
Once upon a time, when Men were Men and Computers were soldered together on mums kitchen table, I got that from our village library. I spotted an error and penciled in a note about it. Now some years ago I aquired it in an antique shop, for me to read when I want. Point in case, the same page has a note about that mistake, in pencil, in _almost_ my handwriting. It took me a while to get out of that shock.

Here is something about the history and the computer (the media.ccc.de might even have a syncronized version) but the subtitles are pretty good here also.

And since we talk about radioactive things here - there is a story from the Bastard Assistant from Hell where the post guy delivers an isotope container to the wrong office (that of the BAfH) who puts it in a microwave, takes out the asbestos gloves and delivers a blazing hot container to the correct office - only to have the complete department being evacuated at once.
Click to expand...
Scary story! Hahaha

I found this https://ia600804.us.archive.org/20/items/ElektorMagazine/Elektor[nonlinear.ir] 1978-07_08.pdf
online the other day, which might bring back a few memories :) I've still got my original copy deep in a box somewhere...
 
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