6 ms·

If you enjoy reading long prose articles, with plenty of human content, do not let the following tl;dr: spoil this article for you: tl;dr: A cylinder of cobal

by bh42222 15y ago

If you enjoy reading long prose articles, with plenty of human content, do not let the following tl;dr: spoil this article for you: tl;dr: A cylinder of cobalt, probably used in a medical instrument. Things like that are understandably very expensive to properly and legally dispose of. Somehow it ended up in a heap of scrap copper.

js2 15y ago
Reminds me of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident
markbao 15y ago
> very expensive to properly and legally dispose of How expensive? From the article: $700,000 expensive. For a "pencil-like cylinder 9 inches long and a third of an inch in diameter." Wow. EDIT: ah, I was mistaken. See child comment. My error.
- apaprocki 15y ago
  The $700k was for the city and port to dispose of the contaminated container since no one was going to do it for them. The cost of a medical facility properly disposing of the original cobalt has to be a fraction of that (but, to the point, not free).
  - markbao 15y ago
    Thanks for the clarification, and sorry for the error. Still an astounding amount.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
w1ntermute 15y ago
> If you enjoy reading long prose articles Well-written, long form articles are increasingly difficult to find in this day & age of Twitter-sized sound bites, even off the internet. It's nice to see that a publication billed as a sci/tech magazine is taking the time and effort to write them.
- jseliger 15y ago
  Not really: they're just as easy to find as ever if you subscribe to The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Both are, as far as I know, on more-or-less the same publication schedule they've always used, since the 1920s and 1850s, respectively. If you like long-form stuff, there's also the NYRB, Harper's, and a bunch more in that general class; I just happen to like the first two the best. "Give Me Something to Read" is a pretty good online aggregator: http://givemesomethingtoread.com/ http://givemesomethingtoread.com/ .
  - wheels 15y ago
    Those are both excellent sources – two more that are often (surprisingly) good are Spiegel International and Rolling Stone Politics. http://www.spiegel.de/international/ http://www.spiegel.de/international/ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics http://www.rollingstone.com/politics Spiegel International I believe has the best coverage of European affairs and The Atlantic the best of US affairs. The New Yorker will, on occasion, have bar none the best investigative journalism around, but at the cost of the coverage being too spotty to use as a primary news source. Recently Spiegel International has mostly become that for me. (I live in Germany, and actually the fact that they only publish 3-4 articles per day in English I find quite nice since it tends to reduce the noise and just publish the most important stuff – usually in long-ish format.) An interesting tidbit on Spiegel – despite being (in print format) a German language magazine, if I remember correctly, the only news magazines with larger circulation in the world are Time, Newsweek and The Economist and it reportedly has the largest fact-checking department in the world.
    - awakeasleep 15y ago
      Great assessment of The New Yorker. It's a weekly, and I find 2/4 issues will have nothing to read, 1/4 something decent, and 1/4 so outstanding I literally want to dance for happiness. The two I enjoyed most recently were: 1) An article on Fukushima about how the japanese government structured incentives for nuclear power safety and proliferation. 2) An article on the NSA's warrantless wiretapping whistleblower Thomas Drake (a spectacular example of terrible management's attempt to organize a software project) Unfortunately, those articles aren't easy to search up because they're buried in my iPad somewhere. Here is a link to a wired story about #2, although it makes the story sound less interesting. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/new-yorker-on-thomas-drake/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/new-yorker-on-thoma...
VladRussian 15y ago
originating in Saudi Arabia, the whole story sounds like a test run, done either by Al Qaeda or US DHS/CIA/etc.... (with neither coming out when the tab grew to $700K :)
- rbanffy 15y ago
  If they really wanted to test something, they would use a much less powerful source hidden in a container that wouldn't normally be scanned.
  - VladRussian 15y ago
    a "screwed-up" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433116/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433116/)
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      You do realize you are basing your assessment (and its very serious implications) on a movie, right?
      - VladRussian 15y ago
        my assessment has no implications, unfortunately. Movie reference is used only as a funny humorous illustration. My assessment is based on my knowledge and experience with real government screwedups even here in the US, like county office messing up real estate ownership info. Compare to that, planting the tracer into the container that will most probably be checked is hardly a screwedup.
        rbanffy 15y ago
        If would find the implications of this being a test run disturbing. Luckily, we can dismiss it. Unless, of course, we start considering what else came through that port while so much attention and resources were focused on one very radioactive container.
rbanffy 15y ago
I imagine whoever dismantled the medical device must have a very peculiar medical record.
pdenya 15y ago
Thanks for this. I appreciate both the warning and the tl;dr. It's interesting and well written but I don't have the time right now to make my way through it.
rsanchez1 15y ago
Oh yes, I did enjoy reading that article. It was refreshing in today's world of 24-hour bite-sized news. All that trouble from such a little piece of radioactive cobalt. Imagine if some mad man decides to attach something like that to a cab in NYC. Just as stated in the article, it would cause a huge panic.
- marshray 15y ago
  Radioactive stuff gets flagged all the time in major ports. As the article mentioned, kitty litter, and other natural things can set off the detectors. As a general rule, a incident you read about in Wired is probably not the first or last of its kind. It seems pretty plausible that old medical stuff gets thrown in with scrap metal all the time. I wonder if "new money" places like the petrodollar kingdoms and emirates might have the money to purchase and operate advanced medical machines but not necessarily the regulatory maturity to track the whole lifecycle through decommission and safe disposal.

by bh42222 15y ago

js2 15y ago

Reminds me of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident

markbao 15y ago

> very expensive to properly and legally dispose of How expensive? From the article: $700,000 expensive. For a "pencil-like cylinder 9 inches long and a third of an inch in diameter." Wow. EDIT: ah, I was mistaken. See child comment. My error.

apaprocki 15y ago
The $700k was for the city and port to dispose of the contaminated container since no one was going to do it for them. The cost of a medical facility properly disposing of the original cobalt has to be a fraction of that (but, to the point, not free).
- markbao 15y ago
  Thanks for the clarification, and sorry for the error. Still an astounding amount.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

w1ntermute 15y ago

> If you enjoy reading long prose articles Well-written, long form articles are increasingly difficult to find in this day & age of Twitter-sized sound bites, even off the internet. It's nice to see that a publication billed as a sci/tech magazine is taking the time and effort to write them.

jseliger 15y ago
Not really: they're just as easy to find as ever if you subscribe to The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Both are, as far as I know, on more-or-less the same publication schedule they've always used, since the 1920s and 1850s, respectively. If you like long-form stuff, there's also the NYRB, Harper's, and a bunch more in that general class; I just happen to like the first two the best. "Give Me Something to Read" is a pretty good online aggregator: http://givemesomethingtoread.com/ http://givemesomethingtoread.com/ .
- wheels 15y ago
  Those are both excellent sources – two more that are often (surprisingly) good are Spiegel International and Rolling Stone Politics. http://www.spiegel.de/international/ http://www.spiegel.de/international/ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics http://www.rollingstone.com/politics Spiegel International I believe has the best coverage of European affairs and The Atlantic the best of US affairs. The New Yorker will, on occasion, have bar none the best investigative journalism around, but at the cost of the coverage being too spotty to use as a primary news source. Recently Spiegel International has mostly become that for me. (I live in Germany, and actually the fact that they only publish 3-4 articles per day in English I find quite nice since it tends to reduce the noise and just publish the most important stuff – usually in long-ish format.) An interesting tidbit on Spiegel – despite being (in print format) a German language magazine, if I remember correctly, the only news magazines with larger circulation in the world are Time, Newsweek and The Economist and it reportedly has the largest fact-checking department in the world.
  - awakeasleep 15y ago
    Great assessment of The New Yorker. It's a weekly, and I find 2/4 issues will have nothing to read, 1/4 something decent, and 1/4 so outstanding I literally want to dance for happiness. The two I enjoyed most recently were: 1) An article on Fukushima about how the japanese government structured incentives for nuclear power safety and proliferation. 2) An article on the NSA's warrantless wiretapping whistleblower Thomas Drake (a spectacular example of terrible management's attempt to organize a software project) Unfortunately, those articles aren't easy to search up because they're buried in my iPad somewhere. Here is a link to a wired story about #2, although it makes the story sound less interesting. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/new-yorker-on-thomas-drake/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/new-yorker-on-thoma...

VladRussian 15y ago

originating in Saudi Arabia, the whole story sounds like a test run, done either by Al Qaeda or US DHS/CIA/etc.... (with neither coming out when the tab grew to $700K :)

rbanffy 15y ago
If they really wanted to test something, they would use a much less powerful source hidden in a container that wouldn't normally be scanned.
- VladRussian 15y ago
  a "screwed-up" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433116/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433116/)
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    You do realize you are basing your assessment (and its very serious implications) on a movie, right?
    - VladRussian 15y ago
      my assessment has no implications, unfortunately. Movie reference is used only as a funny humorous illustration. My assessment is based on my knowledge and experience with real government screwedups even here in the US, like county office messing up real estate ownership info. Compare to that, planting the tracer into the container that will most probably be checked is hardly a screwedup.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        If would find the implications of this being a test run disturbing. Luckily, we can dismiss it. Unless, of course, we start considering what else came through that port while so much attention and resources were focused on one very radioactive container.

rbanffy 15y ago

I imagine whoever dismantled the medical device must have a very peculiar medical record.

pdenya 15y ago

Thanks for this. I appreciate both the warning and the tl;dr. It's interesting and well written but I don't have the time right now to make my way through it.

rsanchez1 15y ago

Oh yes, I did enjoy reading that article. It was refreshing in today's world of 24-hour bite-sized news. All that trouble from such a little piece of radioactive cobalt. Imagine if some mad man decides to attach something like that to a cab in NYC. Just as stated in the article, it would cause a huge panic.

marshray 15y ago
Radioactive stuff gets flagged all the time in major ports. As the article mentioned, kitty litter, and other natural things can set off the detectors. As a general rule, a incident you read about in Wired is probably not the first or last of its kind. It seems pretty plausible that old medical stuff gets thrown in with scrap metal all the time. I wonder if "new money" places like the petrodollar kingdoms and emirates might have the money to purchase and operate advanced medical machines but not necessarily the regulatory maturity to track the whole lifecycle through decommission and safe disposal.