3 ms·

Because it’s enormously dangerous to stand a meter from, and people near it won’t even know (eg it could have been picked up in a tyre tread so someone is carry

by genmon 4y ago

Because it’s enormously dangerous to stand a meter from, and people near it won’t even know (eg it could have been picked up in a tyre tread so someone is carrying it around), but radiation and therefore ability detect drops according to the inverse square law so it will be hard to find from much further away. And Australia is big.

JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Again, hyperbole. "the equivalent of 10 X-rays in an hour" People routinely get exposed to that during their normal job. An x-ray is a fraction of a year's natural exposure from the sun. Airline pilots experience this radiation in a few months at work. The numbers matter. This instance, the device hardly matters. Not as much as a national news report anyway. We'd be better off reading about pay disparity or access to health care.
- dalmo3 4y ago
  > People routinely get exposed to that during their normal job. What jobs you're referring to? Your examples cite years and months but the quoted sentence states "in an hour."
- roywiggins 4y ago
  It's all sort-of fine until someone brings it home and sticks it on a shelf and thereby kills their entire family. Walking around with this in your pocket will kill you eventually. This sort of thing has happened before with loose radioactive sources.
- testplzignore 4y ago
  To back up your point: If "X-ray" is a chest x-ray, then per https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/ this would be equivalent to one-tenth of a head CT scan, which are routinely done without consideration to any increased risk of cancer. If the goal is to minimize loss of life, I think there are far better things that time could be spent on than looking for this thing. People are bad at thinking about opportunity cost.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    You're bad at arithmetic, that's 100 boxes on the XKCD chart, so it's one-hundredth of a head CT scan, and the medics might not tell you they considered increased risk, but if they actually didn't consider it they're incompetent, that's a non-trivial effect.

by genmon 4y ago

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

Again, hyperbole. "the equivalent of 10 X-rays in an hour" People routinely get exposed to that during their normal job. An x-ray is a fraction of a year's natural exposure from the sun. Airline pilots experience this radiation in a few months at work. The numbers matter. This instance, the device hardly matters. Not as much as a national news report anyway. We'd be better off reading about pay disparity or access to health care.

dalmo3 4y ago
> People routinely get exposed to that during their normal job. What jobs you're referring to? Your examples cite years and months but the quoted sentence states "in an hour."
roywiggins 4y ago
It's all sort-of fine until someone brings it home and sticks it on a shelf and thereby kills their entire family. Walking around with this in your pocket will kill you eventually. This sort of thing has happened before with loose radioactive sources.
testplzignore 4y ago
To back up your point: If "X-ray" is a chest x-ray, then per https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/ this would be equivalent to one-tenth of a head CT scan, which are routinely done without consideration to any increased risk of cancer. If the goal is to minimize loss of life, I think there are far better things that time could be spent on than looking for this thing. People are bad at thinking about opportunity cost.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  You're bad at arithmetic, that's 100 boxes on the XKCD chart, so it's one-hundredth of a head CT scan, and the medics might not tell you they considered increased risk, but if they actually didn't consider it they're incompetent, that's a non-trivial effect.