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The case is technically about special fissionable material (regulation of nuclear weapons)—not radiological hazards—but all your points stand. Absurd lack of co
by perihelions 2y ago
The case is technically about special fissionable material (regulation of nuclear weapons)—not radiological hazards—but all your points stand. Absurd lack of common sense all around.
- deng 2y agoWell, the police also said he bought mercury, which "can be used in switches for a dirty bomb", which is such a stupid thing to say, because a mercury switch is just an old form of a tilt switch. The idea that someone would buy mercury for making his own tilt switch is just so wild, but of course, they just put this BS out there to scare people and justify their completely overblown reaction.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoMercury can also be used to make felt hats, and criminals often wear hats to disguise themselves, so it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to Mercury.
- Cordiali 2y agoThe Mercury is also the name of a Tasmanian newspaper. Tasmanians are stereotyped as having two heads, so Tassie criminals wear 100% more disguise per disguise.
- AsmaraHolding 2y agoSuspect is hatless, repeat, hatless!
- aruggirello 2y agoThis is hat speech and should be prosecuted! Only tinfoil hats are allowed here.
- cjbgkagh 2y agoOh, as switch, I was thinking they were thinking that the mercury would be used in a DIY detonator. I always figured the 'dirty' bomb would need more raw materials rather than less - though the materials wouldn't need to be fissible.
- ohgr 2y agoThat’s stupid as fuck as they still use mercury wetted relays to this day in some places.
- potato3732842 2y agoI get the whole screeching about hazmat aspect to it but a mercury bulb with embedded copper contacts will cycle reliably basically forever at earthly temperatures. They are very good at what they are.
- secondcoming 2y agoAre mercury thermometers no longer a thing? My parents had a few while I was growing up in the 80’s
- hinkley 2y agoI had a recollection that they were banned but it looks like the EPA convinced NIST to stop providing calibration services for mercury thermometers back in 2011.
- hinkley 2y agoThere are two or three mercury switches in my house and they were all installed maybe ten years ago. This case is almost as dumb as the Boston PD got in the couple of years after the Marathon incident. But at least they had ptsd as an excuse.
- nosioptar 2y agoI've had several analog thermostats that use a mercury tilt switch. I assume it'd be easier to just buy an old thermostat than to make your own switch.
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoI mean they are still sold at your local hardware store. The bulb in the tilt switch below is the same as the mercury tilt switches that have been around for 100 years. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Hiland-Anti-Tilt-Switch-Mechanical-THP-ATM/313349483 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Hiland-Anti-Tilt-Switch-Mechanic... OMG that's a switch and switches are used in nuclear weapons! (lol!) Of course this is even a step further removed. He had mercury and some tilt switches use mercury and switches are used in nuclear weapons therefore he was making a bomb!
- nandomrumber 2y agoWait until the work out mixing household bleach and vinegar liberates free chlorine. Chlorine can also be used as a chemical weapon.
- wpollock 2y agoThe guy also had explosive and a triggering device in his car! It's a good thing for him police didn't seize his air-bag as evidence. (Being sarcastic.)
- shirro 2y agoAs a child I bought mercury tilt switches from a tandy store (in Australia) with the intent of making a tilt game controller input for my terrible 8 bit computer (this was decades before acceleromters in game controllers). It was too laggy and had to be debounced and it sat in a box for years. Also had a collection of mineral ores in a drawer near my bed which probably included some dodgy stuff. This case was bullshit and appears to be more about agency politics than public safety.
- dullcrisp 2y agoSo if everyone in Australia ordered one of these, what would they need to do to make it into a bomb?
- deng 2y agoThe Pu is from an old soviet smoke detector, containing roughly 40μg of Pu, which creates a few μCi of radiation needed for smoke detection. For fission, you need at least several kg of pure Pu239. For a "dirty bomb", any amount will do, of course.
- 3eb7988a1663 2y agoThe trick is to rob the smoke detector plant for their plutonium stash.
- nandomrumber 2y ago> For a "dirty bomb", any amount will do, of course. By that logic, one smoke detector is enough? I probably wouldn't want to eat a smoke detector, but if one was added to a bomb I probably wouldn't be very concerned about the impact of the smoke detector.
- gus_massa 2y agoUsing that definition of dirty bomb, a firecracker inside a banana is enough. Perhaps it should include a minimal threshold, like it's enougt to kill 1 person in the linear no threshold model.
- madaxe_again 2y agoI mean, hell, a pack of cigarettes contains polonium and lead -210. And Australians smoke quite a bit, last I checked.
- decimalenough 2y agoNot at the current price levels of $50 a pack they don't. (Which is inevitably leading to hugely profitable smuggling and increasingly violent turf wars, but I digress.)
- ChoGGi 2y agoJeez, and here I was thinking the 25 CAD a pack was bad.