The Boy and his Breeder Reactor

scubacuda writes "Here is an interesting tale about a Boy Scout who went a little too far in trying to achieve a merit badge in Atomic Energy. From smoke alarms, lantern components, the paint from radio clocks, and a little help from the Nuclear Regulator Commission, David Hahn attempted to build a nuclear reactor in his mother's shed. Regarding his excessive radioactive exposure, Hahn says, "I don't believe I took more than five years off my life."" While this is an oldish story (1998) it is not the pathetic self congratulatory lame princeton story.

Comments

Re:heh, heh

[CanadaDave]

Other beauties:

"He once appeared at a scout meeting with a bright orange face caused by an overdose of canthaxanthin, which he was taking to test methods of artificial tanning."

"Kathy then forbade David from experimenting in her home." That means no more boy scout sleepovers okay David?

"Sure, they thought it was odd that David often wore a gas mask in the shed and would sometimes discard his clothing after working there until two in the morning, but they chalked it up to their own limited education."

"I never saw him turn green or glow in the dark,"

"He majored in metallurgy but skipped many of his classes and spent much of the day in bed or driving in circles around their block.". ???

Re:heh, heh

[gmack]

The rules only state that you have to prevent yourself from breeding. With his exposure to that much radiation he may very well be a contestant.

Ah, the frustration of searching /.

[Raetsel]

Good grief!

I can't believe how difficult it can be to find an older article around this place!

• Slashdot -- June 2, 2001. Title: "Duct Tape"

• I remember posting another comment about David Hahn at a much later date, (and asking Pathwalker if he had any recent info) but I can't seem to find it! (Dammit.)

Slashdot's robots.txt file is comprehensively restrictive, so if I feed Google "David Hahn site:slashdot.org", I get nothing.

• Dear Cmdr Taco;

  Would you please release (every few months or perhaps annually) a complete archive of Slashdot on CD or DVD? I imagine a simple .tar of the database would be sufficient, as most of your users would be quite capable of handling (and searching) that format. Personally, I think raw articles (no slashboxes, sidebars, etc...) in HTML format would be very useful.

  Since CD/DVD production is relatively inexpensive, this could potentially be a non-trivial source of revenue for /.

  Alternatively, perhaps Google could be convinced to donate one of their search appliances? Since many of us are quite proficient and familiar with Google's operation, it would make searching our collective memory that much easier.

  Further, if a donation from Google is not possible, there are likely many of us who would be willing to donate to a search appliance fund.

  Please, PLEASE consider these (and any other!) options to improve Slashdot searching.

  Sincerely,
  Raetsel.