Slashdot Mirror
NYC Wants to Ban Geiger Counters
Ellis D. Tripp noted a village voice article about attempts in NYC to pass a law requiring permits for air monitoring devices including apparently geiger counters. I'm sure everyone will feel much safer not knowing anything.
The title is very misleading, its actual a response to a possible panic caused by people using bad detectors. Imagine if hundreds of people buy shitty detectors that can be tripped by high NOX counts(A car emission). Suddenly on a hot afternoon during rush hour, 100+ counters register a large nuclear presence. Thats a big worry.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
This is ancient early 90s news but Brooklyn has been the site of nuclear waste storage and it concerns many citizens. There is a warehouse there called Radiac Research Corporation that has about enough nuclear material for one atom bomb, although I'm sure it's not refined to that. Citizen watch groups have formed that will walk around the streets with Geiger counters. You will find some shock reporting that has somethings factual and a lot of things anecdotal evidence. If you do watch those videos, ironically pay attention to the state employed inspector on the boat. Hard numbers and comparisons with other major cities are a must to make any effect in this kind of reporting. Still, I would be upset if stuff like this dried up. I think it's important so that the community at least feels like it has an independent non-interested voice--I would risk false alarms for that any day.
I've also heard from other sources that New York City offers permits for polluting which isn't so wrong except that some of these are ridiculous. A lot of the rivers and streams to this day still are being polluted but since the companies are 'grandfathered' into pollution control, they can keep doing it. Do you ever think they're going to clean that up? I hardly think so.
So they want to avoid false alarms that could cause a mass panic. But like a lot of things there is a trade off and the trade off is the ability to independently verify that the air quality or radiation levels are indeed safe. If I were a citizen living there, losing the latter in and of itself would cause me panic. Poor means you're at risk of being ignored & treated like you don't matter and I don't think New York City (especially historically) is any different from the rest of the world.
My work here is dung.
pitchblende is a murky dark colored rock that is a very high quality ore for many radioactive materials. dark. grey to black with some samples pitched to the purple or brown.
yellow radioactive rock is your usual uranium oxide, hydrated "yellowcake," a low concentration. but that's the production ore in north america and most of the world. in the 60s, you could buy a sample in a little plastic box at visitor centers like at the Oak Ridge Laboratories.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Guns? Legal? NYC?
Air rifles/Pistols (aka BB or Pellet guns) - totally illegal
Rifles/Shotguns? If they are not an Assault Weapon (anything over 5 rounds) - Go get fingerprinted, and then pay $300 every 3 years - and have to subit paperwork for each one you own or transfer
Pistols? Unless you are connected, forget about a carry permit. For a home/business permit? Apply (but make NO mistakes in your paperwork - our you will be denied) wait 9 months (although the law says they can't take more than 6) go for your interview, and still probably get denied. If you do get a permit, it's more expensive than the rifle/shotgun permit...
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
On a beautiful 1986 summer day in Poland the secret police confiscated all Geiger detectors from all the schools and universities. A week later the world learned about the Techernobyl catastrophe. (This is a true story, my uncle was a chemist at one of the universities)