Actually, the ionizing radiation damage thing is rather concerning- the project went through the stages of 'cool' to 'oi. NO!' in about 2s in my head (ignoring the limitations of finding magnesium getter valves in this day and age, which occupied about another 10s).
Inadequate X-ray equipment seems to be a source of numerous nasties (those foot X-ray machines in British shoe stores, a cluster of leukaemia cases in Germany traced to an orthopaedic surgeon with a surprisingly miscalibrated machine from the 30s..) and adding more devices to the list of 'insidously dangerous experimental equipment that nobody except the builder knows how to operate in safety' is never such a hot idea...
Additionally, I'd have to point out the obvious poor electrical design of the test setup- building projects that interface directly to the mains and involve sodding big inductors is not for little Johnny... which by no means increases my trust in the radiation safety advice of the book...
Anybody have any information on spectral characteristics of X-ray sources vs. potential for cellular damage vs. sensitivity of film and discharge dosimetry? I always wonder if there's frequencies of radiation that the standard measurement setups don't catch.. I'd love to have an expert's opinion on this. Not that many would be lurking on Slashdot....
Even more randomly, it would be interesting to see by how much the cancer death rates amongst medical personnel working in A&E environments involving emergecy X-ray work in the '50s to '70s exceed those of the general population.
I suspect that they'll be higher in countries with shortages of medical staff at the time.. (dosimetry adherence in inverse proportion to dedication?)
On a totally different note, what is the extreme (monetary) value of integrating ambient radiation, whether sonic, light, or ionising radiation?
I can understand it's useful for environmental studies or astronomy (background radiation measurements in particular regions of sky) but how does it become a commerciallly valuable...
Although the idea itself sounds intriguing when presented in such a throwaway comment- I'm missing the fascination here (what does total sonic/electromagnetic energy dose _tell_ you) and I'd like to know more... provided it has nothing to do with the insurance industry....
And I can't find any references to the book either- suggestions where to look...
Finally, to respond flippantly to your oil-drum cremation for crazed apocalyptic sect members comment- I'm sure the diameter of yer usual 55-gallon is a bit big for cavity resonance....
I'm also sure that's not what you meant.
Actually, there's one reason lots of companies choose these sort of "meaningless" od "disinfected" names- fear.
Fear of:
a) Choosing something that's offensive/funny in another language (just think of that poor Austrian town that gets its name signs nicked regularly). After all, village/town names ending in -ing are terribly common in Bavaria and Austria. And the letters "fuck" have no intrinsic negative connotations as a word fragment (except through its anglo-saxon meaning) in German. (yes, there is a small town in Austria called Fucking. You can stop sniggering now.)
b) fear of choosing something that lends itself easily to an anagram/spoonerism/sound corruption, giving a possible parody.
Then there's all the amusing pseudo-latinate names that sound like medical conditions. (often a case where these new-style naming conventions go terribly wrong)
In fact, even names chosen recently corrupt pleasantly well:
e.g. Nortel/Notreal (hmm, had to stop using that one when we got taken over by them. anybody got a good corruption for Lucent? The LTI 'less than intelligent' one seems to be a good start.)
Especially the vendor names formed from "unix" seem to lend themselves very well to coruption/parody: A new example (I haven't seen this used yet)
(flame me! go on!) linux/slimux
The tradition is well established in the Jargon file with such forms as:
HpSux StunOS Slowlaris Aches
The whole point about choosing inoffensive names is well ingrained in some societies- there is an odd informal British convention of not giving your children names which form initials that either spell anything or form a commonly-used acronym. (The 'monogrammed shirts' rule, I guess. Must only be common amongst people who aspire to their children wearing such things. worrying.)
A Canadian friend has the unfortunate initials NHS, for instance.
Being German, my parents didn't know this, so my initials spell DAN (but then again, my surname is Niggemann, which regulary has an 'r' added to it in the english-speaking world, producing all sorts of unfortunate racial slur connotations)
I wonder if naming gurus check for parody potential before suggesting names?
My favorite idea for a company name (although you couldn't use it in practice) is something that makes use of the parody potential:
I've had an almost uncontrollable desire to found a company called MeindVack Enterprises or similar for a while now (pronounced as spelt, in German, it's a reasonable homophone for mindfuck)
Admittedly it's a terribly sophomoric sort of humor (I mean, imagine the torture for the receptionist) but then again, an immature sense of humour isn't bad for you until you put your foot in it.
Before reading the article (and even halfway down it), I was almost gulled into thinking 'cool' except that the claims were a bit too good to be true. As soon as the article stated mumbling about terahertz speeds (now isn't any electromagnetic wave at frequency somewhere in the far infrared range?) and the origins of the complex designs for this technology being totally unknown(roswell! roswell!)- I remembered seeing these guys (American Computers) put up similarly preposterous claims previously.
What I can't work out is: a) does American Computer want to be taken seriously on this? b) is it some sort of (very silly) con or scam. c) some sort of method of getting extra site hits from gullible people (hey I visited the site...). d) Some sort of gag/humor site/parody. It did kind of make me smile. If it's a gag, they've certainly made it very deadpan. e) do these people really have this product (tinfoil hat time methinks)
All I know about this site is that it's been around for a while and that they've made similar claims before. I just forgot about them.
At least the blurb warned us that the information might be rather unreliable....
Slashdot Mirror
Inadequate X-ray equipment seems to be a source of numerous nasties (those foot X-ray machines in British shoe stores, a cluster of leukaemia cases in Germany traced to an orthopaedic surgeon with a surprisingly miscalibrated machine from the 30s..) and adding more devices to the list of 'insidously dangerous experimental equipment that nobody except the builder knows how to operate in safety' is never such a hot idea...
Additionally, I'd have to point out the obvious poor electrical design of the test setup- building projects that interface directly to the mains and involve sodding big inductors is not for little Johnny... which by no means increases my trust in the radiation safety advice of the book...
Anybody have any information on spectral characteristics of X-ray sources vs. potential for cellular damage vs. sensitivity of film and discharge dosimetry? I always wonder if there's frequencies of radiation that the standard measurement setups don't catch.. I'd love to have an expert's opinion on this. Not that many would be lurking on Slashdot....
Even more randomly, it would be interesting to see by how much the cancer death rates amongst medical personnel working in A&E environments involving emergecy X-ray work in the '50s to '70s exceed those of the general population. I suspect that they'll be higher in countries with shortages of medical staff at the time.. (dosimetry adherence in inverse proportion to dedication?)
On a totally different note, what is the extreme (monetary) value of integrating ambient radiation, whether sonic, light, or ionising radiation? I can understand it's useful for environmental studies or astronomy (background radiation measurements in particular regions of sky) but how does it become a commerciallly valuable...
Although the idea itself sounds intriguing when presented in such a throwaway comment- I'm missing the fascination here (what does total sonic/electromagnetic energy dose _tell_ you) and I'd like to know more... provided it has nothing to do with the insurance industry....
And I can't find any references to the book either- suggestions where to look...
Finally, to respond flippantly to your oil-drum cremation for crazed apocalyptic sect members comment- I'm sure the diameter of yer usual 55-gallon is a bit big for cavity resonance.... I'm also sure that's not what you meant.
Actually, there's one reason lots of companies choose these sort of "meaningless" od "disinfected" names- fear.
Fear of:
a) Choosing something that's offensive/funny in another language (just think of that poor Austrian town that gets its name signs nicked regularly).
After all, village/town names ending in -ing are terribly common in Bavaria and Austria. And the letters "fuck" have no intrinsic negative connotations as a word fragment (except through its anglo-saxon meaning) in German.
(yes, there is a small town in Austria called Fucking. You can stop sniggering now.)
b) fear of choosing something that lends itself easily to an anagram/spoonerism/sound corruption,
giving a possible parody.
Then there's all the amusing pseudo-latinate names that sound like medical conditions. (often a case where these new-style naming conventions go terribly wrong)
In fact, even names chosen recently corrupt pleasantly well:
e.g. Nortel/Notreal
(hmm, had to stop using that one when we got taken over by them. anybody got a good corruption for Lucent? The LTI 'less than intelligent' one seems to be a good start.)
Especially the vendor names formed from
"unix" seem to lend themselves very well to coruption/parody:
A new example (I haven't seen this used yet)
(flame me! go on!) linux/slimux
The tradition is well established in the Jargon file with such forms as:
HpSux
StunOS
Slowlaris
Aches
The whole point about choosing inoffensive names is well ingrained in some societies- there is an odd informal British convention of not giving your children names which form initials that either spell anything or form a commonly-used acronym. (The 'monogrammed shirts' rule, I guess. Must only be common amongst people who aspire to their children wearing such things. worrying.)
A Canadian friend has the unfortunate initials NHS, for instance.
Being German, my parents didn't know this, so my initials spell DAN (but then again, my surname is Niggemann, which regulary has an 'r' added to it in the english-speaking world, producing all sorts of unfortunate racial slur connotations)
I wonder if naming gurus check for parody potential before suggesting names?
My favorite idea for a company name (although you couldn't use it in practice) is something that makes use of the parody potential:
I've had an almost uncontrollable desire to found a company called MeindVack Enterprises or similar for a while now (pronounced as spelt, in German, it's a reasonable homophone for mindfuck)
Admittedly it's a terribly sophomoric sort of humor (I mean, imagine the torture for the receptionist) but then again, an immature sense of humour isn't bad for you until you put your foot in it.
Before reading the article (and even halfway down it), I was almost gulled into thinking 'cool'
except that the claims were a bit too good to be true.
As soon as the article stated mumbling about terahertz speeds (now isn't any electromagnetic wave at frequency somewhere in the
far infrared range?) and the origins of the complex designs for this technology being totally
unknown(roswell! roswell!)- I remembered seeing these guys (American Computers) put up similarly preposterous claims previously.
What I can't work out is:
a) does American Computer want to be taken seriously on this?
b) is it some sort of (very silly) con or scam.
c) some sort of method of getting extra site hits from gullible people (hey I visited the site...).
d) Some sort of gag/humor site/parody. It did kind of make me smile. If it's a gag, they've certainly made it very deadpan.
e) do these people really have this product (tinfoil hat time methinks)
All I know about this site is that it's been around for a while and that they've made similar claims before. I just forgot about them.
At least the blurb warned us that the information might be rather unreliable....