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Links of interest for 3-26-11
- Food and Radiation- what you need to know
- Japan: One week later – The Big Picture
- Yellow Alert!
- XKCD’s radiation dose chart
- 25 Other Energy Disasters From the Last Year
- Dorothy Young, Houdini’s last living assistant, RIP (and happy birthday Houdini!)
- How The Mainstream Media Is Failing Us With Its Nuclear Hysteria
- Beautiful Neil deGrasse Tyson quote
- High school class sets off nuclear explosion
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I finally got an iPhone in my hands
I FINALLY got an iPhone. It’s been a long four years, but I finally got one. I have probably complained far too much online about not being able to get one. With the lack of At&t service it just wasn’t available. I was all set to get an Android based phone, which are also pretty good, until Verizon got iPhones last month. Thankfully our contract was up this month, so I only had to wait a month.
It almost wasn’t going to happen yesterday. During our checkout at the Verizon store their system went down. We did some more shopping in the mall, ate dinner, came back and it was still down. We sadly went home iPhoneless. When we got home, I basically sat on Twitter until I heard when their system came back up. Thankfully it came up around 8:15, so we had 45 minutes to get back to the store before they closed. So last night was spent syncing and getting it all set up.
I’m a little bummed that I’m not going to get any experience playing around with Android, but I know the iPhone is the phone for me. I have an investment in apps, and pretty much live in iTunes. iTunes on OS X works great and isn’t the piece of crap that the windows version is.
I love that I finally have a phone with no carrier branding, or apps on it. Unlike Android phone, I will get the newest iOS updates when they come out. I will always be able to be on the latest OS until my phone is not powerful enough to run it, and then it will be time for a new phone anyway. Since it’s probably the most popular phone, I also have a huge selection of accessories along with the biggest app store. The down side is the app store isn’t as open, but I can always jailbreak, and probably will eventually.
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My Mom’s lack of science knowledge baffles me
So this weekend I was at home and like usual my mom was glued to Fox News. Pretty much the only version on the news my Mom consumes is Fox’s version. She pretty much buys into all the scare tactics they use. She now believes that everybody in Japan will have cancer within a month. We were watching Fox News and they we talking to two supposed nuclear experts. They let the first guy talk all his doom and gloom worst case scenario stuff, then the other guy started talking more reality and common sense, and of course they had to cut him of for a commercial break. It’s that kind of journalism that drives me nuts, and everybody does it.
I have been really interested in the science behind the nuclear disaster in Japan, and have read a ton about it. It’s scary and could be bad, but if handled properly the short term higher levels of radiation are harmless.
In the past I have tried to explain to my Mom the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. Non-ionizing radiation has yet to be found harmful. It doesn’t carry enough energy to affect atoms. That is why there is slim to none chance that cell phones cause cancer. My Mom still believes that we are all going to get brain cancer and she hates the fact that I keep my phone in my pocket. Of course nuclear radiation is ionizing, but people can handle low levels of it just fine without increased cancer risk.
When it was discovered that spinach and milk in Japan had nuclear materials in them her fears escaladed even more. I told her it was great that they discovered that so they can keep an eye on it so it doesn’t get worse, but the amounts they found probably are harmless. I think I read if they drank the contaminated milk for a year it would be the equivalent of a CT scan, and eating the spinach would be 1/5th of a CT scan. I tried to explain to her that there is background radiation all around us and some of her food probably has radioactive elements in them. That was before I knew about bananas, so I was right.
Then she said “Nuclear radiation is much worse. It’s not like the radiation the Sun puts out.”
I then did a mental facepalm. I didn’t feel like breaking the news to her that the Sun is basically a giant nuclear reactor. My Mom is smart, she has her masters degree, but her lack of science knowledge is baffling.
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Links of interest for 3-19-11
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First-person Super Mario
via boingboing.net -
If you watch it backwards
If You Watch it Backwards is my new favorite Tumblr blog. It’s just explanations of what TV shows and movies would be like if you watch them backwards—simple, but genius.
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Nuclear power FTW
Since the horrible disaster in Japan I have been reading and learning a lot about nuclear power plants. I am a big fan of nuclear power. It is much cleaner, safer, and even releases less radiation than coal plants. Sadly there seems to be a fear of nuclear power, probably due to the lack of knowledge about them.
While the Fukushima nuclear power plant is in tough shape, we are in no threat of a nuclear explosion, and minimal nuclear material has been released. There have been three explosions so far, but they were hydrogen explosion, NOT nuclear. Instead of rehashing all the details, here are a few articles that I found great and informative.
For more information about nuclear plants boingboing has a great article.
Phil Plait has a great article about the disaster on his Bad Astronomy blog.
Evelyn Mervine of Skepchick.org has a great three part, so far, interview with her Dad, who is a nuclear engineer. It’s a great listen to get some real facts from someone who actually knows what they are talking about.
It would be nice if people would look at how well this plant, which is 40 years old, is handling this disaster. Sure things aren’t good, but for the most part the built in safety features are working despite the tsunami knocking out their backup generators. In reality this will probably spread more fear about nuclear power. There is already a fraudulent map going around that clams fallout from this disaster will make it to the US. It’s always annoying how fast the fearful alarmist information that isn’t based on facts or reality spreads, while the real facts are often hard to find.
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Happy Pi Day
via geekosystem.comWho knew Pi could sound so good?
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Links of interest for 3-12-11
- Your Keyboard Is Now Daft Punk
- New fissure opens up between Pu‘u ‘O‘o and Napau Crater
- Pseudoscience and Quackery Red Flags and Warning Signs
- Pale blue spice
- Diet Plan With HCG, a Fertility Hormone, Has Fans and Critics
- Bottled water costs up to 1,900 times more than tap water
- Seen from above, the awesome scale of Japan’s destruction
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Movies by state
I really should see the most popular movie from my state. Hell, it’s even named after my city. Why haven’t I seen it yet?
