Switch off at the socket?
 

In article ,
Jim Lesurf wrote:

Of course, in practice, many dangerous radioactive substances have
sufficiently long half-lives that they will continue to be a danger for
far longer than we can foresee the future.

So a very long half life can be a sign of *less* 'danger'. The situation
isn't as simple as the above assertion.

I didn't say all substances with long half lives are dangerous.
I said there are many dangerous substances with long half lives.

Thus there is an inherent problem with those who worry about radiation
describing *both* long half lives *and* high levels of activity as
'dangerous' without understanding the distinctions.

I'm sure there is, but I'm not one of them.

-- Richard
--
Please remember to mention me / in tapes you leave behind.

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In article ,
J G Miller wrote:

If by "can't" you mean "are advised not to by various standards",
then yes.

If you are using SI units, then you are *forbidden* from doing so.

Ooh, how scary.

All it means is that if you use them, you're not following that
part of the standard. If you want to be pedantic, you can say that
if you use compound prefixes then you aren't using SI units as
defined by the standard.

-- Richard
--
Please remember to mention me / in tapes you leave behind.

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:48:49 -0700 (PDT), stan wrote:

So; a question. Rather than fiddling around with CFLs etc.
.............. How many trees or other oxygen producing and carbon
containing plants/trees/bushes have 'you' planted.

About 800... Not that they have all survived, they had been out of
the ground to long when planted as not much more than large twigs.
Not to mention where they had been grown was considerably less
exposed and warmer. Probably about 500 left. Mostly Ash, Silver
Birch, Rowan, Larch and Sycamoor with a few Yew, Black Thorn and Dog
Rose. A few Elder have been added and we want to find some Juniper.

Still use CFLs though.

--
Cheers
Dave.

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:29:21 +0000, Bambleweeny57 wrote:

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:40:29 +0000, Richard Tobin wrote:

so sooner or later every atom will have decayed.

Unless you have a cat.

I think he meant to say that every atom of the unstable isotope variety
will have decayed.

As to the cat, must it be kept in a black box?

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"Java Jive" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:01:11 -0700 (PDT), "Man at B&Q"
wrote:

How many fatalities?

How many died in a single incident on Piper Alpha?

See my reply to TNP.

Do we stop all oil and gas drilling because it's too dangerous, let
alone the polution and supposed climate damage resulting from burning
it.

Probably not. We probably need to look at carbon sequestration,
though that also has its own problems.

I see China has half-promised to use 15% non-fossil fuel energy generation
by 2020. Wow! Fantastic! They are going to lead the world into a carbon-less
future! Except that the 15% means they will be using 250% as much as they
use now instead of 275%. Big deal! Meanwhile we will wreck our economies
while the Third World and the Far East laugh at us.
We know this country will be ruined by a Northern Ireland style civil war
between the indiginous population and the Moslems in about forty years, but
it won't matter because by then there'll be nothing left worth fighting
over. The Chinese Empire will dominate the world.

Bill

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:51:39 +0000, J G Miller wrote:

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:29:21 +0000, Bambleweeny57 wrote:

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:40:29 +0000, Richard Tobin wrote:

so sooner or later every atom will have decayed.

Unless you have a cat.

I think he meant to say that every atom of the unstable isotope variety
will have decayed.
IIRC decay is a probability thing, so the answer is... probably.


As to the cat, must it be kept in a black box?
I wasn't aware that the colour of the box was significant, nor the colour
of the cat. However the colour of the bear might be.

BW

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:34:11 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

The greenwash sites would have you believibng that e.g.
thousands if not tens of thousands would die across Europe from
Chernobyl: Whereas the actual to date deaths are IIRC 76, mostly those
actually empoloyed at, or firefighters inside, the reactor, and the
expected rubdown into statistical insignificance from increased cancer
is about another 20..from memory.

But that ignores how many people have or will have died prematurely from
the effects of the radiation on their body which are not obvious in their
cause of death. The same could also no doubt be said for exposure to
low level radiation exposure during high altitude flights.

http://www.sciencedaily.COM/videos/2005/0907-flying_and_radiation_risk.htm

I would hazard a guess that some people are probably more genetically
inclined to suffer long term effects from exposure to radiation than others.

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:48:49 -0700, Stan in the Maritimes wrote:

How many trees or other oxygen producing and carbon containing
plants/trees/bushes have 'you' planted.

President Hu Jintao said yesterday that he is going to have more trees planted,
so that should help.

http://www.thestar.COM/news/world/article/699525

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"Bambleweeny57" wrote in message
om...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:40:29 +0000, Richard Tobin wrote:

so sooner or later every atom will have
decayed.

Unless you have a cat.

BW
We used to have a cat. One day I put it in a box with some poison. This
worked, and when I opened the box the cat was dead. There was no two ways
about it.

Bill

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"J G Miller" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:48:49 -0700, Stan in the Maritimes wrote:

How many trees or other oxygen producing and carbon containing
plants/trees/bushes have 'you' planted.

President Hu Jintao said yesterday that he is going to have more trees
planted,
so that should help.

http://www.thestar.COM/news/world/article/699525

Thank goodness for that! Everything will be all right after all!

Next time anyone complains about my habit of throwing apple cores out of the
van window into the ditch I will be able to claim green immunity from the
litter laws.

Bill

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In article ,
says...

"Bambleweeny57" wrote in message
om...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:40:29 +0000, Richard Tobin wrote:

so sooner or later every atom will have
decayed.

Unless you have a cat.

BW
We used to have a cat. One day I put it in a box with some poison. This
worked, and when I opened the box the cat was dead. There was no two ways
about it.


Yes, but you missed out the random event.

--
Halmyre

The more you know the less the better.

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"R. Mark Clayton" wrote in message
...

"DVDfever" wrote in message
...

It's amazing that some people go, "Ooh, I'm so green that I unplug all
of my TVs, PC, Sky- whatever" but if you ask them to unplug their
fridge and freezer and nooooooooooooooooooo, they won't. Green, my
arse!

My ex boss bought some frozen sea food from a shop in Portugal that turned
their freezers off overnight. His family were very ill, prompting him to
discover why...



I suspect the sea food was not full dead or frozen if it managed to
crawl out of the freezer, switch it off, and then presumable crawl back into
the freezer.

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"tim....." wrote in message
...

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , Andrew
scribeth thus
On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:43:54 -0700 (PDT), "alexander.keys1"
wrote:

There have been a lot of comments recently about the waste of energy
due to appliances being left on standby, and various gizmo's that are
on offer to turn them off automatically, or otherwise purporting to
save energy. What everybody seems to be forgetting is that an energy-
saving device comes with most UK socket outlets, it's called a
'switch', and when put into the 'off' position, power cosumption is
zero! None of my appliances, including computers, digital TV
receivers, etc. have come to harm through this practice, I always
switch off at the wall, back in the day when there were fewer
appliances this was standard procedure to avoid fire risk.

They can't switch the power stations off overnight, so they may as
well power the 1W my TV takes to be in standby.

I seem to remember that some hydro electric plant is powered down and
some gas fired .. but coal is rather long winded to slow down and
restart..

They use the spare overnight power to pump the water back up in a stored
hydro power station so that it's full in the morning when everyone turns
their kettles on, so it isn't wasted.

Wow all that effort to fill a kettle with water, I never realised
so much water was used in kettles in the morning that they had
to pump it up hill into resevoirs to meat the mornning demand.
Amazing you learn something everyday.


tim

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"Java Jive" wrote in message
...

Of course, in practice, many dangerous radioactive substances have
sufficiently long half-lives that they will continue to be a danger for
far longer than we can foresee the future.

Which of course is the real point ...

Hardly..

If it has a long half life then it isn't very radio active.
The two are linked, either they decay rapidly and emit lots of radiation or
the decay slowly and emit very little radiation. Uranium for instance can be
safely kept in a cardboard box under the bed.

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"Richard Tobin" wrote in message
...


I didn't say all substances with long half lives are dangerous.
I said there are many dangerous substances with long half lives.

In what way?
Water has a very long half life but it is dangerous as in you can drown in
it.
Is this the type of danger you are talking about or do you misunderstand
radioactive decay?

One of the most dangerous substances are the dioxins produced by burning
wood in the presence of plastics but I don't see you campaigning to get rid
of wood or plastic.

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Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:48:49 -0700 (PDT), stan wrote:

So; a question. Rather than fiddling around with CFLs etc.
.............. How many trees or other oxygen producing and carbon
containing plants/trees/bushes have 'you' planted.

About 800... Not that they have all survived, they had been out of
the ground to long when planted as not much more than large twigs.
Not to mention where they had been grown was considerably less
exposed and warmer. Probably about 500 left. Mostly Ash, Silver
Birch, Rowan, Larch and Sycamoor with a few Yew, Black Thorn and Dog
Rose. A few Elder have been added and we want to find some Juniper.

Still use CFLs though.

I must have put in about 250 of something or other. Not many will grow
to be trees though. Hedging mainly.

very sad that locally 50 rotting poplars have gone..oh well. one is a
years firewood.

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Java Jive wrote:

I don't have costs or deaths for the UK alone, but there is a world
list of incidents with some immediate mortality figures he

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lear_accidents


Perhaps I miscounted, but apart from the Lenin and Chernobyl incidents -
both in the former Soviet Union, not a regime noted for great care of
its people - the world death toll appears to be a totally unsupportable
figure, one we couldn't possibly risk again, far worse than any... what?
Oh. Four actually. And even those two incidents don't seem to take
it over the number killed in the Aberfan disaster.

Andy

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:55:45 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:

I see China has half-promised to use 15% non-fossil fuel energy generation
by 2020. Wow! Fantastic! They are going to lead the world into a carbon-less
future! Except that the 15% means they will be using 250% as much as they
use now instead of 275%. Big deal! Meanwhile we will wreck our economies
while the Third World and the Far East laugh at us.

If the Chinese did increase their energy use by 275% they would still
be using less than us.

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In message , Derek Geldard
writes
That makes as much sense as a combined refrigerator / lawn mower.


You may jest, but this CD player with built-in fridge, for sale in a
local shop, caught my eye:

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h222/bofphoto/77a0db2a.jpg

Only plays cool music, no doubt.

--
bof at bof dot me dot uk

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:43:33 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

Uranium for instance can be safely kept in a cardboard box under the bed.

And breathing in the radon gas is not a hazard?

You also forget that aside from the radioactive hazards of uranium,
it is a toxic metal.

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:05:35 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

and when I opened the box the cat was dead.

But you only knew the cat was dead by opening the box.

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"J G Miller" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:43:33 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

Uranium for instance can be safely kept in a cardboard box under the bed.

And breathing in the radon gas is not a hazard?

Depends on how well the room is ventilated.

The box could catch fire and poison you with CO.


You also forget that aside from the radioactive hazards of uranium,
it is a toxic metal.


That's why it needs a cardboard box.

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:57:33 +0000, Bambleweeny57 wrote:

nor the colour of the cat.

This is precisely what Comrade Deng Xiaoping said in 1961, at the Guangzhou
conference,

"I don't care if it's a white cat or a black cat.
It's a good cat so long as it catches mice."

and the reason why the People's Republic of China is no longer a
communist state. And yes, it is still an dictatorship.

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In message , Java Jive
writes
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:03:15 +0100, Derek Geldard
wrote:

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:52:07 +0100, Java Jive
wrote:

But how much energy did it take to build it? How much to mine the
ore, refine it (these in another country, so it doesn't appear in our
carbon account), ship it to the UK, maybe process it some more, 'burn'
it, make the waste safe for transport, transport it, process it, and
store it INDEFINITELY into the future,

Not true, in fact. All radioactive isotopes decay according to their
half lives. When they're gone, they're gone.

You clearly have no understanding of the definition and meaning of
half-life. The half-life is the amount of time that it takes for half
a given amount of radio-active substance to decay. What about the
other half? That takes half again, etc. So you end up with ...

1 1/2 1/4 1/8 etc

... of the original amount. A substance with half-life decay is thus
never truly 'gone'

If you start with a finite number of radioactive atoms you'll halve the
number every half-life period, at some point there'll be one atom left
and when that decays it's all gone.

--
bof at bof dot me dot uk

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In article ,
dennis@home wrote:

Water has a very long half life but it is dangerous as in you can drown in
it.
Is this the type of danger you are talking about or do you misunderstand
radioactive decay?

No. You seem determined to pretend that I have some absurd view.

One of the most dangerous substances are the dioxins produced by burning
wood in the presence of plastics but I don't see you campaigning to get rid
of wood or plastic.

Quite so. What exactly do you think you *have* seen me campaigning to
get rid of?

-- Richard
--
Please remember to mention me / in tapes you leave behind.

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In article ,
Bill Wright wrote:

Next time anyone complains about my habit of throwing apple cores out of the
van window into the ditch I will be able to claim green immunity from the
litter laws.

Has anyone actually complained about that?

-- Richard
--
Please remember to mention me / in tapes you leave behind.

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:55:38 +0100, bof
wrote the following to uk.misc:

In message , Derek Geldard
writes
That makes as much sense as a combined refrigerator / lawn mower.


You may jest, but this CD player with built-in fridge, for sale in a
local shop, caught my eye:

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h222/bofphoto/77a0db2a.jpg

Only plays cool music, no doubt.

Canford Audio does 19" rack mount wine racks and fridges. What every server
room needs.

http://www.canford.co.uk/Browse/20705.aspx
http://www.canford.co.uk/Browse/20704.aspx

mh.
--
http://www.nukesoft.co.uk
http://personal.nukesoft.co.uk

From address is a blackhole. Reply-to address is valid.

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In message , Marcus Houlden
writes
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:55:38 +0100, bof
wrote the following to uk.misc:

In message , Derek Geldard
writes
That makes as much sense as a combined refrigerator / lawn mower.


You may jest, but this CD player with built-in fridge, for sale in a
local shop, caught my eye:

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h222/bofphoto/77a0db2a.jpg

Only plays cool music, no doubt.

Canford Audio does 19" rack mount wine racks and fridges.

And have been for at least 25 yrs, I remember them from when I was in
the business.

--
bof at bof dot me dot uk

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"Halmyre" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

"Bambleweeny57" wrote in message
om...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:40:29 +0000, Richard Tobin wrote:

so sooner or later every atom will have
decayed.

Unless you have a cat.

BW
We used to have a cat. One day I put it in a box with some poison. This
worked, and when I opened the box the cat was dead. There was no two ways
about it.


Yes, but you missed out the random event.

Well yes. I wanted to kill the cat. Didn't want a slip up.

Bill

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:12:21 +0000, Richard Tobin asked:

Has anyone actually complained about that?

Tis a wonder that no one has actually complained about the driver of
the van eating an apple whilst driving the van on a public highway.

http://www.oxfordmail.co.UK/news/4207419.Bus_driver_caught_eating_apple_at_wheel_at _site_of_fatal_accident/

http://www.dailymail.co.UK/news/article-335291/Pipped-Woman-driver-fined-eating-apple.html

And from the Daily Record of 1999

QUOTE

DRIVER FINED pounds 250 FOR EATING APPLE;
Police caught him tucking in at 70mph.

June 30, 1999

A DRIVER was fined pounds 250 yesterday for eating an apple behind the
wheel of his car.

David Rennie also had five penalty points put on his licence after
admitting careless driving.

But he claimed police who spotted him eating the fruit at more than
70mph told him he would hear no more about it.

UNQUOTE

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Andy Champ wrote:
Java Jive wrote:

I don't have costs or deaths for the UK alone, but there is a world
list of incidents with some immediate mortality figures he

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lear_accidents


Perhaps I miscounted, but apart from the Lenin and Chernobyl incidents -
both in the former Soviet Union, not a regime noted for great care of
its people - the world death toll appears to be a totally unsupportable
figure, one we couldn't possibly risk again, far worse than any... what?
Oh. Four actually. And even those two incidents don't seem to take it
over the number killed in the Aberfan disaster.

Andy

Or even the number killed in presumably building windmills..

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Java Jive wrote:
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:41:08 +0100, Andy Champ
wrote:
Perhaps I miscounted, but apart from the Lenin and Chernobyl incidents -
both in the former Soviet Union, not a regime noted for great care of
its people

Almost as bad as HM Government ...

http://www.bntva.com/health/MCS/one.htm#start

(There was also a sizeable group of British armed forces personnel who
were deliberately and without their knowledge, IIRC they were told it
was 'flu research, exposed to radiation, but despite hearing about
this at least twice in the last decade or so, I've not been able to
find a link, nor one to similar US trials, about which I have a
tenuous recollection that they were performed on disadvantaged
civilian blacks)

the world death toll appears to be a totally unsupportable
figure, one we couldn't possibly risk again, far worse than any... what?
Oh. Four actually. And even those two incidents don't seem to take
it over the number killed in the Aberfan disaster.

Only one problem with that comparison ... Noone's disputing the
deaths from coal and oil ... Two actually, not all coal and oil is
used to generate electricity.


Gosh. Really?
Who would have thought it.

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J G Miller wrote:
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:43:33 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

Uranium for instance can be safely kept in a cardboard box under the bed.

And breathing in the radon gas is not a hazard?


What radon gas?

You also forget that aside from the radioactive hazards of uranium,
it is a toxic metal.


Indeed. its as nasty as lead or mercury really.

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"Richard Tobin" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Bill Wright wrote:

Next time anyone complains about my habit of throwing apple cores out of
the
van window into the ditch I will be able to claim green immunity from the
litter laws.

Has anyone actually complained about that?

Yes, I was parked near the water tower that supports the York TV Tx, on the
outskirts of that city. The pear core went right into the ditch. A minute
or so later a woman of about fifty came puffing up, with two pet rats on
strings.
"Do you mind not littering this lane?" The dogs yapped in indignant
agreement.
"S'orl right love, it was a pear core. There's be a nice tree there in a few
years!"
"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT IT IS!"
"Oh come on now, a pear core! It'll rot down and do good, not harm."
"That's not the point! It's the principle. People shouldn't throw litter."
"I couldn't agree with you more. But litter is stuff that makes a mess.
Look, here's my litter bin." I held it up. "This is litter." I tilted the
bin towards her so she could see the cans and wrappers. "Believe me, I don't
throw litter. I was brought up not to."
She frowned and thought and finally said, "Yes, well, I still don't think
it's right."
I told her about the MacD's not far from us, and the problems we have as a
result. "Now that," I said, "is litter!" Eventually she went on her way.

Bill

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:56:02 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

I wanted to kill the cat.

What despicable and ignominious act had the cat committed that
resulted in you wishing it to be dead?

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On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:18:10 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

"Oh come on now, a pear core! It'll rot down and do good, not harm."

Unless it provides food and sustenance for the local rat population.

QUOTE
1 Aug 2002 ... A study shows there are now 60 million rats in England
-- putting them on a 1:1 ratio with people.
UNQUOTE

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J G Miller wrote:
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:18:10 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

"Oh come on now, a pear core! It'll rot down and do good, not harm."

Unless it provides food and sustenance for the local rat population.

QUOTE
1 Aug 2002 ... A study shows there are now 60 million rats in England
-- putting them on a 1:1 ratio with people.
UNQUOTE

And in parliament, they are indistinguishable right now, at least on the
labour benches.

There's a big fat rat with jug ears in the same bag as a one eyed rat
with cauliflower eras, a very nasty rat with sharp teeth and dubious
sexual orientation..all drowning n the same bag.

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"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...

"Java Jive" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:01:11 -0700 (PDT), "Man at B&Q"
wrote:
snip
We know this country will be ruined by a Northern Ireland style civil war
between the indiginous population and the Moslems in about forty years,
but it won't matter because by then there'll be nothing left worth
fighting over. The Chinese Empire will dominate the world.
Bill

Good job i have my passport, but at the current rate of price increase
in 40 years you'll probably have to take out a mortgage or sell a kidney to
buy one

A kind of economic Berlin wall

Steve Terry

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"J G Miller" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:56:02 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

I wanted to kill the cat.

What despicable and ignominious act had the cat committed that
resulted in you wishing it to be dead?

It behaved like a cat.

Bill

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"J G Miller" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:18:10 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

"Oh come on now, a pear core! It'll rot down and do good, not harm."

Unless it provides food and sustenance for the local rat population.

More likely to be eaten by some other wild creature of a species that we
don't hate, like feral cats or foxes or mice or squirrels or badgers or
stoats or shrews or weasels or hedgehogs or bats or birds or beetles or
earwigs or octopusses or eagles or tramps. All of these roam freely in the
ditches of York you know. And then there's the possibility that it might
save the life of some heavily intoxicated student of St John's as he makes
his merry way back to the residence hall, only to trip and fall into the
ditch, much in need of blood sugar because he didn't bother with his tea.

Did you see the dustbin lorry tipped over on the A19 tonight? ****e
everywhere!

Bill