My first camera was a Voigtländer Vito 2, don’t know the exact age but it’s from the 1950s. My grandmother gave it to me when I expressed interest in film photography, she said she hadn’t touched it in decades so I might as well have it. As soon as I put a roll through it and got the photos back, I was hooked. Even though most of the pictures were underexposed, I knew I wanted to keep shooting film.

After talking to my uncle about this, he rooted around in his closet and gave me my second camera: a Pentax K1000. Super chunky and heavy compared to the Voigtländer, so I felt more confident taking it with me places without breaking it.

I just picked up a third, a Nikon FE along with some telephoto lenses. I haven’t put a roll through it yet, but I’m excited to try.

Are you saying that if I picked up a copy of that differential equations book I might actually learn wtf is going on? Because I only passed that class with the help of wolfram alpha and never looked back

This one got me good because Saddam Hussein was the last thing I noticed

You’ve enlightened me. I love dragonflies too now.

I think this is my issue as well. You always hear about how women hate being approached, and I really don’t want to come across as a creep who hits on women in public.

So there’s four types of radiation: alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron. When you’re talking about radioactive materials, it’s almost exclusively the first three. In addition to the inherent danger of the object itself, there’s also the danger of radioactive contamination: not making other things radioactive, but shedding bits of themselves as dust and then that dust getting on other things, or getting ingested/inhaled by humans.

Active fission reactions, like what goes on in the core of a nuclear reactor (or perhaps messing around with some plutonium and a screwdriver), produce neutron radiation. Neutrons can make other things radioactive, via a process called “neutron activation”, whereby the neutrons bind to the material and change some of the atoms into radioactive isotopes.

I hope that helps, and feel free to ask me anything else about radiation. I have some education about it thanks to my job, and I’m always happy to help other people understand it more as well.

More or less. The difference is that, if they really wanted to, they could very thoroughly clean the notebook and take most of the contamination off. I’m guessing they won’t because a) It’s a historical artifact and they don’t want to risk damaging it, b) the contamination is so low-level that it’s not dangerous as long as you don’t lick it or something, and/or c) there’s a bit of a shock factor in watching a scientist’s notebook make a Geiger counter freak out.

THE AUDIENCE IS NOW DEAF

M o i s t u r i z e m e

In 2021, I was riding an Amtrak train when it derailed at 80 mph. Several of the cars, including the one I was in, fell onto their sides and slid a significant distance along the ground. Three people were killed.

After spending the night in a hotel, they arranged for me and several other passengers to get on another train to get us home. I didn’t think much of it, I just wanted to get home, but the moment the train got up to speed I realized I had made a mistake. I spent the entire journey in a state of extreme stress, on the verge of crying. This train (the Empire Builder) is timed so that you get to sit in the diner car and eat dinner while passing through the most scenic part of the trip, the Rocky Mountains of western Montana and northern Idaho. But I didn’t enjoy any of it. I remember staring at my dinner, desperately trying to hold myself together, wincing every time there was a bang or jolt (and for those who’ve never been on an Amtrak train - there are a lot of those).

I had never experienced an anxiety attack before, and based on this experience I never want to have one again. The train got to my home station at about six in the morning, and I didn’t sleep at all.

ow

It’s probably for the smell. The plant is rafflesia arnoldii, which smells of rotting meat to attract flies as pollinators.

Because it was sponsored by grain industries. Similar to the “breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” and “milk is good for your bones!” myths.

I actually kinda want an Edsel, if only because they’re quirky and weird.

September 28, 1956 was a Friday