In previous posts, I’ve mentioned the Hash House Harriers and Hash Names which are are almost universally generated by terrible embarrassing events. It is time to discuss how I got mine as it is damn hard to embarrass me as I have a cultivated lack of shame that lets me have ADVENTURE! In case you …
Category Archives: Adventure & Radiation
Ultraviolet Rant – Scorched Ape Eye Club
Having now had a chance to take a look at the likely culprit, assuming a repetition of the previous incident, all I can say is You Completely Irresponsible Fucks. I am having flashbacks to yelling at Naomi Wu for irresponsible deployment of germicidal UV designs in 2020. I am gonna try to very briefly summarize …
CYORA: Spicy Rock Shipping
Because people were missing the CYORAs and something popped into my head, you got the first one in quite a while. Moving radioactive rocks around is important because it lets us revisit one of my favorite topics: Regulations vs. Reality vs. What Actually Happens [The twenty-second in an ongoing series of my compiled explainers for …
How I Learned What “Deliquescence” Is
Well folks, someone asked. As you may be aware, as a safety professional, I sometimes get asked to help clean out dead people’s office, labs, homes and storage units. This is because the deceased might have has a reputation or survivors/estate people Find Things They Did Not Expect/Want To. In this particular case, the call …
CHOOSE YOUR OWN RADIATION ADVENTURE: Anti-Terror Money
There’s a hard philosophical conflict in emergency preparedness that goes like this: do you want to build capabilities to respond to an incident or do you want to prevent it from happening in the first place? You need both, but they tend to compete for the same pot of money. [The twenty-first in an ongoing …
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Phil’s Failed TI Interview
Oooookay, so once upon a time I *REALLY* didn’t want to work at $MAJOR_LASER_CO anymore and was trying not to with a new gig. (SPOILER: I eventually escaped by going to Antarctica.) Toward this escape, I applied to work as a safety engineer at Texas Instruments in Santa Cruz, CA. This was exciting to me …
The Upcoming Spain Itinerary
The Coffee Engines are now idle. Everything that could be made before I jump on a plane at stupid in the morning on Sunday has been. All that remains is ship the last couple orders tomorrow morning, make up the Transatlantic Reset BBotE sampler vials for Fr. Gabriel and I, and then get to the …
My Last Day At Pole
IMPORTANT SKIN OWNERSHIP PROTIP: Flesh that has been frostbitten is thereafter more vulnerable to being frostbitten again. It seems that it is also more vulnerable to sunburn than ever before. SPF 45 did not help the patch on my left calf, which I know for certain was well slathered. How did my calf get frostbitten …
A Thank You From The Babushkas
A year ago today, Putin decided that Russia should escalate and continue its invasion of Ukraine that began in 2014. This was a bad idea and has made many people unhappy. On February 24th, 2022 he decided to have another go at Ukraine with assumption he could conquer it all in 72 hours. This was …
CHOOSE YOUR OWN RADIATION ADVENTURE: Rad Presents
I think he best way to start this is by shaking my ANGRYFIST at Amazon & eBay for being the gray/black markets of choice for all manner of things that should not be there. Bullshit Lasers only scratch the surface of their almost complete lack of policy enforcement. [The twentieth in an ongoing series of …
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Planned Service Interruption June 2023
While final details have not been hammered out yet, I will be away on travel from the end of May through late June and thus there will be no BBotE or Stein of Science production during that time. I will leave ordering on to let people get in line pending my return and add a …
CHOOSE YOUR OWN RADIATION ADVENTURE: Anti-Drone Radiation
I’m very proud of all of you for identifying that these are all TERRIBLE IDEAS. The thing about terrible ideas is that they still occur to people and sometimes staggering amounts of money will be spent to try to make them real and marginally less terrible. Explainer time! [The nineteenth in an ongoing series of …
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Fun With PUREX
Originally wrote this 16 years ago as I was getting my masters degree. As my adviser often asked “Don’t you want to learn normal things?” While PUREX may save us from being buried in nuclear waste it is not without peril, though it’s more of the did-you-actually-think-this-through-before-you-started-pressing-buttons variety of peril. It is vitally important to …
A Sweetwater Tale
These events originally happened on November 12th, 2008 in Sweetwater, TX when I went to visit Ludlum Measurements. I add them here for posterity. SCENE: Our Hero, Phil, is seated at the bar of the closest consumption establishment within walking distance. He is dressed in shorts, sandals, t-shirt and wearing his long red hair in …
Looking Out For The Babushkas
UPDATE: As of April 2nd, you all have through your purchases and gifts given us enough to send $4400 to our fixer in Kyiv so far. I didn’t expect this much generosity and our fixer certainly didn’t either. You’ve made an old Stalker cry with your kindness. As you might be aware, Russia invaded Ukraine. …