Saturday, March 26, 2011

Radiation Dose [chat]

XKCD made a chart comparing various quantities of radiation doses. At first glance it seems meaningful and educational, insofar as I'd prefer a blue box of radiation to a red box, but then we realize that we still do not know what we're talking about despite the fact that we seem to have quantified it.

15 comments:

Andrew said...

Should someone post or say something about Libya?

_J_ said...

Newsflash: It sucks to be in the Middle East.

Roscoe said...

Mike Nelson is a sonuvabitch.

Apparently, HIS is the tweet that brought Friday into everyone's awareness.

I always knew Red Jumpsuits were where it was at.

Andrew said...

Why do people keep refering to Libya as being in the Middle East? I have a map, and my map says that Libya is in North Africa. that is some distance west of what I know to be the Middle East. Are people now using the Middle East and Islamic World interchangeably?

Roscoe said...

Combination of that, North Africa not really mapping well to popular ignorance's understanding of Africa, and inertia.

Especially with people first talking about Libya in conjunction with Middle East politics, and the whole wave of uprisings.

_J_ said...

@Andrew: They are brown, and there is a lot of sand.

Persons with my level of understanding of geography consider that to be the Middle East.

Roscoe said...

Does that include those in the Gobi Desert?

Or the Navajo?

Or the poor old guy who cleans out the sand traps at Indian Wells?

Mike Lewis said...

North Africa is often considered part of the part of the Middle East because of its cultural and economic connections.

Andrew said...

@Mikey-Geography!!!

Roscoe said...

Man, there used to be a time when North Africa was part of the Mediterranean front.

Somedays, I think I really do miss Carthage.

Caleb said...

Andrew, the Middle East is like the Midwest. They're each described by means of specific social, cultural, economic, and geographic conditions which cannot all exist at the same place in the same time.

Caleb said...

@Roscoe, Those were the days.. When the people we hated most were only 250 miles away.

Andrew said...

So terrell has preordered the 3DS and will have it sunday. let me know if you are interested in his review.

Roscoe said...

"I've been pretty horrified by some of those. I have no idea of the scope and depth of how far it goes. I've grazed it once or twice."

-Jackson Publick, on the topic of fan-made Venture Pr0n.

Roscoe said...

Andrew - Interested in that it clearly looks like a device made for horror/pyschological games.