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Date:      Fri, 14 Feb 2003 13:48:45 -0800
From:      Kent Stewart <kstewart@owt.com>
To:        Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>, Michael Sierchio <kudzu@tenebras.com>
Cc:        Wilko Bulte <wkb@freebie.xs4all.nl>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>, "Daniel O'Connor" <doconnor@gsoft.com.au>, Erick Mechler <emechler@techometer.net>, FreeBSD Stable List <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: ECC memory error reporting
Message-ID:  <200302141348.45187.kstewart@owt.com>
In-Reply-To: <200302142132.h1ELWYPQ059442@apollo.backplane.com>
References:  <20030214070641.GV20271@techometer.net> <3E4D5D39.1050502@tenebras.com> <200302142132.h1ELWYPQ059442@apollo.backplane.com>

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On Friday 14 February 2003 01:32 pm, Matthew Dillon wrote:
> :Radium.
> :
> : >     It isn't enough to hurt you (though bomber pilots staring at
> : > rows upon rows of these instruments for long periods of time
> : > might be a different story), but they should be sufficient to
> : > mess up any high density memory placed in close proximity (less
> : > then an inch away).
> :
> :It was fatal to those who worked in the factories where it was
> :used -- they almost uniformly died of cancer, and younger than
> :their contemporaries.  All of the isotopes of Ra are radioactive,
> :and many of the daughter isotopes are.
>
>     Yah, that's right... radium.  I had forgotten about the factory
>     worker exposure, you are absolutely right, the people painting
> the dials got the stuff all over themselves (direct skin contact and
> ingestion from dust/fumes) and it eventually killed them. (this was
> before the effects of radiation were fully known and appreciated).

IIRC, one of the problems was that people had a tendancy to do dumb 
things like lick the brush. 

>
>     In anycase, a friend of mine has a couple of these dials and
>     the Geiger counter goes crazy (on its most sensitive setting that
> is) when you place it near one.  A few feet away and its zippo. 
> Right up close and its buzzing like hell.

You are forgetting about all of the wristwatches that glowed in the 
dark. They are probably much more common in the antique shops. Or the 
pretty yellow painted dished that were painted with a U based paint.

For my generation, it was surviving all of the feet x-rays.

A WWII battleship is worth its weight in gold because that is the only 
comon steel that hasn't been contaminated by the atmospheric testing 
after WWII.

Kent

>
>     I'll bet you can find cheap WW2 bomber instrumentation on ebay.
>
>
-- 
Kent Stewart
Richland, WA

http://users.owt.com/kstewart/index.html


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