Random Rants LXVIII: Burn it all to the ground and start over!

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I bought 10 g of iridium metal powder from China for my neutron activation experiments. It was comparatively cheap (still expensive, but a good deal compared to e.g. gold: $170 for 10 g of the world's rarest metal, and I'll get to sell it back on ebay). But when it came, it made my Geiger counter go off pretty furiously without any activation at all. Looks like some there's some uranium or thorium contamination. And I couldn't even clean it up with aqua regia, although the fact that it didn't dissolve in aqua regia confirms that it is indeed iridium.

Despite the amazing cross-sections of both of its isotopes, it looks like I'll just have to sell it on ebay - I can't use it with this high of a background count, because my neutron source is very weak and statistical tests have to be done to make sure anything happened at all. Stupid cheapish Chinese iridium and its radioactive impurities. :(
Impurities? Did they send the wrong isotope by any chance?
(also, I don't know how strong it is, but have you checked in case it might have been strong enough to irradiate something/somebody on the way?)
May is usually all seasons at once. One day you're shovelling snow from your driveway, next day you're barbecuing.
On both hemispheres!
 
This is Canada. Snow is possible in any month of the year (and I have seen it in every month of the year - not all in the same year, mind you).
I don't recall ever seeing snow in August or September. But I've seen snow in all the others over the years.
On both hemispheres!
You get snow? Didn't know that!
 
Barbecuing on both hemispheres sounds great. Sao Tome and Principe, perhaps? Anyone here speak Portuguese?

 
You get snow? Didn't know that!
Thankfully not. Last week we had temperatures below 10 ºC. Today it's almost 6 in the afternoon, the sun is setting, and I'm in a T-shirt. Wheee!
Anyone here speak Portuguese?
inno, wim, luiz and Fred, off the top of my head. One is a communist, one is an anarchist, one a capitalist and one a lawyer. It'd be better to learn another language.
 
Right not procrastination is winning the battle over the need to study. Hopefully the soldiers of the study army will fight harder tomorrow.
 
I don't recall ever seeing snow in August or September. But I've seen snow in all the others over the years.
Back in the late '80s, the rest of the local Society for Creative Anachronism group headed off to a campground somewhere near Edmonton, on Labor Day weekend (1st Monday in September is a statutory holiday here). I decided not to go, and stayed home... watching the snow gradually turn into a blizzard that blanketed most of the province.

Suffice to say that I'm not the one who froze out of my campsite and came home. SCA-folk are willing to put up with a lot of weather (we really did try to keep on with our barbecue in the middle of a sleet storm in September a few years later), but camping in the wilderness in a blizzard isn't a smart idea.
 
So Windows forced a major "update" on me. What did I lose in terms of functionality, security, and privacy this time?
 
Have you had your Windows 7 transmogrified into Windows 10?
 
It was already 10. I couldn't stop that one last year. Now it's done it again, and I don't have any idea what's been changed. They keep taking away what I want and substituting what they want me to have.
 
I mean yes, but i live in southwestern Ontario.
So? If you want a snow-free existence, move to the Sahara. Or maybe Hawaii; there should be some hiking available there. My aunt and uncle went there for their 25th wedding anniversary, and told me about the locals' reaction on a day when the temperature dropped to about 20C. My aunt and uncle were relieved to finally have a day that wasn't so hot, so they put on t-shirts and shorts and went to the beach.

The locals thought they were insane. When they got to the hotel room, they discovered that their housekeeper was wearing heavy socks because she was cold.

BTW, winters here are nowhere near like they used to be in the '60s-'80s. I bought new winter boots 8 years ago and still haven't used them.
 
I bought 10 g of iridium metal powder from China for my neutron activation experiments. It was comparatively cheap (still expensive, but a good deal compared to e.g. gold: $170 for 10 g of the world's rarest metal, and I'll get to sell it back on ebay). But when it came, it made my Geiger counter go off pretty furiously without any activation at all. Looks like some there's some uranium or thorium contamination. And I couldn't even clean it up with aqua regia, although the fact that it didn't dissolve in aqua regia confirms that it is indeed iridium.

Despite the amazing cross-sections of both of its isotopes, it looks like I'll just have to sell it on ebay - I can't use it with this high of a background count, because my neutron source is very weak and statistical tests have to be done to make sure anything happened at all. Stupid cheapish Chinese iridium and its radioactive impurities. :(

Why do I get the feeling that when the day comes for human civilization to end, you are somehow going to have a hand in it?
 
Commodore! Nice to see you. I have new pictures of my avatar, if you care to see.
It was already 10. I couldn't stop that one last year. Now it's done it again, and I don't have any idea what's been changed. They keep taking away what I want and substituting what they want me to have.
There should be an option for that somewhere deep in the settings.
 
So? If you want a snow-free existence, move to the Sahara. Or maybe Hawaii; there should be some hiking available there. My aunt and uncle went there for their 25th wedding anniversary, and told me about the locals' reaction on a day when the temperature dropped to about 20C. My aunt and uncle were relieved to finally have a day that wasn't so hot, so they put on t-shirts and shorts and went to the beach.

The locals thought they were insane. When they got to the hotel room, they discovered that their housekeeper was wearing heavy socks because she was cold.

BTW, winters here are nowhere near like they used to be in the '60s-'80s. I bought new winter boots 8 years ago and still haven't used them.

So I don't remember much if any snow in may here ever, that's why I was surprised it's supposed to snow this weekend. But maybe I'm just not paying enough attention to when snow is usually gone for good.

I'm not surprised about these experiences in Hawaii. When I was in Los Angeles in November one time it was 23C and so I went to the beach to get a bit of a tan and lounge around a bit. It was a very long beach and was in fact called Long Beach. There was almost nobody there. There were some people, mostly joggers, families. Not busy at all. I loved it but I'm sure the most locals would have laughed at me if they saw me
 
Even 23C is a bit over my comfort zone.
 
I was supposed to be helping my Aunt out with her garden this weekend, somehow i don't think that's happening....rain, rain, then wet snow.
 
My uncle is really making the rest of the family mad with his bullcrap and I'm tired of seeing them all stressed out over it. He was arrested over a year ago on child pornography charges. I'll spare you all the details because it's pretty heinous what he was into, but suffice it to say the authorities have a pretty strong case against him. We've been dealing with this for over a year because he was arrested in Arizona, but the case was being tried in Pennsylvania, so he had to be extradited. Then the dates for all his hearings kept getting pushed back because there were others involved that the authorities wanted to arrest before moving forward with the case. Well he plead guilty, which was fine because it looked like this whole ordeal would be over soon and the rest of us wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.

Here's the part that's making me, and everyone else in the family, mad: I guess his lawyer didn't tell him that his guilty plea would still come with a ten year sentence at least, with a good chance of a longer sentence. Once he found that out, he withdrew his guilty plea 30 days before his sentencing hearing and now wants to go to trial. He's obviously guilty and his lawyer begged him not to withdraw the plea because he knows my uncle has no chance of winning this. On top of all that, this piece of crap has the nerve to ask us to take time off from our jobs and our lives to go to his trial for "moral support". His lawyer even asked us to be character witnesses for him to try to convince the judge to go easy on him. Personally, I'm half tempted to do it just so I can tell the judge to put this disgusting pervert away for as long as the law will allow. However, we had a family meeting and the decision was that none of us will go to support him. We are also cutting all contact with him as well. All of us agreed to this except his husband, who refuses to accept that he is guilty. Because of that, we are slowly pushing him out of the family too. He wants to continue to support a pedophile, then we don't want him around.

I mean, the nerve of my uncle. Asking us, most of whom are parents, to defend him and support him, a disgusting pedophile.
 
To be honest, 10 years in prison for child pornography charges sounds pretty crazy. Not a sentencing proportional to the crime (and it obviously is a crime) committed. Unless he was active in the production of the material or something.
 
To be honest, 10 years in prison for child pornography charges sounds pretty crazy. Not a sentencing proportional to the crime (and it obviously is a crime) committed. Unless he was active in the production of the material or something.

They're calling it child pornography, but what he was doing was far worse than just looking at some pictures of naked kids. In my opinion, 10 years isn't enough.

Moderator Action: Sexual material snipped out. ~ Arakhor
 
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