Wednesday, August 03, 2011
When you only know theory...
I've been growling lately about people who live entirely in the realm of theory, people who utterly ignore all the lessons of history and science. I should be praying that they stay in the abstract realm, not wishing they'd get in closer touch with reality!
Here's why:
The utter innocence is the remarkable part. Sent a question to the Radiation Authority. Just being Germanically punctilious, in case there's some fussy little zoning code that frowns on kitchen-stove reactors for some unknown reason.
= = = = =
Sidenote: When discussing the need to profile Arabs at airports, it's always been a convenient snide rhetorical riposte to say "Yeah, right, we really need to be profiling Scandinavians. They're the real terrorists." I've said it myself more than once. Now I'm not so sure! Maybe the Magnetic Pole of berserkness in the world has truly shifted from the Persian Gulf to the Baltic Sea.
¶ 2:18 PM
Here's why:
A Swedish man has been arrested after attempting to split atoms in his kitchen, claiming that he was only doing it as a “hobby”.
Richard Handl said that he had the radioactive elements radium, americium and uranium in his apartment in southern Sweden when police showed up and arrested him on charges of unauthorised possession of nuclear material.
Handl, 31, said he had tried for months to set up a nuclear reactor at home and kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove.
Only later did he realise it might not be legal and sent a question to Sweden’s Radiation Authority, which answered by sending the police.
Although he says police didn’t detect dangerous levels of radiation in his apartment, he now acknowledges the project wasn’t such a good idea.
“From now on, I will stick to the theory,” he said.
The utter innocence is the remarkable part. Sent a question to the Radiation Authority. Just being Germanically punctilious, in case there's some fussy little zoning code that frowns on kitchen-stove reactors for some unknown reason.
= = = = =
Sidenote: When discussing the need to profile Arabs at airports, it's always been a convenient snide rhetorical riposte to say "Yeah, right, we really need to be profiling Scandinavians. They're the real terrorists." I've said it myself more than once. Now I'm not so sure! Maybe the Magnetic Pole of berserkness in the world has truly shifted from the Persian Gulf to the Baltic Sea.
¶ 2:18 PM
