Comments by "Stephen Villano" (@spvillano) on "Kyle Hill"
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SL-1 and Chernobyl shared one common flaw in their control rods, graphite tips on the control rods. Graphite is a moderator, so the end of the control rod, the rod being the slow down control, sped up reactions as it traveled through the core.
The base event that disassembled both reactors explosively via steam hammer explosions was the same - prompt criticality. But, SL-1 was excessive removal of the primary control rod (don't get me into having a single pull to start control rod, let alone having to pull it up a bit to hook to a pully...), Chernobyl was a reactor that just came down in power from producing peak prime power for a large region to super low power, causing iodine/xenon levels in the fuel to be excessive, poisoning the reaction when they tried to ramp power up for the unauthorized test. Not recognizing the iodine pit problem, the poorly trained oopserators then pulled most of the rods from the reactor and when the iodine and xenon finally burned off, it went prompt critical.
Two reactors that never should have been prototyped, let alone constructed as a production or test reactor, due to insufficient safety and training, which points directly to a cavalier management mindset.
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@kylehill had an iodinated contrast agent the other day for a CT scan, one of the potential side effects is a worsening of Grave's disease, which I have. Didn't have to worry, as I'm taking a medication that blocks an enzyme in the thyroid hormone iodination chain, preventing iodine from being linked to form the hormones in excess. It'd essentially behave the same way as potassium iodide and similar iodine drugs to shut down the thyroid gland.
Because, a high dose of iodine does precisely that, it shuts down the thyroid gland as it takes up the administered iodine via the Wolf-Chaikoff effect. It's also an emergency treatment for a thyroid storm.
The day after the radiologist's report was posted, my doctor called and tried to convince me to go to the hospital because my AAA had a thrombus in it. She missed the CT from two years prior that listed the same thing, "Yeah, but now you've got a second one". No, actually, it's two additional at the nephratic artery branches, they come with aneurysms. It's kept this long, no clots wandering about, it'll keep until the vascular surgeon's appointment in two months.
She's consulting with the vascular surgeon, ain't heard back, so I suspect the surgeon agrees with me and not the resident. They're residents so that they can learn and I've always been a good instructor.
And an incidental finding of a mass on an adrenal gland, which hasn't changed in size or shape in a decade. And that my lumbar and thoracic spine is a train wreck, which is also readily apparent from symptoms and that I need a cane to walk.
Yep, I'm a walking pathology exhibit. With rather significant knowledge and experience in pharmacology and A&P.
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I'm using tons of radiation right now. Otherwise, I'd be frozen and stubbing the shit out of my toes.
Oh, ionizing radiation, my bad! Used that two days ago, got a CT scan to figure out how much of a train wreck that I am, the railroad's still sending full trainloads of heavy wreck equipment... The CT beams, guided and shielded largely with the magical metal of incandescent lamp filaments, cutter of metals in industrial applications, reflector of x-rays and gamma radiation in radiology equipment and x-ray and gamma telescopes, tungsten, the pain in the ass to work with metal.
And oh, I do glow a fair bit in gamma. Had a thyroid scan using I-131, before dosing, they perform a background check, got my potassium-40 onboard as we all do, some strontium-90, cesium-137 and a few other isotopes your generation wouldn't have. Was born a week after Tsar Bomba detonated, when the nuclear armed nations had the dubious wisdom of detonating their products from the insanity factory in the atmosphere. Not that any cancers came of that, at least that's what our government told the downwinders repeatedly. I'm also known for anger management issues, unusual strength, but only turn green if I've eaten some food that's a bit off. ;)
Actually, that's all measured in trace radiation levels, using a gamma camera, which also uses tungsten tubing to focus the energy for imaging. Which makes me wonder if this filament might be a good basis for those tubes, adding tungsten plating within for increased reflection efficiency and the tungsten impregnated plastic adding efficiency lost via the thinner reflection coating at a modest resolution cost. Gain being decreased cost and more importantly, less heavy support for a much lighter reflector. Because, tungsten is heavy and dense, as in "Oh my God, I need a new foot now that I've dropped this tungsten brick on it!" kind of heavy. And yeah, you'd be in the market for a new foot. It's damned heavy.
It'd be also useful for a quick, fugly casing for homebuilt instrumentation, like my radiation spectrometer I built from plans on CERN's educational outreach site.
Which reminds me, gotta scavenge a mylar cap for a radiation window, a cheap headset for the jack and a 10k resistor and 0.05 uF cap for coupling to the computer. The processing software is javascript and python, both already happily installed on my computers.
Not too bad a price for the filament, considering. Guess I'll be ordering a printer soon after all. My americium source will be an excellent test sample for the filament.
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