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[Shadowlord]

I just realized that "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the wizards, who investigate crime; and the wizards, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories." completely leaves out defense attorneys and presumes that all investigated people are offenders.

This is a huge WTF for me:

Interviews with dozens of men like Mr. Thompson and details from never before published declassified documents tell a different story. Radiation near the bombs was so high it sent the military’s monitoring equipment off the scales. Troops spent months shoveling toxic dust, wearing little more protection than cotton fatigues. And when tests taken during the cleanup suggested men had alarmingly high plutonium contamination, the Air Force threw out the results, calling them “clearly unrealistic.”

...

If the men could prove they were harmed by radiation, they would have all costs for their associated medical care covered and would get a modest disability pension. But proof from a secret mission to clean up an invisible toxin decades ago has proved elusive. So each time the men apply, the Air Force says they were not harmed and the department hands out denials.

“First they denied I was even there, then they denied there was any radiation,” said Ronald R. Howell, 71, who recently had a brain tumor removed. “I submit a claim, and they deny. I submit appeal, and they deny. Now I’m all out of appeals.” He sighed, then continued. “Pretty soon, we’ll all be dead and they will have succeeded at covering this whole thing up.”

...

The other two hit hard and exploded, leaving house-size craters on either side of the village, according to a secret Atomic Energy Commission report that has since been declassified. Built-in safeguards prevented nuclear detonations, but explosives surrounding the radioactive cores blasted a fine dust of plutonium over a patchwork of houses and fields full of ripe, red tomatoes.

A throng of residents led Mr. Garman to the plutonium-covered craters, where they peered down at the shattered wreckage, not knowing what to do. “We didn’t have any radiation detectors yet, so we had no idea if we were in danger,” he said. “We just stood there looking down at the hole.”

Atomic Energy Commission scientists soon arrived and took Mr. Garman’s clothes because they were contaminated, he said, but told him he would be fine. Twelve years later, he got bladder cancer.

Plutonium does not emit the type of penetrating radiation often associated with nuclear blasts, which causes immediately obvious health effects, such as burns. It shoots off alpha particles that travel only a few inches and cannot penetrate the skin. Outside the body, scientists say, it is relatively harmless, but specks absorbed in the body, usually through inhaling dust, shoot off a continuous shower of radioactive particles thousands of times a minute, gradually exacting damage that can cause cancer and other diseases decades later. A microgram, or a millionth of a gram, in the body is considered potentially harmful. According to declassified Atomic Energy Commission reports, the bombs at Palomares released an estimated seven pounds — more than 3 billion micrograms.

The day after the crash, busloads of troops started arriving from United States bases, bringing radiation-detection equipment. William Jackson, a young Air Force lieutenant, helped with some of the first testing near the craters, using a hand-held alpha particle counter that could measure up to two million alpha particles per minute.

“Almost everywhere we pointed the machine it pegged at the highest reading,” he said. “But we were told that type of radiation would not penetrate the skin. We were told it was safe.”

...

Fearing that the bombs could damage the tourism industry, Spain insisted the mess be cleaned up before summer.

Within days, troops were hacking down contaminated fields of tomato vines with machetes. Though scientists overseeing the cleanup knew plutonium dust posed the greatest danger, military commanders had the troops throw thousands of truckloads of vines into chipping machines, then burned much of the debris near the village.

Some men doing the dustiest work were given coveralls and paper surgical masks for safety, but a later report by the Defense Nuclear Agency said, “It is doubtful that the use of the surgical mask served more than a psychological barrier.”

“If it did something for your psychology to wear one, you were privileged to wear one,” the chief scientific adviser, Dr. Wright H. Langham, told Atomic Energy colleagues in a secret briefing afterward. “It wouldn’t do you any good in the way of protection, but if you felt better, we let you wear it.”

Commenting on safety at the cleanup, Dr. Langham, who is perhaps best known now for his role in secret experiments in which hospital patients in the United States were unwittingly injected with plutonium, told colleagues, “Most of the time it would hardly meet the standards of the health physics manuals.”

The Air Force bought tons of contaminated tomatoes from local fields that the Spanish public refused to eat. To assure the public there was no danger, commanders fed the tomatoes to the troops. Though the risk from eating plutonium is much lower than the risk from inhaling it, it is still not safe.

“Breakfast, lunch and dinner. We had them until we were sick of them,” said Wayne Hugart, 74, who was a military police officer at the site. “They kept saying there was nothing wrong with them.”

In all, the Air Force cut down 600 acres of crops and plowed under the contaminated dirt. Troops scooped up 5,300 barrels of soil from the most radioactive areas near the craters and loaded the barrels on ships to be buried in a secure nuclear waste storage site in South Carolina.

Spanish and American authorities assured villagers that they had nothing to fear. The villagers, accustomed to living in a dictatorship, did little to protest. “Even if some people here might have wanted to know more, Franco was in charge, so everybody was too scared to ask anything,” said Antonio Latorre, a villager who is now 78.

To assure villagers their homes were safe, the Air Force sent young airmen into local houses with hand-held radiation detectors. Peter M. Ricard, then a 20-year-old cook with no training on the equipment, remembers being told to perform scans of anything locals wanted, but to keep his detector turned off.

“We were just supposed to feign our readings so we didn’t cause turmoil with the natives,” he said in an interview. “I often think about that now. I wasn’t too smart back then. They say do it and you just say, ‘Yes, sir.’”

I've pasted a bunch, but there's more in the article, about the testing, efforts to get the air force to something (which have so far failed - the air force apparently still doesn't give a shit), and personal stories.

[Akura]

Stepdad was oddly concerned about the house burning down, going so far as to pile stuff by the window next to the front door, nearly blocking the door, so the dogs could jump out just in case.

[Sonlirain]

Yeah works now. & nah didn't actually. As a general rule I don't actually ignore people & if I make an exception for 1 person I'd have to make an exception for everybody. I wouldn't take everything you read at face value.

& yep some laws are ridiculous that way. For some thing's I actually like it & think it works. Discourages you from doing it, without their being a big fuss for the hobbiest who have a genuine interest.

Yeah i guess. And it's hard to use a muzzle loaded rifle to shoot up a bar or something anyway.
Not to mention that without good knowledge/maintenance those guns had a nasty tendency to misfire.

Law and Order: Wizard City

COME ON! Who here would POUNCE on this show? A Law Procedural show based in a magical, yet modern, realm with forensics and everything.

... on one hand, that last sentence could be pretty interesting. On the other hand, I'm also pretty sure being a Law and Order spinoff is about the fastest way that exists to strangle a concept in the cradle, so that particular incarceration would probably be some variation of terrible.

But maybe it would give some competent screenwriter/TV developer the inspiration/excuse to make something nice? So I guess that's as good a reason for another Law and Order series to be made as you'll get.

I don't think it would neccesarily have to be a law and order spinoff.
Maybe as an artsy indie short series on syfy where the story in broad strokes would be proceduraly generated like in the DF worldgen and that story would be a framework for the writers of the actual show because as amusing some stories in legends mode might be it's usually humans that give it context and emotional depth.

[Teneb]

Stepdad was oddly concerned about the house burning down, going so far as to pile stuff by the window next to the front door, nearly blocking the door, so the dogs could jump out just in case.

Based on your previous posts re: him, I'd be concerned.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

I've pasted a bunch, but there's more in the article, about the testing, efforts to get the air force to something (which have so far failed - the air force apparently still doesn't give a shit), and personal stories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear_incident_terminology#Broken_Arrow

[Sergarr]

This is a huge WTF for me:

-snip-

I've pasted a bunch, but there's more in the article, about the testing, efforts to get the air force to something (which have so far failed - the air force apparently still doesn't give a shit), and personal stories.

That reminds me of one nuclear industrial incident I've learned recently about in my university, involving transporting dissolved plutonium from one barrel into another with the help of a hose. It ended badly. As in, "neutron flash, with the poor worker dying within a few hours from radiation" level of "badly".

[IcyTea31]

Off the top of my head, it's five parts saltpetre, one part charcoal, one part sulphur.

Close. 75%, 15% and 10%, respectively, is the modern standard.

^{_{Disclaimer: Don't try to make gunpowder at home. If you want to do it anyway, make sure you take proper precautions including but not limited to a fireproof environment and protective clothing.}}

[Tack]

That feeling when you first get a coughy cold and hacking up that crap just feels so good.
For the first few times..

[Sonlirain]

Right... so got myself a new GPU a few months back. Nothing special just replaced a powerless GTX 650 with a R9 380.
In a sense the R9 is my first "real" GPU because before that i had a Voodoo1 back in the 90's and some passive cooled AMD card after that dollowed by a GTX 650 that was included in a prebuilt set.

All of them were kinda underpowered to be honest but all of them had one thing in common.
They were cool and silent. Even the GTX 650 (mainly due to being completely underpowered even for its generation)
I could literally run a game with the 650 in the middle of the summer WITHOUT a case fan and the damn thing would be cool and quiet.

Now the Radeon on the other hand... i expected it to be a good bit louder than the 650 but dear god was that an understatement.
Sure the fans roared when i played Shadow of Mordor on high settings. I expected it and had no issues with the card being loud since it was a demanding game but now i'm playing this
http://store.steampowered.com/app/439190/?l=english
And it just fucks my GPU right up.
The fans are spinning so fast i can hear the card from 2 rooms over. The only good thing is that they manage keep it at a stable 65 degrees.
Also i can straight up forget about trying to do any "Let's plays" not with live commentary at least because the obnoxious loud whir is caught by the microphone.
Frankly it's like having a desk fan that turns on when you run a 3D game but instead of a cool breeze directed at your face it generates hot air near your legs.
And here i am wondering if my card is just defective or is it the norm for this generation of radeons.

[TheBiggerFish]

65 degrees what?

[MaximumZero]

65 degrees what?

North of the equator.

[Sonlirain]

Celsius obviously.
If it ran 65 fahrenheit it would be cooler than the room i'm in during the day.

[Neonivek]

WHAT THE F SPAIN!!!

Dear goodness that is some messed up stuff I'd imagine happening in some third world dictatorship...

I'd quit the military after that garbage.

[Loud Whispers]

Half of the people exposed were Brit expats too

Friendly fire

[Shadowlord]

Sonlirain: Yeah, that's the hidden cost of AMD gpus (and less efficient gpus in general).