Do people even bother reading before commenting or emailing?
October 30th, 2008
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There have been some comments that have shown up here that seem to indicate that the person making the comment has either not read the post they are refering to, perhaps just seeing the headline, or that they may have skimmed a few words off of it but really took iniative to actually read the content. This can be annoying, but it’s especially annoying when someone demands answers to something that is addressed right there infront of them, practically staring them in the face.
I happened to get an email recently, which shows that someone found this site and managed to navigate to the contact page, but also seems to have read almost nothing else.
Here’s the relevant portion of it, coming from someone who said they found my site and thought I might be able to answer an important question:
A few years ago when I took science class in school my teacher had a bar made out of uranium that he passed around the class so we could feel how heavy it was. I don’t remember what he said about it but he said that he had it for a long time and everyone was impressed by how it was heavy compared to anything else. I have now heard a lot of things about how dangerous it is to be around uranium and I am wondering, I did hold and touch the bar quite a bit but only once and I just want to know if I should be worried about it. Do you know there was any danger from this?
…
I don’t know if it was depleted or regular or something else. I don’t know what the difference is hopefully it was not depleted.
So this guy found the page, probably on Google or something, but did he even bother looking at any of the information on depleted uranium? I mean there’s a search thingy right on top, right?
Well, I’ll respond to the email anyway with the following:
In order to know whether there is any concern for health problems, I need you to answer a few questions:
Did you eat the uranium?
Or, even worse, did you use a series of chemical reactions to convert the uranium to an organic salt, then dissolve it in a slightly acidic solution and eat/drink it?
Did you grind or pulverize the uranium into a find powder and then snort it or otherwise inhale it?
Did you burn the uranium and smoke the fumes from it, such as by cutting the uranium into small pieces and rolling it in paper or putting it into a bong and repeatedly sucking in the smoke?
Did you insert the uranium into any body orifices, especially in a manner that made it difficult to remove once inserted?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then indeed you may have a valid concern over the health effects of uranium. Uranium is a toxic material which should never be smoked, eaten or stuck into any holes in your body. It can be very hazardous if you do this. The results can include uranium toxicity which affects the kidneys, bones and other systems. Other results may include anal trauma, torn rectum, irritated ear canal, urethral blockage or blindness, depending entirely on which orifice it was stuck in.
I have no idea where the teacher’s sample came from, but being that it was a bar of metal, it was most likely depleted uranium which he could have acquired from any number of sources some time in the 1960’s or 1970’s. At the time the stuff was pretty easy to come by. Today it is a bit more difficult to find large chunks of it at a reasonable price, but it’s still legal to have and not dangerous, providing you didn’t do anything mentioned above with it.
He may have gotten it from an old x-ray machine or as scrap from a metal shop or from a university or even bought it from the AEC. Science teachers are often kinda geeky and like to collect interesting and unique stuff like uranium metal. Perhaps he even got it because he thought it would be an interesting item to show his students to demonstrate the uniquely high density of uranium – it probably had not occured to him that someone would end up getting scared like this of it.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 3:08 am and is filed under Bad Science, Depleted Cranium, Education, Just LAME, Misc, Website. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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October 30th, 2008 at 4:19 am
I suppose you have a point there, but something that really gets me is these people who come onto this site and post comments which clearly indicates that they haven’t even bothered reading your post in the first place. You know, you really should do a post about that.
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October 30th, 2008 at 4:34 am
I wonder if posts like this come from bots rather than real people…
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October 30th, 2008 at 4:54 am
We are getting lazier. The facts are out there… but we don’t go look them up. This is why sites like this have an impact: because people don’t put the effort in to go find the facts.
I concider myself a computer geek/computer nerd. And I concider my secret to be: RTFM. I read the f… ine manual. My skill does not stem from knowing everything by heart, but by knowing where to go to find the information when I need it.
And I keep finding that far from all people realize that the information is out there… that you are but a couple of Search boxes away. There is a major problem that people don’t know how to look for information. It seems natural to most people here… but to others, it doesn’t.
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October 30th, 2008 at 5:00 am
George Carty said:
After scanning for key words? Who knows. An exercise in online political warfare? It may be possible to tell if identical glibly-worded messages appear at a number of sites in short order. Does anyone know if that has ever happened?
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October 30th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Finrod said:
I’m not sure about auto-generated posts (as bad as the sentence structure in some of the glibly-worded comments I’ve seen has been, Markov generators are worse), but I’ve seen “calls to action” on sites like IndyMedia exhorting people to attack blog posts they don’t like. Perhaps Doc has made somebody’s radar.
(No, I’m not a regular IndyMedia reader. They made my radar a few years ago when they tried to sabotage a pro-capitalism demonstration I was involved in. Didn’t work
)
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October 30th, 2008 at 6:24 am
That people are stupid and don’t make an effort to be informed on topics that they have strong opinions about is, when you think about it, the underlying theme of this website. Shouldn’t be surprising when these folks show up in comments.
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October 30th, 2008 at 6:42 am
DV82XL said:
Sorry DV, but I’m going to counter you on that: people in general are not stupid… they are uninformed or misinformed. Talk to anyone one-on-one and you can generally at least make them see your point, if your facts are good. Being uninformed makes even the smartest and most intelligent people come to the wrong conclusions.
Being a computer nerd, people ask me for help with their computers alot. And they will oftens say thinsg like “I’m such an idiot when it comes to computers” to “I’m so stupid in these matters”. And I say to them: no you’re not. You just have the information you need… yet. When you haev been around computers for 24 yers, like I have, then you too will know what I do. You’re not dumb just because you don’t have the information yet.
One could argue that not looking for information is a sign of stupidity. I don’t agree. In order to know that the information is out there, you must have been informed that it is there. And that was the problem in the first place: lack of information.
Then of couse there are those that cannot comprehend the information… there are those that simply does not have the capacity to soak up the information and turn it into coherent thoughts. In that case we can start to talk about being “stupid”. But you cannot label people that until you have given them the opportunity to try to take in the info, and they have either willfully ignored the info or genuinely failed to take it in.
And even in the case of people refusing to accept information, I hesitate to label them “stupid”… “stubborn” is a much more accurate word.
Plus that being humble and respectful, even in the face of stupidity, is much more effective than labeling people idiots.
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October 30th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Typo: “You just have the information you need” is meant to be: “You just don’t have the information you need”.
Plus the usual gaggle of spelling errors….
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October 30th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Michael Karnerfors said:
I did not suggest that all ignorant people are stupid, or that stupid people are in the majority, only that there is a cross section of those that are, and we shouldn’t be surprised when they show evidence of that in comments. However while not being informed is excusable, failing to get informed before taking a position on a subject is not, and certainly floating an opinion on a web page like this without bothering to read the lead article is not ether.
I don’t subscribe to the ‘everyone but us is an idiot,’ position, but at the same time I do recognize there are a few people that are just that.
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October 30th, 2008 at 10:19 am
George Carty said:
I guess some might be, but I’ve, for example, had experiences like a post which was talking about all the consumer products that had uranium added to them at some point or another – ceramics, glass, photographs, semiconductors, dentures, enamels etc etc. Someone commented in a way that made it clear that they at least skimmed the post, but completely missed the point and theme of it and the post. Their comment was to the effect of “Oh my god. Do people know this? what can we do if we have a product like this? Somebody needs to get the word out” – obviously this was not at all what the post meant.
Then I’ve gotten comments like “I disagree, every little bit helps and I really think this product is a good idea. If everyone works together it ads up” on some post where I say that something is useless because the energy it saves is miniscule and that it could never offset the energy used to produce the item. I even have added figures like how much energy the device would save if everyone adopted it. And no.. never addressed.
I once got an email which said that they had seen my blog on EMF and then said that they had been going around their house with an EMF meter and found some appliances were registering. They asked me what a good blocking material was. They even said that the wiring near their desk was making them sick with EMF, and wanted to cover the walls with something. I suppose I could have responded and told them that mu-metal would be the best thing, or if they’re also concerned about higher frequencies too, then alternating layers of mu-metal and copper foil.
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October 30th, 2008 at 10:26 am
My very favorite comment was on one of the posts about depleted uranium, I forget which, where there was some discussion of the claims that depleted uranium is a global problem that will make the earth uninhabitable and cause everyone cancer and horrible health problems because the dust cannot be removed and gets into the atmosphere to be distributed around the earth.
The problem with this conspiracy theory would seem to be that if you assume that the powers that be are aware of this, then why would they destroy the only planet they have to live on. Someone countered this by saying that they believe that George W Bush iniated the current NASA program to return to the moon and eventually to explore Mars in order to escape the depleted uranium dust.
I guess the whole Orion/Ares system is really the Bush family’s personal escape pod to the moon to get away from the DU dust. Yeah, you know, all that money he has gotten from the conspiracies with the pharma companies and uranium companies.. he’ll be going on a mad spending spree soon, on the freakin moon!
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October 30th, 2008 at 10:40 am
drbuzz0 said:
Head -> Desk.
Ok, now that I have that out of the way, it is amazing what people think they read or see. I’m also amazed at the shear misinformation people have on various topics.
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October 30th, 2008 at 10:41 am
drbuzz0 said:
I’d chalk this one up to innumeracy. Perhaps a combination of innumeracy and magical thinking. People like to feel that they are important, that they are capable of making a difference in the world, and sadly, they don’t want to hear that something that has made a difference to them personally (e.g. shelling out a lot of money for a Prius, which hits them right in the pocketbook) doesn’t make even a dent in a large problem. The innumeracy issue comes in understanding the scope of a problem. It’s been discussed here that even if all the drivers in the United States and Europe were to switch to driving hybrids or even quit driving entirely, the reduction in CO2 emissions would not even come close to the amount of CO2 produced by underground coal fires. Very few people (comparatively, anyway) have ever been anywhere near an underground mine fire and we certainly don’t see the CO2 directly. However, most people know what heavy traffic looks like and can imagine what the roads would look like with no drivers on them — but due to innumeracy they fail to grasp just how phenomenally difficult it would be to convince everyone to stop driving, or the epsilon difference that driving a hybrid car makes.
A lot of people are just flat out scared of math, and that’s very sad.
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October 30th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
drbuzz0 said:
I would have recommended a layer of depleted uranium as the best solution. Get it milled into thin sheets, or get a material that has a high DU content. Guaranteed to stop the EMF.
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October 30th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
mlp said:
I have nothing against people doing things to reduce their impact on the enviornment, even if it’s not that huge, as long as they don’t do it with the illusion that it is going to be significant even if everyone does it. I mean, I recycle stuff as opposed to throwing it away, in part because it does save some energy and resources, even if small.
Most of the trendy methods of being environmentally friendly, however, are worthless or nearly so. Solar PV panels, for example have a poor ROI, are expensive and may or may not ever recover the energy that produced them. There are so many better ways to save energy.
In that spirit, I’ve done a little research on this and what kind of car you would really want to get to have the best net impact. The answer is that, if you absolutely want to have the most favorable enviornmental impact, then get a car that is very small, with a very small engine, and above all else, get one that is heavily used and would otherwise likely be junked.
For example, go looking for something like a 1984 Toyota Corolla with a tiny engine in it and 200,000 miles on it. This basically gets you an impact-free car, becasue if you had not bought it, it would almost certainly have been junked or junked soon and, at best, some parts would be reused or the car would be sold for scrap steel. However, energy wise, the energy recovered from recycling a few components is nothing compared to the energy it takes to make a new car. Thus, you have basically saved an entire automobile’s run worth of energy.
Now you will have saved a lot of money doing this, since you’ll probably have gotten this car for dirt cheap. This is important, because chances are that the engine in the car, although small is not in the best shape for effeciency. Now sink a couple thousand dollars into the car to make it as fuel effecient as possible and as low emission as possible. This means: New spark plugs, new spark plug cables, new ignition controller or distributor. New piston rings, new gaskets, new catalytic converter. Obviously, you will want to reuse as much as possible whenever possible. This is why you don’t put a new engine in – you rebuild the one you have. You limit parts replacement to the ones that cannot be completely disassembled and replaced.
Also: Don’t spend any money on the interior, the radio and if the body has rust, then sand it off and put on some primer and protective paint, that may or may not match the rest of the car, but don’t bother putting a new glossy coat of paint on it. Why? Because these are all luxury items and we know how evil that is. You don’t **need** air conditioning or music while driving or a comfortable seat.
Now, take the money that you still will have left over from your Prius budget, because a junker with an engine rebuild is still going to be cheaper, and use it to buy a bike. use the same approach as the car: buy an old junker that would otherwise not be used (or get one for free). Use the bike to get everywhere local. Only use the car when absolutely necessary. You could even consider another mode of transportation for areas too far for the bike but not that far – buy an old moped.
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October 31st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I first found this blogsite when you were running the “top 10 things envros need to learn.” Remember all the hate posts criticizing you, for criticizing them, since “every little bit helps” and “you’re an a**hole if you cant see that…” Anyway – this last bit about buying used transpo really makes alot of sense – this is a real suggestion that real people could implement that really actually does some good. There’s a lot of smart people who post on this site, how about some more practical suggestions?
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October 31st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I too first got into your blog via the “Top Ten Things” posting as it was mentioned on Charlie Stross’s blog.
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October 31st, 2008 at 5:31 pm
gman said:
Well, like I said, no individual action will save the world, but if you wanted to have the most optimal car for the enviornment, then based on everything I’ve looked into on the energy used and materials etc, then it is very hard to beat the net gain to the enviornment from buying the a small, junky car that would otherwise be on its way to the scrap heap and replacing parts to make it drivable and reasonably effecient.
One other thing I came up with is that if you want to eat the most environmentally friendly food, I can’t seem to find anything better than canned food. Yes, I know: Very unfashionable and everything compared to organic food from a boutique.
Lets just consider a few things though: A can, as a means of storing foods is nearly ideal. It’s made of steel and tin lining, which does take some energy to make but it does not release any kind of volatile organic pollution or problems when disposed of – not like plastic. If it ends up in a land fill or something, it’s inert and will eventually rust away once the galvanizing wears off, with no enviornmental damage. It’s infinitely recyclable and most of the energy is recovered. There’s less energy or difficulty recycling it than plastic or even paper.
Also, canned food is usually pretty dense – so lots of food per material used to package it.
As for the food: It lasts… well, people have eaten from cans decades old with no ill effects. It can certainly last a few years before the quality of the food degrades enough to make it not palatable, especially for high acid foods. But This means it never needs to be thrown out, or at least rarely. How often is fresh fruit and vegetables thrown out and wasted because it goes overripe? Or meat or cheese? Not a problem with canned food.
And canned food does not need to be transported fast because of this. Canned food can be shipped on some extra space on a slow fright train. not like fresh foods, which need to be sent rapidly, a can can wait for a low-energy ride even if it’s slow.
Also, no refrigeration and no need to do anything special to keep it in good condition. There’s no need to freeze it or keep it cool. No need to mist it like with fresh lettuce, no need to keep it in a dry atmosphere or a moist atmosphere to keep it from getting stale. No such energy needs to be expended in the pursuit of keeping it preserved.
The only energy expended is the heat for the canning process, which is modest, considering all that is saved.
They’re durable too. It would take a substantial fall or crush to make it unsealable. It’s not like produce that would arrive with a large portion too bruised to sell or even like cardboard boxed food where some would be crushed or crumpled.
And if that’s not enough, you can even cook and eat out of the can.
Now that’s effeciency…
But then again… can you imagine a hippie turning in their organic tofu from a special “sustainable” “fair trade village cooperative in the Andes” that comes in tiny portions in a thermal plastic container from “Whole Foods” for canned foods? I can’t. It doesn’t scream “I’m a hip young environmentalist”
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October 31st, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Many of us can remember driving junkers and eating straight out of cans when we were young collage students; mind you at that time we were motivated by poverty, not ecology!
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November 1st, 2008 at 2:00 am
DV82XL said:
When you think about it, the fact that caned food is cheap comes from the same factors that make it so effecient: Reasonably low energy input to make it, simple low-tech packaging which is standardized so the same steel can can hold anything as long as you change the label, very low product loss with no product loss due to spoilage, no rush to transport, absolutely no need for refrigeration or any kind of special storage or transport.
Yes, I had not thought of this before, but really, canned food is really the perfect method for food storage and distribution if you want to make effeciency of use and and low waste the goal.
Energy, product loss, special transport are both expensive and higher net impact. Cheap often means lower resources.
I don’t think canned food or resurrected junk cars are ever going to catch on in the environmentalist movements though. They don’t have the IMAGE and that is everything. You see someone buying canned food and you don’t think twice. You see them loading up on the designer organic crap and they look very chic (or think they do). Canned food is just so NORMAL and not SPECIAL or NEW it seems like it could be artificial, but it’s really not because it doesn’t need preservatives. But you know, it’s just not something that screams “I spent extra money to be good to mother earth, yo”
The same thing with a junk car. If the junk car had a sign on it that said “I bought this to be good to the earth by keeping it on the road and I used the money I saved by buying it to help preserve the rainforest with a very large donation, aren’t you so proud of me???” That’s the ONLY way it could EVER be an option.
A junk car just says “I don’t have that much money for a nice car.” A little hybrid says “I could afford any car I wanted and this is the one I got, aren’t I just the best! Look at all the wonderful things I do to do my part! I’m so in with the latest trends in being all sustainable and wonderful horray for me!”
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November 18th, 2008 at 10:43 am
While it may be good to keep “junkers” on the road as opposed to landfil, most are so out of tune and not very energy efficient. Modern engines are much cleaner and way more efficient that I would think a new economy car would be a greener option than keeping a junker.
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November 26th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
mikekoz68 said:
A Prius gets what 50mpg (I honestly have no idea but the real number doesn’t matter) vs a 1984 Toyota that gets let’s say 30mpg. Now think about how much energy and materials go into a new Prius. The ‘84 Toyota is already paid for energy and materials wise (remember it was about to get junked). You’d have to drive that Prius for decades to make up for all that went into making it.
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October 8th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Michael Karnerfors said:
I am amazed at people who can’t work a GUI. Computers, cell-phones, they’ve been basically the same from early Xerox machines to iPads. I don’t understand…I practically speak Google Boolean.
Indexing and searching has always been natural for me…books, magazines, code…I guess some people’s brains just don’t work the same way.
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October 8th, 2010 at 8:17 am
Chem Geek Gregor said:
That’s one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.
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