Australians Scour Desert for Dangerous Radioactive Capsule Smaller Than a Penny

Re:Australians Scour Desert for Dangerous Radioactive Capsul... by testplzignore on Sunday January 29, 2023 @03:41PM (#34572504)

To back up your point: If "X-ray" is a chest x-ray, then per https://xkcd.com/radiation/ this would be equivalent to one-tenth of a head CT scan, which are routinely done without consideration to any increased risk of cancer.

If the goal is to minimize loss of life, I think there are far better things that time could be spent on than looking for this thing. People are bad at thinking about opportunity cost.

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Re:Australians Scour Desert for Dangerous Radioactive Capsul... by tialaramex on Sunday January 29, 2023 @06:24PM (#34573889)

You're bad at arithmetic, that's 100 boxes on the XKCD chart, so it's one-hundredth of a head CT scan, and the medics might not tell you they considered increased risk, but if they actually didn't consider it they're incompetent, that's a non-trivial effect.

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