"May as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb."

The legal thing to do was to sit and vegetate in front of a TV set. Or beat smaller kids senseless. Or any of the other socially approved, mindless activities open to children today. He chose to be a free spirit, and paid the price.

The point is, he endangered his neighbors. I'm sort of ambivalent about the story. Should society let people build reactors? Sure. Should it let them build reactors in an unshielded toolshed in a residential area? Hell no, but it's still sort of awesome when it happens. And I'm not sure if it's really more dangerous (from a societal perspective) than owning a car.

I can thing of loads of other things between watching TV and building a reactor. Reading Hacker News would be an example.