This was one of those weeks that felt like it was dragging at times, but flew by. Yes, a total contradiction, but maybe you know what I’m talking about. Maybe “flew by” is my excuse for not having anything top of mind to write about. I didn’t even take a random picture this week, so we’re digging into the archives.
The irradiated dime pictured here turned up while we were packing earlier this year. I had thrown it in with a pile of other, random coins at some point and forgotten about it. These irradiated dimes were a popular souvenir in the 1950s and 60s. My grandparents had visited the American Museum of Atomic Energy in Oak Ridge, TN during that time. Years later, I was given this encased coin to help fill out my meager coin collection.
Grandma didn’t have a lot of information about this dime other than where they got it. She certainly wasn’t prepared to answer any safety questions about a potential radioactivity. We didn’t have the Internet back then, so I was instructed to do what people did before they could just search it up: Write a letter.
To my—and perhaps my parents—surprise, someone from the museum wrote back. They included some history of these irradiated dime souvenirs, and assured us that the dime was safe to handle. While this was surely a relief for my Mother, I had hoped that it was still a little radioactive. The idea that this old dime was shooting out invisible energy was kind of cool.
Links
- ikea complexity index via b3ta :: waxy.org
And thought that FRIHETEN I put together recently was some sort of IKEA assembly capstone project. Nope, it’s basic compared to some of these things. - The rise of the cargo bike: How New York City families are rethinking transportation
- Waiting for a Library Book? This Man Makes Sure You Get It.
- OPINION: Mamdani Is Making a Catastrophic Mistake on QueensLink
- NYC says they’re not ‘shame stickers,’ as it slaps them on alternate-side violators’ cars
- Maybe ‘Steal Underpants by Blowing a Fortune on AI Tokens’ Is, in Fact, Not a Good Business Plan via 404.Media :: Simon Willison’s Weblog
Be careful what you wish for corporate America. These companies pushed their staff to “use AI”. Now they are finding out that the AI stuff is kind of expensive when everyone is using it. Now, they’ll scramble to reduce AI costs since the personnel savings haven’t materialized. Some will pay a tidy sum to Accenture et al. in the process. - Don’t be a meat proxy via Simon Willison’s Weblog
- ‘This is insider trading by definition’: Trump sells $100,000 monthly subscription service to Wall Street to further monetize the presidency via slashdot
This was mentioned here a couple weeks ago, now he’s actually doing it. WTF?