Driving home tonight I turned off the A49 (as I always do), got to the little humpback bridge that is best not taken above 30mph, and almost* went flying into the back of another car that was stopped there with its indicators and reverse lights on. oookay then.
At that point I also noticed a large tree - looking slightly more horizontal than trees usually do - about 3m above the road. Plenty of space to drive underneath it, but I figured this guy must have stopped because there was other stuff blocking the actual road. So rather than zooming past I stopped and waited for them to turn around or whatever.
They didn't. I was just about to get out of the car and be a bit more nosy when someone drove past in the other direction. So obviously the road was not blocked up with bits of tree, and this bloke in the car in front was just being weird. hmm.
* no, not really, I saw it and stopped with plenty of time/distance to spare
So some Russian blokey got poisoned by some Polonium-210 and it's all over the news.
This has slightly pissed me off - not because of what actually happened, because radiation poisoning is not something I'd wish upon anyone - but because of the threat of mass hysteria from people who don't know what they're talking about.
Polonium 210 is an alpha source. Alpha particles, also known as helium nuclei, are fat bastards with a pathetically small range. They can't penetrate skin (or anything else for that matter) and a few cm of air will stop them. If they get inside the body that's a different matter, but that's not the point here. Being on a plane that may have had some Po-210 on it at some point is unlikely to be a huge risk, unless you're intentionally eating/inhaling large amounts of it.
So the generally useless level of dodgy science and "OMG RADIATION = BAD!!" crap had been annoying me slightly, but I was mostly ignoring it and laughing. Until yesterday when I read this on the BBC's "10 things we didn't know last week":
"A geiger counter will not pick up traces of Polonium 210 as it emits alpha radiation, not gamma."
Oh reeeeeally?!
See that graph over there? That shows counts measured by a Geiger counter of two different Americium 241 sources. One of them was covered so only gamma radiation was emitted, the other uncovered so both alpha and gamma could 'get out'. I'll let you figure out which is which...
But my point is that Geiger counters can detect alpha particles, as long as they're close enough and their 'window' isn't too thick.
I'm also slightly suspicious about the statement that Po-210 only emits alpha, but I don't feel particularly inclined to dig through nuclear physics textbooks to disprove that right now.
Ahh, perhaps half a degree in physics does have its uses!
I swam 70 lengths today. 55 dodgy breast stroke, 15 dodgy front crawl. Last time I did 60, but I probably won't push for 80 next week though, heh 
Don't want to overdo it!
Swimming is an odd one though. I used to hate it so much when I was younger, to the point of skiving off all the swimming galas and conveniently forgetting my kit...
But now I quite like it. Probably because now there's no one shouting at me about it, and no 'friends' threatening to drown me because they think it's some hilarious joke.
There is one big problem with me swimming though - my eyes don't work properly! I really hate not having my glasses on because everything that's further than 6 inches from the end of my nose turns into a massive blur 
Obviously it's not so bad that I can't see if I'm about to swim into someone, but it's annoying not to be able to see the clock or eye up any fit lifeguards - not that I can tell if any of them are or not! d'oh.
I need to get my eyes tested at some point soon, so I might ask about prescription goggles, and if they're not too expensive then I might treat myself. The goggles I have now are terrible anyway - one pair really really hurts the top of my nose, and the other pair leaks and leaves nasty goggle marks all over my face.
Anyway, swimming is the only exercise I'm getting at the moment so I shouldn't complain too much. I'd quite like to take up climbing again but I don't have anyone to go with so that's on hold (heh).
tags: 
