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Post by duckie on Apr 7, 2004 22:00:06 GMT -5
Wow. That website give me the jibblies. I've always had an unhealthy sort of fascination with all things nuclear, which means that if I win any sort of review-choosing contest, I'm picking either The Day After or Threads. Possibly When the Wind Blows if I happen to be feeling particularly weird and difficult. I've got a VHS copy of the day after... maybe I get lissa to review it someday... |
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Post by Magill on Apr 12, 2004 9:32:41 GMT -5
The Day After--is that the one where Kansas gets hit by a nuclear weapon? I was 7 or so when that was on TV, and it scared the crap out of me. I went through a phase when I was incredibly scared of the possibility of nuclear war. Between that, a book called After the Bomb (in which L.A. is accidentally hit by an atomic bomb. It also had a sequel called After the Bomb: Week One), Fail Safe, and culminating in the nightmare sequences in T2, I think my imagination was overloaded.
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Post by Hucklebubba on Apr 12, 2004 11:43:12 GMT -5
The Day After--is that the one where Kansas gets hit by a nuclear weapon? "Those crazy commies bombed Toto!" --David Lee Roth, I love the 80s Yep, that's the one. I was about 4 when I first saw it, and it scared the crap out of me too. A good laxative, this one. Funny thing is, I saw it again a couple of years back, and it's still scary. I think the low-grade early-80s special effects actually make it creepier somehow. |
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Post by pfrsue on Apr 12, 2004 16:08:28 GMT -5
I remember as a kid getting a tour through the Limerick power plant long before it became operational. My dad worked for the company so they made it a sort of "family day" with balloons and streamers and some poor schmuck wandering around dressed as a lightbulb. The place still totally creeped me out. I couldn't get out fast enough.
I also had a cousin who worked at Peach Bottom for quite a while. Apparently there was an employee purge there at one point when they discovered a lot of guys were reading comic books and crime novels instead of... er... watching gauges. (The only literature they were allowed to read on duty pertained to the actual running of the place like the tech manuals. Nuclear Reactors for Dummies anyone?) Not terribly reassuring.
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Post by Lissa on Apr 12, 2004 20:22:53 GMT -5
I used to be able to see Limerick power plant on my daily run. Then I hurt my knees. Still, nothing says I'm almost home like seeing the steam plumes!
The money these guys make is amazing though. One of my D&D circle was doing his bachelor's in nuclear engineering when I was in grad school. Mutual friend visited and they were talking about his plans for the future. Impressed, the non Nuc-E said "man, you'll be making six figures by the time you're thirty!" Nuc-E looked embarrassed and said, "um, actually...."
His supervisor left to take a position that paid $3,000,000 a year. Yes, I put the right number of zeroes in.
What am I doing with these silly hydrocarbons?
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Post by DocD83 on Apr 12, 2004 20:54:33 GMT -5
Wow. I would change my major if I didn't already know I suck at chemistry and physics.
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Post by dajaymann on Apr 13, 2004 10:31:48 GMT -5
I always thought working in a nuclear power plant would be a relatively safe job (since people tend to be a bit more safety concious about these things over here - a possible result of the anality of Americans). Of course, when I was in middle school a gigantic propane tank was positioned right outside our classroom window. I always imagined gunshot, or even a well-placed bottle rocket would make that place go up in a mini-mushroom cloud.
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Post by PoolMan on Apr 13, 2004 10:36:54 GMT -5
even a well-placed bottle rocket would make that place go up in a mini-mushroom cloud. "The Cheat, I told you to remove the FTHOOM! All we needed was the BANG!" |
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Post by DocD83 on Apr 13, 2004 10:44:08 GMT -5
I remember in high school there was a large (say, 15' long) propane tank between the votech building and the tennis courts. During fire drills they had us line up next to the tennis courts. Umm, ok...fire + big ass propane tank + dozens of people ~= a good thing. My drafting teacher had the sense to have our class line up at the far end of the courts, but I found out later that if that tank had gone up we probably would not have been safe anywhere closer than the far side of the main building.
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BDC
Ghostbuster
Posts: 372
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Post by BDC on Apr 14, 2004 1:00:10 GMT -5
"The Cheat, I told you to remove the FTHOOM! All we needed was the BANG!" "To tha MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON~!" |
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Post by PoolMan on Apr 14, 2004 11:10:17 GMT -5
"To tha MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON~!" (careful, link has sound. LOTS of sound) |
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Post by Magill on Apr 16, 2004 10:25:26 GMT -5
I used to be able to see Limerick power plant on my daily run. My alma mater had one of the few functioning nuclear reactors at a university (a lot have been shut down, mostly due to public pressure). IIRC, it's not used for power but primarily to make radioactive isotopes (used a lot in medical and other kinds of research). Every 2 years, the engineering school would have this big expo* and showcase their engineering talents. In spring of 2001 they had one and had a public tour of the reactor. I remember going up to the top of the tank and looking down through maybe 30 feet of ultra clear water and seeing the control rods and spent fuel. It was cool. That was the last time they did public tours. At last year's expo, it was closed (mostly due to fallout, no pun-intended, of Sep. 11). The reactor was in the mechanical engineering building. Although it wasn't exactly secret, it was pretty inconspicuous. On my way to class, it was always kinda fun to think "there's a nuclear reactor in that building." *Incidentally, the expo was started to prevent problems caused around St. Patrick's Day. The engineers and lawyers had this thing where each one claimed that Patrick was their patron saint. Parades were held and riots broke out. Officials decided to channel this energy into something more productive. |
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Post by Lissa on Apr 16, 2004 11:02:26 GMT -5
We used to work right next to one, too. It was amazing how many people would get really worried when they heard there was a nuclear reactor on campus!
I work in the same building as a nuclear irradiator right now. Although I'll be honest- I'm much more worried aobut all the asbestos in the building! (Heck, I'm much more worried about the roof falling in on my head.)
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Post by DocD83 on Apr 16, 2004 11:19:29 GMT -5
In the basement of one of the main engineering buildings here is a lab where one of the professors does his research into the physical effects on the body of car crashes. So he has a bunch of cadavers which he cuts up and subjects their body parts to various tests. He has the skull of an infant sitting on his desk. Yeah, wierd.
There's no nuclear facility on my campus that I know of, but I always find it funny how nervous people get around radioactive stuff. My chem prof brought a geiger counter and a couple radioactive samples to class one day, and you could feel the tension in the room go up. And some people are nervous about using a thoriated electrode in welding.
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Post by Magill on Apr 16, 2004 14:40:39 GMT -5
One of my jobs in college was working in a genetics lab. I used to joke that they were trying to kill off their undergraduate assistants--our bench was right next to the "hot bench" (in genetics, you do a lot of work with radioactive phosphorus. It's a beta emitter, which means a sheet of Plexiglas is enough to stop it and it's half life is just a little over 2 weeks. So it's not very dangerous, but you're supposed to confine your work with it to one area), we worked a lot with ethidium bromide (a pretty nasty carcinogen), and used UV quite a bit. Of course, none of this was especially dangerous, but it was fun to joke about.
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