5 ms·

> which can put out a very harmful amount of ionizing radiation It's not ionizing radiation any more than wifi is. It's just a lot of concentrated non-ionizin

by eck 11y ago

> which can put out a very harmful amount of ionizing radiation It's not ionizing radiation any more than wifi is. It's just a lot of concentrated non-ionizing radiation.

ngoede 11y ago
We would be so screwed if this was not true
- mcguire 11y ago
  On the other hand, the plane could fly faster by burning the air out of the way. ;-)
  - m_mueller 11y ago
    Isn't that pretty much what a Ramjet is doing?
    - mcguire 11y ago
      Apparently no one who knows what they'd be talking about has seen this, so I'll have to take a pass. A ramjet is basically a tube open at both ends and moving very quickly so that air enters one end and leaves out the other. Because of the speed of the air moving through it and the shape of the tube, the air is compressed in the tube and something sprays fuel into the compressed air, which ignites and produces higher-velocity air moving out the end of the tube. It's a jet engine, although normal jets have to have elaborate turbine-compressor thingys to do the air compression. The ionizing radiation thing is a goofy UFOs-are-space-travellers thing, where the UFO sprays ionizing radiation in front of itself, which heats and disperses the air in front of it, allowing the UFO to travel faster. Or something. It's goofy.
  - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
    Or see them approach from a greater distance!
Symmetry 11y ago
But still not perfectly safe. I'm not sure how much power a F-16 puts out but when I was working on space surveilance radars we were very careful not to be pointing our beam where people might be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn
- chiph 11y ago
  A roommate's girlfriend worked on PAVE PAWS. They were very careful where they steered the beam. Rumor was the one on the east coast cooked some fish when they pointed it into the ocean.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    And of course the microwave oven was conceived when a guy walked in front of an operating radar and it melted the chocolate bar in his pocket. It gave him a genius idea! The best part about this story is that if you tell people who don't know about it, they'll think you're full of shit. But it's absolutely true.

by eck 11y ago

> which can put out a very harmful amount of ionizing radiation It's not ionizing radiation any more than wifi is. It's just a lot of concentrated non-ionizing radiation.

ngoede 11y ago

We would be so screwed if this was not true

mcguire 11y ago
On the other hand, the plane could fly faster by burning the air out of the way. ;-)
- m_mueller 11y ago
  Isn't that pretty much what a Ramjet is doing?
  - mcguire 11y ago
    Apparently no one who knows what they'd be talking about has seen this, so I'll have to take a pass. A ramjet is basically a tube open at both ends and moving very quickly so that air enters one end and leaves out the other. Because of the speed of the air moving through it and the shape of the tube, the air is compressed in the tube and something sprays fuel into the compressed air, which ignites and produces higher-velocity air moving out the end of the tube. It's a jet engine, although normal jets have to have elaborate turbine-compressor thingys to do the air compression. The ionizing radiation thing is a goofy UFOs-are-space-travellers thing, where the UFO sprays ionizing radiation in front of itself, which heats and disperses the air in front of it, allowing the UFO to travel faster. Or something. It's goofy.
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  Or see them approach from a greater distance!

Symmetry 11y ago

But still not perfectly safe. I'm not sure how much power a F-16 puts out but when I was working on space surveilance radars we were very careful not to be pointing our beam where people might be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn

chiph 11y ago
A roommate's girlfriend worked on PAVE PAWS. They were very careful where they steered the beam. Rumor was the one on the east coast cooked some fish when they pointed it into the ocean.
- mikeash 11y ago
  And of course the microwave oven was conceived when a guy walked in front of an operating radar and it melted the chocolate bar in his pocket. It gave him a genius idea! The best part about this story is that if you tell people who don't know about it, they'll think you're full of shit. But it's absolutely true.