Stupid questions you always wanted answering

[a duncandisorderly]

You I can't have pics sex. Remember my post up there about my missing blender stick? Well I tried using my todger instead, and now: no todger :(

ftfy

[weekender]

We all need dicks, mate.

I can't decide if your post is accusing me of being gay, you of being gay, or us both of being gay.

Well done!

[Dex Sawash]

Have we not collectively lost track of what day of the week it is at some point? Is today really Sunday?

[Uncle TechTip]

Personally i don't recognise the Gregorian calendar so for me it's actually Tuesday 8th April.

[touchingcloth]

If people from Northern Ireland sometimes call themselves Irish by virtue of being from the island of Ireland, do people from the ROI ever call themselves British due to living in the British Isles?

[sponk]

Instead of putting cats eyes down on a motorway to highlight the lanes, why can't they just paint the lane markings in luminous paint? I'd guess it's because the paint would lose its luminescence pretty quickly or something?

[Sebastian Cobb]

of course they've all lost their luminance by the time i've

[buzby]

Instead of putting cats eyes down on a motorway to highlight the lanes, why can't they just paint the lane markings in luminous paint? I'd guess it's because the paint would lose its luminescence pretty quickly or something?

There are 3 types of luminous paint they could use - radioluminescent,  phosphorescent and  fluorescent.

Radioluminescent coatings rely on radioactive decay to output a glow, usually based on isotopes of Radium, Tritium or Promethium. This was typically what was used on old watches and instrument dials. They present a radiological hazard (Radium in particular, the other two have quite short half lives) and so are not really suitable for painting onto roads.

Phosphorescent coatings absorb energy from incoming photons, store it and re-emit it at a much lower level, effectively acting as a 'light bank' that can glow for hours after being 'charged up' from daylight or room lighting. This is what is commonly used on watch dials these days (the main phosphor used in the watch industry is the Strontium Aluminate-based LumiNova). Unfortunately phosphor-based coatings all suffer degradation when exposed to moisture, so not ideal for use on roads.

Fluorescent coatings absorb energy from photons in the ultraviolet wavelength and re-emit it in the visible spectrum. They flouresce in when illuminated by sunlight or UV light (i.e. a 'blacklight' tube). Unfortunately most car headlamps and streetlamps do not emit any light in the UV range, so not much use on a road at night.

Instead, the paints (which are actually a thermoplastic that is melted into a liquid for application) and tapes used for road markings have retro-reflective materials containing microscopic glass beads like 3M's Scotchlite embedded in them. These basically work in the same way as the original 'Catseye' or  'Halifax' road studs* do, by reflecting light that falls on them back to the source.

*Actual glass 'Halifax' road studs (so named as the inventor Percy Shaw was from Halifax, and Catseye is his company's trademark) are now rarely used on new roads or when roads are resurfaced. They have been replaced either by plastic prismatic retroreflectors (like you find on a bike or the back of a car) that can be fixed in similar metal bases to Halifax road studs, or stuck onto the road surface with bitumen.

or latterly by solar-powered LED road studs:

[sponk]

Are the Butthole Surfers surfers who are buttholes, or surfers who surf ON buttholes?

[petril]

they do recreational washing powder up the bum

[JesusAndYourBush]

Are the Butthole Surfers surfers who are buttholes, or surfers who surf ON buttholes?

Or they're not surfers at all and it's just a whimsical name for bumsex.

[poodlefaker]

What was Jesus' surname?

[checkoutgirl]

What was Jesus' surname?

Ovnazereth.

[NJ Uncut]

What was Jesus' surname?

Surnames like now weren't floating around back then I believe. So if you knocking aboot back yonder you'd be You, Son of Dad, or You, of Place

[checkoutgirl]

What was Jesus' surname?

What was Jesus' first name?

Joshua (true)

[touchingcloth]

The Gods (1).

[Sebastian Cobb]

How come there's photos of the aftermath of Chernobyl? How come all the radiation didn't fog the film?

[NoSleep]

Clearly it was all faked.

[touchingcloth]

How come there's photos of the aftermath of Chernobyl? How come all the radiation didn't fog the film?

What level of radiation would it take to fog a film to the point of unusability? There is footage from nearby in the immediate aftermath where the film is mottled with random flecks and flashes caused by the radiation, so maybe you have to be a certain proximity to completely ruin a film, and maybe that proximity is one that would cause you to get ill enough to not be arsed about your camera for very long, or maybe there were enough photos taken from enough different distances that some films are less ruined than others and those are the ones we see?

[NoSleep]

Lead lined cameras? Wouldn't be surprised if such a thing exists in the nuclear industry.

[touchingcloth]

Lead lined cameras? Wouldn't be surprised if such a thing exists in the nuclear industry.

Yeah, though depending on proximity I'm not sure if a balance could be struck between a camera with enough lead to protect the film and not so much as to make it impossible to hand hold.

[Sebastian Cobb]

What level of radiation would it take to fog a film to the point of unusability? There is footage from nearby in the immediate aftermath where the film is mottled with random flecks and flashes caused by the radiation, so maybe you have to be a certain proximity to completely ruin a film, and maybe that proximity is one that would cause you to get ill enough to not be arsed about your camera for very long, or maybe there were enough photos taken from enough different distances that some films are less ruined than others and those are the ones we see?

Not that much I think, early airport scanners could do it.

[Icehaven]

What was Jesus' surname?

Wept.

[buzby]

How come there's photos of the aftermath of Chernobyl? How come all the radiation didn't fog the film?

There was only one film crew allowed in to document the cleanup, consisting of director Vladimir Shevchenko (who was working for Ukranian TV at the time) and his two assistants. He filmed the footage of the 'biorobots' on the roof of the reactor throwing the intensely radioactive chunks of fuel and graphite back into the destroyed reactor vessel, and that film was damaged by the intense radiation - it is very washed out (which is the general effect of high levels of radiation on film) and has lots of white spots, which are caused by gamma radition passing through the camera and film (he appears in the film wearing a surgical cap and gloves and holding his camera, fimed by one of his assistants).

After filming, his camera was so radioactive it had to be buried. When the film was developed, he was aghast at the image quality, thinking he had used a bad batch of film until he realised it was the radiation that had damaged the emulsion. The film formed part of his documentary Chernobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks, the only official documentary of the initial aftermath. Unfortunately he died less than a year afterwards from the effects of the high level of radiation exposure he had received.

The effects of radiaton on film is something NASA had to work around as part of it's documenting of it's space programs. Along with their suppliers they evaluated various films to see what the effects of long-term exposure to radiation would be. The results were published in this paper, which includes some excellent comparison images. The general conclusions were that positive (slide) films were less suseptible to damage than negative films, and that slower-speed films also survived better than faster ones. They also concluded that storing the film in lead-lined containers had very little effect.

Lead lined cameras? Wouldn't be surprised if such a thing exists in the nuclear industry.

See the last paragraph above. The nuclear industry does have specialist shielded video cameras for remote monitoring in 'hot' areas which were developed specifically because solid-state CCD sensors are far more susceptible to radiation than tube-based cameras. Tube-based cameras are still the preferred choice for the most dangerous areas, as even with shielding exposure to gamma radiation will eventually kill CCDs. Stainless steel and tungsten are usually used as the shielding materials.

Not that much I think, early airport scanners could do it.

That's because the scanners used for hold baggage use powerful wide-band x-ray imaging. The scanners for hand baggage are less powerful, so it was always recommended that you keep film in your hand baggage, and even then ask if you could take your film out prior to scanning.

[touchingcloth]

So they should have shot the Chernobyl aftermath on Velvia 50, for a nice saturated look.

[bgmnts]

What was Jesus' surname?

Just Jesus innit, like Prince or Cher or Madonna.

[checkoutgirl]

Wept.

Sufferinfuck
Maryandjoseph
Andmarychain

[NoSleep]

H. Christ in a chicken basket.

[FredNurke]

Ben Pantera.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Cheers Buzby!