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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • Back when I used to mod Reddit, starting maybe a year or so ago we’d occasionally get users who would be inexplicably targeted by the auto-filter.

    The accounts weren’t new, weren’t shadowbanned, weren’t using any filter-triggering words (that I could guess at), and an examination via Pushshift didn’t reveal any kind of spammy behavior. Nonetheless, their posts would get silently removed by the site-wide filter, and frequently we wouldn’t even know until they modmailed us.

    Now I can’t help but wonder if this was a result of a beta-test of something like this. Something they had done had invisibly lowered their “Reddit credit”, leaving us as confused as them.








  • They don’t understand how to use a search engine effectively anymore or how to rapidly filter through large amounts of information to find answers

    This bit, at least, may be at least as much a fault of the environment - the increasing awfulness of search results these days. It used to be you could search a specific issue (e.g., “borked.exe high CPU usage” or “how to partition a drive”) and your first results would be relatively well-written sites run by actual tech people. More recently, though, it feels like:

    • The first 5-8 results are near-identical “help” sites that are 40% introduction, 40% basic troubleshooting steps, 15% “download our app!”, and 5% actually useful tips.

    • There are tech site results listed… but they’re from 2016, a different software version, maybe even a different OS.

    • "Okay, so, to fix this problem you first need… [SIGN IN TO CONTINUE READING]

    • If you’re very, very lucky, you’ll find a Reddit (or now, Lemmy) thread on the issue.

    I’d consider myself pretty technically savvy, and even I find it frustrating to search for IT info or fixes these days. The newest problem is AI-written answers cooked up for you on the spot, which are frequently completely unhelpful yet pushed to the top of the results.





  • Assuming the majority of the material on it is still Radium, the good news is it’s mostly undergoing Alpha decay - which can be stopped by something as simple as your skin. Depending on the decay chain, there’s also probably a bit of Beta decay in there, for which a strong metal box will probably suffice.

    But the real point here is that 10 uSv is the radiation equivalent of being alive for an average day, so brief exposure is unlikely to cause real injury. But here are some things you can do if you’re still concerned:

    • Limit time exposed to it. It’s okay to take it out to show to friends and family, but otherwise keep it somewhere people aren’t likely to be nearby.

    • The aforementioned metal box.

    • Wash your hands thoroughly after handling, and/or wear gloves. It’s unlikely, especially if the radium-painted parts are under glass, but possible that radioactive materials could end up on your skin. Washing hands should prevent this.

    If you’ve heard of the “Radium girls”, the thing that really made them sick is that they were licking radium-coated paintbrushes, causing radioactive material to end up inside their bodies. Since (I presume) you’re not licking the compass, you’re much less at risk.