Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/23/why-you-probably-shouldnt-bu.html
…
4 Likes
Previously owned by Vlad?
5 Likes
Well, I’ve been wanting a mightier pen…
8 Likes
Legend says that Stan Lee created some of his most enduring characters with a radioactive pen in the 1960s.
13 Likes
So, radioactive quackery is still around. Interesting that the lantern mantle was vastly more radioactive, but still, I’ll take a hard pass on buying uncontained sources, thank you very much. A smoke detector doesn’t bother me, but bogus “medical” devices like that pen shouldn’t be a thing in the first place.
5 Likes
What wonderful things are on BB today?
“…Radioactive urethral sound.”
NOOOPPEEE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.
Let’s change the subject. While I had a bit of uranium glass slag, I got my first proper piece a few weeks ago. Look at that baby glow!
18 Likes
But why? If you are going to scam people, why not do it with something harmless?`Paying extra to get radioactive material for the pen seems stupid. Just pick som harmless colored crystals like sensible scammers.
11 Likes
exactly. you could even promote it as an homeopathic dilution of the active ingredient and fill it with nothing
3 Likes
6 Likes
Yes, come to the dark (mildly radioactive) side. I added blacklights to a thrift store find to show off our collection. Most of these were also thrift store finds for a couple dollars each. It’s amazing what you find hiding on those shelves.
16 Likes
It’s obvious that the pen works by emitting counter-radiation.
3 Likes
Every now and then you find a Radium Water Jug. Apparently a test of one by an engineer at the Mumble Mumble nuclear station set off the portal alarms at a fair distance away.
As did a certain antique watch with a radium dial, but that was for visibility while timing artiliary attacks.
@Mister44 me too!
It seems to be a fairly common find in junk shops in rural Ontario.
I’ve seen fluorescent uranium oxide tints in glass blowing colour bar as well, so it seems to be still available.
5 Likes
Oh wow - that looks great!!!
I have a cheap SW/LW UV light, but it allows me to light up this, and some of my florescent minerals!
3 Likes
Some camera manufacturers used to use glass elements doped with radioactive isotopes for specific refractive properties. Olympus was one of the companies but not the only one.
2 Likes
What he got was … a fake leather pouch
You say that like it was a bait-and-switch. “PU Pouch”
This is well outside my wheelhouse, and I’m risking looking foolish and ignorant, but could it be radioactive enough to cause a tingling in the fingers when holding it? “Wow, I can literally feel the healing energy flowing out of this baby!”
Or would that level of radioactivity put it squarely in hair falling out and gut-lining sloughing out of your arsehole territory?
ETA: I guess it’s also possible that they actually believe their own bullshit. Hanlon’s razor, and all that.
Eastman Kodak also made thorium-doped lenses (the WWII-vintage Aero-Ektar being one of the more famous examples).
2 Likes
I guess you can’t spell “radon” without “rad” - At least people will be able to accessorize their Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory sets!
5 Likes
Being marketed as something to use on one’s pressure points.
If only there were pressure points to fix “stupid”.
3 Likes
That is amazeballs. All I’ve got are some uranium glass marbles. (sad face)
1 Like
