NYC Wants to Ban Geiger Counters

Ellis D. Tripp noted a village voice article about attempts in NYC to pass a law requiring permits for air monitoring devices including apparently geiger counters. I'm sure everyone will feel much safer not knowing anything.

H'tale, his eyes closed

[Stanistani]

Jimmy Carter at Three Mile island!

When geiger counters are outlawed...

[justsomecomputerguy]

Only outlaws will have geiger counters!

Re:It's for your own good.

[Jason Levine]

From TFA, the rationale is because they're worried that a bunch of shoddy devices will throw tons of false positives, and cause havok amongst emergency responders who would have to run around town constantly trying to weed out false leads.

Frankly, it's crap.

I agree. My BS detector is going off like crazy. Uh... I mean, my BS detector *would* be going off like crazy if I owned one.... which I don't... because owning a device that can measure the atmospheric content of BS is quite illegal and I wouldn't do anything like that.... *glances over shoulder nervously*

Re:Preventing Learning

[Dancindan84]

Jews in the death camps were not given any information about the war, their future...

You managed to Godwin a thread on Geiger counters by the 3rd post. That's got to be some kind of record...

Futurama

[jeffgeno]

Scientists warned that the giant ball of garbage could someday return to Earth, but their concerns were dismissed as "depressing."

Re:RTFA

[raidfibre]

Just think how Planet of The Apes would have gone down if they had banned Apes first. It would have made the movie so much more boring. Banning apes and all.

Get it? banning things preemptively ..

oh never mind.

Geiger Counters Outlawed

[Sperbels]

If Geiger counters are outlawed, then only outlaws will have Geiger counters.

Re:H'tale, his eyes closed

[HTH NE1]

Jimmy Carter at Three Mile island!

Giuliani, when the towers fell?

Re:RTFA

[sexconker]

how expensive could a basic check be ?

Famous last words.

Its even worse ...

[trolltalk.com]

"requiring permits for air monitoring devices

Customer in restaurant: This steak smells delicious.

Cop: You got a permit for that nose, mister?

Re:RTFA

[Surt]

Well in that case it would probably be best if the police just went ahead and shot them to put them out of their misery.

Re:H'tale, his eyes closed

[Matt Perry]

Elvis, at Wal-Mart.

Elvis and Nixon at Tenagra!

Re:H'tale, his eyes closed

[eepok]

You know, my one bit of common-culture pride came from my capability to keep my techi-nerdiness a complete secret until my super powers were needed. No one would know otherwise. But I read this and laughed so loud, one of my co-workers HAD to come by and have me explain what was so funny. Now I'm a "Trekkie" according to her.

*sigh. eepok, when his laugh alerted others.

Oh, for those that are curious, these oddly constructed sentences are references to Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Enterprise had encountered a race that can communicate using English words, but their syntax was so foreign, that the Federation considers them "friendly" but completely incapable of similar communication. Turns out that they speak in only in metaphors and stories of actions and events that have happened in their history or their holy book(s).

For example: To say that Slashdot has been forcibly and legally censored, they would say "Slashdot, when the hammer of Scientology came down."

Re:RTFA

[MadMidnightBomber]

You're right. It would be much better to create a law "being in a charge of a high-tech gadget while stupid", punishable by up to 3 years in jail.