Readit News > Why report the ambiguous "300 CPM" instead of an actual dose estimate in mSv/μSv?
> Is there any legitimate reason to report CPM instead of dose after a contamination event?
To get the actual effective dosage you'll need a lot more information and calculations. The CPM can give you a decent estimate, if you already know context, but it is meaningless if you don't. So to an expert in that space it's a good quick estimate, but to an average person it isn't (even to above average people).
In context is also being used as a stepping stone for quick evaluation. They sent the guy to the hospital and he'll get a better estimate of dosage there. I'm sure they also were doing those calculations prior to sending him out. It may just be customary to use CPM units. That part I don't know. Here's the page they reference though[0] (there's only a single (xii) so easy to find).
[0] https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part050/p...
[disclosure] I have training in nuclear physics, including in radiation dosages (I worked on developing shielding materials), but I have not worked on a reactor (though I've seen reactors and Cherenkov Radiation :) so the customs of the bureaucracy are beyond my wheelhouse. But from my experience I'm not surprised by this. I would expect a lot more documentation and accurate measurements are being passed through other channels.
In that context, I'd guess that the 300 CPM figure is just a signpost that says "we measured the worker to make sure that he was safe to release to a hospital."
Even among major languages, English isn't anywhere near the worst offender of copulating with other languages for features--it never really adopted foreign grammar, the way you see with, e.g., Turkic languages.
The creolization is why English has a relatively simple grammar, and all the word sources is why we have like 16-20 vowel sounds trying to cram into latin characters.
Yes, to my dismay.
I like classic D&D, dungeon crawling and what people so derisively call "rollplaying". I find amateur theater improv quite tedious and uninteresting
I haven't been able to find other players like me at all for ages. Everyone I meet "Just got into the game because of Critical Role"
I feel quite strongly that my lifelong hobby has been warped away from me. I try hard not to be resentful but it sucks I can't find groups to play with that want the same kind of game I do
So the speed of light was calculated using a previous definition of metre, and that magic number was used to upgrade its own definition? That's a tautology, sounds wrong to me.
As a result, a hallmark of GPT-generated text is its (over)using of the em dash--I have stopped using it for this reason an just use two hyphens now instead.
It's a bit of a problem that the same character is both a mark of LLMs and skilled writing.
To me, it feels like it is the same purpose as the EM dashes.
And I discovered the EM with ChatGPT, I've never seen it before.
They're frequently used in skilled and professional grade writing.
However, em dashes are a different case. The main reason why it's desirable to use em dashes (beside convention) is for clarity of purpose. The hyphen is already a very overloaded character; they're extensively used to denote ranges and link compound words. Importantly, both of those usages do not correspond to pauses in spoken language. If you're voicing a hyphen you're supposed to barrel on through it. An em dash is much closer to a parenthesis, comma, or semicolon. It's a meaningful break in the sentence, in the way that a hyphen isn't.
Now, if it were up to me I'd choose a different character to replace em dashes (maybe underscores), but that's a separate argument.
As a side note, what does your site do that it's possible to use up all server resources? Computers are stupid fast these days. I find it's really difficult to build something that doesn't scale to at least multiple hundreds of requests per second.