Looks to me like a highly-upscaled low-res photo. Probably drone footage?
4 Likes
Given the less than perfect reputation mining companies have across the globe, I’m impressed that they immediately informed the authorities & a successful search was conducted & they have even expressed a willingness to pay for the costs of the search.
If they’d stayed silent, that little finger tip sized pellet could have remained forgotten, lost & undiscovered, silently poisoning desert creatures for decades.
Instead, they came forward, a search was conducted & they were able to find it. Pretty amazing. Imagine if it had bounced just a bit further out of range of the detection equipment…?
As to how it managed to get lost, that’s probably just as @Polyphemus suggests & the probability of such an event was not realised.
I recall that the US military once accidentally dropped a few live nukes on some homeground farmland once during the cold war & one nearly detonated & if I recal correctly, one was never even found & is still out there.
Kinda scary that these ‘accidents’ even occur.
6 Likes
“Immediately” is relative. Apparently, it took over a week…
Where there are people, there are errors… the surprising thing is that nothing catastrophic ever has happened.
6 Likes
Before I retired, part of my job was to regulate the industrial use of radioactive materials. I wasn’t involved in medical or military applications, but all the requests for radiographic NDT for the North-West of the country came to me for approval. I would periodically visit the operators on site, to make sure they weren’t breaking the rules, and I would investigate accidents - such as unintended radiation exposures, and lost sources.
I could tell some wild stories - but if I did, I’d probably lose my pension, and I might even get arrested.
5 Likes
I just hope (if the idea interests you) you can write them down in a book to be published posthumously. I enjoy your high quality writing style very much, as I’m sure others do and will do. 
6 Likes
Thank you for saying nice things. I don’t know about writing a book, but I admit that the idea of becoming posthumous gets more worrying as time goes by.
To be honest, I wasn’t aware that I had a writing style. I just write about whatever is sparking my interest at a given time - and I write the way I talk. The way I think. There’s no plan to it.
6 Likes
Yes! And that is exactly what I meant. A person’s “style” is what comes out when they create something, which includes how it comes out, Very individual is Style. Yours is coherent and accessible.
3 Likes
How lovely! Looks pretty snug. Got marshmallows? 
I hope the outage is brief for you. Power outages are a pain.
2 Likes
Entering day 4…contemplating a hotel with room service…it is exhausting getting up to keep a fire going. Will be in the 60’s tomorrow. I may just move into the yard…where is my tent… 
5 Likes
Guess that means ol’ Polly is “stylin” 
2 Likes
This baby appeared in my home city of Liverpool in 1998. It was only intended to be temporary, but the people of the city loved it - so the city agreed to purchase it, and it’s been permanently on display ever since.
7 Likes
It’s beautiful 
Don’t hamper the banana’s joy of rollerblading! Or… whatever it is it’s doing 
It’s like these mornings when you wake up and your shower head walks out on you giraffically, I’m sure it’s fine, worse things happen all the time! 
6 Likes
The banana split…and made a quick escape…
5 Likes
Oh … Very punny, @kliktrak
3 Likes
4 Likes
Bananas are slippery enough on their own, but add roller skates?
2 Likes
