81–90 of 132 posts
It's weird that CT scans cost hundreds (thousands?) of dollars when used in medicine but at the airport everyone's baggage is routinely scanned for approx. $free. Is the hardware and software needed for CT scans really that expensive or not?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The air port has an x-ray machine, not a CT scanner. The CT has a ring the spins around the object making a 3d image - they don't have that at the airport. X-rays are quite cheap in the medical world (reading them is where the cost is, not taking the x-ray).
I suppose a CT is what I saw at the airport earlier this year then - maybe Houston? The technicians clearly had a 3d model and were manipulating it to view it from all angles.
Technically, one can also get a (simple) 3D model of something with 'linear tomography', e.g. when the 'sample' is moved under the x-ray source, which happens in classic baggage scanners.
I re-use jam jars for food storage, drinking glasses, mini herb gardens, etc. and could incorporate bottles, jars, and other glass containers into a variety of needs around the house if they were designed with second and third lives in mind.
Add in health effects of microplastics/chemical leaching and glass is again a winner.
Transportation costs and breakage are perhaps higher, but maybe that’s a cost we should accept?
It's weird that CT scans cost hundreds (thousands?) of dollars when used in medicine but at the airport everyone's baggage is routinely scanned for approx. $free. Is the hardware and software needed for CT scans really that expensive or not?
Airport scanners are not CT. They will only give you one projection. I would also be willing to bet these CT machines can only scan a very small volume. Typically, they will rotate the sample, not the X-ray source and detector. I’d imagine some of the cost comes from being able to move the source and detector while keeping everything in alignment. (Disclaimer: My experience is secondhand with scanning metals)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people do. 1. Reduce plastic consumption as much as you can. 2. Use reusable bags 3. Choose packaging that contains less plastic. This is truly horrible in the US. Apple sauce containers for kids have so much unnecessary plastic. I mean the ones with the fancy caps that are big only to appeal to kids. And to reduce your carbon footprint further - controversial point incoming - reduce or stop eating meat. “But, a…
Fascinatingly, single use plastic bags are so impossibly thin that you'd have to reuse a reusable bag more times than they're likely to last. I have not seen any data, but I'm willing to bet that our consumption of plastic has increased, with any reduction in single use plastic bags more than offset by an increase in "reusable" bags. If instead of normalising the use of reusable bags, we normalised soft plastics (LDP…
There's plenty of other studies. Just search for life cycle analysis of grocery bags or similar on Google Scholar.
[0]: https://backend.orbit.dtu.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/151577434...
The planet dies everyday by our creations .. Yet we keep marveling at our creations everyday. Nothing changeth.
That’s because none of us truly want to give up what we have gained. You’re still commenting on a website using a computer or a phone. The only way this will fix is after the planet is truly fully fucked, where no amount of money can protect you from that, then humanity will figure out whacko ways to fix it. Many if not most will suffer indescribably, for sure. But I see no other way this will play out.
This is very interesting, but I can’t help but feel that a glass bottle with a metal cap (and one of those Dutch condiment spatulas) would be just fine for all these applications and also be more easily and effectively reused and recycled. I re-use jam jars for food storage, drinking glasses, mini herb gardens, etc. and could incorporate bottles, jars, and other glass containers into a variety of needs around the hou…
That's was true in an age of raw material abundance where a light and disposable package means less transportation cost, simple infrastructures, less distributed human labor requirements etc. You can pack milk in a factory and directly ship it to stores where the only need is putting them on some supermarket shelf. In the past there is a need for glass bottles who are fragile and heavyweight, they need to be cleaned up, there is an industry to wash/recycle them, many stages in line etc...
The result of modern food packaging is that we are able to concentrate stuff, few big factories in exotic places, more products on shelves, cheaper product. However now we start seeing that such efficient move is not sustainable... I bet in the future we will came back somewhat, and such move will hurt MUCH...
This is very interesting, but I can’t help but feel that a glass bottle with a metal cap (and one of those Dutch condiment spatulas) would be just fine for all these applications and also be more easily and effectively reused and recycled. I re-use jam jars for food storage, drinking glasses, mini herb gardens, etc. and could incorporate bottles, jars, and other glass containers into a variety of needs around the hou…
I suspect that transportation and breakage costs are higher only because we don't account for externalities when considering plastic: in other words producers don't sustain the full costs and are effectively subsidized by the society at large and the environment (through increased healthcare spending, lower QOL, higher obesity rates, lower fertility, and other environmental costs that will be sustained by future generations).
This is very interesting, but I can’t help but feel that a glass bottle with a metal cap (and one of those Dutch condiment spatulas) would be just fine for all these applications and also be more easily and effectively reused and recycled. I re-use jam jars for food storage, drinking glasses, mini herb gardens, etc. and could incorporate bottles, jars, and other glass containers into a variety of needs around the hou…
For reference, I assume you mean a bottle scraper here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_scraper
They're not specifically intended for condiments (most jam jars are low and wide enough that they can be scraped with a spoon), but for storing more viscous liquids in larger glass (milk) bottles, like yoghurt or vla.