So many people get college degrees then find employment in a field other than their major. I am a perfect example of that. But it really isn't a bad thing. You should work at something that you enjoy. I really don't advocate borrowing money for education either.

Got a wake up call this morning at 9:30 that my friend of about 10 years killed himself yesterday. He was brilliant. An engineer like me. We used to cross country ski together, go on bicycle training rides together. Our company just terminated him a week ago. He was very despondent prior to that and was having major issues with management. I don't really think that had a lot to do with it but who knows. Anyway, I don't have any details and I really don't want any either but Brian is gone. So so sad.

California in the 1970s has a lot to answer for as well. Is it just me or does no chest hair guy on the right look like Ashton Kutcher? This looks like it was shot during the filming of a porno in some North Hollywood backyard.

Malibu Sportswear: Lounge Suits, 1979

So what do you say, ladies? Is it driving you wild? Curling your hair like Farrah's?

Two more ads for Malibu Sportswear HERE.

Honestly. Who DOES that? And couldn't they find a more godlike car than a damned Ford Escape? Oh come on. The rear seats don't even fold flat and that's AFTER you pull out the headrests and set them on the floor....

I don't like 'em. It is basically what we've been joking about for years, become horribly real: the TSA has figured out a way to make all of us fly naked.

On the plus side, I've been seeing really encouraging conversations about privacy and privilege as a result of these scanners, and I've been seeing them in the "mainstream." This makes me happy.

But I've seen one common derailing point: whether or not the radiation exposure involved in being scanned is harmful. So I want to clear this up right now.

The science involved in our understanding of radiation is fairly precise. We know pretty much exactly the exposure involved in being scanned. What we're not sure of is exactly how this dose radiation will affect a person's physiology (this is mostly because the effect is not solely dependent on the physics of the radiation involved). So I can't say "yes it's safe" or "no, it's harmful" because I don't know.

I can, however, provide some perspective that I think will be helpful.

The dose of radiation from being scanned is between 0.005 and 0.009 millirems. This figure comes from studies done by experts in the field, not from the information given by the TSA or the company who manufactures the machines (who claim a slightly lower number). Great, so what does that mean?

0.009 millirems--let's round it up to 0.01--is, in fact, pretty small. During a three hour flight, you will get a dose of about 1 millirem: 100 times more than what you're getting in the scanner. And as someone on twitter pointed out, the difference between living in Atlanta and and living in Denver is about 50 millirems of radiation per year, just because Denver is higher (more cosmic radiation) and there is more uranium in the soil. I am speaking of the same kind of radiation in all of these cases, by the way.

So to sum up:

Are the scanners guaranteed safe? I can't say. But I can say that if you're worried about the radiation dose from the scanners, you shouldn't be flying anyway, because the radiation dose you're getting from flying is about a hundred times more than the radiation dose you're getting from being scanned.

My personal opinion, based on my knowledge of the physics of radiation, is that it's probably safe. We evolved on a planet that has a fairly low level of background radiation of various types, and it pretty much doesn't affect us until it gets way above those levels. These scanners are nowhere near that level. Neither is the radiation you get while flying, so that's okay too.

My advice is to not use "radiation exposure" as a reason why the scanners are a bad idea. The science is not there to back it up, and it serves for an all-too-convenient derailing point.

I am of Dutch, Armenian and Peranakan Chinese origins.

How about you?