kreed said:
Note on Australia post website it states that items going to
Washington will be "irradiated" and this
will destroy electronic devices.
This might only apply to mail though.
That's what you get when you use Australia Post as an Electronics
Engineering Advisory Service.
They barely know about post, what makes you think they can handle this?
As it turns out, the irradiation is to kill bugs, and it won't kill
electronics. If you wrap it in foil, they'll either crank up the dosage
to make up for it, or, dismantle it and expose it anyway.
This has been going on for some time too. And, shock horror hold on to
your knickers, not only to Washington State.
I have taken cards and laptop some years back, they would have gone
through scanners at each airport along the way and they work fine,
still do after all those years.
As have I and many, many others.
AS for those naked body scanners in the US, they work similar to an X-ray, so
Backscatter xray uses xrays to *reflect* off one side of the subject
while medical xrays go *through* the subject to look at the innards.
Backscatter is not blocked by things like clothes and such (though
their resistance is visible), but IS blocked by the skin, and other
things like pistols, rocket launchers and such.
The dosage of backscatter is by far lower than medical use xray too.
However, since this is ionising radiation, it does have a carcinogenic
effect. From here, it depends on who you listen to. Some say *any*
amount is too much, others say under the circumstances for the gain, the
exposure is negligible.
Both sides however quite happily bid their farewells on your flight,
and both neglect to mention the radiation you're exposed to by the sun,
now that you're on a long haul flight, and have less atmosphere stopping
said radiation.
Ahh, the irony.
Not lost apparently on the tour guides that run to Chernobyl nowadays.
You get your very own radiation dose tag, and are also alerted to the
fact the flight you took to get there, had probably exposed you to more
radiation than you'll get in Chernobyl.
