The Thought Emporium
10 HN mentions · mentioned in 6 months, 2020–2025
20:27 · 2.2M views · Feb 18, 2020
The Thought Emporium tests so-called negative ion and anti-5G wellness products and finds they are radioactive, with some coated in powdered thorium.
HN cites it as the debunking behind news stories about radioactive anti-5G pendants and wellness trinkets sold on Amazon.
10 comments from Hacker News
> If you can't trust the origins of pottery on Amazon, why can you trust the origins of anything on Amazon? Because many (most?) categories of goods are consolidated into an effective oligopoly of reputable brands, where these brands push competitors out of the market in basically every respect — in brand-recognition, in advertising payments, in number of reviews, in review score, in "link juice", etc. So even when there are garbage Shenzhen e-waste products being marketed on the same website, in the same category as the thing you're looking for, you won't see them if there are real products to be had, because the first five pages are all the real products. (Unless you're doing very specific searches, using very unusual keywords that the well-known brands would never think to buy.) This is why the experience of shopping on Amazon is a different experience than shopping on a site like Wish or AliExpress: Amazon has both the e-waste and the stuff from well-known brands, and if you stay "on the happy path" of using the site, you'll end up mostly seeing stuff from well-known brands. The only time this falls down is when there are no reputable brands in a category. Such as in the category of kitsch stoneware. For those categories, Amazon and Wish/AliExpress become effectively the same site. > And if you can't trust the origins of anything, you can't count on safety regulations and standards that you take for granted. I mean... most of the things I buy on Amazon, I'm not putting in
Yes, radon is pretty hilarious and spreads in very unexpected ways. Completely wrapping sources of radon like uranium or thorium minerals (or these bracelets containing some of that), only holds back the diffusion process for some time unless the shielding is really thick and very dense. That's why radon accumulates so well in household cellars, it penetrates concrete walls easily. If you look closely in thought emporiums video (link below), the thick clouds - representing each the full paths of individual alpha particles (from the point of decay until full absorption in the air) - don't originate right at the surface of his shielding materials (paper, chicken skin... whatever). Instead, the alpha particle clouds stand by themselves in free space and can only really stem from radon that decided to decay at those positions somewhere outside of the shielding (transforming to "solid" polonium in that process and sticking itself to the next closest lump of molecules/dust). If the alpha particles would penetrate the shieldings (which they can't because of too much material/density), we would see clouds stemming directly from the shielding surfaces which I don't see happening: this video You may find and like my comment there, maybe it helps to fight some misconceptions about natural radioactivity. ;-)
Not entirely related. Some scam health products are made with radioactive material[0,1] (thorium dioxide) and can be found in wands, baby clothing, pendents, cards, wristbands, face cream, toothbrushes, and more. Even more concerning given that these products will shed that radioactive material into the environment and be ingested by humans. The "quantum wands" as shown in the YouTube video are filled with a sizeable quantity of thorium dioxide powder and is possible to forcibly open. They are illegal but continue to be sold. [0]: this video [1]: [LINK]
> This is how a free market works. Said free market tends to create weird customs that are not necessarily good for the most of us. Someone once said radiation has healing properties and last radioactive items for healing appeared, oh well, on Amazon. this video and before that, there's a museum of the same stuff [LINK] Note that I am not saying the regulator can not or will not abuse their rights. This is a big issue and I'm not competent enough to say where I'm leaning there. I only disagree with "free market will lead to the best solution by itself".
If you knew how bad it really is: this video Anyway here's where you can order bulk capsule of americium: [LINK] Thorium oxide powder [LINK] That should get you started repeating the atomic boyscouts experiments straigt from china. If the thorium oxide isn't to your liking in bulk, it's been sold as a "negative ion" product to gullible esoteric idiots and widely available. Edit: you might also need some beryllium for the neutron gun, you can get that on ebay [LINK] Anyway, i'm on a whole lot of fbi lists now