Kotaku
A Texas man, described in television reports as a gamer and out-of-work computer whiz who redesigns video games, received an early morning call from the FBI and Nuclear Regulatory Commission after word got out that he was trying to build a small nuclear reactor in his house.
The feds were alerted after the man blogged that he had some uranium and that the background radiation in his home had doubled.
The man is an out-of-work computer whiz who redesigns video games. He said he started studying physics around the eighth grade. He said he is a science buff who is fascinated by nuclear reactions and radiation."These things are in your tap water, you know, in the dirt," he said. "You could hold a Geiger counter up to a banana and get a count off of it."
He said he has always been curious about how things work and likes to do his own experiments.
The man decided to create a small-scale nuclear reaction in the same room he plays his video games as his latest experiment.
"People do it in universities all the time," he said. "It's just not usual that somebody does it outside of a university."
After a brief inspection of his contraption the feds left the man alone, taking his experiment at his parent's request.
Rockwall Man Tries To Build Nuclear Reactor In Home [NBC 5, via Game Politics]
Comments
I know the 360 uses a lot of power, but geez!
*ba dum bum pshht!*
its probably to power his sega genesis, sega CD, and sega 32x all at once
sweetness.
maybe someone will give him a job now, so he can keep his time occupied with that instead of killing us all.
PS4 and Xbox 720 will require nuclear power to give us the best graphics ever created. Who cares about tumors when you've got PHOTOREALISM!
To Guantanamo with you young man! Get ready for a long trip around Europe with several stops in strange countries to boot.
Looks like somebody can't be bothered to wait for Fallout 3.
Haha the kicker to this story is that the government only took his experiment at the request of his parents. I wonder if that means he was living in their basement during this time period...
Somebody attempts to do something awesome and then the man has to put a stop to it.
Where the hell did he get Uranium!
Curiosity Killed the Cat.
I would hate to live next to the guy if something went wrong, it'd be like a local Chernobyl.
I love it... boy turns 18 and suddenly he's a "man".
I wonder if John Lithgow is dating his mom.
I wonder if he drives a DeLorean.
What i want to know is, where do you get uranium?.
Dont' worry, after this kind of exposure, all kinds of tech universities will be stuffing his mailbox.
Obviously, brains do not mean you have common sense.
I've been saying that for years now.
So is he a man or a kid? The fact that the name wasn't released and the 'device' was taken away at his parents request makes me wonder where the hell he got uranium.
He... 'redesigns' games? Is that another way of saying he mods the occasional SNES ROM, or that he was playing Gears when they came over and he said "This game would be better with a katamari weapon"...?
brb fbi
Apparently its easy to get the stuff to make a nuke in the US.... I feel safe
"had some uranium"
That's the part that amazes me, not the in-home nuclear reactor :)
@the-hypnotoad:
Lol that didnt even make sense though. Its the PS3 that uses the larger amount of power.
I kind of doubt the stuff he was using was weapons-grade.
Good old American DIY spirit...
...crushed by the feds!
@DonovanTaters: I was wondering the same thing.
Pretty but I was a bit concerned when he said that it was in our water. WTF
So THAT's how you power the hardware to run max Crysis.
*cue Dudley Moore voice*
"iss jus a lil' joke....."
"at his parents request."
The guy's a goddamn loser.
What I don't understand is why they need to tell us he's a gamer. It's not like the information is important to the article...
"The mantle in gas lanterns, the small cloth pouch over the flame, is coated with a compound containing thorium-232. When bombarded with neutrons it produces uranium-233, which is fissionable."
From the much more interesting story about a kid trying to build a reactor for a Boy Scout Merit Badge.
Achievement Unlocked: Radioactive!
Read all about it here:
[www.dangerouslaboratories.org]
Sick of paying for his electricity bill eh.
If the FEDs left him alone, then he obviously didn't have any uranium. I'm pretty sure if he did have uranium the FEDs would have the same questions many of us have, "Where the hell did he get uranium from".
"The man decided to create a small-scale nuclear reaction in the same room he plays his video games as his latest experiment."
I hate the media. Why is this important? Oh, that's right. He's a gamer. I almost forgot. Thanks for the heads up local-terrible-newsman.
@Kado: probably from Libyan nationalists
If the feds left him alone after inspecting the contraption, does that mean he was nowhere close to making it functional, or was it just so small that it wasn't deemed hazardous?
@bastardcake:
LOL. You said it best!
Mom said I have to put my uranium away. It's attracting Feds.
Thats Just a bit scary.
@Miksho:
Winner!
Follow the story from the beginning.
[episteme.arstechnica.com]
[episteme.arstechnica.com]
[episteme.arstechnica.com]
I bet He was trying to find a way to generate the 1.21 giga watts needed to help get his De Lorean and the flux capacitor running so He can go in the future and see what Sony, Microsoft and Nintendos next game system is.
Why is it that folks who blog think that whatever they write on it is safe from prying eyes?
And yes the media just had to add that he was a gamer.
Well at least it goes to show that gamers are smarter than the average non gamer then right! ZING!
Parents sound like assholes...
You can buy uranium from Amazon.
Welcome to the future, kids.
as if stalker wasn't atmospheric enough
Bah. Some kids in my dorm made a working nuclear reactor for a scavenger hunt. They just made it on a micro scale, using some sort of uranium compound they scraped off the inside of a speaker. Apparently it was harder for them to prove it was working than it was to actually make it work.
Nuclear reactors are sort of simple, really, and there's all sorts of fissionable material around in small amounts.
mmmmmm......
irradiated bananas!!
@Miksho: Nice!
You wonder why some people think of these things.
Best line EVAR! "taking the experiment at his parents request"
@Kado: You can mail order it. Uranium is not in any way difficult to get. There is a book out there about the boyscout who used the uranium from fire detector sensors to make his nuclear reactor and had it running for a while before the government realized he had one working in his backyard.
@Talli: Actually, I think it is the fact he got his hands on uranium that makes him a man. It takes serious cojones to do that.
@cduran: Um no the fact is Uranium is not that big of a deal despite what the media likes to paint it as. Its the KIND of uranium that could make it a issue as the kind used in reactors is not the kind used in bombs (different isotope)
Now if it had been Plutonium... THATS a different story.
I remember my High School Science teacher having a huge catalog where you could order almost anything Science wise. You could order chips that contained radioactive materials for science experiements too.
Actually, it was just a suitcase filled with pinball machine parts.
Amendmant 2 right to bear (nuclear)arm(ament)s
that's how it reads...right?...maybe I shouldn't mention my backyard missle silo since feds are watching my every move...it's not paranoia if they are really after you...wait...what was that noise...*dons tinfoil hat*
@Kado: [www.amazon.com]
Thats where he got the uranium.