The article is very vague on how the radioactivity allows detection of leaking gas.
The video at the bottom explains from 7:50 in. Gas pressure pressing on a spring holds a radiation shield in place. If the gas leaks the shield moves and the radiation can be detected.
MH-53E maintainer here. The system is IBIS (Inflight Blade Inspection System) and the little pods are BIM (blade inspection monitors). The box is pretty obvious sitting just behind the main rotor on the deck above the center engine. I found a random picture on the web:
The IBIS devices provide in-flight warning of blade failure on various models of helicopters. One device is located on the root of each blade attached to the rotor. The IBIS detects a decrease in pressure in the blades of a CH-53 model helicopter. Any cracks in the blades will result in a decrease in air pressure in the blade. Such cracks could result in structural failure in the blade, thereby resulting in a potentially dangerous operational situation for the helicopter, such as a hard landing and/or injury to the craft and/or personnel up to, and including, death. Each device contains approximately 500 microcuries (18.5 MBq) of strontium-90 (Sr-90) in the form of a rolled metal foil, encased in a small stainless steel protective cylinder about the size of the press button on a ballpoint pen. The external radiation level of the IBIS is 0.8 mR/hr at 3 inches in the normal (shielded) mode, and 75 mR/hr at 12 inches in the failure (extended) mode.
The video explains it pretty well. There's a spring loaded plunger in that IBIS sensor that can be seen visually by mechanics on the ground. When the pressure drops, the plunger retracts, showing a visual indication. At the same time, it also removes the rad source from its shielding when it does that, increasing emissions for the in flight sensor to see.
It's a medieval measurement, still in popular use. Nowadays it means approximately 2.54 centimeters. Historically, it's the height of the ash pile a "witch" would leave behind, and the word has morphed only slightly from "witches" into "inches."
Actually nowadays it means exactly 2.54 cm as that’s how it is defined. Which also means all distance measured in US Customary units is ultimately metric too
The titanium spar is filled with gas. If there was a crack in the spar the gas would escape, therefore tripping the pressure sensitive radiation shield. Releasing radiation that can be detected inside the helicopter.
Since the radiation source is only exposed if it's indicating a potential main rotor crack, and it's not a very strong radiation source in the first place (so it's not like it allows long distance tracking), it seems like a minor risk -- if the radioactive capsule is exposed, the pilot is going to be returning to safe place to land.
Beta particles typically only travel a few meters in air before they lose most of their energy.
Life in the moment is a lot easier if you don't second-guess yourself. I think this is why many people (and probably ~all people, if tired) crave simplistic solutions.
I like to make a subagent take the "devil's advocate" take on a subject. It usually does all the arguing for me as to why the main agent has it wrong. Commonly results in better decisions that I'd have made alone.
Asking the agent to interview on why I disagree helps too but is more effort.
What we're doing at Cloudflare (including some of what the author works on) samples adaptively. Each log batch is bucketed based on a few fields, and in each bucket if there's lots of logs in each bucket we only keep the sqrt or log of the number of input logs. It works really well... but part of why it works well is we always have blistering rates of logs, so can cope with spikes in event rates without the sampling system itself getting overwhelmed.
The status quo isn't an application. "Digital ID" is a misnomer, it's a government backed application akin to what you'd see in an authoritarian crony state (China, Vietnam, etc). Unbelievable that a western country is signing off on this.
> if they can't explain what they want to do clearly and why, it probably shouldn't be done. Quality goes up by slowing down.
I kind of agree. Without what you describe, teams often get lost. But I’ve also seen that approach keep teams stuck in comfortable local minima. Sometimes you’ve got to take risks.
People need agency, and feel empowered to go forward. I'm not arguing against that interpretation of the post.
But having agency doesn't equal a lack of accountability, or being able to explain what you're doing.
In the end, it's a tricky balance between moving fast and slow, which is why no one has found the perfect, long-term viable solution yet.
I agree, it's an interesting view. I found it quite positive about the culture in that part of Splunk. The writer parachuted in, threw their weight around, bruised a bunch of people, but lost out to another manager who openly acknowledged the contributions of their people.
The video at the bottom explains from 7:50 in. Gas pressure pressing on a spring holds a radiation shield in place. If the gas leaks the shield moves and the radiation can be detected.
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