When one thinks of radiation, what kinds of thoughts first come to mind? For many, radiation gives the image of something scary. Often places like Fukushima and Chernobyl come to mind. For me, I’ll often immediately wonder “how much are we talking about”. There are two examples that often come to mind.

User Information / Data

Like radiation being useful for X-Rays and microwaving food, there are times where you need to handle user information and data. Though also like radiation, if you create too much of it for poor reasons, it becomes a much larger problem.

Security Issues

Recently I’m frequently annoyed reading about security issues, especially the automated bot submitted kind. I like using the XKCD chart on radiation to help visualize things. Sure ideally we would fix every security bug, but we also be honest and know if we’re talking about a banana (0.1 uSv), a CT Scan (mSv) or actually talking about something serious.