Why is it that reporters never bother to ask photographers anything? The apparent murder of Litvinenko in London via ingestion of Polonium 210 is undoubtedly grotesque, but is now begetting a frenzy of paranoid journalistic speculation concerning the illicit import of 'this rare and dangerous isotope' [Guardian] that is 'the deadliest poison known to man' [Daily Mail]. How did the assassin smuggle it in past all our dirty-bomb surveillance and hi-tech detectors at ports of entry? 'UK on terror alert!'[BBC] Alarm [everywhere] as radiological-hazard-suited police checked Itsu for contamination! Personally I always thought most people bought their Polonium from a photographic dealer.
Polonium 210 has been used in photo labs and darkrooms for over 30 years. It's an ionising alpha emitter that has tremendous antistatic properties, and a tiny encapsulated fleck of the stuff is a component of about the only antistatic brushes that actually work. At the risk of inviting suspicion I confess I have used one myself for cleaning film before enlarging. My recollection is that you had to get a Home Office licence back then and that you couldn't just chuck the cartridge in the bin after it was spent. But don't tell the Daily Mail this isn't lumps of glowing Chernobyl hauled to UK in a lead-lined diplomatic pouch by Stakhanovite thugs. Alpha particles can't even make it through a sheet of paper let alone exterior skin. In other words it's pretty much undetectable.
If you want one, and right now it probably wouldn't be a good idea, the manufacturer is StaticMaster and the 3" brush is $33.99 from Calumet.com - just the job for professional photographers and hitmen. There's also a smaller more covert 1" version ideal for 35mm film and eliminating small annoying blemishes from Putin's past. The amount of Polonium contained in a StaticMaster brush is tiny, a few hundred MicroCuries, but a minute speck is lethal if ingested. Like lead (which it decays to) it is dissolved in stomach acid and distributed around the body where the Alpha rays do plenty of damage. So please be careful not to inadvertently eat it.
There will now be a moral panic and legislation banning anti-static brushes, of course.
I'm not dense, just deliberately underexposed.
The B9180 is excellent, and cost a third as much as I spent on the previous pair of Epsons with CIS - one using G4 inks, the other Cone Piezo inks. Both mainly gave me endless trouble, clogs, spoiled prints. I gave them away in the end because I was sick of them, and couldn't fairly sell that much trouble to anyone..
I never got on at all with Cones BW ICC inkset after he had to change the workflow away from the PS plugin for legal reasons. Prints were never as good as with the old Piezotone system. Another £200 wasted.
The only real problem with the B9180 is the running cost of having a printer that actually works. I have already spent more on paper and cartridges than I did on the printer and I have only had it 3 weeks. At least it doesn't waste most of the ink in trying to clear nozzles, and none of the paper gets wasted through printing flaws.
Regards, Tony Sleep