Slashdot Mirror
Old School Data Mining, Maritime Style?
jason0000042 writes "The BBC is reporting on Cliwoc, the Climatological Database for the World's Oceans, which pulls data about climate change from 18th and 19th Century sailing ships' logbooks. It's like a window in time that could help us better understand global climate change, if they can decipher the olde timey language of the 1750's. Personally, I can't wait to know if we're going to melt down, or alternatively, have an ice age."
fuck you.
How is this junk science? A reputable institution performed a double-blind test of new equipment, and found it to have statistically meaningful effects. They acknowledged that the old cell towers were not harmfull to people, and even used them as a control (or baseline) to compare these new towers against. They acknowleged that they have no proof of perminant damage, and recomend that indepenant research be done to verify and extend their own. This sounds like a text-book example of good science to me.
These tests were not about handsets, and they made no claims that handsets were dangerous. The only effect that this study might have is in determining the placement of towers, so people don't have to spend large amounts of time in their immediate proximity. For example, in rural area many cell towers have been placed in church steeples because they are high points, and it is less expensive and less ugly than building a tower. Now, it would be nice to know if these new base stations will have an unplesent effect on people before they are installed.
It is really the media, not the institutions, that are to blame for the unjustified hysteria, which resulted in needing to do more work than necissary to quell peoples concerns. But I for one am glad that studies have been done to show that cell phones are safe, and am glad for new studies when new equipment comes out. Emperical data is always good, and assuming that there is no possibility that different RF techniques can have different effects than the ones we are familiar with is almost as bad unbased claims that new technology will cause cancer. (Althogh not as bad as saying that old, tested technology does)
How about just once nobody leaves a single comment?
You've probably noticed that people's noses get bigger as they get older. That's because old people are huge liars.
?4bc
Welcome to "Your GZipped Comment!"
Mind you, slashdot loses a bit in the translation.
Fuck slashcode, fuck it with a big rubber dick.