Slashdot Mirror
University Bans wi-fi as Health Concern
BaltikaTroika writes "A Canadian university has banned wi-fi, since the university President sees a possible link between electric and magnetic fields and brain tumors. According to the head of the university, "the jury's out on this one, I'm not going to put in place what is potential chronic exposure for our students." Is anybody outside of this university's administration concerned about this?"
I have a wifi router under my couch, hope my nuts are OK!
But it's not like all those other electro-magnetic waves just hit the walls of the campus and stop dead in their, uh, tracks...
WTF?
Better ban cordless phones, too, and everything else that uses 2.4 Ghz.
Legalize recreational marijuana. Seriously.
Have they also banned cell phones? Because students tend to hold those next to their heads instead of on their lap. Since the power drops off as 1/r^3 (roughly), the distance between your brain and the antenna is a big deal.
[+] Tinfoil, helmet
How's wifi different than any other radio signal? Sure, it's a different frequency and bandwidth, but radio waves are passing through us all the time. Are they gonna ban radio stations now cause it might be cancerous?
Seems a little far-fetched.
google.slashdot
Carcinogenic inks in the paper
Alcohol
Cigarettes
Vending Machines
Money
Pesticides on the grass
Asphalt roads
Air Conditioning
Natural Gas heating
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
I don't know of ANY wi-fi product that even radiates half a watt. What a pack of blithering luddites.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Better watch out, 50 years of ABC broadcasts are gonna leave you sterile!
...while talking on his portable phone and listening to the radio.
But Canucks really can't take the risk of losing any more brain cells.
What? This thread is going to be stupid Canadian jokes, stupid American jokes, and some dufus trying to prove how smart he is by showing some fucking thing about ionizing radiation.
We ought to send those guys some aluminum foil hats.
When I graduated from the University of Tinfoilhats, Ottawa campus, in 2001 with my degree in Paranoia Studies, I thought my hallowed school would never make the mainstream media. And, more importantly, that I wouldn't know if it was, because paying attention to the mainstream media allows the brain worms to eat your thoughts.
go get it
Like say "Lakehead, A Canadian University".
Having gone to university in Ontario, it wouldn't surprise me if this were based on a study from Lakehead's engineering department (if they have one).
Is that even a University? Guess they must be now ;) So....maybe an engineer or physicist at one of the real Universities here should send them some light reading??
I understand trying to protect your students, but man, lets worry about something important, like frosh hazing....HA.
I've read the article, and this, I hope, is a joke.
There are many benefits to studying at Lakehead University. Ubiquitous wireless Internet access, however, isn't one of them.
I'm sure living in a grass hut is nice and all, and yes, everything (might) cause cancer.
This place deserves what's about to happen. I hope, maybe, that something was taken out of context. Maybe. Otherwise I don't even know where to start.
100% safe? NOTHING is 100% safe. Nothing is even 100% certain in science, except maybe that you will fail dynamics if you don't do your homework.. heh
..don't panic
Gee, where have we all been hearing THAT phrase lately?
Fact: Nobody has ever demonstrated in a repeatable, peer-reviewed, properly-controlled study that low-level RF radiation at nonionizing wavelengths has any biological effect whatsoever. For every study that shows correlated effects, two more show none at all.
Fact: WiFi adapters, even the gray-market 100 mW jobs you buy on eBay, transmit 1/10 to 1/100 the power of a cell phone.
Fact: Your microwave oven leaks more 2.4-GHz energy than your WiFi card emits intentionally. For best results, cut a 1" slit in package wrapper and rotate dish after 2 minutes on HIGH.
Fact: DNA damage from 2.4 GHz radiation at athermal levels would require a form of matter-energy interaction that is currently unknown to physics. There's a guaranteed Nobel Prize for anyone who can document such an interaction, because as far as anyone knows, we pretty have all the fundamental interactions covered at this point. Get cracking!
(Probable) fact: This joker has some sort of financial interest in a local commercial ISP whose business would be threatened by a campus-wide network. Nobody that stupid runs a university... but conflicts of interest aren't exactly unheard-of in that line of work, are they?
the human race :(
Ban Girls! They're too distracting. Like this one, she's
that the earth is one giant magnetic field
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The very same university that banned masturbation because of concerns over loss of sight.
cat
A quick back of the envelope calc gives a wavelength of 12.491 cm. Thats too big to have any kind of effect on the brain.
Two Roommates and a Boyfriend, updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
What is he, crazy?
Hasn't he ever heard of magnetic therapy?
If they are going to ban wi-fi for health concerns they need to ban cell phones. I think an average student who has a phone glued to his or her ear (as is the case on most campuses in America) gets exposed to quite a bit more microwaves than wi-fi. Most good-sized campuses probably even have cell phone towers on-campus or right next to campus to handle the load.
Hmmm I used to be concerned by the amout of artificial waves being created by wireless technologies, especially with the commercial drive to get these technologies to market ASAP with little regard or research into longterm human impact. I dislike using my mobile phone because it makes my head feel funny above the lisening ear and switch of wi-fi whenever I can. But then I realised that perhaps all these effects are are a good thing and is helping humanity evolve by randomly mutating our genetic code?
Music, Games, Media Art and Programming
Has anyone wardriven that area? I betcha there would be far more signals from access-points and wireless cards than they could possibly keep all turned off. Policing that environment would not be a fun job: "Yes, I know it's cool and useful and makes, but we can't have that here."
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Maybe now we'll be reading fewer articles like this: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/19/171121 0
We all know this is really about cheating, distractions, porn, and piracy though. It has nothing to do with brain tumors, most likely. If it does... why are these people running a university, again?
Good thing they're in Canada, otherwise they'd have to worry about radiation from the Sun, too.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
So essentially, they're saying that the extremely miniscule amount of radiation(.25 watts in burst mode--less than a cell phone, microwave...or virtually every other consumer electronic product) is high enough to warrant depriving students of internet, unless they'd like to be teathered to a wall? How sweet.
"Crime fighters fight crime. Fire fighters fight fire. What do freedom fighters fight?" -George Carlin
This is the most stupid ban I've seen in a long time.
Yes, the high frequencies that wireless networks use can be dangerous to cells,since higher frequencies and radio waves are more dense. but basically the whole spectrum can cause damage as well. As we speak now, there are radio waves passing through our bodies. These come from television, amateur radio, broadcast radio, public service radio, cell phones and other wireless services.
Wireless networks are generally low power and you would have to be sitting directly near your antenna before you would be affected. A cell phone will probably fry your brain faster, since it's right next to your head.
An amateur radio operator told you that!
~Later~
After all, 100% of all cancer patients live within the Earth's magnetic field. Thus magnetic fields must cause cancer.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
So we can all disagree with him, and that's fine. But insulting the man for erring on the cautious side and being sure of the research... In my book, that's a cheap shot.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" -Jesus (John 14:6)
If we are to ban everything that is "possibly" dangerous, then we need to ban everything. Literally.
Radiowaves have covered most of the civilised world for 50-60 years now, easy. If we were going to see some bad side effects they would have appeared by now.
I hope no one tells him neutrinos, he'll either want to ban the sun or put up a light-year thick lead barrier over his nuts.
Donning my tin-foil cap here perhaps...
Our bodies have evolved to accomodate the natural magnetic field surrounding the Earth. Could someone please tell me, just how much more are we exposed to now with the ever-increasing adoption of wireless technologies. More importantly, how much of this increase is actually needed? I mean, how many people at the University in question would have actually used the services? Would it really be that great? How many people here on /. leave their routers (when their computers are turned off) on when they leave their homes? Does all this "wasted" capacity add up to a point where it may be actually be dangerous?
Somebody please enlighten me here, I could easily go a bit bonkers over this one...
Off to my Faraday cage now, if you'll excuse me...
The school will probably see an increase in average GPA as students can no longer download pr0n wirelessly!
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
No, the jury isn't "out on this one". That would imply there is evidence that WiFi causes any sort of health consequences- and further, that it is equal to evidence it does not. That's simply not the case.
People have been looking for this supposed cancer/mind-ray/whatever link to cell phones and other wireless devices. They still haven't found it. That doesn't say "the jury is out"- it says "research conducted thusfar has found no evidence."
It's like doing a study on whether there are little green moon men. Twenty research projects are conducted, scouring the moon with telescopes and satellites, and researchers say, "well, we haven't seen any green moon men." Then some nutjob comes along and says that "the jury is out on whether there are little green men on the moon!", simply because the researchers (like proper scientists) guardedly said "we didn't see any moon men", not "there are no moon men."
Please help metamoderate.
No shit, Maxwell!
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
piracy over wifi.... living at a college or college town affords you QUITE a few of wireless routers. If you aren't paying for one and get service through it, you could do all sorts of very nasty activty... Maybe the university sees it as more of a "lets protect our less computer savvy students so we don't get looked at badly."
I hate getting stuck in a computer programming class where the instructor ignores the computer and overhead projector to write each and every line of code on the whiteboard. I get so bored that I start sprouting tumors. Is the administration going to do anything? Actually, nearly the entire computer department was cancelled this semester. Instead of tumors, I'm no closer to graduating. Ugh!
I really like the fact that their website, http://www.lakeheadu.ca/ seems to be promoting the use of technology in the great outdoors, really. Everyone i know uses their laptop outside at sunset. The lack of internet makes it all the more enjoyable. http://www.lakeheadu.ca/images/hp/ts3.jpg
That is all.
WTH? It's April 1st already!?!
What do I have to do to get a sig around here?! www.bearscanfly.org
... at which water molecules resonate. Microwave ovens use 2.4 GHz because that's where the FCC said they could go. It has absolutely nothing to do with water-molecule resonance or any other bogosity.
Jeez, I wish people who have no earthly clue what they're talking about would refrain from posting.
If this dude heads outdoors once in a while he probably exposes himself to more known harmful radiation from the sun than he would ever get from some low power wireless routers. Also I wonder how many devices have RF emmisions in this band that aren't coherant but would still cause similar damage that this dude hasn't thought about. When I say that I'm meaning devices that aren't designed as RF transmitters but release RF emmisions anyway (lots of devices do).
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
I'm not surprised that there are health problems. I used to setup a lot of wifi networks for my job, and I could "feel" the presence of wifi when I was close to a router. One time while plugging in an airport I got a sudden headache. I turned the router off and immediately the headache was gone. It's kinda scary.
What makes you think we haven't? This guy apparently sat way too close to the TV as a kid and managed to become President against all odds but now we're reading about the long-term effects on Slashdot.
Money for nothing, pix for free
No.
"Me fail English? That's unpossible." - Ralph
...the university President sees a possible link between electric and magnetic fields and brain tumors.
Easy solution: tinfoil hats. Keeps those nasty EM waves out and presto, no brain tumors.
that wireless classrooms, plus students with wireless laptops, plus cell phones calling home = our wireless keyboards for the consoles aren't working and professors are getting mad that their lectures can't be presented.
Is it cheap wireless routers? I wouldn't be surprised.
Is it too much interference? I have no idea. I don't understand radio waves.
All I know is I have angry professors calling us regularly and it always happens when I walk in a room and see a bunch of laptops open with students who complain about how much they are paying for the class chatting with their friend with our wireless connections throughout the school.
Better get rid of those 2.4 ghz cordless phones, cell phones, microwaves, LCDs, and every other source of stray EMF while we are at it. Oh, wait, I forgot police radar guns. And smoke detectors, they have radioactive material in them. And those nasty florecent lights that contain mercury.
I know, let's return to the good old days of yore, circa 1830. Then we will be safe!
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Dihydrogen monoxide must be eradicated. It is circulated in our environment by greedy corporations. It can be found in the drinking water supply; it can even be found in the air that we breath. It has even been detected in the bones of pediatric cancer patients. In short, we must ban this noxious chemical and I look to this fine gentleman with the guts to protect his students from wi-fi radiation to take the lead on this important issue.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
There's the possibility that wifi could be problematic, so he's playing safe.
Yeah, and there's absolutly no danger in stringing cat5 all over the place.
I cannot wait to see the construction blueprints for the enormous Faraday Cage they will doubtlessly build to enclose the entire campus.
We laugh now, but when the Waveries arrive to eat all our EM radiation, Luddhead University alone will survive.
...are they going to ban microwave ovens too?
Pirate Party UK
60's. Citation please. In the 50's, the companies were not laughing in the least, though they were questioning the data (some of which had some quite big holes in it).
Hell, people were complaining about the health effects of cigarette smoke in the 1700's, if not before.
For the curious, the actual fcc guidelines on permissible RF exposure are here. They seem to be saying that at 2.4 Ghz it's OK to subject a random bystander to 1 milliwatt per square centimeter averaged over 30 minutes, or to subject yourself to 5mW/cm^2 averaged over 6 minutes.
Dude, I think your off by at least a factor of 10.
12cm ~ 250mhz.
This wavelength is more like ~1cm.
It might be time to get a new envelope....
But vacuum is "definitely" dangerous. Besides, it just plain sucks. Literally.
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
That the resonant frequency of water is around 2450MHz.
While I do not wear my tinfoil hat whilst talking on the cell, or using my wireless 'net at the house, the thought does pop into my head from time to time (mayhap thru a fried synapse?) that there could be a better frequency to run even this 'low power' stuff.
I used to do US/Canadian support for a major European cellphone manufacturer. We had these people call in from time to time wanting to know the EM strength because of this very reason. Most were pretty sain, and were just curious, but sometimes we get some real nuts.
One guy, for example, had the idea that all cellphones manufactured after 9/11 2001 monitored your brainwave for subversive thoughts, which it would then transmit that to, and I quote, "... the CIA, NSA, NASA, and The Destroyers". LOL
He wanted us to make a model that had zero em emissions. I tried to explain that the cell phone couldn't work without emitting something but he wouldn't have any of it. On top of that, he then accused me of being a member of one or all of the above said organizations and hung up in a actual panic!!
I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have talked to him because I was laughing my ass off after the call (and trying not during the call) but was let down that the call had not been recorded (as calls were only randomly recorded).
And it wouldn't surprise me if this guy who has a matress cover thing to sleep on with those little magnets because of the "health benefits" of magnetic fields.
Again this crap about low-intensity electromagnetic fields and tumors. It shows really a lack of understanding about what it is. Since when the first studies started, there have been around loads of studies and publications on this matter, *without* finding a cause-effect relationship (not a correlation, which is a much weaker link and means little when talking about tumors). A real-world example: near Rome, there was a protets over a local radio's antennae that caused much magnetic disturbances. Peeople complained that it also caused leukemia and other tumors. The local government issued a study examining the cases of leukemia in the area. There was no statistical increase. The perceived "increase" was just due to better diagnostic procedures. It saddens me that even a university head can believe this crap.
A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
If we are to ban everything that is "possibly" dangerous, then we need to ban everything. Literally.
Are you making a suggestion?
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
[Lisa looks frustrated, then shruggs and takes his money]
The ______ Agenda
or all of the clock painters who 'sharpened' their radium paint brushes by licking them.
Wait, are we not supposed to do that anymore?
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
w00t
I'm a communications engineer, and can confirm the safety of using wifi technologies, so long as the RF output from the equipment does not exceed approximately 100 milliWatts. The best protection that can be had from any ionizing radiation is distance. The minimum distance one should be to any type of radiation is 2.5 meters. Mobile phones are more of a risk. Although modern design is minimizing this risk now. Trust me, you won't be able to cook an egg with a couple of wifi dongles... :)
Naturally, the head of the university is afraid of brain tumors. What else would he be afraid of?
Ba dam dum!
Thank you, I'll be here all week! Have a safe drive home folks.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
With all due respect, it is an incredibly bad idea.
I'm going to have to disagree that there's even a plausible argument from even the most paranoid. That the risk of, even if as grand as he would suggest, a 1w radio signal would somehow outweigh the benefits of promoting a modern and rational university IT policy. We're not talking about MW-gauge powerlines overhead a school. We're talking about low power emmissions at high wavelengths. Very different than breathing in smoke, or licking glowing paint (did they really not know radium was radioactive? was it called _radium_ back then?).
If the school doesn't want to pay for it, or are paranoid about security, then say so. But the idea that it's somehow a risk is absurd.
As a side note, if you're going through life so concerned with stuff like this, you need serious help.
A client of mine called me up the day after I installed her WiFi AP/router. She complained that she can "hear" it at night and that it drives her crazy. She asked if it was okay for her to unplug it at night and I told her yes.
Of course, the next day she called and complained that one of her machines couldn't get on the internet.
Jory
Where do I sign the partition?
Give me liberty or give me kill -s 9
CAVEAT: I don't believe these guys. But, I disagree with your argument. What makes you so sure we aren't seeing bad effects? Skyrocketing cancer and obesity rates, low fertility, autoimmune disorders unknown 50 years ago... there's absolutely no evidence linking any of these to EM but there are plenty of symptoms out there looking for a cause and just blithely saying "oh we would have seen bad stuff by now" ignores that. Hell, some people blame these problems on the fact that we've been pasteurizing milk for 80 years now.
I'm not saying it's radio waves, or pasteurized milk, or unpasteurized milk, or red meat, or soy, or canola, or asbestos, or DDT, or anything. I'm just saying there are some serious health problems today that seem to have environmental causes, and we shouldn't rule out anything in our research on this.
All's true that is mistrusted
... because the fact of the matter is that this stuff /is/ open to debate.
Yes, there are magnetic fields around us all day. But, why would be willingly put more around us, when the could be harmful?
There is a simple solution to this. Just don't. Lay down the wire and just don't use wireless.
I've made a conscience decision to not have any wireless in my home and no cell phone because of the above.
I'm being bombarded all the time by stuff that I can't control. Well, I can control my home, so that is what I'm gonna do.
I'm really starting to think that people will just make fun of what they don't want to consider, because it might be true.
When I was studying physics, I started an argument with the department when I was in third year. They were exposing us to radiation in the labs without having a good educational reason for it. There only argument was that they were within safty limits. Well, everyone knows that there is no safty limit. Not to mention the fact that the department wasn't using the safty protocols required of them.
I switched to math.
But, all the time when I was fighting the other students made fun of me. Now why would that be...
This sounds like a troll, but i'll bite -- because many people don't really understand what our environment really looks like in the RF domain and what the real concerns are. We have cell phones that typically radiate power at ~836MHz Cell, ~1900MHz PCS, or 2.xGHz for GSM that can radiate close to the ear at 28dBm (or roughly 1 Watt). We have microwave towers that even though they are directional can leak energy. We have microwave ovens that leak energy at roughly 2.4GHz -- enough to easily jam 802.11b. You don't know it, but there is a lot of communication going on over power lines today as well. Wifi does not comparitively add enough energy into the environment to be a very significant contributor. 2.2x-ish MHz is a significant frequency because it is a resonant frequency of water. That's the reason that a microwave oven works -- electromagnetic energy supplied at this frequency causes the water molecules to get all excited and generate heat that cooks (steams) the surrounding food. Microwave ovens are shielded -- but imperfectly & some energy does escape. Our bodies can be affected by this energy, because we are mostly made of water. Even so, by and large, with the intensities that are in our environment (outside the oven), the heat that is generated doesn't really even warm the first layer of skin. In cell phones, where the source is closer to the head and there is greater power, I have heard that the radiation can penetrate farther into the head and warm some of the brain close to the ear. So, if you are really thinking of banning something due solely to electromagnetic radiation, look also at banning these: 1) GSM Band Cell phones. 2) PCS Band Cell Phones. 3) CELL Band cell phones. 4) Microwave ovens. 5) Nearby Cell Towers 6) Nearby Microwave communications antennas. 7) High voltage Power lines. And let's not forget banning on-campus AM radio stations and secuity Walkie-talkies in the process... they likely put out more power to a limited portion of the student body than 802.11. One further note -- if you are really paranoid about 802.11b and will not be asuaged -- later versions of 802.11 spec output power at 5.2GHz. This band is not one that is even closely related to a resonance frequency of water & may help to calm your paranoia with the standard wi-fi frequencies.
I have an Airport station right next to my desk, within 1 m distance. It's so great, I can surf the net even without a computer.
someone please explain whether the above is meaningful or whether he just made that crap up. I can't tell the difference and my brain is starting to hurt after looking at it and I'm worried it's because of the earth's magnetic field. help!
BaltikaTroika writes "A Canadian university has banned wi-fi, since the university President sees a possible link between electric and magnetic fields and brain tumors.
I know, it's slashdot, but they aren't banning WIFI, just limiting its use. If they are genuinely concerned about possible (or imagined) health risks, this would seem a reasonable compromise.
Three Squirrels
NO.
...
Let's lay this to rest people...
Microwaves (wifi) are dangerous! No dought about it. We've know this since the 50s'. The question is at what level is it going to hurt you? Anyone know any study to look for higher levels of cancer around the old microwave towers of AT&T?
I would worry about a 2W cell phone right next the the head way before I worry about a 200mW WiFi that is 10 feet or more away.
I will keep my wireless and my cell phone. I'll just not stick them up my
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
So, great. Let's make this work for us. Free Wi-fi means surf the net at your tumor's risk. No really, wtf.
It was to be expected that nobody would post an unbiased answer here on Slashdot, allow me to push the balance a bit in the other direction :).
First of all, many people cite "all the scientific evidence" that there is no harm in using cellphones and/or wireless networking. I would like to see that evidence because all that I have seen (at the radiation levels of cell phones and wireless) are scientific reports that are inconclusive. This means that the researchers didn't see anything special, but it also means that they didn't prove that it is not harmful.
Furthermore, it is a scientific fact that the usage of cellphones and wireless networks heat human tissue (cellphones as bad as almost a degree Celsius in the area around the ear). It is unknown whether this small temperature change is harmful or not, but it does something to your body. For children (under the age of 8 or 10 I guess), exposure should be as limited as possible: their skull is not as thick is the case for adults, and this makes them more vulnerable to tissue damage due to heating.
Most people don't hold access points against their ears, and (as said by some), radiation decreases as 1/r^2 (not 1/r^3 as cited by some, it is the increasing surface of spherical radiation that lowers the energy density). That makes it unlikely that wireless internet does as much harm as cellphones, if any. An important remark is that in some countries (e.g. Belgium, where I live), the maximum transmission power of radio-equipment without a radio license is legally limited to 100mW. This limitation is of course not due to health concerns, but there is a huge difference between putting a 10 Watt transmitter and a 100mW transmitter (the difference is a factor 10 at a given point in the room). Again, it is not clear whether this matters or not.
Personally, I feel that people should be a bit careful with the hype surrounding wireless access (it's easy to get carried away, and wired access is simply better). I was surprised to know a guy who could tell if a cellphone was in the same room as he was, he could "feel" the influence. This guy was not a psychic, medium or some crackpot but an engineering student in his last year like there are many here.
The "you never know" attitude is not a bad one. It is amusing to see that a bunch of school kids mock the WHO for their prudent advice - their experts know what they are talking about, not sure if the former do :).
Technology only complicates things and brings trouble. We should instead be content with sitting in a circle picking ticks from one another. Maybe if we are feeling particularly adventurous, we can even carve a notch in a log. But be careful. Sticks can be sharp.
I knew there was something evil about milk!
We should ban it immediately!
It occurs to me that virtually 100% of heroin addicts and hardened criminals started out on milk...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
What makes you so sure we aren't seeing bad effects? Skyrocketing cancer and obesity rates, low fertility, autoimmune disorders unknown 50 years ago...
Yes, but we did have plenty of other diseases and severe illnesses that have been irradicated. So, perhaps they have just been replaced by these new diseases. It's a sort of natural population control.
Irradicate smallpox => more people alive => higher number of living people with cancer gene => more people with cancer gene breading => even higher number of living people with cancer gene, etc. etc. etc.
I heard that there's this giant bright thing that shows up during the day and blasts out all kinds of electromagnetic radiation - at such intense levels that even short-term exposure can cause serious burns and even significantly increase your risk of skin cancer!
But, I'm sure the 100mW put out by 802.11b chipsets is much more dangerous than that. And certainly much more dangerous than the ~600mW-1.6W put out by the portable digital radio transcievers that 1/3 of all the people on the planet now own/wear.
Once upon a time asbestos was a safe, inert material with all sorts of uses. And it was used everywhere. Everyone agreed it was safe.
Then one form of it was found to cause disease. Among the feeding frenzy that resulted: massive claims against manufacturers of asbestos products from the years when *no-one could even have suspected it was harmful*. Which is insane.
WiFi is used everywhere. Everyone agrees it is safe. But that still doesn't mean that someone, somewhere in the future, will find a pernicious effect. Or claim to find one. Sure, it'll be tiny - perhaps it may even be caused by the increased laptop use enabled by WiFi rather than by the radiation itself - but there will be a new feeding frenzy among the lawyers and some manufacturers will be tempted to settle rather than argue the case in front of "is the plaintiff cute enough to win a lottery?" juries. A university that has knowingly flooded the environment of young people with 2.4GHz radiation will be a juicy target. Big enough to have money, too small to be able to defend itself. [The WiFi equipment manufacturer could easily be out of business, as well, leaving the university as the best target].
Quite possibly, the insurers (who in the early-asbestos case were clearly not liable but stupidly chose to settle because they thought it would cost less) will refuse to pay up. So it is far, far safer to ban WiFi than face possible bankruptcy in 30 years' time.
Cellphones are slightly different in that the obvious target is, and will continue to be, the phone companies and the phone manufacturers. Cellphone usage is voluntary, and although in theory you could sue your school for not banning their use, that is unlikely to be a successful course of action.
I'd ask him about his/the school's financial interests in payphones, calling card marketing to the students, student ISP et cetera.
I'm not sure what the situation is in that school, but I remember one school in the US (SJSU) where the phone system on campus, including dorms, was owned by the school. Your telephone bill came not from AT&T or MCI, but by SJSU. In another case, in a university in London many years ago, the regular BT payphones in halls (dorms) were replaced by some other company's boxes, presumably under some contract where the school got some (legal) kickback for the exclusive contract.
Such a setup would make for some suspicious conflicts of interest now that WiFi phones are available, including ones that use Skype.
I'm not saying there's anything other than innocent Luddism going on here, but it's worth a look under the carpet just in case.
The wikipedia says "in the tens of gigahertz". According to it, water particules vibrate due to the microwaves, but do not resonate at this frequency.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
How about banning more than a couple of watts of infrared? It is more energetic than microwaves so it must be more harmful.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"If we are to ban everything that is "possibly" dangerous, then we need to ban everything. Literally."
Nah. We only need to ban humans.
Come hear me sing!
Stuff infrared, if we can play the "more energetic == more harmful" game, then I want to know why his shitty excuse for a teaching establishment still has lightbulbs.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Fantastic.
Dozens of posts all taking the piss, and nobody actually referencing anything useful, like studies showing what levels of EM radiation do cause problems, compared to what levels are in WiFi (for instance).
My Journal
student: Did you know the brain emits an electric field?
Fred Gilbert: WHAT? WE NEED TO START BANNING BRAINS
I though the article was going to point out that continuous internet access might mean unrestricted campus access to porn, and therefore damage to the eyesight of the students, who would no doubt be whacking off in class instead of taking notes.
Nope, truth is stranger than fiction and we've got someone banning wifi with an effective range of maybe 50m (depending on line of sight) when every student has a mobile phone that broadcasts a much more powerful signal and that they keep on their person at all times.
Actually the biggest wifi/cancer risk is probably from students sitting on their unwired asses all day drinking coke and ordering pizza online when they get hungry, instead of hauling their asses over to the library.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
...is that this decision was not motivated by health considerations, but more a political decision, covered up by a smokescreen named "wifi is bad for your brains".
;-)
given the amount of reactions to the absurdity of the claim that wifi can have detrimental effects on the (developing) human brain, the smokescreen would seem to be be quite effective.
This guy's obviously a bafoon, but he's got half a point (misdirected, but still...). I think we all know the link between mobile phones and cancer (despite what the telcos say). There's also a suspected link between mains electricity (and it's associated fields) and cancer:
e ws/2002/10/06/nemf06.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/10/06/i xhome.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n
So the point being, the frequency is irrelevant, it's all to do with the magnetic and electric fields. When one or both of these are far in excess of ambient, they cause problems.
The new-age movement goes further to infer that all electrical devices give off 'bad vibes' in the form of positive ions (which make you feel tired, depressed etc). Clearly, transmitting devices are designed to propagate a signal, so it follows that they create more of these ions. Again, there's some science behind this, although arguable.
It looks like this guy is a bit misguided, but looking out for such things. For it to be any use at all, he'd have to ban phones, high current cables, and most of the engineering department, oh, not to mention around about every computer on campus.
I'm safe because I'm wearing my tin foil hat!
For instance, electromagnetic radiation has been known to put funny ideas in peoples' heads.
People in my office have raised concerns over Wifi and health and I was unable to find anything useful which explained the issues and where the 'generally safe watermark' is if there is such a thing, I would still like to see this issue advanced by someone clear on specifics of emmision levels and related health/scientific research.
Wikipedia's page Wireless electronic devices and health stated the following: Anyone else want to quote some sources which may shed further light..
All he needs to do is issue or orer students to wear tonfoil hats.
So simple.
> If we are to ban everything that is "possibly" dangerous, then we need to ban everything. Literally.
Its called the "precautionary priciple" - anything that cannot be proven safe is a candidate for banning. The scary part is that this philosophy is not just isolated to one crazy university administration - it is becoming official goverment policy is most western countries.
What about the risks of DHMO poisoning? Check out http://www.dhmo.org/ ;)
Don't despair!
:-)
I am a nerd as everybody else around here (*), and I still could impregnate a woman -- thrice no less!!!
Don't lose your hope.
(*) I'm a 35yo trekkie, comic-books and prog rock-loving, systems analyst. I watch one of SGA-SG1-Lost-CSI-Smallville every single day. And this is my break after staying on the computer at work for ten hours or so. I am married (9 years now) and my wife is so not nerdy (she's a career lawyer - District Attorney [yes, not ADA, but DA]). And I'm teaching my 6yo oldest boy to love Star Wars
--
"Sith happens" -- Jedi Master Yoda
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
"... president Fred Gilbert won't allow it until he's satisfied EMF (electric and magnetic fields) exposure doesn't pose a health risk, particularly to young people."
The article makes it obvious he was trying to be a big hero at a town hall meeting. In actuality, he knows nothing about electromagnetism, but is not afraid to pretend that he does. We see a lot of that in recent years, as people pretend to know more about computers than they do.
Anyone worried about radio waves causing cancer can try to make that theory work. There is a huge barrier, however, in the form of a very very small number: Planck's Constant. Planck's constant = 6.626068 × 10-34 m2 kg/S. It's that 10**-34 that makes it difficult for low-energy electromagetism like wireless transmissions to interact with chemical reactions. Thirty-four zeros is a LOT of zeros after the decimal point.
Off topic: I've linked to the Encyclopedia Britannica above because the article about Planck's constant is very short. The article in Wikipedia is long. I've frequently seen the Encyclopedia Britannica be misleading because of the severe limitation placed on size of the articles due to paper costs. Wikipedia does not have that problem.
--
Cheney: Killing small animals and Iraqis for fun and profit.
and now, having read all the politely annoyed posts about this guy - has got me so angry, that I have decided to issue a Fatwa against him and call for all 21st century citizens capable of using cutlery to study their conscience deeply before deciding to charge up their cell phones and descend on this abomination from the middle ages and in a demonstration of righteous power bury the guy in cell phones dialed into the speaking clock so that he may be fried out of existence by the awsome cleansing power of microwave annihilation. And if that doesnt work, the mockery should do the trick.
He may well have a point about the potential risk in 30 to 40 years but it is a fact that of all the avoidable hazards the vast majority of of students are going to die in road traffic accidents.
"Meanwhile, traffic accidents are the leading cause of death among young people (followed by suicide)."
http://tinyurl.com/p9mcs
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
in my campus the whole wireless network goes down betwen 12.00 and 13.00 becus the heavy usage of the microwave owens. it's funny how people get scared of everything new and dont bother with old stuff that radiate more
High power wi-fi card: 50 mW at 2.4 GHz
Low power dorm microwave: 700 W at 2.4 GHz
My parents have two identical 2.4 GHz wireless phones. One has the base station next to the wi-fi router, the other has the base station next to the microwave. When the router is going full-blast at 54 Mbps transferring files between a laptop and a desktop, you hear nothing. When someone is making hot chocolate, sometimes you have to cycle through a few channels on the phone to be able to continue your conversation.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
They probably see WiFi as a hassle and somehow subversive or threatening. If they want to ban it then spurious health grounds are as good an excuse as any.
I can just see their board of trustees or whatever sitting in a room filled with clouds of cigar smoke, large glasses of whisky in hand, the remains of a seven course meal scattered around the table. "We must ban this WiFi thing, whatever that is. It's a danger to people's health. And could someone please carry me to the car?"
Ame
Nah. You're rigth, in principle, but you're overstating it to the point where it's wrong.
First: Nothing can be "proven safe", not even in principle, much less in practice. Nobody seriously suggests banning everything. (and as others have pointed out - even that wouldn't help, because vacuum is *definitely* dangerous)
Precautions are sometimes warranted. It's a cost/benefit thing. What are the expected benefits of something, and what are the expected costs ? There are things we don't do -- because it could turn out to be very dangerous, and the benefits are small. That's not nessecarily wrong.
You just need to keep a sane balance. I think, for example, that it's quite sane to test new medicines on animals before we give them to humans -- even though they're not known to be dangerous and indeed tend to be engineered to have as few harmful effects as possible.
On the other hand, if the new medicament is the *only* (possible) cure for something with a 99% lethality, it makes no sense whatsoever to deny the medicine to those that have the disease and want to test it. (the potential downside is pretty much zero)
i was wondering where all these tumors where coming from.
portfolio
Assume: Sunlight is electromagnetic radiation too.
Full sunshine hits you with about 1000 watts per square meter.
Assume: Your body has one square meter of frontal surface area (John Belushi, not Kate Moss).
So on a sunny day you're getting hit with 1000 watts of electromagnetic radiation, heating you up considerably. Much as if you were in a restaurant-strength microwave oven.
Assume: I'm too lazy to look up the exact power, so let's assume a Wi-Fi antenna puts out one whole watt (greatly exaggerated).
Also assume you're standing three feet from the antenna.
A rough guess: your body is going to intercept about 1/40th of the emitted radiation.
So we have on the one hand, sunlight at 1000 watts, and wi-fi at 1/40th of a watt, a difference in intensity of 25,000 times.
And while exposure to sunlight for like 10 years will eventually cause wrinkles and skin cancer, very few students or staff stay in school for the proportionally requisite 250,000 years, three feet from a hot-spot antenna.
More likely you'll die of terminal boredom.
How stupid can you get??
Ban harmless RF signals while the campus still gets radio signals, the earth's electromagnecic field (?), cordless phones, the list goes on.
And then allow students to use microwaves, place microwaves up to their heads in the form of cell phones, let them use TVs, etc.
I would transfer out of this college immediatly. Obviously the people there are STUPID and shouldn't be teaching anything. Ever.
Next thing they are going to ban IR signals in the form of banning remote controls and palm pilots. Cue confusing IR with UV.
And I can say this with almost 100% certainty because right now we've got no less than two wireless routers, one on each side of our house, and there's no problem as far as I can see.
What strikes me as dangerous is cell phones – brain cancer in a box, I always call 'em. Don't know why you'd want a contract on the things, just ask your doctor to inject more stuff into your brain next time you see him and it has the same effect. And even if the brain cancer doesn't work, srly txt msgng n pix n ntm my fvrt rngtns wll ttyl bye
Let's see, brain cancer and features aimed at idiots... so what was the nice thing about cell phones again?
I'll give you one other tip: It's not the fact that you can call someone any time, anywhere; our home phones already ring way too much, cell phones are about ten times as bad because they follow you around. And the way people talk on the things right when you have a headache? Hiss.
I hate cell phones.
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
Let's all contruct foil hats and send them to his university to distribute.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
RF is non-ionizing radiation. As such, it won't so much cause cellular mutation, but it will cook tissue.
So for those who have their cell phones glued to their ear, they might start hearing a sizzling sound and smell something akin to bacon. This is the first indication that you should hang up and continue with life.
I've heard the stories about people getting fried by RADAR if they're too close. Its even the legend of the birth of the microwave oven.
But my first experience with Mr. Robert F. Burns is when I was helping a friend tune up a vertical dipole antenna. I told him to key up at 5W and dumbass thinks I said 50W. So when I turned slightly one of the counterpoise wires caught me on the earlobe. Ouch! Cooking tissue indeed.
This guy is just a cheap ass that does not want to invest on wi-fi technology. I have seen many people like him that create a false sense of danger around technology because they dont want to invest good money on it.
--MaxPowerDJ
Does this college president also support the use of blood letting and using leeches to cure his students of random diseases too? People really need to read the findings of studies done with these topics so things like this do not occur.
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
Considering that microwave ovens use the same frequency yet deal with far greater powers, he aught to be banning them too.
Truly, this guy is totally clueless. Then again, if Bush could get to such a high position, what's stopping this guy.
I guess that there are no educational requirements needed to become a university president.
First of all, I'm very glad that, at least some of the time, powers that be are looking out for the health of their "constituents." However...
This person is largely misguided. I can understand concerns over unproven risk/benefits of living directly under a huge power transit tower (or right next to a transforming station) - because (opinion to follow, not fact) I don't think definitive knowledge has yet been gained as to the effects of magnetism/electrical fields on humans. But... signals from WiFi transmission are less strong than things like solar radiation and other ubiquitous natural bombardments.
Mr. Unversity official: Thank you for caring, but please talk to some people who have reasonable knowledge on the subject - and allow WiFi to be transmitted.
A Passionate Independent Musician
Power is related to electricity, electricity is related to magnetism, electromagnetism is related to radio waves, radio waves are related to cancer, therefore knowledge must cause cancer!
If people fear electromagnetic (EM) radiation that much, wait until they read about EM fields. Maybe Gillette needs to start this paranoia to attack electric shavers. A good resource on the truth about EM fields, check out http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/static-fields-cancer-F AQ/toc.html
If you have ever done any research on universities in canada you would know that lakehead isnt exactly the best school to attend, either academically or otherwise. So this is no real surprise as they are just trying to appeal to some strange subset of youth that think cell phones are dangerous to use so as to boost admissions.
The way I figure at least these people will get a little education, better than not attending a university at all, so let Lakehead have its coffee.
cheers
They warned us about the black shakes...
Marques Johansson
Weeeeell, animal testing is fine up to a point. The problem is that in quite a lot of cases testing things on animals won't tell you anything about how it'll affect humans.
James P. Barrett
Is anybody outside of this university's administration concerned about this?
Yes. Scientifically illiterate risk-averse crackpots with their heads in the sand.
I guess I'll have to rethink my plans to pursue a Software Engineering degree through Lakehead U. I hate being tied to a desk with a cord. Of course I will probably be to ill to attend university because of the exposure to radio waves from the wi-fi in my house, my office and oh yeah my cordless and cellular phones.
A wifi access point radiates up to 15dBm or 15mW when it is on. With a dutycyle of 10% that gives 1.5mW
So if your distance to the AP is 11 meters, exposure is 10^-4 mW/m^2.
Other electromagnetic radiation sources:
0) Big Bang: A good part of the big bang background radiation is in the 2.4GHz or about 10^-4 mW/m^2 from 2GHz to 3GHz. Same exposure as access point. The background radiation over the full spectrum is an order of magnitude higher.
1) Sun: 0.1mW (Same as staying 1m away from the above AP) (The sun radiates little at this wavelength. Total radiation hitting your body is a few _kW_ or 2 million times more)
2) Typical leakage from uWave oven: 2W/m^2! This is 20,000 times more.
So, just popping popcorn typically might give you 240J exposure. If you want the same exposure from your wifi card at 90% dutycyle try this:
Stick the antenna into a bodily orifice and upload 34 DVDs. Yes, it may take 10 hours. Downloading does not give your card a high dutycyle, so it might take a week to get the same exposure as popping popcorn.
Have fun.
"Fix it"
..there's an article in Popular Science this month (not on their website yet - at least that I could find) that details a study done on the effectiveness of tinfoil helmets. Surprisingly enough, a tinfoil helmet actually amplifies signals at 1.2 and 2.6 GHz (government satellites and GPS systems are found in that range).
SYS 64738
THEY GLOW IN THE DARK!
And he's worried about idiotic wifi, while he's spewing enough radiation out of every ceiling at burn them if they touched the source.
And that frequency radiation has almost been known to blind people with not much more power than light bulbs produce.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
...I thought it was dihydrogen monoxide. Nasty stuff, that DHMO.
SYS 64738
Having done my degree there and returning for work after grad I know all about the "policies" of this place. There are so many rogue access points it's hillarious. Picture a 47 million dollar advanced technology building (with hi-def tv studio and VR room) with no wireless access. When I asked why we could have cell phones, microwave ovens, etc I got the royal brush off. I know they're trying to get a lot of press to boost enrollment, but I don't think this policy is something to be proud of.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
to be or not to be, that's a question...
The whole "electric power line - cancer" link is total garbage and has been used by lawyers to force companies to spend money on useless countermeasures or settle "damage cases" out of court. It is a legal protection racket, as are many (Most?) class-actions suits. The American Physical Society debunkled this nonsense, as did a National Research Council report.
How they they claim to be a place of higher learning with a gaff that large?
didn't you read that other slashdot article about the tinfoil hat making it easier for the government to read your brainwaves?
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Joule-seconds...That's the dimension of Planck's constant - not meters-squared-kilogram per second
They are equivalent:
Joule -> kg m^2 / s^2
Plank's constant = h
Frequency of EM radiation = f -> 1/s
photon energy (Joules) = h * f
Since the unit of f is Hz or 1/s, Plank's constant can be represented with the units J*s or equivalently kg m^2 / s.
QED
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I'm worried that a tin foil hat bozo is RUNNING A UNIVERSITY! Maybe its not so bad, it is Canadian.
These people are teaching our children, folks! Well, Canadian children....
Nothing beats a nice faraday cage hat for keeping nasty EM waves from toasting your brain. Maybe the school could offer free tin foil hats to each student This guy has nice instructions for building your own. Just slap the school logo on the front and, hell, why not a propeller on the top.
I see a lot of wannabees rant about this university being run by unscientify crackpots. And that the sun and radio and tv is more radiation blah blah ... :-) . Her life isn't that fun though. When her neighbor above leaves his 20" CRT on she can't sleep. She's got other trouble with that aswell and people often don't believe her and think she's crazy.
I've got news for you: Microwaves damage health. Period.
The debate is at which intensity do they start doing that.
I generally turn my Wifi of if I'm not using it and have stopped carrying my cellphone close to my body, since it's on all day. I turn it off at night. I also hold it away from my head when I make a call until the cell handshake is over and the remote connect is there. My Siemens M35 even has a beep to indicate when the connect is there. Smart people the Siemens engineers, aren't they?
Handshake you ask? That's the high-power meep-meep-meep you hear in nearby active FM radios just before you make or recieve a call. It's what establishes the conection to the cell network for communication. I even know a woman who can sense the cellphone handshake (she has e-magnetic field sensetivity) from meters away and has the habbit of anouncing cellphone calls seconds before a phone rings. Fun to watch with unsuspecting others near by
On it goes:
My father was a high profile radar electronics engineer - with Military (Nato, Cruise Missile), Airbus, Nasa/Grumman Aircraft (Lunar Module, Space Shuttle, etc) and some others. He forbid us to have a Microwave oven (they ALL leak Microwaves) and steared clear and went the other way whenever we got to close to a radar bubble when going hiking.
There are people who've had terminal brain tumors due to intense cellphone usage and I work with doctors (medical IT) who keep all equipment far away and well cased according to TCO.
Bottom line:
Don't think it's not unhealthy just because most people don't care. A little common sense and forsight is needed when handling technology. You don't get universal flawless wireless conectivity without a tradeoff. Anyone who believes that is a crackpot himself.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Yes, plenty of quacks are out pounding this drum. In Oak Park, IL, there was a parent's group trying to get wifi banned in the junior high schools for exactly the same reason ("think of the CHILDREN!"). Whether you agree that Jr High kids *need* wifi or not, the argument that it's harmful to their health is pretty ridiculous, and the group was eventually stopped from having any influence. But not after weeks of editorializing and wild claims on their part in the local papers.
Of course you have to wonder if these people built faraday cages around their houses and cars, given their neighbors potential use of wifi and cordless phones, the prevalence of radio, cellular, broadcast tv, and other wireless waves.
Maybe they have mapped the locations of all the towers around and have made sure they live a maximum distance from all of them. Maybe they never take their children to Borders, McDonalds, or any of the couple dozen other businesses that have wifi. Maybe they don't use cellphones themselves.
But I doubt it.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Sounds like someone OD'd on granola. How does a member of the tinfoil hat set come to run a uni anyway? Friggin luddites... >_< I've got no problem with them barricading themselves in their tinfoil-clad homes, and dressing their kids up like baked potatoes while poisoning their minds with insane rantings about the evil radio waves and magnetic fields... But it pisses me off when their rampant insanity impacts others. Like those idiots who prevented a school from providing free broadband to the community via wifi because they were afraid it would melt their brains or something.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Apparently, there are studies that indicate the possibility of harm from wireless, but the studies (so far) are inconclusive.
His point was that the studies that he saw were inconclusive. Inconclusive is different than no effect. This means that it's possible that there's no effect and that there was a systemic problem with the studies. It's also possible that there is an effect and the studies so far just haven't pinpointed it yet.
He's responsible for thousands of students, and seems to figure that the risk of a couple dozen needless deaths isn't wort the convenience of ubiquitious wireless.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Congratulations to that guy for taking a very courageous stand against exposing more people to more 'wireless' radiation. Everyone's daily exposure to this just keeps climbing with 'WiFi' access points, cell phone sites, ubiquitous cell phone use, etc. Yes, these technologies provide wonderful convenience. Yes, they seem harmless since they have no visible effects on us after we use them. But no, they are probably not harmless, although it will likely be several more decades before the magnitude of the harm they are causing is apparent to us.
The Canadian university guy will probably be quickly pressured to recant his ban but it's great that he took the stand he did because it at least puts some light on the issue that might help to get independent studies of health effects funded in the future.
We're using different frequencies than we did 50 years ago. Right now wireless is running around the 2-5Gz range... That's not too far from wireless frequencies that were used to fry an egg with 2 cell phones. Those frequencies don't have anywhere near the body of experience that lower frequencies do.
Also: we do have rising cancer rates, autoimune problems and fertility issues. Some of this is due to longer lifetimes, but some may be due to radiou interference. Problem is that it's hard to pinpoint the probelem specifically because the exposure is so ubiquitious. It's hard to isolate exposure which makes it hard to study the effects.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
There have been a lot of studies by reputable researchers which suggest that low power EM has numerous detrimental effects on the nervous system which have nothing to do with ionizion and cell destruction due to microwave heating. There are other mechanics at work, and they are understood.
Whereas the only studies which claim that EM is safe were funded by such agencies as the Air Force, (which faced law suits for service men contracting cancer from working radar arrays), and the telecoms who use wording which is strikingly similar to that used by the tobacco giants. An hour of your time doing some research is all that is necessary. Learning is fun!
-FL
"Lets hire Bob to be our president. He'll be free entertainment every day!"
More likely, he just doesn't want the university to have to spend the money to set up WAPs around campus, and needed an excuse. People do this kind of stuff all the time. He just made the headlines.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
No, the jury isn't "out on this one". That would imply there is evidence that WiFi causes any sort of health consequences- and further, that it is equal to evidence it does not.
You know, something like eighty percent of Americans believe that there is a God, despite the fact that there is no evidence in favor of his existence. A jury is made up of these ordinary people...
Admittedly, I'm taking the saying a bit literally.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
It could be that he's just doing an extremely rational analysis based on limited information.
Personally, I think that he just doesn't want to spend university money on putting wireless Ethernet everywhere, and wants an excuse that sounds good.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
is a Latin phrase that describes the whole situation of people trying to link cancer to cell phones and other EM emitting devices. It means, "After it, therefore because of it." It's like saying, "I use a cell phone and I got brain cancer. Therefore cell phones cause brain cancer."
In the words of Martin Sheen, who described this expression in an episode of West Wing, "It's not always true. In fact it's rarely true." Who puts these idiots in charge?
The posts here read like a grassrooting effort by some telco, except it's probably just a bunch of ignorant geeks who believe whatever they're told by big multinationals and their own beloved government. Oh, it hurts to read this site somedays. . !
There have been a lot of studies by reputable researchers which suggest that low power EM has numerous detrimental effects on the nervous system which have nothing to do with ionizion and cell destruction due to microwave heating. There are other mechanics at work.
Yes, I've met hysterical protesters who have used super-soakers to shoot magic indian water at cell towers. They do look silly. --As do hoards of poorly informed parents with bad research and high emotions.
But even sillier are people who cannot make the distinction between a valid concern and an emotional protester with a squirt gun. Think: What if somebody came along jumping up and down with a goofy hat and spittle flying from his mouth insisting that the Earth orbits around the Sun? Would you be so disgusted and put off that you would instantly flee into the welcoming arms of the alternate corporate/government sales pitch for a Flat Earth? You might think you wouldn't be fooled, but the evidence of every day public behavior strongly suggests otherwise. A good example is the current war in Iraq; a lot of people here bought that pack of lies when the government came selling them. Indeed, most people garner most of their knowledge from television, and television has a vested interest in misleading us.
Honestly. A little critical thinking from all the so-called skeptics is in order here, I think.
-FL
"Comparing wi-fi to radio waves is completely ridiculous, as they are different wavelengths"
When you're wrong? Why assume such a pompous attitude when a simple wikipedia check would have led you to this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_waves
And a quick examination would have revealed that 2.4 Ghz is in the UHF range.
It's ok if you're wrong, but make sure you're right before you start telling people their posts are "ridiculous".
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
You quote from television without having any of your critical faculties engaged, (and it was a pretend character, not Sheen, btw), and you have the gall to question people who work to extract their wisdom from the real world?
In any case, the basis for much of the concern with EM radiation has nothing to do with clever Latin legal jargon. It has to do with legitimate studies which have repeatedly demonstrated that low-power EM can directly affect living cells and more importantly, biological nervous systems. Do would definitely benefit from some current reading on the subject. Latin philosophy is very clever, but when not properly coupled with real science, it spins off on its own useless masturbatory head-trip.
-FL
Really, so when an apartment of students hook up their broadband router and then have it taken down as "banned" hardware, it was because it was costing money?
Why the hell can't they just wear tinfoil hats like the rest of us?!?
You're using her as bait, Master!
"but it also means that they didn't prove that it is not harmful."
Do I need to tell you why this statement is dumb, or can I trust you to educate yourself?
Hint: proving a negative...
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
The only comprehensive solution would of course be to ban all devices that transmit the evil little waves from campus, then surround the entire campus with a giant Faraday cage to prevent incoming. Problem solved!
Fred Gilbert still sees no problem with cell phones, bluetooth headsets, or the standard satellite dish(s) at most Universities (wifi uses on avg 100mW), but the wifi has got to go?
Oh, don't forget the occasional lightening storm, or solar flare (or the "northern lights") but the wifi has got to go?
Not to mention the municipal wireless network (used by police, fire, and more) brodcasting at at more than 1 watt, but the wifi has got to go?
And least we forget... The HUGE head of Mr. Gilbert, which is now creating it's own electromagnetic poles, but the wifi has got to go?
It's very hard to understand how this guy made it to the position he's in. I can't imagine a guy (who probably stands infront of the microwave at home (900Watts or more)) saying I won't allow wifi unless you can prove it doesn't hurt anyone. That's like going into surgery and coming out telling the doctor, I don't trust medications, and won't be using anything you prescribe. But anaesthesia, that doesn't count.
What an idiot.
Cellphone Radiation = (Number of students) x 2W at all times ON EACH PERSONS BODY (remember, 1/d propogation)
AM RADIO = Minimum for a station = ~250 watts (one town)
FM RADIO = ~100W (for 15 miles or so, a generic radio station)
Then add in terrestrial television (analogue and digital), cellphone tower radiation, microwave links, and all other background radiation.
Wifi Radiation = (20-100mW Per access point) + (20-100mW per simultaneous connected user)
Wikipedia says they have 7,600 students.
That means that even with a theoretical super-network of 200APs with 20 external repeators jacked up high with large yagi antennae with 5000 students concurrently accessing it, you'd be using MAXIMUM (all APs at maximum and all students having maximum power cards to give an absolute maximum):
100mW x 200 APs
+ 100mW x 5000 Students
+ 200mW x 20 APs
= 20,000 mW APs + 500,000mW Students + 4000mW external connections
= 524,000mW or 524Watts spread over the entire campus supporting up to 20 long-range connections.
In comparison, this is the same amount of power that would be present if ONLY 3% (262) of the students had their mobile phones turned on with a *much* lower individual dosage being spread over a far wider area, so *much* healthier. Someone isn't thinking this through and is just paranoid about "electrosmog".
Firstly, let me just say that anyone from Ontario knows that Lakehead isn't a real university anyway...
But, why not ban alcohol? It poses more real direct risk than WiFi. (see this report) This smells like a cost-cutting measure wrapped in a big politically correct environmental/health and safety wrapper.
I can just see it now, the campus police, politely, this is Canada, confiscating all the 2.4 MHz cordless phones, and other such items since they use the same frequency as the WiFi network. I think the school president should worry about bigger issues, like the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted from the oil sands in Alberta, that is a bigger threat than a WiFi mere network.
Lots of things can end up under a couch. Spilled nuts, drained teabags, old bannana peals, the secretaries un... But I digress. Maybe he just stores them there because he's like a squirrel. He likes to chew on nuts. While posting on slashdot. Flame on!
To require proof of a negative is academic bankruptcy. To prove the negative cannot, nor will it ever be done with anything. The burden of proof lies with those who make the assertion, a "prove the positive". The response to this mythology goes way beyond reality and must be from another universe.
Your purple 'fro just gives you away. You're unbelieveable.
This comes as the British Columbia Institute of Technology, or BCIT, is about to introduce its own Mechanical Engineering degree for those who have completed the two-year Mecanical Design diploma. Previously, the only way for a Mechanical Technology graduate at BCIT to finish his Engineering degree in two years was to transfer to Lakehead.
Let's look at the pros and cons of finishing your degree at Lakehead as compared to BCIT:
Pros:
Cons:
Anyone else see a slight enrolment falloff coming?
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
I should send my old Belkin WAP to this guy. When the WAP is powered on, it sickens everyone in the house, causes agitation and fights and just a really bad scene.
Unplug power and everyone is suddenly fine.
It sucks as a WAP but apparently it's useful as an anti-personnel weapon.
Sig for hire.
The university is covering for something, this doesn't smell right. Watch for a sweetheart deal with a Wifi provider that has "hypoallergenic and safe" EM waves or something, and look for the uni to pay a premium for it, and banning all other wifi devices is for "health reasons" - not, of course, because the other company wants to charge a premium for their "safe" hardware.
The students are going to get screwed one way or another, that's for sure.
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
While he's at it, he better ban all cell phone use, and turn off the lights as well. Can't be too safe...
Ad Astra Per Asper
Lakehead University's an engineering school, eh!
just kidding....
When we get to the stage where the evidence is conclusive there is no health impact I have no problem putting wireless in place," said Gilbert.
Until you prove that ghosts are not secretly eating my food at night, then I will continue to believe that they are.
What's that logical fallacy called?
Someone who doesn't know that electromagnetic fields include magnetic fields will likely not be able to comprehend a deep mathematical development of the fact. Unless they're a math major, they won't even get past Grandparent's "tensor" in his first paragraph. Science gets a black mark every time a scientist responds to a layperson's question with a development that buries the layperson in what they will take to be garbage.
I think a better response would be "No, they are the same thing. The proof is extremely boring, but maybe this example/anecdote/etc. will make it clear." Use a thought experiment if you can; don't give a full treatment unless you know you're talking to someone that should have a background that will allow them to understand what you're saying. Failure to do so makes scientists look arrogant and detached from reality, and the last thing any scientist needs these days is to be dehumanized.
Albert Einstein once said..... "The law of causality has not the significance of a statement as to the world of experience, except when observable facts ultimately appear as causes and effects." Cite: The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity, A. Einstein, Annalen der Physik, 49, 1916, trans.W. Perrett & G. B. Jeffery, The Principle of Relativity, p113, Dover, 1923. No one has seen anything about this WiFi mythology that meets Einstein's criteria, by any stretch of the imagination, dreams, magic mushrooms, or just plain holding ones breath.
I just wear my aluminum foil hat and copper mesh lined briefs. Problem solved. :)
Don't use tin foil...it just doesn't have the style appeal. lol.
From the link you gave: "RF-EMF exposure (1800 MHz; SAR 1.2 or 2 W/kg)"
It's a fraudulent way of getting attention. They are exposing delicate chemical reactions to a HUGE amount of energy. Probably there are times when there is local heating, in spite of the fact they say that is not the reason. Someone at the University of Washington was doing what appears to be the same thing.
Someone who could show that small amounts of microwave energy could change chemical reactions would 1) become immediately famous everywhere in the world, and 2) win a Nobel Prize. There are many scientists who would like that. The fact that physicists show no interest in working in that direction shows their understanding of the issue.
If discovers some means of interaction of low-energy photons and chemical reactions, it will probably be a physicist who does it, not someone from the "Division of Occupational Medicine".
Gamma radiation is very high energy: "Gamma rays form the highest-energy end of the electromagnetic spectrum."
--
Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. citizens pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?
...what else is there to do in Thunder Bay?
Then again, with no alcohol on campus, the students could just drive their Ski-Doos to the local pub--sorry, I mean bar. West coast lingo has taken over my lexicon since I escaped from the prairies.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
The entire University of Washington is being wired for Wi-Fi, as well as the adjacent University District, Capitol Hill, Fremont, Ballard, Queen Anne, and Downtown.
If we're all going to die from Wi-Fi, well, then bring it on! is all I can say.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
What, is this guy just trying to piss off the Physics department? Maybe his hard drive got erased when they fired up a big magnet or something...
Ok, hopefully that got your attention.
I agree with his move. Why? Because he's being smart----unlike the Neanderthals who think that something they can't see can't hurt them (cell phones included).
I am heavily pro tech, worked in telecom and some wireless projects. In fact I don't think we're developing technologies as fast as we should be able to.
However, there is such thing as irresponsible technology. I suspect that we are still in the early days of a cool technological concept: highspeed wireless data communications.
But these "early days" are akin to the early days of effective
pesticides (when the now-outlawed DDT was used).
I strongly suspect that one day, we will be able to come up with a safe and fast wireless comms using completely different means..that'll probably involve using Quantum phenomena. But until that time, we're running after candy being hung over our heads by telecom companies who only really care about making money off of us.
You said "comparing wi-fi to radio waves" which NO ONE would ever say, knowing that wi-fi IS radio waves.
That was a REALLY nice try, but you're full of shit, and you got pinched. Be a man and own up to it.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
It's obvious that this is another incident of an "educated" person making a rash, inane and embarrasing decision without any knowledge of the subject they're making a decision on. As a US federally licensed amateur radio operator, it's part of the licensing exam for all three license classes to include a good portion of RF safety.
If the good doctor would have bothered to check out the facts (such as what's at http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/rf-faqs.html) before inserting his foot in his mouth, he would have read that it's very inconclusive that radio waves of any sort cause cancer. I use a handheld radio that transmits up to five watts of power within a few inches of my head and I've never had any problems. I've never heard of an amateur radio operator dying of cancer caused by his hobby either.
As it's been said, everything causes cancer. Methinks that Der Fuhrer has alterior motives to shutting down Wi-Fi and everyone else suffers.
Your email has been returned due to insufficent voltage.
There are benefits to imaging growing fetuses. They aren't just done "for fun". In the case of the old technology, there were some risks as well. I don't know enough to make a judgement as to whether the risks were worth the gains. With the modern technology, the risks are negligible and it is simply a matter of cost and convenience vs benefits.
Tobacco companies in the 50s were much like "right-wingers against Global Warming" or "left-wing Harvard professors against anyone who dares suggest men and women aren't identical on average" are today - locked into nitpicking obvious scientific truths that differ from the world that they want to exist.
Hm. Well there's are several things I should point out here. . .
The first is that Cancer is not the issue with regard to cell phones and low-level EM; rather, it's the effect on brain and cellular chemistry and its effects on consciousness and awareness.
The second is that this state of affairs is understood by those who brought us the technology and was very likely deliberately designed to have such effects for specific reasons.
Thirdly, it's fine to say that the world is dangerous and that living is worth the price, but it's an entirely different thing to choose to live under the strictures of a state which does not want you thinking clearly and which deliberately works to deaden your brain function.
-FL
I'm sure they could have come up with another reason for not implementing it themselves, but by making it a ban nobody can implement any wireless.
Someone should send him this link.
What possible link to brain tumours? This seems very unlikely given the physics involved. Perhaps someone should explain the difference between ionising and non-ionising radiation and then just to allay all fears they should explain the power levels that are involved. Perhaps he should consider banning FM radios; the remote central locking thingey for his car; and maybe he should go the whole hog and ban solar-flare activity (which actually produces dangerous radiation. Just 'cos you work at a Uni it doesn't mean you know your arse from your hand.
>>In general most modern applications are not expressed clearly or simply to
>>normal every day people and programmers or advanced/expert users (i.e. much of
>>the Slashdot crowd) simply make fun of them. Why should we expect any better
>>when we don't understand something? Pot, meet kettle.
I majored in computer science with a minor in writing. I hold nothing but contempt for people that take a simple idea and make it complicated. For people that 'understand' a complex concept but cannot express it with less complexity, again I hold low regard for their intellect.
I flip it around see it rather as a challenge. If a person asks me, say, what the advantages are of a hyperthreading chip, and I found myself unable to reduce the issue into a correct, meaningful, and jargon-free response, I'd see that as a sign that I didn't understand it well enough, and would hit the books again. Defending a baroque explanation of divs, grads, and undefined variables to someone who obviously hasn't taken basic physics with this:
"I can only report the truth. I do not have the ability to explain it better than Einstein, Bergmann and Wheeler themselves (Covariant 4-vector formalism is their work mainly)... This person is clearly ignorant about many things, and too arrogant to admit it and try to learn something interesting and relevant to the discussion. (American? Nah! That's just a stereotype)."
is indefensible. Again, giving an explanation that only someone who already knows the answer can understand is no explanation at all. Perhaps you would call it a proof, or some such, but certainly not an explanation.
>>My Jargon vocabulary was highly limited until I entered the business world.
>> At University we used the specific, word that concisely and precisely
>>describes what we are talking about. The Epidermis -> skin point you use is
>>actually a good example as skin generally covers multiple layers as aspects,
>>while epidermis is precise.
Do you really think that you should tell people to apply a creme to their 'epidermis' instead of their 'skin'? Is Mrs Jones at risk of pulling back her epidermis and dermis so she can apply her antifungal creme to her hypodermis? Hey, you said "skin", after all.
No. Use terminology only when the difference is important, and if you must, define your terms before unleashing them. Call it a bruise instead of a hematoma, so they don't get a heart attack thinking they have cancer.
Even when my fiancee is explaining things like pharmokinetics to me, as long I stop her from using terms like AUC, MEC, MTC, etc. I can understand her lectures.
The key defining factor, of course, is your audience. If I am conducting technology training with K-12 teachers, which I do on a fairly regular basis, I have two options: 1) Use big fancy words to make myself look and feel smart, or 2) Express the exact same concept in words they understand and can use. There's a reason why I get universally good reviews on my workshops: I don't have an ego to get in the way of a clear explanation.
It doesn't just apply to the general public either. At my university, people applying for professorial positions and people giving defenses of their theses wuold generally talk for an hour or so on their respective areas of expertise, and then would be asked questions. Almost always, the first question was: explain your thesis in three sentences or less. If the person stumbled, or even worse, couldn't answer, they were almost sure to not get the position (graduating students were obviously given a little more leniency, but at the same time the dept chair would tell them they'd better damn well have an answer for that question ready when asked).
This is a fairly common trend from what I've seen. Some say, for example, the genius of Einstein was not in his theory of relativity, but in his E=mc^2.
It's a movement I wholeheartedly support.
>>Is that the simplest explanation? Could
It'll tell you *something*. It won't tell you *everything*. Sadly, the only way to really know how a medicine (or anything else) works on humans is to test it on in a proper double-blind study using a large sample. The problem is that we don't want to risk that unless we're first reasonable sure that there aren't large problems.
"Apparently" ? What is that supposed to mean: Does such studies exist, or do they not ? And how can a study "indicate" a "possibility" of harm ? That is a nonsensical statement.
Listen: *everything* (literally) is "possibly" harmful. Really. You don't need any study to show that. Most studies are made to test some hypothesis. Let's say you have a hypothesis that children with wifi-homes get leukemia more often than other children. You can test this with a study. There's only three possible results:
I suggest that there exists *no* studies that show a statistically significant correlation between EM on wifi-levels and any negative health-effects. This is no proof that they're harmless: it's only lack of indication that they're harmful.
If you think otherwise, please provide pointers to those studies that say otherwise.
YES! There are prople who believe that electromagnetic energy below 300GHz is good for you. Take a look at the track record for medical shortwave (preWW2) diathermy, and microwave (postWW2) diathermy (2.45GHz). Deliberate exposure at levels and durations designed to produce tissue heating to millions of people for medical purposes. No one died from it, no one developed tumors, cancer, warts, electrosensitivity, itching, ESP, or anything else, for that matter. Microwave diathermy is still in use worldwide, primarily in sports medicine. Of course, there are some that believe that magnets are dood for you, and bad for you, too. Belief reigns, emotions run amok, but it is still zero in the end, the null set.
I am a Lakehead U. Alumnus and have a different theory.
Lakehead got a huge government grant a few years back to invest in their computer infastructure. They have little cubbyhole computer labs all over the place. It was a great idea and one the University implemented very well. You can't walk far in any University building before you pass by a room full of computers available for use.
I would be willing to bet that alot of the reasoning here is they are afraid that if they launch Wi-fi, fewer people will actually use any of those labs. If noone uses the labs, then it will appear that their government grant was wasted, and that means fewer government grants in the future!
Rather than see years of lobbying and hard work just thrown out the window, Gilbert has come up with a stupid excuse to say no.
AND, to respond to a few comments...
1. As with any student body ANYWHERE, banning alcohol WOULD cause an uprising, but this is especially true in Thunderbay. With 8 HOURS drive to the nearest city (Winnepeg or Deluth!) residents like to drink to forget that they are stuck in middle of nowhere... then they go bowling.
2. A lot of people that leave comments don't have a clue what they are talking about (anymore than Lakehead's Gilbert!)
.
You sound like a smoking apologist... -- If there's no correlation, then you've implicitly proven that wifi doesn't hurt people ... but if there is a correlation, then claim you haven't proven that it does.
If statistical correlation doesn't show that wifi causes cancer, then what does?
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Show me a link to a paper published in Nature or Science, or the New England Journal of Medicine, hell, even in the IEEE journal, and I'll check it out. A book on Amazon? Anyone can get any pseudoscientific crap published, and can even get a few Ph.D's to sign off on it, and will sell a million copies if it happens to relate to the FUD-du-jour.
Sooo. . , you only let knowledge in when it comes stamped with authoritarian approval? Do you lack so much confidence in your own abilities that you need others to sort sense from nonsense? You can't do that on your own? --When you give up your thinking powers to others, others will not respect you, nor will they give you the information which might allow you to grow powerful enough to question them. Slave herders like being in charge. Science and Nature and various Journals of Medicine are limited in what they can publish by boundaries which have more to do with egos, corporate funding issues and fear of ridicule than anything to do with the limits of real science.
Until you change your approach to thinking, you will not be able to amount to anything beyond the limits placed upon you by those who have tricked you into believing that authority figures are the only ones who know how to assess data and that you are too stupid to think for yourself.
Honestly. You act as though simply looking or thinking about anything beyond the safe, pre-defined boundaries will somehow corrupt your mind. You are stronger than that.
Yes, microwaves are dangerous. They heat you up, especially the water in your outer tissues. But I'm a lot more worried about the gazillion-watt microwave source 150 million km away than I am about the tiny transmitters in the city around me.
Yes, microwave radiation is directly damaging at high powers. However, at low powers, as from cell phones, etc., the concerns have far more do to with how cells react, particularly in the nervous system. Lots of funny things happen to one's cognition and perception and brain chemistry when using a cell phone. There are some mechanisms which have been recognized and studied which play a part in this. If you are even slightly human, then you should be slightly curious, and if you have any courage whatsoever, you might try doing some exploration beyond the orthodox limits. It's not going to kill you. And by all means, if a text seems lame, then ditch it. --But you should determine its validity through applied thought and cross examination, not by looking at which authority figures are sniggering and trying your best to not be labeled, 'uncool'.
Only muggles care if muggles laugh at them.
-FL
Hm. This parting line of yours sounds suspiciously like you will be covering ayour ears now and saying, "La La La, I Can't Hear You!" no matter what I say from this point forth.
Well, fine. While I may risk wasting my time actually responding to your 'points', here goes. . .
For starters, whoever modded up "ZOMGLOL YOUR CELLPHONE IS PART OF A GOVERNM3NT PLOT TO MAKE YOU STUPID!!!1111!111" may well be proof of these 'deadened brains'.
Okay. I don't actually know who you're referring to here or what it has to do with anything we've been discussing. Perhaps you are one of those people who thinks that because some people are insane that ALL people are insane. --Think of it this way; If you met a person who was nuts and you noticed that he wore a red tee shirt, would it be logical to then say, "People with red tee shirts are nuts."? If you need help understanding that, let me know.
Secondly, this is the worst tripe I've ever heard. And that's saying something.
Uh. . , (speaking of brain dead). . , this second 'point' of yours isn't actually a point. It's an opinion. If you want to call it a 'point', then you will need to explain why you hold that opinion.
Third, I call bullshit. If all this stuff deadens our brains, how do you explain the fact that Japan, which I think we can safely say has the highest density of sophisticated consumer electronics on the face of the Earth (especially cellphones), has a higher literacy rate than the United States, despite a written language containing several THOUSAND complex ideograms?
For that matter, how do I explain that with all this EM pollution people are still able to walk and drive cars? And speak? --And play video games requiring speedy hand-eye coordination!
I can, however, say for all that, people sure seem pretty dumb. Your argument, for instance, is lacking a degree of necessary logic to be considered anything even remotely conclusive. --Nobody said that being able to recognize words on a page was removed from a person when they use a cell phone. Reading comprehension and higher reasoning, however, are probably in question. Perhaps I am bold in suggesting that you seem to be something of an example in this case. . .
Kindly return to tending your little conspiracy theory website before I sic the thought police on you. Or, if you insist on continuing to troll, might I suggest an elementary school playground as your next venue? The children would make a far better audience for your psuedo-intellectual paranoid delusions than the slashdot crowd.
I don't have a conspiracy website. I scanned a few book pages so that I might share them with others because it was easier than photocopying them and walking down to the mail box. I find it curious how often people are so scared of thinking and exploring that they recoil from the idea of reading a few paragraphs which may threaten their world view. If your world view makes sense, then surely it can withstand a few paragraphs, and if not, then surly you would want to repair it so that it can. Right? It's as though people are scared that their brains will somehow be corrupted by text. Have you no confidence in your own abilities to sort data on your own? A little courage is in order here.
-FL
Some time back there was a study done in England, showing that people living near garbage-incinerators got lung-cancer 1.5 times as often as normal people. At first it was assumed this was proof the smoke from the garbage-incinerators where causing this. A more carefuly look however, reveled that: a) people living close to the incinerator where mostly poorer than average. b) poor people smoke more often than richer people. c) infact non-smokers near the incinerator had no higher risk than non-smokers elsewhere.
See the problem ?
Or another example: A statistical analysis (this one from Norway) showed that people who drink much coffee earn less money, get (on the average) less education, and have a host of other problems. Further study however showed that that's simply because the coffee-consumption in the poorest part of Norway (the north-part) is significantly higher than elsewhere.
Or a constructed example:
Assume you where to sample 1000 computers at random to test the hypothesis: attaching an lcd-screen rather than a crt to a computer improves performance. You do this by testing the performance of each of the computers, and noting which are attached to lcds. You will find that computers that have lcds are on the average atleast twice as fast as computers that do not. Now we all know that is not because the LCD helps -- it is because lcds are common on *new* computers and uncommon on *old* computers, and new computers are usually faster than old. Attaching a lcd to your old computer won't help at all. That's because speed and lcd/crt are *correlated* but the speed is not *caused* by the lcd.
Is the point starting to drift trough to you ?
To feel sure of *causation* we need to do our damnedest to exclude all other factors to the best of our ability. Even then we can never be 100% sure -- but that's not required in any case: if we find it quite likely that something is harmful, and have evidence to support this, that's quite sufficient to be careful with whatever it was until further analysis can be made.
Smoking is a good example: The increased risk of lung-cancer (and lots of other problems) for smokers by itself doesn't prove anything. However: the difference remains no matter what we try to exclude. The difference remains even if the sample has equal age, equal jobs, equal education, equal sex, equally many kids, whatever. Infact the difference remains even if we take two samples of near-identical lab-mice, treat them (as close as we can manage) to exactly the same, *except* the *one* difference: half the mice inhale tobacco-smoke, the other half doesn't.
If/when future studies show that there is conclusively no (or negligable) risk from wifi, then I expect that he'll be happy to install ubiquitous hotspots.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
There are no indications whatsoever that, for example, having a wifi-hotspot 5m from your bed is more harmful than having a DECT-phone 1m away, a ligthbulb 1m away, currenct-carrying wires everywhere, drinking water, wearing cotton, cutting your toenails or looking at the Cosby show.
You, additionally, annoy me by failing to have a rudimentary grasp of the very basics of science. If you did, you'd know, for example that studies will *never* be able to conclusively show that wifi is harmless. They cannot. Not even in principle. *NO* study has conclusively shown that drinking half a liter of pure water a day is not harmful. You can *never* prove a negative.
But you're rigth, this is Slashdot, it's completely futile to expect anything else.
Just as you can concusively show that there is a clear link you can conclusively show that there is no appreciable link.
While it is true that you cannot absolutelu prove something that is probability driven, well-designed experiments and/or studies can provide pretty clear indicators as to what is (or isn't) going on.
Poorly designed (or described) studies, as you've noted, can describe nothing -- or be misleading. Thus it is that you need to read a study pretty carefully so that you can understand what is really being tested. That's also why you want multiple studies -- so that systemic (or just unlucky) errors can be weeded out.
On the other hand, if we were to accept your premise that nothing can ever be proven (or disproven), we'd be letting children smoke, ignore the value of seatbelts, have asbestos pyjamas for kids and continue selling leaded paint for households.
Given that this guy is the president of a university, I'm going to presume that he's got at least enough brains to recognize when a study is clearly bogusm, and that he can recognize the difference between something that shows nothing is probably going on and one that shows that there's value in continuing to study, but doesn't conclusively prove in either direction.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
i agree that there may be some level of damage done with radiation, simply because... its radiation, it doesnt sound like something you would want on the list of ingredients in your food. but the point isnt so much whether it does damage, or even the extent of the damage (which seems much more important than the over all argument of yes or no, radiation?) but instead, is it worth the damage? sure it might emit radiation, which might be bad, but come on, its free wi fi! how can some radiation be compared to the possabilities made available with free wifi acces? if they really have any beef with it, well, they also make u sit in classes all day, which isnt what our bodies naturally want or need. but its the point of what we do sitting in the chairs all day that makes it worth the cost (usually) and so shouldnt the use fullness of wifi negate those "possible" side effects?