Man Sues Neighbor For Not Turning Off His Wi-Fi

Scyth3 writes "A man is suing his neighbor for not turning off his cell phone or wireless router. He claims it affects his 'electromagnetic allergies,' and has resorted to being homeless. So, why doesn't he check into a hotel? Because hotels typically have wireless internet for free. I wonder if a tinfoil hat would help his cause?"

Comments

Retard.

[XPeter]

You can't be "Allergic to wi-fi"

Put him in a room, and turn the wireless on and off. Guaranteed he won't be able to tell the difference.

Re:Retard.

[Rei]

That can't stop you from suing. Look at Jonathan Lee Riches. This is a guy who sued the Guinness Book of World Records for listing him as the man who's filed the most lawsuits in the history of mankind. ;) He's among others, he's sued Bill Belichick, George W. Bush, Martha Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Michael Vick, Steve Jobs, Perez Hilton, Somali pirates, Britney Spears, Benazir Bhutto, Pervez Musharraf, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party, the 13 tribes of Israel, Plato, Nostradamus, Che Guevara, James Hoffa, "Various Buddhist Monks", the Lincoln Memorial, the Eiffel Tower, the USS Cole, the book Mein Kampf, the Garden of Eden, the Roman Empire, the Appalachian Trail, Plymouth Rock, the Holy Grail, the dwarf planet Pluto, and the entire Three Mile Island.

Re:Retard.

[Leebert]

Put him in a room, and turn the wireless on and off. Guaranteed he won't be able to tell the difference.

That's all well and good, and I'm sure the guy is full of it, BUT...

Many allergic reactions (like my own seasonal allergies) don't come and go like a light switch in the presence or absence of the allergen.

I could sit in a clean room for 2 or 3 days after getting really spun up from my tree allergies until the symptoms really begin to diminish.

Re:Retard.

[XPeter]

Being X-rayed emits much more radiation as opposed to a household router, plus the single dies down tremendously as it passes through walls (especially siding)

It's inevitable he'll encounter wireless singles wherever he goes...from a cell tower, or just driving around and passing hot spots.

Re:Retard.

[Narcocide]

Isn't the brain essentially an electrical logic system that like any other example of such systems we have (computers) certain frequencies of e-m radiation can interfere with it's basic operation at the right power levels and proximity and such?

I don't know much about it but it sounds possible. It also doesn't sound like it'd quite fall under the category of allergies. It also sounds far more likely to be an excuse to sue a neighbor you don't like than it is to be actually happening to this guy.

Re:Retard.

[omfgnosis]

But he should really watch out for doubles.

Re:Retard.

[PPH]

So, test to see if this guy's symptoms correlate with the beginning of exposure. And if that isn't definitive, there's another problem: Prove that its actually exposure to e.m. fields that trigger his symptoms. If their onset is slow, it may take months or even years to actually isolate the environmental factors to which he is sensitive. Months or years living in a controlled environment.

Perhaps he's just allegic to living in rooms without rubber walls.

Re:Retard.

[MobyDisk]

Yes, but not these frequencies. Google for "non-ionizing radiation" 2.4Ghz radiation is absorbed by water, and technically it does affect him: it warms him up. But only about as much as an LED.

Re:Retard.

[AmigaMMC]

What next? Is he going to ask radio stations to stop broadcasting? Or is he allergic only to frequencies used by Wi-Fi routers?

We live in a world that is constantly bombarded by radio waves, can't really hide anywhere.

Re:Retard.

[interkin3tic]

It's worth noting that the French, acting on behalf of the Eiffel tower, settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.

Re:Retard.

[Idbar]

You can't be "Allergic to wi-fi" More important is being specific. Is he allergic to the L-Band? S-Band? C-Band?
What's the "Q" of his band pass allergy filter?
Does his neighbor has 802.11a or 802.11b/g/n?
Poor guy, he may have some allergic reactions to GPS signals too. Maybe that's what started all.

Re:Retard.

[Dishevel]

How is a story of the French surrendering worth noting? :)

Re:Retard.

[Anonymous Coward]

The key difference being that we have ample evidence to suggest people can be allergic to things (cats, peanuts, pollen, ect), but controlled attempts to prove that that electromagnetic sensitivity is real have turned up flat. ES is BS, or at the very least, it is a psychological thing, not a physiological condition. This bears all the marks of the nonsensical woowoo ideas out there built upon anecdotal stories that real science can't confirm.

Re:Retard.

[jameskojiro]

Better yet he should buy one of those large canopy beds and cover it with copper mesh and make a giant box he can sleep in Wi-Fi free. then he can avoid the Wi-Fi signals and his neighbor can be lawsuit free. Also why would his cell phone cause and issue it is a different frequency than the Wi-Fi. I would think that one of those cordless landline 2.4Ghz phones would cause more grief than a humble cell phone.....

I say he should Faraday up his house or move.

Re:Retard.

[djdavetrouble]

It is suspected that this lawsuit was really a conspiracy just designed to get all named plantiffs one degree of separation away from Kevin Bacon (also named in the suit).

Re:Retard.

[w0mprat]

I have an alergy to sunlight, usually when emerging from a dark room into bright sunlight my eyes water, my nose goes ichy and I sneeze sometimes. It lasts a few minutes until my eyes adjust. I always thought this was a natural normal reaction and thought nothing of it, indeed it makes sense that your eyes water in bright light. But no, when I mentioned to a professional, apparently it's common but not normal and has been diagnosed as an alergy.

Agreeing with the above post, sometimes it just doesn't happen, or it lasts longer, or it doesn't clear up for hours, its variable.

Indeed there are people who can die from an alergic reaction to UV light.

People can be genuinely alergic to some really strange things. So how is it then that it is so implausible that someone might be alergic to wi-fi? Then human immune system is not only strange but unstable

The only remaining implausible thing IMHO is the distance.

If I wrap your hand around a USB wi-fi dongle, maybe you can feel the tingling from the EM field or static electricity or something, especially if it's a poor design.

Problem is, if you are 50 feet away, the energy level is suddenly about 500,000 times lower, that's totally ignoring any walls in the way. For all practical purposes the signal is lost in the seething bath of EM raditation all around us, it cannot have any effect on you, period.

I heard it said that a lifetime of being in the same house as a Wi-Fi router is equivelent of holding a cellhpone against your head for 1 hour. So far, in a world with billions of cellphones used for countless hours of talktime held to the side of the head, there isn't a worldwide pandemic of brain tumours. So if there is an effect it is extremely small to not show up.

Wi-fi danger debunked. No need to thank me.

Yet it's plausible that people are alergic to EMF, it's certainly established that people can be alergic to parts of the EM spectrum.

Re:Retard.

[2short]

"Many allergic reactions (like my own seasonal allergies) don't come and go like a light switch in the presence or absence of the allergen."

But all allergic reactions (including your seasonal allergies) occur when the body identifies proteins in the allergen as belonging to an attacking organism, and produces antibodies in response. To put it simply, if ridiculously, there are no proteins in wi-fi signals. So, even if wifi has any unusual effect on this guy, it isn't an allergy.

"I could sit in a clean room for 2 or 3 days after getting really spun up from my tree allergies until the symptoms really begin to diminish."

Of course. Antibodies remain in your blood well after exposure. But if you sat in a clean room until you had no symptoms, then inhaled a vial I gave you, and waited in the clean room to see what happened, you could tell me if the vial contained tree pollen or just something that smelled like it but wasn't. Can this guy do something similar with a box that might be a wifi router or not? I don't know, but a lot of other people have claimed sensitivity to wifi, and none of them have done it, so I'm guessing he can't either.

Re:Retard.

[loose electron]

he only resonates at certain frequencies....

Re:Retard.

[Lunix Nutcase]

Except he claims to have an allergy to wifi. If he shows no obvious allergy when he is unaware of the presence of wifi it would show to all how he is full of shit.

Re:Retard.

[MrNaz]

I call bull.
I'll put up $1,000 as a bet that you can't tell when xrays are passing through you in a true blind test. Find a hospital that will do the test, call me and I'll gladly put the money into an escrow. My email address is:
mr naz at hot mail dot com
If you're not BSing, then put your $1,000 where your mouth is.

Re:Retard.

[Jarik C-Bol]

he could just have his house stuccoed. the wire lathe they use is not quite faraday cage fine, but small enough to put one hell of a damper on wifi.

Re:Retard.

[goodmanj]

I have an alergy to sunlight ... when I mentioned to a professional, apparently it's common but not normal and has been diagnosed as an alergy.

No you don't. Get a better professional, or at least spend thirty seconds Googling it.

It's a common genetic condition, probably related to some sort of signal crosstalk between the optic nerve and the nerve that causes sneezes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/527/why-do-some-people-sneeze-when-going-out-into-bright-light

Re:Retard.

[Chris Burke]

Many allergic reactions (like my own seasonal allergies) don't come and go like a light switch in the presence or absence of the allergen.

Right, because your immune system is actually being agitated by the actual allergic response to the actual allergens, and it takes time to come down, plus there are probably still actual allergens like pollen stuck in your sinuses and continuing to irritate you.

Speaking of light switches, all I can think of is the case of a cell phone company that put up a new tower, and all the advanced folks in the neighborhood by it complained that the tower was irritating their EM allergies and giving them headaches and whatnot.

The company's response to their complaints? "Gee, we can only imagine how bad it's going to get when we actually turn the tower on!"

The tower wasn't on. There was no EM radiation that could have provoked any hypothetical allergy response. It was all in their extremely advanced heads.

The ultimate kicker to this story would be if the neighbor had actually turned off their wi-fi weeks ago but told the guy they hadn't just to keep cheesing them off and to show how the "allergy" only exists as long as they think there's evil wi-fi. Unfortunately I'm sure that's not true, because the neighbor probably finds their wi-fi useful and why the hell would you stop using a useful and harmless tool because the nutjob next door thinks it's bad for them?

As far as the "weird unexplained things happen!" reasoning... Yeah, weird things do happen, but it's not like wi-fi itself is some unexplained phenomenon. We know what the power densities of it are at any given range, and unless you believe in homeopathic E-M radiation, there's no way it's having the effects people claim. High voltage power lines? Maybe there's something to that. Wi-fi? Yeah fucking right.

Re:Retard.

[MrNaz]

I have an alergy to sunlight, usually when emerging from a dark room into bright sunlight my eyes water, my nose goes ichy and I sneeze sometimes. It lasts a few minutes until my eyes adjust. I always thought this was a natural normal reaction and thought nothing of it, indeed it makes sense that your eyes water in bright light. But no, when I mentioned to a professional, apparently it's common but not normal and has been diagnosed as an alergy.

Bee Ess.
Sensitivity to sunlight is NOT an allergy. An allergy is a disorder of the immune system. A physiological response to physical stimulation is not an immune reaction, it's a physiological reaction.

If we redefined allergy to include that, then it would lose all meaning. E.g., Everyone would be allergic to being punched in the nose because it made your eyes water. It may even make you cry like a girl.

"Indeed there are people who can die from an alergic reaction to UV light.

It's called "melanoma". It, too, is not an alergic reaction.

Yet it's plausible that people are alergic to EMF, it's certainly established that people can be alergic to parts of the EM spectrum.

No. QED.

Re:Retard.

[interkin3tic]

Is there a term for when you make a joke on /., someone responds by making the joke more obvious, and then they get the funny mod instead of you? Maybe "whooshmodded?"

Anyway, two can play at that game:

?: "Knock knock?"

Frenchman: "Who is there? NEVERMIND WE SURRENDER BECAUSE WE'RE FRENCH AND EAT CHEESE!"

Re:Retard.

[nigelo]

he only resonates at certain frequencies....

No, it seems like a constant high-pitched whine to me...

Re:Retard.

[Tensor]

the one who modded this as interesting need a crash course in ironic humor.

Re:Retard.

[DJRumpy]

Considering back in 2006 they did no less than 31 studies (probably more but I'm too lazy to google for them) and found that overwhelmingly, people couldn't even tell when they were around a electromagnetic device like a cell phone:

"31 is a good number of studies, and 24 found that electromagnetic fields have no effect. But 7 did find some measurable effect, and because I have a reputation for pedantry to uphold: in 2 of those studies with positive findings, even the original authors have been unable to replicate the results; for the next 3, the results seem to be statistical artifacts (details below); and for the final 2, the positive results are mutually inconsistent (one shows improved mood with provocation, and the other shows worsened mood)."

There comes a point when both the doctors involved, and society at large need to consider that someone is more likely to simply be a hypochondriac, a head case, or misdiagnosed.

Re:Retard.

[BasilBrush]

Others have pointed out your reaction to light is not an allergy. But even if it was...

So how is it then that it is so implausible that someone might be alergic to wi-fi?

Because while science documents that the body has receptors sensitive to light - most obviously the eyes, but also the skin - there are no receptors sensitive to radio spectrum EMR.

Re:Retard.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are the same form of energy, electromagnetic radiations

Re:Retard.

[camperslo]

You can't be "Allergic to wi-fi"

Put him in a room, and turn the wireless on and off. Guaranteed he won't be able to tell the difference.

(I agree) If this guy really were affected, he should have even more trouble from the signal leaking out of microwave ovens. They operate in the same frequency range. Although they're designed minimize signal radiation, they're still likely to radiate a significant signal since they produce it at well over 10,000 times the power level used in WiFi gear. He also would be much closer to his oven than to the neighbor's wireless.

Re:Retard.

[wagnerrp]

Yeah, X-Rays are EM radiation, and WiFi is... EM radiation.

Did you mean to say the two completely identical forms of energy have entirely different properties due to their frequency/energy level?

Re:Retard.

[Hurricane78]

Or the Americans coming in last, when all the real work is already done, but fucking shit up anyway.

Re:Retard.

[flatrock]

The existence of his allergies or lack thereof is irrelevant. The case should be dismissed because it is not his neighbor's resonsibility to go beyond FCC regulations in limiting radio emissions from his property. Turning off his cell phone will also do nothing about the cell towers in the area.

The guy with the allergies can take steps to block or at least seriously attenuate signals comming into his house. It may not be cheap, but since when is dealing with medical problems cheap.

He can also move to a rural area where such emissions are less in order to avoid them.

Re:Retard.

[xouumalperxe]

Is there a term for when you make a joke on /., someone responds by making the joke more obvious, and then they get the funny mod instead of you?

In case you didn't notice, he grabbed your joke, and made a different one.

Re:Retard.

[insufflate10mg]

I will also put money on it. Please let me know if it goes down so I can make some easy paper.

Re:Retard.

[pclminion]

My mother in law has a medical condition where exposure to bright sunlight breaks down proteins in her skin. One of the breakdown products generates an auto-immune response. In other words, she's "allergic" to bright sunlight. True, sunlight contains no proteins, but the interaction of sunlight with her skin CREATES proteins to which she is allergic.

I seriously doubt that WiFi radiation could do the same thing, but these processes can't be oversimplified like that.

Re:Retard.

[Leebert]

Right, because your immune system is actually being agitated by the actual allergic response to the actual allergens, and it takes time to come down, plus there are probably still actual allergens like pollen stuck in your sinuses and continuing to irritate you.

Clearly. I take issue with the "allergy" term, yes. That wasn't my point.

The OP was saying how simple it is to test by simply placing the subject in a room and turning on and off the wifi, and I was rebutting that it isn't quite so simple as he's making it out to be.

Re:Retard.

[BikeHelmet]

You can't be "Allergic to wi-fi"

Put him in a room, and turn the wireless on and off. Guaranteed he won't be able to tell the difference.

Maybe that's not what it is.

My neighbour's phone was giving me a nasty headache. I thought it was food allergies, but one time I was in the backyard and his window was opened. I noticed the throbbing was pointing directly at that opening. I went over to his house and explained what was going on. He thought it was really strange, but let me in to look around. Once I figured out it was the phone(took all of 10 seconds to find it), I told him. He was happy to accept the new phone that I gave him later that day. No more headaches.

Best bet... some sort of frequency that I can *almost* hear, but nobody else can? The new phone was the exact same frequency, so I suspect his was somehow defective.

The guy suing could be a hypochondriac, or maybe there's more to it. I can hear CRT TVs - but that's pretty common. I can also hear circuit breakers, capacitors, power lines (I try not to get too close), LCD monitors, battery powered clocks, some watches, etc.; but none of that stuff causes me to have a headache. I have a Wireless G network with the signal strength ramped up - Tomato WRT54GL - but no headache.

I think my (superior?) hearing might be genetic. I have an Uncle nearing age 60, and he can still hear that annoying Mosquito ringtone that's supposed to be Teen-only.

What I don't get is, why would this guy sue? My first line of attack would be begging them to let me network their whole house, if it was real physical discomfort. If it wasn't physical - just something audible like being able to hear their TV - then who cares?

Re:Retard.

[Chris Burke]

The OP was saying how simple it is to test by simply placing the subject in a room and turning on and off the wifi, and I was rebutting that it isn't quite so simple as he's making it out to be.

Yeah not quite... you have to wait until their "symptoms" go away before doing the wi-fi on-off test. That's a trivial addition to the test that was described. It's still easy to test the claims of these people, it's been done, and none of them have ever actually had the problem they say they do.

Re:Retard.

[Hurricane78]

As long as there is no movie about it, that is irrelevant.
Oh god, please, no. No movie about it! PLEASE! I beg you! Please god, noooooo... ;)

Re:Retard.

[roc97007]

So, have you sued your neighbors yet for having trees?

Re:Retard.

[Runaway1956]

"If we only relied on our senses, we could assume that it's safe to live next to Chernobyl ffs!"

Maybe. On the other hand, relying on your senses alone, you can determine that the fuana and flora around Chernobyl aren't exactly "right", and decide to live elsewhere.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_chernobyl.html

Re:Retard.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

How do you sue an island?

Re:Retard.

[ArcherB]

I have an alergy to sunlight, usually when emerging from a dark room into bright sunlight my eyes water, my nose goes ichy and I sneeze sometimes. It lasts a few minutes until my eyes adjust. I always thought this was a natural normal reaction and thought nothing of it, indeed it makes sense that your eyes water in bright light. But no, when I mentioned to a professional, apparently it's common but not normal and has been diagnosed as an alergy.

You are 100% correct. Unfortunately, no amount of correctness gives you the right to be an asshole.

This guy's doctor probably said it was an allergy because that is exactly how it acts. I have the same problem, and my wife, who is also in the medical field, didn't believe me when I told her the problem was sunlight. She told me that I had to have some sort of allergy to something outdoors. Explaining that it wasn't a problem at night, on cloudy days, or when I wear sunglasses didn't matter. She said it had to be an allergy because it has all the symptoms of an allergy and no one has that type of allergic reaction to sunlight. It wasn't until she saw my brother and daughter have same issue that she finally believed me. Well, that and 30 seconds of googling.

So, just because this guys doctor said it was an allergy doesn't mean you have to go off on him or his doctor, at least not until you become a GP yourself. His doctor just found that this was as easy an explanation as any for something he really didn't have an answer as to why it happens that is not going to cause any harm.

Re:Retard.

[cujo_1111]

After someone that has had more than 20 seperate CT scans, I can most surely tell when I am exposed to xrays.

While laying in the CT machine with the spinning going on, while there is no xrays being emitted everything feels fine, but as soon as the xrays start I feel a tingling sensation on the side of my body closest to the emitter and it rotates around my body with it. The sensation isn't on the surface either, it is more sub dermal (about a cm or so deep I think).

After talking to the radiologist about it, he said he was fairly rare but some people do feel xrays.

Re:Retard.

[bartwol]

How do you sue an island?

Suing it is easy. Getting it to show up at court is much harder.

And the wife...such a beach.

Re:Retard.

[cujo_1111]

Reminds me of a joke: Q: Why are French boulevards lined with trees? A: So invading forces can walk in the shade.

Re:Retard.

[MadnessASAP]

Well more like an analog computer AFAIK, there was a little study done by some scientists a while back that managed to disrupt a mans speech using a pulsing magnetic field, but the electromagnet was the size of his, strapped to his head and ran at insanely huge power levels, in other words many many orders of magnitude beyond what you encounter in even the most insane worst case scenarios in the real world.

Re:Retard.

[turbidostato]

"I call bull.
I'll put up $1,000 as a bet that you can't tell when xrays are passing through you in a true blind test."

Of course not. Point being that X-Rays don't produce any kind of allergy.

Re:Retard.

[niiler]

Interestingly, the latest research shows that people who use cell phones more are less likely to suffer from Altzheimer's disease. It sounds like this is a non-issue.

Re:Retard.

[ysth]

Um, no, he didn't. That was the original joke, just using subtlety instead of the ice pick to the forehead.

Re:Retard.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny, if you give someone a tuna sandwich from two identical cans of tuna but tell them one of the sandwiches was made from Organic Grown Super Healthy Tuna Grown in Chemically Pure Water, they will tell you almost without fail that the fancy tuna sandwich tastes better.

Similarly, if you lay in a machine with a bunch of spinning and whirring going on around you and know you're getting an X-ray, you might think you can feel the X-ray.

Re:Retard.

[kklein]

I can feel them, too. They aren't painful. In fact... Until today I didn't know that wasn't normal.

Now that I think of it, I don't think I feel them at the dentist. I wonder why...

I can also hear electronics when they break. It drives me crazy, because I'll hear a high-pitched squeal, at the very limit of my range of hearing, and I know that something is wrong. Also, there's a corner in Shimbashi (I live in Tokyo) that squeals, and I think it's the train track there. It's incredibly painful, but people are just walking around, not noticing anything. I was really happy when I found another person who heard the same thing at the same place.

So what I'm saying is that it is entirely possible for people to have differently-tuned physical sensations. There's nothing even slightly strange about pointing that out.

That is not to say that the guy in TFA isn't a nut. He clearly is. We're surrounded by radio waves all the time, and his next-door neighbor's WiFi is not really that strong. Does he have a cellphone? A wireless handset for his landline? A cordless keyboard? Come on.

Re:Retard.

[denton420]

X-rays are most certainly detectable by humans.

The energy they contain is orders of magnitude higher than what a wireless router would emit.

Depending on the length of exposure you could determine whether or not you are being exposed to x-rays

Wi Fi is on the order of a GHz which is 10^9 Hz.

An X-ray is defined as a pretty large range but it starts at about 10^18 Hz.

Being that EM radiation energy is directly proportional to frequency you can see that the chances of experiencing thermal heating due to x-rays is not entirely unlikely. Not to mention you did not specify the intensity of the x-ray source.

My buddy in the Navy said he and a couple of crew members were accidently caught infront of one of the large radars on the ship.

They began to vomit immediately after exposure and felt terrible for hours.

Thats the power of EM radiation at high intensities...

You can also view the IEEE standards for allowable transmittable power densities at given frequency ranges. You think they would regulate this stuff if there was no danger?

http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/Radio/table-power-field.gif

I mean yeah what the guy is claiming is bogus but do not go so far as to claim x-rays are harmless. X-rays account for many times the mSv incurred on a given human body than any nuclear explosion or accident at a power plant has ever caused.

Re:Retard.

[Maxmin]

Apparently this bloke is ignorant of the inverse-square law. The amount of energy actually reaching his tinfoil hat would be exceedingly tiny.

Re:Retard.

[daveime]

Now that's not really fair ... all those chocolate bars and nylons came in real handy when the soldiers in the trenches ran out of bullets. A few kgs of Hersheys Kisses in a stocking leg makes an excellent cosh and can be whirled around the head and body, keeping those nasty Nazis at bay.

<sarcasm>

Re:Retard.

[daveime]

Jokes like this will always be with us, perhaps you should just surrender to the inevitable ?

Re:Retard.

[dimeglio]

Radio Frequencies are being emitted all the time, covering probably the entire spectrum. If you live in a city, you are likely being exposed to several thousand kilowatts of EM waves. Since I am not an antenna, I can't pick up any of them. They just bounce or pass through my body, just like sound waves.

If he's allergic to wi-fi, he's allergic to life. Cosmic rays are much nastier, not to mention all those nasty neutrinos going through our body every second.

Re:Retard.

[Anachragnome]

"If (Firstenberg) cannot obtain preliminary relief, he will be forced to continue to sleep in his car, enduring winter cold and discomfort, until this case can be heard."

Someone might want to point out to this moron (or better yet, the guy he is suing) that his car generates NUMEROUS magnetic fields.

Alternator, ignition coils, speed sensors, actuators, every inch of energized wiring...pretty much the entire car is enveloped in magnetic fields unless the battery is disconnected, and even then, all the magnets located in the many devices are still creating magnetic fields.

Re:Retard.

[daveime]

I must be allergic to beer then, because around 12 hours later I end up with a splitting headache, dry mouth and the desire to vomit.

Seriously though, the only reason these psychosomatic morons want everything termed as an "allergy" is so they can get time off work. Tell your boss you are suffering from a delusional reaction to something, he'll tell you to GTFO. Tell him you have an "allergy", that makes it kosher and he has to address it as such. Likewise it's so much easier to sue someone, just try proving that he *doesn't* have some adverse reaction to WiFi, even if the science says it's not possible, his brain believes it and a polygraph will probably back him up.

Believing in something doesn't mean it's actually there, but it can *seem* real enough for these crackpots. Whether or not this guy does have some reaction, it's psychosomatic or a learned response, and probably nothing to do with the actual physical EM radiation. Calling it an allergy does not make it so.

Re:Retard.

[Leebert]

By the way, I've been on Facebook too much recently. I read the cell tower story, laughed, and tried find the "Like" button...

Re:Retard.

[Leebert]

So, have you sued your neighbors yet for having trees?

This is America. Lawsuits over trees are anything BUT unheard of.

Re:Retard.

[ppanon]

Metal implants or fillings + bone conduction. Keep that in mind next time you think it would be cool to be a Gibsonesque razor girl/boy.

Re:Retard.

[Pikoro]

he said he's NOT french

Re:Retard.

[Cassander]

I hear electronics also. TVs and monitors make a high-pitched whine that I can tune out if there's other noise going on, but can actually get to be painful if someone has left their TV on displaying nothing in a quiet room.

Re:Retard.

[jedidiah]

> There comes a point when both the doctors involved, and society at large need to consider that someone is more likely to simply be a hypochondriac, a head case, or misdiagnosed.

Or just outside of the usual norms.

We're not stamped out of a factory. Despite our history, we can still exhibit a very wide range of variation.

Re:Retard.

[jedidiah]

Unless you can do something comparable to a skin-prick test, you also have to
expose the subject to a sufficient dose of the allergen. It may take a little
more than just a short casual non-intimate exposure to the allergen. The space
that the allergen exposure occurs in might also matter.

It's not hard to come up with a BS but convincing looking non-scientific test
that could appear to debunk an allergy that is already well accepted by the
medical community is valid.

Re:Retard.

[DJRumpy]

At least one of these folks should have been able to tell when they were being affected, yet none of them have been able to do so consistently, ergo they are guessing.

I'm not saying man can't evolve the ability to detect electromagnetic, but obviously that hasn't happened yet.

Why these 'allergic' cases are so willing to simply disregard double blind study results and continue to believe they are 'special' should be something to look at in and of itself.

Re:Retard.

[Nemyst]

So much for mod points...

I'd just like to point out that high-pitched noises, often caused by the flyback transformers found in things such as CRT monitors, are a far cry from detecting x-rays and radio waves. Why? Because one is just a sound and we have ears to feel that; that some people cannot hear the sound while others can is related to the auditive acuity of the person, nothing more. Case in point, you can make the test yourself. Just Google for "mosquito sound" and look for the different frequencies. You have a whole array of higher and higher noises which different people will react to differently. I can hear them and it's annoying, but there was a girl in my physics course who'd immediately sense it the second I turned it on no matter where she was in the classroom. This is perfectly valid because we have ears and ears are supposed to do that.

However, as far as I know, the skin isn't supposed to be an x-ray detector. The closest we have to that would be our own eyes, since x-rays are EM waves just like visible light. The skin's only way of triggering a response would be to react adversely to the energy being transmitted (IE alpha/beta/gamma rays, but not as dangerous). I don't really see how this would be possible for extremely short exposures (although I'm not saying it is impossible, I don't know). However, I'd just like to point out: from what I gathered, the GP saw the x-ray scanner. Have you ever felt a tingling sensation when feeling like something's close, even though there isn't anything? It's a bit like a presence, as if you were about to get touched by someone. I'd argue that you might very well be reacting in this way and not because of the actual x-rays. Until you've been bombarded by them randomly with no visual or auditive cues, it's impossible to say whether you're reacting to the x-rays themselves or just to the thought of the x-rays.

Re:Retard.

[Khyber]

FWIW, an immune reaction is a form of physiological reaction, just like a knee-jerk from a rubber mallet to the nerve behind the patella is a form of physiological reaction.

Re:Retard.

[cyn1c77]

You can't be "Allergic to wi-fi"

Put him in a room, and turn the wireless on and off. Guaranteed he won't be able to tell the difference.

The real way to solve it is to turn up the gain. Maybe he will spontaneously combust! Or maybe he won't know the difference. Either way, problem solved.

Re:Retard.

[calmofthestorm]

Funny, I have diagnosed allergies to various common things and have been receiving shots for years, and even been on immunosuppressents at times, but my experience is that people tend to scoff at allergies and pretend they're "all in your head".

I've even heard of people slipping those with deathly allergies to them nuts, to prove it's "all in their head". Only for depression and bipolar have I seen more of a syndrome of denial. This is in the mid 20's demographic, by the way.

To be fair, if I heard stories about morons like this guy, and didn't know better, I'd stop taking allergies seriously as well. Allergies are a medical condition with symptoms that can be tested.

Re:Retard.

[MaerD]

You are 100% correct. Unfortunately, no amount of correctness gives you the right to be an asshole.

I sense a disturbance in the force, like a million trolls just cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...
Or maybe not, I think you get a different internet then I do.

Re:Retard.

[Chris Burke]

Unless you can do something comparable to a skin-prick test, you also have to
expose the subject to a sufficient dose of the allergen.

Yeah, right. These people are claiming to be able to tell that their neighbor is running wi-fi in their house on the next plot of land down. Put a box that may or may not actually be a wi-fi router right next to them, and this should be like stuffing peanuts down the throat of someone who is allergic to them.

There is no doubt that their accuracy will be no better than random chance.

It's not hard to come up with a BS but convincing looking non-scientific test
that could appear to debunk an allergy that is already well accepted by the
medical community is valid.

LOL. It's easy to say you're suffering from some ailment. Much more difficult to actually demonstrate it.

Re:Retard.

[MaskedSlacker]

All CRTs do this, this is not news.

Re:Retard.

[pslytely psycho]

No. You do not have an allergy to sunlight. You have non-allergic rhinitis. It is an exaggerated histamine response. Like getting a runny nose in the cold. http://allergies.about.com/od/fa1/f/nasoocularrefle.htm There is a condition commonly known as sun allergy, but it is not actually an allergy. Just an ultrasensitivity to UV radiation. http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec18/ch214/ch214c.html An allergy to sunlight is a myth.

Re:Retard.

[Xeno man]

I'd stop after putting him in a room.. Well I'd probably lock it too then walk away.

Re:Retard.

[supernova_hq]

I live in a stuccoed house (glass-embedded stucky with wire mesh) and I can still see the wifi of the guy 2 houses down with my laptop (while indoors). It does indeed f*ck with the cordless phone when trying to take it into the driveway though, but that may have something to do with the chain-link fence and steel truck parked in it. :P

Re:Retard.

[snowgirl]

The existence of his allergies or lack thereof is irrelevant. The case should be dismissed because it is not his neighbor's resonsibility to go beyond FCC regulations in limiting radio emissions from his property. Turning off his cell phone will also do nothing about the cell towers in the area.

The guy with the allergies can take steps to block or at least seriously attenuate signals comming into his house. It may not be cheap, but since when is dealing with medical problems cheap.

He can also move to a rural area where such emissions are less in order to avoid them.

This is perhaps the best explanation that I've read. The neighbor has absolutely no duty of care to go beyond the FCC regulations...

Re:Retard.

[Rick17JJ]

I am not an expert on any of this, but adding a thick masonry wall between his home and her home, would probably block most of the signal. One article said that the two houses are only 25 feet apart. If these are one story buildings and the wireless router is at table top height, I suspect that a masonry wall would most likely block most of the signal.

He could then build the tallest widest wall that the building code (and possibly the home owners association) allows. I am not sure how thick the wall would need to be (since I am not an expert). If I am not mistaken, signals of that frequency are not very penetrating. But, if extra shielding is needed, perhaps any empty block cores which are not filled with concrete, could be filled with gravel instead. Blocks come in various thicknesses. A large tall landscaped berm of dirt might be another possible option.

As you mentioned, wire lath which is sometimes used for stucco would probably also help. Perhaps he could use it on the inside or outside of the wall which faces towards her house. Would it matter what size mesh is used? Perhaps it might also help if he also install roll down steel or aluminum security shutters and also steel door on that side of the house. Those are my non-expert thoughts on the problem.

Of course, I am skeptical that a weak WiFi or cell phone signal from that distance would actually cause his problems. The FCC actually limits wireless routers to very low power levels.

Another alternative would be to move to a country home with a large lot.

Re:Retard.

[Spacezilla]

That's how I see it too. The first version was better.

Re:Retard.

[Loomismeister]

This is such a common thing, I can't believe your wife didn't believe you... The problem is purely caused by too much light hitting your eyes, so wearing sunglasses will reduce the sneezing reflex.(Yes I do this too)

Sneezing is not limited to merely an allergic reaction! People sneeze for other reasons too : /. Tons of people sneeze when they see sunlight!

This trait is like having blue eyes vs brown eyes. It is that common!

Re:Retard.

[Jerry Smith]

All CRTs do this, this is not news.

A lot of people don't hear it though, it's a bit outside the regular perception frequencies (pardon my lousy English). Point is not whether the Wi-Fi has a noticeable level, point is: IS there a noticeable level AT ALL in normal use? I can imagine if you turn the volume up to 11 and the power to several kilowatts, yes, it will be noticed. But NORMAL use, that's the question.

Re:Retard.

[trenien]

Ah. Actually, some people are sensitive to EM waves in the Wi-Fi range.

A while back, my sister in law suddenly had headaches that came after a while when she came over to my parents' home. It took a while to test it (without telling her), but we finally realized that it happened only when the wifi network was on. It did take a couple of hours, though.

Also, they live in a pretty remote place, and that only happened when she was inside the house for a while. I couldn't say if the problem could have occured if said wireless had been on in a neighbor's house.

Re:Retard.

[leuk_he]

xray != wifi. xray is ionizing radiation. wifi not. Completely wrong anology. I am not saying microware radion is harmless, just that the effect of xray can and should not be compared to microwave radiation (wifi).

Given enough microwave radiation you can cook someone to death, however this is easier if you cut him up before to fit him in the microwave oven.

Re:Retard.

[sFurbo]

When I was younger, I could clearly feel when I drove under a high-voltage power line. I tried it with my eyes closed, same thing, a clear sensation. Then I tried to close my eyes half a mile before we passed the high-voltage lines, so I wouldn't know exactly when we passed them. All of the sudden, I couldn't feel a thing. I never really could sense the electromagnetic fields, but I had convinced myself that I could, enough that I could clearly feel it. The moral is that until you do a blind experiment, it is extremely easy to convince yourself that you can feel something, even though you are just reacting to the knowledge that the stimulus is there. You might be able to feel X-rays (they do tissue damage, after all), but without a blind experiment, you can't know.

Re:Retard.

[qc_dk]

Ummm, because the french have actually been in a lot of wars (50 major european wars since 1500) and won 2/3 of all wars they've been in(since records began)?

Re:Retard.

[irp]

Allergic to sunlight? Are you sure it's not just PSR? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex

I have it myself. I usually joke that I'm allergic to crossing the street. The reason; when I look left and right for cars, I will most probable look towards sunlight at some point. The effect is an increased probability that I sneeze while crossing the street :-)

Re:Retard.

[arethuza]

Trees can cause a lot of damage to properties through subsidence - given that people can get rather fond of trees and houses it is hardly surprising that there is litigation over this point. This is hardly an America-only matter.

Re:Retard.

[Sulphur]

the one who modded this as interesting need a crash course in ironic humor.

What if it was a crash course in ironic humor?

--

Hakuna Matata

Re:Retard.

[Opportunist]

The fun part is that in Europe all those jokes feature the Italians instead.

What's the perfect war?
German comman
British soldiers
US supplies
in Russian amounts
and Italian enemies.

What's the three thinnest books?
The book of delicious British food.
The US-american "how to behave abroad" book.
The book about Italian war heroes.

Why don't the Italians fight harder?
Because they know they'll switch sides half way and don't want to have to do the work twice.

Why do Italians build foxholes with sandbags on both sides? Because it's more work to move them every time they switch sides.

And so on. Granted, most of those jokes come from Germany, maybe they're still bitter that the Italians switched sides in BOTH major wars in last century...

Re:Retard.

[Opportunist]

I remember a suit against God for an "act of God". IIRC it was dropped because the judge couldn't find a way to serve the defendent the citation, because "everywhere and nowhere" is no address for service.

Re:Retard.

[GNious]

I'm sorry, but why didn't you just take him for the $1,000 instead?

Re:Retard.

[mlush]

Speaking of light switches, all I can think of is the case of a cell phone company that put up a new tower, and all the advanced folks in the neighborhood by it complained that the tower was irritating their EM allergies and giving them headaches and whatnot.

The company's response to their complaints? "Gee, we can only imagine how bad it's going to get when we actually turn the tower on!"

I'm not calling you out or anything, but do you have any sort of cite for that story? Its a good story and a useful link to have in the back pocket. :-)

Re:Retard.

[Nocterro]

I'd just like to point out that high-pitched noises, often caused by the flyback transformers found in things such as CRT monitors, are a far cry from detecting x-rays and radio waves. Why? Because one is just a sound and we have ears to feel that; that some people cannot hear the sound while others can is related to the auditive acuity of the person, nothing more.

I also can hear the noise caused by CRTs, and oddly enough also in some solid-state electronics. I've also got low level tinnitus When I asked a hearing specialist about it, he suggested that it might be related, with some noise or EM frequency stimulating a poorly sheafed auditory nerve.

This guy is still nuts though. Why do we care what the man thinks is causing his 'allergy'? Get him some real help, in the form of mental health and housing support.

Re:Retard.

[Anonymous Coward]

... and my wife, who is also in the medical field ...

I hope you mean that she's the receptionist in a medical office.

Re:Retard.

[JosKarith]

Old CRT's can be quite painfully loud - there's a floor at work I tend to avoid if possible as there's a large display monitor that makes my head ring any time I get within about 10 feet of it.

Re:Retard.

[BlackBloq]

holy crap man sorry you had to sit in there so much!

Re:Retard.

[Lumpy]

The electrical field under high voltage lines is enough to light an 8 foot flouresent bulb in many places. it's off the scale on most EMI meters. http://www.impactlab.com/2009/04/10/field-of-flourescent-bulbs-powered-by-ambient-electricity/

an 802.11abg access point on the other hand emits so little power there is no way outside of sticking the antenna into your ear and to keep pushing until it embeds the tip in your brain that anyone can be affected by it.

Re:Retard.

[Benson Arizona]

If the clean room was to be locked for a period of one hour but the vial only broken upon the decay of a single atom of an element with a radio-active half-life of one hour then the subject could be viewed as both spotty and not spotty for the duration of that hour - sweet!

Re:Retard.

[hesaigo999ca]

Agreed, we should place him without his knowledge inside a room , where we can do experiments to test his supposed wifi allergy, then when it does not present itself as really there, we can place him inside a mental institution for thinking he is sick, and imagining his symptoms. That will send a clear enough message to all out there...

BTW, anyone know what the symptoms are when you are allergic to wifi waves?
Also, that would be the same frequency as cell phones or mobile phones no?

Re:Retard.

[Drethon]

The neighbor should have told them man he wouldn't turn off his wireless, then do it. If the man still complained he would have proof it had nothing to do with it. (or the other way around might work too)

Re:Retard.

[Gravitron 5000]

Actually, you are an antenna. Playing with a spectrum analyzer in university which had an FM demodulator plug in, the best reception that I was able to get using what I had available was a bare piece of wire gripped in my hand. Granted a real antenna would almost certainly be better, but I was a much better antenna than paper clips and other metallic sundries.

Re:Retard.

[Tolkien]

Although this is uncommon, it's not unheard of. No I don't have any citations on hand. Be nice.

Re:Retard.

[FileNotFound]

In short. Your wife is an ignorant idiot and the guy's doctor chose to misinform his patient instead of spending some time giving an accurate explanation.

Re:Retard.

[rgviza]

you can sue anyone for any reason. some lawyer will probably take the case (and your money)

Re:Retard.

[jpcarter]

Frankly, your mother is a hypercondriac.

Hypochondriac. Close, but different.

Re:Retard.

[Joey Vegetables]

It wasn't necessarily in their heads. It was long believed that the EM radiation from power lines caused cancer. Controlled studies seemed to provide no evidence of any harmful effects, yet there continued to be cancer clusters near power lines. Finally, after many decades, someone figured out that the cancers were caused by the herbicides used to clear the area around those lines.

It's not implausible that something similar might be occurring here, especially since we know some people are drastically more sensitive to EM radiation and environmental anomalies than others, and since there is still a great deal we don't know about how these things affect our bodies.

Re:Retard.

[GungaDan]

I'm betting that if the neighbor merely stopped broadcasting his SSID, the "allergy" would cease.

Re:Retard.

[imakemusic]

It's because they're fat, stupid Americans.
 
...said the British guy with the bad teeth.

Re:Retard.

[denton420]

Electromagnetic fields do couple with human bodies. You do pick up EM radiation.

http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/Radio/table-power-field.gif

Note in the chart that the power densities are lowest among 10^2 - 5*10^2 MHz. There are several reasons for this. One is that when the chart was created a large number of devices used this frequency range.

Another important reason is the wavelength of such EM radiation.

For a human body to actually act as a receiver and extract power from an EM wave then the wavelength of that radiation must be on the order of the length of your body in a given orientation.

It just so happens that the most heavily regulated part of the frequency spectrum corresponds to the height of your average human.

It is also of interest as to why E fields are assigned lower values than H fields. This has to do with the relative permittivity being higher than the permeability of the human body which in turn affects the power extracted from a given EM wave.

EM radiation is not safe. The uninformed should not handle it. With a little bit of knowledge it is not all that bad. People with these Wi-Fi allergies should take a little bit of solace in the fact that people work to protect them from these harmful effects.

There is an incredible amount of people who think they know what EM radiation is but they do not. Do not spread your misinformation so freely :)

Re:Retard.

[Orbijx]

Fido!
Bad dog! Get off my bed and quit using the internet!

We'll discuss your typing habits later.

Re:Retard.

[kegon]

My mother in law has a medical condition where exposure to bright sunlight breaks down proteins in her skin.

Mine too. Does yours have a reflection in the mirror ? Loathing of garlic ? Adversity to holy crosses ?

Re:Retard.

[Chris Burke]

Sorry. I originally heard the story in a /. post, and that poster had a link to a news article about it. I have nothin' though.

Re:Retard.

[Chris Burke]

Finally, after many decades, someone figured out that the cancers were caused by the herbicides used to clear the area around those lines.

See, even the high-voltage power lines I was talking about don't actually do anything. It was something completely mundane -- though of course that word may sound flippant to those suffering from cancer. :P I can only imagine how discovery of the real cause was held back by the sufferer's insistence on attributing their problems to the EM radiation, causing others to not take them seriously.

It's not implausible that something similar might be occurring here,

Maybe though I have a hard time imagining what actual allergen/toxin/whatever could be correlated specifically with wi-fi router proximity...

especially since we know some people are drastically more sensitive to EM radiation and environmental anomalies than others

Wait, what? "Something similar" to the transmission line problem would be something that has nothing to do with the actual EM itself. How'd you get from that to "maybe it really is the wi-fi EM"?

Look, if transmission lines don't have any noticeable effect on their own, then the ridiculously more meager wi-fi radiation isn't harming anyone. Not from next door. There's way more non-wifi radiation bombarding both of us right now than the wi-fi router sitting a few feet from me. Even in similar frequency ranges, though I'd be more worried about frequencies that are actually absorbed by our bodies. Because the only kind of EM "we know some people are more sensitive to" are those kinds that are absorbed by our skin and our eyes.

If there is a similarity to the transmission line situation, it's that these peoples' irrational insistence on attributing the cause of their symptoms to their unique EM detection powers is preventing them from discovering the true cause of their problem. This guy should invest in a carbon monoxide detector. Have his house checked for radon gas, or mold. Replace their mattress and pillows to get rid of dust mites. Maybe go see an allergist and see if there might be a simpler and more plausible explanation for their symptoms.

"I have a headache, my neighbor has wi-fi, therefore I have magical gigahertz band detection powers and my neighbor's wi-fi is causing my headaches" is not sound reasoning. If you want to insist on calling it one of many potential explanations, fine. But to just assume that it must be the cause with no attempt to falsify that belief is silly.

Re:Retard.

[Joey Vegetables]

In my example, EM radiation was exonerated. That does not imply that it is harmless. Your microwave oven operates at almost exactly the same frequency range as a WiFi transmitter, and that frequency was not selected by accident; it is one of those most readily absorbed by water molecules, and we are about 70% water by weight.

You are very likely correct that the small amount of radiation resulting from WiFi - several orders of magnitude less than that in your microwave oven - is harmless, not absorbed by the body in any significant amount, and indeed dwarfed by other source of radiation in or around that same frequency range. Nevertheless, until we learn a LOT more about cellular biology, we will never be able to guarantee that it will never adversely affect anyone at all. Maybe the way that signal is modulated causes changes to the way some specific protein unfolds in some small percentage of people. There are a number of far more likely causes, which should be investigated and ruled out before we even consider the possibility of it being WiFi. But to dismiss the possibility out of hand, as has been done historically for MANY technologies that later proved harmful, would be both premature and unwise.

Re:Retard.

[hardwarefreak]

You can't be "Allergic to wi-fi"

Put him in a room, and turn the wireless on and off. Guaranteed he won't be able to tell the difference.

But, what if he can?

Re:Retard.

[Dishevel]

I like icepicks to the forehead.

Re:Retard.

[goodmanj]

Absolutely not. He only mentioned an urge to sneeze, nothing about severe pain, funny-colored urine, blisters, dead skin, etc.

I have exactly the same symptom he does, and given the amount of time I spent in the sun as a kid growing up in Hawaii, if it was porphyria I'd probably be dead.

Anyway, the photic sneeze reflex occurs in 18-35% of the population, while porphyria is incredibly rare. Didn't they teach you something about hoofbeats and zebras in med school?

Re:Retard.

[Your.Master]

"There is no doubt that their accuracy will be no better than random chance."

True

"Put a box that may or may not actually be a wi-fi router right next to them, and this should be like stuffing peanuts down the throat of someone who is allergic to them."

Don't know where you get that conclusion.

It's not science if you start from a conclusion, even a correct one, and then design an experiment that doesn't actually test the hypothesis.

My cat allergies take a few hours to show up even if I play with a cat, and I have a profound allergy to cats -- not fatal or anything, but one that irritates my eyes to the point where I cannot read or look at a light source including a TV or computer screen. The fact that ingested allergens like peanut allergies are pretty quick is meaningless.

You first need to establish what they think the mythology "EM allergy" is, then you can debunk it. You can't just decide that EM radiation is basically the same thing as peanuts.

Re:Retard.

[Elldallan]

Considering that that type of radar depending on size can cook a sausage and boil water in anything between 5-10 seconds and up to about half a minute your buddy and his friends are lucky they just felt sick and threw up, a few seconds more and they would have been beyond rescue.

Re:Retard.

[TheABomb]

Maybe you can feel them when you're getting them, but can you feel them on the guy in line ahead of you while you're sitting in the waiting room? Because that's what this guy is claiming, if the signals are originating out of HIS NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE.

IANAL, but it seems to me if they let this get to court, then while he's under oath on the stand, the defense attorney could just whip out his cell phone, which was on the whole time: "Your Honor, Exhibit A, move for summary judgment." Then use his testimony as evidence in criminal fraud charges.

Re:Retard.

[equivocal]

I also hear some electronics.
I could hear the HP deskjet I had for many years "scream" when it received a new print job until the mechanism began moving and drown it out. If it was quiet I could hear high pitch beeping from an old thinkpad. In an outbuilding where I have computer gear I could hear a high pitched, nondirectional squeal which I eventually determined came from the mice...which had built a nest under the concrete slab.

Lately I've been trying track down the source of the irritating high pitch sound I hear in my computer room. I've found that the wifi router squeals. As do the modern generation of lightweight, compact wall warts. But none of those are the sole source.

Re:Retard.

[Chris Burke]

Don't know where you get that conclusion.

From the basic principle that the reaction to stimulus is proportional to the magnitude of stimulus, and the inverse square law. They claim that they can tell whether or not their neighbor is running wi-fi. That implies an extremely high sensitivity and pretty low time scale.

It's not science if you start from a conclusion, even a correct one, and then design an experiment that doesn't actually test the hypothesis.

The test proposed tests a wide variety of EM-"allergy" hypothesis. It may not test all, but it would do a pretty good job of showing that they cause/effect they claim is not what is happening.

There's no science for their conclusion you know, but that apparently doesn't matter.

My cat allergies take a few hours to show up even if I play with a cat, and I have a profound allergy to cats

Fine, then fucking have them sit in the room for a few hours! We're talking about this on slashdot, not actually preparing to perform a scientific tests because none of these idiots want to be subjected to a realistic test of their claims. So can you spare me these trivial details that don't change the fact that these claims are not difficult to test? You can safely assume I would have allowed for that if actually conducting this experiment.

You first need to establish what they think the mythology "EM allergy" is, then you can debunk it. You can't just decide that EM radiation is basically the same thing as peanuts.

"They" seem to think it is, which is how they can tell whether or not their neighbor is currently running their wifi, so there you go.

But then again the question is -- who cares what they think "EM allergy" is? They don't care about science. If we debunk what they think today, they'll come up with something else tomorrow. Either way they'll sue. It's a waste of time.

Re:Retard.

[2short]

"I don't see a problem with using 'allergy' as a short-hand for 'negative physiological reaction' in this kind of case."

I do see a problem with it. My daughter has serious, actual allergies to certain foods. I'm sensitive to people using "allergy" to mean various things that it doesn't, because it leads to people not taking allergies seriously; Which could kill my daughter.

I agree that the legitimacy of this guys grievance does not depend on whether we incorrectly call it "allergy" or not. So let's not.

Re:Retard.

[2short]

"I seriously doubt that WiFi radiation could do the same thing"

As you should. Sunlight includes frequencies of light (particularly ultra-violet) whose photons have enough energy to break chemical bonds, including those in your mother in laws skin that cause the problem. "Wifi radiation" is radio waves, which have radically lower frequencies. The energy of those photons is a millionth of what would be required to cause a problem.

And, of course, radio-frequency waves are all over the place, constantly swamping this guys body all the time. Unless his body synthesizes the wrong proteins based on the informational content of the waves, he's wrong about the cause of his symptoms.

Re:Retard.

[2short]

I understand you are critiquing the Cowards spelling, but it is worth noting that he is incorrect factually as well. The condition the other poster ascribes to his mother in law is an actual one.

Re:Retard.

[2short]

"If it proves true, then that'll be *very* interesting"

Certainly! Vast realms of physics will be thrown out as we try to understand how photons with a millionth the energy needed to have sucha an effect via known processes can do so depending on the information content of the radio waves.

"If it proves false, like I would blindly guess, then the radiation/EMF/(insert pseudo science here) absorbing crystal industry is going to plummet!"

If it proves false, (as I would confidently conclude on the basis of mountains of excellent evidence) I don't expect the various snake oil industries will take any more notice than they have every other time.

Re:Retard.

[thtrgremlin]

My argument is that the EM is always there, but radio and such are just organizing what would otherwise be white noise.

Re:Retard.

[thtrgremlin]

People living under power lines are more likely to get cancer. True, but people in poverty are more likely to get cancer too, and the higher chance of cancer for living under power lines is equal to the higher chance that you are poor.

So technically it would be more appropriate to say that people that are at higher risk for cancer are more likely to live under power lines. If I remember correctly, there is a similar risk for people that live near trains. Another funny one is that it has been found that if you are uber rich you are at higher risk for cancer. Reason is that people only have cancer if they are diagnosed with it, at least when it comer to statistics. The real correlation was that the better your health care, the more likely it is that you will get diagnosed rather than just "be sick" or "die of old age".

Re:Retard.

[MaskedSlacker]

A wifi router doesn't have a flyback transformer (or anything similar AFAIK), so no?

Re:Retard.

[thtrgremlin]

Sun allergy: Xeroderma pigmentosa. Not his symptoms, but this is what most people I know mean when they are talking about severe sunlight allergy.

Re:Retard.

[thtrgremlin]

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001467.htm?

Re:Retard.

[Meski]

I hear electronics also. TVs and monitors make a high-pitched whine that I can tune out if there's other noise going on, but can actually get to be painful if someone has left their TV on displaying nothing in a quiet room.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

Hmmm, William Gibson, is that you?

Re:Retard.

[mitchplanck]

I met a hearing-impaired IT guy once who had a hearing aid which allowed him to 'hear the Internet' in his terms. My guess is that when he was near cat5 cables or network cards which were transmitting data there was enough EM radiation on a frequency which his hearing aid was picking up and converting to an audible noise for him.

Re:Retard.

[jpcarter]

Thank you. I went for the low hanging fruit.

Re:Retard.

[Jarik C-Bol]

yes, size of mesh matters. lots of people just use chicken wire, witch is about 1 inch mesh (far to large) but the new, better stucco mesh is far smaller, about 1/4 inch or less. true, its not small enough to be a true faraday cage, but i know for a fact that it interferes heavily. (i installed a wireless router in a house that was U shaped, with the router in one arm of the U, you usually could not get a stable connection in the other arm of the U)

Re:Retard.

[mlush]

Sorry. I originally heard the story in a /. post, and that poster had a link to a news article about it. I have nothin' though.

Found it here (unsurprisingly on fark :-)

Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[PhrostyMcByte]

Does he sue neighbors for nuking food too? What about talking on cordless phones? Using bluetooth headsets or wireless console controllers?

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[networkBoy]

better yet, does *he* nuke food?
average leakage out of an old microwave is vastly more than what radiates from an 802.11 AP.
-nB

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[MightyMartian]

He clearly needs to sue the Sun for giving such a constant stream of high energy particles. Then, of course, there's the galaxy, with those awful cosmic rays. Hell, there's the blackbody radiation.

I hope this guys has a lawyer with a pretty clear schedule.

On a more serious note, this guy needs to be sued into bankruptcy.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[DemonBeaver]

He could sue anyone with a light source for using it. This guy needs his own dark little faraday cage... for his own safety, of course. Electromagnetic allergies? Seriously?

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[jameskojiro]

Maybe join an Emo cult and pretend to be a vampire, buy an EM shielded coffin and leave the rest of us alone.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[Daimanta]

"He clearly needs to sue the Sun for giving such a constant stream of high energy particles"

Yeah, imagine that the Sun would output harmful radiation. Wouldn't THAT be stupid.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[gknoy]

Considering that he's already homeless, saying that he "should be sued into bankruptcy" sounds overly harsh to me. I'd not wish that on anyone aside from villainous people who area blight on society. This guy's just a nutjob who needs his case thrown out of court.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[Loadmaster]

He's only homeless in that he moved out of his house into his car to get away from the EMF.

That's unbelievable.

Everybody loves EMF

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[Xabraxas]

The only reason he is homeless is because he claims he cannot live in his home because of the WiFi signals.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[Hurricane78]

You have heard of earth’s magnetic shield have you? You intention is good, but your argument is lame.

If you are the lucky one who is right without having to argue, at least don’t fuck it up.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[nomadic]

On a more serious note, this guy needs to be sued into bankruptcy.

Or, you could, you know, show compassion for someone who is clearly mentally disturbed.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[MightyMartian]

The magnetosphere does not stop all charged particles, which is why solar storms can lead to wide-spread communications blackouts. It's also why you might notice that when you stand out in the sun for a few hours, you get burned.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[psithurism]

Yeah, a Faraday cage should be able to clear everything up. A simple tinfoil body wrap would solve this guys problem, or just line his house with chicken wire, it would take me $100 and a couple hours to stop wifi/radio/whatever from penetrating my house. I'd say he shouldn't be able to sue for more than that.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[MightyMartian]

I think my compassion would end the minute I was served. At that point, if his family didn't have him committed, I'd ground him into the ground, so that he and his fellow loonies got the message,

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[qubezz]

Oh!

Seems oddly like...

[Darkness404]

This seems a lot like http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/07/27/1514209/English-DJ-Claims-Wi-Fi-Allergy which was proven to be a PR stunt in http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/07/31/1528241/Wi-Fi-Allergy-a-PR-Stunt

Don't live there

[DeadPixels]

Even if we were to assume that these "electromagnetic allergies" did exist, no one is forcing that man to live there. As an example, I'm allergic to dogs, but I'm not suing my neighbor for owning one. It's my choice to live where I do and it's not my prerogative to tell him that he can't own a dog.

Re:Don't live there

[Anonymous Coward]

Your neighbor's dog doesn't radiate through the walls though. :P

Re:Don't live there

[seanadams.com]

Even if we were to assume that these "electromagnetic allergies" did exist, no one is forcing that man to live there. As an example, I'm allergic to dogs, but I'm not suing my neighbor for owning one. It's my choice to live where I do and it's not my prerogative to tell him that he can't own a dog.

That's not how it works - homeowners legally entitled to some degree of peace and quiet. There are local ordinances for that sort of thing, as dogs are a potential disturbance. Your neighbor probably can't legally keep six dogs in a suburb backyard, for example, although a reasonable neighbor wouldn't complain unless they were barking all night or something. The point is, it's not the free-for-all you're imagining.

In this case the emissions are regulated by the FCC and if the guy's router is operating within the limits for the unlicensed band then there is simply no actionable offense.

Re:Don't live there

[mark_hill97]

Can you prove it doesn't?

Re:Don't live there

[snowgirl]

Even if we were to assume that these "electromagnetic allergies" did exist, no one is forcing that man to live there. As an example, I'm allergic to dogs, but I'm not suing my neighbor for owning one. It's my choice to live where I do and it's not my prerogative to tell him that he can't own a dog.

The law provides that it is unreasonable for someone to create a nuisance to another person that impinges upon their ability to enjoy their property.

You could sue your neighbor complaining about the allergies, but you likely wouldn't because it's not worth the legal effort. However, let's take a different example, your neighbor is now a manufacturing plant that came in after you bought your property, and has begun polluting the air. Guess what? They're not allowed to unreasonably pollute, and if it causes health effects upon you or your family, or even your guests, then it's their fault for causing those damages.

Pollution laws are built upon the same legal principles and standards as noise pollution, and allergy aggravation. As a prime example, suppose a person Alice is living in a house, and her neighbor Bob decides to plant peanuts, and make homemade peanut butter. Everything is fine, until some of the peanut dust floats into Alice's home and causes a severe anaphylactic shock response in Alice, who then has to be rushed to the hospital, where she recovers. She is now unable to return to her home, until the peanut dust has been removed, and the neighbor stops growing the peanuts.

Guess what? The law stands with Alice. She could sue Bob, and receive an injunction forcing him to stop growing peanuts, and potentially receive compensation for the damages caused (medical bills, hotel stays, etc.) This is of course all contingent upon Alice being able to take reasonable precautions to mitigate those damages. Namely, is there any way that she could reasonably prevent the nuisance without imposing on Bob. In this example? No.

In your case, you can put up a fence, and take drugs to prevent allergic reactions.

Re:Don't live there

[DMiax]

But his dog does not enter your house, right? and you expect your neighbour to ansure that he does not. So *if* (and it is a big if) wifi can be considered dangerous to this guy he can ask his neighbour to prevent EM waves from entering his house. Like, by covering the walls in metal.

More likely, if the currently harmless spectrum could be proven not harmless then a new one will be tested and allocated and old routers will be outlawed.

Re:Don't live there

[IndustrialComplex]

Your neighbor's dog doesn't radiate through the walls though. :P

He is very good at using tunneling to get past them though. ;)

Re:Don't live there

[omfgnosis]

DNA evidence?

Re:Don't live there

[maxwell demon]

And in the case of EM, he could simply cover his walls with anti-EM wallpaper.

Re:Don't live there

[trentblase]

Bullshit. I know the dog radiates because of my allergy to thermal radiation.

Re:Don't live there

[TheRaven64]

No, it diffracts.

Re:Don't live there

[snowgirl]

And in the case of EM, he could simply cover his walls with anti-EM wallpaper.

Is the cost reasonable though? One could argue that the person with the peanut allergy could put in a HIPA air filter system and wear a biological suit outside of her house... such things are unreasonable though for not only being annoying (bio suit) but as well, for being expensive (HIPA air filter).

Someone below posted something about EM-blocking paint, but it's about $400 for 5 liters. That's pretty obviously an unreasonable cost, when the barrier to his neighbor is just shutting the devices off.

Re:Don't live there

[BlackSnake112]

If the dog sheds and goes outside, I bet I can find that dog's hair on his property.

Re:Don't live there

[jejones]

Are you sure? I would bet the dog contains a modicum of carbon-14 and potassium-40. (Of course, so do we all.)

Re:Don't live there

[theNAM666]

And in the case of EM, he could simply cover his walls with anti-EM wallpaper.

Holy Crap! What an idea!!! I'm going to buy a domain name and market it, right now!!!

Re:Don't live there

[Raffaello]

HEPA Filter = High Efficiency Particulate Air Filter

not HIPA

Re:Don't live there

[xeoron]

Why not treat the walls of the house to block the waves that supposedly makes him feel ill?

Re:Don't live there

[muridae]

I am allergic to grass pollen, should I sue all of my neighbors who do not use vacuum mulching mowers? Or should I close my own windows and take a modicum of responsibility for my own health?Obviously, the answer is to sue them. After all, I can not know ahead of time when I will need to leave because of an emergency at work, or to pick up groceries. So, they should be responsible for my health, after all it is an unfair burden on me to carry an asthma inhaler when they could use better technology.

Sarcasm off, now; seriously? If the guy can prove that he is sick because of those waves, what is he going to do? Sue everyone in 100 yard radius, and get them to disable their cell phones and wifi and microwaves, get the cell companies to create a dead zone over his house? If, and it is a big if, this is actually the problem for him, which is a 'more reasonable' solution: everyone around installs EM shielding; or he installs EM shielding.

Re:Don't live there

[tempest69]

Is this the SAME Alice and Bob that send encrypted messages?

Re:Don't live there

[mjwx]

As an example, I'm allergic to dogs, but I'm not suing my neighbor for owning one.

But if the dog kept getting into your yard and the neighbour did nothing to stop it then you have a case. What this hinges on however is that a negative reaction to dog hair can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt without you being required to do anything (you could be rendered unconscious and still have a negative reaction). No case of EM allergy has ever been proven, or even remotely suspected by any medical professional.

Re:Don't live there

[Pikoro]

HIPA filters stop hippies from coming into your house via the air ducts

Re:Don't live there

[snowgirl]

The burden of proof lies on the plaintiff, does it not?

In a civil suit the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. The Plaintiff typically has to make a number of claims initially just to even start a suit. Of course, the first level of proof is just prima facie evidence, which really can be nearly anything... then the Defendant has the burden of proof for showing that the presented evidence is false.

Re:Don't live there

[Gravitron 5000]

And Bob is making organic peanut butter from peanuts grown in his own backyard. He's obviously a hippie.

Re:Don't live there

[Christoffer777]

But they do sure urinate.

Re:Don't live there

[fishexe]

Even if we were to assume that these "electromagnetic allergies" did exist, no one is forcing that man to live there.

You're right, they're forcing him to live in his car! Didn't you RTFA?

litmus test

[MaXintosh]

I have a way to be fair to this guy, as well as punish people abusing torts. It's very simple:
a) If he can demonstrate his ability to detect electromagnetic fields under reasonable experimental conditions, they'll consider his case.
b) If he can't demonstrate his ability to detect electromagnetic fields under reasonable experimental conditions significantly more than chance, he owes the plaintiff the same amount he's seeking.

I call this the `put up or shut up` principle. Although, it might be more widely known as the `Let's not be flaming idiots` principle.

Re:litmus test

[MaXintosh]

Oops. Not Plaintiff. Defendant. Brain fart, on my part.

Re:litmus test

[LWATCDR]

Or let's actually be very fair.
Using WiFi is totally legal and within the other home owners rights. Even if he has this alergy it isn't up to his neighbor to do anything about it.
May his health insurance provider will offer to build him a Faraday cage. All he would need to do is cover his house with chicken wire, paint and stucco over it and connect it to ground.
That would protect him from not only WiFi but also radar from planes flying over head, TV and Radio broadcasts, and even Satellite transmissions.
Of course he would have to give up electricity all together to really have an EM free home but that is his problem.

Re:litmus test

[snowgirl]

I have a way to be fair to this guy, as well as punish people abusing torts. It's very simple:
a) If he can demonstrate his ability to detect electromagnetic fields under reasonable experimental conditions, they'll consider his case.
b) If he can't demonstrate his ability to detect electromagnetic fields under reasonable experimental conditions significantly more than chance, he owes the plaintiff the same amount he's seeking.

I call this the `put up or shut up` principle. Although, it might be more widely known as the `Let's not be flaming idiots` principle.

There's a few issues here. First, the man may just be suing for equity, as in suing to obtain an order of restraint requiring his neighbor to disable his EM emissions. As well, there are situations where a court considering some complex issue where an order of restraint may result in unfair damages against the other party to have the initiating party place a bond against such damages.

This guy faces an uphill battle, since he has to prove to a better than 50% confidence that his neighbor's EM emissions are causing him injury. That's the important thing, the law does not require him to prove 100%, or to a reasonable scientific certainty that his claims are valid. He has to prove to either a judge or a jury that it's more likely that his claims are true than his opponent.

Re:litmus test

[MaXintosh]

That thought had occurred to me. If he's really having that hard of a time sleeping, he could easily build a faraday cage around his bed, at the very least. It's not like they're incredibly complex. And he'd get some respite, and the ability to catch some Zs.

Unless, that is, he's not sensitive to squat.

Re:litmus test

[DMiax]

faraday cages do not block elecromagnetic waves. lhc will not create a black hole. antimatter cannot be transported in a suitcase. homeopathy has no scientific evidence. earth is not flat.

we are on slashdot for god's sake!

Re:litmus test

[IndustrialComplex]

we are on slashdot for god's sake!

You know what? You are right. Lets give that the Slashdot treatment.

faraday cages do not block elecromagnetic waves.
Depends on the meaning of the word block.

antimatter cannot be transported in a suitcase. Of course it can, just not transported very far. And it has the side benefit of transporting everything around it immediately afterward.

homeopathy has no scientific evidence. Of course it has scientific evidence. The evidence suggests that Homeopathy is bunk, but there is plenty of evidence.

earth is not flat.
You just need to look at it on the right scale.

Re:litmus test

[91degrees]

He's not really abusing torts though. At least not deliberately. He does suffer from a genuine medical condition. The fact that it's psychological rather than physical doesn't make it any less of a problem.

Re:litmus test

[Chr0me]

All he would need to do is cover his house with chicken wire, paint and stucco

That's crazy talk. A building covered in chicken wire, stucco, and paint would never fit in with the rest of the houses in Santa Fe.

Re:litmus test

[Anonymous Coward]

I question the validity of your point that the Earth is flat, even with your choice of scale.

Re:litmus test

[jameskojiro]

I hear recently emptied caves in Afghanistan are pretty quiet EM wise with the exception of the occasional CIA listening device...

Re:litmus test

[rsborg]

He's not really abusing torts though. At least not deliberately. He does suffer from a genuine medical condition.

Pleading insanity doesn't necessarily result in no consequences for the offender, you know.

Re:litmus test

[rickb928]

That's some pretty fine chicken wire.

Make them sheath it in copper plated tin. And the slab. Roof of course. You can't be too sure.

Of course, could he get by with just shielding the side of his house facing the neighbor? I can hardly get WiFi through plaster from my neighbor, and he's not 20 ft away.

Re:litmus test

[TheCow]

Just use the wifi blocking paint that came out a few years ago. Add some to your windows and Problem solved...

Re:litmus test

[jo_ham]

Is a sheet of fresh, unfolded paper flat?

What about under an electron microscope?

On a galactic or universe scale, the earth is barely a spec. I suppose it never truly becomes flat, but from an observer at that scale, it's not a nearly spherical globe.

Re:litmus test

[SCPRedMage]

The fact that it's psychological rather than physical doesn't make it any less of a problem.

But it DOES make it a problem that was neither caused by, nor can be relieved by, his neighbor's actions. Which makes it his own damn problem.

Re:litmus test

[Hurricane78]

Using WiFi is totally legal and within the other home owners rights.

Completely irrelevant. Laws do not make things right. They only make things wrong.

If wifi would actually harm others, and the user would know it, it’s no different than frying someone’s head with a couple of microwaves on the other side of the wall where his bad stands. (I remember someone going to jail for doing exactly that.)
(Some even argue that it’s wrong, even when the user does not know it. But I consider that extremely unfair.)

I agree on on the fact, that the solution is ridicolously easy: Cover your hous in a faraday cage that has smaller holes than the waves you want to protect yourself from.
It’s so simple: If you have no reception in the house, you know you are safe. He can prove he gets no reception, and therefore no em fields in his house.

Yes, for EM fields below a certain strength and wavelength, that is pointless since it can not even heaten up the body, much less cause molecule bonds to rupture.
But if that gives him peace of mind, and therefor us too, let’s do it. ;)

Man, I wish someone would, in a friendly way, actually explain to him, how this all works, how he can prove it, and how he can do proper tests. Then he might himself have a chance of coming up with the truth. Can’t deny what you state yourself. (At least to yourself.)

Re:litmus test

[md65536]

If he can demonstrate his ability to detect electromagnetic fields...

I call bullshit on your idea of "fair". You don't need to be able to detect something in order to be negatively affected by it. If so, you could have made Erin Brokovich into a nobody. "If the plaintiff could drink these 2 glasses of water and tell me which has toxic levels of hexavalent chromium, the court will consider this case."

Actually, I could probably prove that the average person could be subjected to lethal amounts of radiation without being able to detect it. That doesn't mean they don't have a case.

How about instead, if he proves that he is suffering demonstrable effects from the type and levels of radiation being emitted by his neighbor?

Re:litmus test

[pclminion]

I seriously hope that lawsuits NEVER work that way. If I legitimately feel wronged, I should have the ability to ask a court to evaluate the evidence and come to a conclusion, without the fear that I'll receive a million dollar smackdown just because I lost by "a smidge." Remember that civil justice is based on "preponderance of evidence," which means that if your side is 49% convincing and the other side is 51% convincing, the other side wins.

Suppose my entire family dies of cancer, and I suspect the cause is groundwater contamination. I sue for, say, $5 million for wrongful death. Does this really mean I need to be prepared to shell out $5 mil if the big corporation wins? That's bullshit.

Re:litmus test

[khallow]

I question the validity of your point that the Earth is flat, even with your choice of scale.

I just looked out my window. Earth is still flat.

Re:litmus test

[Al Al Cool J]

Antimatter can be transported with perfect safety inside a suitcase. You just need a suitcase made of antimatter.

Re:litmus test

[thogard]

The FCC rules say you can't cause interference. They don't define that so if the guy had a real claim then the FCC rules would require the wifi thing to be shut down.

Re:litmus test

[Psaakyrn]

Disagree.

Let's say it's radiation exposure instead.

a) If you can demonstrate your ability to detect low level radioactive contamination under reasonable experimental conditions, they'll consider your case.
b) If you can't demonstrate you ability to detect low level radioactive contamination under reasonable experimental conditions significantly more than chance, you owe the plaintiff the same amount you are seeking.

This is assuming you don't use any external devices naturally, since I'm fairly certain anyone can detect electromagnetic fields with external devices.

Re:litmus test

[91degrees]

True, but he's the one who needs to be convinced of this. How do you convince someone that something they are absolutely certain is true is not true? Could I convince you that hammering nails into your head is harmless? His certainty that wi-fi signals are harmful are as great as your certainty that hammering nails into your head is harmful. You just happen to be right.

Re:litmus test

[rocket97]

I don't think that the mods were able to catch the humor in that. But having grown up in Santa Fe I got it.

Mod parent funny.

Re:litmus test

[SuiteSisterMary]

"If the plaintiff could drink these 2 glasses of water and tell me which has toxic levels of hexavalent chromium, the court will consider this case."

That's exactly how it worked, only instead of 'drink' it was 'analze.'

In this case, the plantiff claims he has direct, immediate, noticable physical reactions. Fine, lets test *his assertion.*

I agree, a blanket 'loser pays' is a bad idea. But requring emprical testing to prove an assertion is just basic.

Re:litmus test

[LWATCDR]

Well yes and no.
Let's say this guy has Hay fever. Would it be right to say that I shouldn't be allowed to plant flowers in my yard?
Or that the town shouldn't plant flowers?
And that is a real aliment and not a completely made up one.
I agree that trying to hurt somebody is wrong but using a legal device in your own home in a legal way should offer you protection from Stupid law suits.
 

Re:litmus test

[SCPRedMage]

Whether or not he believes it's true is moot, because even if his neighbor turned off his WiFi and cell phone, he'd still be convinced he's in pain, meaning his neighbor's actions didn't help him at all.

Don't worry Arthur,

[Snowtred]

.. we're still watching you.

Get off my Astral Plane!

[kclittle]

And stop eating meat OR veggies -- I can hear the carrots scream!

Re:Get off my Astral Plane!

[Psyborgue]

And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest. And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possessed me then. And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?" And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust." And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!" Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus.

From Disgustipated by Tool.

Re:Get off my Astral Plane!

[Reality Master 301]

Yes, Carrot juice is murder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmK0bZl4ILM

Re:Get off my Astral Plane!

[Chris Burke]

The "Let the rabbits wear glasses!" line always cracks me up. :)

Re:Get off my Astral Plane!

[fishexe]

And stop eating meat OR veggies -- I can hear the carrots scream!

Not til you get the hell out of my aura!

He will have a hard time proving his case

[presidenteloco]

You can be sure that if any harmful link had been scientifically established to this point, even just on the
balance of probabilities, a class action lawyer would already be in there pursuing a billion dollar
case for the class of "neighbours of wi-fi basestations.

I'm still open minded about all this. I don't really think cell phone radiation is bad for me, but
I would move or protest if someone put up the cell transmitter on my roof.

And I ain't superstitious, but a black cat just crossed my path.

To the defendant: Make sure a judge hears the case, not a jury.

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[MaXintosh]

To the defendant: Make sure a judge hears the case, not a jury.

It's a sad indictment of the US's critical thinking skills that this is true. Juries are too willing to take personal testimony uncritically. "Well, Jane said she got better after rubbing her head with a ferret, so it must be true." Or something like that.

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[Man On Pink Corner]

I'm still open minded about all this. I don't really think cell phone radiation is bad for me, but I would move or protest if someone put up the cell transmitter on my roof.

That's OK -- they can put one on my roof anytime they want. It will be nice to have the carrier sending me money every month, for a change.

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[mapsjanhere]

Unfortunately, the right to demand a jury trial is with BOTH the plaintiff and the defendant. All the defendant can hope for is to succeed with a summary judgement motion to dismiss, but if the judge finds that there's a chance that there is something like electromagnetic allergy, that's a disputed fact to be decided by a jury if requested.

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[rrhal]

To the defendant - counter sue for this blatant disregard for your allergy to small minded ass-holes.

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[tsm_sf]

Ferrets are widely known to promote blood circulation, asshole. One of the landmark studies compared the orgonocephalic health of a man with a ferret strapped to his head against that of a control subject*, with many interesting results.

* tube sock full of mice

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[phayes]

Cell phone transmitters are directional and the direction where they transmit the least is usually straight up & straight down. Assuming that a cell tower on your roof will assemble a number of antennas to give 360 coverage, the spot with the least intesity is just about always the building just beneath it. This fact amuses me no end every time some nut blames his insomnia/impotence/mental imbalance/other ill defined ailment on the cell tower implanted 6 stories above his bedroom...

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[Artifakt]

I'm reasonably sure the health (the general health, not just the 'orgonocephalic' health) of a tube sock full of mice goes down when they are strapped to a ferret. While the ferret will promote blood flow, this will be one way flow, not circulation. Alternately, the health of a ferret will decrease if it is strapped to Zombie Dr. Reich. That's probably the cephalic effect you were thinking of.

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[deodiaus2]

I bought a house which unbeknownst to me, use to have a cat. I was highly allergic to the cat dander and told the real estate agent that this was a notious substance. I was told to paint the house, replace the almost new carpeting, and clean out the ducts.
Before signing the contract, the lawyer did not send me the form a week prior to the signing, as I had asked explicitly. During the signing, the lawyer and real estate agent were talking like a bunch of women at a tea party, except that I was paying $750 for the deal. I complained, but the lawyer told me that I did not have the time to read the whole contract and that she would represent my interests. In case she mucked up, I also had to get mortgage insurance. Worse yet, the contract that I signed had a clause stating that I could not cancel the sale because of allergies to cat dander.

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[gmhowell]

You've never appeared before a local judge if you think they have critical thinking skills superior to that of 12 laypeople.

Simple test...

[Loki_1929]

I think this guy's full of it, but there's a pretty simple test. Blindfold him and drive him out to a nice, open, quiet country setting. Something with lots of fresh air, birds chirping, no cars, no people, etc. Somewhere where you can smell flowers from a mile away and it feels like you're on a country road in the middle of nowhere. Park under high tension lines. Then ask him how he feels. If he's not on the ground doubled over in pain, he's a POS and full of it.

And if this guy really does have that severe a reaction to all technology, then Darwin says he should go stuff. Let him join an Amish community and live the rest of his life in peace. He has no right to shut down every invention of the past hundred years everywhere he goes simply because he's a genetic disaster.

Re:Simple test...

[Locke2005]

That reminds me... at Cape Lisburne, we had a really old navy Beacon for the airstrip which gave off enough EMI to light a florescent tube (no really, there was one on the wall). I swear, you really could feel it when you were in the shack. So I think it is highly possible that some people could detect being under high tension lines (I think lower frequency is easier to detect). High tension lines are also known to be able to light up florescent bulbs at a distance. I think sitting him next to the router and seeing if he can tell when it is off or on would be a much better test.

Re:Simple test...

[IndustrialComplex]

That reminds me... at Cape Lisburne, we had a really old navy Beacon for the airstrip which gave off enough EMI to light a florescent tube (no really, there was one on the wall). I swear, you really could feel it when you were in the shack. So I think it is highly possible that some people could detect being under high tension lines (I think lower frequency is easier to detect). High tension lines are also known to be able to light up florescent bulbs at a distance. I think sitting him next to the router and seeing if he can tell when it is off or on would be a much better test

Obviously this isn't a wifi router, but as a kid I used to be able to walk under a transformer near my house and 'see' something weird. Like a wavy black at the edge of my vision.

It wasn't discomforting or anything, but sometimes I would just be walking around, and notice it, then I'd look around and find a rather large transformer or other piece of power equipment. Typically those that were just about to fail. This particular transformer had a consistent buzzing as well, and if you looked up you could see electricity arcing. I'm doubting it was in spec, but the effect on my vision was real.

But again, a transformer with arcing electricity is a slight bit more extreme than a wifi router.

Re:Simple test...

[Kenoli]

No need for a test.
Even if his magical allergies really do exist his demands are still bogus.
Electromagnetic radiation won't cease to exist just because some crazy guy thinks it might be bad for him.

Re:Simple test...

[Lehk228]

I suspect the effect was some sort of harmonic set up by the vibration, if the effect was on the neurons themselves it would have been deadly rather than odd.

Re:Simple test...

[Grishnakh]

I remember being under a high-tension transmission line once as a kid, and every time I touched the pickup truck we had (standing on the ground), I got a huge shock. It's been a long time so I don't know how accurate my memory is, but that's what I remember. I remember it feeling a little weird under those lines.

With the kind of voltage those lines operate at, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume people might detect something from them. Assuming the lines operate at 765kV, and they're 30 meters off the ground (just a guess there), that causes a voltage gradient of 25,500 volts per meter. People are usually almost 2 meters tall, so that's about 50,000 volts difference between your head and the ground. Of course, the air has a lot of resistance, but still you can see where I'm going with this.

No, a better test is to take the guy out to the country (away from power lines), and bring along a Wi-Fi router and a power inverter to power it from the vehicle. Blindfold him and see if he can tell if it's turned on or not. Use a long extension cord and put him and the router out in a field well away from the vehicle to be extra sure. I'm quite sure he won't be able to detect that.

Re:Simple test...

[Grishnakh]

And if this guy really does have that severe a reaction to all technology, then Darwin says he should go stuff. Let him join an Amish community and live the rest of his life in peace. He has no right to shut down every invention of the past hundred years everywhere he goes simply because he's a genetic disaster.

Actually, the Amish use electricity. It's all battery- or solar-powered, but they have it. They don't really use it at home, but for their businesses they do. Amish aren't completely anti-technology, they're just really big on isolationism.

I want to sue as well...

[mldi]

Is he crazy? I wanna sue my neighbour for not turning his WiFi back on!

Re:I want to sue as well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Any one else think the summary said this at first?

Re:I want to sue as well...

[Obliquitous Cowherd]

yes.

Re:I want to sue as well...

[mjwx]

Is he crazy? I wanna sue my neighbour for not turning his WiFi back on!

If this guy wins all you need to do is claim you have a wifi dependency and have to court order them to turn it back on.

Re:I want to sue as well...

[DiEx-15]

Amen to that!

Re:I want to sue as well...

[Jason Levine]

Doctor: "Ah. I see you've got that not-so-rare allergic reaction to the lack of open Wi-Fi signals. Symptoms include restlessness (over no WiFi), anger (directed at computers with no WiFi to connect to) and twitching (when thinking of all the stuff on the Internet you can't access). Take two open WiFi signals from your neighbors and call me in the morning."

Re:I want to sue as well...

[MooseTick]

I'm ok with Wi-Fi signals as long as they are in the clear and open. When you start using WEP keys or some sort of encryption it makes me ill though.

Lost Money

[b4upoo]

I am so certain that this poor jerk's investment in a law suit will bring him good results. The settlement will be delivered in a car driven by Elvis with Jimmy Hoffa representing the defendant.

Only the ones he knows about.

[Bender Unit 22]

So the popular radiowaves he knows/thinks about bothers him but not all the other sources.
Lets hope he does not park his car close to a cell tower, a tv or radio transmitter etc.

Better yet, give him a Wi-spy and let him scan 2.4GHz for all the other crap there like car alarms, baby monitors, etc. He well never find a place to sleep.

Re:Only the ones he knows about.

[jd2112]

And I'm sure there will be no Wi-Fi or cellphones at the courthouse when he pleads his case...

phobia

[wizardforce]

If the neighbor's house was emitting dangerous levels of gamma radiation then the suit would definately have merit but this is a severe phobia not a physiological reaction to wifi "radiation." There is zero evidence what so ever that anyone has any adverse reaction to wifi and even if there was. it would not be an "allergy."

Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[nweaver]

As has been mentioned by others, WiFi sensitivity should easily count for paranormal under the James Randi Educational Foundation's $1M paranormal prize. http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[Qzukk]

WiFi sensitivity should easily count for paranormal

I suspect that Randi would call it "abnormal" rather than "paranormal", after all, WiFi scientifically exists, and there are various mechanisms for detecting electromagnetic fields throughout nature.

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[snowgirl]

WiFi sensitivity should easily count for paranormal

I suspect that Randi would call it "abnormal" rather than "paranormal", after all, WiFi scientifically exists, and there are various mechanisms for detecting electromagnetic fields throughout nature.

I believe that if one were able to prove their paranormal activities in controlled conditions that it would simply be "abnormal" in the first place. If the guy has Wi-Fi sensitivity and can detect it without the use of a device, I believe that would qualify as paranormal... and hell, if such a person does exist, I think they deserve $1M just for being able to prove it in laboratory conditions.

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[RapmasterT]

WiFi does exist, but that's not the paranormal claim, being allergic to it (no less just being able to SENSE it) most definitely IS a paranormal claim. The JREF makes no requirement that the person taking the challenge believe the claim is paranormal, they handle that part for them. In fact the most common claim they receive is plain old water dowsing. Water can be "detected" through many different processes, a forked stick just isn't one of them.

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[MobyDisk]

By that reasoning, nothing could ever count for paranormal because as soon as there is evidence for it, it is no longer paranormal. :-)

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[FauxPasIII]

> By that reasoning, nothing could ever count for paranormal because as soon as there is evidence for it, it is no longer paranormal. :-)

Randi is asked that question frequently. The response I've seen him give is that he'd be thrilled to pay out $1M under that circumstance, because it means there'd be an entire new field of knowledge opened to exploration.

Hell of a guy.

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[Qzukk]

nothing could ever count for paranormal

Per Randi's FAQ, they use Webster's definition as "not scientifically explainable; supernatural."

Speaking to the dead, predicting the future, levitating or bending other objects without contact and so on are not scientifically explainable, even if someone were to do it.

Detection of electromagnetic radiation by living things is scientifically explainable, it's just not done by the vast majority of humans.

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[zippthorne]

At high enough power levels you most certainly could detect it: by tissue heating. And there are devices that can detect much lower levels than that.

There is real energy being transferred. Claiming to be sensitive to wifi is not in the same class of ridiculousness as claiming to be sensitive to the color of an upturned card in a room across campus.

I don't think Randi would be interested in expanding his bet to include the unlikely as well as the unbelievable. Imagine if someone actually was sensitive to wifi: he'd have to pay out the prize and it'd be used as "proof" that he was wrong about ghosts, too.

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[Fujisawa Sensei]

WiFi sensitivity should easily count for paranormal

I suspect that Randi would call it "abnormal" rather than "paranormal", after all, WiFi scientifically exists, and there are various mechanisms for detecting electromagnetic fields throughout nature.

He alleged ability to detect is is paranormal in nature, since its complete BS.

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[Qzukk]

Liars aren't paranormal, just liars.

A number of fish and birds are known to use either the earth's magnetic field or their own generated electric field for orientation/navigation, the ability to do so is scientifically understood and not "paranormal" by any means. I personally suspect that this guy is either a liar or just crazy, but if he's not, there are scientific explanations for it: perhaps he has a mutation that caused him to develop an organ sensitive to EM (highly unlikely). Or maybe a medical implant of a certain length (around 2.5", I believe), say, a metal plate screwed to a leg bone that is picking up the radiation and producing heat (likely), or a current strong enough to make the surrounding muscle twitch (less likely).

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Liars aren't paranormal, just liars.

Hence Randi's offer of $1 Million.

A number of fish and birds are known to use either the earth's magnetic field or their own generated electric field for orientation/navigation, the ability to do so is scientifically understood and not "paranormal" by any means. I personally suspect that this guy is either a liar or just crazy, but if he's not, there are scientific explanations for it: perhaps he has a mutation that caused him to develop an organ sensitive to EM (highly unlikely). Or maybe a medical implant of a certain length (around 2.5", I believe), say, a metal plate screwed to a leg bone that is picking up the radiation and producing heat (likely), or a current strong enough to make the surrounding muscle twitch (less likely).

This could be considered paranormal and make him eligible for the prize.

Re:Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[Mattskimo]

Detection of electromagnetic radiation by living things is scientifically explainable, it's just not done by the vast majority of humans.

Actually I have two organs capable of doing just that. They are called "eyes".

Should we punish people for suing?

[jonaskoelker]

b) If he can't demonstrate his ability to detect electromagnetic fields under reasonable experimental conditions significantly more than chance, he owes the plaintiff the same amount he's seeking.

Why the amount he's seeking?

Wouldn't it be more fair to compensate the defendant for court fees (if any), lawyer salary, lost income/time and compensate the defendant for undue emotional distress? That is, make repairs exactly for the damage or losses you have caused, no more and no less?

Or should there be a disincentive towards filing suits? We all hate litigious bastards, especially the well-funded kind, but disincentives towards filing suits also impacts the little man.

I'm not saying I know the answer. I'm just suggesting that we should consider all the options (or at least a handful).

"An idea is a dangerous thing to have if it's your only idea." (I can't remember who said it, but I think David Allen quoted that person in Getting Things Done.)

Re:Should we punish people for suing?

[MaXintosh]

The plaintiff is a serial litigant. He's sued just about everyone and his uncle before. While I agree, there needs to be protection for those with less extreme claims, there also needs to be more teeth to punishing those who abuse the system. A nice place to start is to punish those with outlandish or vindictive claims.

Re:Should we punish people for suing?

[snowgirl]

b) If he can't demonstrate his ability to detect electromagnetic fields under reasonable experimental conditions significantly more than chance, he owes the plaintiff the same amount he's seeking.

Why the amount he's seeking?

Wouldn't it be more fair to compensate the defendant for court fees (if any), lawyer salary, lost income/time and compensate the defendant for undue emotional distress? That is, make repairs exactly for the damage or losses you have caused, no more and no less?

Or should there be a disincentive towards filing suits? We all hate litigious bastards, especially the well-funded kind, but disincentives towards filing suits also impacts the little man.

I'm not saying I know the answer. I'm just suggesting that we should consider all the options (or at least a handful).

"An idea is a dangerous thing to have if it's your only idea." (I can't remember who said it, but I think David Allen quoted that person in Getting Things Done.)

If a judge dismisses your case because it's frivolous, he will typically do two things, dismiss the case with prejudice (meaning the plaintiff/petitioner cannot ever bring the same facts into court again) and require the plaintiff/petitioner to pay reasonable legal fees incurred by the defendant.

The problem is that a lot of cases that people think are frivolous are based upon a lot of facts, where they do create a question of law.

Two Words

[Locke2005]

Faraday Cage

Intel has equipped entire floors at Jones Farm with these (even coatings on the Windows). Yes, it makes cell phones unusable on those floors.

Re:Two Words

[tinkerghost]

There are entire buildings belonging to the Govt that are treated this way. It's been done for a long time as a way to prevent evesdropping on EM broadcasts from microphones & speakers.

Re:Two Words

[snowgirl]

There are entire buildings belonging to the Govt that are treated this way. It's been done for a long time as a way to prevent evesdropping on EM broadcasts from microphones & speakers.

It's called "Tempest" and not just microphones and speakers... you can figure out even what the person's screen is showing.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but...

[lemur666]

...how exactly did he know his neighbor had a wireless router running, unless he used some sort of wireless device (all of which produce their own EM emissions) to specifically detect the EM emissions coming from his neighbor? And no, divining rods don't count, regardless of what Iraqi bomb squads are doing.

Re:Maybe this is a dumb question, but...

[RapmasterT]

Over confidence in fake bomb detectors is a problem that quickly takes care of itself.

Re:Maybe this is a dumb question, but...

[Loki_1929]

I think you just found a great use for the plaintiff.

Re:Maybe this is a dumb question, but...

[ajlisows]

Well, he could have simply asked him.

Howdy Neighbor! Are you running one of them newfangled wireless internet thingys?

Yes. Why? Were you thinking about setting one up? Mine works really well.

It seems like the normal sort of "Neighbor" question that a neophyte might ask if he was on the fence about getting high speed internet with a wireless setup. I'm sure if it did go down this way the neighbor wasn't thinking this guy would flip out on him.

The dude's a moron

[killmenow]

And quite possibly a douchebag.

If he really had "electromagnetic allergies" he could've painted his whole house (walls, floors, ceilings, everything) with this stuff and been fine. He's just an attention seeker, a possible nutbag, and like I said, a moron.

Re:The dude's a moron

[snowgirl]

And quite possibly a douchebag.

If he really had "electromagnetic allergies" he could've painted his whole house (walls, floors, ceilings, everything) with this stuff and been fine. He's just an attention seeker, a possible nutbag, and like I said, a moron.

At about $404 for five liters, that's an unreasonable cost. He's just trying to get an injunction having the neighbor turn it off until the case can be heard. At that point, he could potentially get the neighbor to foot the costs for the paint.

I doubt such a thing would happen though...

Re:The dude's a moron

[jisou]

or he could live in a Faraday cage

It'll be interesting to see if this goes on long.

[jafo]

Last I knew, the FCC was pretty clear that they were the only ones that had the power to regulate RF emissions. I wonder how easy it would be to get the FCC to tell the plaintiff to retract his case or face FCC fines.

I mean, hey, my neighbor was just fined tens of thousands of dollars by the FAA for launching a homemade balloon. They're serving jail time now. I don't want to mess with organizations matching the F[A-Z]{2} regex. :-)

Sean

Sounds pleasant, actually.

[itomato]

You know, some days, I could really use a dark little Faraday cage. Would fit nicely inside my cube.

Re:Sounds pleasant, actually.

[FrigBot]

You have thirty minutes to move your cube.

Re:Sounds pleasant, actually.

[rahvin112]

They already exist. They are at least 10' by 6' typically have a bed and toilet inside, are surrounded by a faraday cage of reinforced concrete with a door made of nice thick heavy iron bars that complete the faraday cage on the only side open to the world. It's actually quite easy to get into one for free, they even provide free meals and all the sex you can handle. The federal ones are typically called supermax and include a roomate who will be your sexual partner.

If you would like to visit one simply rob a bank, shortly after being caught you will be transfered to your nice faraday cage where you are guaranteed safety from EM radiation for at least 15 years.

Re:Easy solutions

[compro01]

Turn off SSID broadcast on the router and tell the neighbor the WiFi is off. It may be slight nuisance since you will have to configure your WiFi clients manually instead of picking the network from a menu, but most of them will remember the network, so you only have to do it once.

That will not have the effect you think it has. It still shows up fine for clients, it just shows as "other network", "unknown network" or similar.

Oblig. XKCD

[ChipMonk]

Issue 654

Hoax?

[Culture20]

This one was http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/07/27/1514209/English-DJ-Claims-Wi-Fi-Allergy
Or maybe this guy's the real nutty deal.

If I was the person being sued I'd do this...

[Quarters]

I'd turn my electronics off at random times and for random intervals. I'd log every time I did that and for how long I had them powered down. Then, if the case went to court I'd throw the log out there and say, "I had my stuff powered off at these times, did you realize this and go back into your house?" When the paranoid litigant said "Uh, no." I'd ask for a case dismissal since it's pretty obvious the guy can't tell when his allergic reaction is kicking in or not.

Re:If I was the person being sued I'd do this...

[gujo-odori]

Better still, I'd install a concealed wireless router with a directional antenna pointed at his car and see if he noticed.

Or, turn off my wireless, show it to him and tell him I won't use it anymore and then point said concealed antenna at his house instead.

And don't forget to tell him about signal leakage. Where I used to live, one day I went outside with my laptop and did a wireless survey of signal leakage on my street. I could go 3 houses up or down my street on the same side, or 2 houses on the other side, and still connect to my network. No special gear, just a 2003-vintage WRT54G and the Toshiba Tecra M4 that I had at the time (don't blame me, it was a company laptop). Considering that range, it's not likely he could find many places to park where he's not getting wifi.

Re:If I was the person being sued I'd do this...

[jameskojiro]

Better yet, turn it all off for a few weeks and tell the D-bag that he hasn't turned it off. Just to see of he still sleeps in his car, etc.....

Video tape turning it off and get it documented. When he still whines present the dumbass with the evidence...

Allens

[FrigBot]

One time, um, I read this trilogy of books by Timothy Zahn called Conqueror's Pride, and the aliens in it were susceptible to radio waves. So they thought the humans were attacking them, but really we were just communicating with radio waves, but it was hurting them so a war started. It was mostly a good trilogy. Mostly.

Re:Allens

[F1re]

I have read the books but how about a spoiler alert for those who haven't?

Re:Allens

[GigsVT]

It turns out it's man.

Re:Allens

[mpe]

One time, um, I read this trilogy of books by Timothy Zahn called Conqueror's Pride, and the aliens in it were susceptible to radio waves. So they thought the humans were attacking them, but really we were just communicating with radio waves, but it was hurting them so a war started.

Actually things were even worst from the alien's POV, since the human ships were all fitted with radar too.

Re:Allens

[FrigBot]

Ya plus they thought the humans were attacking with radio waves from their individual escape pods after the first ship was blown up.

i'll half-assed troll this one

[ClioCJS]

Can you demonstrate your ability to detect asbestos?

If not, it must not be harming you.

Re:i'll half-assed troll this one

[Jarik C-Bol]

can you demonstrate to me records of scientifically confirmed harm that is caused by asbestos? yes? great, how about the same records of harm for wifi? no? right then. (and for the pedantic bastards, yes, it may come out in the wash in 120 years that wifi melts faces, but with all the current scientific knowledge available to us at the moment, Occam's razor says that wifi does not kill you)

Re:i'll half-assed troll this one

[ClioCJS]

There were tons of asbestos lawsuits that were thrown out back when people were saying they were hurt, and were, simply because the science still supported the corporate version of events.

Now I think this person is crazy, but I enjoy playing devil's advocate. I (and all of us) *could* be wrong. It might simply be something science hasn't found yet. And if it did, there would be a cover-up. Remember the Slashdot story about 30% of scientists having been bribed or influenced to change their results to suit the corporation? You can bet that's on the rise as the market [and money lost] gets bigger and bigger. :)

Re:i'll half-assed troll this one

[Xeno man]

Bah, this is like me claiming to be allergic to Oxygen and suing you to get you to turn off your fan for all the oxygen its producing.

Re:i'll half-assed troll this one

[ClioCJS]

Fan death!!

Man Sues Neighbor For Not Turning On His Wife!!!

[master_p]

That's what you get when you read /. at 2 am and you are falling asleep on the keyboard...

Yeah right...

[tyroneking]

... he could really be suffering from this illness couldn't he? I mean, it's not beyond the bounds of reality that he has a weird physical make-up is it?
The county should test him properly and if he really is a sufferer they should paint his walls with metal paint.
On the other hand, if he is not found to be sensitive, then he should STOP PUBLISHING BOOKS ON THE SUBJECT, STOP CAMPAIGNING TO BAN WI-FI , AND LEAVE HIS NEIGHBOUR (an ex-friend of his I gather) THE F**K ALONE.
Also, if you street-map the address in the article you'll see that the place is strewn with overhead power lines (power lines in the US right?) so how come he didn't get sick beforehand?

Du-u-u-ude...

[Mr. Firewall]

There's only one thing that can alleviate the symptoms of electromagnetic allergies...

he needs MEDICAL MARIJUANA!

If he lives in Oregon or California, I'm sure he can find a doc to write him a 'scrip...

Re:Du-u-u-ude...

[Lehk228]

no, he has enough paranoia already. hot lead therapy might help him though.

The PM says it's the WiFi

[theNAM666]

In other news, the Prime Minister released a press release today, explaining that recent government scandals were the result of "problems with the WiFi" which caused "mass delusions among Parliamentarians" which "made them do it." Mr. Brown promises that henceforth that the Parliamentary floor, retreats and other events will be WiFi-free in order to combat corruption. No word on Browning Street.

Re:The PM says it's the WiFi

[snowgirl]

In other news, the Prime Minister released a press release today, explaining that recent government scandals were the result of "problems with the WiFi" which caused "mass delusions among Parliamentarians" which "made them do it." Mr. Brown promises that henceforth that the Parliamentary floor, retreats and other events will be WiFi-free in order to combat corruption. No word on Browning Street.

Huh? Who is this "parliament"? I would think it were another bureaucratic organization under the president, but there's no handy acronym for it.. so I'm totally lost.

surely suing at&t also

[Bizzeh]

he must be suing at&t too, since their cell tower puts out FAR more electromagnetism than some guys phone. while hes on that, he should sue the earth its self for putting out such a strong field, or the sun, or himself, since he himself generates a small field. as does his tv. his radio. his car. pretty much anything made of metal, or has metal in it and uses some sort of electricity.

Re:Allens?

[ImYourVirus]

What king of Allens would those be? Wrenches? Nuts? Heads? On a more serious note there was actually an SG1 episode of this same nature, called Entity season 4 episode 20.

Psychology rather than Electromagnetics

[loose electron]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia

Its a little scary but I dated a lady for a while who thought the government was using here for non lethal weapons testing, by hitting her with EM waves.

Pity... Good looking with a very nice body... Such a waste...

Re:Psychology rather than Electromagnetics

[wxjones]

How was the sex?

Re:Psychology rather than Electromagnetics

[loose electron]

5 star! - enough said!

Re:Psychology rather than Electromagnetics

[snowgirl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia

Its a little scary but I dated a lady for a while who thought the government was using here for non lethal weapons testing, by hitting her with EM waves.

Pity... Good looking with a very nice body... Such a waste...

I was dating a guy once who was absolutely paranoid that I was cheating on him... then he actually caught me in bed with the other guy... OOPS! :)

Easy Fix

[Erasmus]

100% of all Wi-Fi allergies can be cured with one change to your router settings: disable SSID broadcast.

Re:It'll be interesting to see if this goes on lon

[Archangel Michael]

So, the IRS is okay to mess with?
How about the CIA? NSA?

Hi, we're from the government, we're here to help.

False

[geekoid]

"lhc will not create a black hole"

actually it might. It's just that they will be smaller then an Atom and dissipate extremely fast. Even if they hit an atom, Hawking radiation will cause the black hole to dissipate.
Remember, a black hole only has the gravitation pull of it's mass.

"homeopathy has no scientific evidence." correction
homeopathy has no supporting scientific evidence.

Subpoena His Mortage Company

[Miseph]

The defense attorney should be asking whoever holds/held this guy's mortgage as to the status of that account. The summary states he has resorted to homelessness, so I can't help but wonder if this really was a voluntary response to Wi-Fi.

Also, perhaps a reasonable and appropriate resolution would be for the plaintiff to sell his urban home and move into the ass-end of nowhere. Surely his neighbor cannot be the only guy in Santa Fe with a wireless router, and probably isn't even the only neighbor with one. Not to mention that I'm willing to bet cell phones work just fine there, and they work in similar ways on similar frequencies. I think his only effective recourse is to remove himself from anywhere that has an abundance of such radiation.

what his neighbor could do....

[SethJohnson]

This guy is no different than the chemical sensitivity people who try to manipulate those around them because they have control issues. They want everyone to jump through these hoops, which gives them a positive feeling of having controlled those around them.

The neighbor could have simply changed his wifi to not broadcast the network name. When the annoying guy fired up his laptop to see if the neighbor had fulfilled his request to shut off the wireless, it would appear as though it is shut off. Then after a year, he could ask the annoying guy if shutting off the wifi helped his allergy. When the guy said, "Yes." Then the neighbor could explain that he had been running the wifi the whole time, but without broadcasting the network name.

Seth

Re:what his neighbor could do....

[Belial6]

Your right. I just wish more people would call the "sound in public places is evil" crowd on it when they decide to take a nap in a crowded bus or plane without ear plugs, then complain because they can hear someone talking.

He needs to leave the planet

[tcampb01]

I wonder if he's aware that the Earth has a strong electromagnetic field. Come to think of it... the Sun is probably wreaking havoc on his health too.

He's not an idiot

[seeker_1us]

It's pretty clear he's mentally ill. Please show some compassion.

Re:It'll be interesting to see if this goes on lon

[Rob Kaper]

Your making a logical error, no such implication was made.

If you say "I don't like ketchup on my fries", it doesn't imply that you do like feces on them. Just that you do not like ketchup on fries.

Allergy shouldn't be grounds for suing

[ningaui]

I am allergic to several types of pollen. I am also allergic to some perfumes, and to cigarette smoke. I don't think I should be allowed to sue anyone for growing grass or crops, or wearing perfume. Even if he could prove he is allergic to the claimed types of EM radiation, he shouldn't be allowed to sue.

Re:Allergy shouldn't be grounds for suing

[BatGnat]

Go for it! Sue the local nursery, then the local council, for having parks....Demand it be concreted!

Re:It'll be interesting to see if this goes on lon

[Archangel Michael]

I don't want to mess with government organizations matching the [A-Z]{3}regex ;)

James Cameron announces a new movie.

[crovira]

It will star a Navvi' lawyer who gains fame suing the entire planet earth for deforestation of his planet and other environmental disasters caused by by 'drive by' visits by earthlings.

Budget for this mix of "Philadelhia" meet "Avatar" is estimated at over 330,000,000 and will use up the worlds' entire supply of "green screen" drop cloths, as soon as he learns how Cristo wrapped the Reichstag.

Re:dowsing

[presidenteloco]

Can you explain the test setup you used to make sure the effect was not random chance?

1. How many tests in different areas did you do?
2. How many false positives and false negatives were there?
- A false positive would be the stick moving and their being no water immediately below.
- A false negative would be you stopping somewhere where the stick did not move, and digging there, and finding water.
3. What was the distribution of water underground where you were, so that one might calculate the chance of randomly finding it?
4. What criteria did you use to determine whether water was found versus not found?

Science is way harder to do right than most people think. And we haven't even started
to talk about statistical significance yet.

A new fashion..

[Asadullah Ahmad]

Seems like after that musician wi-fi incident, he is just trying his luck.

If the suing culture continues in America like this, it won't be long before someone sues their parents for not being 6-feet tall.

Digital TV also a problem

[SEWilco]

Digital TV is also a problem for that guy. He's collecting stories from people complaining that the switch from analog to digital TV affected them. These people are complaining about things which happened after the DTV switchover. They don't realize the DTV signals have been around for years, and the only thing that happened on that date was the turning off of analog TV transmitters.

So they're actually claiming to have problems due to less electromagnetic radiation. I wonder how badly they're affected by cats or synthetic shirts.

Its radiation

[Snaller]

Just because you don't want it to be a problem doesn't mean it couldn't be a problem.
Its radiation - some scientists are already calling it "electronic fog" most people in modern cities are receiving electromagnetic radiation billions of times more powerful than what we have evolved through during the last billion years. That is potentially a problem.

Austrian Medical Association are strongly advocating there be no wifi networks in or around schools (yes, think of the children for once). In the UK it was removed from a school again when a teacher started getting sick.

In a hundred years humans may be looking back and saying "what were the idiots thinking, that they could just bake their brains in electromagnetic radiation and not suffer ill effects"

So far "radio wave allergy" proven non-existent

[puhuri]

At least for GSM frequencies: 84 subjects (for total 600 trials) had to guess if mobile phone was on, or if it state changed. If one had 3 out of 4 right, 50 euro reward was given. No-one claimed that, even if there was six persons that told being very sensitive to "mobile phone radiation".

Also some other tests were done about effects on humans, but with no results. Kwon, Myoung Soo: Effects of mobile phone electromagnetic field: behavioral and neurophysiological measurements, PhD thesis.

Re:So far "radio wave allergy" proven non-existent

[Fantastic Lad]

Also some other tests were done about effects on humans, but with no results. Kwon, Myoung Soo: Effects of mobile phone electromagnetic field: behavioral and neurophysiological measurements, PhD thesis.

A look at the other publications by Kwon M.S. and the odd writing style in the introduction indicates a rather enthusiastic (read: "Rabid") supporter of the cell phone industry. It smells off. Given that other researchers have found entirely different results, I'd be surprised if this wasn't an example of one of the hundreds of industry PR attempts masked as science.

So, a grain of salt here.

The best thing to do in this whole case is to read a lot of different authors and papers and look for patterns. When medical companies are selling products which can directly stimulate the brain with directed EM, it is logical to conclude that the telecoms are not being entirely honest in their claims that nothing is going on. When one digs, one finds that the can of worms is very deep indeed.

I have a very difficult time understanding why people are so downright eager to trust giant corporations with their health and well-being. It's like geeks, the smart kids, lose their minds to some manner of Pavlovian programming when authority figures in white lab coats walk on the scene. But when geeks wake up, it's also a very powerful thing; they are well-suited to using their built-in skills of observation and critical analysis to actually build non-insane pictures of reality for themselves. The first step, though, is realizing that one has been programmed since birth; that's a tough one to accept because the ego jumps in and cries, "NO! Not me! I'm smarter than that! I would have SEEN!" --Which is, of course, totally false. We've ALL been clobbered since we were kids with teachers handing out love and approval in the form of little check marks and gold stars in environments where competition for social approval is vicious among the kids, largely due to age segregation among mammals which instinctively need to know the power order in the pack.

The signs are all there for anybody to read, but part of the programming is to make people look away and feel uncomfortable when they see the edges of the illusion peel up. Bring up taboo subjects among geeks, and their nostrils flare and they start to puff. It becomes obvious what is happening when one looks at this behavior through the lens of social programming. High emotion is a great means of blinding people to reason.

-FL

Re:Man Sues Neighbor For Not Turning On His Wife!!

[ajlisows]

Falling asleep on the keyboard at only 2 AM? Time to turn in your geek badge.

There is nowhere he can go

[Weaselmancer]

There isn't. No place for him to go where he could find relief, unless he builds himself a Faraday cage to live in. Doesn't matter what his neighbor does or not.

Cosmic microwave background radiation is broadcasting at 2.4Ghz. There is literally no place outside of a Faraday cage in this entire universe he could be happy.

Also, this is a good article.

Re:There is nowhere he can go

[Man Eating Duck]

There is literally no place outside of a Faraday cage in this entire universe he could be happy.

I believe he could escape this by living on a spaceship moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light, the Doppler effect would shift the perceived frequencies. The spaceship would probably act as a Faraday cage as well for extra protection. Then again, the simplest solution is probably to get treatment for his real problems from a psychiatrist :)
I'm also amused by the fact that some lawyer will have to do his very best to convince a court that this guy is not nuts.

KC2UFO

[Nonillion]

Anyone else notice that the guy in the image is wearing a shirt with a ham radio call sign?

SKYWATCHERS AND COMMUNICATORS, KC2UFO [Club]

Re:KC2UFO

[Muad'Dave]

Link to the club page at qrz.com, and their homepage.

Kinda makes me ashamed to be a ham.

You could be a millionaire doing that!

[erlando]

Just apply for the JREF Million Dollar Challenge. With your ability it should be childs play.

Fraud should not bring profits

[mangu]

he should STOP PUBLISHING BOOKS ON THE SUBJECT, STOP CAMPAIGNING TO BAN WI-FI , AND LEAVE HIS NEIGHBOUR (an ex-friend of his I gather) THE F**K ALONE.

Getting a profit from criminal activity is illegal. If he made fraudulent claims in his books and got anything from selling those books he has no right to keep it. The county should confiscate everything he got and give it to the neighbors he has been harassing.

Incoherent rambling

[iamweasel]

I watched a documentary of sorts about EM allergies. I found it quite funny that some of these people carried with them a meter that would tell them the level of EM radiation (reminded me of a dB meter) so they would know when to be anxious.

I imagine proving whether a person is really "allergic" to EM radiation on a frequency range would be very simple in a double blind test. Could it be the case that even if somebody does have reactions, and can prove it, no-one will believe it anyway?

Personally though, I think these people need help dealing with their irrational fears. Then again, it's really up to them to seek help, which is in turn unlikely because of all the attention they get because of their "affliction".

Re:Incoherent rambling

[SuiteSisterMary]

The WHO did a study a while back where they locked a bunch of 'em allergics' into a room. Asked them how they were feeling. Turned on some wi-fi stuff. Asked them how they were feeling. 'Fine.' Turned it off, and told them they were now turning it on. Asked them how they were feeling. 'Headaches, nausea, it's horrible.' Told them they lied. Stunned silence.

Re:Allens?

[Gravitron 5000]

You forgot Steve and Woody.

Re:

[AmonRa1979]

X-rays can cause electron emission, but I don't know if there would be enough for you to sense a current through your body. The only way I know how to produce x-rays from an electrical source is to accelerate electrons and collide them into metal. It's possible what they are feeling is the electrostatic field in which the electrons are accelerated. It's also possible they are imagining the whole thing.

Re:Not impossible...

[omnichad]

Inverse square law. A neighbor next door has exponentially less powerful waves hitting him. I've actually gotten "burned" by a cell phone antenna touching my neck. Got hot enough to hurt anyway. But at those distances, at those power levels, it would be ridiculous.

Not just proteins

[MrBippers]

While proteins are among the most common causes of immune response, they are certainly not the only thing capable of invoking it. Carbohydrates and small molecule compoundscan elicit response as well. Look at common examples like nickel sulfate hexahydrate responsible for the allergic reaction to low purity gold or penicillin allergy.

I will sue the Record Companies....

[BatGnat]

They constantly pay radio stations to broadcast music into my head. Where did I put my tin foil hat again...

Re:

[Nemyst]

Occam's razor would make me go for the second option unless I can see evidence proving otherwise.

Test Him by WAR driving

[minstrelmike]

He could be tested easily enough for his ability to detect wifi networks merely by war driving.