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The Town That Banned Wi-Fi
An anonymous reader sends a story from The Guardian about Green Bank, West Virginia, a small town housing the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. There are other telescopes nearby, too. Because the telescopes are so sensitive, stray electromagnetic signals are strictly regulated in the surrounding area, which is called the National Radio Quiet Zone. But the town is running into a problem: its population was around 120 when this began, and by now about 40 people have moved there because they want to get away from radio waves and Wi-Fi signals and other types of electromagnetic radiation.
There have been reports of tensions in the town: tales of threats and abuse unfitting to a sleepy mountain village. And it is all the stranger when you consider that no serious scientific study has been able to establish that electrosensitivity exists. ... Where the locals might have been happy to tolerate one or two of the sensitives, the mass migration was beyond the pale. ... People would walk towards [one woman] with concealed electronics, in an effort to provoke a reaction. A meeting she and her husband organised to help educate the others about electrosensitivity descended into a slanging match.
A thunderstorm must torture these people terribly.
Many people are sensitive not to EM radiation, but to seeing antennas. A telco here first installs the antenna systems on their towers (this is easier to do when everything is off and there are no feedlines connected), then a month later or so a technical team installs and connects the actual comms equipment.
Health complaints start instantly when the (still disconnected) antennas are installed. Furthermore, receive only systems give the same amount of complaints as systems with active transmitters. Systems with hidden antennas (on a roof for example) give almost no complaints.
Dish antennas give disproportionately many complaints, even though they are very directional and thus should not leak radiation where it is not desired.
Just like the recent vaccine scare. It is hard to prove to people that something is indeed safe. One off comment that something is dangerious our a dangerious word is used to explain it is enough to turn off their brains and go into fear mode.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Isn't there room for other loonies too?
The problem is that the town originally had 120 normal residents. Now, 40 extreme sensitives have moved there, and have started stirring up trouble, like demanding that other residents remove neon lights in stores, etc. The original residents are not enthused with this, and fear that the loonies with drive them out of their own town.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I have a perfect example here at work. After we installed a Wifi relay in the lobby, the idi^H^Hperson manning the entrance started taking sick days after sick days, claiming the wifi was making her sick. Problem was, it wasn't activated yet (building installation wasn't finished), but since it was already powered, it was blinking. Then we activated it and placed a piece of black tape on the LEDs, told her 'Fine, we won't be using it then', and all was fine.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
no serious scientific study has been able to establish that electrosensitivity exists How come nobody had the common courtesy of a "simple" double blind experiment?
It's ridiculous to think for even a second that this hasn't happened. Of course there are such studies.
The two key words here are 'serious'. -A qualifier which isn't applied to any study which doesn't support the party line.
No, it refers to controlled experiments run and managed in accordance with established best practice. On the other hand, you ARE guilty of dismissing studies based on conclusions, rather than methodology.
-And specifying "electrosensitivity". -Which means tests demonstrating, (for one example), that the blood/brain barrier becomes permeable under exposure to certain low-power frequencies, regardless of its repeatability or implications, is not relevant if the study doesn't specifically look at somebody claiming "electrosensitivity".
Some of the studies have focused on self-identified electrosensitives.
Now let me talk about MY electro-sensitivity. There is a high-voltage power line that crosses the motorway on the route between my childhood home and where my grandparents used to live. When we went under it, I used to get a funny feeling in the top of my head -- every time, without fail. So someone if my family (I can't remember who) suggested that I shut my eyes and tell them when I felt it. For a year or two, I kept opening my eyes too early and seeing the powerlines before we went under them. So one year I got determined to do it properly. I closed my eyes as soon as we reached the first bend on the motorway and kept them shut for ten minutes or more. No sensation. Ever since then, I have felt nothing whatsoever when passing under the lines. I couldn't even make myself conjure up or relive the sensation.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
That is almost a well designed experiment. For counter-balancing it should randomise when something is being transmitted, and not, independently of the light. That would collect data on all four conditions.
Sorry, I have to pick these things apart for a living and it gets difficult to stop sometimes.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
I was going to suggest that the more sensible option would be to get rid of the woman as she was faking sickness to get days off - especially if the "sickness" goes when the light is off - but then she would probably have sued because just because it's psychosomatic it doesn't mean she's actually sick.
No shit. I went to a studio to record some stuff last week, and the microphone was so big I was worried my hearing was going to be damaged.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
C'mon, folks. What's wrong with you? You may think electromagnetic sensitivity is real or just hysteria -- but going out of your ways to "prove" "them" "wrong" seems just too much.
Its more than proving them wrong, they don't need to do that. The point is to piss them off and get them to leave.
Nut jobs who think wifi is bothering them are NUT JOBS. These kind of people are a problem in a civilized society because we can't just kill them when they annoy everyone with their lunacy. So the next best thing you can do is annoy them back until they go away.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The FCC ban was created in 1958. The town didn't ban this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Just another day in Paradise
The town only had 120 residents. From their perspective, 40 new people is a mass migration. Heck, most towns of this size are slowly decreasing in population. They lack the resources to absorb 40 new people, let alone 40 new nut jobs with bizarre needs.
In an effort to make Green Bank more navigable, Schou made some requests of local businesses. A Dollar Store was opening, but its fluorescent and halogen lights would be intolerable. She asked that they were changed. “They wouldn’t do it. And without the light it gets very dark in there, so they’re not willing to turn off the power.” She took to eating her meals in the senior citizens’ centre, where a gap in the lighting gave her some peace. But walking to collect her food entailed exposure to problem bulbs, so she would ask others to wait on her.
Things came to a head. A town meeting was called. “She became very demanding, asking other people to turn their lights off or replace their bulbs,” said Stewart. “It was too much. And Schou was encouraging other sensitives to move here, and this is not a town with many jobs or houses to begin with.”
Where the locals might have been happy to tolerate one or two of the sensitives, the mass migration was beyond the pale. Another sensitive who moved to Green Bank was reported to have flown into a rage at the library, denouncing the “dumb hillbillies”. “People tell me to stop encouraging others to move here, and to stop bringing them into stores,” Schou confirms. “The hostility continues.” People would walk towards Schou with concealed electronics, in an effort to provoke a reaction. A meeting she and her husband organised to help educate the others about electrosensivity descended into a slanging match. Schou, who has called herself a “technological leper,” said the ill will went further: “I had a visitor staying, a fellow refugee, and the air was let out of our car tyres overnight.”
At best, she is a nuisance demanding everyone accommodate her invisible disability that she has zero evidence for. At worst, it sounds like she might be trying to literally take over the town by creating a solid electro-senstive voting block.
As for the townsfolk harrassing her, well we once again have only her word on that. And after almost a year seeing unverified and outright known to be false accusations of harrassment trumpeted in the media--the Guardian itself being one of the (very) guilty outlets--yeah, I'm gonna need some substantial evidence before I believe a word of that either.
Yes. We're legally allowed to discriminate against dead people, at least for now.
The article is wrong.
EHS isn't generally recognized as something but psychosomatic illness by medical science however the use of the label is allowed (EU directive IIRC).
Some places gives money to "sanitize" the homes of people claiming sensitivity - but most doesn't. The stated goal for those places that do isn't to reduce electromagnetic radiation per se but to reduce the nocebo effect. The law doesn't count alleged EHS as a disability and doesn't require anyone to reduce EM exposure which it would if the effect were considered real.
People diagnosed with EHS may apply for disability just as other suffering from some serious psychosomatic illnesses.
In short it seems that Sweden was listed as an example to "prove" the effect is real as considered by some state. That's simply false. The local law, medical science and research all consider it being purely psychosomatic triggered by the nocebo effect.
It's because by then, that part of your brain had already burned out.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
There seem to be two types of such humans: security guards for the building, who are very underpaid and unlikely to take sick days, their companies can replace them quickly. And cheeful pretty women with curves, who are still effective first contacts for making people feel welcome. And if they're playing the "wahhh, I need sick days!!" card, they're related to someone on staff.
My father taught me "make friends with these people", and I *always* make friends with them and the cleaning staff. They work there, they're often treated like furniture, and they know material that the board and HR keep behind very poorly managed masks of confidentiality.
True, but there's a bit of a difference. Someone with PTSD could very well have that disease (which is a mental illness) due to traumatic experiences, such as being in combat. You can't just wish that away, at least until they develop memory-erasing technology like in the movie "Paycheck". Similarly, someone with severe anxiety disorder may have that problem because of (or have it greatly exacerbated by) various life experiences, too much stress, etc. Not everyone is rich enough to just go take a nice, long vacation and relax.
Someone who gets sick because of WiFi (even when the WiFi device is turned off and they don't realize this) is doing it to themselves; it hasn't been done to them. It's another version of hypochondria, and a lot like religion. With people with PTSD or anxiety disorder, there's things you can do to help them: give them counseling to help deal with their traumatic memories, do things to make their lives easier so they can de-stress, etc. There's nothing you can do for one of these wifi-hypochondriacs, because it's all based on their irrational belief about EM fields, which you can't change using logic and reason; similarly there's nothing you can do for someone who believes the earth is 6000 years old, or they're infested with Body Thetans or demons, because these beliefs can't be changed with logic and reason, they're completely irrational.