I'm trying to wrap my head around this as it sounds logical to me. But then I wonder:
1. The device is working on hypothetical version 1.1
2. The device is known to work on hypothetical version 1.4
What would be the immediate advantage of using intermediate versions 1.2 and 1.3? If it's known to work; it should work even if you skipped versions 1.2 and 1.3. The hardware doesn't change, does it?
Aren't you increasing the risk of getting your device bricked because you're not doing one BIOS flash, you're doing three in succession.
I'm not an expert in this, so I may be completely wrong (and have probably dodged bricking quite a few devices over the past years).
You asked about the effects of improved methods of detection and treatment.
Those were examples, as the words "for instance" usually implies.
Now you're throwing in other variables that add a little more complication.
Yes, I have plenty more complicating factors up my sleeve. "A little more" is a bit of an understatement. Quick reminder, the human body is in fact quite complicated.
What they would be attempting is to establish whether the alleged cause (cell phones) stands out above a background, so they have to measure the background too.
Sure. This is, however, where it gets messy. I would love to hear your ideas on how to "measure the background" in the your two proposed groups of people who do and don't use cell phones.
Also, as a thought experiment: let's do your hopelessly simplified experiment. Group 1 with no cell phone, group 2 with cell phones. Hey, group 1 has overwhelmingly more cancers. Well, that clinches it: cell phones protect against cancer. Or maybe people without cell phones are older and more likely to contract cancers in the first place? Hmmm...
Scientists do such studies all the time.
Actually, no. They can only reliably measure (or retrospectively infer) a finite number of suspected background variables. But if you know of any decently performed prospective cohort or case-control studies that reliably (i.e., not based on retrospective self-report) measured cell phone usage and 'background' as you call it, I'd like to know.
Just because you don't understand how they categorize people and behaviors and how they mathematically account for known and suspected risk factors doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means you don't understand. If you really want to know, there are books on these statistical methods at a library near you.
Your ad hominem breaks down to: "It's really easy. They just use science to solve all the problems, and you don't understand that."
To return the ad hominem; I think it's you who needs a bit of education in the field of basic biomedical science and particularly epidemiology, cohort studies and the statistical handling of confounders, bias and effect modification.
The newly minted Standing Committee of the Politburu (the 9 folks who rule China) have made it clear that corruption is a major issue. However, previous Standing Committees have said the same and even started efforts to tackle it. These efforts haven't lasted long enough to make a small dent in the problem, never mind eradicate it.
It's the same old solution. Denounce, deport, change nothing. Wash, rinse, repeat.
And after you magically correct for all other RF frequencies the control group received over the same time period, you magically assume that the people in the control group are exactly the same and equally likely to contract cancer as the cell phone group, save for the cell phone usage. Genius. Awesome. Can I be a co-author on your paper in the Lancet?
All anti-Industry paranoia aside, the re have been studies done on the effects of cell phones. And there have been some effects found.
Yes, some very seriously methodologically flawed and/or underpowered studies.
So this is the background. The phones are little microwave producing machines.
If you're focussing on the 'microwave' part (meaning microwave as in the beeping machine we have in our kitchens): this is only true for the phones that have WiFi. Not for the traditional GSM-bands that have been in use the longest (900-1800MHz as opposed to 2.4GHz).
So now we have these little devices putting out around 2 watts maximum. And we are holding them in their near field, which is to say we're getting about their whole output, whatever it is at the time.
If your body would soak up "their whole output" your reception would be ZERO.
So there is possiblility of thermal heating effects.
Have you walked in the sun recently? Looked at a light bulb?
Cataracts are a possibility. I claim no cause/effect, because it is a sample of 1, but my S.O. has a cataract in her eye on the side that she uses her phone. And she spends hours a day on the phone. And she is very young to be having a cataract under any circumstances.
1 out of 4,500 children have cataracts and the incidence goes up with age, so it's not that rare.
Obligatory XKCD reference
OT, it depends on what your definition of "long term" is. Regardless of the provenance of the funding, such long term epidemiological studies are a huge can of worms due to the stupendous number of confounding variables. How would you, for instance, correct for the a) improved methods for (early) detection of cancer and b) our improved ways to fight cancer?
This is the same problem we have with long term studies in the field of e.g. nutrition and probably the cause of all the contradictory 'findings'.
People fearing 'radiation' from cell phones should disconnect from the grid and stay inside, out of the sun with its nasty radiation, with sealed windows in a radon-proof suit. And then dodge high-energy particles from space, too.
In 1998, there were car MP3 players with capacities comparable to some modern smart phones.
I take it you're talking about the short-lived Empeg Car? Those started at $1100 and the first production run was 400 units. By 2001, fewer than 6000 units were made. Yes, they were there, but how is a $1k+ car unit a feasible alternative to a 3" portable MD player that ran on 1 AA battery?
I was in my teens in the 90s and I didn't own a car, I was just a teen trying to listen to some angsty teeny music and MDs were the medium for me before broadband and cheap CD-Rs.
Blank CD media was also getting pretty cheap and certainly comparable to MD media as CDs had an 8:1 advantage.
In what sense did they have an 8:1 advantage? Data storage? I never used MDs to store data, it was for music. Comparable? Blank CDs couldn't be erased and re-used nor could you edit them after recording. Portable CD-players that actually read writable CDs were scarce and expensive. And why would I hook up a home CD player with a CD-R if I can hook up my computer and play the crappy 128kbps 90s MP3s directly?
YMMV but it took a while for CDs to become a viable alternative for me.
BTW - all my 90s MDs still work. Maybe 1 out of 10 of my 90s CD-Rs still work and the last ones are dying fast.
Agreed, by the time they were affordable USB storage was cheap and widely available. I only use CD-RWs now to do OS installs on old computers that refuse to boot off USB.
Probably, yes. Although at 1x speed (300kb/sec? I forget) that shouldn't have been an issue, even in those days. But it left me with wrecked CDs nonetheless;-)
My second burner was an IDE Lite-On (rebranded Plextor model) with buffer underrun protection and it was a champ in the same computer. Still have it, and still works.
No, I've had the same experience.
My first CD-burner unit (a Philips unit) would consistently wreck at least one out of three CD-R burns. Pretty frustrating as it was a 1x speed burner, so you had to wait for over an hour only to find out the writing operation failed and you had yourself a pretty expensive shiny coaster. Of the last three-pack of DVD+RWs I bought, only one still works after two years of very light use. The other ones would just refuse to be blanked.
There are no early mp3-players "contemporary with the introduction of minidisc". I had an MD-deck in 1993. The first widely available unit was the Audible.com mobileplayer in 1997 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_media_player#Audible.com_MobilePlayer) which had a pathetic 2MB storage capacity.
It took almost 10 years for the price of CD-RWs to fall enough to become a feasible alternative to MDs, especially if you erased and re-recorded a lot like me.
The portable recorders are still very popular with local radio stations (always strapped for cash) doing field interviews as they're compact and rugged and sound good. Plus, the stations often use MD-decks for playing jingles and commercials, so the interview can be easily transferred and edited.
For me it was a logical step up from cassette tapes, especially at a time when mp3s weren't very good and not very abundant, and CD-RWs were prohibitively expensive. I used tons of MDs to copy CDs off my friends, first analogue and then with an optical cable. It was just as slow as cassette tapes but not subject to being eaten by my tape deck and they sounded much, much better and they let me shuffle and edit.
It also seemed a lot more practical than its ghastly contemporary DCC, which was more of an evil stepsister of cassette tapes minus the slow decline in sound quality (well, only if you cleaned the heads regularly...)
I liked the small, sturdy size of the disks, too. Back then (early teens) I had no idea what DRM was and although I must've copied hundreds of CDs I've never encountered a problem with DRM, only when I tried to copy from MD to MD.
Yeah, MD went into a quick decline when (re)writable CDs came along but for a while they were a very practical stop-gap between cassette tapes and the MP3 era.
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Ah right, thanks! Would that hold true for, say a relatively simple motherboard BIOS flash?
I'm trying to wrap my head around this as it sounds logical to me. But then I wonder:
1. The device is working on hypothetical version 1.1
2. The device is known to work on hypothetical version 1.4
What would be the immediate advantage of using intermediate versions 1.2 and 1.3? If it's known to work; it should work even if you skipped versions 1.2 and 1.3. The hardware doesn't change, does it?
Aren't you increasing the risk of getting your device bricked because you're not doing one BIOS flash, you're doing three in succession.
I'm not an expert in this, so I may be completely wrong (and have probably dodged bricking quite a few devices over the past years).
You asked about the effects of improved methods of detection and treatment.
Those were examples, as the words "for instance" usually implies.
Now you're throwing in other variables that add a little more complication.
Yes, I have plenty more complicating factors up my sleeve. "A little more" is a bit of an understatement. Quick reminder, the human body is in fact quite complicated.
What they would be attempting is to establish whether the alleged cause (cell phones) stands out above a background, so they have to measure the background too.
Sure. This is, however, where it gets messy. I would love to hear your ideas on how to "measure the background" in the your two proposed groups of people who do and don't use cell phones. Also, as a thought experiment: let's do your hopelessly simplified experiment. Group 1 with no cell phone, group 2 with cell phones. Hey, group 1 has overwhelmingly more cancers. Well, that clinches it: cell phones protect against cancer. Or maybe people without cell phones are older and more likely to contract cancers in the first place? Hmmm...
Scientists do such studies all the time.
Actually, no. They can only reliably measure (or retrospectively infer) a finite number of suspected background variables. But if you know of any decently performed prospective cohort or case-control studies that reliably (i.e., not based on retrospective self-report) measured cell phone usage and 'background' as you call it, I'd like to know.
Just because you don't understand how they categorize people and behaviors and how they mathematically account for known and suspected risk factors doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means you don't understand. If you really want to know, there are books on these statistical methods at a library near you.
Your ad hominem breaks down to: "It's really easy. They just use science to solve all the problems, and you don't understand that."
To return the ad hominem; I think it's you who needs a bit of education in the field of basic biomedical science and particularly epidemiology, cohort studies and the statistical handling of confounders, bias and effect modification.
If he had plenty of money and 18-year old girls are his thing... Why didn't he just hire an 18-year old prostitute? Must be a power thing.
The newly minted Standing Committee of the Politburu (the 9 folks who rule China) have made it clear that corruption is a major issue. However, previous Standing Committees have said the same and even started efforts to tackle it. These efforts haven't lasted long enough to make a small dent in the problem, never mind eradicate it.
It's the same old solution. Denounce, deport, change nothing. Wash, rinse, repeat.
And after you magically correct for all other RF frequencies the control group received over the same time period, you magically assume that the people in the control group are exactly the same and equally likely to contract cancer as the cell phone group, save for the cell phone usage. Genius. Awesome. Can I be a co-author on your paper in the Lancet?
All anti-Industry paranoia aside, the re have been studies done on the effects of cell phones. And there have been some effects found.
Yes, some very seriously methodologically flawed and/or underpowered studies.
So this is the background. The phones are little microwave producing machines.
If you're focussing on the 'microwave' part (meaning microwave as in the beeping machine we have in our kitchens): this is only true for the phones that have WiFi. Not for the traditional GSM-bands that have been in use the longest (900-1800MHz as opposed to 2.4GHz).
So now we have these little devices putting out around 2 watts maximum. And we are holding them in their near field, which is to say we're getting about their whole output, whatever it is at the time.
If your body would soak up "their whole output" your reception would be ZERO.
So there is possiblility of thermal heating effects.
Have you walked in the sun recently? Looked at a light bulb?
Cataracts are a possibility. I claim no cause/effect, because it is a sample of 1, but my S.O. has a cataract in her eye on the side that she uses her phone. And she spends hours a day on the phone. And she is very young to be having a cataract under any circumstances.
1 out of 4,500 children have cataracts and the incidence goes up with age, so it's not that rare.
I didn't mean to imply that it was a criticism of epidemiological studies; the comic is pretty on-original-topic.
Did you honestly expect something else?
This is the same problem we have with long term studies in the field of e.g. nutrition and probably the cause of all the contradictory 'findings'.
People fearing 'radiation' from cell phones should disconnect from the grid and stay inside, out of the sun with its nasty radiation, with sealed windows in a radon-proof suit. And then dodge high-energy particles from space, too.
not cheaper than free. if it aint broke dont fix it. if they already own it it makes sense
This. All the local radio stations I ever visited were hard up for cash and almost all hardware was 10+ years old at the very least.
All with pixel densities so high you're going to need a stylus and an on-screen magnifier just to double-click "My Computer".
In 1998, there were car MP3 players with capacities comparable to some modern smart phones.
I take it you're talking about the short-lived Empeg Car? Those started at $1100 and the first production run was 400 units. By 2001, fewer than 6000 units were made. Yes, they were there, but how is a $1k+ car unit a feasible alternative to a 3" portable MD player that ran on 1 AA battery? I was in my teens in the 90s and I didn't own a car, I was just a teen trying to listen to some angsty teeny music and MDs were the medium for me before broadband and cheap CD-Rs.
Blank CD media was also getting pretty cheap and certainly comparable to MD media as CDs had an 8:1 advantage.
In what sense did they have an 8:1 advantage? Data storage? I never used MDs to store data, it was for music. Comparable? Blank CDs couldn't be erased and re-used nor could you edit them after recording. Portable CD-players that actually read writable CDs were scarce and expensive. And why would I hook up a home CD player with a CD-R if I can hook up my computer and play the crappy 128kbps 90s MP3s directly? YMMV but it took a while for CDs to become a viable alternative for me. BTW - all my 90s MDs still work. Maybe 1 out of 10 of my 90s CD-Rs still work and the last ones are dying fast.
Agreed, by the time they were affordable USB storage was cheap and widely available. I only use CD-RWs now to do OS installs on old computers that refuse to boot off USB.
Probably, yes. Although at 1x speed (300kb/sec? I forget) that shouldn't have been an issue, even in those days. But it left me with wrecked CDs nonetheless ;-)
My second burner was an IDE Lite-On (rebranded Plextor model) with buffer underrun protection and it was a champ in the same computer. Still have it, and still works.
If 'the market' makes decisions based on the predictions of the RBA, it's no wonder the predictions about 'the market' don't often hold up.
No, I've had the same experience. My first CD-burner unit (a Philips unit) would consistently wreck at least one out of three CD-R burns. Pretty frustrating as it was a 1x speed burner, so you had to wait for over an hour only to find out the writing operation failed and you had yourself a pretty expensive shiny coaster. Of the last three-pack of DVD+RWs I bought, only one still works after two years of very light use. The other ones would just refuse to be blanked.
imagine a spinning vcr-like head in a car system. its almost funny now that I think of it.
They'll be saying that about CDs in 20 years.
There are no early mp3-players "contemporary with the introduction of minidisc". I had an MD-deck in 1993. The first widely available unit was the Audible.com mobileplayer in 1997 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_media_player#Audible.com_MobilePlayer) which had a pathetic 2MB storage capacity. It took almost 10 years for the price of CD-RWs to fall enough to become a feasible alternative to MDs, especially if you erased and re-recorded a lot like me.
The portable recorders are still very popular with local radio stations (always strapped for cash) doing field interviews as they're compact and rugged and sound good. Plus, the stations often use MD-decks for playing jingles and commercials, so the interview can be easily transferred and edited.
For me it was a logical step up from cassette tapes, especially at a time when mp3s weren't very good and not very abundant, and CD-RWs were prohibitively expensive. I used tons of MDs to copy CDs off my friends, first analogue and then with an optical cable. It was just as slow as cassette tapes but not subject to being eaten by my tape deck and they sounded much, much better and they let me shuffle and edit. It also seemed a lot more practical than its ghastly contemporary DCC, which was more of an evil stepsister of cassette tapes minus the slow decline in sound quality (well, only if you cleaned the heads regularly...) I liked the small, sturdy size of the disks, too. Back then (early teens) I had no idea what DRM was and although I must've copied hundreds of CDs I've never encountered a problem with DRM, only when I tried to copy from MD to MD. Yeah, MD went into a quick decline when (re)writable CDs came along but for a while they were a very practical stop-gap between cassette tapes and the MP3 era.
Depends on what you classify as "alive". What is "life" anyway?