Dude (dudette), the definition of "working" is really relative. I've spent plenty of time in junkyards in my youth, and I can tell you that many of the vehicles that go there aren't completely shot at all. In fact, many cars (that weren't stripped down for parts) that ended up there "worked" as well as any of the vehicles they find on JYW. They just have irrepairable body/frame damage (no worry when you're building a street sweeper but big problems for highway safety), expensive-to-fix mechanical problems (bodging up a transmission is easy if you don't need it to run more than 20 miles, and one of my co-workers got rid of his old car (perfectly workable) because of a big hole in the gas tank that cost too much to fix) or other problems (flood damage or major rust). So, in answer to your question, the last time I found a "complete working car" (by the standards of JYW) was the last time I was in a junkyard.
The specifications require that the design incorporate a roll cage. That strongly implies "vehicle", not "'bot". That also limits the destructive force you can bring to bear on the vehicle, as I doubt you're allowed to kill or injure the opposing entrant's occupant.
> Wouldn't it be more like opening a brothel in Amsterdam, possibly serving clients from the U.S. on vacation there (and possibly not), and then saying "We didn't violate any Amsterdam laws".
No, it wouldn't. Elcomsoft set up a server on U.S. soil (okay, they contracted with a U.S. hosting company, but you get the idea) and then sold their product (with was illegal by U.S. standards) to U.S. citizens (and others). So the original analogy is more accurate.
...and then I'll go away. First, you can be right and still be a troll. Trolling is using wording designed to inflame. You can be factually correct and still be trollish in expressing it (frankly, I don't think your comment was infammatory enough to warrant the troll mod, but that's not what we're discussing now). Second, the thing about your theory is that you need to prove it's right to make your point. It's insufficient to say nobody can prove it's wrong. Third, your theory is presented based on the size of Microsoft, but since there's an enormous body of evidence that demonstrates that Microsoft operates in bad faith (and is able to do it so much because of their size), I purport that the reason people bash Microsoft may be based on other factors than their size. IBM went through the same thing when it was strongarming the market in the '70s, and now that they're not doing it any more they don't take so much heat, even though they're still a huge company.
>... if M$ haven't done anything wrong yet ot EPIC offers no proof except the potential for harm then this isn't going to get much notice.
Actually, this is exactly what would (in normal circumstances) get the attention. The wrong that MS has committed is in touting an offered service as something that it reasonably isn't. For example, I can't offer my services to the public as a bank if my vault has no lock on the door, because a reasonable customer has every right to assume that I've got physical safeguards in place if I claim to be a bank. If I purport myself as a bank, and then it's discovered that I don't have a vault, then the FTC (or the state attorneys general) can reasonably require me to stop claiming I'm a bank, or at least require me to advertise that I don't have "standard" bank security. MS purports that Passport is a secure portal time and again, and yet it's been shown to have some fairly severe security faults. That's the wrongdoing, and the EPIC letter is attempting to call attention to it through the states' AG offices since they got no joy from the FTC.
Not really. Since AG is an accepted acronym for "Attorney General" it can be used monolithically when you're pluralizing it. It's much like pluralizing LOF (Line of Fire) as LOFs, not LsOF.
> Let me rephrase: this device produces no more
output of any form than is put into it in any form.
This is true, but the article and the builder of this device did not claim that it does, and the big stink on Slashdot stems entirely from erroneous assumptions that this claim was made.
By the way, just FYI, the fissile materials in an atom bomb are mostly not consumed (unless you mean consumed in the same way a car consumes gasoline, which is to say by conversion to a different chemical). When the fission reaction occurs, the material breaks down into daughter products, which releases energy stored in the nuclei of the original material. There is a very slight decrease in mass, which translates to an awesome amount of power simply because matter converts to a LOT of energy. However, most of the energy comes from the nuclear breakdown, not from conversion of matter. Still, the conclusion is that in fact, you are still right that no more energy comes out of the a-bomb than was put in (in terms of material).
Here's an excercise that will demonstrate the need for a document retention policy.
1.) Buy a tape drive for your computer.
2.) Put a tape in and back up the machine.
3.) Store the tape.
4.) Repeat this every day, but don't ever reuse a tape, and don't ever throw any of them away.
5.) 10 years from now, when you've spent $54,750.00 on tapes and have 3,654 of them to store and catalogue, reflect on why document retention policies are a good idea, even for the law-abiding.
6.) For an even more accurate experiment, pay your neighbor $0.02 per day per tape to store them for you, and add that cost to the cost of your backup media.
7.) For one more step, have a random stranger accuse you of making racist comments about him. With an attorney, review your backed-up email for all ten years to prove you didn't. Be sure to add your attorney's cost to your tally, and don't forget the value of the time you'll need to take off of work to do the review.
> I'm going to have to agree with the original poster. Unless your concern is security related (i.e. information theft), there really isn't a valid reason to be destroying documents for most law-abiding corporations.
How about the bottom line? I worked for a large bank. We spent massive amounts of money for storage space, personnel to maintain records and transport costs to keep data records for data from more than two hundred branches. The idea of retaining twice or three times the data just so that we didn't destroy any backup tapes would have cost more than four IT peoples' salaries.
Sorry, but there are many reasons that are perfectly valid for having a proper document retention and destruction policy in place, and it's only your lack of perspective on how much is involved with data protection that keeps you from seeing them. Don't assume that the only reason corporations destroy data is because they're trying to hide something.
Your solution doesn't make sense for any but the smallest businesses, due mainly to infrastructure but also for legal considerations. For a large company, storing eternal backups of every piece of data generated represents a gargantuan storage, retrieval and maintenance operation that in the large majority of cases serves no useful purpose. For example, when I worked for a large bank, the IT department spent hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to store the backups and logs that we wanted to keep. It would have been an appalling waste of money and personnel to double that just to keep backups of information that we never needed anyway. Also, such records can be a huge liability to a company in the event of a lawsuit, even assuming that there's no wrongdoing. Simply sifting through all of the records for documentation relevant to a subpoena can consume massive resources, just to prove that none of the email you've stored for the last five years contains anything incriminating. A document retention (and destruction) policy can force a judge to limit the scope of a subpoena, thereby reducing the workload in satisfying the subpoena.
In the corporate world, lawsuits complicate such issues immensely. Don't make the mistake of assuming that the only reason to cover your butt is because you've done something wrong.
For a large company, a document retention and destruction policy is a necessity, specifically for legal reasons, but not for the reasons you're assuming. Every large company develops huge masses of information, and most of them back up that data to protect against short term loss. However, most companies don't want to keep it forever, so they destroy the old stuff to reduce storage needs, cut down on administrative costs associated with maintaining the records and protect against industrial espionage. The problem lies when the company comes under examination for a lawsuit. If there's a well described and religiously followed document retention policy in place, the court has no reasonable expectation that the company will still have documents that the policy marked for destruction. If on the other hand there is no real policy (or it's badly enforced) this opens up an avenue for liability wherein the corporate controllers say "we don't have documents X or Y because they were destroyed" and the judge then assumes they did it to hide something (and punishes accordingly) or assumes they're lying (and punishes accordingly). Also, when the prosecution or plaintiff asks for certain documents, the policy can limit the scope of the request so that your IT team isn't spending untold hours digging up archived stuff to turn over in satisfaction of a subpoena.
You should be careful not to fall into the logical trap that document destruction is only useful if you have something to hide. In this very litigious society, it's rarely that simple.
Take care here. In sophomore physics, they teach that the laws of thermodynamics apply in aggregate, not to specific types of energy. To wit, most people who read this article saw
electricity in -> lightbulbs on -> batteries charged -> more electricity out,
and immediately assume that because the device produces more electricity than it consumes, it's producing more power than it consumes, and these two statements are not the same. An a-bomb produces more heat than the starting chemical explosion adds to it, by changing matter into energy. Until you're certain this device isn't converting some other power source (gravity, matter, or who knows what), you can't claim to "know" anything about whether it works or not.
Heck, that's nothing. I built a perpetual motion machine as well, in my own home, with the help of my wife. He's 20 months old now and still burning far more energy than anyone could conceive.
I'm very aware that many hoaxes are perpetrated of this stripe, and I have a large measure of skepticism when it comes to such claims, but as a scientist I'd have to say that "not proven" doesn't (at this time) mean "disproven" (again, at this time). It's conceivable that this machine is the real deal, for the simple fact that nobody knows yet what it does. As a possible solution that doesn't violate any known physics, what if the machine consumes something unobserved (as yet) for its power? Just because it might produce more electricity than it uses doesn't make it a perpetual motion machine, or necessarily a hoax. What if it eats matter, or gravity, or some other fuel? Until tests confirm or deny these things, it's unscientific simply to reject it with derision. Remember that until Einstein, there was a "law of conservation of matter" that was separate from energy. Although unlikely, it's possible this device is following the laws of physics in a completely unexpected manner. I'll wait until it's proven a hoax before I laugh too loudly, and I suggest all of you consider that as well.
First off, if the pun was intentional, very good work. Second, the work would be in the public domain. They're trying to patent their extraction and enrichment process, not the research itself. Third, your logic about cutting off funding for one type of science to push it to another has two main flaws:
1.) Reducing funding for space does not necessarily translate to extending funding for medical research.
2.) What if the next big medical discovery happens in the space program? There are so many examples of this that I could go on for days, but in the "pure" sciences (as opposed to applied sciences) very often discoveries are made from which the benefit is not readily apparent, but it soon becomes something that changes the world. Perhaps the cure for cancer comes from experiments done with materials in zero-G or vacuum environments. There's no way to know, so artificially limiting venues of research because they don't have obvious connections to a particular cause is very short-sighted.
They're applying for a patent on the extraction and enrichment process, not the cells themselves, folks. Stem cells can't be patented, because the host person could simply claim prior use and blow the patent.
Acronyms were originally under strict rules for use. However, as of 1991 (by my best recollection, at least) the Chicago Manual of Style allowed for acronyms to be built with or without periods. Capital letters are still a requirement, and I don't recall seeing any mention allowing apostrophes to pluralize. Anyone have a recent copy of the big orange that can check?
Virg
P.S. Since when have changes to accepted editorial style been news? I figure that if the nightly news people cared enough about style changes to report on them, they might consider using editorial style guidelines once in a while as well.
Interesting turn of phrase, that. The medical term for it is "good high-range hearing" and I understand, as I'm also able to pick up the high-pitched sound given off by old picture tubes. The difference between this and the statement of electric sensitivity is that hearing high-pitched sounds can be proven (and has been) with a simple microphone, speaker and oscilloscope.
Two things. First, some people use their PDA to read (get an article or book on the PDA, then head for the "reading" room). Second, there's no need for an apostrophe after PDA. "PDAs" works.
> you really think this huge ammount of wave shit waving through us constantly has no effect on you?
I do think it has an effect on me. However, the question is whether all of the unnaturally occurring radiation has any different or more deleterious effect on me than all of the naturally occurring wave shit waving through me.
> Please, you idiots making fun of these people, you are true idiots and it is becouse you are not complaining on the companies instead. They should create products not transmitting harmful radiation. They should find alternative methods of doing same things that doesnt HARM humans.
There are some real problems with this. Creating products that don't create harmful radiation (based on this fellow's definition of "dangerous") would require them to build devices that don't use electricity, since he's complaining about any radiant EM field, and these fields are induced by electric current. Needless to say, few people (in the modern world, anyway) are willing to give up the use of electricity to protect themselves from EM fields.
> And becouse, you are the #1 on the list to become electricsensitive. And many of you are that already Your ears getting hot? It feels like sand in your eyes? Dry skin? And many more things that are signs of electricsensitivity.
The problem here is that of all of the sysmptoms listed, none of them (and no combination of them) seems exclusive to the condition. Moreover, the only backing information cited was a vague reference to a Swedish study, and the facts from the only study data the Swedes ever published stated that people who claimed to be electrically sensitive could not detect and were not demonstrably affected by EM fields in double blind tests. This would tend to refute Mr. Firstenburg's claims, but strangely the web site makes no mention of the results, only the study. This leads me to believe that more proof is needed about the causal link of bad health and EM exposure before it makes sense to start in on lifestyle changes.
> Microwaves are intentional radiation and are used to TRANSMIT power, not always to simply carry a signal.
Microwaves are EM waves with a certain wavelength, not "intentional radiation" as you've stated. The largest generator of microwave radiation around is the Sun. Microwaves that are generated outside of microwave ovens are used almost exclusively for communications (which is not to say they aren't harmful, but not for the reason you state). Microwaves in ovens are EM waves with the specific wavelength that best transmits energy to water molecules. The microwaves used in tower transmitters is not. Also, microwave transmitters put out microwave beams that don't attenuate very much. It's why they're used; the signal can be thrown farther than a simple broadcast like radio waves because the beam stays cohesive, so most of your power goes down the transmit path, whereas with radio, most of the power goes everywhere but the receiving antenna. It's also why you need line-of-sight to use microwave communications.
The simple fact is that exposure to microwaves in the outside world is not increased to any real degree by the use of microwave transmitters. The exposure you get from standing in range of a microwave tower is smaller by powers of ten than the amount you're getting from the sunlight.
Of course, all of this discussion is offtopic to the original article, as they're not talking about exposure to microwave radiation. The original article is about someone working to eliminate broadcast transmitters to reduce public exposure to radio waves. The whole "electrically sensitive" thing seems to be a misnomer for sensitivity to induced magnetic fields, and I'm not sure why it's part of the discussion, but then sensibility never figured highly in these matters.
Virg
P.S. The law to which you refer has to do with preventing local governments from passing laws that would have excessive externalities. The main reasoning is the threat from a midwest community to prohibit satellite owners from sending down satellite transmissions within its confines. This would have precluded any satellite transmissions to anywhere in North America, as most satellites use a footprint of that size to transmit. And before you get all bent about how that exposes you to radiation, keep in mind that you need a concentrator (a dish) just to get enough signal to detect.
> If you're going to reply, you should reply to my comment, not your own.
> While I enjoy talking to myself as much as the next Slashbot, I would
> prefer if you actually replied properly.
Actually, I did, but you're not seeing your comment at your current browse level. Set your Slashdot preferences to browse at -1 and you'll see that your comments and mine are stacked properly. Also, ad hominem attacks don't do much to help your argument.
> Now, if I wanted to read a bunch of links that are irrelevant to the topic at hand, I'd go to Memepool.
The topic at hand was whether Bill Gates said the quote I attributed to him. You said he didn't, presenting evidence that he denied saying it. I responded that I think he did say it, and later, when it turned out to be a dumb thing to say, he lied to the interviewer about it. I presented the links as proof of my accusation that he's untrustworthy. Perhaps my links were tangential to the discussion, but since you demanded proof for the first point I didn't think you'd let me get away with calling BillG a liar unless I showed some evidence that he's been caught fabricating.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude (dudette), the definition of "working" is really relative. I've spent plenty of time in junkyards in my youth, and I can tell you that many of the vehicles that go there aren't completely shot at all. In fact, many cars (that weren't stripped down for parts) that ended up there "worked" as well as any of the vehicles they find on JYW. They just have irrepairable body/frame damage (no worry when you're building a street sweeper but big problems for highway safety), expensive-to-fix mechanical problems (bodging up a transmission is easy if you don't need it to run more than 20 miles, and one of my co-workers got rid of his old car (perfectly workable) because of a big hole in the gas tank that cost too much to fix) or other problems (flood damage or major rust). So, in answer to your question, the last time I found a "complete working car" (by the standards of JYW) was the last time I was in a junkyard.
Virg
The specifications require that the design incorporate a roll cage. That strongly implies "vehicle", not "'bot". That also limits the destructive force you can bring to bear on the vehicle, as I doubt you're allowed to kill or injure the opposing entrant's occupant.
Virg
> Wouldn't it be more like opening a brothel in Amsterdam, possibly serving clients from the U.S. on vacation there (and possibly not), and then saying "We didn't violate any Amsterdam laws".
No, it wouldn't. Elcomsoft set up a server on U.S. soil (okay, they contracted with a U.S. hosting company, but you get the idea) and then sold their product (with was illegal by U.S. standards) to U.S. citizens (and others). So the original analogy is more accurate.
Virg
...and then I'll go away. First, you can be right and still be a troll. Trolling is using wording designed to inflame. You can be factually correct and still be trollish in expressing it (frankly, I don't think your comment was infammatory enough to warrant the troll mod, but that's not what we're discussing now). Second, the thing about your theory is that you need to prove it's right to make your point. It's insufficient to say nobody can prove it's wrong. Third, your theory is presented based on the size of Microsoft, but since there's an enormous body of evidence that demonstrates that Microsoft operates in bad faith (and is able to do it so much because of their size), I purport that the reason people bash Microsoft may be based on other factors than their size. IBM went through the same thing when it was strongarming the market in the '70s, and now that they're not doing it any more they don't take so much heat, even though they're still a huge company.
Virg
> ... if M$ haven't done anything wrong yet ot EPIC offers no proof except the potential for harm then this isn't going to get much notice.
Actually, this is exactly what would (in normal circumstances) get the attention. The wrong that MS has committed is in touting an offered service as something that it reasonably isn't. For example, I can't offer my services to the public as a bank if my vault has no lock on the door, because a reasonable customer has every right to assume that I've got physical safeguards in place if I claim to be a bank. If I purport myself as a bank, and then it's discovered that I don't have a vault, then the FTC (or the state attorneys general) can reasonably require me to stop claiming I'm a bank, or at least require me to advertise that I don't have "standard" bank security. MS purports that Passport is a secure portal time and again, and yet it's been shown to have some fairly severe security faults. That's the wrongdoing, and the EPIC letter is attempting to call attention to it through the states' AG offices since they got no joy from the FTC.
Virg
> "State AGs"? Shouldn't that be "State AsG"?
Not really. Since AG is an accepted acronym for "Attorney General" it can be used monolithically when you're pluralizing it. It's much like pluralizing LOF (Line of Fire) as LOFs, not LsOF.
Virg
Okay, if you want to quibble, we aren't talking at all. We're writing.
Virg
> Let me rephrase: this device produces no more output of any form than is put into it in any form.
This is true, but the article and the builder of this device did not claim that it does, and the big stink on Slashdot stems entirely from erroneous assumptions that this claim was made.
By the way, just FYI, the fissile materials in an atom bomb are mostly not consumed (unless you mean consumed in the same way a car consumes gasoline, which is to say by conversion to a different chemical). When the fission reaction occurs, the material breaks down into daughter products, which releases energy stored in the nuclei of the original material. There is a very slight decrease in mass, which translates to an awesome amount of power simply because matter converts to a LOT of energy. However, most of the energy comes from the nuclear breakdown, not from conversion of matter. Still, the conclusion is that in fact, you are still right that no more energy comes out of the a-bomb than was put in (in terms of material).
Virg
Here's an excercise that will demonstrate the need for a document retention policy.
1.) Buy a tape drive for your computer.
2.) Put a tape in and back up the machine.
3.) Store the tape.
4.) Repeat this every day, but don't ever reuse a tape, and don't ever throw any of them away.
5.) 10 years from now, when you've spent $54,750.00 on tapes and have 3,654 of them to store and catalogue, reflect on why document retention policies are a good idea, even for the law-abiding.
6.) For an even more accurate experiment, pay your neighbor $0.02 per day per tape to store them for you, and add that cost to the cost of your backup media.
7.) For one more step, have a random stranger accuse you of making racist comments about him. With an attorney, review your backed-up email for all ten years to prove you didn't. Be sure to add your attorney's cost to your tally, and don't forget the value of the time you'll need to take off of work to do the review.
Starting to get a good picture?
Virg
> I'm going to have to agree with the original poster. Unless your concern is security related (i.e. information theft), there really isn't a valid reason to be destroying documents for most law-abiding corporations.
How about the bottom line? I worked for a large bank. We spent massive amounts of money for storage space, personnel to maintain records and transport costs to keep data records for data from more than two hundred branches. The idea of retaining twice or three times the data just so that we didn't destroy any backup tapes would have cost more than four IT peoples' salaries.
Sorry, but there are many reasons that are perfectly valid for having a proper document retention and destruction policy in place, and it's only your lack of perspective on how much is involved with data protection that keeps you from seeing them. Don't assume that the only reason corporations destroy data is because they're trying to hide something.
Virg
Your solution doesn't make sense for any but the smallest businesses, due mainly to infrastructure but also for legal considerations. For a large company, storing eternal backups of every piece of data generated represents a gargantuan storage, retrieval and maintenance operation that in the large majority of cases serves no useful purpose. For example, when I worked for a large bank, the IT department spent hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to store the backups and logs that we wanted to keep. It would have been an appalling waste of money and personnel to double that just to keep backups of information that we never needed anyway. Also, such records can be a huge liability to a company in the event of a lawsuit, even assuming that there's no wrongdoing. Simply sifting through all of the records for documentation relevant to a subpoena can consume massive resources, just to prove that none of the email you've stored for the last five years contains anything incriminating. A document retention (and destruction) policy can force a judge to limit the scope of a subpoena, thereby reducing the workload in satisfying the subpoena.
In the corporate world, lawsuits complicate such issues immensely. Don't make the mistake of assuming that the only reason to cover your butt is because you've done something wrong.
Virg
For a large company, a document retention and destruction policy is a necessity, specifically for legal reasons, but not for the reasons you're assuming. Every large company develops huge masses of information, and most of them back up that data to protect against short term loss. However, most companies don't want to keep it forever, so they destroy the old stuff to reduce storage needs, cut down on administrative costs associated with maintaining the records and protect against industrial espionage. The problem lies when the company comes under examination for a lawsuit. If there's a well described and religiously followed document retention policy in place, the court has no reasonable expectation that the company will still have documents that the policy marked for destruction. If on the other hand there is no real policy (or it's badly enforced) this opens up an avenue for liability wherein the corporate controllers say "we don't have documents X or Y because they were destroyed" and the judge then assumes they did it to hide something (and punishes accordingly) or assumes they're lying (and punishes accordingly). Also, when the prosecution or plaintiff asks for certain documents, the policy can limit the scope of the request so that your IT team isn't spending untold hours digging up archived stuff to turn over in satisfaction of a subpoena.
You should be careful not to fall into the logical trap that document destruction is only useful if you have something to hide. In this very litigious society, it's rarely that simple.
Virg
Take care here. In sophomore physics, they teach that the laws of thermodynamics apply in aggregate, not to specific types of energy. To wit, most people who read this article saw
electricity in -> lightbulbs on -> batteries charged -> more electricity out,
and immediately assume that because the device produces more electricity than it consumes, it's producing more power than it consumes, and these two statements are not the same. An a-bomb produces more heat than the starting chemical explosion adds to it, by changing matter into energy. Until you're certain this device isn't converting some other power source (gravity, matter, or who knows what), you can't claim to "know" anything about whether it works or not.
Virg
Heck, that's nothing. I built a perpetual motion machine as well, in my own home, with the help of my wife. He's 20 months old now and still burning far more energy than anyone could conceive.
Virg
I'm very aware that many hoaxes are perpetrated of this stripe, and I have a large measure of skepticism when it comes to such claims, but as a scientist I'd have to say that "not proven" doesn't (at this time) mean "disproven" (again, at this time). It's conceivable that this machine is the real deal, for the simple fact that nobody knows yet what it does. As a possible solution that doesn't violate any known physics, what if the machine consumes something unobserved (as yet) for its power? Just because it might produce more electricity than it uses doesn't make it a perpetual motion machine, or necessarily a hoax. What if it eats matter, or gravity, or some other fuel? Until tests confirm or deny these things, it's unscientific simply to reject it with derision. Remember that until Einstein, there was a "law of conservation of matter" that was separate from energy. Although unlikely, it's possible this device is following the laws of physics in a completely unexpected manner. I'll wait until it's proven a hoax before I laugh too loudly, and I suggest all of you consider that as well.
Virg
First off, if the pun was intentional, very good work. Second, the work would be in the public domain. They're trying to patent their extraction and enrichment process, not the research itself. Third, your logic about cutting off funding for one type of science to push it to another has two main flaws:
1.) Reducing funding for space does not necessarily translate to extending funding for medical research.
2.) What if the next big medical discovery happens in the space program? There are so many examples of this that I could go on for days, but in the "pure" sciences (as opposed to applied sciences) very often discoveries are made from which the benefit is not readily apparent, but it soon becomes something that changes the world. Perhaps the cure for cancer comes from experiments done with materials in zero-G or vacuum environments. There's no way to know, so artificially limiting venues of research because they don't have obvious connections to a particular cause is very short-sighted.
Virg
They're applying for a patent on the extraction and enrichment process, not the cells themselves, folks. Stem cells can't be patented, because the host person could simply claim prior use and blow the patent.
Virg
Acronyms were originally under strict rules for use. However, as of 1991 (by my best recollection, at least) the Chicago Manual of Style allowed for acronyms to be built with or without periods. Capital letters are still a requirement, and I don't recall seeing any mention allowing apostrophes to pluralize. Anyone have a recent copy of the big orange that can check?
Virg
P.S. Since when have changes to accepted editorial style been news? I figure that if the nightly news people cared enough about style changes to report on them, they might consider using editorial style guidelines once in a while as well.
Interesting turn of phrase, that. The medical term for it is "good high-range hearing" and I understand, as I'm also able to pick up the high-pitched sound given off by old picture tubes. The difference between this and the statement of electric sensitivity is that hearing high-pitched sounds can be proven (and has been) with a simple microphone, speaker and oscilloscope.
Virg
Two things. First, some people use their PDA to read (get an article or book on the PDA, then head for the "reading" room). Second, there's no need for an apostrophe after PDA. "PDAs" works.
Virg
> you really think this huge ammount of wave shit waving through us constantly has no effect on you?
I do think it has an effect on me. However, the question is whether all of the unnaturally occurring radiation has any different or more deleterious effect on me than all of the naturally occurring wave shit waving through me.
Virg
> Please, you idiots making fun of these people, you are true idiots and it is becouse you are not complaining on the companies instead. They should create products not transmitting harmful radiation. They should find alternative methods of doing same things that doesnt HARM humans.
There are some real problems with this. Creating products that don't create harmful radiation (based on this fellow's definition of "dangerous") would require them to build devices that don't use electricity, since he's complaining about any radiant EM field, and these fields are induced by electric current. Needless to say, few people (in the modern world, anyway) are willing to give up the use of electricity to protect themselves from EM fields.
> And becouse, you are the #1 on the list to become electricsensitive. And many of you are that already Your ears getting hot? It feels like sand in your eyes? Dry skin? And many more things that are signs of electricsensitivity.
The problem here is that of all of the sysmptoms listed, none of them (and no combination of them) seems exclusive to the condition. Moreover, the only backing information cited was a vague reference to a Swedish study, and the facts from the only study data the Swedes ever published stated that people who claimed to be electrically sensitive could not detect and were not demonstrably affected by EM fields in double blind tests. This would tend to refute Mr. Firstenburg's claims, but strangely the web site makes no mention of the results, only the study. This leads me to believe that more proof is needed about the causal link of bad health and EM exposure before it makes sense to start in on lifestyle changes.
Virg
Okay, I can't resist.
> Microwaves are intentional radiation and are used to TRANSMIT power, not always to simply carry a signal.
Microwaves are EM waves with a certain wavelength, not "intentional radiation" as you've stated. The largest generator of microwave radiation around is the Sun. Microwaves that are generated outside of microwave ovens are used almost exclusively for communications (which is not to say they aren't harmful, but not for the reason you state). Microwaves in ovens are EM waves with the specific wavelength that best transmits energy to water molecules. The microwaves used in tower transmitters is not. Also, microwave transmitters put out microwave beams that don't attenuate very much. It's why they're used; the signal can be thrown farther than a simple broadcast like radio waves because the beam stays cohesive, so most of your power goes down the transmit path, whereas with radio, most of the power goes everywhere but the receiving antenna. It's also why you need line-of-sight to use microwave communications.
The simple fact is that exposure to microwaves in the outside world is not increased to any real degree by the use of microwave transmitters. The exposure you get from standing in range of a microwave tower is smaller by powers of ten than the amount you're getting from the sunlight.
Of course, all of this discussion is offtopic to the original article, as they're not talking about exposure to microwave radiation. The original article is about someone working to eliminate broadcast transmitters to reduce public exposure to radio waves. The whole "electrically sensitive" thing seems to be a misnomer for sensitivity to induced magnetic fields, and I'm not sure why it's part of the discussion, but then sensibility never figured highly in these matters.
Virg
P.S. The law to which you refer has to do with preventing local governments from passing laws that would have excessive externalities. The main reasoning is the threat from a midwest community to prohibit satellite owners from sending down satellite transmissions within its confines. This would have precluded any satellite transmissions to anywhere in North America, as most satellites use a footprint of that size to transmit. And before you get all bent about how that exposes you to radiation, keep in mind that you need a concentrator (a dish) just to get enough signal to detect.
> If you're going to reply, you should reply to my comment, not your own.
> While I enjoy talking to myself as much as the next Slashbot, I would
> prefer if you actually replied properly.
Actually, I did, but you're not seeing your comment at your current browse level. Set your Slashdot preferences to browse at -1 and you'll see that your comments and mine are stacked properly. Also, ad hominem attacks don't do much to help your argument.
> Now, if I wanted to read a bunch of links that are irrelevant to the topic at hand, I'd go to Memepool.
The topic at hand was whether Bill Gates said the quote I attributed to him. You said he didn't, presenting evidence that he denied saying it. I responded that I think he did say it, and later, when it turned out to be a dumb thing to say, he lied to the interviewer about it. I presented the links as proof of my accusation that he's untrustworthy. Perhaps my links were tangential to the discussion, but since you demanded proof for the first point I didn't think you'd let me get away with calling BillG a liar unless I showed some evidence that he's been caught fabricating.
Virg
> I can produce evidence that he publicly denies saying that infamous quote. You say "He did, in 1981." Where? When?
The History of Computing Foundation was my first source. The fact that Mr. Gates denies having said this carries little weight with me since I can also present definitive proof that he lies when it suits him.
Virg
P.S. I was born in 1968. Oh, and fuck you for the attitude.