Treaties wouldn't work without local laws. Laws that are actually enforced. Both laws and treaties are just pieces of paper. If I have a pile of cut and split wood in my backyard and I have a wood stove and it gets cold at night I am going to burn that wood. During the day neighbors might report you or a passing patrol car may notice, but at night it would be awfully hard to detect. I think you are seriously underestimating the difficulty in getting the entire population of the planet to agree on something that is extremely difficult to implement even in rich first world countries. Getting people to stop burning stuff is like asking people to stop eating sugar or salt. Pass all the laws you want. Many people will continue to burn things. There are some things that might be relatively easy to enforce. A country could outlaw ICE powered vehicles for instance. Police would have to actually enforce the law though. Once you have electrified roadways it would be a lot easier to sell people on the idea of electric only cars.
Are you seriously offering wind power as a substitute for fossil fuels? I find that awfully amusing. Perhaps if we learn how to control the weather so that everywhere in the world is as windy as Antarctica or Southern Patagonia. The only viable alternative to fossil fuel powered generators is nuclear powered generators. At some point in the future that may change, but for now it's the only viable alternative.
1. Buy up hundreds of acres of coastal land in Northern Alaska. 2. Burn stuff as much as possible. 3. Enjoy the thought that your descendants in the 26th century will be fabulously wealthy.
So your solution to the problem of combustion releasing CO2 is to pass a new law? Seriously? Improvements to the grid? I think when people refer to solutions they are thinking in terms of real solutions not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic or some new US only law that taxes combustion.
Let me give you an example of something that at least approaches a real solution and, to be fair, some AGW folks actually do support it. Going 100% nuclear. Not just in the US but encouraging every country to do so. Even and especially countries that we might prefer did not have lots of spare plutonium lying around. In other words, France's model for electricity generation. Unless we invent some miraculous new power source it's going to happen anyway because the peak oil crisis is going to happen. So we may as well start preparing for that future now.
And although battery and fuel cell technology is not quite ready to compete directly with combustion engines, implementing high voltage overhead wires or an embedded "third rail" on the major highways and specially designed vehicles to match might be possible. High speed trains are often powered with electricity. I don't see why highways could not be turned into some kind of railway/highway hybrid using either a "third rail" solution on the ground or elevated wires to allow electric motors to run without batteries and perhaps even allow your batteries to charge while you are hooked up. And of course all the electricity would be supplied by the ubiquitous nuclear power plants and/or the occasional hydroelectric plant where appropriate.
Still, getting the whole planet to go along with this plan might be impossible. This is why the conversation tends to drift toward world governments and police states. Enforcement would be a bitch. Especially since proving AGW is close to impossible without a twin planet to use as a control. Any variation could be a natural variation. Even a 100 year or 1000 year warming trend. About the only thing I can think of that would convince everyone that AGW is real is an exponential runaway increase in temperature all over the world. Something dramatic and obvious. Like a 2 degree increase in year 1, a 4 degree increase in year 2, a 16 degree increase in year 3 etc. If something like that happened I would predict that phasing out fossil fuels would become a much easier sell. AGW would become a lot less controversial. Basically every year should be the hottest year on record not just in one particular region, but in all regions.
I'm a bit suspicious of your nearly 100% positive review of these machines. They have been proven to have a 50% false positive rate and they only work for things like wallets and belt buckles and not for flat pancakes of plastic explosive taped to your sides and maybe your stomach and back as well. You did read about Jon Corbett's test right?
So if you are interested in seeing who has the fattest wallets to steal from they are superb machines. If you want to prevent people from bringing high explosives on the aircraft they're not so good.Metal detectors are much better at detecting weapons. Neither machine is likely to detect explosives, but the metal detector has a better chance of detecting a detonator.
I would personally be willing to use a millimeter wave scanner with the auto detection software. I am not willing to use the x-ray machines or the mmw machines without the detection software. Nor am I willing to have my balls and ass crack fondled by some drooling horny closet homosexual. If the mmw false positives on me I would be willing to accept a very quick non-invasive, non-genital patdown. No touching "where the leg meets the body". No hands even near the crotch area. No scalp massages or under the waistband touching and no hands sliding up and down my crack. If the screener tries to sexually assault me by touching my genitals without my permission then my fist will meet his face. I have every right to defend myself against sexual assault.
Yes. The only reason any of us do not slaughter hundreds of innocent men, women, and children with a suicide bomb is because we have so much to live for. Very logical. That's why every suicide attempt always includes multiple homicides. Because if you're gonna die you may as well take as many people with you as possible. It's amazing that blowing yourself up in a particularly long and winding security line at the airport isn't more popular than it is. Thank god we have brave pedophile peeping tom pervs to protect us. They aren't working there to see naked 10 year old girls and touch people's genitals. They are there because they want to keep us safe. And anyone who questions that is a 'domestic extremist' who needs to be watched very closely by Homeland Security.
And for a bit more they can sell you some of the raw nude images of the most attractive young girls they recently scanned. For even more money you can opt to have a very thorough genital groping from a beautiful female screener. A former model hired just for that purpose. With these sorts of measures these expensive machines might actually pay for themselves eventually.
What is the problem of someone watching a shadow image of your genitalia?
Please post one of these 'shadow' images you refer to so that we can see for ourselves how shadowy they are. In fact they resemble black and white photographs far more than they do 'shadows'. While the images are not as wank-worthy as those from the x-ray scanners you can still see quite a lot.
Even if some agent chuckle a bit at your not-so-male panties or broccoli-shaped penis, what is the matter?
The problem is that not everyone wants to display their naked body in order to exercise their basic human right to travel freely. Yes, I know you are going to launch into some speech about how the right to travel is not protected by the constitution, and that it is merely a privilege which the government generously allows as long as you abide by its rules and that we are lucky that the government allows us to even leave our homes. Yet another privilege which can be revoked at any time for any reason.
Probably this sort of thing gets boring after some days having to look at this machine...
It gets boring in the same way that men become bored with seeing naked women. In the same way that porn gets boring. I'm sure you are right. I'm sure that there is not a single TSA employee who has ever been aroused by the images of a beautiful naked girl on the screen.
Supposedly Automatic Target Detection is software that analyzes the raw images themselves looking for anomalies. In Germany they found the system to result in something like a 50% false positive rate. So it's far from perfect. But the idea is to shut down the peep/perv/wank booths and replace the horny human pedophiles wanking to real images of little girl vaginas with a relatively indifferent computer program which won't be quite as titillated by thousands of naked bodies everyday. Of course the TSA is not exactly known for their honesty. Some believe that the peep booths will continue to operate and that the cartoon body would just be for show.
The amount of disinformation that has been modded up in the comments here is astounding even for slashdot. These are just facts and there is no reason for them to be controversial.
The wavelength of the L3 ProVision pornoscanner and Ka band police radar is in fact basically the same. Ka band radar is very slightly higher in frequency.
Just out of curiosity why do you believe that you cannot use the same wavelength of RF for doppler radar and imaging applications? I don't follow.
The devices you are referring to are not the same ones I was referring to. I was referring to the L3 Communications Provision scanners. You are referring to mostly passive Thz or active laser devices. Presumably those are not devices that you walk into, but devices that you aim at crowds of people or whatever. Another interesting link though.
We're talking hundreds of watts to kilowatts there.
Do you have a reference for police radar guns only having an output in milliwatts? I guess it's possible. I don't have any power output specs on them, but I would have guessed something in the 1-2 watt range. It doesn't really matter whether we are talking watts or milliwatts. I would still argue that bouncing RF off an object 6" away requires a lot less power than bouncing a beam off an object that is miles away. As far as the nude scanner having an output power from hundreds to thousands of watts that is almost certainly not the case. There is no reason for such high power levels. It wouldn't be cost effective.
Some people have been arrested, but not for trying to leave. Just typical trumped 'contempt of cop' charges for people who weren't sufficiently meek and servile in the presence of the pork.
In theory a 'double opt out', where you opt out of both the nudoscope and the genital grope, could result in a $10,000 fine, but they haven't yet fined anyone even $1.00 for it so far. So it's pretty unlikely to happen.
I have stayed away from airports since the introduction of the x-ray nudescanners and perv booths at my local airport, but when I do finally fly again I will definitely be double opting out of both the scope and the grope if I cannot manage to make it through the walk-through metal detector before being selected for the sexual humiliation line.
I think the simplest hypothesis is that the TSA screeners are the angry assholes. They are also typically pedophiles and just sick fucks in general. Who else would take a job fondling children's genitals.
Actually the frequencies aren't classified per se. L3 Communications had some kind of paper on their web site a while back which indicated the frequency of their mmw scanner was in the 27 - 30 Ghz range. Technically those frequences aren't even in the millimeter range which starts at 30 Ghz. The data was kind of hidden away IIRC. At the tale end of some PDF file perhaps. It took me some time to find it. It also wouldn't surprise me if they were asked to take down that information "out of an abundance of caution". I don't think I've seen any specs on the power output of the devices though. That would be very interesting indeed.
The strength of the RF field would of course be weaker the farther away you were, but the gun needs to work at a variety of distances from only 50 feet away to several miles LoS. So if you are being shot by the radar while you are a mile away then the signal will be relatively weak, but if you are being shot at from a cop car that is hidden from your view until you are just about to pass him and take a hit from less than 100 feet away then the signal will quite probably be very strong indeed. Also it's not like the cop is just going to shoot at you once while you are far away. He is going to be aiming at you continuously as you get closer and closer. Remember that the beam doesn't have to only make it to your car, it has to reflect off a very imperfect reflector with angled surfaces and a front grill etc and then travel all the way back to the gun, which in some cases might be miles away.The point is that if you believe mmw RF is dangerous then you had better encase your head in aluminum foil when you go out for a drive.
As for the car's body acting as a shield. It's highly questionable. It may be good enough to protect the device and if it were anything but a medical device that might be acceptable. If it were my life on the line I wouldn't want to rely on that. In terms of general safety concerns however you are getting shot right in the head by what quite probably is a much more powerful beam then the L3 mmw machines are capable of.
And as far as radar guns being mounted on a patrol car bumper, I have never seen that before. I was just clocked by a cop last night and he was aiming a handheld gun at me. Probably Ka band because those are the most popular these days. Here in New England the handheld guns seem to be the most popular. Probably either Ka band or laser.
Interesting link. I went through all 26 pages, but did not see any reference to your 3 Thz scanners. Are the scanners you are referring to made by L3 communications? Are you saying there are different models from L3 that make use of different frequencies? Or are you saying that there are mmw scanners at US airports that are not made by L3? I would very much like to see the specs you are referring to.
I think mmw imaging technology has been around for a while. Certainly from before 9/11. It just wasn't used in such a widespread manner. Until 9/11 imaging people's naked bodies would have been politically unacceptable. That's why it wasn't used until recently. Not because it's brand new technology. And 27-30 Ghz emitting devices in general have been around for decades.
I don't understand how this kind of thing could happen. Isn't the device shielded inside a metal case of some kind? If it's not then that is the problem. A medical device like that should be fully shielded. If the problem is that the device is unshielded then just wrapping it in aluminum foil before going through the scanner might work.
People will not stop trying to blow up planes just becasue the TSA is abolished.
They already have stopped, but it's not because of the TSA. It's because of this magic stone that I have. If anything happens to my stone we are all toast, but as long as I have it there will be no more terrorist attacks. Not ever. Do you feel better now? More secure? Safer?
Second, the circuitry wasn't designed for this sort of radiation, since it's never encountered outside a lab - as even the summary makes clear.
Not true that it isn't encountered outside a lab. Ka band police radar, automatic door operners, and certain satellite TV receivers emit RF at around the same frequency. Now, if you were talking about the rapescanners you'd have a point. I don't know of too many household devices that emit x-rays. The police radar thing is especially troubling. A direct hit from a radar gun would no doubt have an even stronger effect on the device. Not good. Sounds like the PC board in question needs better shielding.
Have you ever been clocked with police radar? Ka band radar is basically the same frequency as these L3 machines. The only difference is the mmw nudescanners are a lot less powerful. It only has to transmit a matter of inches. The radar guns are often designed to transmit as far as several miles with a strong enough return beam to travel all that distance back to the pork. Your windscreen may attenuate the signal to a small extent, but you are still exposed to more microwave energy than at the airport. Other devices in the 27 - 35 Ghz range are certain satellite dish receivers and automatic door openers in stores.
While I'm not in favor of these virtual strip search machines because they are overly intrusive and interfere with the basic human right to travel freely, and would even advocate murdering every last TSO and nailing their bodies to telephone polls with signs on their chest that say 'traitor' or maybe a copy of the constitution, the mmw machines are unlikely to be dangerous. The rapescanner x-ray cancer machines are certainly dangerous, but not the mmw machines.
So far nearly all the posts have been backing the clean hypothesis. My story is different. I grew up in a semi-rural suburb where I played outside a lot and our family always had dogs and for a while some parakeets as well. I used to catch crayfish and frogs and turtles and snakes and keep them as pets for a while.
I had severe allergies including asthma since I was maybe 6 or 7. It was around that time that I started taking allergy shots (immunotherapy). I took them for at least a few years I think with minimal to no change in the severity of my allergies.
From a very young age I grew up having to carry an inhaler with me everywhere and not being able to find it when I couldn't breathe was truly awful. Even now, in my 40s, I cannot sleep through the night without waking up because I'm not getting enough oxygen. This is despite the fact that I take large doses of inhaled corticosteroids (budesonide).
I've always been highly allergic to cats, but in my late teen years I became fascinated by them and decided to try to keep one. So I bought an 8 week old kitten and kept it for about a year before I gave up and finally gave her away. The reason I was able to keep the cat for so long was that I would bathe her at least once a week. Sometimes twice a week. Kittens are also known to be less allergenic than adult cats. I even tried one more time with a pure bred Devon Rex kitten and it did seem to make a significant difference, but I had to eventually sell her as well. Keeping a cat for an extended period of time did not seem to cure my allergies to them. It may have lessened them a little, but it's hard to say.
As an adult I have mainly kept parrots and an environment with birds isn't the cleanest one either. There was no shortage of down or feathers. I owned parrots for many years. I am only slightly allergic to them, but I am allergic to them and keeping them for years didn't change that. I also tend to live in a dirty environment with lots of dust and it hasn't improved my allergies. In fact over time my allergies seem to have been getting worse and worse.
My sister grew up in the same environment as I and she has never had any allergies. Not even hay fever. So I think congratulating ourselves that we have shown clean environments to be the cause of allergies is a bit premature.
OTOH there is this guy. He went to Cameroon to infect himself with hookworms and miraculously it seems to have worked for him. Based on my own experience, I think we are on the right track with the clean hypothesis, but we aren't there yet. I think the causes will eventually be shown to be a genetic predisposition to an overachieving immune system that makes you more likely to develop some kind of autoimmune disorder in your life combined with some specific triggers. Where I live now is certainly no more 'clean' in terms of dust and dirt than most of the homes I have visited in very poor countries. In fact I think it is less clean. I am not referring to huts with a dirt floor. I've never been inside one of those. I mean the regular housing in which average people live in the poor countries where I've lived.
I'm thinking in terms of some specific things like not washing your hands before eating. I have nearly always washed my hands before I touched food. In fact I probably started doing that around the same time that I developed allergies as a young kid. Clean water may be another trigger. In the poor countries I lived the water supply was not 100% clean all the time. Some people would always boil the water they used for drinking, but almost no one would use purified/boiled water for things like washing vegetables and dishes or tooth brushing or showering.
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Treaties wouldn't work without local laws. Laws that are actually enforced. Both laws and treaties are just pieces of paper. If I have a pile of cut and split wood in my backyard and I have a wood stove and it gets cold at night I am going to burn that wood. During the day neighbors might report you or a passing patrol car may notice, but at night it would be awfully hard to detect. I think you are seriously underestimating the difficulty in getting the entire population of the planet to agree on something that is extremely difficult to implement even in rich first world countries. Getting people to stop burning stuff is like asking people to stop eating sugar or salt. Pass all the laws you want. Many people will continue to burn things. There are some things that might be relatively easy to enforce. A country could outlaw ICE powered vehicles for instance. Police would have to actually enforce the law though. Once you have electrified roadways it would be a lot easier to sell people on the idea of electric only cars.
Are you seriously offering wind power as a substitute for fossil fuels? I find that awfully amusing. Perhaps if we learn how to control the weather so that everywhere in the world is as windy as Antarctica or Southern Patagonia. The only viable alternative to fossil fuel powered generators is nuclear powered generators. At some point in the future that may change, but for now it's the only viable alternative.
1. Buy up hundreds of acres of coastal land in Northern Alaska.
2. Burn stuff as much as possible.
3. Enjoy the thought that your descendants in the 26th century will be fabulously wealthy.
So your solution to the problem of combustion releasing CO2 is to pass a new law? Seriously? Improvements to the grid? I think when people refer to solutions they are thinking in terms of real solutions not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic or some new US only law that taxes combustion.
Let me give you an example of something that at least approaches a real solution and, to be fair, some AGW folks actually do support it. Going 100% nuclear. Not just in the US but encouraging every country to do so. Even and especially countries that we might prefer did not have lots of spare plutonium lying around. In other words, France's model for electricity generation. Unless we invent some miraculous new power source it's going to happen anyway because the peak oil crisis is going to happen. So we may as well start preparing for that future now.
And although battery and fuel cell technology is not quite ready to compete directly with combustion engines, implementing high voltage overhead wires or an embedded "third rail" on the major highways and specially designed vehicles to match might be possible. High speed trains are often powered with electricity. I don't see why highways could not be turned into some kind of railway/highway hybrid using either a "third rail" solution on the ground or elevated wires to allow electric motors to run without batteries and perhaps even allow your batteries to charge while you are hooked up. And of course all the electricity would be supplied by the ubiquitous nuclear power plants and/or the occasional hydroelectric plant where appropriate.
Still, getting the whole planet to go along with this plan might be impossible. This is why the conversation tends to drift toward world governments and police states. Enforcement would be a bitch. Especially since proving AGW is close to impossible without a twin planet to use as a control. Any variation could be a natural variation. Even a 100 year or 1000 year warming trend. About the only thing I can think of that would convince everyone that AGW is real is an exponential runaway increase in temperature all over the world. Something dramatic and obvious. Like a 2 degree increase in year 1, a 4 degree increase in year 2, a 16 degree increase in year 3 etc. If something like that happened I would predict that phasing out fossil fuels would become a much easier sell. AGW would become a lot less controversial. Basically every year should be the hottest year on record not just in one particular region, but in all regions.
And god forbid you live somewhere like Costa Rica or Colombia. Nothing at all grows down there.
I'm a bit suspicious of your nearly 100% positive review of these machines. They have been proven to have a 50% false positive rate and they only work for things like wallets and belt buckles and not for flat pancakes of plastic explosive taped to your sides and maybe your stomach and back as well. You did read about Jon Corbett's test right?
So if you are interested in seeing who has the fattest wallets to steal from they are superb machines. If you want to prevent people from bringing high explosives on the aircraft they're not so good.Metal detectors are much better at detecting weapons. Neither machine is likely to detect explosives, but the metal detector has a better chance of detecting a detonator.
I would personally be willing to use a millimeter wave scanner with the auto detection software. I am not willing to use the x-ray machines or the mmw machines without the detection software. Nor am I willing to have my balls and ass crack fondled by some drooling horny closet homosexual. If the mmw false positives on me I would be willing to accept a very quick non-invasive, non-genital patdown. No touching "where the leg meets the body". No hands even near the crotch area. No scalp massages or under the waistband touching and no hands sliding up and down my crack. If the screener tries to sexually assault me by touching my genitals without my permission then my fist will meet his face. I have every right to defend myself against sexual assault.
Yes. The only reason any of us do not slaughter hundreds of innocent men, women, and children with a suicide bomb is because we have so much to live for. Very logical. That's why every suicide attempt always includes multiple homicides. Because if you're gonna die you may as well take as many people with you as possible. It's amazing that blowing yourself up in a particularly long and winding security line at the airport isn't more popular than it is. Thank god we have brave pedophile peeping tom pervs to protect us. They aren't working there to see naked 10 year old girls and touch people's genitals. They are there because they want to keep us safe. And anyone who questions that is a 'domestic extremist' who needs to be watched very closely by Homeland Security.
And for a bit more they can sell you some of the raw nude images of the most attractive young girls they recently scanned. For even more money you can opt to have a very thorough genital groping from a beautiful female screener. A former model hired just for that purpose. With these sorts of measures these expensive machines might actually pay for themselves eventually.
I never quite understood this privacy thing.
Well you are certainly giving that impressiion.
What is the problem of someone watching a shadow image of your genitalia?
Please post one of these 'shadow' images you refer to so that we can see for ourselves how shadowy they are. In fact they resemble black and white photographs far more than they do 'shadows'. While the images are not as wank-worthy as those from the x-ray scanners you can still see quite a lot.
Even if some agent chuckle a bit at your not-so-male panties or broccoli-shaped penis, what is the matter?
The problem is that not everyone wants to display their naked body in order to exercise their basic human right to travel freely. Yes, I know you are going to launch into some speech about how the right to travel is not protected by the constitution, and that it is merely a privilege which the government generously allows as long as you abide by its rules and that we are lucky that the government allows us to even leave our homes. Yet another privilege which can be revoked at any time for any reason.
Probably this sort of thing gets boring after some days having to look at this machine...
It gets boring in the same way that men become bored with seeing naked women. In the same way that porn gets boring. I'm sure you are right. I'm sure that there is not a single TSA employee who has ever been aroused by the images of a beautiful naked girl on the screen.
Supposedly Automatic Target Detection is software that analyzes the raw images themselves looking for anomalies. In Germany they found the system to result in something like a 50% false positive rate. So it's far from perfect. But the idea is to shut down the peep/perv/wank booths and replace the horny human pedophiles wanking to real images of little girl vaginas with a relatively indifferent computer program which won't be quite as titillated by thousands of naked bodies everyday. Of course the TSA is not exactly known for their honesty. Some believe that the peep booths will continue to operate and that the cartoon body would just be for show.
The amount of disinformation that has been modded up in the comments here is astounding even for slashdot. These are just facts and there is no reason for them to be controversial.
The wavelength of the L3 ProVision pornoscanner and Ka band police radar is in fact basically the same. Ka band radar is very slightly higher in frequency.
Just out of curiosity why do you believe that you cannot use the same wavelength of RF for doppler radar and imaging applications? I don't follow.
The devices you are referring to are not the same ones I was referring to. I was referring to the L3 Communications Provision scanners. You are referring to mostly passive Thz or active laser devices. Presumably those are not devices that you walk into, but devices that you aim at crowds of people or whatever. Another interesting link though.
We're talking hundreds of watts to kilowatts there.
Do you have a reference for police radar guns only having an output in milliwatts? I guess it's possible. I don't have any power output specs on them, but I would have guessed something in the 1-2 watt range. It doesn't really matter whether we are talking watts or milliwatts. I would still argue that bouncing RF off an object 6" away requires a lot less power than bouncing a beam off an object that is miles away. As far as the nude scanner having an output power from hundreds to thousands of watts that is almost certainly not the case. There is no reason for such high power levels. It wouldn't be cost effective.
Some people have been arrested, but not for trying to leave. Just typical trumped 'contempt of cop' charges for people who weren't sufficiently meek and servile in the presence of the pork.
In theory a 'double opt out', where you opt out of both the nudoscope and the genital grope, could result in a $10,000 fine, but they haven't yet fined anyone even $1.00 for it so far. So it's pretty unlikely to happen.
I have stayed away from airports since the introduction of the x-ray nudescanners and perv booths at my local airport, but when I do finally fly again I will definitely be double opting out of both the scope and the grope if I cannot manage to make it through the walk-through metal detector before being selected for the sexual humiliation line.
I think the simplest hypothesis is that the TSA screeners are the angry assholes. They are also typically pedophiles and just sick fucks in general. Who else would take a job fondling children's genitals.
Actually the frequencies aren't classified per se. L3 Communications had some kind of paper on their web site a while back which indicated the frequency of their mmw scanner was in the 27 - 30 Ghz range. Technically those frequences aren't even in the millimeter range which starts at 30 Ghz. The data was kind of hidden away IIRC. At the tale end of some PDF file perhaps. It took me some time to find it. It also wouldn't surprise me if they were asked to take down that information "out of an abundance of caution". I don't think I've seen any specs on the power output of the devices though. That would be very interesting indeed.
The strength of the RF field would of course be weaker the farther away you were, but the gun needs to work at a variety of distances from only 50 feet away to several miles LoS. So if you are being shot by the radar while you are a mile away then the signal will be relatively weak, but if you are being shot at from a cop car that is hidden from your view until you are just about to pass him and take a hit from less than 100 feet away then the signal will quite probably be very strong indeed. Also it's not like the cop is just going to shoot at you once while you are far away. He is going to be aiming at you continuously as you get closer and closer. Remember that the beam doesn't have to only make it to your car, it has to reflect off a very imperfect reflector with angled surfaces and a front grill etc and then travel all the way back to the gun, which in some cases might be miles away.The point is that if you believe mmw RF is dangerous then you had better encase your head in aluminum foil when you go out for a drive.
As for the car's body acting as a shield. It's highly questionable. It may be good enough to protect the device and if it were anything but a medical device that might be acceptable. If it were my life on the line I wouldn't want to rely on that. In terms of general safety concerns however you are getting shot right in the head by what quite probably is a much more powerful beam then the L3 mmw machines are capable of.
And as far as radar guns being mounted on a patrol car bumper, I have never seen that before. I was just clocked by a cop last night and he was aiming a handheld gun at me. Probably Ka band because those are the most popular these days. Here in New England the handheld guns seem to be the most popular. Probably either Ka band or laser.
Interesting link. I went through all 26 pages, but did not see any reference to your 3 Thz scanners. Are the scanners you are referring to made by L3 communications? Are you saying there are different models from L3 that make use of different frequencies? Or are you saying that there are mmw scanners at US airports that are not made by L3? I would very much like to see the specs you are referring to.
I think mmw imaging technology has been around for a while. Certainly from before 9/11. It just wasn't used in such a widespread manner. Until 9/11 imaging people's naked bodies would have been politically unacceptable. That's why it wasn't used until recently. Not because it's brand new technology. And 27-30 Ghz emitting devices in general have been around for decades.
I don't understand how this kind of thing could happen. Isn't the device shielded inside a metal case of some kind? If it's not then that is the problem. A medical device like that should be fully shielded. If the problem is that the device is unshielded then just wrapping it in aluminum foil before going through the scanner might work.
the scanner produces 3 terahertz of radiowaves.
Uh. No they don't. Try 27-30 Ghz instead.
People will not stop trying to blow up planes just becasue the TSA is abolished.
They already have stopped, but it's not because of the TSA. It's because of this magic stone that I have. If anything happens to my stone we are all toast, but as long as I have it there will be no more terrorist attacks. Not ever. Do you feel better now? More secure? Safer?
Second, the circuitry wasn't designed for this sort of radiation, since it's never encountered outside a lab - as even the summary makes clear.
Not true that it isn't encountered outside a lab. Ka band police radar, automatic door operners, and certain satellite TV receivers emit RF at around the same frequency. Now, if you were talking about the rapescanners you'd have a point. I don't know of too many household devices that emit x-rays. The police radar thing is especially troubling. A direct hit from a radar gun would no doubt have an even stronger effect on the device. Not good. Sounds like the PC board in question needs better shielding.
Have you ever been clocked with police radar? Ka band radar is basically the same frequency as these L3 machines. The only difference is the mmw nudescanners are a lot less powerful. It only has to transmit a matter of inches. The radar guns are often designed to transmit as far as several miles with a strong enough return beam to travel all that distance back to the pork. Your windscreen may attenuate the signal to a small extent, but you are still exposed to more microwave energy than at the airport. Other devices in the 27 - 35 Ghz range are certain satellite dish receivers and automatic door openers in stores.
While I'm not in favor of these virtual strip search machines because they are overly intrusive and interfere with the basic human right to travel freely, and would even advocate murdering every last TSO and nailing their bodies to telephone polls with signs on their chest that say 'traitor' or maybe a copy of the constitution, the mmw machines are unlikely to be dangerous. The rapescanner x-ray cancer machines are certainly dangerous, but not the mmw machines.
So far nearly all the posts have been backing the clean hypothesis. My story is different. I grew up in a semi-rural suburb where I played outside a lot and our family always had dogs and for a while some parakeets as well. I used to catch crayfish and frogs and turtles and snakes and keep them as pets for a while.
I had severe allergies including asthma since I was maybe 6 or 7. It was around that time that I started taking allergy shots (immunotherapy). I took them for at least a few years I think with minimal to no change in the severity of my allergies.
From a very young age I grew up having to carry an inhaler with me everywhere and not being able to find it when I couldn't breathe was truly awful. Even now, in my 40s, I cannot sleep through the night without waking up because I'm not getting enough oxygen. This is despite the fact that I take large doses of inhaled corticosteroids (budesonide).
I've always been highly allergic to cats, but in my late teen years I became fascinated by them and decided to try to keep one. So I bought an 8 week old kitten and kept it for about a year before I gave up and finally gave her away. The reason I was able to keep the cat for so long was that I would bathe her at least once a week. Sometimes twice a week. Kittens are also known to be less allergenic than adult cats. I even tried one more time with a pure bred Devon Rex kitten and it did seem to make a significant difference, but I had to eventually sell her as well. Keeping a cat for an extended period of time did not seem to cure my allergies to them. It may have lessened them a little, but it's hard to say.
As an adult I have mainly kept parrots and an environment with birds isn't the cleanest one either. There was no shortage of down or feathers. I owned parrots for many years. I am only slightly allergic to them, but I am allergic to them and keeping them for years didn't change that. I also tend to live in a dirty environment with lots of dust and it hasn't improved my allergies. In fact over time my allergies seem to have been getting worse and worse.
My sister grew up in the same environment as I and she has never had any allergies. Not even hay fever. So I think congratulating ourselves that we have shown clean environments to be the cause of allergies is a bit premature.
OTOH there is this guy. He went to Cameroon to infect himself with hookworms and miraculously it seems to have worked for him. Based on my own experience, I think we are on the right track with the clean hypothesis, but we aren't there yet. I think the causes will eventually be shown to be a genetic predisposition to an overachieving immune system that makes you more likely to develop some kind of autoimmune disorder in your life combined with some specific triggers. Where I live now is certainly no more 'clean' in terms of dust and dirt than most of the homes I have visited in very poor countries. In fact I think it is less clean. I am not referring to huts with a dirt floor. I've never been inside one of those. I mean the regular housing in which average people live in the poor countries where I've lived.
I'm thinking in terms of some specific things like not washing your hands before eating. I have nearly always washed my hands before I touched food. In fact I probably started doing that around the same time that I developed allergies as a young kid. Clean water may be another trigger. In the poor countries I lived the water supply was not 100% clean all the time. Some people would always boil the water they used for drinking, but almost no one would use purified/boiled water for things like washing vegetables and dishes or tooth brushing or showering.
For many people allergy shots simply don't work. I took them for years. Expensive. A huge PITA. No effect. Of course they do work for some people..