Receive new posts as email.
RSS 0.91 | RSS 2.0
RDF | Atom
Podcast only feed (RSS 2.0 format)
Get an RSS reader
Get a Podcast receiver
| Sun | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator or JiWire, Inc.
Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2006 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.
Powered by
Movable Type
« Full Newsreader Feed of All WNN Blogs | Main | Ultrawideband Steps into Certification, Worldwide Use »
Those who claim that Wi-Fi gives them hives, the clap, finger-touching sensations, or shortness of breath have a choice: You can’t simply assert that electromagnetic radiation causes you problems. Asserting something repeatedly without proof or with, in fact, contrary evidence would be one of the definitions of insanity. Sanity requires proof. If this were a matter of religious faith, I would not be challenging you. Perhaps Wi-Fi is against your religion? Fine. The Church of the Anti-Faraday accepts all members (please leave your sabots outside). Even politicians may join.
And I am not opposed to the notion that some people are electromagnetically extra sensitive. It’s only reasonable, in fact, that that could be the case. But it’s easy to prove through double-blind studies. Simply turning off a Wi-Fi gateway in a classroom because a teacher complained about it, and having that “solve” that teacher’s problem is ignorance incarnate because hundreds or thousands of signals from other devices in similar bands are still operating, possibly at higher levels, in the same space.
So let’s just be clear. If you’re insane, make your hair all crazy, rant in the streets, and accuse the Kaiser of snooping on you. If you’re a reasonable member of society who is suffering and wants relief, agree to simple double-blind testing in which it can be clearly revealed whether another, possibly worse, health problem is the cause. Like Munchhausen’s Syndrome.
Update: A little more sanity from the Guardian on the fact that there are no specific studies on Wi-Fi and illness.
Posted by Glennf at November 29, 2006 11:37 AM
Categories: Health
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://db.isbn.nu/mt3/mt-tb.pl/4191
What an entire Watt or two of ERP? Please. Unless you are going to sit in front of the thing for hours at a time year round, I wouldn't be concerned about anything below 10 W. Realistically, anything below several hundred should be safe for fairly long periods of exposure. Meanwhile people forget that power diminishes exponentially over distance. At indoor WiFi gear power levels, once you get more than a meter away you are pretty damn safe.
Posted by: Jesse Kopelman at December 1, 2006 2:17 PM
Oh, yes, let's not be cute about actual microwave radiation risks. Above certain levels, microwaves are hazardous and scale up to lethal. But those levels are orders of magnitudes above what a home device would use. When you start putting parabolic antennas pushing out effective watts of directed power and then were to stand directly in front of an active receiver--that's above risky. (Vivato's design shouldn't have put too much power in any given location. Still. I would not have stood directly in front of it.)
Because signal strength varies by the inverse square of distance from a transceiver, standing a few feet away is much safer than adjacent. But it's still not advisable.
Posted by: Glenn Fleishman ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://wifinetnews.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 30, 2006 9:25 AM
Though I will say, whenever I stood infront of one of Vivato's panels, my scalp got all tingly. That and the BelAire AP200 Mini-Keg. We used to call both devices the "Self Sterilization Devices."
Posted by: Pete at November 30, 2006 9:15 AM
Here's the perfect rebuttal:
My career is in 802.11 devices. I spend 40-50 hours a week with data packets from at least 64 access points coursing through my body, as do all of my peers. (Yes, I've routinely seen AP scan lists that large.) If 802.11 RF was a health issue, the one place it would show up the most is where I work. If it's as bad as some of these people are arguing, all of us should be walking tumors by now.
And yet, we're all solidly in the healthy category. I literally can't think of ANY absenses by my co-workers that are fishy. Some of us have had children recently, all of whom are healthy.
I know that an anecdote does not imply a trend, but I'm witnessing 50 or so pretty strong anecdotes and they're all saying the same thing.
Posted by: Aaron at November 29, 2006 6:30 PM