WiFi Fear Kills Free Local WiFi Plan
from the this-again? dept
Every so often we hear stories about very concerned adults freaking out over the supposed "harm" that WiFi does. The latest, as pointed out by Broadband Reports is that a bunch of folks up in Sebastopol (a ways north of San Francisco) have convinced the town to cancel plans for an ISP to offer free WiFi in the downtown area. This wasn't "muni-WiFi." This was just an ISP that asked for, and was granted, permission to put up some free WiFi access points in the downtown area. There are just a few problems with this, with the first one being the simple fact that there's no evidence that WiFi does any harm whatsoever or is even noticeable by those who claim "electrical sensitivity." Double-blind tests have showed that those who claimed they could sense the electricity cannot. The radiation from a year's worth of WiFi is equal to 20 minutes on a mobile phone, and even the health implications of mobile phone radiation is very much in dispute. However, the real killer point is that you can bet that there's already probably plenty of WiFi "radiation" in the same downtown area from any local store that probably set up its own WiFi network.![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
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Filed Under: electrical sensititivity, sebastopol, wifi
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Rediculous
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Tin foil hats for Sebastopol
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As Rome fell
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Frankenstien's Monster
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So if wi-fi were harmful, I'd probably be growing some strange tumors by now wouldn't I? Being that I've constantly been exposed to it for over half a decade.
Morons.
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No tumors so far! *crosses fingers*
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Leave your info.
(your comment is awesome - I'm using that somewhere)
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maybe they should check for black magic instead!
Kinda makes you wonder if the shaman has any relation to the electrosensitivity folks? At least logic wise.
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Wacko Fanatics...
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The only thing we have to fear....
I'm sure godless, commie, free software, and ESR, are banned there as well.
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Feed the fear
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Really Ignorant
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When it comes to outrage, simply spouting off numbers like a robot only increases the publics' outrage, regardless of the accuracy of the numbers.
As idiotic as the public may seem, the city/company has to acknowledge the outrage and bring the public into the discussion to reach a mutually agreeable conclusion. Usually, giving the public some form of control over the operation goes a long way to silencing the critics, or better yet, making them part of the solution. It's a pain in the ass, but much better than having no wi-fi.
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Studies have shown they actually amplify 2.4GHz signals... they only block older 700-900MHz signals.
I'm pretty sure 802.11x uses 2.4GHz
HAHAHAHAHA
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What about...
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Hippies
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Nothing New
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Hey.....
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I Was In Sebastopol Last Weekend
The thing is, most former hippies have realized that their views were a little extreme back in the day, and moderated somewhat as they re-entered the mainstream. Those that remain are the extreme, die-hard hippies, and a new generation of neo-hippies.
The radiation expert above who said: "You have a better chance of getting radiated just by being out in the sun." This is true -- especially since these Sebastopol-types won't wear sunblock "because it's carcinogenic".
These types find the boogie-man in every vestige of modern life. They ache for a simpler time, when technology and mass production didn't de-humanize mankind. You know, a simpler time like the feudal system, the days of the black plague, the dark ages, slavery, the great ol' caveman days of yore...where life expectancy was 34 years, you had as many human rights as you could beat with a club, and bathing occurred every time you fell in the river.
Really. There are extremists on the Right Wing of politics who seem to ache for a "simpler time", these 1950s perfect crew-cut years, even if they were barely an ephemeral whisper in the 400,000 year history of mankind. Meanwhile, the hippies on the other end of the spectrum, yearn for a simpler time that never existed.
Sad to say it people, but yearning for unlikely outcomes, when you are but one of six billion, is kinda self-indulgent. Get on the bus, or get hit by the bus.
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Education failure
For fear of transgenic products, the stupidity is the same.
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FREE WIFI
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Illogically Scared
> bet that there's already probably plenty of
> WiFi "radiation" in the same downtown area from
> any local store that probably set up its own
> WiFi network.
Exactly.
This is roughly analogous to the folks who make such a huge deal out of smokers who stand near the entrances to buildings and smoke. They complain about the health effects of having to walk through a noxious cloud of smoke as they go into or out of a building, all the while oblivious to the fact that the pollution from the exhaust pipes of cars and trucks passing by not 10 feet away on the street is a hundred times more noxious and the average time of exposure is far greater than the 2 seconds it takes to walk through someone's cigarette smoke, which (when outside) begins to attenuate almost immediately.
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Now, like all of the HIPPIES from 'back in the day' - the ones that survived - became capitalist yuppie pig yogurt shop owners - educating their young to hate America. Bad america - Good money. HA!
What a sad joke!
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...
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WIFI
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Reality vs. Morality vs. Society
You are born, you hope to mature, and you die.
The real question is:
Did you do your best to live your life the way you wanted, and did you help those you could, live thier life the way they wanted.
The answer is:
How would we know if you didn't blog it! You didn't blog it because there wasn't FREE Wi-Fi downtown and you were hit by a drunk driver on the way home to your desktop with it's own radiation poising you from the monitor...
Hmmm. Wonder if the Amish have it figured out.
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