Electro-sensitive people want to ban WiFI
A group of self-described "electro-sensitives" in New Mexico say they are being discriminated against because public buildings such as libraries have Wi-Fi in them, and they claim that WI-Fi make them sick.
Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones.I wish someone would run a test on these electro-sensitive people by putting them in a room and then asking them to say when a Wi-Fi access point under a box in the room is on or off. Link (Thanks, Sally Airy!)"I get chest pain and it doesn't go away right away," he said.
Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The city attorney is now checking to see if putting up Wi-Fi could be considered discrimination.
Previously on Boing Boing:
• Town of Sebastopol, CA rescinds resolution to provide public Wifi
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Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields
[citation needed]
Don't forget shielding the room from the electro-magnetic fields that are present throughout all of america, where ever we go. I'd say we just pass out some tin-foil hats and call it a day.
"I wish someone would run a test on these electro-sensitive people by putting them in a room and then asking them to say when a Wi-Fi access point under a box in the room is on or off."
You're in luck - they did:
http://www.badscience.net/?p=470
Hrm. I would give them a pamphlet that describes how to build a Farraday cage, and then tell them to feck off. :)
In this respect, I consider myself calmer and more rational than 90% of the people they've no doubt encountered. :)
"I wish someone would run a test on these electro-sensitive people by putting them in a room and then asking them to say when a Wi-Fi access point under a box in the room is on or off."
Dude, it's less work to search wikipedia than to type that sentence, come on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrosensitivity#Etiology_and_evidence
The answer is: they can't tell the difference in a double-blind study. I think the real culprit is evil spirits.
yeah and a lady in New York says that genetically engineered crops can read her thoughts...
...why is this even news??
I'm allergic to United States Postal Service vehicles, buildings, and personnel. the main symptom is dry mouth, chapped lips, and the taste of glue in my... oh... never mind.
why is this even news??
So you're saying that 'news' is only that which interests you? I'm not sure that everyone else is really ready to get on board with that definition.
IDCSESU - shots!
A UK study (funded by both government and cell industry sources) was very tightly controlled and used a lot of cross-discipline resources to produce a well-regarded study that showed two significant results. Subjects were closely monitored physically, and were tested in carefully designed shielded rooms using equipment that could generate a variety of signals. (I link to a PDF of the study and a longer analysis on my Wi-Fi blog.)
The first, previously produced in over 2 dozen other studies (see Badscience link in comments above), and not found in just a handful, was that there was no correlation between control and electrosensitive subjects and either their perception of when a signal was present nor when a signal was present. (That is, there was no correlation between someone saying a signal was present and a signal being present, nor was there a relationship between physical symptoms being measured and the presence of a signal.)
Second, researchers found that there absolutely were physical symptoms manifesting themselves. It will be up to future studies to figure out whether those symptoms are from otherwise undetermined conditions that may afflict some or all people who believe they are electrosensitive, but this was the first study to show definitely that unassociated with the signals people had significant changes in pulse, breathing, etc.
The researchers involved have recommend further studies to try to determine what is causing those symptoms, if anything. Those who have decided that electrosensitivity is a real condition deconstruct all studies that don't confirm their belief. The few tests that seem to indicate sensitivity or fail to find no correlation are seized upon, even though they are a small minority of all clinical work, and are irreproducible by later testing.
As other commenters have noted, people are bombarded by signals all the time. In recent weeks, it's become clear to me how many signals are just like Wi-Fi (similar encoding, similar frequencies) and yet at higher signal strengths, but without the visual cue of seeing a Wi-Fi base station or knowing one is nearby. Wi-Fi uses extremely low power levels, really just above the thermal noise floor.
Meanwhile, television, radio stations, cellular base stations (800 MHz, 1.7 GHz to 2.1 GHz), WiMax (2.3, 2.5, and 3.5 GHz, among other frequencies), and other technologies are bombarding cities. While one could argue being 10 feet from a Wi-Fi base station provides more exposure than being 1,000 feet from a cell tower, many people live quite close to cell towers, or walk or drive by them constantly. The level of sensitivity claimed by some people is not credible when examined alongside the doses of EMF they are constantly exposed to outside of Wi-Fi.
Microwave ovens use the same frequency band that WiFi does, and most ovens leak enough to ruin WiFi reception in the same room. Do these "electrosensitive people" get the same symptoms in the presence of a microwave oven? Ditto for some wireless telephones.
hwwallpp! one shot too many, sorry.
Baby and bathwater time. Some of this is crank-bait, but the other end isn't so clear. We need more rigorous double blind testing to establish frequencies, energy levels, exposures, specific sensitivities etc. etc. My thoughts: wifi: not likely. Standing in front of a radar transmitter: Oh Yeah. Quarter million volt power lines? Would you take the chance with your kids? Cell phone tower over your bedroom? Who knows? Been a while since I read "Waldo".
Dere! You see dat dere Fleishman at Number Niner up dere? Dat's the bunny! More of dat dere science stuff.
ooh, do I get to be the first to say 'astroturf'?
So who benefits from no more free wi-fi? That's right, the telcos who have been fighting it tooth and nail.
The only question worth asking here is which of the telcos is funding these losers.
I can *hear* wi-fi. Or rather the sound any of the routers I`ve encountered emit when on. (Not just plugged in - only when the wi-fi is turned on.)
I can also hear my cell phone when it is sending a signal.
I highly doubt it`s the actual signal I`m hearing - more likely some other bit of the electronics... but it is still very annoying. Back when we were on ADSL and the best connection was from the outlet in the corner of the bedroom, I would have to turn the router off in order to get any sleep. The shrill electronic tones and buzzing would keep me awake.
Of course my husband can`t hear a thing.
That said - I highly doubt this is an actual case of people becoming ill as a direct result of the signal. I`d guess it`s more of a phobia or anxiety disorder.
I'm allergic to bullshit and pseudoscience, clearly these people must be banned in public places.
I think this is a point at which we just have to say to the "electrosensitive" "tough turkeys". The public good of free wifi far outweighs the minor symptoms of a handful of complainers.
I take a similar position with carbon nanotubes, which were recently shown to have some asbestos-like qualities, at least when beyond a certain length. Unless all the hype over this wonder-material is unwarranted, I'd gladly trade a few more people getting lung cancer for faster computers, etc. Who knows? Perhaps the cure for such cancers will be more easily attained thanks to the performance increases that nanotubes offer.
More generally, I'm sick and tired of people in the "disability rights" movement trying to muck up society for the rest of us. Yes, disabilities are at least partly social constructs, but it's absurd for society to accommodate itself to a handful of abnormal people who could receive medical treatment as an alternative. And if they can't now, in the near future technologies will probably cure everything from paralysis to "electrosensitivity".
Penn & Teller dissect the problems with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Idiots like these is why we can't have nice things.
This clearly shows why the argument that anyone introducing a new technology must prove that there is absolutely no risk is bogus:
You can prove that the particular individuals you test did not react to a given frequency at a given time, but you can't prove that all individuals will be insensitive to all frequencies at all times.
When I was a kid and really didn't want to go to school, I'd claim I was sick to my stomach. I wasn't when I first decided to be sick, but within an hour or two I discovered I could "will" myself into a real stomachache. I'm not sure why I bothered, but it wasn't that hard.
It's easy to trick yourself into thinking you have a symptom. It's even easy to induce a symptom when you think there's a cause for it.
Last year I was visiting a cottage near a farm. I'm extremely allergic to horses, and when the wind shifted and I got a whiff of barn, I was sure I was starting to have an asthma attack. It's hard to tell at first, so I asked -- no, no horses, just cows. My "symptoms" went away.
I can hear some light bulbs and various other electronics that should be silent. If you hear that X might be dangerous and you can perceive X when you shouldn't be able to, and then you notice some ache or pain that you're not used to, it's easy to think that X is hurting you.
(On the other hand, my mom suffered from migraines for years. The cause turned out to be people smoking in the office... and they quickly subsided once that was banned. She never imagined that was the reason. She thought it was peanut butter.)
What the hell is it with the state of my birth and people claiming bizarre phenomena like this? Don't forget the Taos Hum.
Spinobot
More generally, I'm sick and tired of people in the "disability rights" movement trying to muck up society for the rest of us.
Don't be so quick to judge. As brisbanedavey pointed out this could easily be a case of astroturfing. Wealthy individuals or more likely corporations will set up front groups with an eye to either promoting or discrediting a particular agenda.
Free WiFi cutting into your profits? No problem! Just find some highly suggestible people, the more delusional the better, and encourage them that their imaginary illness is real. Fund their operations and point them in the direction of city hall. Hello profits!
Front groups on Scource Watch
Astroturfing on Wiki
Millions of people are allergic to all sorts of various plant life. I suppose by these people's logic we should scorch the earth of all plant life so those with plant alergies won't have to deal with them. Oh hey, lets not forget all the people that suffer from pet dander alergies. Lets kill off all those pesky animals while we're at it too. Yup, scorch off all the plant life and kill all the animals. That should do it.
#14 - Switching power supplies are a common culprit. Many people can't hear the high frequencies much past adolescence. I'm 31 and still hear them pretty well most of the time. Expect to run into this more often as energy saving regulations force adoption of these in favor of less efficient but quieter transformers. Most of them are getting better, but cheap ones still suck.
I designed a Geiger counter with a higher voltage version of one of these supplies, and the whine bugs the heck out of me. It's just some kind of mechanical resonance in the components at that frequency. Shifting the frequency lessens it, but reduces the efficiency of the power transfer in my particular design.
On the cell phone, crosstalk from the digital circuits into the audio output is a possibility. Keeping the two separate can be a pain.
I used to answer my old phone before it rang because I could hear the slight interference with the car radio as the phone acknowledged the incoming call. Don't discount your brain's ability to pick up on things like that without conscious awareness.
If you taser an electro-sensitive person do they explode?
Chest pain? Sounds like a panic attack. A panic attack caused by the fear of electronic equipment that they don't understand. Or a fear of hoity-toity coffee shops.
I have a friend who gets headaches when he's close to active wifi components. I'd like to say I'm surprised by the vitriol expressed by some people in this comments thread, but I imagine it's similar to what people say whenever something new happens and people don't understand it's implications. To assume that we somehow 'know' that the radiation all these devices emit isn't harmful is absurd. We're always discovering new things and new interactions between things we don't understand. Asbestos, cause cancer? DDT, cause mutant babies? Lead? Dozens of drugs that have been approved and assumed safe? I mean, it goes on and on...
Jeff, wifi has been around for several years now. I have no reason to doubt that your friend gets headaches near wifi equipment. But... has he done any studies about the cause of these headaches? I mean, how close does he have to be to a wireless router? Does he experience symptoms when he's close to a running microwave oven, cell phone, high-tension power line, electronic automobile ignition system, etc?
I think you are maybe mistaking "vitriol" for incredulity here. Most of us who use the internet these days are constantly in proximity to wifi equipment. And I'd venture to say that the VAST majority of us notice no symptoms. It may very well be that there are electro-sensitive people, but what are the odds that there are is an organized group of them in Santa Fe, NM?
(Well, considering its Santa Fe, I guess its not that surprising, what if it was a group in Chagrin Falls instead?)
@Jeff Kramer:
When asking the rest of society to expend resources to accomodate your friend's disability, the burden of proof is on your friend to show that his disability actually exists, and that it is an effect of the claimed cause thereof.
I am hypersensitive to AM radio signals, but not FM. However, the sensitivity seems to disappear when I am under an overpass or in a tunnel. Any thoughts as to why that might happen? I am also allergic to short waves and neutrino emissions. Any suggestions?
Wow. Didn't take too long to move from criticizing the dubious claims of some psychosomatics (or astroturfers) to more general dislike of the "abnormal."
I'm going to be very generous and hope that this comment is limited to suggest that "electrosensitive" folks may need psychotherapy. Or is this really a more general gripe about those unaesthetically deformed people who insist on taking all the good parking spaces?
More generally, I'm sick and tired of people in the "disability rights" movement trying to muck up society for the rest of us.
Until the day it's you, that'll change your tune in a hurry. Or will you do us all a favor and take yourself out? Who does Stephen Hawking think he is anyway?
For much of human history my myopia would make me "disabled", blind even. But I can be a productive member of society by wearing my "crutches", eyeglasses.
There's a line in the film 'Jeffrey' that goes something like, Someday you'll be old and have bad hips, and I'll have the baseball bat. Hubris only makes the fall bigger.
Noen, you must admit that there is a difference between you wearing glasses and everyone having to give up their wireless routers.
For my friend, proximity is a big issue, but so is activity. He doesn't seem to have issues with microwaves, but cell phones do effect him. Microwaves typically only operate for a minute or so at most, it takes on the order of 15-30 minutes for his headaches to manifest. Tech conferences, especially the hallway wififests like SXSW really wipe him out. While I don't agree with 'lets ban wifi everywhere', every time I see someone with an ethernet cable 6 inches from their computer who can't be bothered to plug it in, I have to wonder what we're doing to ourselves. Wireless it great and all, but would you really be surprised in 5 or 10 years if the sudden rise in cases of autism in the US was found to be a result of cell phone or wifi radiation? Stranger things have happened. To assume we completely and fundamentally know how these technologies effect us is incredibly presumptive.
"It may very well be that there are electro-sensitive people, but what are the odds that there are is an organized group of them in Santa Fe, NM?"
I guess that depends on exactly what your definition of "vast majority" is and the actual statistics of Santa Fe, NM.
First off, I think electrosensitivity is probably psychosomatic bullshit. Now that that's out of the way, I'm shocked at some of the anti-disability stuff I'm seeing here.
@#16 Spinobobot said: "More generally, I'm sick and tired of people in the "disability rights" movement trying to muck up society for the rest of us. Yes, disabilities are at least partly social constructs, but it's absurd for society to accommodate itself to a handful of abnormal people who could receive medical treatment as an alternative. And if they can't now, in the near future technologies will probably cure everything from paralysis to "electrosensitivity"."
So we shouldn't accommodate disabled people because "in the near future technologies will probably cure everything"? But what if I want to go to a restaurant tonight? Rather then build a ramp, we should wait for the utopian future when there's no more disability? I hope I misunderstood your point.
@#17 Zuzu said: "The issue at hand here, I think, is that it's impossible to transform the whole environment of the earth to be "handicapped accessible". Particularly when those same economic resources could be brought to bear on helping people with disabilities to use personal technologies to overcome them -- such as with Dean Kamen's wheelchair that could climb up and down steps."
This is the classic straw-man argument that people make to defend not making accommodations. "Oh well, wheelchairs just can't go everywhere." I don't know of anyone who asked for the whole world to be made accessible. Generally, we're just concerned about public places. Again, the answer is to make the disability go away in some way. That's all well and good, but what if that bathroom isn't big enough and I really need to pee NOW?
P.S. I researched Dean Kamen's iBot wheelchair and it can't accommodate the tray I would need to hold my ventilator. Bummer.
I don't find the idea that some people might be able to detect wifi to be particularly preposterous. For me the issue is how an individual interprets it. Think about that mosquito sounding teenager repellent. Some people can't hear it enough to identify it as sound, but can still sense something. They may have symptoms such as headache or nausea from it. If you can sense something, but you have absolutely no frame of reference to figure out what it is, your mind may essentially assign it to one or more of your senses, causing sensations which might be unpleasant. I wonder if the problem could be addressed via some kind of cognitive therapy. Since it's unlikely that the wifi is actually harmful, perhaps the sufferers could be trained to recognize and dismiss it, much like one might do with the symptoms of a panic attack.
Zippy, well played, sir/ma'am. Thank you.
Still, in the Penn & Teller bit, they also showed that most places cannot accommodate an iron lung. Should public places have to accommodate that? Do accommodations have to be demanded by virtual gunpoint? What do you think of the line of argument that when government mandates something, people stop feeling responsible for it at a personal level? I can't recall how many times I've become frustrated with people because they tell me that malnutrition and homelessness were things "the government has programs for", so they didn't have to do anything about it themselves.
Hmm... does Dean Kamen (or someone) also make a smaller / more portable ventilator that could attach to the iBot wheelchair?
I went to school for interior architecture/design where I studied accessible design, among other things. One of the things that was immediately obvious to most students was that accessible design was almost always better design for everyone. Given the cost of urban real estate, do you know how narrow corridors and doorways would be, how tiny the bathrooms would be, if it weren't for ADA? The overwhelming majority of accessible design features have made public spaces more pleasant and usable for people of every level of ability.
In the private sphere, disabled users have forced builders and manufacturers to notice, for instance, that not every human being is 5'6" tall. Accessible design has been a key factor in the break-up of the 'one size fits all' mentality. Forty years ago, you couldn't get a kitchen counter or a bathroom sink in anything other than standard height. You couldn't, until recently, find a door lever for home use in the US without having it custom made or going to a commercial outlet and begging them to sell you one. The death of the round doorknob is, in itself, sufficient reason to be thankful that accessible design has trickled into everyday life.
I can hear electronics as well, and no one believes me. Wifi routers, strong ones anyway, I can hear very clearly.
It doesn't bother me enough to whine about. I just stick my router in a pressboard cabinet. Radio gets out, sound doesn't.
I did have a printer once, though, that I couldn't even keep plugged in when I wasn't using it. The sound just bored into my skull. I tried to get it replaced under warranty, but no one else could hear it. That's when I found out that this thing I'd always taken for granted was actually pretty rare, and that the poor sales clerk though she was dealing with a crazy person.
Then I realized it must suck to actually be crazy, because that's how people treat you all the time, but you totally believe that those crops can read your mind.
#14 - I know exactly what you mean. I used to hear the tube (not the sound) from my sisters TV a room away. Annoying.
#23 - spot on.
You win a point for that Onion link, Zuzu. Unfortunately, you lose two points for that iron lung strawman. The ADA only requires accommodations that are "readily achievable" (and that's a rather flexible standard--a corporate office building can more readily achieve greater accessibility than a fishing camp in rural Montana. The mean old government is not going to require the fishing camp to pave a trail for wheelchairs, much less iron lungs, but the corporate HQ damn well better have wide doors on its bathrooms).
I think that's the line of reasoning that caused people pushing for the ADA to crawl up the steps of the US Capitol.
Or are you suggesting that those government-mandated wheelchair ramps are depriving disabled people of the opportunity to build some character? (Hey, this straw-man thing is kind of fun!)
I like P&T, but this is a fundamental area where we disagree. They're libertarian, which is a political mindset that I agree with about half of. In criminally oversimplified terms, they want the government to leave people alone. When that means "stop telling people how to live," I can support that. When it means "stop helping people," I draw the line.
My view is that government mandates shouldn't make people stop feeling responsibility to help each other. It's a sloppy answer, I know, but without getting too preachy, I think everyone has a responsibility to help everyone else. Regardless, if you take away the legal protections, I think it might take a generation or two for the universal ethical responsibility to kick in. That's a long time to hold your pee.
As for smaller vents, my brother (who has the same weird, unknown form of muscular dystrophy as I do) has tried several different models, some the size of laptops, but none have worked for him. Sucks, huh?
This is now my favorite BB post EVAR.
Wait - I have a grass allergy, and there's no doubt about the physiological effects.. can I make libraries dig up their lawns??
@16: Oh no! You've discovered our evil scheme.
But seriously, as a disabled person I can assure you that many (I'd say most) of us are doing our damndest to be as non-"abnomal" as possible. No one understands better than a disabled person how badly a disability can muck things up.
Penn and Teller are just entertainers. They will change their politics the moment being arrogant dickwads stops being profitable for them. Can't happen soon enough.
One of the more salient points that the disabled libertarian in the P&T piece mentioned is that maybe (okay, he didn't say "maybe," but then, libertarians rarely do) societal resources would be better focused on helping come up with technologies that would allow disabled people to negotiate the difficulties of facilities designed for "normal" people on their own. Kamen's stair-climbing wheelchair may not be perfect, but it's a step (no pun intended) in the right direction.
Sometimes there is no reasonable way to retrofit existing facilities, particularly given the oft-considerable individually-borne cost versus the oft-limited benefit to a tiny population. I worked for one nonprofit headquartered in an old New York brownstone that was forced by the ADA to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars installing a wheelchair elevator to go down three steps at the entrance. There was no way to put in a ramp at an acceptable angle. As far as I know, the elevator has not been used to this date. And what for? To preserve the illusion of self-reliance and dignity of a hypothetical someone who feels put out by having to be helped down a few steps? Making other people spend shitloads of money just for a thing you can push the button on yourself is a pretty fucked-up notion of "self-reliance." I get P&T's point about how this might engender resentment at the expense of empathy.
What's the cost of making every public accomodation compliant with the ADA regulations (after which they still wouldn't be accessible to some) versus the cost of improving wheelchair/artificial limb/iron lung technology to the point where such compliance would be a moot point?
Lastly, regardless of the underlying philosophy, if the ADA's implementation is such that it gives arbitrary people standing to collect damages for noncompliance (and my understanding is that actual damages need not be proven -- i.e., noting that a toilet handrail is an inch too low is sufficient, even if the handrail height didn't result in any damage) before allowing an establishment to rectify its noncompliant situation, then it is flawed and does not appropriately fulfill its stated function.
Life has become so good for the gimps in wheel chairs, that I am going to have a bullet shot into my lower spine so I can use cheap tickets to get the good locations at sporting events and other recreational events with the other gimps in wheel chairs. I go to baseball games and at the price of a $10 tickets, those crip fucks are sitting in $50 seats! I was at Wolftrap the other night and paid $55 for my ticket just to see those gimps pay $25 for just as good as a seat! Can you believe the discrimination against us non-wheel chair challenged folk? Well I hope you join me by showing how ridiculous this liberal "accommodation" crap is by having enough of us cripple ourselves so that the majority is getting this "accommodation." Who's with me?
As mentioned, having good high frequency hearing can be extremely annoying.
Switching power supplies, CFL ballasts, and many CRTs have often driven me up the wall. Many folks dont hear a thing.
Hello,
for your information, in France the national library in Paris de-activated all its wifi stations after employees complained about headaches and other bad health conditions appearing after the system was put in place. They are supposed to go back to wired connectivity.
Best regards,
Jeremie.
wonder if a cheap anti-noise signal generator is available?
@48: I heard Penn say that himself. "You don't want me as a spokesman for your Conservative cause. If the other side has a better case I'm likely to switch." or words to that effect. Then he levitated my girlfriend. Seriously.
Stöckenius, S., & Brugger, P. (2000). Perceived Electrosensitivity and Magical Ideation. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 90, 899-900.
We report, in 40 healthy right-handed men, an association between perceived sensitivity to weak electromagnetic fields and scores on the Magical Ideation scale, assessing experience of and beliefs in forms of causation that are nonexistent according, to current scientific standards (r=.48, p=.002). Based on our previous research, we interpret this finding as reflecting human subjects' propensity to assume connections between own organismic state and (objectively unrelated) environmental variables. We emphasize, however. the need for studies which directly assess accuracy in detection of electromagnetic fields as a function of self-rated electrosensitivity.
Dear Hypochondriacs:
Please take ownership of your problem.
Thanks,
Me.
Do these sensitive people also object to radios, TVs, toasters, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, etc?
What's the cost of making every public accomodation compliant with the ADA regulations (after which they still wouldn't be accessible to some) versus the cost of improving wheelchair/artificial limb/iron lung technology to the point where such compliance would be a moot point?
Oh, I get it now. Instead of a law that requires building designers to accommodate disabled people, you want a "disability tax" which will take the money that would have been used to make those accommodations and instead spend it on scientific grants. Either that, or your suggesting that building designers would voluntarily put that money towards disability research if they weren't required to spend it on building accommodations, which is patently absurd.
I can see how that would greatly improve feelings of personal responsibility for accommodating disabilities. Instead of designing our own buildings to provide accommodations in the ways we feel are most suited to the architecture, we just fork the money over to the government and have them deal with the problem through Science.
I think you're criticizing the wrong thing here. You don't really have a problem with the implementation strategy of the ADA, you have a problem with disabled people being helped by the government at all.
It's easy to sympathize with people who have physical challenges; those problems are readily apparent. Less obvious are the unintended consequences and costs born for everyone else.
That's essentially the libertarian argument in a nutshell; that government action merely sweeps the problem under a rug. c.f. What is Seen and What is Unseen by Frédéric Bastiat.
Sure does. I'm assuming ventilators are considered a "medical device" by the FDA. I can tell you first hand that slows down development and raises costs both ten fold. Dean Kamen's iBot wheelchair is an excellent example of that problem, actually.As a Santa Fe resident, I don't think they've even managed to get the wireless running in all of the public libraries here.
Thus, if they're complaining about wireless internet in the libraries, I think they're just making it up.
@#50 MikeLotus said: "Life has become so good for the gimps in wheel chairs, that I am going to have a bullet shot into my lower spine so I can use cheap tickets to get the good locations at sporting events and other recreational events with the other gimps in wheel chairs. I go to baseball games and at the price of a $10 tickets, those crip fucks are sitting in $50 seats! I was at Wolftrap the other night and paid $55 for my ticket just to see those gimps pay $25 for just as good as a seat! Can you believe the discrimination against us non-wheel chair challenged folk? Well I hope you join me by showing how ridiculous this liberal "accommodation" crap is by having enough of us cripple ourselves so that the majority is getting this "accommodation." Who's with me?"
I hope this was a failed attempt at Colbertian irony because if not...wow! Where to start? First off, "gimp" and "crip" are pretty harsh epithets. It's semi-equivalent to the N-bomb so, yeah, thanks for dragging an intelligent debate into the gutter. Second, I'm wondering where these venues are with such incredible handicapped seating because every concert, sporting event, etc. I've been to has stuffed the wheelchairs into the nosebleed section. But really if saving money on seats is so important to you that you'd be willing to radically alter your entire life, then by all means, lock and load, bud.
@#59 Zuzu said (among other things): "...I'm assuming ventilators are considered a "medical device" by the FDA. I can tell you first hand that slows down development and raises costs both ten fold. Dean Kamen's iBot wheelchair is an excellent example of that problem, actually."
Laptop-sized vents already exist, they just don't work on our quirky anatomy, so if there's money going toward research, I think it should go towards new treatments and devices. The vents we have work fine, they just don't fit on an iBot, which isn't a big enough incentive for me to look for something new. I'm an "if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it" kinda guy, especially when it comes to machines that keep me alive. That's why I think that things like ramps and wider doors are preferable solutions.
As for the three-step chairlift mentioned @#49, I'm curious as to why a ramp wasn't possible. Also, I doubt it's a matter of anyone "feel[ing] put out by having to be helped down a few steps." That just isn't an option for most electric wheelchairs. Many weigh around 200 pounds, mine is around 500 pounds, and others are heavier. As Antinous said @#40, "accessible design [is] almost always better design for everyone." I've been trying to think of exceptions to this and I can't. Can anyone here?
common wealth club coverage of this issue
Topic: Microwave Radiation: The Shadow Side of the Wireless Revolution
Speakers:
CINDY SAGE, DAVID CARPENTER, MAGDA HAVAS, CAMILLA REES
Audio:
http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/08/08-03microwaveradiation-audio.html
I like the fact that people dismiss others so readily. just goes to show that subjectivity domininates. The self is always the measure of what's normal or average, everyone else that's different is weird and better not cause any inconvenience.