

SafeSleeve: The All-in-One Radiation Blocking Laptop Case - nanodeath
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/safesleeve-the-all-in-one-radiation-blocking-laptop-case

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srik
It is definitely a cool case and better than many in the market. That said,
thier USP is based on the fact that >3mG radiation has all of those harmful
effects. I would feel more convinced if they chose to point us the studies or
papers they keep talking about.

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claudius
Note that they didn’t even make their claims copy-pasteable but instead
included a picture…

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DanBC
I don't know how many Dr Joseph Mercolas there are.

(<http://www.quackwatch.com/11Ind/mercola.html>)

I'm not sure I believe anything an AIDS denialist has to say.

(<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola#HIV_and_AIDS>)

A quick websearch of his website turns up a number of vile hateful nonsense.

This is the problem with woo. I don't care if you want to buy a laptop case,
even if you have a weird reason for buying it. That doesn't harm anyone. But
the fact that you're giving money, and power, to destructive idiots is very
bad.

([http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/9-reasons-
to-c...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/9-reasons-to-
completely-ignore-joseph-mercola-and-natural-news/))

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claudius
The good thing about crowd funding is that everybody can get a project funded
if they manage to convince a subset of the general public.

The bad thing about crowd funding is that everything necessary to get a
project funded is to convince a subset of the general public.

This appears to be the Web 2.0 social startup indie version of Nigerian
royalty.

~~~
jcoder
I'd love to hear some science behind your thinking. It's not obvious to me why
this is a scam.

~~~
claudius
They are selling an essentially worthless product to unknowing people[0] who
believe their claim that ‘electromagnetic field radiation’ is a ‘threat’.

Now you might certainly argue that there are certain dangers associated with
electromagnetic devices and that we don’t know enough to fully declare laptops
‘safe’. You would certainly be quite right about that - x-rays are dangerous
and we can never be absolutely sure.

However, electromagnetic emissions from a laptop are

a) closely regulated in all (relevant) parts of the world with strong limits
on the power a wifi device, for example, may emit and those limits are
generally found to be more than safe even during extensive use by the vast
majority of the scientific community

b) far surpassed by other items such as CRT monitors or washing machines

c) even further surpassed by this big device in the sky providing us all with
infrared, visible and ultraviolet electromagnetic radiation

d) in many cases not even absorbed by the human body – otherwise the wifi
signal would drop noticeably if someone stepped between you and the access
point.

Furthermore, let’s look at least at one of the claims on the project site:

    
    
        Very recently, new research is suggesting that […] malignant melanoma and asthma
        [,] can be tied to some facet of our use of electricity
    

The rise in malignant melanoma are usually tied to sunburns[1], genetic
disposition, increased livespans and better diagnostics. Unless this guy
claims that use of electricity allowed us to go outside more or changed beauty
ideals from ‘pale white’ to ‘remotely healthy’, I don’t see how electricity
could have caused that. The idea that asthma can be linked to ‘use of
electricity’ is…well.

And last but not least, this product, by design, blocks radiation emitted from
the laptop’s bottom – hence ignoring everything emitted from the top and –
more importantly – the screen. So even if electromagnetic fields as emitted by
laptops were a threat, it would only protect your testicles, rather than, say,
internal organs, bone marrow, your brain or your eyes. Note that while
electromagnetic fields decay with 1/r² at distance, this decay is nearly
negligible at such distances and air doesn’t absorb it in any noticeable ways,
so that your brain likely gets as much as your lap anyways – especially since
the screen of a notebook is even built to _emit_ such radiation!

Really, this is just another one of these items sold to people complaining
about headaches from mobile phone antennae before they’re switched on.

Note that I’m not saying _heat_ emitted by some laptops is not a problem, but
trousers help with that easily – and decent laptops, naturally.

[0] e.g. the grandparent getting some for their children after graduation

[1] One could argue that tanning salons run on electricity and induce sunburns
if overused…

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jcoder
Thanks, you make some good points. My layman's understanding of the inverse
square law makes me think that your claim that "your brain likely gets as much
as your lap anyways" might be a bridge too far, but from your other comments,
I'd like to see a chart of the emissions from other household objects before
deciding how important that is.

~~~
claudius
Inverse squares kick in at large distances, 60cm or so is not a large
distance. More importantly, _anything_ diminishes electromagnetic radiation
better than distance[0], and there is simply more matter between the bottom of
the laptop and your lap and the top of the laptop and your brain.

Really, however, my main point is that the few milliwatts allowed for consumer
electronics are well within the safe range – I have to admit, though, of being
too lazy to search out the data, sorry.

[0] Just think about how easy it is to block light coming from the _sun_ with
a piece of paper.

