

Banning Wi-Fi From Schools - driverdan
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215

======
SoftwareMaven
I am always surprised by people's lack of critical thinking capabilities. I
saw Michael Shermer (founder of Skeptic Magazine) speak at a conference
recently. It was a little frightening how much data he has on the
irrationality of our fellow man.

The thing that frightens me the most is the areas I personally exhibit
irrationality in _that I don't know about_. I'm actually OK being irrational
if I know I am (I can make decisions taking that into account), but I have
little doubt there are places that I don't know, where I make stupid
decisions.

In the meantime, we should all turn off all our electric devices, wrap our
houses in faraday cages, filter all of our water, and wear respirators.
Wouldn't want to be unsafe, now would we?

~~~
DannoHung
> wrap our houses in faraday cages

Hmm... I am concerned that the big solar flare might come one day and usher
the world into a new dark age... or at least a victorian period of about 20 to
30 years.

~~~
electromagnetic
You'll have to cut your access to your power supply and go on generator
(anything outside the faraday cage risks frying anything electrical inside),
you'd also have to disconnect any groundings to pipework. Long runs of copper
will be inducted during a huge flare, so the ground/earthing connections can
at best knock off all your breakers and your generator, but at worse can surge
from ground->neutral (frequently connected as a double safety) and fry things
that way (note: I only heard of this happen from a lightning strike, but we're
talking end-of-civilization-solar-flare here so it's worth note).

If you need internet ensure it's connected _outside_ your faraday cage, run
the Ethernet through a surge protector (with the modem or other devices power
supply, which is essentially just for kicks at this point) and run the
Ethernet inside the cage and connect it to a wireless router powered from
outside. Connect all computers via wireless and your systems will be safe.

However, if everyone elses shit dies, your screwed as it is. You'll be one of
the only people trying to connect to HN.

~~~
flatulent1
Well if people are going to worry about solar flares, they might as well
figure on EMP (electromagnetic pulse) protection from high altitude nukes too.
Energy levels can be very high, and the very short pulse risetime results in
energy extending to at least the VHF range. That means relatively short
conductors can function as efficient antennas, picking up considerable energy.
Solar events are lower frequency, so energy from longer conductors such as
power lines is the first thing to worry about there.

It is silly for those people to be worried about WiFi, but some just don't
have a clue as to the differences between ionizing radiation and
electromagnetic radiation (and the importance of power levels). But the same
folks will gab with a cell phone against their heads...

------
NathanKP
It sounds to me like a psychogenic illness similar to the Tanganyika laughter
epidemic:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanganyika_laughter_epidemic>

It is extremely unlikely that wifi would make kids sick. These same kids
probably get wifi exposure at home too, even if it is just spill over wifi
signals from their neighbor's homes. The parents clearly don't know enough
about psychology or electronics.

Chances are the parents are inadvertently encouraging psychosomatic symptoms
in their impressionable children.

~~~
electromagnetic
From what I've read the main behavioral changes are dropping a grade point,
falling out with friends, misbehaving in school or increased truancy.

During my day (I'm 22) this was called "falling in with a bad crowd".

For the actual medical symptoms, these are so average run-of-the-mill symptoms
that it shouldn't be randomly attributed to wifi. I know in my school my
greatest cause of nausea was fresh paint, a stink bomb going off or bad food
in the caf.

IMO these parents are ignoring the simplest and most obvious answer: their
kids are being kids and their illnesses are them trying to skip school. I had
my fair share of nausea when new games came out; I even had a bout of 'nausea'
during college when I picked up the Firefly box set (I'm from the UK, never
saw it on TV but had a mega-huge recommendation from someone I trusted), I
watched 1/4 of the first episode before I called in sick.

------
sprout
Mold can and does actually, scientifically speaking, make people sick.
Associating that with unmitigated bullshit like the WiFi idiots is just
degrading.

------
johnswamps
This is a bit tangential to the main point of the story, but I was a student
at the school that was torn down the author mentioned. It's sort of an
interesting story, you can read more about it at [1]. I think it was mostly
politics, it took over 5 years from the initial temporary closing of the
school for the new middle school to be built. In the winter of 2001 we got an
extra 2 weeks during winter vacation because they discovered the chemicals in
the ground and the new school wasn't built until 2006. Apparently the safety
of the teachers and students wasn't as important as spending 3 years
squabbling about where to build the new one.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/14/nyregion/new-term-nears-
to...](http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/14/nyregion/new-term-nears-town-split-
safety-middle-school-built-landfill.html)

------
oiuytghyuj
Happened in the UK, the same parents also overturned a ban on kids having cell
phones.

Apparently it's vital for their safety that they keep a 1W 1.8Ghz transmitter
glued to their head at all times, but it's lethal to have a 100mW 2.4Ghz
transmitter in another room.

~~~
cabalamat
Not to mention all the 10-100 W 400-800 THz transmitters they have in all the
rooms. Worryingly, there are two structures in children's skulls, near the
brain, that are particularly sensitive to these frequencies!

And I expect the average child emits more electromagnetic radiation than a
wifi transmitter. Children should obviously be banned from schools then.

~~~
jodrellblank
To what Thz transmitters are you referring?

~~~
kd0amg
GP probably means high-bandwidth ones like these:

[https://www.storesonlinepro.com/files/1974975/uploaded/Phili...](https://www.storesonlinepro.com/files/1974975/uploaded/Philips%20Incandescent%20A-19%20Light%20Bulb.gif)

~~~
cabalamat
Yes, although in UK schools they tend to be the ones more like this:
<http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LAFL16.html>

------
jsz0
_"Some parents in the Barrie, Ont., area say their children are showing a host
of symptoms ranging from headaches and dizziness to nausea and even racing
heart rates."_

Maybe they're going through caffeine/sugar withdrawal away from home? I'd be
interested to know what the rates of obesity are among these children and how
much physical activity they get at school and at home. I don't think they
should discount stress either -- from other kids, parents, etc.

------
dotBen
Even if the fear mongers are right and wifi microwave radiation is
carcinogenic _(ok, no proof of that but let's just say there is for a moment)_
then banning wifi in schools is not going to stop other wifi radiation from
entering the schools from neighboring buildings.

I love my mother dearly but she had the same concern at home when I suggested
my parents get wifi a few years back. I pointed out that if I turned her
laptop on she could already see that there were 4 wifi base stations emitting
microwave radiation that was passing through her brain anyway. So not getting
wifi wasn't going to stop any risks (if there were any).

------
failquicker
So...are the children suppose to live in the school and never leave? Because
the second they step out the door they are bound to run into a few rogue
hotspots.

Even out in the rural areas of the US, you can usually find a wi-fi signal.

------
mman
I remember seeing some research (with positive findings) that encoding
techniques such as pulse-width modulation (PWM) create beats at ~10-20hz and
can affect the brain. This was like 3 years ago. Has anyone read about this
recently?

I want to know if i can iDose with my wifi...

~~~
Vulture
I think that you are refering to binaural beats :
<http://gnaural.sourceforge.net/>

You need a stereo headset to listen to this. There is a frequency in one ear
and another one slightly off in the second ear. Your brain then merge the two
sine waves and intepret both as a single, low frequency "beat" of the
difference.

~~~
mman
No, i'm saying that PWM-encoding data in microwaves produces low frequency
beats in the final transmitted wave, similar to the frequency of binaural
beats (~10-30hz alpha and beta brain wave range). I was joking that i could
iDose with wifi in the same way as binaural beats. I'll try and find one of
the papers.

~~~
mman
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15787706>

------
amalcon
I'm confused. What's the advantage to wifi in schools? Is it just saving money
on wiring the school with ethernet? Are students being permitted to take
laptops into school now?

I suppose the saving money argument is actually a pretty good one, but any new
school will probably be wired anyway, so that should only apply to older
construction.

~~~
richbradshaw
I'm a teacher.

Couple of good things:

* We use laptops a lot in lessons, plus the kids can use their laptops/iPods/phones or whatever on the network as well.

* We can move round the room much more easily than when using the ethernet cables, useful when using dataloggers in Science.

* Useful for older parts of the school that aren't wired.

* Useful outside

~~~
amalcon
Very interesting, thanks.

------
protomyth
So, these people are the ones who will eventually teach science and critical
thinking to students?

------
rdzah
Can't wait for one big mesh (802.11s) to come standard on all devices -
imagine a world where banning wifi and google/verizon cronyism are impossible
(at least in metro areas).

------
Marticus
Well, I can understand it from at least a security perspective (usually inter-
connected wifi points use horribly unsecure setups), but this is pretty cute,
their reasoning.

------
Vulture
The solution is obviously to put every kid in a giant faraday cage

