[OT] "It is 10:00. Do you know where your children are"

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Another shuttle disaster (Actualy I said two and we still have 3 years to go)

uh...it's past 2000.

very good predictions. any you got wrong?

[Atrocities]

Oops, the predictions were for the next 20 years from the time I made them. So 2000 was 13 years into it. I should have made that clearer.

Yes, I have missed on a lot of things. There were about 50 predictions total, and I am batting about 50% thus far.

I predicted that we would have another moon landing, would land people on mars, and have a fuctioning space station. None of those have happened yet.

I predicted that cars would be running exclusively on syntetic fules.

Things like that.

I predicted that North Korea would again attack the south, but that has not happened. I predicted that the Arabs would gang up on Isriel (sp) and take them out. No so.

That the US would loose a Nuclear sub. We did not, but the Russians did.

Most of it was guess work based upon logical deductions. (And a lot of ... um .. leasure time mind expanding medicinal research.)

Drugs are bad!

[Member 4148]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
[QBEM radiation has to be in the x-ray or smaller range of wavelength, or be operating at many orders of magnitude greater in energy than cell phones operate at, to even have a chance of mutating DNA. [/QB]

that false!
uv is a source of skin cancer and thats a longer wavelength than xray!
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5215a1.htm
http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/Outreach...ave/links.html

uv still way shrter than radio, but its not xray or smaller. you cant be so sure of the dividing line. a simple study may be a good thing.

[Gryphin]

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...123103X,00.asp

Use their cell phone to track them.

Parents with computers can go to the ChildLocate portal where, after entering their password, they can tap in the phone number of their child's phone and view a map showing the child's location within 25 seconds. Those preferring to use their mobile phones can send a text message via SMS with the name of their child and password and receive a response per SMS.

Now, how long will it take for a smart kid to figure out how to evade or trick this system?

[Alneyan]

Well, wouldn't the solution be "don't take your mobile unless you want to be tracked"? Or even meaner, "hide your mobile at the other end of the town to trick the system". Or am I missing something obvious here?

[Will]

The problem with the whole "Cell phones cause cancer!" scare is that it is impossible to get accurate numbers at the moment. To get a (relatively) definite answer would require a small number of independently run studies spanning over around 15 to 25 years. They would have to take into account the amount of mobile use, the power of the output of the mobile, and any other factors that would increase the chances of a subject getting cancer (family history, exposure to carcinogens, etc.) As of now, there is no legitimate study into the risk of getting cancer from cell phone radiation.

Personally, I think that any results from a properly conducted study of this kind would yield results showing a statistically insignificant difference between the group of mobile Users vs. non-mobile Users. A large part of the concern about cancer is due to the general public having no clue what radiation is, and the fact that it was made into a boogieman for every generation in developed countries since the 1950s.

It's actually kind of fun, when people use the words "radiation" and "cancer" in the same sentance, to point out all the things that emit radiation. Like television, computer monitors, light bulbs, speakers, power lines, the Sun, the stars, the Earth, etc, etc, etc. All of them give of at least a little bit of radiation. After telling people this, there are usually one of two reactions: complete disbelief of everything I just said (sometimes even including the Sun), or extreme paranoia and the urge to make a tinfoil hat.

--edit: In Fyron's defense, he did say that the longer wavelength radiation would have to be orders of magnitude more powerful than that emited by cell phones. The UV radiation from the Sun is several orders of magnitude more powerful than the output of a cell phone.

[ January 03, 2004, 01:08: Message edited by: Will ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

and that's why we're not going to have solar power beamed down any time soon.

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
I predicted that North Korea would again attack the south, but that has not happened. I predicted that the Arabs would gang up on Isriel (sp) and take them out. No so.

That the US would loose a Nuclear sub. We did not, but the Russians did.

Most of it was guess work based upon logical deductions. (And a lot of ... um .. leasure time mind expanding medicinal research.)

Don't quit your day job man.

[Cipher7071]

The January issue of Scientific American has an article entitled "RFID: The Promise and Peril of Talkative Chips." Merchandisers use the chips to track their goods from factories to stores, but there is nothing to stop the same sort of technology from being abused, i.e. tracking people by the tags in their shirts, pants, etc. One company actually abandoned plans to implement such a system because of pressure by watchdog organizations....

Also...It wouldn't surprise me if the same people who are worried about radiation from cell phones, are the same people who regularly sunbathe.

[Atrocities]

I recall reading about something simular that nano chips would be embedded in our drivers license, credit cards, cash, just about anything we might carry and that those chips would be registared each time a person entered a building. This way they could target advertising specifically at an individual on a global scale.

Additionally I recall reading about auto finger print takers via optical glass in handles, door pains, check out counters, etc that would scan your finger prints in 1000th of second of contact and registar your location for tracking purposes.

These things are all very bothersome, yet we 20 years ago the thought of having cameras in stores, in the intersections, hidden at work, or hidden just about any where would have been cause for nation wide public alarm. Big Brother is wathcing now, and we accept it because we, the inocent, have nothing to fear if we are doing nothing wrong. I recall reading that it is the inocent that often made to pay and are the most exploited.

So despite how scarry this new technolgy is, it will become common place in our lives just like video cameras and credit cards have become.