City-Provided Wi-Fi Rejected Over "Health Concerns" 360
exphose writes "A small, hippie-friendly town in northern California, Sebastopol, had made an agreement with Sonic.net to provide free Wi-Fi across the downtown area. However, not everyone in town was pleased with the arrangement. According to Sebastopol Mayor Craig Litwin, citizens had voiced concerns that 'create enough suspicion that there may be a health hazard' and so they canceled their contract with Sonic.net. Some more details are at the blog of Sonic.net's CEO."
Take off and nuke the site from orbit. (Score:5, Funny)
Teach her some physics. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Teach her some physics. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Teach her some physics. (Score:4, Funny)
I think I know where you're going with this argument, but no one has ever jumped so many homeless people on a skateboard. It's reckless of you to ask—it's impossible...no, I won't do it!
Lay off the weed, man! (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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There continue to be links between cell phone use and brain tumors and, though I haven't heard anything recently about power lines, I would not buy a house near high voltage lines.
On the other hand, I think the wireless signals are at a level that they shouldn't be much, if any, issue. I don't hold my computer next to my head and the base station power level just isn't that high - nor is it mo
Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:4, Insightful)
Who funded or underwrote the studies? I don't know.
Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:5, Interesting)
All the accusations against cellphones have been generally anecdotal i.e. a number of people have been found who were both heavy cellphone users and got brain tumours. But when large scale statistical studues are done, these "clusters" disappear. If you ask averybody with a tumour whether they were a heavy cellphone user, some will say yes. Probably more than really are, becasue moderate users will tend to judge themselves heavier in order to have something to blame for their tragedy - randomness seems much more frightening that a technological accident.
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If the procedure is correct, the data is correct, and the logic is correct, then the conclusions will also be correct. It doesn't matter who paid for it.
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Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:4, Interesting)
Living and working in buildings with asbestos isn't a big deal. You don't really get any increase in lung cancer risk, but you get the benefit if a much lower death from fire risk. working with asbestos was always the problem. So the solution? Marathon of extra work with asbestos for all the people removing it in a panic. Brilliant.
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from : http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/aspartame.shtml [ethicalinvesting.com]
"Primarily, the only research that claims aspartame is safe is that which has been funded and/or controlled by the manufacturer (e.g., Monsanto). They put together convincing-sounding summaries of poorly-designed research in order to present to the public. When the research is examined closely it is found that the testing was often done improperly, the results were often reported inaccurately or in a biased way, and the e
Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:4, Informative)
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Cool! A new way to charge up battery powered devices like cellphones and laptops.
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Inverse square law. You get orders of magnitude less EM radiation from the 12KV power lines in your backyard, than the 120V wires running through your house.
Though I would like to disagree with the GP, your comment is a good example of what the GP was talking about.
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In his science fiction novel Firestar , Michael Flynn points to the hysteria over electric blankets as proof that a large portion of society is too dumb to appreciate technological advance.
It's not really a question of smarts, but more to do with a general distrust of the government and science. Government lies and deceives all the time, as we've seen in the last 7 1/4 years. Science is poorly presented by the mass media where "study X says A causes cancer." then the next year "Study Y says A doesn't cau
Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:5, Funny)
It's not the WiFi you should worry about, but the routers [wellingtongrey.net]...
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Now if they start trying to pass national referendums banning Wi-Fi on Sundays or some shit like that...
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I don't recall complaining about not getting enough spam...
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Dum dum dum dum dumb!
You know, being born will get you killed. Faith, cynicism, not going to change it either way. Bruce really wasn't particularly deep or insightful there...
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Dum dum dum dum dumb.
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Re:Lay off the weed, man! (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, you might have hit it right on the spot there. People seem to confuse different types of radiation. They assume that just because it's called "radiation", it's the same as the ionizing radiation from the earth and from those evil nucular power stations! It's completely different. A campfire radiates heat, that doesn't mean it will give you cancer.
Electromagnetic radiation doesn't even begin to affect us until they are about one million times higher in frequency than cellphones and wifi. Then we're talking about UV-light, and we have a pretty strong source of that hanging over our heads during the day. I never see EM-sensitive people complain about the sun.
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As I was saying "You're aware that microwave ovens work in the 2.4-3 GHz range right? If that doesn't "affect us" I'm not sure how you define affect. That's far less than "one million times higher in frequency than cellphones and wifi". It's barely twice the frequency, than the lowest cell phone band and not even twice the frequency of the highest cell phone band, and the same as wifi frequency lower band and less than the wifi upper band frequency."
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People all over the world are wearing more sunscreen now than ever before.
But mysteriously this does't help against the cellphone radiation.
You're aware that microwave ovens work in the 2.4-3 GHz range right? If that doesn't "affect us" I'm not sure how you define affect.
Of course. It affects us in the same way as a campfire does: local heating. A microwave oven with the same effect as a wifi antenna or a cellphone could hardly heat up anything at all.
OMG TEH RF (Score:2)
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well, fortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
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from the blog (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:from the blog (Score:5, Insightful)
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A mobile phone typically produces 1/1000th as much power, and spreads it as evenly as possible around the antenna.
That would be a theoretical 0db antenna. In the real world, antennas have gain which focuses the rf output. Most cell antennas have gain of about 1db which isn't much.
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It doesn't "bleed" heat, it "radiates" it.
As in "Radiation". Your cell phone, like all electric devices, is radiating trillions and trillions of electron volts of radiation directly into your body every time you use it.
Even if you don't use a cell phone you are still exposed to thousands if different sources of radiation every day. Wrapping yourself in tin-foil won't help -
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I don't want to have to wear a tin foil hat (Score:2, Funny)
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More information. (Score:5, Informative)
Stupid hippies (Score:5, Funny)
Quick, lets go sell them some electromagnetic wave blocking paint, we could make a fortune.
Re:Stupid hippies (Score:4, Funny)
Makes you wonder,,, (Score:4, Interesting)
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Of course. If they didn't smoke they could take the carcinogin of WiFi, but, since they do, they cannot let that be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
maurer is a fraud? (Score:2)
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My bet is on "paid by a telecom". They hate the idea of there being more than one supplier for any given house.
Re:maurer is a fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not fraud; sick in a way she doesn't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the problem is that people with these really are tortured - they are truly convinced of this sensitivity and sometimes end up housebound and with ruined lives because of profound avoidance of perceived triggers.
The question is though, how do you address this in a patient and from a societal perspective. Say I have a person with RFS or MCS as a patient. If you say: 'Look, hon. You are a total whackadoodle. You need to just get over it and stop having panic attacks, K?' that may fix the problem in that they will not haunt your practice, but they will go to another provider who will further validate their phobias and be worse off. If however, you can engage the person in care, even perhaps give them medicines in what may be a placebo effect (and maybe in a manner that helps the basic panic attack), and help them gradually get over the symptoms and regain their life, you are doing a better thing. But that requires controlled validation of their experience, and it ain't something you are doing in a few months. This is a long haul thing... and its a lot of energy. I limit myself to only a few people who require this at any given time in my practice.
From a societal perspective, its the same issue: if a person with RFS or MCS says 'I can't access X public venue without Y accommodation' what do you do? Even knowing that its a form of panic disorder, that doesn't obviate the need for accommodations. We let people with mental health problems have a lot of accommodations not aimed at 'toughening them up' but aimed at making them able to fully participate in society. And like all accommodations, we have to balance the reasonableness of the request against the rest of societies needs. Expecting a wheelchair ramp on public buildings is very reasonable. Expecting that all buildings have lights turned off at 6pm is not. If a person with MCS needs a 'scent free space' in order to be able to go to college, that's reasonable... until a person with psoriasis is told she can't use her medications that control her disease. They can reasonably expect me to limit cologne use, but not things that are required to treat a serious health problem.
In this case, I actually think the reasonableness of the request doesn't balance out. Though there are other ways that it could be addressed. Talk to local businesses who already offer wifi, request that they take down their wifi if the city guarantees free and consistent access for their customers.
Re:Not fraud; sick in a way she doesn't understand (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, especially in the US we do have a severe prevalence of toxic chemicals floating around. Oh sure, some nations have even more than we do. But think about this; all that english-labeled stuff that the EU outlawed is currently being dumped in the US.
I regularly go out and end up being straight up choked by some chick's toxic, artificial perfume. It's gotten to be where I almost won't go out to eat any more because I can't finish a meal without some bitch stinking me out of my seat. Repeated exposure to some of these chemicals CAN desensitize you.
In short, I believe that people just convince their body to suppress the natural reactions over time, and while I agree that some people with MCS are just batshit, I think some of them really ARE sensitive to the chemicals.
In addition I think you are just completely full of shit because people with MCS are only sensitive to things which they can detect (one way or another.) That is a necessary component to the theory that they are just wingnuts! But you claim that they cannot tell the difference between a puff of air and a puff of the compound, which they necessary must be able to smell. Either you are not explaining yourself very well, the study you cite is flawed beyond belief, or you are full of shit. Perhaps you are leaving something critical out; perhaps the study does not operate from the realization that larger quantities of a compound sometimes need to be ingested per unit of time to cause a reaction; perhaps you are just making things up. I doubt the last one. I wonder which of the first two is the case.
All I know for sure is that one person is often sensitive to something which another cannot detect. A more common example than MCS (or perhaps one that is simply better-represented, since a person who truly had MCS would be far less likely to survive infancy - perhaps MCS is the primary cause of crib death, how would you know?) is that I can hear the high-pitched whine of even the newest flyback transformers from across a noisy room. If someone leaves a TV on without sync (rare these days since most televisions will generate a blue screen or a screen saver if there is no signal) I can detect it as soon as I walk into the room and the walls are no longer absorbing vibrations before they reach me. A number of slashdotters have chimed in and said the same thing over time. It's not that I have a smaller eardrum and am thus more sensitive to high frequencies, because I am gigantic and have a huge head (and hearing tests bear this out - I have never been particularly good or bad at hearing high frequencies.) Something else is happening... but people usually don't believe I can "feel" this effect. Does that mean I'm lying?
All I am suggesting is that one should be a bit more open about the possibilities that people's health problems are other than psychosomatic. It's only recently that we even discovered that there is a quantum effect responsible for the sense of smell (and, it seems, for vision as well.) Given how little we know about the functioning of the human body (especially the brain) is it really reasonable to just dismiss the subject entirely?
FM radio? TV? (Score:2)
In fact this technology seems so dangerous I think we should just go back to living in caves.
Re:FM radio? TV? (Score:5, Funny)
You're thinking too small.
Hint: massive thermonuclear reaction taking place above our heads every day, subjecting the Earth and everything on it to almost inconceivably powerful doses of electromagnetic energy.
Re:FM radio? TV? (Score:4, Funny)
Kinda irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I find the "but there's a big nuke overhead!!!" argument just as bunk.
The fact is: you don't get all the frequencies from that ball of light. There's this thick atmosphere, including such layers as the ozone layer and the ionosphere. Plus such things as the water in the atmosphere which are just as good there at absorbing a certain band of microwaves, as, well, when you heat water in your microwave. These things absorb almost anything to the left of infrared or to the right of UV-B.
Let's just say there's a reason why they worry about shielding the craft in which they'll send a man to mars. Or why the gamma ray telescopes are put in orbit, and not at ground level. Or why over-the-horizon radar can actually see beyond the horizon, by bouncing the signal on the ionosphere. It's just as almost-opaque to those signals from the other side, you know.
So, yes, you have a big nuke over your head, but you also have some hundreds of kilometres of damn good shielding between you and it. Most frequencies outside the visible spectrum, or nearby, you're _not_ getting the full radiation of that nuke. You're getting them in homeopathic doses, if at all.
Even briefer: It doesn't prove what you think it proves. Sorry. It's as irrelevant as saying that heat can't kill because you have billions of tons of molten lava under your feet and it hasn't killey you yet.
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Evolution? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hint: massive thermonuclear reaction taking place above our heads every day, subjecting the Earth and everything on it to almost inconceivably powerful doses of electromagnetic energy.
Heat stroke? Skin cancer? Those "inconceivably powerful doses of electromagnetic energy" actually kill people.
I like WiFi as much as anyone else. But making comparisons with stuff capable of killing might not convince a suspicious mind.
The reason the sun don't kill us outright is because we're evolved to handle it. (Mind you, oxygen is a crazy reactive element and a different life form might consider breathing it as much fun as swimming in hydrocloric acid.)
If people worry about man-made sources of electro
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Dirty... Worthless... Hippies!
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"Health" Concerns? (Score:5, Interesting)
Could it be that someone there is worried about their own FINANCIAL "health" instead?
Does someone there have a vested intere$t in making sure this deal fell through?
As with anything else... follow the money.
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Typically, there is some misunderstanding/disagreement where the city supposedly promised to fund X% of the deployment, while the city claims those costs were supposed to be shouldered by the ISP/provider - and then the whole thing stalls out or gets
Electrickery next (Score:5, Funny)
Turn that shit off back at the town limits. It's the only way to be safe.
Now where's my tinfoil bandana?
Forget Hats - think Insulation (Score:2)
Lets force everyone who obsesses about this sort of health issue to insulate their homes with a layer of tinfoil - it would really be in their best interests (according to their beliefs)...
I wonder if these people use paypass cards (RFID in credit cards, etc)
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Self damning (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare this to the mobile phone that you keep in your pocket, which is typically three to ten times this power level. When it's at it's highest power level, you hold it next to your head to conduct a conversation. Ever notice that your skin gets warm after a long call? That's the only side effect of RF energy - warming.
The warmth of a cell phone has nothing to do with RF. It is waste heat generated directly by the transmitter - it is not the result of RF energy being absorbed by the skin and converted to heat. Even low-frequency transmitters get very hot when transmitting. VHF and UHF mobile rigs, like those used by emergency services and amateur radio operators, have huge (relative to the size of the radio) heatsinks on the back to dissipate the heat so the final stage electronics are not fried. My amateur handheld (Yaesu VX-7R quad band) can transmit at 5 watts, and the magnesium case literally gets so hot at that output power that it is difficult to hold. That is transmitting at frequencies vastly lower than cell-phones (144-148 MHz) which pass right through skin. It's not the antenna that gets hot, or my head, it is the case housing the transmitter.
Also, batteries get warm when generating high amperage, especially really compact batteries like lithium-ion. So that also contributes to the warmth of a transmitting cell phone.
Wrong Sonic? (Score:2)
But in their defense, I understand the hamburger wrappers make great tinfoil hats.
And these people vote in national elections. (Score:2)
legal ramifications (Score:5, Funny)
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They would just demand that Sonic.net prove that WiFi was totally safe. Which it can not. They can show that there is a lack of proof that it is dangerous but they can not prove that it was safe. Even then sonic.net would face law suit when Moonduck Smith has an aura misalignment caused by the wifi.
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No, because in every industry except entertainment its suicide to ever sue your own customers. Who would want to do business with anyone like that? There are a lot of lawyers who never receive payment for their services who also never sue their customers. Once the word gets out that youre doing that then its time to close shop.
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No, because in every industry except entertainment its suicide to ever sue your own customers. Who would want to do business with anyone like that? There are a lot of lawyers who never receive payment for their services who also never sue their customers. Once the word gets out that youre doing that then its time to close shop.
Violation of a written contract and non-payment are perhaps two of the only legitimate reasons to sue your customers. Although I'd agree that there are certainly cases where it's better to let that sort of thing slide, Sonic.net have a reasonably solid case here that shouldn't scare off future customers/investors. Also, if they're not paying, they're not customers!
There are many, many, many abuses of the American legal system. This is not one of them.
Also, to respond to one of the other posters, I'd
And next... (Score:2)
of course there is health hazard (Score:2)
Seriously though, new te
No big surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, people bitched, and thus the APs has to be moved in the offices. They didn't like having them directly overhead, so they'd get moved to the side and such.
Now, you want the really silly part? I work for the electrical and computer engineering department. Yes, that's right, people with PhDs in engineering, who have all taken classes on this kind of stuff, are afraid of the radiation boogieman.
If people with extensive educations in related fields are going to bitch and ignore the facts, you can damn well believe that regular people with no understanding will do so.
I think maybe I should just get in to the market of selling whole-house faraday cages.
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Now, you want the really silly part? I work for the electrical and computer engineering department. Yes, that's right, people with PhDs in engineering, who have all taken classes on this kind of stuff, are afraid of the radiation boogieman.
I think there was a study about Harvard graduates and asking them the reason it is hotter in the summer. They almost all said it was because we are closer to the sun in the summer. (*) This aspect of human behavior astonishes me, but it seems quite common. What I want to know is how do we fix it? More education obviously doesn't work. But this problem of human behavior makes us waste time on non-issues.
(*) I can't find this with a quick Google so I hope I'm not perpetuating an urban myth.
Wow (Score:2)
I have had health challenges, and my body cannot handle wifi...it gives me headaches and makes me very sick. I would be unable to go to the store, shop. I have enough problems being limited in my travels, it is outrageous that a place so environmentally conscious would create this in our/my hometown. In Europe they are much more advanced than us, and there wifi is not allowed in cities in the European commonwealth.
These are the kind of people that tick me off to no end when trying to deal with city affairs: the ignorant liars.
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You can't fight junk science with junk science (Score:2)
This statement is utterly idiotic.
The warming of your skin is from the phone itself generating its own heat from the circuitry and the discharging battery, NOT the so-called microwaving of the skin as this clueless author puts it.
You can't fight junk science with junk science!
Irrelevant (Score:2)
"Service is available in parts of Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Airport Express buses to SFO, plus scattered locations around the bay area."
I wonder what brand of wireless router they use to provide service on the Airport Express buses? Because for some reason, a particular model [apple.com] comes to mind.
Sebastopol (Score:2)
The Truth About Wireless Devices (Score:3, Funny)
As told by Wellington Grey.
California (Score:3, Funny)
"May cause cancer in California"
WiFi Stupidity (Score:2)
Link: http://wifinetnews.com/archives/002496.html [wifinetnews.com]
Luddites on the Right and the Left. (Score:2)
Don't forget to make a new tinfoil hat every day, because the cosmic background radiation may be a health hazard, too!
sad to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
comment from a contrarian (Score:4, Insightful)
Rather than engage in derisive laughter, why not send them some helpful and relevant information that might assuage their concerns? If half the posters here wrote them a letter with a significant reference or two they might actually learn something. Remember, "Knowing is half the battle."
Re:comment from a contrarian (Score:4, Informative)
The one saving grace of asbestos is that if you leave it alone, it'll leave you alone. The real problems kick in when you start prying it loose and moving it around.
Hugely useful [mayoclinic.com] but only when used within strict guidelines. As it turns out, one of its potential uses turned out to be a pretty bad idea so we don't use it that way anymore.
I'll give you that one.
The FDA insists that it is [fda.gov]. Sure, it's possible that they're a wholly owned subsidiary of Searle or whoever else makes the stuff these days, but I still trust the FDA at least as much as the groups opposing it.
My wife's a doctor. She has patients who beg her to find old expired samples or any other source of the stuff she might know of. Those patients know that it possibly cause them harm, but it's so effective that they're willing to take that risk. If you have rheumatoid arthritis, would you rather have 50 years of crippling agony before you or 25 years of painfree enjoyment? Regardless of your answer, a lot of people wish they could pick the latter but that's no longer available to them.
I begrudge them acting to make it impossible for me to use whatever it is they're afraid of this week.
"Health Concerns" mask the hidden agenda (Score:3, Funny)
The view from Sebastopol (Score:5, Interesting)
1. "Hippie friendly" does little to convey the truly eclectic mix of people who live here. You name it, we got it: 5th generation farming families, refugees from Berkeley and the Valley, 200 acre commercial winemaking operations next door to the 2 acre "wine estates" of retired attorneys, a surprising number of geezer geeks (including me), a large gay/lesbian community, and, yes, a certain number of people wearing tie-dyed clothing and reeking of patchouli oil. About the only group in short supply here is neo-cons. (Thank
2. Speaking of geeks, some of you may have heard of a project call nocat.net. It uses off-the-shelf WiFi hardware to deliver broadband to places miles (and hills) away from the nearest cable/DSL connection. It was started by a group of people in
3. This area has higher-than-average levels of education and of political activism. I think these are good things. However, having a college degree and being willing to make yourself heard does not necessarily translate into knowing what the hell you are talking about. This is a universal truth.
4. People in general do not understand the technologies they use, and Sebastopol is no exception. I would bet good money that at least some of the people who are so vocal (here and elsewhere) about the dangers of WiFi are actually using a laptop that has--you guessed it--WiFi. Some of them may have actually decided not to have a WiFi router in their home "because of the radiation," but it's almost a certainty that they forgot to turn off the radio in their laptop. I'm not a radio engineer, but I seem to remember something about radiated energy falling off as the inverse square of the distance. Which means that, whatever the perceived dangers from the router, they are actually much more exposed to radiation from their own laptop. (Not to mention that little radio transmitter they nestle against their brain, AKA their cellphone.)
What does all of that mean? Hell, I don't know. I guess I was irked by the simplistic labeling from the original story.