Kill your iPhone, before it kills you

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Mark Baard

Image: Marshall Astor/Flickr CC

A stunning piece from GQ strongly suggests that the Wi-Fi and mobile phone businesses are screwing with our health by burying bad experimental results.

There’s a precedent for this: The author of the GQ piece, Christopher Ketchum, notes that the tobacco, asbestos, and herbicide industries all hid the dangers of their products for years.

Now, it’s the mobile phone industry’s turn, and they’re using the standards body, the IEEE, to do their dirty work, Ketchum writes:

“The committees setting the EM safety levels at the IEEE historically have been dominated by representatives from the military, companies like Raytheon and GE, the telecom companies, and now the cell-phone industry. It is basically a Trojan horse for the private sector to dictate public policy.” The IEEE's “safe limits” for microwave exposure are considerably higher than what they should be, says Allan Frey, who was a member of the organization in the '70s. “When it comes to this matter, the IEEE is a charade,” Frey told me.

via Warning, Your Cell Phone May Be Hazerdous To Your Health: Gear + Gadgets: GQ.

Some additional reading.

ETs not part of futurists' vision

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Mark Baard

Not in Futurismic's future. (Image: Marcin Wichary/Flickr CC)

Futurismic pays for fiction — $200 for a short story.

But writers with an ET bent (think Romulans, greys, reptilians, and the like) need not apply :

We’re interested in what we can see and develop and control, what’s in front of us and what we need to react to.

The site’s fiction editor doubts we’ve got much to worry about, from beyond the troposhere, or inside our hollow Earth.

via Why we reject stories | Fiction | Futurismic.

Taxpayers shell-out millions for "free" muni Wi-Fi

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Mark Baard

No divide. (Photo: D Sharon Pruitt/Flickr CC)

Still think I’m wrong about the many pitfalls of municipal, or muni, Wi-Fi, the semi-public scheme that puts city bosses in charge of internet access?

Over the past few years, I’ve noted the corruption, the waste, and the threats to personal privacy and security posed by muni Wi-Fi. And I caught some flak on this blog, and over at Universal Hub, as a result.

Now, from Philly, where the muni Wi-Fi debacle got its wretched start, comes a report that the city is squeezing taxpayers to cover its failed attempt to compete as an ISP:

The city of Philadelphia said Wednesday it intends to purchase, for $2 million, the wireless network constructed by EarthLink Inc. to turn the entire city into a Wifi hotspot. The city said it intends to exercise an option in an agreement signed in August to buy the network from Network Acquisition Co. LLC, which took the network over from Atlanta-based EarthLink (NASDAQ:ELNK) in June 2008.

Philly’s former CIO, meanwhile, has taken-up work with the firm that sold the Philly mayor’s office on muni Wi-Fi in the first place. (Ditto for the deputy CIO in San Francisco.)

Meanwhile, back in the Bean, a similar effort is starting to look like a service badly in need of a market.

That’s because urban dwellers –rich and poor, young and old — are already using their 3G mobile phones and netbooks to grab data from the net. And cable companies are bundling-in internet access with their TV services, for peanuts.

via Reason Magazine: Philadelphia Experiment With Municipal Wi-Fi Not Working Out So Well

Binnall: 2009 a "down year" for UFO studies

Posted on January 3, 2010 by Mark Baard

A moment of excitement in an otherwise slow year. The Skeptic's Morristown, NJ, UFO hoax. (Photo:The Skeptic)

Hub esoteric expert and podcaster Tim Binnall steps back into 2009 with his friends and leading UFOlogists Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern, in this two-parter:

Full Preview: We kick things off by getting Nick & Greg's general perspectives on the past year in Ufology and how it seemed like a particularly slow news year, with the exception of mostly unfortunate stories. Nick emparts some wisdom on how to look at these “down years” with proper perspective and Greg reflects on how, in the Internet age, perspectives on time are being altered as well as how the down cycle this year even affected his take on the UFO scene.

Note: For Greg Bishop’s take on the Google UFO logo hubbub (he calls it, “UFO porno”), hit the 79:30 mark in Part One of the 12.31.09 podcast.

via binnall of america : audio.

The Heretic's "10 New England Esotericists to Watch in 2010"

Posted on January 2, 2010 by Mark Baard

New England is home to some of the biggest brains in the businesses of esoterica and mad science.

But you knew that already.

Here then, is my list of the busiest folks we know in the worlds of offbeat science publishing, UFOlogy, cryptozoology and the occult — even comics. Ghost-hunting? That is sooo last decade. But keep these peeps on your radar in 2010. They make for an eclectic mix, alright, but I think the list somehow works:

Marc Abrahams announcing "The Penguin Prize" at the annual Ig Nobel Prizes ceremony, at Harvard U. (Photo: Courtesy of the Ig Nobel Prizes.)

1. Marc Abrahams. Few can match the wit, charm and energy of this singular Cambridge, Mass. personality. Abrahams is the publisher of the uproarious Annals of Improbable Research, and organizer of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes awards ceremony, which honors “research that makes people laugh and then think.” He also writes a weekly column about wacky science (think bras that double as gas masks, and astrology charts for bacteria), for the UK Guardian.

Tim Binnall. (Photo: Courtesy of BoA)

2. Tim Binnall. Did you know that one of the planet’s fastest-growing podcasters to the “Coast-to-Coast AM” crowd is based right here, in the Hub? The young genius behind the whole thing, Tim Binnall, is relaunching his website, Binnall of America, with another season of podcast interviews with big-name UFOlogists and conspiracy researchers, from Texas to Sweden.

Binnall also organizes a successful paranormal confab in the Hub.

3. Loren Coleman. This legend in the world of cryptozoology (2010 marks his 50th year in the business) will be surprising us again with new insights, and new guests and events at his Portland, Maine-based International Museum of Cryptozoology.

A regular contributor to Coast to Coast AM, Boing Boing, and The Anomalist, Coleman is also the keeper of the world’s most popular cryptozoology blog, Cryptomundo.

Loren Coleman and friend. Photo: Loren Coleman (via Thomas Roche/Flickr CC

Coleman this year will be speaking at Bigfoot and “big cats” conferences — both at home and across the pond, in Glasgow, Scotland. This spring, he will also be lending his expertise to the ongoing search for the Loch Ness Monster.

In addition to his ongoing consulting work for History’s “MonsterQuest,” and Animal Planet’s “Lost Tapes,” Coleman will also be working on (we kid you not) five new books.

4. Stanton Friedman. I met Stanton Friedman at a UFO conference in Washington, D.C. a few years ago, and I’ve been trying to keep up his research ever since. But I only learned (after listening to Mr. Binnall’s interviews with this UFO luminary) that Friedman resides in the Northeast. Friedman jokes in his BoA interviews that he is one of the few surviving members of UFOlogy’s “old guard.” But I expect he’ll have a lot more to say at his conferences appearances this year.

5. Greg Kaminsky. If you like your occult podcasts served-up hot, and packaged with vintage Black Sabbath tracks, Beverly, Mass.-based Greg Kaminsky is your guy. Kaminsky is the host of the fantastic website and podcast, “Occult of Personality,” which — like BOA — is poised for big changes (including a subscriber section, with extended interviews) and breakout success in 2010. Kaminsky has landed interviews with leading occult scholars on both sides of the Atlantic since making his quiet start, just a couple of years ago. To taste some of that OoP magic I am talking about, check out this fascinating interview with Penguin’s occult books editor, Mitch Horowitz.

John Rozum and son, at the International Museum of Cryptozoology, in Portland, Maine. (Photo: Loren Coleman)

6. John Rozum. Scooby-Doo. The X-Files comics. The supernaturally-talented writer may be in the business of inventing things that go bump in the night, be he is also said to be living quietly on Cape Cod. One of Rozum’s latest creations, The Hangman, is fighting human trafficking in DC Comics’ just-released The Web #4.

7. Joe Moore. Commended to this list by OoP’s Kaminsky, Moore is a New Hampshire-based podcaster, a breathwork facilitator, and onetime Evolver spore group leader. (Click the links if you are as mystified by these terms as I was.) Not sure if magic is for you? Try the “Mr. Spock” ritual that Moore discusses in his latest podcast with chaos magic expert Andrieh Vitimus. (Skip to the 17-minute mark, if you can’t wait.) Next: Moore and Kaminsky in 2010 are collaborating on a documentary film.

8. Joseph Citro is sick of ghosts. Yeah, that’s right. Ghost-busting, the bane of Binnall and other esotericists — driven half-mad by hacks seeking quick paranormal fame — is tired. Citro made his break from the past last fall, with one of his latest titles, The Vermont Monster Guide, a roundup of the land, air and sea creatures haunting the North.

9. The guys behind NE FOR (the New England UFO Research Organization). When Tim Binnall hints at the political infighting within the New England UFO community, he might be referring in part to the guys who last year formed this New England MUFON splinter group. But more UFO researchers might mean more eyes on the sky, and more thorough documentation of sightings

10. Mr. Crowley. Just be sure you pronounce the first syllable of his name correctly, like the bird, while in Salem, Mass. (Not the way Ozzy Osbourne does in his classic song about the Beast.)

And yeah, I know the guy’s dead. But when the Heretic placed its call for nominees last weekend, a bunch of folks, from Salem and beyond, tapped their peers in magical orders that derive their inspiration from Crowley. Crowley-inspired authors and booksellers, too, all got a good talking-up.

So, stay tuned on this one, because I’m going to need a week-or-two to share with the rest of you, what our magician friends have been sharing with me.

WaPo puts the chill on Facebookers, Tweeters, trying to do their jobs

Posted on September 28, 2009 by Mark Baard

Photo: Alessandro Valli. Flickr/CC

Presuming the Washington Post’s management is acting in good faith, I applaud its effort to persuade staffers to behave themselves online. But the paper’s social networking guidelines are clearly based on some misunderstanding about the difference between a Facebook “friend,” and a real one.

Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything—including photographs or video—that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility. This same caution should be used when joining, following or friending any person or organization online.

via WaPo’s Social Media Guidelines Paint Staff Into Virtual Corner; Full Text of Guidelines | paidContent.

Let’s be perfectly clear. Retweets, joinings, friendings, likings: None of these are endorsements of anyone or anything. These are the associations that people make with each other, based upon their peculiar interests.

As a journalist, I have joined many groups, and friended many people–even those whose views I find objectionable–so that I might learn more about them.

That’s what reporters do.

Deep links: Mormonism, Masonry and Magic

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Mark Baard

Smith. Photo: Kid Korovyov. Flickr/CC

Greg at Occult of Personality presents the second hour of his interview with author and historian Mitch Horowitz, who tells the fascinating story of the occultic roots of Mormonism.

I was immediately reminded of “Early Mormonism and the Magic World View,” the book by D. Michael Quinn that emphasizes Joseph Smith’s folk magic background as much as his Masonic membership.

Mitch is the editor-in-chief of Tarcher / Penguin in New York and has also been our guest previously in podcast 21, Podcast 42 – The Life and Work of Paul Foster Case, and Podcast 48 – The Life and Work of Col. Henry Steel Olcott.

via Occult of Personality.

Susan Orlean on the rise of backyard chickens

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Mark Baard

The great author and New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean shows readers her own chickens, which she keeps on her property in the Hudson Valley.

The video (an accompaniment to her magazine piece this week), features Orlean’s Eglu chicken house, and a cool scale, which she uses to weigh-out her girls’ products–small, medium and large. (I’d always wondered how those got measured.)

Loren Coleman on the 2009 Texas Bigfoot Conference

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Mark Baard

Loren offers some interesting backgrounders for anyone attending:

I originally met Mike at the Ohio Bigfoot Conference back in 2000 or so, and he then stopped off at the Texas Bigfoot Conference in 2002, I believe, on his cross country move from San Diego to Connecticut.

via Cryptomundo » Special Limited Edition T-Shirt for the 2009 Texas Bigfoot Conference.

Wrong foot: Huffpo launch features group shot with Facebook founder

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Mark Baard

Huffpo makes nice to Facebook founder. Not an encouraging start, for editorial independence.

The leftie site is adding a tech section.

Its mission statement declares, “technology is anthropology,” which is kinda meaningless, if vaguely hipsterish. (The Huffpo Tech mission statement also includes lots of cliches about “tipping points,” and the like.)

from our great meeting at Facebook with@finkd @facebookbrande… on Twitpic.

The Sci-Tech Heretic

Science, fiction and news through the conspiratorial lens. By Mark Baard in Boston.

Tag Archives: Internet