October 31 Safe Tech International News and Notes
Courtney Gilardi re: Pittsfield, S. Africa Oct. EMF News, Citizens for Safer Connections, Gillian Jamieson re: Other Tech Issues and Kids. Chevron
Early on in the smart meter debacle, one of the only writers who was being widely published on the internet addressing EMF/RF was the late Catherine Frompovich, on the alternative news site Activist Post. (Here is an article from 2015: The DUMB Aspects of Smart Meters). Catherine introduced me to her publisher and for several years, I wrote an article almost every day for either Activist Post or its sister publication Natural Blaze, forging connections to wireless concerns for readers already questioning mainstream narratives. Flo Freshman provided artwork, and another writing colleague ‘B.N. Frank.’ soon joined me at A.P. I didn’t agree with every perspective or all the other writers but the on-line publications helped us to spread the word to their subscribers….until they couldn’t - when they were deplatformed via widespread censorship by social media channels. The false narrative that 5G opponents were burning down 5G towers made ‘activist’ a dirty word.
Now many more individuals are questioning the downsides of tech. But the wireless issue still does not have a seat at the table, and it is still difficult to ‘get the word out.’
If 350.org and other environmental groups had heeded the harm being inflicted by smart meters, we would not be where we are today. We might have decentralized power infrastructure protected against EMPs, instead of a smart surveillance/control grid. Instead of digital twins, we would have analogue redundancies.
We need to be discerning in not confusing the benefits of internet access with wireless technologies.
Gillian Jamieson of the U.K. is one of my favorite writers, and I hope her perspective reaches parents concerned about social media.
The news from South Africa is worth a look.
Delaney at Screenagers covered the most horrific story of the Halloween season, noting that she is angry and scared. AI, and ubiquitous tech, including wireless is not making the world safer.
A wave is building, worldwide. More news items tomorrow, its been a busy week.
FEATURED:
CELLPHONES SMARTPHONES CHILDREN Gillian Jamieson: The glaring omission in the smartphones and children debate As published in the Daily Sceptic on 29th October 2024 Momentum is building in the campaign to try to protect children from harmful smartphone use. Earlier this year, Miriam Cates MP led a lively debate on this subject, while the Education Committee led an inquiry entitled, ‘Screen Time – Impacts on Education and Wellbeing’. The grassroots movement, including Smartphone Free Childhood, Safe Screens and others is gathering pace. The latter organisation is in fact actively supporting MP Josh MacAlister’s Safer Phones Bill launched earlier this month, which aims to “make smartphones less addictive for children and empower families and teachers to cut down on children’s daily smartphone screen time”. The dangers of smartphone use are clearly serious and encompass addiction, harmful content, exposure to sexual abuse and bullying, disruption of learning, behavioural changes through the habits adopted and the loss of previously normal childhood activities and social interactions. The movement hails Jonathan Haidt as the “world’s leading voice” on the damage caused to children by a phone-based childhood. Haidt identifies the damage as an “adolescent mental health crisis”. The diagnosis, therefore, is overwhelmingly one of psychological damage. What I find astounding, however, is that with the exception of Safe Screens, no-one has mentioned the effects on children’s health of the wireless radiation signals emitted by smart devices, Wi-Fi or phone masts. All appear to assume that the only issue is the way children interact with screens along with the harmful social media content. why has there been no campaign to publicise the risks of mobile phone use and other RFR-emitting devices, especially for children? Instead, the opposite happened: the Government, through the now defunct British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, promoted the use of wireless technologies in schools, so that now there is hardly a school without them. During the lockdown the Government wanted every child to use a laptop, hardly any of which would have been hard-wired via ethernet cables. Gillian Jamieson's Substack
FEATURED:
German administrative judge: Health damage from today's radiation is foreseeable and proven A retired German administrative judge, Bernd I. Budzinski, writes in a thorough German article that electrical hypersensitivity is a foreseeable and legally proven effect of today's man-made radiation. The article was published in June this year in the well-respected German journal of environmental medicine Umwelt · Medizin · Gesellschaft (Environment, Medicine, Society) Budzinski has written a number of professional articles for lawyers on the same topic, particularly on local government and its duties. In the recent article, which Budzinski has written together with Peter Hensinger, board member of the information organization diagnose:funk ("diagnosis:radio waves"), they also take a close look at how today's knowledge about the causes of electrical hypersensitivity satisfies both medical science's and law's requirements for understanding and causal explanations, and triggers constitutional duties for better radiation protection. The article, which with illustrations is 8.5 pages before the extensive list of references, can be found on my blog in the menu under "Everything you can download for free, and then some" [] The article has also been translated into Danish and into English. EINAR ARTICLE AND NORWEGAIN TRANSLATION ENGLISH TRANSLATION courtesy Environmental Health Trust. Why electrohypersensitivity (EHS) is a biologically expected reaction to harmful radiation
EMF NEWSLETTERS
SOUTH AFRICA EMFSA October 2024 Newsletter includes: Why Grounding Metal Roofs and Solar Panels Is Crucial for EMF Safety, ME/CFS and EHS - The Struggle for Research and Recognition, Electrical Household Diffusers, Research Monitoring in Switzerland(auto-translated) The SwissNIS Project Consortium utilizes an innovative measurement concept to monitor non-ionizing radiation across Switzerland, 3 Three distinct measurement methods; Pilot study investigates 5G exposure-related changes in the autonomic nervous system The GOLIAT pilot study assessed the impact of 5G exposure on the autonomic nervous system in 44 volunteers; The Barnes Research Group is currently looking at the effects of electric and magnetic fields on biological systems https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/barnes/; Frequency-Dependent Antioxidant Responses in HT-1080 Human Fibrosarcoma Cells Exposed to Weak Radio Frequency Fields; Brighter nights and darker days predict higher mortality risk: A prospective analysis of personal light exposure in >88,000 individuals; Why daylight should be a priority for urban planning; How the Built Environment Is Damaging Children’s Connection to Nature Profit-driven urban development has disconnected us—particularly children—from the wilderness. The effects are unhealthy. https://observatory.wiki/How_the_Built_Environment_Is_Damaging_Children%E2%80%99s_Connection_to_Nature; The protective role of green spaces in mitigating myopia prevalence; Swiss warn of effects of new technologies on global peace and security The ultra-fast development of new technologies and artificial intelligence will have a major impact on peace and security in the world. The UN Security Council, under the leadership of Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, is convinced of this.Read the article at https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science/cassis-on-the-security-council-yesterday-science-fiction-today-reality/87773080 EMFSA October 2024 Newsletter
EUROPEANS FOR SAFE CONNECTIONS OCTOBER NEWSLETTER Text and pictures from the conference can be found on our website: A retrospective on a very successful ESC Conference 2024 You can find the slides of the speakers' presentations (in PDF format) here: Speakers at ESC Conference 2024 [] ESC’s main engine is its working groups. We have several groups working along different paths to achieve our common goal of general acceptance that EMFs have harmful effects and that people's lives and nature must be protected. For instance, the Smart Meters, Technical Solutions and EMF Protection for Children working groups are examples of this informative approach. The Law and Politics and Have Your Say working groups clearly work in the area of policy-making and regulation. [] News from around the world France Law proposed for recognition of EHS EHS is often a disabling condition. Yet people with EHS usually have difficulty having their disability recognised. In order to achieve equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship for persons with EHS in France, seven members of the National Assembly proposed to explicitly recognise EHS as a disabling disease by law. French: Read here English: Read here New Science Mobile telephony radiation exerts genotoxic action and significantly enhances the effects of gamma radiation in human cell. Read more here The first study in the world on 5G health risks published from a Swedish research team. Read more here Literature review: potential non-thermal molecular effects of external radiofrequency electromagnetic fields on cancer. Read more here EUROPEANS FOR SAFE TECHNOLOGY
NEWS AND NOTES
AI: Annoyed Redditors tanking Google Search results illustrates perils of AI scrapers "Spreading misinformation suddenly becomes a noble goal," Redditor says. A trend on Reddit that sees Londoners giving false restaurant recommendations in order to keep their favorites clear of tourists and social media influencers highlights the inherent flaws of Google Search’s reliance on Reddit and Google's AI Overview. ARSTECHNICA
AI: Generative AI could generate millions of tons of e-waste by decade's end, study finds
AI: The AI Curse is Coming for the Creator's Economy AI content generation tools bring the risk of flooding the market with a lot of cheap goods that can undercut even the most productive human creators. And in the case of writers like myself—who publish fairly infrequently—the risk is greater. Invariably, the question that haunts me, and that ought to haunt all of us, is this: Why should anyone go through all the work to create a deep and eloquent essay or podcast, when somebody will use AI to do the same thing more eloquently and deeply—and in the same time it takes them to go on a bathroom break? Some writers such as Ruth and I, Hadden Turner, Seth Haines , and several others, have taken a clear stand on rejecting the use of AI in all aspects of writing and creating. [] Substack is growing fast, yet the tools for creating the equivalent of Rolex knock-offs of its main products are growing even faster. Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best, and Jairaj Sethi: Substack needs to act on this issue quickly, if it wants to protect the authenticity of its content and safeguard the trust of its readership. Maybe we need to get authors to sign a declaration indicating whether they use AI in the generation of their content? Or maybe Substack can introduce an app to help detect whether an author’s works appear to have been AI-generated? []No matter how good AI gets, many of us will always want articles and podcasts created by human beings. You might call it “artisanal writing”, or “artisanal content”—though it’s also a bit ridiculous that we might have to label something to identify it as authentically human. Like putting on a sticker that says “Organic”, or in this case “Made by an actual Soul”. Substack has effectively upheld the freedom of speech. Now the question remains, will it also stand up to protect uniquely human speech? The AI curse is coming. Are we ready to safeguard the creator’s economy? PILGRIMS IN THE MACHINE
AI: Google, Microsoft, and Perplexity promote scientific racism in AI search results AI-powered search engines are surfacing deeply racist, debunked research. ARS TECHNICA
BIG TECH BLOOD IN THE MACHINE: A complete guide to luddite horror films Call it movies vs the machine — these are the 15 best SF horror films that take on tech.
BIG TECH THE GUARDIAN: The US tech startup promising smarter babies – podcast 22 MINUTES
BROADBAND INDUSTRY: Comparing State Broadband Performance Ookla recently published a report that compares broadband connectivity and performance in each state. The report highlights the percentage of broadband customers who are receiving broadband speeds that meet the FCC’s definition of broadband of 100/20 Mbps. This is also the speed threshold being used for the $42.5 billion BEAD grant program, which is supposed to provide grants to every part of the country that can’t achieve 100/20 Mbps. Ookla is the largest and most commonly used speed test in the country and receives millions of tests each day, so these comparisons are based on huge numbers of speed tests. The Ookla results are interesting and give states a way to compare themselves to peer states. The states with the lowest percentage of rural homes meeting 100/20 Mbps are also the least densely populated – Alaska (17.3%), Montana (20.8%), and Wyoming (25.3%). The other states with percentage of rural broadband coverage under 40% include New Mexico (29.4%), Wisconsin (31.4%), Oregon (32.2%), Idaho (34.1%), Michigan (37.5%), and Maine (37.6%). These are the states that will require a heavy life from BEAD grants. POTS AND PANS
BROADBAND - ADVOCACY SUCCESS STORY: Southern Ute Indian Tribe Transforms Reservation With Open Access Fiber Network When service was lit up in May, the network became the only open access network owned by a tribal government. Among the burgeoning number of Tribal networks being built across Indian Country, a new fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network spanning the Southern Ute Indian Reservation is unique. When service was lit up in Ignacio, Colorado in May, the network became the only open access network owned by a Tribal government, providing its residents with a choice between two different Internet Service Providers offering lightning-fast connection speeds. BROADBAND BREAKFAST Nancy Van Dover wrote: Another colleague with EMS (electromagnetic sensitivity) and I advocated strongly against the Tribe going with the fixed wireless towers they were ready to build, instead, to wait for the federal monies, including BEAD, that we knew would be coming soon. One of my points to Tribal decision makers, was that they might not qualify for that money to build superior “fiber to the premises” if they instead, had enough internet connectivity with wireless up and running. We sent a lot of Dr Tim Schoechle’s info onfiber; health and environment bio-harm--- pointing out that their environmental review for the project had not included biological impacts for the radiation these towers would emit. The 30 year old FCC guidelines have not been updated yet, despite the court order to include biological effects. Staying within FCC limits would not protect living organisms. One tower was planned right next to a youth mental health clinic. We know wireless radiation often adversely affects humans emotionally and mentally, especially in children and the elderly. I also highlighted that some nesting sites for raptors and an endangered Flycatcher on the reservation could be negatively impacted by the radiation. My friend will also be safer in her home because one of the towers would have been 700’ away from her property. She did not want to be forced out of her house. The Tribe is now well suited to also be a prototype for Schoechle’s EMMA wired metering, partnering with LPEA electric coop. This would eliminate another source of unsafe wireless radiation--- “smart” meters, and allow better use and management of energy and the electrical grid. ~Nancy
BROADBAND: GoNetspeed: Pole Regs in Massachusetts Threaten BEAD Success Company says it can take years to access poles in the Bay State. GoNetspeed CEO Richard Clark and Chief Legal Counsel Jamie Hoare met with officials from the Federal Communications Commission Monday to address the difficulties they face with pole attachment regulation in Massachusetts. "In Massachusetts, it takes close to a year to obtain pre-construction survey results and approximately four years for make-ready work to be completed,” the letter, signed by Maria Browne, an attorney with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, stated. BROADBAND BREAKFAST
CHILDREN: Meta, Google, TikTok Must Face Schools’ Addiction Claims Federal judge lets claims proceed after state judge declined Companies face significant exposure from hundreds of cases https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-24/social-media-giants-must-face-school-districts-addiction-claims
CHILDREN SCHOOLS: Life as a teen without social media isn’t easy. These families are navigating adolescence offline Kate Bulkeley’s pledge to stay off social media in high school worked at first. She watched the benefits pile up: She was getting excellent grades. She read lots of books. The family had lively conversations around the dinner table and gathered for movie nights on weekends. Then, as sophomore year got underway, the unexpected problems surfaced. She missed a student government meeting arranged on Snapchat. Her Model U.N. team communicates on social media, too, causing her scheduling problems. Even the Bible Study club at her Connecticut high school uses Instagram to communicate with members. Gabriela Durham, a high school senior in Brooklyn, says navigating high school without social media has made her who she is today. She is a focused, organized, straight-A student with a string of college acceptances — and an accomplished dancer who recently made her Broadway debut. Not having social media has made her an “outsider,” in some ways. That used to hurt; now, she says, it feels like a badge of honor. Staying off social media can be challenging. These teens also find it liberating | AP News
CHILDREN SCREENAGERS: Scary Snapchat AI and Other AI Chatbot Companions I try to write things from a calm tone, but today I am pissed and scared. A few weeks ago, I read a report from a wonderful organization called Voicebox, called Coded Companions, about what young people were experiencing when engaging with Snapchat’s built-in AI chatbot, My AI, and another character chatbot called Replika. The experiences were incredibly dystopian. Immediately after reading the report, I reached out to the lead researcher, Natalie Foos, who is also the director of Voicebox, to ask if she would be on The Screenagers Podcast. The market for AI-based companion platforms, which allow users to build personal, interactive relationships with virtual characters, is growing rapidly, and there are currently around 40 applications available. In today’s blog, I will break this all down for you. Be prepared to be sad, scared, and mad. SCREENAGERS
CHILDREN CHATBOT LAWSUIT: A suit filed last week against the startup Character.ai, which makes a customizable, role-playing chatbot used by 20 million people, alleges the company designed an addictive product that encouraged a teenager to kill himself. []Other chats between the teenager and the bot published by the New York Times refer to death more metaphorically, with Setzer saying he loved it and would soon come home to it. Should a chatbot understand the contextual meaning of “home” here as a grim and final end rather than a place of safety? The lawsuit is one of several against AI companies, many of them hinging on questions of responsibility. []Garcia is being represented by the Social Media Victims Law Center, which has brought suits against Meta and others on behalf of parents who say social media played a role in the death of their children. Those cases pose the question of how responsible those social networks are for their algorithmic recommendations. Maybe a chatbot is closer to Facebook’s recommendation system than to its users? If so, then along with questions of an AI’s responsibility, Garcia’s case asks whether an AI startup, albeit one with $150m in investment and a billion-dollar valuation, bears as much of the burden of safeguarding its users as Meta, a 20-year-old tech titan worth $1.4tn, does. The US statute that protects social media companies reads: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Is a chatbot an “interactive computer service”, and its maker therefore not “the speaker of any information”? Is a bot a “neutral tool” or “passive conduit” of information and therefore protected from liability, as Google and other search engines are described in a different landmark case of internet law? The copyright suits against AI companies ask the same question from a different angle: does the output of chatbots imply a violation of copyright law? []The New York Times says it has been able to reproduce exact copies of its articles in ChatGPT’s responses, linking the bot’s training data and its output. OpenAI’s founder Sam Altman has said in the past it would be “impossible” to create AI models that produce images and text without copyrighted material. His formulation presupposes that such models need to exist, ergo copyright should permit them or die. The people and organizations that have sued OpenAI – news outlets, artists, record labels, authors and software engineers – might disagree. THE GUARDIAN TECHSCAPE NEWS
CHILDREN PRIVACY: Opt out: how to protect your baby’s photos on the internet THE GUARDIAN
CLIMATE: Opinion | Climate Coercion Meets Washington State Voters
DATA; Data Brokers Expose Massive Phone Tracking Network
FCC: FCC Urged to Drop Bulk Billing Ban Proposal Citing two recent court rulings, broadband advocates argued the FCC lacked authority to enforce the proposed rule. A coalition of broadband advocates has urged the nation’s telecom regulator to abandon its proposal to regulate bulk billing for internet in apartment complexes, arguing the federal regulators lack the legal authority to enforce such a rule.
FCC: Wireless Players Want FCC to Expand Wi-Fi Hotspots Approach Qualcomm, CTIA agreed FCC should support LTE-enabled Chromebooks widely used in schools. Leading voices in the wireless sector have backed a proposal calling for a shift in funding rules that would relieve schools of a costly and cumbersome process: managing Wi-Fi hotspots. “Qualcomm respectfully requests the FCC grant the unopposed petitions that ask the agency to provide E-Rate funding for mobile service to laptops and tablets with embedded mobile connectivity, rather than require all schools and libraries to pay for and administer separate, standalone mobile hotspots to provide connectivity to students in need,” stated Qualcomm’s filing signed by John Kuzin, Vice President of Spectrum Policy & Regulatory Counsel. Kuzin, added, “Allowing this option would offer cost savings and ease administrative burdens on school districts, many of which are already dealing with substantial financial challenges and workforce shortages.” Both Qualcomm and CTIA have urged the FCC to revisit aspects of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s E-Rate Hotspot order. Adopted in July, the ruling expanded E-Rate support to include off-premises use of Wi-Fi hotspots for school and library patrons, but limited funding to hotspot devices that are bundled with commercial wireless service. Devices without such service or non-hotspot Wi-Fi-enabled devices were excluded from support. Qualcomm emphasized that its Snapdragon technology powered many cellular-enabled laptops and tablets, including the LTE-enabled Chromebooks widely used in schools, which can connect to cellular networks (like LTE or 5G) without needing an external device. Requiring standalone hotspots, Qualcomm argued, forces schools to buy additional equipment, increasing costs and complicating connectivity for students who could otherwise access the internet directly on the devices they already have. BROADBAND BREAKFAST
5G PITTSFIELD TOWER, VIDEO; Stop 5G + Pittsfield Case Update Headaches, brain fog, dizziness, nausea — they all started out of nowhere. The residents of Pittsfield, Massachusetts were experiencing a widespread, invisible and sudden attack on their health. But the symptoms of this condition were neither isolated to their neighborhoods nor random, without an identifiable cause. Across the world, wireless technology is being rolled out at an unprecedented speed. And without proper safety testing and precautions, this infrastructure has the potential to cause lasting impact, affecting future generations in ways not yet fully understood and seen. Can anything be done to stop this risky experiment and protect humans and the environment before any more damage is done? Here, on “Good Morning CHD,” Polly Tommey interviews Courtney Gilardi and Miriam Eckenfels, Esq., who provide their thoughts on this particular issue. https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/shows/good-morning-chd/stop-5g--pittsfield-case-update/ (COURNEY’S SEGMENT IS THE FIRST 12 MINUTES FOLLOWED BY MIRIAM ECKENFELS 12 MINUTES)
5G UK: Ministers remain in ignorant bliss with regard to 5G health risks as published by HART on 19th October 2023 I questioned the rights of those disabled by electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) in terms of section 6 of the Equality Act. A case has already been won in the UK, where a local authority has been mandated to provide EMF-free education for a child with EHS. Moreover, because EMFs are not new, enough time has now elapsed for us to have sufficient evidence for high quality epidemiological studies. In 2019, an international expert team led by Professor Tony Miller found human epidemiological evidence linking human breast and brain tumours, male reproductive outcomes and child neurodevelopmental conditions to RFR exposures to pre-5G emissions. With regard to Mr Sunak’s statement on 5G, there is indeed little evidence, in so far as its safety remains unproven. The effect of the combination of new technologies, such as beamforming, combined with present and higher frequencies has not been tested. The UK follows the safety exposure guidelines of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, (ICNIRP), but their calculations use only simple heating models that do not consider the complexities of the many interacting and aggregated signals that occur in the built environment. Be that as it may, when the two ministerial replies arrived, I was genuinely shocked by the level of ignorance they betrayed. GILLIAN JAMIESON SUBSTACK
5G VS. WIFI, INDUSTRY VIDEO; Ericsson's Asa Tamsons on why 5G won’t fully replace Wi-Fi anytime soon YOUTUBE 5 MINUTES
HACKING: UnitedHealth data breach leaked info on over 100 million people THE VERGE
HEALTH GARY SHARPE: Chronic Stress <-> Neck Problems <-> Breathing Issues <-> Low Dopamine <-> Chronic Symptoms... A Connecting of the Dots...The neck is a primary site for body memories of traumatic events and stressful episodes to get written, resulting in fascia and muscles issues of the neck being common and chronic. Stress itself causes a stiff neck, as it down-regulates the cranial nerves responsible for head turning. Breathing problems can result in neck breathing, causing an over use of neck muscles, creating excessive muscle tone, or dystonia, of the neck.
HEALTH PODCAST ROOTS OF DISEASE: Penny Kelly is an author, teacher, publisher, consultant, Naturopathic physician, and researcher of consciousness. Join Penny Kelly as she delves into the hidden roots of disease, exploring the impact of toxins and electromagnetic frequencies on the human body. Discover the role of heavy metals and gut health in the onset of autoimmune conditions and chronic illnesses, and learn practical steps to begin healing your body from within. This thought-provoking discussion highlights the importance of rebalancing your energy system and detoxifying your environment to foster true wellness. 16-minute audio ❤️ Roots of Disease ❤️ - Penny Kelly - Apple Podcasts INCLUDES EMF
INSPIRATION: Hadden Turner from Over the Field Harming the Place You Love Without wisdom, love can be deadly to the places we live in
MINING: Massive Lithium Mine Gets Go-Ahead In Nevada, Posing A Catch-22 For Environmentalists A huge new mine in southwestern Nevada has just been given the final thumbs up by the US government. While the mine could supply enough lithium to power 50 million electric vehicles, its construction threatens the existence of a rare wildflower, sparking debate about advancing clean energy and the protection of fragile ecosystems. MSN
POLICY MAKING/PLANNING UK: “SEVEN CONCERNED CITIZENS” Our intention is to support and work with councils, their officers and our wider community in-order to avert a major catastrophe associated with emergency planning and 'declared emergencies' 3 Councils now on notice see LETTERS, 56 PAGE REPORT & VIDEOS Councils shown - NOT FIT for emergency management, SIGNIFICANT FAILURES identified in organisation & management = CATASTROPHIC THREATS OF HARM to the wellbeing of the region and its people WE ARE ADVOCATING 'CRITICAL VOICE' INCLUSION + BALANCED & TRANSPARENT ADVISORY ALONGSIDE RIGOROUS & UNBIASED STRATEGIC PLANNING + PUBLIC CONSULTATION. BECOME ADVOCATES OF 'CRITICAL VOICE' INCLUSION: insist that competing narratives are heard in an open, impartial and balanced manner before important strategic decision making. Bias, fear frenzy & implications of net zero “SEVEN CONCERNED CITIZENS”
RIGHT TO REPAIR: US FTC probing Deere over customers' 'right to repair' equipment
SCIENCE: Yes, scientific progress depends on like a thousand people Defending the elite culture of science from both the political left and the political right A recent analysis in Nature caused a stir by pointing out that the vast majority of Nobel Prize winners belong to the same academic family. Of 736 researchers who have won the Big Recognition, 702 group together into one huge connected academic lineage (with lineage broadly defined as when one scientist “mentors” another, usually in the form of being their PhD advisor). Here's the great interconnected ball of scientific social relationships, responsible for large swaths of tip-of-the-spear progress over the past century. Most billionaires, most technology, most startups—arguably almost everything, in fact—is decades downstream of what this ball gets up to. (a) The first camp believes that this clustering arises solely from elitism and nepotism. (b) The second camp recoils at how these results conflict with a preferred explanation of purely innate genetic talent—essentially the belief that great scientists are simply super high IQ people, and science’s structure of mentorship, teaching, and apprenticeship is epiphenomenal. I think both of these camps are wrong and that it makes perfect sense that science would have an elite high-productivity cultural substructure at its apex. ERIC HOEL SUBSTACK
SMART CITIES: Neom: Is World’s Biggest Smart City Worth 100,000 Lives (So Far)? For all the hype, Saudi Arabia is on verge of the most colossal building project flop in history. They have already scaled the project from 100 miles down to 1.5 miles. They are building the city with contract workers imported from from African nations, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and India and who are routinely abused. Over eight years, 21,000 workers have died. ⁃ Patrick Wood, TN Editor. TECHNOCRACY NEWS LINKS TO: Dubbed “Kingdom Uncovered: Inside Saudi Arabia” the documentary speaks on the deadly issues experienced firsthand for many. THE SUN
SPACE: FCC Urged to Pause Broadband Satellite Launches More than 100 researchers warned of environmental harms from continued launches and re-entries. https://broadbandbreakfast.com/fcc-should-pause-leo-launches-astronomers-say/
SPACE POLITICS: Former President Donald Trump is unlikely to assign a limited role to satellite broadband if elected next Tuesday. Trump indicated he would support using federal dollars to connect the unserved via low Earth orbit satellites like Elon Musk's Starlink. Trump Praises Starlink During Joe Rogan Podcast Trump said Elon Musk's satellite-delivered Internet service saved lives
SPACE: For some reason, NASA is treating Orion’s heat shield problems as a secret “I’m not going to share right now. When it comes out, it’ll all come out together.” HUNTSVILLE, Ala.—For those who follow NASA's human spaceflight program, when the Orion spacecraft's heat shield cracked and chipped away during atmospheric reentry on the unpiloted Artemis I test flight in late 2022, what caused it became a burning question.Multiple NASA officials said Monday they now know the answer, but they're not telling. Instead, agency officials want to wait until more reviews are done to determine what this means for Artemis II, the Orion spacecraft's first crew mission around the Moon, officially scheduled for launch in September 2025.ARS TECHNICA
SPACE: Today in Science: Destroying the International Space Station is going to create a huge mess • The controlled destruction of the International Space Station will produce a huge scattering of space junk. Here's the plan for how to deal with it. | 8 min read Plans to Destroy the International Space Station Preview a Bigger Orbital Junk Problem | Scientific American
Physicians for Safe Technology | Telecommunications Act of 1996
SPACE POLITICS WALLSTREET ON PARADE: The U.S. Has Given Top Secret Clearance to Elon Musk and Over $19 Billion in Contracts, Ignoring His Illegal Drug Use and Phone Chats with Putin as His SpaceX Puts Spy Satellites into Orbit
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/10/the-u-s-has-given-top-secret-clearance-to-elon-musk-and-over-19-billion-in-contracts-ignoring-his-illegal-drug-use-and-phone-chats-with-putin-as-his-spacex-puts-spy-satellites-into-orbit/ AND The U.S. Government Is Plowing Billions into SpaceX, Overlooking Drug Use, Sex Parties, and Elon Musk’s Coziness with Putin
SPACE: Let There Be Broadband: SpaceX Lights Up Starlink in US National Radio Quiet Zone The access arrives following a three-year effort between SpaceX and US scientists to prevent Starlink from disrupting local radio telescopes, which is why the quiet zone exists. "Based on these results, SpaceX will begin a one-year assessment period to offer residential satellite internet service to 99.5% of residents within the NRQZ starting October 25,” the Green Bank Observatory said on Friday. The radio quiet zone around the observatory restricts cellular and Wi-Fi signals, although many residents do have Wi-Fi and fiber-based broadband. The quiet zone is needed to help radio telescopes detect the faintest signals from deep space. SpaceX has refrained from beaming Starlink internet to the area because the radio signals from its satellites could disrupt or even damage the “eye” of the radio telescopes. In August, SpaceX said it was ready to start rolling out Starlink access to users in the radio quiet zones around the Green Bank Observatory and another telescope in New Mexico. To prevent interference, the company developed a system that can quickly steer satellite beams away from the radio telescopes as they pass overhead.
SPACE: Jeff Bezos Reportedly Has Secretive "Personal Reasons" for Wanting to Escape to Mars "There’s no democracy in space." At some point, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos reportedly made a cryptic admission to a power broker — and that strange comment is taking on new significance in light of another recent message he's sending to the public. [] Larson jokingly followed up her own tweet with a seeming reference to the newspaper's tagline, "Democracy dies in darkness," which was taken up in the aftermath of Donald Trump's first presidential win in 2016. "There’s no democracy in space," the New Yorker writer quipped. [] Bezos has seemed to distance himself from Martian colonizing ambitions as his rival apparent, Elon Musk, goes all-in on the vision. "The only way to get to that vision is with giant space stations," he continued. "The planetary surfaces are just way too small." While the how of becoming an off-world species seems to be "throwing all your wealth at it till it sticks," the why of the WaPo owner's quest for space is anyone's guess. FUTURISM
SPACE; Satellites making up China's 'Thousand Sails' found to be exceeding brightness limits
SPACE: SpaceX pushes back launch of 20 Starlink satellites in late scrub It will mark the 14th time the first stage of this particular Falcon 9 booster will be used in flight and the 11th time it will be tasked with a Starlink mission. SpaceX operated more than 6,400 Starlink satellites in lower Earth orbit, providing Internet access to most of the world's most remote locations. About 250 of the satellites provide direct-to-cell service. SpaceX launched 22 new Starlink satellites into orbit from Florida on Saturday.
TOWERS AND ANTENNAS: La Plata County's cell tower hearing agenda includes comments submitted by Nancy Van Dover. http://laplatacountyco.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_Meeting.aspx?ID=5815 Nancy’s comment is under the date Oct, 21 2024.
EVENTS
Joel Moskowitz interview about wireless radiation health effects with Doug & Patty Wood (Green Street) will air on three radio stations. The program can be live-streamed at the web sites listed below: Friday (11/01/24) at 2:00 PM ET: WBAI (New York City) Monday (11/04/24) at 2:00 PM PT: KPFA (Berkeley) Tuesday (11/05/24) at 2:30 PM PT: KPFK (Los Angeles) Doug & Patty's websites: Grassroots Environmental Education Americans for Responsible Technology Baby Safe Project TechSafe SchoolsGreen Street
11/13 OVERCOMING CHEVRON - COLLABORATIVE FOR HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT On Wednesday, November 13 at 10am PT/1pm ET a group of expert panelists will explore The Overturning of Chevron Deference: Impacts on environmental health decision making. The June 28, 2024, Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overturning Chevron deference marks a pivotal shift that could reshape environmental regulation.The longstanding Chevron doctrine established the principle that federal courts must defer to an agency’s interpretation of the statutes it implements. The June decision removes this deference to agency experts and expands the authority of judges into the realm of policy making. This event, co-hosted with our partners at UCSF's Science Action Network, Earthjustice, and the EaRTH Center at UCSF, brings together legal and policy experts Lisa Heinzerling, Erik Olson, and Bob Sussman to discuss the implications of this decision, and its potentially profound impact on science, public health, and regulatory decision making. RSVP here.
Thanks for your endorsement, Patricia!