PartSkeptic’s Thread for Predictions and Other Matters of Interest

[Rincewind]

Step 1. Get people to down-play the threat
Step 2. Spread the infection
Step 3. Create more panic
Step 4. Ruin economies
Step 5. Start wars and famines
Step 6. Mutate to a deadlier strain without immunity for the first one

Rinse and repeat.

And this is apparently the best that God could come up with?

If it was a human that was doing the above, it's likely that they'd be roundly condemned by most of humanity.

But it's God - so that's OK...

If God was really the maker of everything, then we are his design - and have proven faulty in lots of ways [look up any list of human imperfections]. I can't see why that's our fault, and we need to be punished.

In the Bible you have his exhortation to be fruitful and multiply. As that's what's happened, the he only has himself to blame. Incompetence layered on incompetence.

If he really needs to reduce the population then, being omniscient, he'd had realized this many years ago, and simply reduced the fertility of humans.

Simply done - and no need for stupidly complex plans that don't seem to be working.

Oh, and if he really designed us with added free will, then he should accept that many of us will reject him. Punishing people for exercising his 'present' is the act of a sadist.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Lots of pressure to get things done.

So I will not be too responsive for a while. There is time to see how the Covid-19 plays out. After the long weekend in the USA I wonder how much of a spike there will be.

God seems to be looking after my wife. Despite the chaos things are doing okay with her. She is a genuinely good person and if there is a God, she is one person who deserves some "looking after". I will not use it a reason that God exists, but it is a small confirmation to me that his existence is probable.

 

[Mojo]

And this is apparently the best that God could come up with?

If it was a human that was doing the above, it's likely that they'd be roundly condemned by most of humanity.

But it's God - so that's OK...

If God was really the maker of everything, then we are his design - and have proven faulty in lots of ways [look up any list of human imperfections]. I can't see why that's our fault, and we need to be punished.

In the Bible you have his exhortation to be fruitful and multiply. As that's what's happened, the he only has himself to blame. Incompetence layered on incompetence.

If he really needs to reduce the population then, being omniscient, he'd had realized this many years ago, and simply reduced the fertility of humans.

Simply done - and no need for stupidly complex plans that don't seem to be working.

Oh, and if he really designed us with added free will, then he should accept that many of us will reject him. Punishing people for exercising his 'present' is the act of a sadist.

“We apologise for the inconvenience.”

 

[Pixel42]

God seems to be looking after my wife. Despite the chaos things are doing okay with her. She is a genuinely good person and if there is a God, she is one person who deserves some "looking after". I will not use it a reason that God exists, but it is a small confirmation to me that his existence is probable.

It beggars belief that you could post this whilst so many good people are watching their equally good partners die slow painful deaths from Covid19, which you are claiming has been sent by your god for that specific purpose. Have you no shame?

 

[Rincewind]

It beggars belief that you could post this whilst so many good people are watching their equally good partners die slow painful deaths from Covid19, which you are claiming has been sent by your god for that specific purpose. Have you no shame?

I agree. My mother was another 'Genuinely good person', but thanks to your God she spent the last eight years of her life suffering with Alzheimer's - and our family also suffered.

Except, of course, it wasn't God, just 'life'.

 

[turingtest]

It beggars belief that you could post this whilst so many good people are watching their equally good partners die slow painful deaths from Covid19, which you are claiming has been sent by your god for that specific purpose. Have you no shame?

Well, according to PS, the whole thing is an illusion in god's brain, or some such thing. He doesn't have any real alternative to acting as if his own part in the illusion is a reality, but, given the premise, it's easy enough to see everyone else, the people he will never know or interact with, as immaterial abstractions. And it's not, after all, really all that different from the usual holier-than-thou "god's smitings are for other folks!" attitude that more standard religions seem to engender.

(Gotta admit, I'm kind of wondering what you said before deciding on the edit to avoid the yellow card. You're normally one of the coolest, most self-possessed posters here, so it must have been pretty bad.)

 

[Pixel42]

Well, according to PS, the whole thing is an illusion in god's brain, or some such thing. He doesn't have any real alternative to acting as if his own part in the illusion is a reality, but, given the premise, it's easy enough to see everyone else, the people he will never know or interact with, as immaterial abstractions. And it's not, after all, really all that different from the usual holier-than-thou "god's smitings are for other folks!" attitude that more standard religions seem to engender.

I got into serious trouble with a religious person on another board by pointing out that people who thank god for sparing them from natural disasters or accidents which killed others are essentially saying they're more deserving of mercy than the ones who died. Some people just refuse to see the logical implications of what they're saying.

(Gotta admit, I'm kind of wondering what you said before deciding on the edit to avoid the yellow card. You're normally one of the coolest, most self-possessed posters here, so it must have been pretty bad.)

It wasn't that bad - it probably wouldn't have actually got me a yellow card - it was just unnecessary. As you say, that's not my way.

Incidentally it's now well over two weeks since PS agreed to do a simple blind test of his hypothesis that having the WiFi on increases his headaches. Given the benefit to his health should his hypothesis prove false (obviously once he knows it's not the WiFi his blood pressure should no longer spike when it's on) you would have thought he'd be keen to find out.

 

[PartSkeptic]

I got into serious trouble with a religious person on another board by pointing out that people who thank god for sparing them from natural disasters or accidents which killed others are essentially saying they're more deserving of mercy than the ones who died. Some people just refuse to see the logical implications of what they're saying.


It wasn't that bad - it probably wouldn't have actually got me a yellow card - it was just unnecessary. As you say, that's not my way.

Incidentally it's now well over two weeks since PS agreed to do a simple blind test of his hypothesis that having the WiFi on increases his headaches. Given the benefit to his health should his hypothesis prove false (obviously once he knows it's not the WiFi his blood pressure should no longer spike when it's on) you would have thought he'd be keen to find out.

Just a quick post before I go to the factory.

Yesterday I spent 2 hours and then 1 hour later at the house with the cell mast. I wore a head shield but not body covering.

Last night I was not in good shape. Mild headache, increased tinnitus, but a really sore stomach.

Skeptics - psychosomatic!

Me - Yeah, right. Believe what you want. It will not spare you from the effects.

 

[Pixel42]

It's not a question of belief, it's a question of evidence. You have a simple way to find out if your suspicion (and that's all it is in the absence of objective evidence) is correct, but you still haven't taken it. Why are you so reluctant to find out if you are right?

Also 'electrosmog' and 'psychosomatic' are not the only possibilities.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Just a quick post before I go to the factory.

Yesterday I spent 2 hours and then 1 hour later at the house with the cell mast. I wore a head shield but not body covering.

Last night I was not in good shape. Mild headache, increased tinnitus, but a really sore stomach.

Skeptics - psychosomatic!

Me - Yeah, right. Believe what you want. It will not spare you from the effects.

Yes it will, I work in a LOT of wifi, as do all my colleagues. And none of them have those effects. That's the whole thing with psychosomatic illnesses, if you don't think you'll have it, you won't be affected.

 

[abaddon]

I got into serious trouble with a religious person on another board by pointing out that people who thank god for sparing them from natural disasters or accidents which killed others are essentially saying they're more deserving of mercy than the ones who died. Some people just refuse to see the logical implications of what they're saying.


It wasn't that bad - it probably wouldn't have actually got me a yellow card - it was just unnecessary. As you say, that's not my way.

Incidentally it's now well over two weeks since PS agreed to do a simple blind test of his hypothesis that having the WiFi on increases his headaches. Given the benefit to his health should his hypothesis prove false (obviously once he knows it's not the WiFi his blood pressure should no longer spike when it's on) you would have thought he'd be keen to find out.

I read it pre-edit. Probably not cardable, but true anyway.

 

[EvilBiker]

Yes it will, I work in a LOT of wifi, as do all my colleagues. And none of them have those effects. That's the whole thing with psychosomatic illnesses, if you don't think you'll have it, you won't be affected.

I've worked with RF my entire life, ranging from VLF right up to K_u band, at power levels up to 5kW. By "worked", I don't mean just being the vicinity of the fields, I mean actually designing, building, testing and using the equipment to generate/transmit/receive and analyse.

I know a lot of the big players in the RF design world, and none of them have presented any of these symptoms that PartSkeptic seems to have. In fact, they all seem to be in pretty good shape for their ages (yeah, we're getting old).

What I really don't get is how these supposed head shields and body covers work. Firstly, for any shield of any sort to work, there has to be very good grounding. Secondly, any hole in a shield is going to allow RF in at higher frequencies. Even when working with VCO and synthesizer designs around 2 GHz, I literally had to make the modules waterproof - feedthrough capacitors on all control lines, solid ground everywhere, coaxial connectors in and out.

Thirdly, tinfoil does squat when it comes to shielding. Don't even get me started on space blankets.

I did a lot of testing on this sort of pseudoscience a couple of decades ago, when I took on Fostac and their cellphone-radiation-reducing button. Back then I had use of a state-of-the-art RF anechoic chamber and some of the best spectrum analysers and signal generators money could buy (military, gotta love them). There was conclusive proof that Fostac were gulling the public - they were not very nice to me afterwards, but I at least got their product removed from SA shelves, and it gave me the warm feeling of a job well done.

Of course, this is anecdotal, and thanks to a massive data loss I had about 5 years ago, I no longer can share my Fostac efforts. I also realise that PartSkeptic does not really understand RF, and is, from the looks of it, psychosomatic. I think he realises this, but does not want to face up to the possibility that he is just getting old, and is looking for some sort of excuse.

The fact that he is avoiding doing a double blind test points to his need to keep the delusion going.

 

[PartSkeptic]

I will read the new posts later.


I have a terrible headache. I forgot my head shield at the new house and was going to pick it up before meeting the electrician at the cell tower house. It has been difficult to connect and get him to quote and get the work done. So when he called and said he would be there in 10 minutes I went straight there from the factory. I thought it would not take long to show him the work after it had been detailed in an email. It took an hour and I was outside and at the back close to the tower.

The headache started an hour after getting home. I had to lie down, and I lay there just suffering. My tinnitus which is usually quite faint was not loud. It is late and I am going to sleep. The effect usually lasts into the next day. I hope it does not. I hope I am able to work.

What a reminder I got of just how bad it can be.

ETA: I will respond to the last post. I see enough bad info to do so. He may work with the stuff but understanding the physics is something else.

 

[abaddon]

He may work with the stuff but understanding the physics is something else.

Sure. Just like you think arc welding does not create electric fields. That is some world class understanding of physics right there, isn't it.

No, no, according to you, arc welding just creates UV light.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Hi Roger.Good to see you again. Was it Bitcoin that we agreed on - and yet it keeps going?

Yep, propped up by a shared delusion of wealth from nothing. Half the price it was over 2 years ago, but still...

Can you explain why my blood pressure goes to nearly normal if I go the country side where the electrosmog is almost zero? It takes about 4 days.

Like I said, confirmation bias. There could be many reasons for the blood pressure variation, including the stress of worrying about your blood pressure!

The electrosmog acts as a catalyst to amplify any medical problem.

No, 'electrosmog' is not a catalyst of any medical problem. But your imagination might be.

Example 1. My knee replacement started failing with 2 days of high radiation in the old house lounge. It only started after I got out of bed to watch TV. When I realized the worker had not foil-lined the lounge ceiling I wrapped my leg in foil. The relief was almost immediate

What level is 'high' radiation, and how did you measure it?

Tinfoil around your leg could have other effects that are far more powerful than its ability to shield EMI (useless below 1MHz, not effective at GHz frequencies unless there are no gaps). For example it is a good reflector of IR, so could trap body heat. Muscles and joints often respond well to warmth.

Example 2. I started getting a burning sensation on my right upper thigh when visiting our old home next to the cell tower. It took about 45 minutes to manifest and about 4 hours to dissipate. This was quite repeatable. Then I started to get burning even when away from the tower. I did some research. It is a nerve that is not happy. It took about a week for me to realize that if I wore my normal size underwear the pain would happen. If I wore a larger size it would not happen. The elastic was pressing on the nerve. If I went to the house after a week of wearing the larger underwear I would not get the pain. Conclusion. The nerve was in the early stages of being stressed. The emf made it worse. When the nerve healed, the emf did not have an effect.

Confirmation bias again. The emf didn't make it worse, the condition was getting worse anyway.

The problem with an observation like this is that any unrelated thing that changes is not necessarily the cause. IOW correlation does not equal causation. In this case you found the cause, and it was not what you thought. So you should reject your first hypothesis and go with what you found was the cause. Furthermore the actual cause was logical and reasonable, whereas the other one wasn't.

Lessons from God.

Believe it or not!

I feel your frustration, but as a technician with extensive experience in electronics I don't take any correlation as proof, particularly when there is no known mechanism for cause and effect. One thing I found out doing electronic fault diagnosis is that 99.9% of the time the cause is mundane - a dry joint, a broken track, a dried out capacitor - even when the fault is quite perplexing. So I start out with no preconceptions, but great skepticism - until I have proved the real cause of the problem. It's embarrassing to charge a customer for 'fixing' a fault only to have it reappear because I didn't find the root cause.

I apply the same skepticism to my health. Just because a headache came on after x or a pain when in place y, doesn't mean x or y caused it. Only when the correlation is confirmed by multiple occurrences and a likely cause is identified do I believe it.

Right now I am feeling pain in my right arm and wrist. This time I know what caused it - 3 weeks of repetitive strain potting 82,000 apple seeds. Next time, who knows? Any minor strain might set it off. But it won't be triggered by being close to a cellphone tower, because I know that the signal strength is miniscule and the effect practically unmeasurable. And since the only effect at cellphone frequencies is localized heating, it would more likely make it (insignificantly) better than worse.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I have a terrible headache. I forgot my head shield at the new house and was going to pick it up before meeting the electrician at the cell tower house... It took an hour and I was outside and at the back close to the tower.

The headache started an hour after getting home.

So, no correlation?

He may work with the stuff but understanding the physics is something else.

I work with the stuff and I do understand the physics, which is why I don't wear a tinfoil hat.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Last night I was not in good shape. Mild headache, increased tinnitus, but a really sore stomach.

Oh oh. Headache, increased tinnitus, sore stomach? Feeling light-headed? Coughed more than once? You might have Covid-19!

I can't tell you many times over the last month I thought I was coming down with it. Yet the symptoms always soon disappeared. And I keep reading about more and more possible symptoms. Now any little thing that previously I would have brushed off might mean I have the virus! Or not.

 

[Mojo]

What level is 'high' radiation, and how did you measure it?

Look out of the window and see if the sun is shining?

 

[curious cat]

There is a real possibility there is something wrong with your house (and it is not 5G related ). There were well documented cases like this: radon gas, small heating gas leak, poisonous dye in tapestry, poisonous fungi etc.. So, if you mysterious symptoms pop up only at your place, stop your wild-goose chase and investigate some other more "real" possibilities.

 

[EvilBiker]

ETA: I will respond to the last post. I see enough bad info to do so. He may work with the stuff but understanding the physics is something else.

Please, go right ahead. Firstly, I'd like to know the difference between your version of physics and mine. Considering that deep knowledge of MY version of physics, the one that I learned in university as the basis for my engineering and astronomy degree, is essential for working with RF (besides most other worldly and off-worldly things).

I work with the stuff and I do understand the physics, which is why I don't wear a tinfoil hat.

Exactly.