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back to article Santa Fe man demands half a mill for being near iPhone

Arthur Firstenberg is suing his neighbour for $530,000 for refusing to switch off her iPhone, claiming that the electromagnetic fields generated are destroying his health. Not only does Mr. Firstenberg want the iPhone switched off, but he also reckons that leaving the iPhone and a laptop charging overnight is denying him the …

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  1. Tony Paulazzo
    Alien

    Medical science

    >Given his ridiculous claims are not backed up by any kind of medical science<

    The arrogance.

    Things not yet proven but billions accept as 'fact'

    1. The universe was created by a big bang

    2. Mankind evolved from apes

    3. God

    Any proof that this stuff is actually bad, cancer producing etc would destroy modern civilisation.

    Disclaimer: I have wireless broadband, large flat screen TV, desktop, laptop, mobile phone, landline phone, 5.1 sound system, wireless keyboard n mouse and I feel fine, though the only electrical thing in my bedroom is the laptop - I 'feel' I sleep better, I do not own a tinfoil hat.

    I also don't instantly subscribe to whatever the current 'experts' are saying.

    IMHO.

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    1. Benny
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      You cant

      have big bang and god in the same rant, also, thats just showing off..

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    2. ElReg!comments!Pierre
      Reply Icon

      Re: medical science

      "Things not yet proven but billions accept as 'fact'

      1. The universe was created by a big bang

      2. Mankind evolved from apes

      3. God"

      As such none are accepted as facts (with or without quotes). The first two, however are common vulgarization images for fairly well proven scientific facts. Number 3 still cannot be completely disproven by science (because it's been cleverly put outside the very scope of science by its inventors in the first place) but most of it's "manifestations" have been quite comprehensively debunked. As far as science is involved, it is certainly not "accepted as fact". Mostly tolerated as long as it can't be categorically disproven (as is the GSM -the pasta-and-meatballs one, not the nasty EMR-generating stuff).

      Also, by "billions you might actually mean "millions". Even in the "I can't spell milliard" acceptation of the word "billion".

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    3. Muscleguy
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Conspiracy not needed

      "Any proof that this stuff is actually bad, cancer producing etc would destroy modern civilisation."

      Which is why science has been busily beavering away investigating just exactly these questions then? Mrs Muscleguy used to run admin for cancer epidemiology studies. One of them was measuring the EMF's in the houses, rooms, around the beds of those with a variety of cancers, especially brain cancers. No link between strength of EMF's and the cancers was found, not even for those who slept with their heads just the other side of the wall from the consumer unit.

      Even Dennis Henshaw who has risked the derision of his scientific peers for decades has given up on EMF's being directly dangerous. The last talk of his I went to his hypothesis was that high voltage power lines were bad when were in areas of high pollution, such as car exhausts if beside a busy road AND you live downwind of them. The idea being that they ionise the particles making them even more dangerous when inhaled, a biologically plausible scenario. His data were not convincing however since finding sites with sufficiently prevailing winds upwind of major populations has proven difficult.

      But the point is, science is asking these questions and they are not being stopped by the power industry. Not in this country anyway.

      Mind you I still wouldn't recommend a pregnant woman took a tour of an aluminium smelter. We don't have that dose response curve for embryos worked out yet and we know they are sensitive. But that does not apply to the sorts of EMF's you find in a home, not within several orders of magnitude strong enough.

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    4. James Hughes 1
      Reply Icon

      What arrogance?

      But the point is, his claims are NOT backed up by any medical science. Where is the arrogance in that?

      I'm not saying his claims are completely false - just that at this stage, there is no medical science evidence to support them. (which, to be honest, is pretty close to false given the current understanding)

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  2. Dazed and Confused

    Low wattage Eco bulbs and EM radiation

    The problem with eco bulbs is that they don't make a nice EMF their EM radiation is weedy and horrid. Bring back beautiful tungsten is what I say!

    1 0
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Badgers

      Nay, but I object...

      Each of those little CFL's has a switchmode power supply in it, which spews out all kinds of electromagnetic filth.

      Most of the little lightweight power adaptors these days are small switching power supplies, and were one to look at the RF spectrum around them (I have) with something like a spectrum analyser, you would get a display that looked something similar to lots of grass. (that being, loads of RFI, EMI and other garbage.)

      Twas part of my job at one time to test and track down EMI sources, and I can assure you the electrical fields from cell-phone chargers to televisions spew out a great deal of the stuff.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    Can your brain feel me now?

    Silly lawsuit. Everybody knows that AT&T signals don't reach indoors.

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  4. androidbottlecap
    Linux

    Embarrassed

    I live in Santa Fe, we consider Arty a nut job as well, but he won't go away. He lives not too far from me and I make sure he sees me on my Android or blackberry or what have you. I just wanted to say we're all not nuts in Santa Fe.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Black Helicopters

      If I were you I'd be so tempted...

      ...to build a transmitter aerial in the yard....it doesn't have to work... he'll just go nuts until it all gets too much for him.

      anyway on a more serious note.. surely it'd be cheaper to buy a cabin in the hills, than to keep paying the lawyers?

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    SFR

    I just thought I had to share this passage from the SFR website:

    -------------------------------

    Update 1:46 pm, Jan. 7: Lovejoy did not immediately return a second message—but he has been talking to KOAT, according to Melissa Vega, a reporter for that station. SFR just dropped by Firstenberg’s neighbor’s house, where Vega and a cameraman are parked outside, waiting for the woman to exit.

    Vega says Lovejoy told her he wants the case to play out in court (rather than in the media, presumably).

    Update 2:14 pm: SFR’s Zane Fischer points out that if the iPhone next door was bad for Firstenberg, that KOAT news truck must really be murder.

    -------------------------------

    http://www.sfreeper.com/2010/01/06/theres-no-app-for-that-electrosensitive-activist-sues-to-stop-neighbors-iphone-use/#more-7156

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  6. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Isn't it great?

    How the less mentally robust of us can now live amongst the community.

    Bless.

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  7. Leon Prinsloo
    Joke

    In the words of Monty Python

    from the skit of the cat license : You ARE a looney...

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  8. Robert Heffernan
    Flame

    Say!!

    This LessEMF clothing looks like it'll do the trick! woven from conductive threads and whatnot.

    Also looks pretty comfortable too!

    Say, is that thunder I hear?

    KERZERT!!

    Yep.

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  9. sabba
    Alien

    God bless America

    So many nutters in one place. You gotta love 'em, not only do they think that they live in the land of the free but they provide so much entertainment to the rest of the world.

    3 1
  10. M7S

    She should bill him

    for the Alzheimer's preventative treatment he's getting from her phone.

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  11. Dale 3

    Test it

    So what you need to do is be sure to turn off the iPhone and laptop every night, but tell the bloke that you left it ON. Keep doing this for a month and keep a daily log of when it was turned off and back on. Then when court day comes and he moans about his head, show them your log and you've proved he's a nutcase. Or alternatively if his complaints stop, then you know he had a real problem and maybe it's time he moved to the countryside.

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Faraday Cage ?

    I saw a brilliant TV programme about EM radiation a few years ago with a similar "sufferer" in the UK. Instead of ridiculous litigation, the sufferer had built himself a simple Faraday cage around his bed. Simple wooden frame covered with chicken wire.

    He demonstrated it's effectiveness by placing a normal radio on the bed. With the cage door open, Terry Wogan. With the cage door closed, static. neighbours for money.

    Simples!

    I'm not saying its perfect, but if I was being deprived of my sleep I'd be exploring all avenues to a resolution, not simply chasing my neighbours for cash.

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  13. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Why oh why...

    ....didn't I sign up to be this guys lawyer/doctor..... they would be the only folks making any money out of him......

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  14. John Sims
    Megaphone

    Fellow sufferer (in part)

    The guy mentions he can't get asleep when his neighbour is charging her phone / laptop at night.

    I suffer from a similar problem. My dell laptop charger doesn't seem to bother me. However my samsung and sony ericsson mobile phone charger prevent me from going to sleep. I'll lie in bed unable to get asleep all night if I leave them on and they produce a high pitched (but not very loud) noise from them that no one else seems to be able to hear. If I switch the things off I'm straight asleep. I have to say the samsung charger isn't quite as bad as the sony ericsson - I can some times sleep with that if totally exhausted.

    Don't seem to experience problems from any neighbouring houses.

    WiFi doesn't have any effect on me.

    I love tech but would love it even better if they made a phone charger I could use in my room that didn't have such a bizarre effect on me.

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    1. ElReg!comments!Pierre
      Reply Icon

      Bizarre effect?

      Yep, some transformers can be noisy and annoying. But I fail to see what it has to do with electromagnetic radiations. I used to turn off the UPS in the room next to my bedroom at night because the noise of the transformer was conducted by the floor. The fan was OK though. Now the UPS sits on some rubber and stays on 24/7 again.

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  15. fred #257
    Thumb Up

    Huge kudos...

    To Corey Pein of the Santa Fe Reporter (linked to in your story) for writing a long article that gets all the technical facts right, reports the woo-woo claims without getting over-dramatic about them, and is a pleasure to read. (In total contrast to the usual idiocy of the Daily Fail and suchlike).

    For once, an intelligent journo who assumes that his (her?) readers are too.

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  16. Dazed and Confused

    Re: the amusing AC @ 12th January 2010 10:11 GMT

    The problem with natural selection is that the human race has evolved "modern medicine" now all sorts of genetic basket cases are allowed to pass on their genes and eugenics has a rather bad name.

    Loved the tongue in cheek nature though :--)

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  17. markp 1

    well done on reversing physics, there, pal

    The wiring in the walls helps transmit and amplify the Wi Fi signals? I'd like him to come to my workplace and demonstrate that - far too much steel reinforcements and all manner of cable trunking carrying power, phone, cat 5, video/audio feeds and the forgotten remnants of base-2, base-5 and what appears to be econet (?!) is the very reason we can't get decent wireless coverage over significant portions of the site even when we put in ludicrous numbers of APs....

    Each one emitting such trifling amounts of power you'd be lucky to cook a single bacteria with a purposely focussed beam.

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