Microwaves...

Hi,
the point about microwaves and WWII reminded me of a antedote.
During WWII they kept on finding dead peigons around the radar antenters.
They never really took any notice until after the war, when one bright
spark realized they were being cooked in their sleep as they
rested on the wires ...and hence the microwave cooker was invented.

Daniel

=====================================================================

Nortel Ltd, E-Mail : celano@
140 greenway,
Harlow Business Park, TEL : (01279) 405316
Harlow,
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=====================================================================

On 22 Jan 1998, Daniel Celano wrote:
antedote to what?
I was told some people were experimenting with radar devices in a lab, and
found that some popcorn that they had purchased for a snack started to
pop... Hey bingo, microwave ovens.

Ben

*---------------------------------------------*
| IVE SEEN THE FU *---------------------------*
| S T |
| R U |
| UCER STI DNA ER |
*-----------------*

O _____________
/ \ /3
o / X BAD \ / 3
< Fish X 3
. \__ TRIP / \ 3
/____________/ \3

Pringlespanion said:
I was told that a researcher walked past a radar tube and a mars-bar
in his pocket melted - voila, microwave!

...although admittedly, both of your versions sound more believable.

NEXT! :-)

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
There can never be a computer language in which you cannot write a bad program.

I always heard the peigons story myself... but it doesn't exactly
fill you with confidence to have a microwave oven in your home !!!!!!!
:-)


James Hanley, Soon to publish a book on how to microwave a verity
of common birds ....

The problem with microwave ovens is that they are perfectly safe...
except for the stupid idea of putting a little window on the front so
you can watch your food cook. If you put a microwave detector in
front of that window while stuff is cooking you would be rather worried
by the results.
If you want an interesting and factual rant on just how dangerous
microwave ovens are, then I suggest you ask Dr Adrian Johnson (Dean of
Science)
about why he will never have on in his house...

Paul.

Paul Ilsley
Paul.Ilsley@ (Work)
Pauli@ (Home)
"A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good."

The easier way to detect a leakly microwave is to put a glass of water
a couple of feet from the window. You then measure its temperture compared
to the background temperture (which will be warmer due to air circulation).
Any extra heating is probably caused by leaking microwaves.

If you look at the glass it has a metal mesh, this has a gap of about the
same size as a wavelength (or is it 1/2 or 1/4 wavelength or some multiple
you never work this bit out). This is very effective at absorbing radiation
of the mesh size. If the mesh size and microwave frequency don't match -
see below...

As to ill effects, microwave heat water. Your kidneys are water bags. End result
cooked kidneys! Other parts of the body have less water or are more robust.
Migrains are a more short term problem and is unlikely to kill you. Kidney
failure is somewhat fatal.

Microwave lasers would make a very good weapon, as metals and animals are very
good microwave aborbers, if it was not from the water floating around in the
air.

Daniel

=====================================================================

Nortel Ltd, E-Mail : celano@
140 greenway,
Harlow Business Park, TEL : (01279) 405316
Harlow,
Essex.
CM19 5QD FAX : (01279) 405070

=====================================================================

On 5 Feb 1998, Daniel Celano wrote:
Hang on... You ever put something like an egg or a potato in the
microwave? Or just a slightly viscous fluid? An egg explodes. A potato
does all kinds of odd things unless you pierce it first. Liquids will
become superheated in stripes, meaning that as soon as you put a spoon in,
or disturb the container, gushers of liquid at over 200 degrees C will
spray into your face and over your limbs and chest and neck and stuff.

My point? Well, I don't like the idea of blood being superheated. It would
be all too easy for bubbles to form, which as we all know can stop the
heart. (Being cooked from the inside out can't be good for you either.)

Oh, and what's a head if it isn't a giant potato? (OK, OK, but you know
what I mean.) Pressure buildup in the brain area (Which is mainly water
after all. More so than a potato) cannot be good. At all.

Anyway, even if the grating on the microwave door is of the right pitch,
who's to say the seal is safe? There have been many reports of cooked
people (Yes, many internal organs are suceptible) because of leaky seals.

If you're worried, you can get microwave detectors from all kinds of
plces. Check Innovations catalogue.

Oh, and think about the eye. One of our most important organs. And
basically a bag of gel. Mainly water. And if we're looking into the
window, what part of our body do we use?

Don't wanna think about it.

Ben.

*---------------------------------------------*
| IVE SEEN THE FU *---------------------------*
| S T |
| R U |
| UCER STI DNA ER |
*-----------------*

O _____________
/ \ /3
o / X BAD \ / 3
< Fish X 3
. \__ TRIP / \ 3
/____________/ \3

We were talking about a leakly microwave not being zapped by a 2G watt
generator. I agree all those things will happen. But the sort of low
level exposure from leaking microwaves or ones with the wrong pitch
cause kidney failure first. I have never heard of eyes problems, peoples
blood boiling or the like - have you... But there are many cases of
kidney failure reported.

Yes we look thought our eyes, but more often our mid section is level with
the microwave cooker - that were our kidneys are... An exploding eye
won't kill you - a US soldier was hit by a laser sigth from a aritillery
battery, his word were "A small a red glare and heard a popping small,
followed by intense paid." He lost sigth but is still alive. The problem
with kidney failure is that it goes undetected and by the time it is it
has already put stress on the other organs - often to the extend that you
can't recover.

I was giving the most likely long term side effect.

The thing with the glass of water is a free test anyone can do. A faulty
microwave can generate a sligthly different frequency of radiatoon which
will go straingth though the glass - the glass of water will get warm very
quickly if this is the case.

Oh yeah, microwave cook mostly from the first 1cm or so - add another
zero or so and you can really cook from the inside out.

Daniel

=====================================================================

Nortel Ltd, E-Mail : celano@
140 greenway,
Harlow Business Park, TEL : (01279) 405316
Harlow,
Essex.
CM19 5QD FAX : (01279) 405070

=====================================================================

Daniel Celano said:
You'd have to let the glass of water sit there for a few days to reach
room temperature, otherwise most of the warming will just be because
it's approaching room temperature.

I'm also reasonably unconvinced that this is going to be noticable. if
it IS noticable, change your microwave PDQ!
I thought it was far more reliable than that...

If you know the structure of an atom (and I know that daniel, for one,
does), you'll already know that 99.99999% of THIS sheet of metal I'm
holding (honest) is, in fact, empty. There's an enoooooooooooooormous
ammount of space between the nucleus and the electrons, yet light
doesn't pass through this enormous space. This metal is not transparent.

Now OK, this is a very extreme example, but the same rules apply right
up the spectrum. If you scale everything up... Replace your
nanometre-sized light waves with centimetre-sized microwaves, and your
nanometer-sized gaps between atoms with millimeter-sized holes in your
microwave window, the microwaves can't get through.

I can't remember where the limit lies, but it's something like 1/2 or
1/4 of a wavelength. You don't have to be EXACTLY this size though,
you have to be LESS than this size. Most microwave ovens cook with
microwaves a few centimeters long, so as long as the holes in the
window are significantly smaller than a centimeter, you're probably
safe.

This does, however, assume that the mesh is made of something suitably
"opaque" to microwaves. Some nice conductive metal will do nicely, but
if it starts to rust and lose it's conductivity, you might be making
slightly more "transparent" areas in the window.

Oh, and eyes, yes, I've heard of people getting cateracts from sitting
staring into their microwaves whilst waiting for the food to cook. I
assume these were probably leaky windows, but I'd certainly not
enchorage people to sit with their noses on the window watching their
food go around.

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
Programming Department: Mistakes made while you wait.

I don't know what this is doing on IFIS, but people seem to be enjoying it,
and it could save someone's health, so what the Hell...


In article <E0y0m8S-0001vS-00@>, Nick Waterman <nick@> wrote:
[The glass of water test - best done from concrete bunkers 37 miles away
from the main stage...]
[...]
More importantly, food in the holes (or in the seals) will have a higher
permittivity to microwaves, and so shrinks the waves. They may act as
minature waveguides and let your microwaves slip through the holes. The
food will of course spark and crackle (that "fizz, fizz" noise that dirty
microwaves make) and the radiation will leak. That is why the manuals talk
about the importance of keeping your microwave oven clean.
I don't stand in front of *any* microwave that is running. Not ours, which
is a beast older than many of you, or a new one just bought from the shop.
That was the advice of my uncle, who worked in bleeding-edge radar
development after the war, and knows more about microwaves than any of us
would ever want to, and has had colleagues injured by early magnetrons.
(Yes, cooked eyeballs and kidneys.) He leaves the kitchen as soon as one is
turned on.

I should also add that there have been studies linking everything from mood
problems to childhood leukaemia with non-ionising radiation: that is the
radiation from TV and radio transmitters; from power lines; from TVs and
computer monitors; and, of course, from microwave ovens. Be careful out
there.


ObSF: There is a strangely prophetic novel on the subject of NIR harmful
effects written in the '50's: "Waldo", but Robert Heinlein. Strongly
recommended for those who don't mind some bizarre technology. It is also
the source of the engineering jargon "waldo" for a mechanical hand.


Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"

Not read it, or even heard of it - although I read a fair bit of Heinlein in my
youth.

It's the sort of thing that's been bugging me for a few years now.

I mean, here we are, happilly living in a world where lots and lots of very
small amounts of harmful things are flying about constantly. Nobody knows the
LONGTERM effects of vast numbers of radio waves, from TVs, Taxis, Mobile
phones, etc. etc. Add to this the vast numbers of apparently harmless chemicals
around too. Did you know that washing-up liquid is carcinogenic? And what about
all those fumes from industry, pollution, pesticide, etc. etc. etc.

They may not SEEM to have any effect on us, but then it took a fair while to
notice that smoking was killing people (and STILL they do it).

It's quite reasonable to expect some of these things to have minute effects on
the human body. Quite possibly it will take GENERATIONS for these things to be
significant. But already we're looking at ENORMOUS decreases in sperm count
across the developed world, and worrying increases in spectacularly efficient
killing diseases, like AIDS and BSE.

Antibiotics aren't so much keeping us disease-free, as promoting the evolution
of Super-Bacteria that could turn out to be far more disastrous for humanity
than any of the mundane old bacteria.

We've been screwing around with Mother Nature for a while now, and while she's
been very slow to react to it, we seem to have forgotten just how big she is.
She's been gearing up to this for a while now, and suddenly we're going to get
hit by everything. Climate changes, UV radiation, Disease, earthquakes....

The end is nigh brothers, and we're stuffed.

Our only hope, really, is that we can adapt, and "evolve", or fake it with
technology, faster than Mother Nature can throw things at us. Then when we've
finally screwed this planet completely, we can get the hell off it and find
another one to play with.

Of course, that one will have lots of NEW bacteria, and strange nasty things.
So we end up cruising in space, in little sterile lead boxes, sending down
drones to rape planets of their natural resources, and terrified of finding a
chink in our armour, and letting anything hostile get through. Becomming
steadilly more inter-bred as we're too frightened of mixing with other people
who might carry different diseases we're not immune to, or have other genetic
defects that might produce monsters.

I have seen the future - and it is paranoid beyond your wildest imaginings.

Dominic.

"Sanity is relative - For some of us, it's just a distant cousin." [Abe Dashiel]

You've been reading that white-wolf stuff again, haven't you.

[Doom and gloom snipped]
One small nitpick. BSE is not spectactlarly efficient at killing humans.
It's not even that brilliant at killing cows unless helped along.
With all the hype, the number of cases of CJD detected last year was twice
what was uncovered the year before - 18 cases. Thats not even deaths,
thats just people infected. More people died choking to death on
peanuts last year, than caught CJD. I won't even mention the number
of Road Traffic accidents.

[More doom and gloom snipped]
See now thats sci-fi. None of this bollox with vague scientific claptrap,
just the pure effects of technology on the human race. Over time.

You ought to write a book.

Later,

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

In article <E0y0pdH-00009z-00@>, Adam Hattrell <adam@> wrote:

Dominic wrote: [Of "Waldo", by RAH]
Try drug-resistant malaria.

Or MDRTB - that's "Multi-Drug-Resistant TuBerculosis" - or untreatable
consumption, in laymans terms. Consumption is spread by overcrowded
conditions, such as are found in third world ghettoes and in airliners where
they recirculate the air. You can find MDRTB in any London hospital - and
under the arches of most central London bridges.

Or these antibiotic-resistant supergangrenes, like this necrotising fascitis
thingy. Once again, you can probably scrape it off the walls of most of our
hospitals.

Or the various strains of hepatitis, which seem to be getting progressively
more virulent. Another one that can be found in our homeless population.
More demonstration that neglecting one section of the population has an
adverse effect on all of us.

Or the new drug-resistant versions of the old favourites, like cholera,
typhoid and dysentery, now touring Africa and Asia. (People, I kid you
not.)

Or try Saddam's new super-Anthrax, if he has it (you may not get a choice
about this, you know.)

Or try the next 'flu epidemic, which virologists are convinced is overdue,
and which many people thought would start in Hong Kong this year. That
could easily kill 100,000,000 people. This time, thank God, it didn't pass
terribly well from human to human - or enough people to repopulate the
British Isles could have fetched up dead. This time.


When the Spanish arrived in the New World, or the English arrived in
Australia, they met populations who had no natural immunity to our common
viruses. The populations were decimated: typically everyone got it, and
80% died. The remaining populations were capable of surviving, and are no
more affected by these things than we are. But it is quite possible (and
maybe to be hoped for) that the world's population will suddenly be reduced.
After all, if it isn't, it will probably be reduced over the next hundred
years by starvation.

Adam, you would recommend "Soylent Green" (or "Make Room! Make Room!") by
Harry Harrison. I know you would - we were talking about it only a couple
of days ago.

I would also recommend "Time of the Fourth Horseman" by Chelsea Quinn
Yarbro, if you want something really cheerful along these lines.

Or "The Sheep Look Up" by John Brunner.

All in the library...
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are lots of parallels between this "lead boxes
in space" idea and the main themes of "Waldo". In "Waldo" the escape from
the lead boxes is, well, a bit lateral...



Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"

Dominic said
across the developed world, and worrying increases in spectacularly efficient
I believe that the decrease in sperm counts has been linked to all
thesenice plastic packaging we use on our food.
As regards AIDS, it is not in fact such a spectacularly efficient killing
disease, it only counts as a grade 3 pathogen on a scale of 1 to 5. The
major worry is that we haven't found a cure. Most people who are HIV+
still last a decade or 2.
BSE:- anyone who will feed a herbivore ground up brain deserves everything they get. And anyway considering it got into cattle from sheep, why has there been no media scare about lamb?

...............................................................................
clyth@
In relativity, matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter
how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted...
D. Adams Life, The Universe and Everything

----------
From: Dominic Thomas
Sent: 06 February 1998 15:07
To: c=GB;a=ATTmail;p=MAFF400;o=MAFF;ou1=SMTP;dda:RFC-822=chat(a)ifis.org.uk;
Subject: Re: Microwaves...

So when eventually it spreads to everyone on the planet, we get left with a
human race with a lifespan of about 20.

Time to watch Logan's Run again.

Dominic.

"If you don't know what you're doing, do it neatly."

IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH THAT(DAM CAPS LOCK)
...............................................................................
clyth@
In relativity, matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter
how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted...
D. Adams Life, The Universe and Everything

----------
From: Dominic Thomas
Sent: 06 February 1998 15:31
To: c=GB;a=ATTmail;p=MAFF400;o=MAFF;ou1=SMTP;dda:RFC-822=chat(a)ifis.org.uk;
Subject: RE: Microwaves...
So when eventually it spreads to everyone on the planet, we get left with a
human race with a lifespan of about 20.

Time to watch Logan's Run again.

Dominic.

"If you don't know what you're doing, do it neatly."

Chris Lyth wrote:
Yes, it appears to be stuck down.

Later,

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

Previously, Dominic Thomas wrote....
That would solve the over-crowding problems we're facing at the moment.
Although I think it'd be far nicer if the lifespan was reduced by
something other than something nasty like HIV+.
Another candidate for IFIS to show on Thursdays?

Chris

---

chris@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

NICE?
Reducing lifespan can be nice?

Why not just have fewer children?
If the average family has 2.5 children, and 1/5 people dies childless and/or
accidentally, then the population remains nice and constant, rising only with
the increasing lifespan. And if people stick to, say, 2 children, rather than
being greedy and going for the extra half, then we can probably ride out that
one too.

Just stop having so many bloody children, you mad bastards!

(Maybe I need to go have a lie down.
I think I'm having a bad day.)

Dominic.

"Time flies when you don't know what you're doing."

etc.
babies are wonderful creatures who grin at you and coo.
And watching them learn how to do things is wonderful too.

...............................................................................
clyth@
In relativity, matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter
how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted...
D. Adams Life, The Universe and Everything

----------

Dom said:
Chris replied:
What about knowing that 'cause you and all your "mad bastard" freinds
had so many kids that all of them will die of disease or other problems
due to the overcrowding caused by people's prolific loins.

We are to nature as ants are to us, don't get too cocky or it'll flambay
your
home.

Pleasant dreams,

Darren


( Yeah I know I said I wouldn't do it but every armour has it's chinks )

Chris Turner said:
Hmm, it's a bit tacky, and considering there's so much we want to
watch first, like MIB, Contact, this Flight Of Dragons thing if we can
find it, etc etc etc...

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
"I think we're putting all of our chickens in one egg." [Bevis Peters]

On Friday, February 06, 1998 3:45 PM, Chris Turner [SMTP:chris@]
wrote:
Even if something as severe as everyone becoming HIV infected happened (the
chances of which are minute), it is very likely that the human imune system
would adapt within several generations. So, a few hundred years later, humans
might become naturally immune to HIV, and everything would return to normal.

Gordan

Gordan Bobic said:
Like we're all immune to smallpox, yes?

Or the common cold, for that matter? Or malaria?

What happens next is that the viri simply become immune to our
immunities, and immune to our drugs.

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
She always tells stories in the present vindictive.

Previously, Nick Waterman wrote....
Yeah and then we become resistant to the new form etc.. I guess it's a bit
of a "Cold" war.

Chris

---

chris@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

I saw an excellent documentary last year about Smallpox. One of the things
they pointed out was that Smallpox contains DNA sequences from Homo Sapiens.
some how it adapted by including human DNA into itself, this is then used to
fool the immune system that the virus is friendly. This sort of trick is
very hard for your immune system to protect against. From what I gather
virii are in some ways "intelligent", they can quickly adapt and evolve to
find new ways of of infecting you. The chladmydia virus only contains a few
hunfred atoms yet it can easily cross species boundaries. I'll stress I am
not a virologist so if any one wants to correct me or further illumine me is
welcome to do so.

As was originally said, several resistant strains of old killers have now
appeared. Combine this with large scale international travel and events as
depicted in Twelve Monkeys and Survivors are believable, at least to me. All
it needs is for a terrorist group with an ounce of common sense (thankfully
they have not) to infect one of their members and go on a world tour. You
can get around the globe in a week or two (assuming you spend one day in a
few major cities) and start a global pandemic. What Saddam et al have not
worked out yet is that you just need a new delivery system, rather than
launching ICBM's with bio-warfare agents. Why not use living agents. Who
remembers the outbreak of Bubonic Plague in India a year or so ago, all
flights to and from Bombay (IIRC) where thoroughly disinfected on landing.
All would take is for one nasty to get through and new outbreaks would start
appearing everwhere. I am being deliberately alarmist but you never know.

This is one reason why the WHO (World Health Organisation) and the UN want
the USA and the Soviets to destroy the last remaining Smallpox samples. If
they where to be stolen and released, the results would be catastrophic.

Dave Barlow

Bring me my Broadsword | http://www.sartar.demon.co.uk
and clear understanding | BBb Bass player extraordinaire

On Friday, February 06, 1998 3:25 PM, Lyth Chris
[SMTP:Chris.C.Lyth@] wrote:
Frankly, I think that the mere idea of feeding cows with brains of infected
sheep knowligly was something that all those in any way responsible should be
rounded up and shot. Hey, it was too expensive to incinerate all the sick
sheep. So, let's make cattle food from them. Then, the cows got infected. Hey,
it was too expensive to incinerate a few hundred cows - let's just keep it
quiet and not use the brains and other bits like that.

Now, we have several million cows which are infected, and now the shit has
really hit the fan. There is no cure, and given that the illness can take over
10 years to incubate, we can expect a massive increase in CJD over the next few
years.

And now, if BSE is to be exterminated, it will cost millions, not to mention
the loss of HUMAN life. Well, incinerating a few sheep was expensive...

The words of Douglas Adams come to mind:

"... a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the
revolution comes"

Gordan

Well said
I think that's because the sheep version, scrapie (sp), has
been around for hundreds of years, with no noticeable effect on humans.
It is thus assumed that scrapie is not transferable to humans directly.