Monday, June 9, 2008

Excuse me, could you put that WiFi out?

Having been born and raised in the Albuquerque metropolitan area, I always thought Santa Fe's tagline - "the city different" - was fitting. The problem with Santa Fe was that the "different" in the city wasn't just different, they were a tad bit looney. Usually, however, this was harmless. This, however, is just completely ludicrous:

A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they're allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want
Wi-Fi banned from public buildings.


And the city is looking into whether or not setting up Wi-Fi is discrimination!

Now, what little data there is on this seems to indicate that these people are not actually allergic to Wi-Fi or other electrical fields. Their problems may very well be psychosematic. See here and here. More research is needed. But even if they were allergic to Wi-Fi, that doesn't mean that shops should be forbidden from putting up Wi-Fi because a handful of people can't deal. If Santa Fe does ban Wi-Fi in public areas on the basis of NO research, I'm going to walk into city hall with a stack of research on pollen allergies and on behalf of myself and the millions of americans who have pollen allergies, I'm going to demand that they remove all plantlife from the city limits. Any business that has any sort of landscaping -grass, trees, flowers, bushes, anything live- is discriminating against allergy sufferers. Howdya like that?



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