SmartMeter Anxiety –Part 1

A YouTuber from Ontario, Canada has come to the “scientific” conclusion that a SmartMeter is somehow killing off a shrub. For we all know that evil shrubs can only be killed off by modern technology. Garden pests, dehydration, flooding, over-fertilization, under-fertilization, or strangulation by other plants just won’t do the job. It’s electromagnetic fields that are the bane of gardens everywhere.

Out of nerdy curiosity, I downloaded the PDF instructions for the very model of meter this concerned citizen is utilizing, the HF-35C RF Analyzer. The audio “alarms'” from the meter give the false impression that some sort of dangerous overexposure is occurring, like a Geiger counter frantically clicking away. The reality of the RF meter is not so dramatic.

The RF meter can be set to produce audio, indicating the type of  RF signal. But the instructions are deliberately vague on this point and don’t tell the user which devices produce which audio, and suggest that users test it on various electrical sources to get the feel for themselves. So we are left wondering if the user in the video has the experience to match the audio we hear with the SmartMeter being tested.

This is made so much more relevant when we take into account the directionality of the signal. The RF meter detects cellphones, cordless phones, microwave ovens, 3G, and Bluetooth. The instructions are clear –multiple measurements from different directions should be taken in order to determine from where the strongest signal originates. It could, in fact, be coming from behind the user. But he doesn’t turn in a circle, he only gently arcs his arm in front of the SmartMeter.

We also don’t know if all the other potential sources of RF in or around the homes have been turned off.  Is there WiFi in the neighbor’s home, or a cellphone, or 3G? A modern, suburban street is an RF, “music festival.”

What places this video is real doubt is that SmartMeters don’t broadcast a continuous signal. Why would they need to? They’re only measuring electrical usage, which isn’t complex data. We’re not talking about uploading JPEG’s or video files. It’s just a set of numbers. And according to the utilities, SmartMeters only broadcast every 15 minutes for a about one second. So whatever is being measured here, it probably isn’t a SmartMeter.

My baloney detector is going off. It sounds a lot like a cow stomping on a pig. It’s not pretty.

PETA Is A Stupid Organization

I didn’t say animal rights are stupid. I said PETA is a stupid organization. Animal rights are great. It’s the anti-intellectual buffoons who run PETA who bother me. They make the rest of us liberals look bad. The main reason is that PETA members bend reality to fit their views instead of the other way round. PETA founder, Ingrid Newkirk, in order to spread the word about vegetarianism, has repeatedly made several baseless pseudo-scientific claims.

1) Newkirk claims meat and dairy cause most human diseases, from cancer to diabetes to mental illness. Aside from the complete lack of evidence for this belief, it’s funny that hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection hasn’t removed this harmful behavior from the human lineage. PETA’s “science” seems to indicate that the most sickly and poorly adapted animals survive to reproduce.

2) Newkirk has said many times that meat enhances human aggression. To back up this claim she points to wild carnivores like lions and tigers. The problem is she doesn’t know nature very well. Newkirk confuses aggression with killing. An animal that kills another animal to eat isn’t necessarily aggressive. Cheetahs, for example, like others cats, spend most of the day conserving energy, not picking fights with strangers down by the watering hole. Herbivores, like hippos or moose, are generally more aggressive than carnivores because they have more reasons to be aggressive, like holding grazing territory and warding off predators.

2) Newkirk advocates dogs and cats being converted to a vegetarian diet. I guess it’s not enough that Fluffy-The-Cat’s owner must subsist on berries and twigs, Fluffy must be converted to the same diet. Perhaps Fluffy can be convinced to join the Green Party, for if pet and owner eat the same, they must also vote the same. But I’ve read nothing but bad things about a vegetarian pet diet. For one, vegetarian cats and dogs can develop severe intestinal problems. Part of being a carnivore is having a shorter intestine than a herbivore. Meat is, in fact, easier to digest than plant matter. This is an engineering problem, one that cannot be overcome with wishful thinking.

Currently, PETA promotes the idea of In vitro meat, meat cultured in a lab from animal cells. PETA is even offering a $1 million prize to scientists to make this happen. I suppose all the health problems attributed to meat eating by PETA are going to be removed from this laboratory grade stuff. Yes? No? Maybe?