Solipsism Gradient

This twitter thing can be a serious time sink if you’re not careful, but so far I like it. I’m even getting linkback from stuff I posted only there! (Thanks, Jeff.) But in retrospect, this is worth linking to directly: On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study. Jeff’s found the crucial quote, too:

The helmets amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. According to the FCC, These bands are supposedly reserved for ”radio location” (ie, GPS), and other communications with satellites… The 2.6 Ghz band coincides with mobile phone technology. Though not affiliated by government, these bands are at the hands of multinational corporations.

It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings.

Trying out this newfangled Twitter thing… hopefully it’ll mean faster updates on the latest memes.

So far, I like it. Took out a few hours to build a starting list of people to watch; it’s an oddly familiar neighborhood, of course, as it duplicates parts of my list of chat buddies, RSS feeds and so forth.

In a way it’s a slow-motion, somewhat less coherent, version of IRC. Which is actually a good thing.