"That Bloke" <nospam@nospam.plus.net> hath wroth:

>Can you please supply the full technical backup to your response. I for one
>would be very intrested in your point for point rebuttle.

Oh, that's easy enough. 2.4GHz Wi-Fi uses the same frequency as a
microwave oven. The average Wi-Fi access point and client belches
about 35 milliwatts. When you get about 10,000 of these dangerous
Wi-Fi devices together in one place, you have the equivalent power of
a microwave oven with the door open.

This can easily happen at conventions, rock concerts, hotels, and
Burning Man, which goes far to explain the vacuous stares and burnt
out look of the attendees. This can also happen at schools, where
each student brings their Wi-Fi enabled PDA, laptop, game machine, or
robot. Get enough of them together and the combined transmit power
will cook what's left of their brains after the skool gets done with
them.

There's also the danger of having students use their computers to
contradict the teachers. Given Wi-Fi and internet access, any student
can look up the topic on Wikipedia, and contradict the dogma spewn by
the instructors. This tends to create a credibility challenge, which
the instructors are not equipped to deal with. Little wonder the
teachers are protesting Wi-Fi at skool. (Incidentally, I did this a
few times in grade schools, except I used borrowed reference books.)

Another danger is Wi-Fi enabled cheating on exams. Ad-Hoc wireless
networks are easily established and can greatly facilitate the
exchange of test questions and answers. Again, the instructors are
not equipped with sniffers and direction finders in order to deal with
the thread. Little wonder they want to ban Wi-Fi. (Incidentally, I
did this in grade school, except I used Morse Code and ham radio.)

Finally, there's a real danger that the administration might notice
that students are learning more from the internet than from the
instructors. Online instruction is nothing new, but constitutes a
serious threat to the teaching establishment. It's conceivable that
the subject might be taught online, with the instructor in absentia.
(I did this in college by tape recording the boring lectures.)

Whether Wi-Fi will cook the brains of the students, or constitute a
threat to public instruction as we know it, will remain to be seen.
However, I can be certain that the teaching establishment will not go
down without a fight, in a futile effort to retain the status quo in
the presence of progress.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558