Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from noise. I remembered hearing this in school so I searched and found this paper.

As I understand SETI has always been searching for narrowband signals in the past. But our technology is moving toward spread spectrum signals for more efficient use of bandwidth, making our transmissions appear more like noise to anyone who doesn't know the encoding scheme. Aliens could be doing/have done the same. So good luck, scientists!

Power lines are 60 Hz AC here in the US, so i imagine your brain (and robins' brains) would just see the average of the magnetic field, which would be zero. I think you're stuck to just seeing the DC magnetic fields.

So the lost signal takes the path Antenna->Human Body->Ground. To model this effect for (ESD evaluation) the test is to touch the contact to a 1.5 kohm resistor in series with a 100pf capacitor to ground. (From http://www.esda.org/documents/FundamentalsPart5.pdf)

This 100pf capacitance is quite a low impedance at 1900 MHz (x=1/2piFC), just -j 0.838 ohms. To increase this impedance, note that capacitors in series decrease the overall capacitance (which increases impedance). So you can create such a capacitor by adding dielectric (any insulator) between the antenna and the hand. The thicker this insulator is the lower the added series capacitance. And the lower the added capacitance, the greater the impedance and the less overall coupling of signal to the human body. The calculation of exactly how much capacitance is created by a layer of clear coat between the metal antenna and the hand is, um, left to the reader.

Also, I believe the antenna is split to two sides because each antenna fulfills a different function in a different RF band. One is 3G and one is wifi. Broadband antennas are difficult, but not impossible to make, so I think this is a case of the keep-it-simple-stupid approach.

OK, and would that or would that not be solved by painting over the antenna to add a decent amount of resistance between it and God-knows-what?

Am I right to think that this problem could have been avoided just by adding a layer of black paint over the antenna? Of course, the capacitive coupling of your hand to the antenna would still have an effect as it does in many RF devices, but a thin layer of such insulator would prevent the hand from altering the effective length of the antenna. I do think Apple deserve credit for finding a place in the phone to include an antenna that I presume to be much bigger than your standard patch antenna. I just wonder if this is a case of form coming before function, with someone making the decision to go with the shiny metal look to appeal to the eye.

Assuming the anonymous coward is not a female? Sexist.

This book is by a friend of a friend; I think it tackles a lot of the issues brought up in this thread: Losing Our Cool

And the installer is blind and thus doesn't realize it's a mirror in which you can see the keypad. (I dunno, maybe he thinks it's a disco ball. Analogies are hard.)

It's not a perfect analogy because it's not obvious to many users that someone could be reading their data. Instead imagine they were entering their PIN on an ATM and you say, "Sucker, didn't you see that convex mirror on the ceiling reflecting your keystrokes for the whole room to see?" In this case, Google has a camera trained on the convex mirror...

...cockblock"

Sorry I meant to refer to the jamstec survey where most scientists said "at least some of the forecast consequences of this change are based on robust evidence." Thanks to you I looked up the 2007 report they're referring to. It does attempt to describe potential consequences though they are sorted into *medium **high and ***very high confidence of occurrence. So I still think I'm right in saying that that's where the debate exists. We agree that the more CO2 we output the more we raise the global temperature. Debate still seems to be out on what will happen in terms of e.g. crop yields or extinctions. It'd be worth going back to an agrarian lifestyle today to prevent humanity's extinction, is it worth it to prevent flooding for a few million people in 2080? (***very confident on the flooding by the way, scary stuff.) There are a lot of possible courses we could take, and a wide and disagreed-upon assortment of potential consequences.

I think we need more specific consequences. When the IPCC tried to come up with a list of specific consequences, the Doran survey indicates most scientists found at least one to disagree with. Agreeing that too much CO2 is bad is one step, but considering the costs of reducing CO2 (possibly major economic damage) defining the magnitude of CO2's harm is very important. If we're doing it to avert widespread droughts/starvation/wars, cap and trade may be more palatable than if it turns out it's just to protect the habitat of a few species of tropical fish (hyperbole intended).

The Doran study's survey question is phrased: 2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures? So I believe you injected the "dangerous" evaluation. jamstec.go.jp link says that overwhelmingly the most common response of those surveyed was to agree that AGW is real, but only "at least some of the forecast consequences of this change are based on robust evidence." So I don't think scientists are necessarily in agreement that we're headed for a cataclysmic disaster.