Aluminum Foil Hats Will Not Stop "Them" 433
Otter writes "A study at MIT has found that aluminum foil headwear ("Among a fringe community of paranoids..the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals") actually amplifies certain frequency bands allocated to the US government, as well as a mobile phone range, and is largely ineffective through the rest of the radio spectrum. But we can we trust the study, or are They controlling the researchers?"
Now I'm scared (Score:5, Funny)
That was highly appropriate.
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:2)
This is clearly an attempt to get me to remove the tinfoil zucchetto (pope hat).
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:2)
Alcoa can't wait! (Score:3, Informative)
You'd wish tin-foil did work.
Re:Alcoa can't wait! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Alcoa can't wait! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget the hats, whadda bout my teeth!? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not even going to get into this debate. I've just upgraded to a lead helmet!
It is rather cumbersome, but as a bonus to blocking everything, I've got a strong neck now.
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not even going to get into this debate. I've just upgraded to a lead helmet!
It is rather cumbersome, but as a bonus to blocking everything, I've got a strong neck now.
I'll do you one better, a neutronium hat.... unfortunaely it's 6 million pounds but it's a small price to pay for privacy.
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:5, Interesting)
In the course of his confinement he was frightened by a bat, and decided that his condition was caused by a deadly brain-rotting radiation emitted by bats.
He was never able to teach EE again, but the school took him back in the Industrial Management department. He always wore a derby hat lined with foil -- but no crummy tin or aluminum for him. He insisted on using lead foil, the only quality material for such a purpose. But it didn't stop there: the bat rays tended to build up potentially lethal static charges on the foil, so it had to be grounded. His hat was connected by an alligator clip to wires sewn into his clothing and ultimately to a nail in his shoe.
He was known, naturally, as Batman and we treated him with the kind of casual cruelty you'd expect of undergraduates...we all thought he was unique and it wasn't until the Internet came along that I learned how common the foil-hat thing is. Apparently it's a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia -- a particularly sad condition in which the victim knows perfectly well he's screwed up and is powerless to do anything about it.
rj
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:5, Funny)
Giving advice likely to kill the stupid is called passive eugenics.
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Now I'm scared (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous Cowards (Score:5, Funny)
We should also expect that anything true will get modded down to -1. Change your filters, guys, change your filters!!
--LWM
New hat (Score:3, Funny)
I've been throwing up a lot lately though, I think They're getting in.
amplified? (Score:5, Funny)
two much gain means a lot of signal noise.
besides, I wear a lead skull cap myself, keep my hair shaved so that I can be in constant contact with the metal of the cap..
Re:amplified? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:amplified? (Score:2)
And when are they throwing the switch?
Re:amplified? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:amplified? (Score:5, Interesting)
And I can't believe I just weighed in with a serious response on this article. Time for more coffee.
They are behind this (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They are behind this (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe that's what THEY really want after all.
Re:They are behind this (Score:5, Funny)
No, that's what they WANT to you think that they're thinking about your attempts to outthink their doublethink.
I think...
Re:They are behind this (Score:4, Funny)
Odd... couldn't find a "BUY ONE NOW" button, and didn't see any Google Ads.
Damn, that guy *really is* crazy.
An interesting thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:An interesting thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Still is the masons (Score:2)
Re:An interesting thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:An interesting thing (Score:5, Funny)
So, most real cases are governments controlled by demonic aliens? Now I'm scared!
Re:An interesting thing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:An interesting thing (Score:3, Informative)
Hey, when everyone is out to get you, paranoid is just.......
--with apologies to Dr. Johnny Fever
Re:An interesting thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:An interesting thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Different manifestations pop up depending on the milieu: today it's radio signals from government controlled satellites, but in the late 1940's Shaver's tales of "Dero rays" being emitted by a race of evil subterranean dwellers proved a popular framework for the delusion.
And before that (in 1796), there was James Tilly Matthews's Air Loom, a "pneumatic machine" that could manipulate the ether to influence its victims. See The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and His Visionary Madness by Mike Jay for more details. [amazon.com]
In addition to insights into one of the earliest documented manifestations of paranoid delusion, the book has lots of juicy details about mental health facilities in the late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth centuries, the French Revolution, Mesmerism, and lots more. A really interesting book.
Re:An interesting thing (Score:3, Funny)
Just because people on Slashdot joke about it does not make it true. There are lots of jokes about Scotsman and sheep, but that does not mean sheep buggery is common and universal in Scotland. Duh.
Commercial aluminized hats, and Federal courts (Score:3, Interesting)
A few years ago, one of the new-agey junk catalogs actually had aluminized hats,
as well as the usual collection of crystals, shiny things, bogus magnetic devices, and, ummm, tac
Found the hat: blockemf.com (Score:3, Interesting)
Duh... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Duh... (Score:4, Funny)
Geriatric Leotard-wearing Alien Drones.
This is the kind of info I come to Slashdot for! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is the kind of info I come to Slashdot for (Score:5, Funny)
What did you expect? A dating site?
Re:This is the kind of info I come to Slashdot for (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is the kind of info I come to Slashdot for (Score:5, Funny)
It's a trick! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's a trick! (Score:2)
Re:It's a trick! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/paranoia [m-w.com]
(assuming you can trust merriam webster):
Note definition 1:
1. The belief that everyone is out to get you.
Note that it doesn't specify being right or wrong. If you believe everyone is out to get you, then you are paranoid, even if they really are out to get you.
Yes! (Score:5, Funny)
Then the signals think that I'm a tree
Kinda like my WiFi connection..
We already knew that Al foil was insufficient (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure what disappoints me more (Score:5, Funny)
-John
your TIN-foil hats are still good... (Score:2)
the study is very misleading, implying that aluminum-foil hats (which everyone knows are useless) are equivalent to tin-foil hats.
you see? it's TIN-foil hats that protect you from the government's spy rays and the RFID chip they planted in your skull when they kidnapped your pregnant mom.
Re:I'm not sure what disappoints me more (Score:2)
MIT didn't spend money on this (Score:3)
And they used borrowed equipment, though it was good stuff and quite expensive, and if some bureaucrat wanted to amortize the depreciation on it, a few hours use might have made this an expensive project.
Shiny side! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shiny side! (Score:3, Funny)
That's right, it says so clearly in the instructions [zapatopi.net].
Re:Shiny side! (Score:2)
NOOO! Dual shiny sides!! (Score:5, Funny)
Tin vs. Aluminum (Score:5, Funny)
Causation in the other direction (Score:2)
That wasn't the point? (Score:4, Funny)
You really should try it. It's quite liberating to submit to anothers control.
Don't you feel better whenever you hit the 'Submit' button on Slashdot?
SUBMIT DAMN YOU! I TOLD YOU TO SUBMIT!!
No Duh (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone knows that aluminum did not exist before 1992. It was at that time that the Reynolds corporation made a bid to take over the US Government. Reynolds, an alliance between the city of Marina Del Rey and Tom Arnold (look it up, I don't use Google because they track my searches) began producing "anti Illuminati medium" or a-lumin-um by extracting the "conductivity" from steel, a naturally occuring mineral.
Reynolds knew that the CIA and FBI were using mind control through the "cable networks" to persuade the population to upgrade to HBO, the mouthpiece for the Masonic Order of the Illuminati.
You all just think you remember aluminum existing before 1992 because you do not wear your beanies, and have been influenced by HBO. Still need proof? Consider these facts:
1. If you travel outside the US, you will find that no other countries use or have heard of aluminum. (England has something similar called aluminium, which was developed in tandem by Margaret Thatcher's shadow government.)
2. If you travel to another country and they say that they have aluminum, you have not actually travelled to another country, but are on a HBO-enduced mind control trip.
3. Aluminum does not get hot in the oven. I've made thousands of fish sticks in the years after 1992, and no matter how badly I burn them, I can always lift them by the corners of the aluminum foil I placed them on.
Re:No Duh (Score:4, Funny)
Ah-HAH! That explains all the medications that say, "Do not take if you use any MAOI inhibitors." Obviously there's drugs involved with the radio waves and subliminal messages.
-Adam
Re:No Duh (Score:3, Funny)
How about this, smarty pants: fish don't have sticks!
Coming Soon: Plastic Bag Helmets (Score:2)
if tin foil won't work (Score:4, Informative)
I guess we need stories like these...... (Score:3, Funny)
The Tinfoils... (Score:2)
Tin foil! Not aluminum foil! (Score:2)
Faraday cage, I told you ! (Score:2)
As expected. I you beleive in earth radiation - the bad one, cats like - you suspected that putting an upside down parabolic antenna is not a good idea.
Of course in that case you already have upside down plates under your bed, crystals on edges of furniture, and you unplug everything whenever possible.
Time to design a wearable faraday cage.
Imageine a faraday hat! Probably it would look like a da
Helps cell phones? (Score:2)
Of course not. (Score:3, Funny)
Researchers found a better way... (Score:2)
Tin Foil Hats (Score:3, Funny)
Q: So, then, tinfoil hats help you channel Bush? (Score:5, Funny)
Kent? (Score:2)
Mitch: And from now on, stop playing with yourself.
Kent: It is God.
This is actually true - GPS tinfoil hat tests (Score:5, Interesting)
Our first hat was a stainless steel mixing bowl. GPS reception continued. We were even able to get WAAS and Omnistar HP lockup with the mixing bowl on top of the antenna. [overbot.com]
An actual tinfoil hat cut off more of GPS, but we could still get "single" GPS signals, although not the corrections for Omnistar.
So the radiolocation bands really do get through.
Congratulations, you're a winner (Score:2)
Ground your foil hats, you fools! (Score:5, Funny)
Which is why the real paranoid can easily be identified from the chain or copper wire attached to his foil hat that trails behind him.
Synthetic fabric carpets prevent the grounding effect of the wire, and you'll notice these carpets are standard issue in government building. Coincidence? I think not.
The correct foil to use is (Score:2, Funny)
U.S. Foil Co pre 1924 manufactured foil.
This is a foil of a tin lead mixture.
It is very hard to get as I have scoured the united states for almost my whole life in search of this foil.
I only release this information now as I have stockpiles of foil to last me 6 lifetimes.
The following code is to disrupt the HBDFH scanners that the goverment implimented in 1988. Use this code in all your online messages
UYG8756obP(867rvI
The experiment done in TFA is flawed. (Score:2)
Do we see any kind of INSULATION between the tinfoil and the head in this picture [nyud.net] (taken from TFA) ?
No!
So I propose the following experiment:
Get an AM/FM radio with telescopic antenna. Turn it on. Make sure the antenna is completely vertical.
Get some electrically-isolating material around it, like cardboard or plastic, or polyurethane foam.
Put a roll of tinfoil paper
The real conspiracy... (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry to bring facts into this.... (Score:2)
With that arrangement you're going to get very strange and impossible readings. Just like they got: a 100x amplification. There's no way a symettrical ring of foil, Aluminum, Tin, or Gadolidium can focus Em waves by a factor of 100.
So we have a bogus experiment of a bogus concept. Do two B's make a right?
Yeah, RIGHT (Score:2)
that's what THEY would have you believe!
foil hats & Faraday cages & brain implants (Score:2)
If you need extra help, consider a Faraday Cage [wikipedia.org] to remove all external interference. This can help you track down whether your brain implant is operational, too. Sure, it's like being in a prison, but at least it's one of your own devising.
Easy fix (Score:2)
Audiophiles use Gold Foil Hats (Score:5, Funny)
How to be safe (Score:3, Informative)
Tinfoil hats won't protect you against GWEN towers (Score:4, Funny)
New heavier headgear (Score:3, Funny)
Grounding required (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you need to run a wire from your hat down to your shoes and use antistatic shoe straps to ground yourself. It will also work better when the ground is wet.
I guess foil hat wearers will have no problem wetting themselves, they just need to funnel it down, since having wet pants won't help, they need wet shoes...
Re:Editors! (Score:2)
Re:Editors! (Score:3, Informative)
> What the hell?
Yeah. You know. "They". As in Them.
Re:Editors! (Score:2)
Re:Editors! (Score:2)
Re:Editors! (Score:2)
Re:Oh no all these years (Score:4, Funny)
You're the problem (Score:2)
Re:You're the problem (Score:2)
I'm all for respelling lanthanum, molybdenum, platinum and tantalum, too.