Politician Archive

  • Claim: Millimeter wave body scanners wouldn’t have stopped Christmas plot. Why bother with them, then?

    Claim: Millimeter wave body scanners wouldn’t have stopped Christmas plot. Why bother with them, then?

    Posted on January 3, 2010 | No Comments
    Not to alarm y'all, but those millimeter wave body scanners that have been paraded around as the solution to would-be airplane terrorist attacks? Turns out they're sorta useless in that, while they're able to detect dense material (C4, metal, traditional bombs, etc.), they're completely ineffective against less dense material. And wouldn't you know it, the powdered explosive that was to have been used in the Christmas plot would not have been detected by the scanners. As Jay-Z would say, on to the next one.

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  • Maine mulling cancer warning labels on cellphones, manufacturers mulling warning label on Maine

    Maine mulling cancer warning labels on cellphones, manufacturers mulling warning label on Maine

    Posted on December 20, 2009 | No Comments
    The debate on whether mobile phones are slowly turning us into a world of ailment-riddled weaklings rages on in the scientific community, but at least one state may be ready to step up the ominous, non-actionable warnings anyway. A representative in Maine has apparently persuaded her colleagues to let her bring up a proposal during January's session of the state legislature that would require warnings on devices about the alleged link between RF emissions and brain cancer, strongly advising users to keep the devices away from their heads and bodies. At best, this seems premature, and at worst, it runs a risk of breeding a nation of 24 / 7 Bluetooth headset users -- but the politician responsible for the movement seems to have it figured out: she holds her own phone away from her head while using it and turns it off unless she's expecting a call. Could someone in her district please let us know what kind of archaic voice-only device she's using?

    Maine mulling cancer warning labels on cellphones, manufacturers mulling warning label on Maine originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Do video game publishers misrepresent their games in order to get lower ratings?

    Do video game publishers misrepresent their games in order to get lower ratings?

    Posted on November 18, 2009 | No Comments
    There's some sort of video game developer conference going on in Motreal this week (titled, to use its full name, the Montreal International Game Summit), and an interesting charge was just levied there. The CEO of A2M (the company that developed Wet), Rémi Racine, said that some game publishers will go out of their way to deceive the ESRB in order to get a lower rating for their games. You know how Hollywood tries hard to make sure the summer blockbusters are rated no higher than PG-13 in order to ensure a large audience? Same thing with video games, apparently. Why release an M-rated game, and know that your limiting your potential audience, when you can eek out with a T rating?

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