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Comment by SoftwareMaven | Hacker News Reader

I am always surprised by people's lack of critical thinking capabilities. I saw Michael Shermer (founder of Skeptic Magazine) speak at a conference recently. It was a little frightening how much data he has on the irrationality of our fellow man.

The thing that frightens me the most is the areas I personally exhibit irrationality in that I don't know about. I'm actually OK being irrational if I know I am (I can make decisions taking that into account), but I have little doubt there are places that I don't know, where I make stupid decisions.

In the meantime, we should all turn off all our electric devices, wrap our houses in faraday cages, filter all of our water, and wear respirators. Wouldn't want to be unsafe, now would we?

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> wrap our houses in faraday cages

Hmm... I am concerned that the big solar flare might come one day and usher the world into a new dark age... or at least a victorian period of about 20 to 30 years.

You'll have to cut your access to your power supply and go on generator (anything outside the faraday cage risks frying anything electrical inside), you'd also have to disconnect any groundings to pipework. Long runs of copper will be inducted during a huge flare, so the ground/earthing connections can at best knock off all your breakers and your generator, but at worse can surge from ground->neutral (frequently connected as a double safety) and fry things that way (note: I only heard of this happen from a lightning strike, but we're talking end-of-civilization-solar-flare here so it's worth note).

If you need internet ensure it's connected outside your faraday cage, run the Ethernet through a surge protector (with the modem or other devices power supply, which is essentially just for kicks at this point) and run the Ethernet inside the cage and connect it to a wireless router powered from outside. Connect all computers via wireless and your systems will be safe.

However, if everyone elses shit dies, your screwed as it is. You'll be one of the only people trying to connect to HN.

Well if people are going to worry about solar flares, they might as well figure on EMP (electromagnetic pulse) protection from high altitude nukes too. Energy levels can be very high, and the very short pulse risetime results in energy extending to at least the VHF range. That means relatively short conductors can function as efficient antennas, picking up considerable energy. Solar events are lower frequency, so energy from longer conductors such as power lines is the first thing to worry about there.

It is silly for those people to be worried about WiFi, but some just don't have a clue as to the differences between ionizing radiation and electromagnetic radiation (and the importance of power levels). But the same folks will gab with a cell phone against their heads...

Curious is there is a transcript or video of the talk you mention...?

Not that I'm aware of, though it was pretty much a repeat of what he presented here (iTunes link): http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/michael-shermer-on-why-pe...

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