February 2009

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Natalie Jeremijenko will be talking at OCAD Thursday, February 12, at 6:45 p.m.

February 9, 2009 in design, social change | No comments

I’m very excited about this talk. OCAD is running a great series of speakers who give unconventional perspectives on design, for free! I’ve been reading about Natalie Jeremijenko and I am smitten! She has a though training in many science and engineering practices but finds way to use these skills to produce objects that delight in the way art and design can, and also level the playing feild for individuals who want to understand their information environment:

What I’m most interested in is: how do we characterize systems of which we know very little, and have very poor information? Knowledge is very partial, very incomplete, and yet decisions are made. So, I specifically try to design information systems that measure urban environmental interactions.

For instance, I put a camera in Fresh Kills landfill, just a little networked web cam. It went on whenever the background radiation flipped above the so-called safe level.

What was interesting was that Staten Island has a hospital on it, which was also measuring environmental radiation. Medical facilities are required to do that. So they had their dosimeter, I had my dosimeter. We’re both gathering the same data and it’s not that different.

But mine’s triggering a web cam. So instead of presenting me with information so that it looks like science, like a little graph, it’s clips. Every time the background radiation fluctuates above a certain level, you get two seconds of video.

When you look at that, you start to see things you were not looking for. Seagulls are always going past when this is being triggered. Something happens at sundown, there’s a truck going past. That becomes interesting.

This issue of radioactive seagulls?there’s only one other paper on it. I wasn’t looking for radioactive seagulls. I had no idea about radioactive seagulls, or the concentration of radioactive diets that go on within the gullet of a seagull. It has actually been partially documented by some Greenpeace science groups in England, in Sellafield. But there are no publications on it here.

So, I was seeing something I wasn’t expecting to see. That’s discovery. That’s what I call data mining. Not taking corporate databases, and going through people’s social security numbers, classic data mining. What is interesting is having open systems that can tell you something. You learn something.

- http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001450.html

Another great interview here in Salon’s The Artist as Mad Scientist.

If I go to the talk (fingers cross) I’ll report back here.

My LG 150 cell phone quietly recalled for emitting too much radiation

February 3, 2009 in newspapers | No comments

Well I’ve never trusted cell phones, and people who try to get a hold of me using my cell number quickly realize I never recharge it and and I almost never take it out. It’s a resource of last resort – something I bought when I first moved to Toronto and needed a phone number, that modern stamp of legitimacy before I even had a permanent home.

LG 150

So when I did occasionally use my  $50 LG 150 (the cheapest I could get ) – and my head felt warm from the cell phone – I was not surprised. What did surprise me was how even the most tech-suspicious people I knew eventually embraced constant cell phone use (getting rid of their very expensive landlines) and chided me for my non-conformance. Well now LG 150 has ‘voluntarily’ recalled this line of phones that according to Health Canada are emitting too much radiation:

Testing by Industry Canada has revealed that the LG 150 does not meet the radiofrequency exposure limits established by the federal government, i.e. Safety Code 6, and referenced in the regulations of the Radiocommunications Act. An independent accredited certification body has revoked the certification for the LG 150 model and thus it is no longer eligible to be manufactured, imported and sold in Canada. Consequently, Industry Canada has removed the LG 150 from its Radio Equipment List.

Health Canada is of the opinion, based on the review of test results and its assessment of current science, that the past and current use of the LG 150 should not pose immediate or long-term health concerns. While test results exceeded the exposure limits of Safety Code 6, they were well below the threshold at which harmful health effects might occur. Nevertheless, Health Canada supports the recall and encourages all consumers to return LG 150 mobile phones to their service providers for a no-cost replacement.

It sure would be nice to know more about the test results and by how much they exceeded ‘the exposure limits of Safety Code 6′.  So Virgin Mobile tells me I’ll be getting a free Samsung replacement. Which I will continue to use for 5 minutes every three months. If you read the comment section below this article on the recall you’ll see my concerns are shared by other people. It’s just common sense to ask – how safe are these things – and so far we haven’t heard any official replies.

by Alan on Wed 28 Jan 2009 12:42 AM EST | Permanent Link
The LG150’s seem to be the lower, if not the lowest priced and graded cell that LG has to offer (through Telus anyway), how can I be so sure that the next grade, the LG860 doesn’t have the same excessive exposure? I feel as if my health is at risk by continuing to use this products that cause tissue damage!

Wendy Mesley at CBC recendly did some investigation into the risks of cell phone use for children and this parenting site has further discussions on the issue. Health Canada is not taking a precautionary approach to cell phone use in Canada. The precautionary approach to cell phone use recommended by Ronald Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute is cited in both this Scientific American blog entry and this UK Observer article.  “We shouldn’t wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later,” said Dr Herberman in the UK Observer article continuing,

“I am convinced that there are sufficient data to warrant issuing an advisory to share some precautionary advice on cell phone use.”

His warning came even though no major academic study has yet found any evidence that exposure to mobile phone signals affects brain function and the US Food and Drug Administration has said that, if there is a risk, it is probably very small.

Dr Heberman, however, said there was a “growing body of literature” which linked long-term mobile phone use with adverse health effects, including cancer.

Of course officially some departments in Canadian government still don’t admit there is much risk to human health from from asbestos or nanotechnology, that’s why sunscreen and lipstick that contain nanoparticles carry no warning labels in Canada (although that might be changing in Febrruary 2009) .

This other UK Observer article parallels the dangers between asbestos and nanoparticles, both (at times) highly profitable industries for Canada:

Professor Anthony Seaton, from the University of Aberdeen, said that titanium oxide was harmless in its ordinary form, but had been shown to have a toxic effect on cells in its very fine, nanoparticle form.

He did not predict however that the technology’s effects on health would be severe.

“If you burn toast you are producing nanoparticles. I produce them regularly,” he said.

But Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, said the danger to workers of breathing in particles and fibres was a real concern.

“Asbestos is still killing people 100 years on,” he said. “We must learn from this tragedy and ensure that a regulated nanotechnology industry can make products that are useful and innovative but safe to workers and consumers.”