Tinfoil Hat House 896
An anonymous reader writes "A family in Sacromento has covered the side of their house with aluminum to keep the radiowaves from their neighbors at bay. The city has given them one week to remove the life saving shielding or face charges."
Sacromento? (Score:3, Funny)
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:5, Funny)
Moderators? :-)
I'm not a Californian (Score:4, Interesting)
It's stupid. It's ugly. But why in the fuck is it illegal?
LK
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:3, Interesting)
Glad I'm not a Californian anymore (Score:3, Interesting)
-cp-
Alaska -- America's most tax-friendly state [alaska-freegold.com]
Re:Glad I'm not a Californian anymore (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Glad I'm not a Californian anymore (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, I'm suffering here.
-cp-
Re:Glad I'm not a Californian anymore (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Glad I'm not a Californian anymore (Score:4, Funny)
Some people would rather have good schools, a community, clean air, clean water, and a large amount of freedom.
Others think that having a selection of 20 good Chinese restaurants they can call at 2:00 am for take out is more important.
i will say that the people with the tin foil home are NUTS!
If they REALLY believe that they are getting bombarded then just use a grounded fine metal screen. The could put it on the inside of there home and Spackle and paint over it! Oh wait the paint will probably cause there hair to fall out and their nipples to invert. Chemicals you know.
They should not worry. I have informed my bosses at project Majestic to shift from microwaves to ELF so their shielding is now useless. Thank goodness HARP is on line now to deal with trouble makers like this.
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:3, Funny)
I'm cool with that. They're ugly anyway
Not a problem. Couldn't handle it anyway
Meh. Those little DirectTV dishes are fine attached to the back of your house. No big loss.
Who the hell do they think they are! To arms, to arms!
Buy a dictionary. (Score:4, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with race, national pride, or an unchecked autocracy. Therefore, the fascism label simply doesn't apply. I suggest you learn the meaning of a word before you start throwing it around.
Re:Buy a dictionary. (Score:5, Insightful)
Awww - they're so cute when they're young and idealistic, aren't they?
These days, rules aren't decided by the majority. Rules (laws) are passed in order to pacify small groups who are very adept at making a lot of noise and attracting attention to themselves and their cause. The majority of people just want everyone else to leave them alone.
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:5, Interesting)
That, or (Score:5, Funny)
Tinfoil on the inside of your house. After all, you don't want them to know you're on to them.
You know who I mean
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too bad he's running the site off on 28.8 Kbps (Score:5, Funny)
------
In case you're wondering, this Web page is about my next-door neighbors. Since my neighbors have been driving me crazy and no amount of civilized reasoning and/or negotiations have worked - I have decided to dedicate a small corner of cyber-space to them.
My family and friends are constantly asking me to tell them the "latest" thing my neighbor has done so this page will save me from repeating myself. Besides, I thought it would be fun. Everything you read here is entirely true, that's what makes it so funny. Enjoy!
Background:
My neighbors moved into the house next to ours in October 1997. It's a brand new neighborhood with new houses. Everyone's house looks beautiful but that's about to change. The new neighbors seem like normal people until shortly after they move in (more later).
First, let me say that my redneck neighbor is not destitute or under-privileged. The guy owns a business, drives VERY nice new cars, he just doesn't care about his house. In order to protect the ignorant, we'll call him John Doe # 8 or JD8 for short.
October 1997 - They are here!
Well, it should have been a sign of things to come but my neighbors move into their brand new house. Inventory: 1 artificial Christmas tree, clothes, stereo system, TV, no furniture). The Christmas tree is nicely decorated (remember, it's October). We can tell what the tree looks like because the windows have no miniblinds so at night, you can see right into the house as you drive up. They have also decided to wrap some strands of Christmas lights around their front porch railing. I guess there's no electric outlet nearby because they never turn these lights on.
October 1997 - 1st Home beautification project
It's dark outside, I'm standing in front of my house and my neighbor does the following: He gets in his car, drives it up to the house on the other side of my house (this house is still being built). He backs his car up to the construction site and opens the trunk. He calmly proceeds to load up the trunk with bricks and 2x4s. Pretty clever, huh?
The following night, at around 9:00pm he decides it's time to build a mailbox post. It's very nice. He used the stolen 2x4s from the previous night. It looks like it's made out of 2x4s except he didn't steal any that were long enough so he nails a couple of them together to get the correct height - I mean, it has to look just right! The mailbox post is not very sturdy so he braces it with an additional 2x4 (at an angle). Click here to see the mailbox (no bracing 2x4 though).
He uses the bricks as edging for his flower beds. They look nice. Especially with the newly planted bamboo trees and the ten gallon fish tank (no fish, just water).
November 1997 - The fence!
I wake up to my wife telling me, "Hey, it looks like JD8 is working on a fence". Well I don't think much of it until she tells me that he's trying to build a fence around the entire house (front and back) and that the fence is going to be chain-link. We have some "covenant rules" that prohibit you from putting up a silver chain-link fence. Also, you cannot have any fence go past the back of your house. By now, I am freaking out. I can see the property value falling faster than his mailbox post.
Anyway, I get to work and at 9:01AM I call our builder. I explain the situation to him and he agrees to pay JD8 a visit before the concrete around the metal posts dries. Sure enough, I get home after work and the posts around the front of the house are laying on the street. Not exactly what I expected but at least they're out of the ground. Tra
Re:Too bad he's running the site off on 28.8 Kbps (Score:5, Informative)
http://totfc.net/misc/rednecks/ [totfc.net]
Re:Too bad he's running the site off on 28.8 Kbps (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Too bad he's running the site off on 28.8 Kbps (Score:3)
Frankly, I feel bad for both parties; one is clearly insane, the other is driven to despair by his neighbor's insanity.
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:5, Insightful)
If the fence is really important to him you might be able to work out a deal to your own financial gain. Keeping communication open will require that you respect your neighbors directly.
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:3, Funny)
It isn't about California (Score:4, Insightful)
In that context, a strong reaction to a house covered with metal foil is most predictable. The only suprise is that the neighbors took the time to call the code enforcement people, instead of rounding up a lynch mob!
If your situation is any better, don't feel too smug. Housing costs are going up everywhere, and the same obsesssion with property values is spreading like a disease.
Re:It isn't about California (Score:3, Informative)
Absolutely incorrect. Every municpality in the US has building codes and zoning restrictions, many also have any number of civil and/or criminal codes, all of which limit what you may or may not do with or on your property.
f'ed up neighbors (Score:5, Insightful)
or, if there is, then i'm all for it anyway.
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:3, Insightful)
Not half as annoying as the incredible crapflooding it just stopped. :(
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:4, Insightful)
Where the hell do you live? I want to move there so I can quit being harassed by my homeowners' association for having my antenna in the "wrong place". It was "hurting the value of their investment", not that the mandated ugly gray and brown houses are all that great anyway.
Anywhere where there are no associations has to be a better place to live than here, even if the house isn't a "great investment" without a bunch of old biddies who take hundreds of dollars of my money then can't even afford to pay a bored neighborhood kid $20 to mow the yard for the old woman down the street that they've been harassing as well.
Re:I'm not a Californian (Score:3, Funny)
Wow... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe they could use that as a reason to keep it?
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Insightful)
At least they're taking extra precautions... (Score:5, Funny)
So, these are the guys that buy those "space blankets"...
Re:At least they're taking extra precautions... (Score:3, Informative)
Those window films you buy at Home Depot are mostly the same stuff, but with a huge markup. And, though you can still kind of see through a space blanket, they block much more light than any of the commercial films.
It's probably not economical to re-apply film every summer and remove it for the wint
Re:At least they're taking extra precautions... (Score:3, Informative)
Jests aside, those Mylar "space blankets" really do work. A few years ago a friend and I were climbing Ben Nevis [ihug.co.nz] in December in a [failed] attempt at some winter mountaineering. To make a long story short, our shitty mountaineering-club tent leaked through the top and bottom and we spent a very long (13-hour) night laying awake in 2 inches of water on the side of the mountain.
Putting one of those Mylar blankets inside of my sleeping bag was the dif
Re:At least they're taking extra precautions... (Score:4, Informative)
They started offering cash rewards to store owners here to report that kind of activity, it doesn't matter that most people buying it aren't running a grow op.
Re:At least they're taking extra precautions... (Score:5, Insightful)
'Space blankets' are AFAIK absolutely standard hiking/camping gear - you'd be an idiot to go away without one.
They're compact, light, and they could save you from hypothermia.
I mean yeah, you could concievably rig your grow-room up with mylar over the walls, but is it really going to help that much more than the white plastic sheeting used by most of the grow-rooms I've seen?
Are you seriously suggesting that every hiker or camper who buys a space blanket in the US is going to get reported to the DEA? I don't live in the US, but if so, that is so ridiculous, so utterly pointless, so far out of control, that I'm just kind of staggered.
Re:At least they're taking extra precautions... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how much better the mylar is for that purpose, I've been told that it reflects different spectrums of light more effectively than just flat white paint, and slightly more effectively (total lumens) than the plastic sheeting. The plastic sheeting is lot cheaper.
Of course just because they come to your door doesn't mean you have to let them in, but the mere fact that they are at the door because you made a purchase from the hardware store is very disturbing.
Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
NO11!!that's exactly what they want you to do
TO COVER YOUR body in IT!
It will only make it like an ANTENAA focusing the EVIL GIOVERNMENT MIND CONTROL RAYS
DO
NOT DO IT
Listen to me I KNOW BECAUSE I HAVE NO MIND CONTROL!!!
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
One roll of tinfoil: $3.57
One month of psychiatric help: $357
Keeping the neighbor's dog from reading your mind: Priceless.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
At the far corner of the property next door to me is a HUGE cell phone tower. When I worked on any electronics in my home lab - analog or digital - I used to have problems with high levels of RF that clearly reduced noise margins in the circuitry. Crude experiments with a high frequency probe and antenna showed that the tower seemed to have a nice fat lobe pumping stuff in my direction. Then I began to wond
Turn it down! (Score:4, Funny)
The best part... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The best part... (Score:5, Funny)
No no... Aluminum
Re:The best part... (Score:5, Funny)
steel, he's got a point.
Re:The best part... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The best part... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The best part... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, if the lived in Livermore... (Score:3, Funny)
weird but illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
love the antibot text field btw. same i cant read the fucker.
Re:weird but illegal (Score:5, Funny)
mitch
Re:weird but illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, this is the a classic case of trying to fight irrationality with logic. The classic example is the apocryphal story of the med student working in a psych ward trying to cure a delusional man with reason. The man was under the delusion that he was dead.
"So you're dead," says the med student.
"Yes indeed," says the man, "I've been dead for nearly ten years."
"OK then, do dead people bleed?" the med student asks.
"Don't be absurd," replies the man, "of course dead people don't bleed."
So the med student grabs the man's hand, and jabs the mans thumb with a pin, which then begins to bleed.
"Well what do you know!" exclaims the man, staring in wide-eyed amazement at the drop of blood welling up on his thumb, "Dead people do bleed!"
The best nuts are in California ! (Score:3, Funny)
just because (Score:5, Funny)
Legit reasons. (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL but I bet this treatment violates neighbourhood 'quality' standards.
One thing to remember, pot-houses do this to minimise the heat signature.
Oops! Sorry, guys! (Score:5, Funny)
Tinfoil Hat Jokes aside (Score:5, Insightful)
A misdemeanor charge isn't what's needed, a visit from a social worker probably is. There's a difference between being unique and unusual, and having mental issues.
Re:Tinfoil Hat Jokes aside (Score:5, Funny)
(yes I did understand what you meant
I agree, can be a sign of something serious (Score:3, Interesting)
The neighbours wanted to have him comitted for his own good, but you can't do tha
Re:Tinfoil Hat Jokes aside (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously someone putting tin foil all over their house is a fair indication that their mental state should be questioned. But malicious people can (and do) take advantage of the common perception that paranoia about being spied on is proof positive of schizophrenia for the own nefarious purposes. Never underestimate how mean spirited and avaricious some people are.
Re:Tinfoil Hat Jokes aside (Score:5, Insightful)
How about just leaving them the hell alone and minding your own god damn business? Am I the only one here who respects freedom more than arbitrary "social standards" imposed by some central planning agency?
welcome to /. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:welcome to /. (Score:3, Funny)
That's what I said, but they made me shut down my casino anyway. Bunch of fascists pigs running this town!
Re:welcome to /. (Score:3, Insightful)
Aluminum Siding? (Score:5, Interesting)
Put in some Low-E glass windows with a metal reflective layer and a metal roof and they should be good to go - until someone tunnels under their house, of course.
A better solution (Score:3, Interesting)
If, however, there is no radiation hazard, then nobody is affected and it's no more of an eyesore than all of the other satellite dishes out there.
Now, there are known places where radio leakage from assorted sources has caused problems. There was a metal stadium in the Middle East - forget exactly where - where, whilst it was under construction, power tools would turn themselves on and huge arcs could be seen. Turned out that the stadium acted as a gigantic radio dish and was not only receiving signals from powerful radio sources, but was focussing them too.
There have also been known cancer spikes in areas with (a) high humidity and (b) badly-maintained, sparking power lines. It is not yet proven that there is a causal relationship, but nobody has convincingly ruled it out, either.
This particular case, though, smacks heavily of a family being traumatized by George Bush's "War on Terror" (Sept. 11th, in and of itself, was really a fairly negligable event - ten times that number die each year in car accidents in the US, and more than a thousand times that number are currently in prison in the US for violent crimes).
Personally, I think the city should come to an agreement with the family. The family takes down the aluminum, agrees that the problem probably isn't real, but agrees to work with the city to sue the Federal Government for psychological damage to cover the expenses incurred and the treatment needed to deal with the PTSD the family has suffered with, because of GWB's attitudes.
Ordinary Aluminum Siding (Score:3, Interesting)
Then again, I don't understand the reasoning of the average crank.
Interesting Shot (Score:5, Funny)
NSA (Score:3, Interesting)
Which scenario makes more sense? (Score:5, Funny)
OR
OR
OR
There is a single, LONE NUT, in their neighborhood who coupled the magnetron from his microwave oven to an antenna and is actually tossing photons at the D'Souzas.
Seriously guys, which is more believable? It's California after all. Personally, you couldn't pay me enough to live in any city in that state.
what a crock (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who has a family member with Lupus, I call absolute bullshit on this.
Lupus causes haven't really been figured out. Furthermore, there's absolutely ZERO medical evidence that EMF/EMI causes or even aggravates Lupus. Trust me, I looked and looked after her doctor told her to "avoid cell phones and wireless devices whenever possible". I even emailed two mailing lists- one for researchers, one for patients- and came up with nothing. Nobody had ever heard of this. Furthermore, if their theory wer correct, we'd be seeing an explosion of Lupus cases (we haven't).
The D'Souzas said they will comply with the order and remove the sheet metal, but they also plan to gather evidence to show city officials what they believe is a problem with radiation.
That will be pretty tough, given there's next to no evidence EMF/EMI causes anything in people, and a lot of studies showing it has no discernible effects.
The inside of the house is also covered with foil and the beds are covered with a foil-like material as well,"
Sounds to me like they'd be a lot better served spending their money on a psychologist, not tin foil. Self-diagnosis ("radio waves are making us depressed, and giving us Lupus!") is a textbook sign of a hypochondriac.
Re:what a crock (Score:3, Funny)
There's plenty, but the intensity has to be high. There were a large number of birth defects reported from pregnant women operating PVC welders in the 1970s (almost 100% in one plant, the pregnant women were given the "warm" machines to use in the winter, the bodies of the operators were heated up by induction), which is why more care is taken now to ensure that the sheilding is in good shape. EMF from a lot of sources obeys the least squares
The 9/11 anniversary and psychosis (Score:5, Informative)
There's an interesting, if not well defined, link between trauma and psychosis. Delusions and paranoia seem to have a strong link to widely shared public "concerns". I recently talked with a psychiatrist about paraniod schizophrenics and mentioned that there seemed to be a recurring theme of religious delusion and persecution. He, in return, said that in the 50's, paranoid schizophrenics, frequently complained of persecution by communists. The bogey man of the day seems to morph readily into paranoid delusions.
On a less humane note, it's scary these people are procreating, but just to help things along this site [mindjustice.org] should validate their paranoia.
RIGHTS? (Score:3, Informative)
the only way property values should have bering and a persons rights is when DIRECT damage is being done. for instances:
1)you are burning your house and you catch your neighbors house of fire! or less extreme, the odor/smoke is drifting onto their property.
2)you have weeds, your weeds are spreading to your neighbors property.
3)anything else not along these lines, go F'ING LUCK!!!!
Wow. (Score:3, Insightful)
I am terribly disappointed... (Score:3, Funny)
They just need to call up Scotty and get him to give them some transparent alumminum. That should stop the neighbors from complaining.
Sheesh. News for nerds? How can you call yourself nerds if you miss such an obvious, pathetic pun?
Hearing music on my phone! (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, I just waited for station identification and found out which AM station I was getting. It turned out that the 50KW AM station nearby [theslowlane.com] away had one of their three towers collapse in the 1989 California earthquake. Until they replaced it, their output pattern was distorted. I was in a really strong lobe.
Adding a small bypass cap across the phone line helped the problem. But it took more filtering to completely cure it. I had to have the telco guys add some filtering on their side of the demark. And, years later, when I got DSL, that had to come out. Huge hassle. Three telco visits with test gear to get DSL working properly.
Private property (Score:5, Insightful)
If the neighbors or the city really has something to gain with their house looking good they should either offer to pay for more attractive tin foil or offer to buy their house from them. Forcing a private property owner to decorate their home a certain way at gunpoint is not part of a free society.
Re:Private property (Score:4, Informative)
And municipal housing codes are municipal housing codes.
When you buy a home, you're agreeing to abide by the rules in that location that pertain to home ownership. Some such rules are just common sense, like requiring a permit to dig around underground where the utility lines are. Some of them are excessively onerous, like Homeowners' Association bylaws. The rules in this case seem to fall somewhere in between.
Sure, sympathy for the tin foil people (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Legalistics (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Legalistics (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:grumble (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The video is amusing to watch (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The video is amusing to watch (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What'll the neighbors think? (Score:4, Insightful)
But only neighbors who are party members in good standing.
Who are these assholes who insist on acting like individuals anyway? Fucking Americans.
Re:What'll the neighbors think? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't build whatever just because it strikes your fancy if it brings down the value of other people's property.
Re:Satellite images from Google Maps (Score:3)