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For all the Foil: A Cry for Tin

"The notion that a tin foil hat can significantly reduce the intensity of incident radio frequency radiation on the wearer's brain has some scientific validity, as the effect of strong radio waves has been documented for quite some time. A well-constructed tin foil enclosure would approximate a Faraday cage, reducing the amount of (typically harmless) radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation passing through to the interior of the structure. A common high school physics demonstration involves placing an AM radio on tin foil, and then covering the radio with a metal bucket. This leads to a noticeable reduction in signal strength. The efficiency of such an enclosure in blocking such radiation depends on the thickness of the tin foil, as dictated by the skin depth, the distance the radiation can propagate in a particular non-ideal conductor. For half-millimetre-thick tin foil, radiation above about 20 kHz (i.e., including both AM and FM bands) would be partially blocked, although tin foil is not sold in this thickness, so numerous layers of tin foil would be required to achieve this effect.
The effectiveness of the tin foil hat as electromagnetic shielding for stopping radio waves is greatly reduced by it not being a complete enclosure. Placing an AM radio under a metal bucket without a conductive layer underneath demonstrates the relative ineffectiveness of such a setup. Indeed, because the effect of an ungrounded Faraday cage is to partially reflect the incident radiation, a radio wave that is incident on the inner surface of the hat (i.e., coming from underneath the hat-wearer) would be reflected and partially 'focused' towards the user's brain. While tin foil hats may have originated in some understanding of the Faraday cage effect, the use of such a hat to attenuate radio waves belongs properly to the realm of pseudoscience."

I decided, after reading a few bouts of intense Eve focused paranoia, that I would improve of understanding of tinfoil hats. They seem quite popular in this game. The above selection from Wikipedia was most interesting when it is combined with this notation about tinfoil:
"Tin foil, also spelled tinfoil, is a thin foil made of tin. Actual tin foil was superseded by cheaper and more durable[citation needed] aluminium foil after World War II, although aluminium foil is still referred to as "tin foil" in many regions."
Maybe the problem is the quality of the tinfoil people are wearing? It seems to be as adequate a theory as any other I have seen for the paranoia that follows some sections of the Eve community

My thoughts wandered upon this topic after skimming a thread on the Eve Online forums. I know. The forums are a dark place full of pain and suffering. Yet, I find myself drawn back. The pull is similar to that of a tongue probing a sore spot in the mouth. Ouch. Push. Ouch. Push. Ouch. And so forth and so on.

But as I gazed upon this thread, a thread that has managed not to yet die, I started to wonder if the Earth was running out of tinfoil. Although, in game, we operate in another part of the universe there are times where I have to leave the reality of Eve and entered the cold forces of real life where I have to wash dishes. So, after my dish-washing I found myself worried about the amount of tin left on the planet. We have a tendency to use up metals and the sheer speed of conspiracy theory that washes across Eve worried me. Tin is the 49th most common element on the planet. Is that populous enough to support the need that Eve draws from it?

Conspiracies flow through the game. I was fascinated by the argument that people wanted full API keys so that they could steal the market secrets of new players to fund their corporations and alliances. And, when everyone blinked and said, "what?" the response was that they had uncovered this massive secret that was being hidden. That massive secret of draining money from the market by dredging the buying habits of new players.

I am going to form a corporation now and become rich. I wish I had known this was how all of the big groups became so wealthy.

Comments

  1. Have you paid your Tin Foil License?

    Unapproved use of Tin Foil is an offense.

    Please send me 200 million isk and I will send you your Tin Foil License, so you may be protected from the Goon/Test mind rays and propaganda. As well as giving you something to fry an egg on in an emergency.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Step 1) create corp
    Step 2) implement a 5-10% corp tax
    Step 3) Recruit EVERYONE
    Step 4) ???
    Step 5) Retire on the earnings of your L4 mission runners

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'd never give my API key to anyone just on general principles. It's a privacy issue,I don't want anyone spying on me.

    I don't care who they are, how important they think they are or what excuse they use, they aren't getting my API key for any reason at all.

    Besides the general privacy issue I certainly don't want anyone having access to the details of my trading operations, wallet transactions, market orders and assets.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Guess that's why you'll never be in a null-sec or w-space corp :)

      It's SOP to request full API for the quite necessary background checks.

      Delete
    2. This is not uncommon in a trader. You have something to watch out for and I can understand you not wanting to give your stuff up. I have no problem with anyone not wanting to give API keys as long as they accept that corps will say no.

      Of course, some corps ask and never use it. Vov has used the same alt to rob half a dozen wormhole corps and it has a ton of corp on corp kill and corp pos kills and people still let him in.

      However, this particular person feels that crops are running their markets off of intel pulled by brand new accounts and most brand new accounts are not you, Mox. :)

      Delete
    3. Yeah I get that.

      I wouldn't be surprised if some of the big tycoons (corestwo for example) do pull market data from corp members. But that'd be to feed regional prices into a database for statistical analysis and trend tracking, not to spy on and screw over the little guys' operations.

      A major competitor or a personal enemy might be a different story though.

      Delete

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