[noonespecial]

Illustrations like these do more harm than good. It lets people imagine that spaces are getting 'flooded' with 'stuff'. Radio is a light. A blinking light. A transmitting antenna like a light bulb. If your receiver can see the light blink (or a reflection of it) the signal gets through. Radio has the added benefit that (especially at longer wavelengths) most of the material world appears to be made of tissue paper.

[toyg]

Well, radio pollution is still under debate. In Italy they've supposedly found significant discrepancies in cancer distribution near large radio transmitters (i.e. higher rates of cancer). We're talking humongous power and extreme proximity though, nothing like wifi.

[afreak]

Correlation is not causation. There has been no conclusive link between EM radiation and human ailments other than hysteria. We creatures have throughout history been bombarded with intense radio activity from outer space (such as the emissions from the crab nebula), and we are still alive and plentiful.

Quit it with the fear mongering while ahead.

[toyg]

Upvoted despite the personal attack. Can we keep it civil ? I don't think I was fear mongering, I just said what was reported over there.

[afreak]

It wasn't intended to be a personal attack and I do apologise for that, but I do get bothered when I see baseless accusations that non-ionising radiation is going to kill us all. Of course with enough intensity it could cause problems, but there are sources of high-powered EM radiation that bombard us every day that are from natural sources.

We won't be dying from this stuff any time soon.

[Ackley]

If radiations are strong enough that you can feel the heat, it means that your are cooking.

[Metrop0218]

You most definitely were not.

[noonespecial]

Bright lights can give you sunburns. Ask a welder. Caution and common sense should be applied whenever in the presence of bright lights that shine right through us. (eg X-rays)

[jlgreco]

UV is a wildly different animal than wifi or cellular signals.

[somesay]

That's actually the reason why people who are blocking new transmitters are somehow dumb. Less transmitters means higher peaks for people near one. Still you have to be cautious what studies you believe.

[lambersley]

Causation or correlation?

[everyone]

This is why I like reading HN comments. Most comments on this would be "ohh woah cool amaazing man!!" But here people are not so easily persuaded, thing is not physically accurate!

[kemist]

Sometimes a paragraph can paint a better picture than an illustration.

[Ackley]

Where do you think interferences come from?

[noonespecial]

Imagine that frequency is color (actually true). Tuning is searching for that color. So you, the receiver, are tasked with finding a (for example) blue light and counting the blinks. Easy until you surround that blinking blue light with 1000 more just like it all blinking at different speeds. Complete the metaphor with the fact that directionality is hard or often impractical so imagine your field of focus is slightly blurred, like looking through the viewfinder of a camera that isn't focused. All that other blue light is interference.

There are only 11 or so distinct "colors" in 802.11g and some of them are close to each other and quite hard to tell apart.