Day: January 3, 2005

My Life of Crime

I find this amusing, but it freaked out my wife today. I use a Nextel cellphone provided by my employer. I know very little beyond the basics about cellphone technology but I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon — everytime I walk through certain brands of theft prevention detectors at certain stores, my Nextel is apparently causing them to trigger.

This happens every single time I enter any of the local Office Max’s for example (I think OfficeMax uses ADT Sensor-Matic). The damn thing goes off coming and going, and the only consistent pattern is that it only happens when I have my Motorolo i60 with me.

It happens so often that I don’t even think about it anymore. So today my wife needs to go to OfficeMax to pick up some supplies. She’s walking behind me into the store when I realize she’s stopped and is about 5 feet behind me. Why has she stopped? Because the theft prevention system went off. Like I said, I tune it out at this point, so I didn’t even hear it, but she’s looking shell-shocked with a big WTF? all over her face.

I just shrug and say, “It’s the damn Nextel,” and keep going.

But now there’s a new twist. Almost immediately we’re being shadowed by store security. Some guy in a poorly fitting navy blue suit who looked about as inconspicuous as I would at a rave. He’s spying on us, but trying to pretend that he’s shopping. We’re in the store for about 15 minutes, and I swear this guy’s within 20 feet the whole time. It was hilarious.

So after a few minutes, I’m trying to work things into the conversation with my wife to give the guy the idea we really are shoplifters. Gee, honey, this is just like that time in Ohio when the police . . . oh wait, nevermind . . .

Even when we were in the checkout lane, we had the security guy and about 2 store employees hanging back apparently frantically discussing whether or not they were going to stop us or just let us go. Apparently they decided they didn’t have enough to warrant stopping us, and we left.

Not, of course, before the Nextel set off the detectors on the way out. Now if I’d have been alone, I probably would have started on a sprint as soon as the system went off just to screw with them, but Lisa wouldn’t go for that.

In summary — wow, what an effective antitheft system OfficeMax has. I wouldn’t be putting too much of my portfolio into ADT stock if I were you.

PCRM Analysis Claims Merely Handling Dogs and Mice In Laboratories Is Cruel

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is hyping a report — its unclear if its simply a literature review or a bonafide metanalysis, though the former seems more likely — claiming that day-to-day activities in laboratories expose laboratory animals to undue stress and cruelty, rendering even non-invasive experiments cruel.

In a press release, PCRM summarized the findings of ethologist and PCRM member Jonathan Balcombe,

For example, a mouse who is picked up and briefly held experiences several physiological reactions. As stress-response hormones flood the bloodstream, the mouse exhibits a racing pulse and a spike in blood pressure. These symptoms can persist for up to an hour after each event. Immune response is also affected. In rats and mice, the growth of tumors is strongly influenced by how much the animals are handled.

The paper was published in the Autumn issue of Contemporary Topics in Laboratory Animal Science.According to Balcombe, this means all animal experiments are inherently cruel,

In essence, there is no such thing as a humane animal experiment. Fear or panic ensues when the animal is touched or stuck with a needle.

Source:

Animal Experiments More Stressful than Previously Recognized. Press Release, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, November 18, 2004.