12 year old magnetic kid

[Raineyrocks]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/02/12-year-old-magneto-man-breaks-every-computer-he-touches/


Like the movie "Be Kind Rewind," computers go haywire around Oswego County boy
Posted by Janet Gramza February 17, 2008 4:00AM
Categories: Breaking News, Oswego County, Regional News

In the upcoming movie, "Be Kind Rewind," Jack Black plays a man who becomes "magnetized" and erases all the tapes in the video store where he works. Joseph Falciatano III can relate.

Joe, a 12-year-old boy in the town of Richland in Oswego County, began calling himself "Magneto Man" last year, after his teachers concluded that his presence could crash the school computers.

"Another student could use a computer, and it would be fine. But if Joe was on it, weird things started to happen," said Marie Yerdon, computer lab teacher at Lura Sharp Elementary School in Pulaski. "I think there's something in his body chemistry, something in his makeup, that causes the computers to go haywire."

The idea that a human being can be magnetic, electric or electromagnetic is considered paranormal, but a quick Internet search reveals lots of believers.

Many people claim to have a special "aura" that interferes with electrical appliances and watches. There are "SLIders," or people with Street Light Interference, who claim they turn streetlights on and off when they pass under them. And there are those who just seem to have far more computer problems than the average Joe.

In the case of Joe Falciatano, he says he nearly failed his fifth-grade social studies class last year because his required PowerPoint project was plagued by computer trouble. While his classmates worked on their projects in computer lab, Joe and Mrs. Yerdon spent the time trying to troubleshoot problems with Joe's PC.

"It was weird," Yerdon said. "He might be in Microsoft Word and suddenly he would be unable to change the font. Or if he highlighted something, he couldn't un-highlight it. Or he would get the upper symbols on the number keys without using the shift key. Or he'd save something then couldn't get it back."

She added: "We would shut it down, reboot and he'd be OK for a while, and then he'd have another problem, so I would move him to a different computer that a different student was just on, but it didn't matter. Joe couldn't work on his project like the other kids, and it was very frustrating for him."

Yerdon finally put a grounding pad under the computer, which she connected to an anti-static wrist strap that Joe wore. Yerdon said the school had purchased the equipment to protect a student with a pacemaker from any electronic surges while she used the computer. Instead of using it to protect a student from the computer, Yerdon used it to protect the computer from Joe.

It worked. Yerdon and Joe's other teachers found that when Joe wore the wrist strap, he had no computer trouble, but if he forgot to wear it, any computer he used would soon act up. Joe's teacher e-mailed Joe's dad, a math teacher at the high school, that his son could "break" the computers just by sitting at them.

"At first I thought it was a joke," Joe senior said. "I e-mailed her back, 'Yeah, he always wanted to be a superhero.'"

Joe's parents, Joe II and Dona Falciatano, said their son had no electrical problems at their town of Richland home, except when it came to his Xbox. Whenever Joe tried to play games, it froze. Finally, his parents replaced it with the Xbox 360, which is wireless. Joe is able to use it as long as he sits across the room from the game system, his mother said.

But the most legendary example of Joe's "powers" came at his fifth-grade promotion ceremony last year, when the teachers put together a computer slide show of their students' baby pictures. The gym bleachers were packed with parents, and the students sat cross-legged on the floor to watch the presentation.

"They were going through the slide show, and my son was sitting quietly," Joe senior said. "And all of a sudden, the music started to slow down and get distorted, and the pictures were messing up, stuff like that. As parents, we didn't think anything of it, until two teachers sprinted over to get to Joe. We're thinking, 'What did he do? Did he do something wrong?'

"The teachers moved him away to the side of the room, and then the slide show started going again, and the computer went back up to speed," he said. "And then we realized that it wasn't that Joe was misbehaving. They were moving him away from the hard drive so the computer wouldn't crash."

What caused Joe's computer problems? Kelly Robinson, who runs Electrostatic Answers in Rochester, says it had to be static. After a reporter told him about Joe, Robinson was so intrigued that he drove to Pulaski to investigate.

Earlier that day, Joe had problems on an ungrounded PC after working on it for about 10 minutes. Then he successfully used the grounded computer. Joe's problems didn't recur after the expert arrived.

Robinson used an electrostatic field meter to measure Joe's static electricity and determined it was normal. He measured the conductivity of Joe's sneakers and concluded that they were very insulating, so they might have prevented any static on Joe from passing into the ground; hence, it went to the computer. But, Joe's parents pointed out, Joe wore the same type of sneakers as many other students.

Still, Robinson said it had to be "a static issue" because Yerdon solved it with anti-static devices. He said static issues have nothing to do with a person's body chemistry.

"In science, you learn that your body is made up mostly of water, with a little bit of salt and other minerals in it," Robinson said. "That makes the human body a very good conductor of electricity. And even if there's a little bit of variation from person to person, the conductivity will remain very high."

He said the only thing that would cause one person to hold more static charge than another would be their daily routine -- whether they wear more insulating shoes or clothes, whether they scuff their feet on the carpet, whether they work in a room with very low humidity. Because these things may vary day-to-day, static problems come and go.

"That's what keeps me in business," Robinson joked.

[ReverendRyan]

Debunked by James Randi 30 years ago.

And 20 years ago, and 10 years ago, and last year......

[Raineyrocks]

Debunked by James Randi 30 years ago.

And 20 years ago, and 10 years ago, and last year......

I don't get it, does that mean this story isn't true? 

[ReverendRyan]

No, the story is true in that it only states people believe that crap. They really do believe it. but it's still crap.

[Caleb]

I'd be careful about relying on James Randi, who has been caught on several occasions in intentional intellectual dishonesty by misrepresenting his sources. (ie Zev Pressman and Dr. Arthur Hebard).  Even worse than misrepresenting their testimony, Hebard claims that Randi repeatedly pressed him to claim that Puthoff and Targ's experiments were a sham, which he refused to do, and then after that conversation Randi quoted Hebard as saying that the experiment was a sham. So not only does he misrepresent, but he attempts to bully his witnesses. Puthoff has an audiotaped conversation with Randi where he confronted Randi with evidence at a parapsychology convention, and Randi admitted he was wrong on all counts and promised to edit out the incorrect information before the publishing of PSICOP's upcoming book, but then when the book came out, the information was still there. Randi = fraud in my opinion.

[dalebert]

My body has good tv signal reception, but that's just a case of your body acting like an antenna. It's a far cry from being magnetic. I notice some other people who have bad reception. I don't know if my reception works for anything else. Some of you youngsters won't know what I'm talking about (Ryan) but in the old days, you sometimes had wire antennas on top of the TV and you had to adjust them regularly, sometimes when you change the channel. It kind of sux when your body has good reception because when you touch the antenna, suddenly it looks good. Then you let go and walk away and it's bad again. I sure wasn't going to stand there and hold it! We would always try to get someone with bad reception to adjust it. That way when it looks kind of good and they let go, it looks better.

[Porcupine_in_MA]

Well, I've been told I'm a gay magnet..

[Raineyrocks]

My body has good tv signal reception, but that's just a case of your body acting like an antenna. It's a far cry from being magnetic. I notice some other people who have bad reception. I don't know if my reception works for anything else. Some of you youngsters won't know what I'm talking about (Ryan) but in the old days, you sometimes had wire antennas on top of the TV and you had to adjust them regularly, sometimes when you change the channel. It kind of sux when your body has good reception because when you touch the antenna, suddenly it looks good. Then you let go and walk away and it's bad again. I sure wasn't going to stand there and hold it! We would always try to get someone with bad reception to adjust it. That way when it looks kind of good and they let go, it looks better.

Ha, that is funny because one of my kids helped with tv reception too and I'd make them stand there so I could watch stuff.  I didn't make them stand there for hours.
Is magnetic stuff the same thing as getting shocks from anything you touch?

[ReverendRyan]

No, magnetism and conductivity are 2 very different things. A static shock is the same as interfering with (or improving) radio and tv reception. The latter is just infinitesimally smaller.

[dalebert]

No, magnetism and conductivity are 2 very different things. A static shock is the same as interfering with (or improving) radio and tv reception. The latter is just infinitesimally smaller.

Ask the Porc manor people about me getting shocked by static electricity constantly. OMG. They had a great deal of fun at my expense.

[Raineyrocks]

No, magnetism and conductivity are 2 very different things. A static shock is the same as interfering with (or improving) radio and tv reception. The latter is just infinitesimally smaller.

Oh okay, thanks!

[Raineyrocks]

No, magnetism and conductivity are 2 very different things. A static shock is the same as interfering with (or improving) radio and tv reception. The latter is just infinitesimally smaller.

Ask the Porc manor people about me getting shocked by static electricity constantly. OMG. They had a great deal of fun at my expense.

I know exactly what you mean, it happens to me all the time.  I scream when I get a shock though, I'm terrified of them and my family makes fun of me.  I have the kids open doors and stuff because they're not afraid.  I even get shocks running my hands under the faucet!

[dalebert]

I know exactly what you mean, it happens to me all the time.  I scream when I get a shock though, I'm terrified of them and my family makes fun of me.  I have the kids open doors and stuff because they're not afraid.  I even get shocks running my hands under the faucet!

Me too! My roommates didn't believe me when I first told them about how I'd get shocked by running water.

[Raineyrocks]

I know exactly what you mean, it happens to me all the time.  I scream when I get a shock though, I'm terrified of them and my family makes fun of me.  I have the kids open doors and stuff because they're not afraid.  I even get shocks running my hands under the faucet!

Me too! My roommates didn't believe me when I first told them about how I'd get shocked by running water.

My husband didn't believe me either until I said, "why the heck would I lie about something like that?"

[dalebert]

My roommates think God is striking me down, but just a little bit at a time to torture me.