Saturday, June 18, 2005

Just Following Orders

You ain't gonna believe this one. Well, OK, if you've got your tinfoil hat on you might (we know who you are!). From the LATimes:
The Yorba Linda resident was baffled when her garage door - and that of a neighbor - would mysteriously open and close several times a day over the last few weeks.

The repairman had a quick diagnosis: Military radio transmissions were playing havoc with her automatic garage door-opening system.

He may have been right. The U.S. military and the Federal Communications Commission both acknowledge that new military radios, part of an $800-million effort to upgrade communications at bases, have interfered with garage door openers across the country.

Both agencies have fielded numerous complaints from frustrated residents since last year, when the Department of Defense began installing radios that use the same frequency as the ubiquitous clickers.
Now, I've heard that in some subdivisions of mass-built homes that when you operate your garage door clicker, every fifth door will open, but this is ridiculous. You'd think out multi-billion dollar rocket scientists could do better than that.

Maybe it's just that they haven't figured out how to read our minds yet, so they'll settle for seeing what's in the garage.

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