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More from @NukitToBeSure

Nukit

@NukitToBeSure

Jan 25

To clarify a few things- no real-world Far-UVC installation has ever been found to exceed NIOSH or OSHA ozone limits. Those limits have been in place for decades, and if they are unsafe- that is not a Far-UVC issue. That is an issue that will require a massive overhaul of the industry to accommodate new standards- starting with basically a complete ban on photocopiers and laser printers.

Next, respiratory infections are the fourth leading cause of death in the world- ozone, isn’t.

.

There are few interventions without downsides, not vaccines, not antivirals. In the hundred-year history of GUV, the same number of people have been permanently harmed by GUV as have been by masks- exactly none. There is no real-world evidence to date that GUV causes any long-term harm.

There are countless industries that rely on GUV, and workers spend decades working around it- there is no “violet lung” that corresponds to what we see workers in other professions who chronically inhale dangerous compounds. Even kitchen workers- we now see from the lung damage they suffer that we need to be more careful in our homes. There are no corresponding respiratory issues with workers who spend decades around GUV.

That does not mean there is no need for caution- just that there is little indication of imminent danger from real-world data that hasn’t been ginned up in a laboratory to achieve a predetermined outcome.

Is more research needed? Absolutely, but jumping to discredit one of the most powerful tools we have based on studies that share the same questionable methodologies that anti-mask and anti-filtration studies have used is irresponsible.

We all know there are huge financial incentives to discredit costly infrastructure-based mitigations. When studies with dubious methodologies emerge declaring IAQ measures that would cost companies and landlords thousands of dollars per room conveniently come under attack- some skepticism is in order.

*For the record, I donated the Far-UVC lamps and ozone meters for the Pang et al. study but sell none of the products supplied.who.int/news/item/09-1…

>The studies above suggest that Far-UVC devices produce ozone at a rate that exceeds safe levels even in a lab

The “lab” in question is a hermetically sealed chamber- a giant plastic bag:

A ∼21 m3 Teflon reaction chamber (approximately 3 × 3 × 2 m, L × W × H) is constructed of 50-μm-thick FEP Teflon film

So, if you live in a plastic bag, Far-UVC is not for you.

Next the "office":

..the windows, gaps around utility penetrations, and supply/return vents were sealed with plastic sheeting or tape..

Is your office sealed with plastic sheeting and tape? So, how is this a realistic experiment and not one configured to achieve a predetermined result? Why have no similar measurements been taken at any of the countless places where Far-UVC is installed in the real world?

Next, secondary compounds:

..and via introduction of various components to simulate a realistic indoor environment..

This is the key sentence that should bother people- because they take really important research, and then simply rigged the test to get the result they wanted.

We know that many common cleaning compounds break down into harmful secondary compounds on exposure to UV. They introduced similar compounds, knowing they would break down into harmful secondary compounds, and they could say, “Ah ha! Far-UVC bad!”.

A lie by omission is still a lie- what they don't tell you is that "Goldilocks" mix of precursor compounds and regular old sunlight has the same effect-

Photolysis-Driven Indoor Air Chemistry Following Cleaning of Hospital Wards:

Of course, they also don’t tell you that the problem is addressed by simply using low VOC materials and cleaning compounds- as industry is moving towards, because the problem isn’t specific to Far-UVC. They are just bad news in general, and Far-UVC has nothing to do with that.

A modeling study of the impact of photolysis on indoor air quality

So if you put *any* UV source, including sunlight, in a room with compounds known to emit VOCs in response to UV, you have a problem. Even with no light and some of those same chemicals, you get VOCs.

But they really, really want you to believe that Far-UVC light is the problem that needs to be addressed not the VOC-releasing compounds? Why? Oh, right, because it's a massive potential expenditure that certain parties desperately want to avoid.

Unsurprisingly, the same business interests that have been pushing "personal measures" like handwashing so they aren't held liable for failing to pay for filtration and ventilation upgrades also don't want to pay for Far-UVC- and desperately need everyone to know how bad this really expensive intervention is. So, we get well-timed anti-GUV studies like this one to go with the recent anti-filtration studies designed to achieve the same objectives.

Participating in this is, unfortunately, sufficiently dishonest to call the author's entire body of work into question.sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

“most importantly, GUV222 disinfection alone is not a safe substitute for ventilation as a means to control levels of indoor airborne pathogens, as it can lead to the buildup of indoor ozone and other pollutants to dangerous levels.”

This is absolutely correct. One of the biggest concerns anyone should have is as GUV222 prices drop, it becomes easy to “cheat” to meet new ACH standards without costly ventilation upgrades. Landlords can divide a space with sheetrock and slap a Far-UVC fixture up rather than run new HVAC duct.

It is absolutely essential to determine realistic mechanical ventilation requirements for all fixed GUV installations. It is also essential that filtration to address particulates be part of every installation. Spreading FUD for clout about Far-UVC being more dangerous than a global pandemic isn’t that, isn't productive, and isn’t supported by credible evidence.

If NIOSH and OSHA Ozone limits need to be adjusted, that has nothing to do with Far-UVC. None of these researchers wants to say what this premise would actually mean- that NIOSH/OSHA ozone limits are too high because the very same corporate interests that are egging on "this expensive, highly effective mitigation is bad actually" shtick would absolutely crush any attempt to change NIOSH/OSHA standards because that would cost them even more than Far-UVC.

So now, these folks are awkwardly dancing around the issue saying "Erm, sub-threshold limit levels of indoor ozone are bad but only when that ozone is produced by Far-UVC for uhm...reasons" so their laser printer and photocopier-owning, corporate overlords don't come around with a gang of well-paid PhDs with 100 years of published papers on ozone wrapped around steel pipes and smack them so hard they'll travel back in time and are left trying to make ozone with a Parthian battery.

Basically, the whole current "Far-UVC Bad" argument is incredibly bad faith- which is a shame, because ventilation *is* essential for safe infrastructure-based GUV installation, and defining how much ventilation is appropriate is not something that should be highjacked by people interested in discrediting one of the few remaining tools we have, just like they have all the rest.

If any of this were in good faith, the studies would be "what is the minimum recommended ACH per joule of Far-UVC?" or campaigning NIOSH-OSHA to change their ozone TLV- which would be the real problem, but the actual issue is IAQ costs and business interests that don't want to pay for expensive IAQ upgrades so have consistently fought to discredit them one by one.

People in the COVID-Aware community who favor one IAQ measure over another serve as useful idiots and are keen to help discredit the other “teams” mitigation- as happened when vaccines and masks were foolishly pitted against each other by equally useful idiots.

Team Filtration trying to discredit Team GUV or vice-versa are both just doing Team No-Mitigations-For-Anyone work for them and like masks versus vaccines- both sets of fools will be harmed in the end and left with less of each thanks to the work they did against each other.

In this case, the potential downsides of GUV are far, far outweighed by the lives saved and long-term health consequences of the current wave of respiratory infections sweeping the planet.

It's a real shame they are doing this because it could easily cost as many lives as the misinformation about masks and vaccines has. It's like we've learned nothing from previous attempts to discredit our best tools.

Read 4 tweets

Nukit

@NukitToBeSure

Jan 20

This is one of those simultaneously interesting and horrifying developments that Long-COVID has brought us- comrades unable to leave their beds but gamely taking the bull by the horns, flipping LC off, and cooking from there.

There's actually some potential for improvement since this is a huge, huge class of product here in China. This is because so many of us live in dormitories where, technically, cooking isn't permitted. But of course food from the canteen is not always from our region, to our taste, or available when we want to snack- and most of us don't consider anything but a hot meal to be a meal.

Usually, they are shown as camping or outdoor products- but basically, they are used almost exclusively in personal sleeping areas and designed to be safe there. Below is a pressure cooker for making rice and stews that runs off inexpensive self-heating chemical packs (they come with instant meals here) so that it doesn't flip cheap circuit breakers. It's also insulated so it doesn't cause burns.

If this (bed cookware?) is a class of product you are using, and there are problems- tag me, I might be able to find something better and cheaper for everyone. It sucks that we have to, but best to accept that and make sure people have access to better tools.

I know it can seem odd- the way Nukit solicits problems instead of going out and finding problems to solve, but this is a really important part of the design for marginalized communities.

The process has to be the marginalized community pulling- asking, for what it needs. Not push- you as an outsider, deciding what they need for them. As an engineer and designer- you make what you are asked to make, and only what you are asked to make. Even if that's not cool or interesting. Cool and interesting is about you getting a write-up in tech media- not them.

Bad design- vanity design that promotes the personal brand of the designer or their institution instead of making scalable, affordable, practical solutions, can quickly make a problem that a marginalized community is facing significantly worse.

Many people want to believe that the problems a given marginalized community faces are trivial or easily surmountable- so any product that plausibly claims to solve one of those problems can quickly receive a tremendous amount of publicity. If these theoretical solutions exist, people can comfort themselves that those marginalized who don’t avail themselves of those solutions are, in part, to blame.
Discussion of systemic obstacles- e.g. the unhoused being unable to receive mail, receive a fraction of the publicity and media coverage over yet another completely impractical $10,000 extra special cardboard sleeping pod.

Design and engineering for marginalized communities are, more often than not, spectacularly racist, ableist, and sexist. African engineers apparently do not exist- special white guys in their second year at MIT need to solve the problems for an entire continent. Likewise with indigenous groups, the disabled- there is a near conviction that professional eyes do not exist in these communities, have never examined these problems in detail before and that able, Western engineers, with a casual glance, can do better than any within those groups has managed in decades, often with far more training, and first-hand experience with the problem.

If folks in a marginalized community think you bring something special to the table- let them know you are available, and trust them to utilize that how they see fit. The assumption they are not competent to source assistance as they need it when it is offered is bizarre narcissism.

A vanity engineering project, which purports to solve a problem no one in that community asked anyone to solve, can easily draw attention bandwidth and scant resources away from problems they really do need to be solved. If you are not a member of that community, you don't know what the pain points and priorities are.

As a non-marginalized person, or even just someone marginalized differently, you may have resources that enable you to gain trust and raise funds in ways the community you want to help cannot. It’s not for you to raise funds for your fun project that solves a problem you find interesting at the expense of more important challenges that the community is facing. Those clumsy efforts, once they fail, can be held up as evidence the problems being faced are unsolvable or that the community is unable to handle funds. You can easily end up burning the bridges others desperately need- while yours remain intact.

Lastly “I was just trying to help” is the most cowardly of excuses and should never, ever come up. It blames the marginalized for your clumsy efforts and casts them as ungrateful for not submitting to further harm for the sake of your vanity and desire to feel good about yourself.

Say what you can do, do only what you are asked, involve community members in every aspect of the design cycle, do not expect good intentions to substitute for competence, and make sure the nature of distribution does not do economic harm.

Anything else, treat them like a focus group providing feedback on your product that you want to bring to market, and pay them accordingly- because you aren't doing anyone any favors, and they should not be asked to indulge you for free.

https://twitter.com/Mel_Ankoly/status/1748712913425342719

Mel found the chemical pressure cooker on Aliexpress- crazy markup though!

https://twitter.com/Mel_Ankoly/status/1748712913425342719

Read 5 tweets

Nukit

@NukitToBeSure

Jan 7

Well, I don't really have the option of not meticulously accounting for any donations I receive for that kind of thing- and the time I spent on the extra bookkeeping would be time I could not spend solving problems.
So I'm better off just trying to keep the business profitable enough to find the special projects. Although huge thanks🙏🏻

That said- I do have some ideas for stuff that people could be doing- other than being the last remaining COVID-Aware people in the world screaming at each other on Twitter for COVID heresy, as seems to be so popular😣

A lot of the problem with educating the public is that most people are basing their idea of "the science" on half-remembered lessons from middle school decades ago.

Unfortunately, very little is going to change because for both classrooms or homeschoolers, there are nearly no lesson plans- particularly Creative Commons licensed, that teach the best modern science knows of fighting respiratory infection.

Kids are mostly learning the same garbage they did a decade ago- and parents who see their textbooks and help them with their homework are having those old, out-of-date notions reinforced. This is going to really, really undermine efforts if we are saying something when "even kids" know "better". Someone needs to provide an updated curriculum- even if they can't widely deploy it, yet.

Now, US textbook politics being what I've heard they are, getting the best science about this in your average US school seems like it's going to be a nightmare- but more and more parents are home-schooling, and you can't fight for a better curriculum if you don't have it to offer.

A working group is needed for:
Lesson plans
Artwork
Workbooks and tests
Lab classes. (Ballons and N95s, showing how electrostatic attraction traps particles smaller than the hole in a mask, that kind of thing)

And above all- it needs to be absolutely, fully Open Source so anyone can use it. CC-BY-SA is the license I like for this kind of thing. You don't have to be "sciencey" just being a good artist or good at explaining stuff to kids would be huge.

We are also flat-out losing the memetic war. Anti-Masker memes are more persistent, more virulent, and we keep trying to fight them with pure science- which isn't how warfare using persuasive bad ideas works, because if those people were capable of understanding the science they would be resistant to memetic infection. But- they are vulnerable to better memes.

Kids are on the frontlines of this, and some of my friends in the community- the bullying that their masked kids have to put up with, it's really sickening. Some of these little bullying shits... I'm just saying immurement for a few weeks seems like a reasonable option.

But, if you're weak and won't brick a bad child into a wall for their own good- well, then we need to come back with some God-Tier material for mask kids, snappy comeback so devastating their bully needs a lifetime of therapy. Think of your own bullies- now you are a wordsmith- craft a damn prison shiv of letters for masking kids. It's payback time.

We need pro-masking campfire songs- and I mean no mercy, going scorched earth on your classics and deeply offending anti-maskers.

None of this "animals two by two" we're going with "masks for me and you" and let the Inquisition come.

Gross and morbid? You want a sticky song that will travel like wildfire? Make it gross and morbid-

When you see mask, don't ever ask why,
or you may be the next to die.

They wrap you up in a big white sheet,
from your head down to your feet.

The germs crawl in, the germs crawl out
The germs play pinochle on your snout.

Forbid them from singing it! And then listen to it drift out from under the sheets at bedtime😈

("Ring Around the Rosie" is most likely not, in fact, about the plague, but it was widely accepted to be such and still sung in the West for hundreds of years- so the precedent is there. And again- song stick, kids sing to learn- and remember)

Read 5 tweets

Nukit

@NukitToBeSure

Dec 29, 2023

https://twitter.com/joeyfox85/status/1740792138730819966

Thanks Joey!

https://twitter.com/joeyfox85/status/1740792138730819966

https://twitter.com/NukitToBeSure/status/1737425836637352067

A few comments on design choices-

This was the first product Nukit has made where it’s really designed with the adversarial mindset that we discussed earlier. Designing for residential use is easy- designing for all the issues that can come up in a commercial setting is something else. The Tempest draws from cyber and premise security so the design far more paranoid than you’d think an air purifier warrants, but the stakes are every bit as high as as data theft or a facility breech. A refused or disabled device means infectious air, potential disability and death- so why not build on a foundation of excess caution so we don’t have to go back later and patch weak points in response to stakeholder objections?

So, as part of the design cycle, when looking at @Vailima1’s initial template, we tried to see what could go wrong. How would we, as attackers- or simply detractors, exploit and abuse this machine? What would be even a remotely plausible justification not to have this machine installed in a government office, or a bank, or a school?

https://twitter.com/NukitToBeSure/status/1737425836637352067

We looked at friction fit for the filter, as well as a sort of sliding tab-and-slot system for securing the top and holding the filters in place but ended up sticking with the screws and threaded rivets used in @Vailima1’s original design.

The overwhelming advantage of using screws for filter changes is that you then always have the option of using security screws in institutional settings to prevent tampering. This won’t eliminate the possibility- nothing can, but it does mean it’s not something you can do quickly or discreetly without tools.

Read 9 tweets

Nukit

@NukitToBeSure

Dec 24, 2023

So we do a fair amount of R&D and most of it actually comes to nothing- but sometimes kind of interesting nothing.
Recently we did a deep dive on CLO2, aka Chlorine Dioxide, a popular, kind of scammy product that was pushed in various products as a mitigation early in the pandemic, to see if there was a tiny bit of science at the root of it all and if anything might come of it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_…

We’re only going to talk about CLO2 gas as an airborne mitigation- but some people were ingesting it, which is a horribly bad idea. There is zero evidence if ingested, injected, etc., it will do anything but harm you and then eventually kill you in a really painful way.

Which frankly is a pretty good reason not to have the stuff too easy to access.fda.gov/news-events/pr…
cbsnews.com/news/argentina…

But, CLO2 is still sold- and is quite popular in some countries as a mitigation against airborne pathogens. The old “Bubble of Protection” scam based around the idea that air doesn’t actually move.
They are sold in various form factors- bracelets, badges, pens, glowstick style pendants that can clip on to your bag, air freshener canisters. All claiming that they will slowly release chlorine dioxide and protect the area around the user.

Read 8 tweets

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