Adjust your tinfoil hats, and heed the words of an electronic-emission-plagued Frenchman quoted here:

With the good sleep results obtained out of my home, I decided to built a FARADAY cage around my bed. During day time I wore a special shielded cap. That special shielded cap has an incredible history; one day when I felt dizzy with very strong headache I cover my head with aluminium paper and placed a cap on top; the results were quite incredible. Then I ordered a special cap on INTERNET, since then I keep that cap on my head as long as I can. I even dare to wear my special cap on my job site.

With my FARADAY cage and my special shielded cap slowly I was able to overcome my electro-sensitiveness to electromagnetic waves.

It makes now more than two years that I am obliged to flee my workplace. I am most of the times working from home. It makes more than three years I sleep in a Faraday cage. I avoid all chemicals products from food and cosmetics. I take no more antioxidant or any other potion.

French drives me crazy, because I never learned it, cannot speak it, don't like the sound of it, and what limited knowledge I have is a result of having soaked up bits and pieces as a result of traveling and patronizing the arts. My Spanish is good, but if I want that Ph.D. in Art History that I've been urged to get, I'd have to learn French. My lesson for today arises from worrying whether I was correct in titling the picture that follows "La Cage du Faraday" -- or whether it should be "La Cage de Faraday." (My guess is that because it pertains to Faraday yet didn't belong to him, "du" would be correct.)

Anyway, here's the cage in question which allows the electronically threatened Frenchman to sleep in safety:

Concludes Depleted Cranium,

The picture above is of the Faraday cage this individual built. Too bad there were no pictures of the aluminum foil hat!

Seriously, if you're going to wear one of those things, don't you want to look your best?

Not that a tin foil hat would shield you from the guillotine, but even there, the French had style. Louis XVI faced his death with such dignity and class that it (along with the courage of his wife) may have contributed to the eventual backlash which developed.

I'm not about to attempt a translation of this engraving, which shows the French fascination with the severed head of Louis XVI -- but I just had to torture the language roots a little by titling it "Caput de Capet." (The man went to the guillotine as "Louis Capet" and the name was derived from the Latin word for head.)

Ouch.

But if you lose your head, don't try to be a talking head. Contrary to urban legend, there's no evidence that it ever happened. However, there's this intriguing eyewitness account from a physician who witnessed a 1905 guillotining, and was allowed the privilege of interacting with a freshly and cleanly severed head.

"I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. The face relaxed, the lids half closed on the eyeballs, leaving only the white of the conjunctiva visible, exactly as in the dying whom we have occasion to see every day in the exercise of our profession, or as in those just dead. It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: "Languille!" I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions - I insist advisedly on this peculiarity - but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.
Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. "After several seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and evenly, and the head took on the same appearance as it had had before I called out.

"It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. The there was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement - and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.

"I have just recounted to you with rigorous exactness what I was able to observe. The whole thing had lasted twenty-five to thirty seconds.

While I'd rather be a dead head than a talking head (groan!), fortunately, this is all theory.

In today's civilized world, we should be more worried about protection against electronic emissions.

Phew. (I didn't feel safe publishing this until 9:12.... And don't blame me for this post. Justin made me do it!)