From "Mind Games," an article in this past Sunday's WaPo Magazine:
In 2005, a group of MIT students conducted a formal study using aluminum foil and radio signals. Their surprising finding: Tinfoil hats may actually amplify radio frequency signals.
A tip of my own tinfoil hat (now that I'll be removing it, of course!) to Jinnet for the link.
This is by turns an entertaining and saddening article. It's beyond a cliché to say that the Web lets like-minded people seek each other out, where before they might have been feeling hopelessly lonely. As has also probably been noted by at least one other person, usually this is good, and sometimes … not so much.
I know what Bad Santa would say: 
However, from reading the article, it seems that not everyone who hears voices can be treated successfully, given the current state of the pharmacological art. So in this sense, it's nice that tormented people don't have to feel alone.
On the other hand, hanging around with a bunch of people with the same hang-ups as you tends to make you ever-so-much-more you, and it seems to me that people with shared neuroses are sometimes made worse by mutual reinforcement. (cf. the White House, Fox News watchers, and the blogosphere).
I am undecided about the {good|bad}ness of support groups for people convinced that the government is beaming stuff into their brains.
Note:
The date for the next meeting of The Ditherer's Club has not yet been determined.
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