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A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

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Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#21

Post by tempestn »

VikingCoder wrote: post #11
anon4 wrote: post #6

That map looks just like a population map of the USA and UK, plus assorted English speakers from western Europe. Combined with the fact that the sound seems to grow stronger indoors, I think the source is inside their own heads. Not in the sense that they're crazy, though. Maybe as people get older and their inner ear changes slightly, the signals that are being sent when everything is silent also change, but the bra…

Relevant XKCD ("Heatmap"): http://xkcd.com/1138/

Yes, exactly. Every time I see one of these I wish they would plot the per-capita occurrences as a heat-map instead, which would actually be useful. (A bit more work sure, but certainly doable.)

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#22

Post by speeder »

anon4 wrote: post #6

That map looks just like a population map of the USA and UK, plus assorted English speakers from western Europe. Combined with the fact that the sound seems to grow stronger indoors, I think the source is inside their own heads. Not in the sense that they're crazy, though. Maybe as people get older and their inner ear changes slightly, the signals that are being sent when everything is silent also change, but the bra…

My own idea is to divide the amount of hum sufferers with the amount of population of the place, and THEN make a heatmap...

Maybe you need to cull places where there are too few people and 1 hum sufferer might already cause lots of heat, but I expect the result would be a proper amount of hum sufferers compared to total population of the place, maybe this way you can trace sources of those hums.

Also I bet lots of people don't talk about this publicy, because people say they are crazy or the sound is inside their head, I mentioned a high-frequency buzzing sound I hear on my apartment, and people already threw lots of disparaging and senseless remarks to me (even with me being very explicit that the sound comes from outside, because I cannot hear it when I close my windows or go to window-less rooms)

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#23

Post by asdkl234890 »

Couldn't it just be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus

As I get older, I hear some sounds I am certain are like tinnitus. It terrifies me because I love and need quiet. But so far I've been able to move around, create some other sounds, and the fake sound stops. But tinnitus is a disease of old age.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#24

Post by boatzart »

dthunt wrote: post #12
tempestn wrote: post #8

It's not clear to me why it's not straightforward to test these hypotheses. There are apparently plenty of hum sufferers out there, and it sounds like many would be happy to help with any testing that might isolate the source. There are also plenty of anechoic chambers and Faraday cages available. Seems like it would be relatively easy to test the two prevalent theories. You may not be able to pinpoint the exact sour…

I wonder if you could get subjects who travel a lot to record, before going to sleep each night, in a secret journal they do not share with each other, about whether or not they experience a hum in any given location. If those journals substantially agreed, you might be able to get a clearer picture of what, if anything, is going on. If there is any sort of community built around a potentially hard to observe phenome…

Why not just make a web site for this? If this really affects 2%-10% of the population, then it should be pretty easy to determine if the source is internal or external with enough data.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#25

Post by andrey-p »

asdkl234890 wrote: post #23

Couldn't it just be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus As I get older, I hear some sounds I am certain are like tinnitus. It terrifies me because I love and need quiet. But so far I've been able to move around, create some other sounds, and the fake sound stops. But tinnitus is a disease of old age.

That was my first thought too. I've got permanent tinnitus even though I'm in my mid-twenties (brought on due to headphone abuse when I was a teenager). It sounds more like a high-pitched tweee sound than a hum, but I've heard different people hear different sounds.

Sorta OT, but I've actually been able to get some use out of my tinnitus. If there's background noise that's preventing me from falling asleep (but nothing too loud), I can purposefully focus on the sound of my tinnitus. It becomes more prominent and effectively drowns out the sound that keeps me awake.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#26

Post by VikingCoder »

tempestn wrote: post #21
VikingCoder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant XKCD ("Heatmap"): http://xkcd.com/1138/

Yes, exactly. Every time I see one of these I wish they would plot the per-capita occurrences as a heat-map instead, which would actually be useful. (A bit more work sure, but certainly doable.)

https://www.google.com/search?q=cartogram&tbm=isch

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#27

Post by dazc »

asdkl234890 wrote: post #23

Couldn't it just be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus As I get older, I hear some sounds I am certain are like tinnitus. It terrifies me because I love and need quiet. But so far I've been able to move around, create some other sounds, and the fake sound stops. But tinnitus is a disease of old age.

I have suffered tinnitus on and off since my late teens. It became permanent around 4 years ago. I don't think this phenomena is related - if you have tinnitus you know you have it.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#28

Post by tempestn »

boatzart wrote: post #24
dthunt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you could get subjects who travel a lot to record, before going to sleep each night, in a secret journal they do not share with each other, about whether or not they experience a hum in any given location. If those journals substantially agreed, you might be able to get a clearer picture of what, if anything, is going on. If there is any sort of community built around a potentially hard to observe phenome…

Why not just make a web site for this? If this really affects 2%-10% of the population, then it should be pretty easy to determine if the source is internal or external with enough data.

Here's a start, just to see if that 2-10% figure looks reasonable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7918694

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#29

Post by dang »

devindotcom wrote: post #2

A Mysterious Sound that can't even be isolated or really called a "sound," since reports differ so greatly Is Driving People Insane the article itself does not make or substantiate this claim Nobody Knows What's Causing It because "it" may or may not be a new thing, a single thing, or even a thing

It's a linkbaity title, but I can't think of a better one. If someone else can, we're always happy to change things.

(That offer holds for any story, btw. The best way to criticize a bad title is to suggest a better one.)

The article itself seems fine for HN.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#30

Post by tempestn »

VikingCoder wrote: post #26
tempestn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. Every time I see one of these I wish they would plot the per-capita occurrences as a heat-map instead, which would actually be useful. (A bit more work sure, but certainly doable.)

https://www.google.com/search?q=cartogram&tbm=isch

Those are neat, but from what I can tell a cartogram is something different from what I'm describing. From wikipedia: "A cartogram is a map in which some thematic mapping variable – such as travel time, population, or Gross National Product – is substituted for land area or distance." So they're basically distorted maps, where the distortions are proportional to a variable.

(It might help to include some explanation in your comment.)

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