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The Buzzer

en.wikipedia.org

51–57 of 57 posts

Re: The Buzzer

#51
post #6

This is the sort of stuff that makes hacker news awesome. Thanks for posting.

Why does this keep getting downvoted ? I was fascinated by this article, I've never heard of this before and was expressing genuine excitement.

If you like the article, vote it up. If you have something interesting to say about the article, write a comment.

Comments praising the article without adding anything interesting to the discussion are frequently downvoted.

Telling _why_ you liked the article will likely to get a better response than merely affirming your fascination.

Re: The Buzzer

#52

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines is so bad ass. The US and Russian Navy were using the Earth an antenna to communicate with their submarines.

You can also transmit usable amounts of electrical power using the ground as part of the circuit: http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3696.en.h...

Re: The Buzzer

#53
post #49
post #38

Looks like either someone decided to play a prank or by some odd coincidence The Buzzer went offline just now: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/06/06/032235/Mysterious-Ra...

"Chances are, it's a power failure. The area reportedly had a significant storm yesterday. It's possible that the power failed and that they didn't have enough fuel or battery capacity or whatever to keep it running during an extended outage. That would also neatly explain why it reportedly came back and has reportedly died again." http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1676500&cid=324... Sounds like it might not b…

When I heard about this long ago, I assumed it was just a mechanism they used to remotely monitor some equipment was still running without having to have staff on premises there. Probably remotely detecting power outage or damage was precisely what this is sort of thing was for.

Re: The Buzzer

#54
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't wish to rain too heavily on the potential smug parade that other HN users might be participating in after reading such praise for their collective submission pool, but I thought it might be worth pointing out that this particular topic was posted on 4chan yesterday, subsequently causing quite a stir. This also accounts for the continued vandalism on the wiki entry, as mentioned in some of the comments beneath…

Probably quite a null point (everything has to be come across through some medium); lots of stuff gets posted to 4chan and little of it makes it here... :-) I'd say it's a pretty good filter.

True enough, but I think that blaming HN users for the vandalism isn't quite the whole truth it the article also made the rounds on sites like 4chan, which are known to house wiki vandals.

Re: The Buzzer

#55
post #35
post #2

I know quite a few interesting Wikipedia entries get posted here but this was a particularly fascinating one! I've spent the best part of an hour learning about numbers stations and fail-deadly game theory :) Great submission. On topic: does anyone have anything extra (link wise) about "The Buzzer", Google searches are mostly leading to conspiracy sites...

http://brix.wikispot.org/ was pointed out to me by a friend - it has a collection of a number of the "weird" articles on wikipedia, everything from the "Baghdad Battery" to the "Ordo Templi Orientis"

curse you. i just came out of a 6+ hour wikipedia binge

Re: The Buzzer

#56
post #2

I know quite a few interesting Wikipedia entries get posted here but this was a particularly fascinating one! I've spent the best part of an hour learning about numbers stations and fail-deadly game theory :) Great submission. On topic: does anyone have anything extra (link wise) about "The Buzzer", Google searches are mostly leading to conspiracy sites...

If you haven't heard it, The Conet Project [ http://www.archive.org/details/ird059 ] is a collection of the numbers stations recordings. Pretty neat and eerie.

#79 is my favorite so far.

These are really creepy and keep giving me the chills.

Going to pass these on to my friend so he can sample them into his music. Wow, these sound so transmundane.

Re: The Buzzer

#57
post #32
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I have to be skeptical about any show that declares itself skeptical. Skepticism isn't good science or good logic; it's just reverse religion. True science does not immediately believe or disbelieve. It investigates dispassionately.

You have this beautiful (albeit probably incomplete) definition of what being a skeptic means in your comment – I only have to change one word: “True skeptics do not immediately believe or disbelieve.” That would be my definition and I’m pretty sure it would also be one that Brian Dunning (author of the podcast) would accept. What’s wrong with that definition? What wrong with using the word in this way? I know there…

Regardless of the dictionary definition, in practice, skeptics immediately disbelieve and then claim they're willing to believe if shown exhaustive proof. Pro Skeptic Michael Shermer, for example, strongly doubted global warming for years, presumably because he could not observe the molecular activity first-hand. Michael is not a scientist. He's just a skeptic.
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