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Comment by vonzep | Hacker News Reader

And trust me it's damn annoying, it's nothing ear plugs can't take care of but damn if it isn't enough to slowly drive you insane

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In real VLF cases, earplugs make it worse because they block out all the other ambient noise, causing the hum to sound relatively louder.

Wonder if you can train yourself to ignore it.

The same way some fucked up people train themselves to ignore smoke detector chirps. I've known a couple of these people in my life. They managed to live with a chirping detector for weeks on end and when you bring it up they think you're making mountains out of molehills.

... fascinating. There's no way that's easier than replacing the battery or even the detector itself. Why suffer through something so trivially fixable?

Exponential discounting. Immediately after a beep, it's several seconds until the next beep, making it far less important to fix.

It's only suffering if you're aware of it. We've gone months with several chirping at the same time (due to a different wiring issue) and they are incredibly easy to forget about. We'd only remember when talking on the phone and the other person would ask about the noises.

> Why suffer through something so trivially fixable?

Because, in all likelyhood, they're not suffering at all.

People vary greatly in what causes them discomfort. I imagine the population that doesn't attend to chirping smoke detectors has a strong selection bias for not suffering due to it.

I don't mind carrying reasonably heavy things for miles on foot. I remember one weekend where I had some time to spare and needed to buy a chair, so I jogged about 3 miles to a strip mall, and carried the (boxed) chair back home.

Enough people negatively comment about the weight of laptops that I believe that it matters to some people, but I honestly won't care if my mbp weighed 2 or 3 times as much as it does. I can't understand how laptop weight bothers people without some medical condition, but I also believe them when they say that heavy laptops cause them discomfort.

In retrospect, growing up canoeing for a week every Summer on the Canadian border probably has something to do with it. By the time I was 16, for the longer portages, I'd be the one to take a lighter pack on my back and throw the canoe up on my shoulders. My dad and my brother would carry the heavier packs. Learning to tune out the discomfort of walking up to a bit over a mile over uneven ground through mosquito-infested woods with a 90 lb aluminum 3-man canoe on your shoulders plus a 20 to 30 lb pack probably causes both mental and physical changes that reduce your perception of discomfort from carrying things. There's also survivorship bias, where people inclined to feel discomfort carrying heaving things for distances are likely to not return year after year to canoe areas that require portaging.

Just because you're suffering doesn't mean all people in the same situation feel any discomfort.

With you on the laptop thing, I'm 90-ish kilos and with a good backpack I wouldn't care if it was 2Kg or 6kg, between all the other stuff in there the laptop often isn't the heaviest thing in there.

I find that it's easier to tune out something that is totally periodic and unvarying. As annoying as a smoke detector chirp would be, your brain knows with certainty the timing and sound of it and can process it out completely. A noise that is generally around, but comes and goes and varies in pitch and volume without predictability, can be much more annoying.

My experience is that it’s pretty damn hard. SOMETHING is generating a low frequency hum that I can hear in my bedroom in Seattle; in fact I’m in there’s hearing it right now. It’s been going since somewhere last summer. I hear it every night and it’s still maddening.

When I first moved to Seattle I lived in an apartment in Kirkland and suddenly the hum started. It lasted for months until I moved out and it almost drove me nuts. It was as if it was drilling into my brain at night. Oddly, my wife didn't hear it.

My boyfriend doesn't hear it. That's fun, isn't it? You start questioning your own sanity after a while.

What area? I hear a hum many nights in Ballard which I'm pretty sure is the Ballard Terminal Railroad.

U District. It's been there 24-7 since it started.

The West Seattle Hum is what I heard it called, but it seems to reach all around Seattle[0]. I can't hear it, but many people do.

0. http://knkx.org/post/mysterious-hum-keeping-west-seattle-nig...

The one from 2012 was found and fixed: http://westseattleblog.com/2012/12/the-hum-followup-calportl...

This one started in Summer 2016 and is going 24-7. The only times I've stopped hearing it is when I've gone on vacation; I really need to move. But finding a new place in Seattle is kind of a nightmare right now, and moving to a new city is not without its own complications!

Can you located it -- it's coming from the ground? air? direction?

Too low frequency to localise ... think heavy bass

Has there been an attempt to trilaterate/triangulate the sound? Should be fairly simple to rig up several recording devices in sync around, and use timing/loudness to get an idea of origin, despite the large wavelength.

Yes

http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/windsor_...

> We note that the bearing from Array 1 to the most probable source of the Hum points well to the South of Zug Island.

> The bulk of our observations from both stations do not support the hypothesis that the source of the Hum emanates from Zug Island

Wikipedia says that it is in fact Zug Island:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_Island#Noise_and_vibration

The Wikipedia page mentions this but doesn't make the obvious connection to the cause of the vibrations...

> it served as an uninhabited Native American burial ground for thousands of years

Well damn ... Punishment for my ancestors stealing their land and whatnot ... seems fair through that lens ... should make my decent into madness a tad more comforting

descent*, FYI!

You live there? What are the leading theories of what it could be? The article didn't seem to lock in on anything.

I live there ... I was away for many years and saw a few stories in the news and kinda laughed it off ... now not laughing so much

The leading theories are it has something to do with this mordor like place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_Island

According to Wikipedia, that is definitely the source of the him:

Noise and vibration[edit] In 2011, the Zug Island area was identified by Canadian scientists and Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources as the source of mysterious rumblings and vibrations that have plagued hundreds of area residents with cyclical vibrations reportedly being felt in the ground up to fifty miles (eighty kilometres) away.[3][4][5]

The city of River Rouge reported in the Star that it cannot afford to spend any more money on investigating the hum. They claim the City Council had already spent over $1 million to help Windsor and Ontario find the source of the noise. However, they say it likely comes from the steel mill facilities on the island.[6]

As of April 2013, a Canadian scientist is using sound-level meters and a portable "pentangular array" of cameras and microphones to try to precisely identify the source of the sound, in order to know whom exactly to ask to fix it.[7]

Another report released on May 23, 2014, confirmed that Zug Island was the source of the hum.[8][9]

[3] Schmidt, Doug (September 21, 2011). "Zug Island likely culprit of Windsor hum". The Windsor Star. Postmedia Network Inc. [4] "Mysterious noise escalates in Windsor, Ontario". CBC News. January 30, 2012 [5] Ashifa Kassam (June 7, 2016). "The 'Windsor Hum': where is the noise plaguing a city of 210,000 coming from? | World news | The Guardian" [6] "River Rouge calls off search for Windsor Hum". CBC News. November 7, 2011 [7] Tingley, Kim (June 24, 2013). "The Sound and the Fury". OnEarth.org. NRDC [8] "Mysterious Windsor Hum traced to Zug Island, Mich". CBC News. May 23, 2014 [9] Colin Novak (May 23, 2014). "Summary of the ‘Windsor Hum Study’ Results"

uuhhh..."Originally a marsh-filled peninsula at the mouth of the River Rouge, it served as an uninhabited Native American burial ground for thousands of years."

heh... "proof" that ghosts are real.

In a place like that, there would likely be multiple sources. Such as the three blast furnaces there. Which are among the largest in the world. They blow lots of hot air through lots of extremely hot iron ore, coke and limestone.

Also, does the hum change pitch a lot? With multiple sources at different frequencies, there would likely be beat frequencies. Which could be in constant flux.

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