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Repel Bugs With Your Cell Phone
telstar writes "Starting Monday, SK Telecom Co. in South Korea will begin offering a ringtone designed to repel mosquitoes for the one-time price of $2.50. The ringtone, inaudible to humans, has a range of three feet, and functions just like any other ring-tone from your cell." Now if only there was a ringtone to repel bugs in code! Sorry, I'm full of bad jokes today.
I try to stay as far away as possible from someone with a cell phone.
Anyone use this software? Does it work? Seems like it could be apdapted to a PDA.
... if you're troubled by a bug you need to quickly find a payphone and call yourself? How will it work?
"Now if only there was a ringtone to get rid of CowboyNeal's bad jokes"
So how long until sharper image releases the bug-b-gone 2200, a $3999 DRM-crippled cell phone capable only of playing the mosquito-repelling ringtone and serving you warm Colombian java.
This ringing sound.... or the odors that attract them to you in the first place?
.unsigged
"Hey, Mike. Thank god you called. The mosquitos are really something out here, you should see them. Yowch! God dammit! Hey, do me a favor Mike? Hang up and call me back!"
By carefully re-adjustng the frequency of the tone down to a level that humans can hear and slowing the playing speed down 300 times, I have been able to determine that it's a guy's voice saying, "this person tastes like crap"
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Ehh... why would i buy a ring tone that i can't even hear?
[So convoluted *I* lost track of the joke]
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Maybe I should just leave it on top of my computer then...
Has Microsoft heard of this technology?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
That's just stupid.
Alice: Damn these moquitos are eating me alive. Someone call me.
Bob: I would but I'm waiting for Carl across the table to call me first, I'm almost out of blood.
Carl: Just a sec Bob, I'm calling Dave.
Dave: ahhhh..
Trolling is a art,
What good is this if it would run your battery down quickly? Better keep an eye on the meter so you have another power to call someone and tell them to bring you a can of 'Off'
Another case of mis-applied technology.
Can someone who has bought the ring tone wait for a mosquito to come around and then see if the tone repels said insect?
Often a simple experiment is worth more than a hundred random slashdot opinions.
So I guess the only time you know you're getting a call is when you aren't getting bit.
What do I have to do to get a sig around here?! www.bearscanfly.org
develop a sound to repel Cell phone users.
Yes. I'll put this device emmiting HIGH INTENSITY ULTRASONIC WAVES next to MY HEAD each day ands see if anything happens to me!
Now if only they made a ringtone that repelled my parents :-)
Personally, I'd buy bugs that would repel cellphone users first -- especially if they could be released into traffic!
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Has anyone come up with the ringtone to keep your Boss three feet away from your desk when you are on /. ??
-- Sig
After Bush posed for photographs with his hand on an elephant tusk in Africa and climbed back into the truck, one of the elephants mounted his mate. That prompted the president to whisper something to his wife. The first lady responded by slapping him on the leg.
What are the characteristics of this sound? (the exact frequency value, band width, wave shape, period length, etc.) Thanks.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
Is a ringtone that repels the people who are calling.
What about a ring tone that works as an aphrodisiac? I'm pretty much the epitome of a walking aphrodisiac when it comes to women (:D) but I'm tired of playing the game. It would be so much easier to hit a button, have my phone ring, and watch her go mid-evil on my schlong.
Maybe they could also feature an add on ring for the next moring that makes her get the fuck out of my bed, cook me breakfast, blow me, leave and wipe, all memories of what happened, out like that thing in "Men in Black"?
I know...that is an AI-centric technology that is eons away....FUCK!!!
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
"The ringtone, inaudible to humans,....."
Ok, I give, how am I going to know when I'm getting a call then? Move to mosquito infested parts of the land, and wait for them to suddenly scatter?
Other than that, it's nice to see that now mosquitos will fall victim to people who just have to mess with their ringtones all the time.
======
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
1. Come up with ridiculous business model
Wouldn't you think that it'd be easier to package a simple oscillator circuit and a speaker in a plastic box and charge $5 for it?
2. ???
Now, I know what you're saying: when you do it with cell phones, you get to charge $2.50 a month, and recurring revenue beats one-shot, right?
3. Profit!
But this is Korea we're talking about, here. When was the last time a Hyundai lasted longer than a month without needing to be replaced?
now while i hate mosquitoes as much as the next guy, i see some serious flaws in this product. first off, why would they choose to make this a "ringtone". is it not important for a person to actually HEAR his phone ringing? also, because of it merely being a ringtone, you would only repel mosquitoes for 35 seconds tops at a time. how is this even remotely effective? the range on this can't possibly be far enough to even be considered a well working product. looks like this one needs a little more time on the ol' burner....
-jake
once someone figured out how to combine this Purring Kitty Ringtone with its insect repelling counterpart, imagine what can truly be enjoyed anywhere in the dark?
How long does the ring tone last? Does it play continually? After you activate it, does it just override the regular ring tone, or does it play out of a different speaker set on the phone? How much power does it require from the phone to keep activated? Does it.... Damn, the question mark key broke. Anyway, I just felt curious. Mostly because I'm being devoured by insects this summer.
This story should have been from the we-can-sell-you-the-brooklyn-bridge department.
Mark
I've found that my Vaio does wonders for mosquitos when people call me...
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Hey - I've stopped itching - someone must be trying to call me!
Now, if they had a tone that would attract bugs, that could be quite useful for pranks...
Customers can then play the sound by hitting a few buttons on their mobile phones.
The idea is not to use it as a ring tone, simply to play it manually when you want to get rid of mozzies. If it actually works as advertised then it sounds like a decent idea to me!
Disclaimer: The above comment was made while under the influence of too much coding and not enough sleep.
When you can download high-pitched annoying sounds off of Kazaa...... look up Celine Dion
I hate my sig
Man, this article has worse jokes than cowboy neal.... if there's one more "call me" joke.....
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
The company claimed that the service worked during tests. ...yes. But they fail to mention that every other ring tone repels the bloodsuckers just as well. The minor EM field generated when the phone rings screws with their sensory equipment.
Even if the ringtone format can represent tones that high, can the cellphone speaker reproduce them? Again, many speakers are only rated to about 20 KHz, because that's all that's useful for human beings.
And finally, couldn't you just make a device for about $5 that would actually do this right and last a whole lot longer on a set of batteries? Cell phones are not the right way to make a constant 40KHz (say) tone.
I'm inclined to categorize this the same way I categorize stand-alone sonic pest-repelling devices: well-intentioned but useless. Incidentally, that's the category I put normal cell phones in as well. :)
.. but they don't work. Back to DEET for me.
Title: Noise From Phone Can Chase Mosquitoes
(away?)
it will offer cell phone users a new noise service that it says will repel mosquitoes.
Noise service?
The service, which begins Monday, has one drawback: it consumes as much battery power as normal cell phone rings.
What exactly is this sentence supposed to mean? Does the ringer always play in the background? If so it should consume more power than occasional phone rings. If it indeed consume only as much power as phone rings, why is it a drawback?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The Straight Dope has the full scoop on ultrasonic insect repellents. In short, they're a scam.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Why, in my day, we used a can of Raid! And cancer fears aside, we enjoyed it!
Use full strength Muskol and you'll be bite-free! (A great Canadian invention.)
sulli
RTFJ.
1) Inaudable to humans: um its a ring tone.
2) repels mosquitos: for the whole five seconds my phone rings before i pick it up. oh wait i cant hear it (see 1) so i guess this does work as people spam your phone trying to call you.
3) arent mosquitos attracted to light sources? wouldnt the little blinking light on ones phone (or whole display) counter this effect?
a wonderful link about mosquitos link
http://www.zingy.com
How about instead, designing a cellphone that squirts out DEET when it rings?
Does anything other than N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide(DEET) really repel mosquitos?
It seems that every time they conduct these tests (just in time for mosquito season) the only products that do anything are the ones containing DEET, and the products using citronella, peppermint oil, baby oil, etc. are useless.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
from the defeating-the-original-purpose-of-actually-hearin
Brilliant, guys. Simply stellar.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
I made that up.
or better yet, I don't own a cellphone you insensitive clod!
No, wait...this isn't the survey area! I should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque
Check out what Cecil has to say.
I'm not going to answer your last question, H., because ultrasonic mosquito repellers all have one thing in common: none of them work. At all.
[snip]
Some ultrasound firms say their products will also repel mice, rats, roaches, bats, fleas, spiders, and the like. The evidence to date suggests these claims are greatly exaggerated. At best they work only when used in conjunction with a concerted anti-pest program involving traps, improved sanitation, elimination of entry points and nesting places, and so on. So don't throw away that flyswatter yet.
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
What funny that would be.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Just for the fun of it, someone should come up with the bluebox tone as a ringer. The redbox sounded pretty cool too.
Not that there's any use for that sort of thing these days...unless you find youself on an old 1ESS switch...even then.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
OMG! Wau!
Now if only there was a ringtone to repel bugs in code! Sorry, I'm full of bad jokes today.
Just today Neal?
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Cough** superior **cough. Well according to SOED anyway. I'd be interested to see a dictionary quote, to back up the spelling, my brief foray onto google prooving fruitless.
I'm not normally a spelling Nazi, but your sig is asking for it.
Now if only there was a ringtone to repel bugs in code!"
There is. It's called 'chord.wav'. Stupid sound plays every time there's an error in my code. I'm too lazy to go into Windows settings and change the sound, tho.
"Derp de derp."
How about Googling next time, instead of butchering the spelling of the poor guy's name ?
Oh, we have to gas the planet.
Hold it!
Hold everything!
Earth is a protected wildlife preserve.
Yeah. We've been using it
to rebuild the mosquito population
which, need I remind you, is an endangered species!
---
And another one! Why, it's a whole flock.
And they like me!
They're nuzzling my flesh with their noses.
Now they're, um, they're....
Do you think there a chance for an massless invisible insecticide, without odour or any visible sensation, to fly over there? I mean, I think I know a country where we can buy lots of empty used spray cans...
The only bugs in your computer good sir, are purely jokes with wings that whimsically buzz about Slashdot spreading their hilarious bug-joy to all! Your comedic throw-downs have left me ramshackle and quivering with all the glee of a playful cricket! 'Maybe I should just leave it on top of my computer then...'??? Absolute genius. And, 'Has Microsoft heard of this technology?' You rapscallion you! Someone set you up the hive and your giggling bees are stinging us in the face with barbs of laughter. I assume you meant this not to ward bugs away from poor Microsoft employees milling about the campus. Your mirth runs far deeper than that, doesnt it friend? Oh yes. If I may say, between laugh-spasms, you refer to Microsoft software as having bugs! LOLLOLLOL! Proverbial icing on the cake good chap! I have made my decision. I am bookmarking this post for future reference. Should I ever thirst for a good-old fashioned laugh with a Microsoft slag thrown in for good measure, I will be sure to navigate to this hyperlink of joy you have so kindly immortalized here on Slashdot proper. Mods, mod this wandering minstrel of mirth +5 Dancing-Bees-of-Funtimes!
bug me?
What about an application for the Palm Pilots? That tiny speaker should be good enough to reproduce high pitch sounds, right?
Life is not for the lazy.
Oh, great I always wanted a ringtone THAT I CAN'T FREAKIN' HEAR!!!!
It's really great the the MOSQUITOS can hear 'em!
Bzzzzzt! [ Swats at mosquito ] Bzzzzzt! [ Swats again ] BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! [ Answers Cell Phone ]"Oh, it's for you..."
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
...with the rock I purchased to repel tigers.
Just what everyone needs, a ring tone that is inaudible and repells mosquitoes only when the phone rings. How are you expected to answer the phone, whit until the bugs stop attacking you and decide from that someone must be calling?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Get a job and MOVE OUT! you stupid whiny fuck
I think a cell phone is more likely to give mosquitoes brain cancer than to repel them.
What you want, sonny, is a Tasp. A hort, sharp, shock to the pleasure center of the brain and she (or he, if that's your pleasure) will be yours.
Just don't point it at a Kzin. He'll rip out your heart and eat it in front of your dieing eyes.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Now if only there was a ringtone to repel bugs in code!
It's a much needed Slash feature.
Now if you could only find one to repel trolls.
Seriously, I haven't been attacked and mauled by bears in the entire time that I've had my phone set on this ringtone.
I don't mean to brag, but the ringtone was built into the phone - I didn't have to pay anything extra for it.
I have a Nokia 8890 if anyone else also wants a phone that repels bear attacks.
I haven't tested it in the deep woods, and I have most recently lived in Boston where bear attacks are an incredibly frequent ofccurace (if you don't have this phone). Now I live in Bermuda and I have continued my streak of non-bear attack days.
I'll bet it is probably in other Nokia phones too since they share a lot of the common ringtones.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
They should combine this phone with Sony VIAO's electric shock laptop (a few articles earlier.
But it should attract insects and then shock them. Then there's no need to recall all those laptops too.
http://www.inspirelight.net/
but annoys mosquitoes within a range of three feet
I annoy my little cousin, it doesn't repel him
Also, 3 FEET! That means it will protect my upper body, and leave my lower body for the wolves?
I mean, not even the average asian is 3 feet. At least 5, meaning 2 feet are getting screwed.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
I don't want a phone that repels anything.
I want a phone that makes me a magnet for hot easy women.
it should ring and then I find myself at the bottom of a pile of mini-skirt clad, top heavy bimbos.
And ideally the sound is also an aphrodesiac, so that by the time I get out from the pile of skank, they're ready for hot sweaty action.
I'd pay more than $2.50 for that.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I'm sick of them knocking on my door or hitting me up a the airport.
Yes, there is software called Anti-Mal 2.0, it is working fine now on Windows XP, you have to run it in compatibility mode. Any luck with the portable device, let me know...
Well, I'm in Winnipeg, and we have what's generally considered to be the worst mosquitoes in Canada, and among the worst in North America. And you don't see people carrying ultrasonic gadgets, or stringing up bug zappers, simply because they don't work.
:)
What does? A good insect repellant (with deet). That's about it. The city larvicides to keep the counts down, and fogging works great (but a lot of people are worried about the malathion we use). This would be a waste of $2.50, though I support anything that makes cell phones inaudible
Easy, Grr, Easy! No need to get all defensive about it!
Mosquitoes repel you!
I think some smart ass cell phone employee should have all their company's cell phones emit the same frequency as a dog whistle. Just think what hell would break loose...
Seems a quick google search is all it takes... and few do it... -_-;;
Sound based repellers don't work. Period. End of story. Combine that with the fact that CelPhones' earpieces and speakers produce sound in the 20hz-22000hz range... this is being generous as most are more like 50hz-18000hz. Most, if not all of which is audible to humans. At the point where the volume is turned down below what you can hear, it ain't there.
Citronella doesn't really repel insects.
Deet does, but is cancerous. (100% deet is still sold in California, btw.)
Carbon dioxide will lure Mosquitoes... potentially away from you. Hence the dry ice in the corner of the backyard trick works.
Skin So Soft, from what I can see online doesn't repel and the brand which they later produced which they claim does contains citronella... so it most likely doesn't.
Seriously, a ringtone which repels bugs? If you're willing to pay for that, I've got a special soundfile which you can play which will repel con artsists: I'm broke. I've got no money.
Winged Power Photography
Look the URL for example.
.
...I'll send you a wonder inaudible dialtone that repels mosquitos, bears and Jehovah Witnesses, attracts women and money, makes people on crowded motorway drive off your way, reduces your body fat and makes you forever young. Additionally it's not only inaudible - its presence won't be shown on your phone in any way so no woman will find out you used this to attract it, and no mosquito will be attracted to shining display. Call now! 1-900-...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
There's a product called sonicweb that attracts mosquitos with sound, heat, motion and scent, and then claims to kill them off when they get close enough. It doesn't use an oil or a scent to kill and it claims it can protect up to an acre.
Korean's are *paranoid* about mosquitos I mean freaking irrational.
Yeah, malaria(along with a dozen other various mosquito-born illnesses) can tend to make you that way.
The difference between here and there is that most of the mosquitoes ARE carrying something- I remember there was a travel advisory about it at one point. Here in the US, you have a greater chance of winning the lottery than catching, say, West Nile disease, which the press has been beating to death("dead bird found!" "dead bird has west nile!" etc etc.)
Please help metamoderate.
Dry Ice is the hot tip. Place a block in a remote corner of the area of your next outdoor grilling event, and you'll suffer nary a bite.
First of all, most cell phones store ringtones in a compressed PCM-like format, ADPCM, for instance. PCM sampling rates for most phones top out at around 22 KHz.
The speakers in such phones also can't reproduce high quality sound in even the ranges they are rated in, and the quality, response and dbm it takes to drive the speakers drops off considerably as the frequency goes significantly below or beyond its rated frequency response. Piezo elements could do it but those are rated for a single frequency or set of frequencies and all but the oldest phones still have them (those don't support ring tones anyway).
Perhaps they observed a different effect -- waving the phone in the air with the ring tone emmited will naturally rouse the insects.
I'll stick to bug spray and avoid the swamp lands, thank you.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
They somehow have to find the "essence of nerd" (tm) which repels women, and reformulate its repelling properties for mosquitoes. I know that there's not many parallels between women and mosquitos, but they can both be blood-sucking pain in the necks.
Mosquitos find their targets from the trail of carbon dioxide left behind by exhaling. So I have heavy doubts about this Korean invention working at all. What does work so far are those traps with their own CO2 generators. (But even then it is not perfect.)
Those high frequency sound generators may repel mice and rats, but only for a short period of time. What happens is that their offspring will come back to re-infest the area. The difference between the off-spring and the parents is that the kiddie rodents will be born deaf. Rodents like roaches are highly adaptive. (Got that little tidbit of information from someone who used to work in the exterminator business.)
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
...don't ya know.
I have a sound badge that claim to repel mosquitoes, but it doesn't work.
I'm highly allergic to mosquitoes!
Depending on your point of view, an inaudible ring tone could be a good thing or a bad thing.
Call me a pessimist, but I don't think your average cellphone is going to have a speaker capable of reproducing an ultrasonic ringtone...
if one has a range of three feet, imagine what a beowulf cluster of these could do. build it big enough and set them up correctly, we could push the entire population into one area. that is until they adapt at which point we have adjust the sheild harmonics. i'll shut up now.
Don't down play West Nile virus too much. Yes, its threat to humans is way overblown, but it has had some major effects. Where I live there used to be a very big population of crows, so many that they were a nuisance. West Nile came last year and wiped them all out. I have not seen a single crow for a year. I would call that a serious impact.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class. Especially since I rule. -Randal, Clerks
Yeah, but Republican crows were probably in power at the time, so the crow healthcare system sucked.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
"Inaudible to humans" means one of three things...one, too low to be heard (in which case mosquitoes won't care, or two and three, infrasound and ultrasound, respectively. The problem with that is that a cell phone cannot generate sounds in those frequencies with any reliability...it's not designed to. Infrasound requires a huge driver, and if you've ever looked at those devices that supposedly drive away aggressive dogs with ultrasound you know what an ultrasound transducer looks like, and it's nothing like the piezoelectric speaker a cell phone contains for ringtones. This is just an example of what happens in countries with more relaxed consumer protection statutes.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
http://www-rci.rutgers.edu/~insects/proprom.htm
q uito.org/mosquito.html
"Products and Promotions That Have Limited Value for Mosquito Control: Electronic Repellers"
"Hand-held electronic devices that rely on high-frequency sound to repel mosquitoes have become surprisingly popular in recent years. Prices range from $9.95 to $29.95 for units advertised in magazines. Heavy-duty repellers that claim to keep away spiders, hornets, and rats, in addition to mosquitoes may sell for more than $100.00. The manufacturer's rationale for using sound as a repelling factor varies from one device to the next. Some claim to mimic the wing beat frequency of a male mosquito. This, supposedly, repels females who have already mated and do not wish to be mated a second time. Others claim to mimic the sound of a hungry dragonfly, causing mosquitoes to flee the area to avoid becoming the predator's next meal. Most of the electronic repellers on the market hum on a single frequency. Top of the line devices allow for adjustment by the user to achieve the most effective frequency for the mosquito causing the problem. Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that electronic mosquito repellers do not prevent host seeking mosquitoes from biting. In most cases, the claims made by distributors border on fraud. Mated female mosquitoes do not flee from amorous males, and mosquitoes do not vacate an area hunted by dragonflies. Electronic mosquito repellers do little in the way of reducing mosquito annoyance."
Plus, more mosquito info (like you care):
http://www.njmosquito.org
http://www.mos
Losers choose to abuse the use of "loose".
the cellphones of today where you buy ringtones aren't DRM crippled at all. They just don't give the tools you need to program stuff on them yourself. However, if one aquires such a tool, you can put your own ringtones, pictures, games, and whatever else you like on a phone.
Most phones I've seen use MIDI files. Many of them will take PCM data too, but the most popular format is MIDI. I suppose it would in theory be possable to command the synth to play a really high pitch. I can do it with my professional MIDI synth, no reason this one wouldn't act similar.
Now as to if the sound would actually be reproduced, that's a differnt matter.
The speakers on these buggers are built strong. On my 3 year old phone, the speaker has a magnet powerful enough to wipe out credit cards if you keep themi n the same pocket as the phone :)
Finally, in Asia, you can't avoid the swamplands--it's all swampland.
As someone who recently had West Nile I can honestly say that it was a pretty shitty (no pun intended) evening of cramps and fever. I'll take that anyday over paranoia and semi-constant exposure to the nasty potentially cancer causing chemicals in the majority of bug sprays. Oh, and once you've had West Nile you can't get it again.
I live in Ontario and get to watch the constant commercials and news stories about the great threat of the mosquitoes. I do understand that certain segments of the population (the old, the young, the sick) should take precautions, but I don't like the fact that people are dumping chemicals in all of the standing water around to cut the mosquito population. My neighbour was dumping misc chemicals into the rainbarrel that he uses to water the lawn that his children play on. Paranoia kills common sense.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
why would i buy a ring tone that i can't even hear?
I don't know, how about being considerate to other people? There's still always an idiot or four who leaves their phone on in the movie theatre/dinner/library/[insert other public place here]. I am about sick and tired of Joe Jerkoff and his friggen Ring-Tone-Of-The-Week.
This is brilliant! I am buying stock in this company. Those stupid enough to not remember to shut their ringers off in public places should be forced to have this.
Yes, I can understand if the cellphone is in a backpack. But if it's in a pocket on your person or hanging off the belt, there should be no excuse (other than being a parapalegic and not being able to feel your legs) should have that stupid ass ringer on.
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
you will see that "the company claimed that the service worked during tests." What is "the service"? The ability to download a special inaudible sound wave and play it by hitting a few buttons on the mobile phone. That is the service they are providing, and its not too hard to believe that it worked during testing. Unfortunately they are not providing you with an anti-mosquito service.
CDs use 44kHz as the human ear generally doesn't go above 20kHz. Vinyl purists will argue that one though...
Oh, and once you've had West Nile you can't get it again.
This is especially true of those who die of the disease. West Nile disease takes the life of an estimated one out of every eight patients who show symptoms. Most of these fatalities occur in immunocompromised individuals such as the elderly.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It gets transmitted to the phone as a .WAV or something
Actually, ring tones on the phones I've used seem to be stored as a sequence of pitches and durations, sort of like a .mid file.
Will I retire or break 10K?
you need to quickly find a payphone and call yourself? How will it work?
Easy. Use a second cellphone with a ringtone that sounds like this.
(Of course, you could just call yourself directly with THAT cellphone, but hey, we're trying to be convoluted here, right?)
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Sorry, honey, I didn't hear my phone ring when you called...but on the bright side, I didn't get any mosquito bites today!
err, well except that overturned 18-wheeler on the westbound...
Sorry, I'm full of bad jokes today.
I noticed.
--
I seem to remember reading the blurb that went with a DIY electronic mozzie repeller project, that said that the idea behind it was that the device mimicked the the frequency of the male mosquito. Since it's the pregnant female that bites, it was supposed to work because she would not want any more male company....
IIRC, I later read another article that said these devices didn't work becaue the sound of the male just made the females more angry/aggressive which was counterproductive
Simon
No I think the answer is quite simpler then that and simple phisics. Take a hollow tube the dimensions of the 'straw' the mosquite uses to drink blood. Now treat it like you would a musical instrument. This is my theory on what would work. Can someone make some assumtions and figure out what the effective range is. DDT and chemicals fail but I believe attacking the structure of the mosquito is the way to go.
... harmonic structure. The possible wavelengths supported by this tube. Note that the fundamental has the relationship lamda = 4L. The sequence of wavelengths is given by
Semiclosed tube: A tube with one end closed has
wavelength = [(4L)/n] n= 1,3,5,7...
fn = n/(4*L)*v = [n/(4*L)] *root(Ta) n= 1,3,5...
f(frequency)= 1/wavelength
L length of tube
f frequency
v = speed of sound in the air(local climate)
Ta = absolute temperature of the air (am pretty sure its in kelvin)
All right my memory of Physics is hazy so I will stick to theory and by god correct me. I have zilch knowledge of of the size of mosquito anatomy. For anyone else, what we are trying to replicate is The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse a la musquito. Technically any speaker capable or producing a steady continious waveform on the derived frequencies should build a standing wave in the mosquito and maybe kill or make it go away at least. Please give me sugestions of practical devices we can turn to these purpouses. A trip to radio-shack or a local electronics store and some advice from the geers on slashdot should keep the price tag under $20.
Then again, ever since I took wilderness survival merit badge at Tomahawk Scout Ranch, I got used to being bitten. I stopped wearing DEET when I realized it solvated the logo on our troop t-shirts and ruined other plastic items. The dirty oily feel of rubbing DEET into your skin is also pretty gross. I don't even get the slightest bump from being bitten by most varieties of mosquito any more. If you stop letting it bother you and accept it as a minor cost of enjoying the outdoors, your body somehow adapts.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
And to repell bugs in code, you'll have send it to a modem?!?
If everyone used one of these, Backyard Avenger, the mosquito population would be drastically cut. After two years of continuous use in a region, so many female mosquitos have been eliminated that the colonies take years to recover.
I think the Skeeter Skat managed to skip six times before finally sinking into the nearby river.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
There is just one problem with this idea: female mosquitoes -- the ones that bite -- are deaf. The major visible difference between males and females is the ears. Male mosquitoes have large, visible, ear parts but the females have none.
In my part of the world, where the bugs carry you off if you go out without a baseball bat, you can see clouds of mosquitoes separated vertically, by gender. If you make the right sound, you will see the male cloud jump.
At an outdoor party, one evening, a friend put two and two together and tried playing tones over a loud speaker to the bugs. For our mosquitoes, a tone of about 240 Hz would make the males swarm the loudspeaker. Maybe they thought it sounded like a female mosquito and tried to mate with it.
It is just a shame it does not attract the ones that bite!
they are all just random features!
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
At what cost to the ecosystem? We've got to stop messing with nature and start living with it, thinking up intelligent alternatives to killing them in the same casual ways in which we kill ourselves.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
I've been hearing about (and see more and more on sale) CO2 based mosquito traps that are supposed to actually be effective at controlling mosquitos.
They burn propane to generate CO2, which is supposed to be a significant attractant of mosquitos. When the bugs get close, they get sucked in by a vacuum into a bag.
A recent newspaper story about this said that there had been some studies overseas (er, outside the US) that showed some effectiveness of this and a lot of reliable anecdotel evidence that they worked.
AFAIC nothing works better than staying indoors, long pants and DEET (although not necessarily in that combination).
Mosquitoes have killed more people than all the wars in history combined. I for one would like to see this bloodsucking parasite eradicated as thoroughly as Smallpox
"The moment "pride" is lost, "freedom" is also lost." - Ramza.
are CO2 traps.
but not all the CO2 trap designs attract the same breed of mosquito!
another inconvenient is that you have to set the trap at some distance from where you are, and the success rate depends on the concentration of the mosquito population.
what would be great also, is if the government installed those traps in places where there's a lot of stagnant water, combined with mass-spraying of a bacteria that exclusively feeds on mosquito larvae (I recall some research done at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières).
now for those of you who are worried about CO2 emissions and global warming, be aware that to be effective, a mosquito CO2 trap has to mimic the amount of emissions a human has. Too much emission and the mosquito isnt attracted.
That's something i would like to see in a cellphone...
everytime you get a call, everybody around shits themselves...
I was chopping wood outside and there were a bunch of bees swarming around. Remembering the almanac, I went to the kitchen and ate some toast with this garlic butter I happened to have. Then I went back outside to finish my work, and did not see one single bee come near me. I could see them in the distance but they wouldn't come near me.
It works.
You can also plant a border of garlic around your garden to keep animals out. They don't like that smell.
Now a clove of garlic might be overkill and would easily repel your friends too; but with the acute sense of smell that bugs have, garlic butter was enough.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
is it possible for me to patent a cellphone that "walla"
presss a cell phone key or key sequence and swiss army knife style a fly swatter spring out to swats the little buggers with.
How about Doh, and not being so grump about it.
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Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
Download the new "Paranoia" collection of ringtones that not only repel common sense, they actually kill it!!! That's right, for only $9.95, you can lose any common sense you may have whenever your cell phone rings.
With such ringtones as "Turn Your Cell Phone ON During the Movie", "Have Loud Conversations on a Crowded Bus", "Talk Over Your Cell During a Party", and "Sorry to Interrupt Our Meeting, but I Need to Take This Call", "Keep Bears at Bay With Your Phone", and "Send Text Messages to People In The Same Room", our selection can't be beat.
Order yours today, and become the envy of all your friends.
This works very well in conjunction with those magnetic bracelets and anklets that increase your blood flow and heal your cancer, and those little magnets you put on your fuel line that give you a 300 m.p.g. carbuerator, and those cell phone antenna booster stickers to increase range, as well as that "airflow vortex" device that you put in your car's airfilter to create turbulence, and...
(If by 'work' you mean separate a sucker from his money, of course.)