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Combating Harassing Use of Mosquito Noise Device?
amicold asks: "For a while now my neighborhood has had to deal with an elderly neighbor who has displayed a slightly paranoid attitude towards myself and the fellow younger-adults of the neighborhood, believing us to be attempting to harass him in our day-to-day activities. Recently, he installed a Mosquito ultrasonic noise device as an apparent attempt to 'get back at us' for our harassment. As the Mosquito emits a sound that's well out of his hearing range, he can't hear it, while most of the rest of the neighborhood is under 40 and can; at which point it's causing everyone a great deal of discomfort. Unfortunately, because the police also can't hear it, we can't get the authorities to do anything about it, leaving us empty-handed in our attempts at getting some peace and quiet back. What can we do to either help the police realize how disturbing this device is, or counteract it so that it's no longer disturbing us? And is this the first of what may be a growing trend of civilians using high-tech discomfort weapons as a method of neighborhood warfare?"
Suggest http://www.eminent-tech.com/RWbrochure.htm
You could start by getting off his damn lawn.
Instead of "Ask Slashdot", shouldn't this be under "Ask Your Lawyer"?
My site
http://www.psywarrior.com/rockmusic.html
Take pictures of it. Print out the link you have in your post and any other documentation you can find on the thing. Ask a community service officer from the police to come out. She will probably be a she. She will probably be young, and since not carrying a gun, will not have spent a bunch of time on the firing range ruining her hearing. She will hear it, and since the docs clearly show it is designed to be annoying, she will be on your side. Probably. Maybe. You can try it and hope, anyway.
Plan B. You like Hendrix, right? With breakfast. Early. Turn it up to eleven.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
And record the "noise" phase shift it by 180, and play it on your stero. Viola, no mosquito.
Get off my lawn!
I think the only way to go is the legal route. Try to get a young police officer. If that fails, get an expert that can measure the signal and testify about ist impact on younger people. I would be surprised very much if hwat your neoghbour does is legal.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Not that I'm condoning any particular course of action, but I just though it worth pointing out that if he can't hear it himself, he can't tell if it's still functioning. Just an observation.
how about you go talk to him, ask him to turn it off maybe?
this sig no verb
Who needs the cops? Sue him. He'll take it down in seconds. You won't even have to go to court.
Then, all you need to do is be annoying enough that he moves to Florida. (Unless you already live in Florida, in which case you're screwed.)
Build a similar device to emit noise at a slightly different frequency. The result will be horrible sounds as the two waves interfere. The horrible sounds will seem to come from both your source and the original source. You may get the blame but at least the cops/etc will believe that an issue exists.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
All you need to do is point this system at his home: LRAD. This is the same technology they use to diperse rioters.
Well, if the cops don't care, you don't need to stick to legal means. I hear BB guns work pretty well for destroying plastic things. Paintball markers are also quite excellent for this purpose. Or use a nice big water gun on it. Of course, I recommend you just call the cops again. There are plenty of cops under 40.
Just egg his house. That will surely make him realize his immaturity and bring a swift end to his harassment.
He could use microphone and amplifier to pick up the signal and a phase locked loop to divide the frequency by two, then feed the lot into a really big speaker. The only hard part is convincing people that the bad noise is really coming from over there.
OTH how about using the stereo effect? If the neighbour on the other side can go along with it bracket his place with speakers and feed the signal in so it appears to be coming from the original location? I like this article. Lots of hacking potential.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Damn those mosquitoes! They constantly harass me with their noise devices!
Curses!
Just have your parents all complain to the Mayor/Council at the next City Council meeting. Have them all explain they would love to come out and vote, but the noise outside drives them crazy, so they'll probably have to stay inside on election day.
Problem solved.
VOTE!
"Instead of "Ask Slashdot", shouldn't this be under "Ask Your Lawyer"?"
Unfortunately too many took Shakespeare's "kill all the lawyers" to heart.
Am I the only one that thinks this is a novel Slashvertizement?
How many of you thought "hmmmm. I could use this to really annoy xxx"?
And note that the link goes to a specifc supplier of such items. Not a generic link.... say a wiki. I mean, who really believes that some guy cannot get a cop under 40. Cannot figure out that he should talk to the police and explain more, or maybe go to see a lawyer... or maybe sneak into his neighbor's year with a baseball bat and a ski mask?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Build a giant electronic dragonfly to eat it!
Actually, he's a smart old chap isn't he? Most noise ordinances are based on excessive decibels. A lawsuit is most likely to be effective but you should probably hire a good (expensive) lawyer and hope for a very young judge if you go that route. Of course, the simpler but more dangerous route of putting the thing out of commission. Gamo makes some pretty serious air rifles. Stick to a non-powder gun to minimize the risk of jail time in case you get caught. Or, you could even try to steal it and chuck it in a lake. Take precautions to hide your identity in case the smart old cuss has video too. I am not advocating that you break any laws. I've just listed several options.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Several (disjointed) ideas sprang to mind:
1) Get a sound meter (dB meter, noise level meter, or whatever it's called where you are) and call the cops again. Show the meter to the officer.
2) Buy big speakers and send some noise his direction that he CAN hear. I recommend NES chiptunes.
3) Disconnect the device without his knowledge. He can't hear it, so he can't tell if it's working or not.
4) Kick the neighbor in the nuts. If he gets angry, kick him in the nuts again. If he threatens you, proceed to #5.
5) Shoot him. You didn't need the curmudgeonly bastard anyway. Take his stuff and tell his family he went on vacation to BFE. Be sure to dispose of his body properly - through a wood chipper, then burn the chunks. Invite other young neighbors over for BBQ. Display a big cookbook with a cover that says "To Serve Annoying Old Neighbors".
(And just for the humor impaired, options 4 and 5 are not serious. I am not the voice in your head telling you to assault or kill your neighbor. That voice is named Larry. I'm Matt.)
This guy spent £495 to annoy the shit out of you? Either you deserved this, or the guy is a complete prick, in the latter case, fight fire with fire. Get some _very_ large subwoofers, a good amp, and play a song like Hootchie Mama by 2 live crew, or if that's not your style, maybe something like "Superpredators" by Massive Attack.
e n_repel.html
Or, even if you don't like that, just find something with real spleen shattering bass and just blast it.
Also, for those interested, I found a link to the mosquito sound here from an article at the Beeb here, also, another interesting turn-around:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/kids_turn_te
Quite fascinating...
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
A few years back I saw a tv show deomnstrate a home-brew electromagnetic pulse device that could shut off a car. I suppose something like that would shut down the buzzer - and probably anything else nearby. You might have the added benifit that the old fellow won't notice the buzzer is dead, since he can't hear it.
8 2
The rub is that it's probably illegal, cost prohibitive, and potentially really hazardous if the old fellow has a pacemaker or other medical gear.
There is a legal, affordable, and perfectly acceptable alternative though: http://www.envirosafetyproducts.com/cats.php?id=2
Break into his home and disable the device. Since he can't hear it, he won't know it's broken. Actually, since these are usually installed outside, breaking and entering may not even be required. Just don't damage the outside of the case while cutting the wires and you'll be fine.
I recognize this situation. The woman is a sociopath. She is doing all this to make people around her jump, for the purpose of her own amusement.
There's really only one thing to do when faced with a sociopath, and that's to completely stay our of her life entirely. She's so completely emotionally different from you that she's practically not human. Really, her only purpose in life, the only way she can break the monotony of feeling only primitive emotions is to think of ways to make all the people around her jump.
But since you don't have that option, you can at least fight back. This will NOT solve your problem because she can't stop what she's doing. But it'll be fun.
I recommend that if she has a dog or cat, kill it, paint the inside of her car with the feces and blood, dump the organs down her chimney, and throw what's left through her front window. Let her stew on that a while. After she gets her car and house cleaned up, get a can of gas and burn them both to the ground. That's about what it's going to take to stop this old lady if she's truly a sociopath, short of putting her in the hospital or worse.
If you're not willing or able to do this, then you really need to consider what you're going to do. Measured responses are going to be worse than doing nothing at all. Maybe you should disable her noisemaker device somehow. She can't hear it anyway, how will she know it's broken?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Buy yourself a Mosquito and shift the phase to cancel out his. It might not protect the entire neighborhood, but at least you'll have some peace and quite in your own home.
I don't hear anything from that link. I'm only 20. Is this good or bad? :/
Analysis: before implementing a solution, is to make sure you've got the full picture. Note that your neighbor is in fact being harassed by something, if not intentionally. What is that thing? If it's something you are doing... Trade Study: will it be a major or minor imposition to not do it; can you bring yourself to politely inform your neighbor that you'll not do it in exchange for taking the offending device offline?
If either you or the neighbor doesn't want to deal: since you've already alerted the authorities that the device is an issue, I'd pass on petty crime or felony-based solutions you likely suspect, you. You and your neighors should keep a running record of your complaints to the police. You might try borrowing/buying a meter that'll measure the dB of the frequency in question. Then, while you can ask for a younger officer that can hear the noise, if you get someone my age, at least the officer will have something to go on.
If you get the device taken offline without dealing with what's pissing your neighbor off, you may just be trading one headache for another.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Looks like it's an exterior device. Just hit it with paintballs... repeatedly.
If it doesn't outright break, the paint might gum it up so that it doesn't work properly.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Our neighbors are firing Katyusha rockets at us.
- Tal Cohen
Your best chances are to be a little less paranoid and irritable yourself. Did he tell you he was out to get you or did you imagine that? He might really just be out to get the bugs? Offer to buy him a better model bug zapper. How could he refuse an offer like that? Of course, you could be right and he hates you for no good reason and you will have to learn to live with it. He can buy as many zappers as you break and get you arrested besides. In that case, drink another beer and turn the music up another notch.
The general rule is that being friendly in the first place is cheap, confrontation is expensive, and ignoring the problem makes it go away.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Two years ago, the building next to mine was being totally renovated (they gutted everything but the outside walls).
And they had that big honking alarm that would go off each time a cat or a bird would go inside the structure.
Of course, it went off at 2 in the morning many times.
After a few weeks, we got to get pretty pissed at it, so I started to grab a pair of cutters, and enter the place despite it being barricaded (from the third floor, the balconies of the respective buildings are only 2 feet away). Then it's just a matter of finding the wire and snipping it.
Of course, they would fix it, until the next snip...
The last time I did it (at 3 in the morning), I was so pissed that I cut the wire in about 200 one inch long little sections. This must have drove the message home because that's the last time we heard the fucking alarm...
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m61.htm
Here's the plan:
1. Spend the next 30-40 years breeding and training vicious attack dogs
2. Now you're over 40 and can hear it any more. (Plus, everyone loves dogs -- bonus.)
It's foolproof.
What I would do if I were you is pretend that the thing stopped working/you got used to it (you can make him guess at which). Cut through his grass, chat on his sidewalk, play hockey next door, etc. Keep your cool, irritate him and help realize all his greatest fears about youngins without breaking a single law. It might take some willpower, but if you can convince him it isn't working at all, he'll probably either get rid of it or replace it, at which point you can continue annoying him and ignoring it until he either runs his nest egg dry on these overpriced pieces of crap or gives up...
Alternatively, you could just wait it out. You can expedite the process by going to rock concerts every night and working part-time in a bell tower.
One last suggestion would be to do something extremely annoying yet legal back at him, like Christmassing up the side of your house that faces him with 300 watt lights and focusing mirrors at night. If he calls the cops, tell them it "faces Mecca" or something, they'll love that...
Sendou Wave Kick!!
in the manner of
sure, perhaps my grammar was poor, but for american english it's just fine. you should read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" since you really care so much.
With your very own HERF Gun! Send this guy back to the 30's from the comfort of your own hDISCONNECTED
Synergy is your friend
fact: if his house burns down the device will no longer funtion
i do not advocate any particular aciton, i am merely pointing out an obvious fact.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Well, since he can't hear it, apparently, why don't you just wait for him to leave home or go to sleep, then go turn it off?
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Well, maybe you kids oughtta stay off his damn lawn ...
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
Be the juvenille and have a big water pistol fight and inadvertantly get the thing really good and wet if it just happens to be outside. If he complains to the police that you stopped it from working, then he is the one who is then going to have to explain to the police what it did in the first place.
10 Walk in, (the garden/home) pour gas, drop lighter ...
20 confirm if device is gone
30 sleep
40 if sound.isOn goto 10
YOU are a real DICK.
Must SUCK to be YOU.
Alrighty, so the old sap is deaf?
Just breed Asian tiger mosquitoes and unleash them using one of those geek-garage motion-detected trap release mechanism to your collection jar.
These Aedes albopictus varmits are HUGE and fairly impervious to ultrasonic.
Hey! I'm 48 and that is still ringing in my left ear. I have a headache behind my left eye now, and I'm not being sarcastic. Use that as a ringtone anywhere near me and I will break your phone. If a neighbor of mine had that sound going 24/7 and wouldn't turn it off he'd be in for a world of hurt.
The sound reminds me of a high pitched shriek that made it impossible for me to get near some malls when I was a kid. Best guess was that it was coming from the escalators. This mosquito sound is a lot lower pitch than that, but the same grating shrieking quality. I'm glad I'm too old to hear that one anymore, I suspect it's still there.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
First, Play heavy metal really fucking loud. Of course, the police CAN hear this so it might not be a good idea.
Second, Kill power to his house.
On a more serious note, go get a sensor that can read noise at that frequency (will a normal decibel meter work? Try it if you have one). Anyway, then call the police and show them the meter.
Also, if you can prove that he is doing this, then sue him for possible hearing damage.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Dude! some crazy old man Pwned j00!! ROFL!
So this old guy can't hear the thing, huh? Unplug it! He'll never know and you can get back to being a hoodlum with no fear of reprisals. Or you could light his social security checks on fire.
Seriusly, take apart a microwave oven, get the magnetron, and aim it to his house.
If the mosquito device dont get fried, his brains will.
This thing won't produce a reading on a standard sound level meter. There's a standard bandwidth weighting ("A-law") for sound level meters, based on data about hearing damage, and it cuts off at only 8KHz. That's the definition used in most noise ordnances.
Sign him up to every mailing list catalog, political group, religious groups, sales function and so forth that would visit his home for a sales pitch or send him junk mail. That's "noise" that he can understand. :-)
I say, as from a non-technological standpoint, but a legal one... Get a petition and have him cited for disturbing the peace. Most/some places have laws about sounds that radiate constantly past the grounds of the property.
If war is what he wants, war is what he will get! This is sure to drive him more nuts then the mosquitoes from his little ultra violet toy... Which by the way is about 5 times as costly as my solution. Use with extreme caution... The device I speak of is called "sonic nausea". This is the blurb from their site: "Sonic Nausea is a small electronic device which can really turn one's stomach. It generates a unique combination of ultra-high frequency sound waves which soon leads most in its vicinity to queasiness. It can also cause headaches, intense irritation, sweating, imbalance, nausea, or even vomiting. Hiding this device in your inconsiderate neighbors house might put an end to their late night parties. The abusive bureaucrat's office, the executive lunchroom... the possibilities are endless for that small portion of inventive payback. The unique soundwave characteristics make directional source determination difficult. Powered by one 9-volt battery (not included). For extended run time two AA batteries in a battery pack with transistor clips (available from most electronics stores) can be used instead. Use with discretion." Only $49.99!!! - http://www.telstarone.com/cs_sonic_nausea.htm If you do go with this method, please post a follow up or pictures :)
There's no way the little beeper in a phone would be able to reproduce the sound. For one thing the audio stage would filter it off, and it's unlikely the compression used would let anything that high through. Furthermore, if they want to be alerted to SMSes without their teacher hearing, why not stick their phone on vibrate?
Ask a local university how to grow/harvest 100000000 mosquitos and release them in his house. Though they do travel 1000ft at night, it might be anoying
to all, so get like 100000 termites
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Why don't you try talking to the guy-- listen to him-- this simple act will make him more comfortable with you. Apologize to him. Buy him a gift. Show kindness.
Which is of more value to you-- an empty, hollow sense of victory that will bring you no satisfaction, even if it does occur, or peace?
"Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love." -Mahatma Gandhi
"Suppose someone, to annoy, Provokes you to do some evil act. Why allow anger to arise and thus Do exactly as he wants you to do? If you get angry Then maybe he will suffer, maybe not. But by feeling anger yourself You certainly do suffer." "For in this world, Hatred is never appeased by more hatred; It is love that conquers hatred. This is an eternal law." -The Buddha
Record fingernails on chalkboard and play it at 100DB or better. He should cry uncle before the police have time to respond.
If you can prove his netting causes you people discomfort, sue the bastard!!!
There is no legal countermeasure you can use to protect yourself, unless your a billionaire.
Short of that.
Break the fucking law.
... asking him to turn it off?
You don't specify which country you actually live in, which makes it rather tricky to give advice. Given that the device is actually english, and sold in england, I'm assuming that's where you live.
If that is the case, then there are laws against domestic noise nuisance, and it's not just decibels, it can be the type of noise and its duration. Your first step is to ask the guy politely to stop. Get the nicest and oldest local person that's sympathetic and can hear the noise (wouldn't hurt if they were female either) and basically talk to him politely. Invite him over for a cup of tea, and see if there's a way that you can find out what specifically is annoying him - it may be something very minor that wouldn't be a hassle to stop doing, or move a little way.
Assuming that fails, then make a formal complaint to the local council. You'll need to make logs of the times that the noise is turned on, it's level of annoyance. Logs from multiple people would help, and it's especially useful if it's annoying when you're on your own property. Also, make a note of when you talked to him, and the outcome. The council will guide you through this. Assuming the council think you have a case, they'll start proceedings on your behalf. They'll pay for the court costs, arrange everything, you just have to turn up to give evidence.
Your council probably has a website on the matter, look for 'domestic nuisance'. This is Sheffield's, as an example.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
It isn't a misquito repellant asshole!
On what basis can you call the neighbor using the mosquito device paranoid ? Just going by what has been said in the article the only one exhibiting "paranoid" behavoir is the author. I am not saying the neighbor isn't annoying, but it is the author who says the neighbor is out to get HIM. I think I need more evidence about the neighbor to conclude that this is intentional harrassment. For one I would like to know if there is indeed any mosquito problems in the area. I would also like to know what attempts besides calling the cops were made to resolve the situation. Sending cops to his house would really make freinds. ... sorry, but whole thing, just not enough info provided.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
What will get this stopped is if the noise level is above the legal limit at the edge of his property.
Get a DB meter (Radio Shack's is as good as any).
Go to nearest point before entering his property.
Record DB level. If it's above the legal limit for your community, call police with noise complaint.
Show them DB meter reading. They will probably attempt to confirm you results. If they confirm the reading, they will make him shut it off.
If the noise level it below the legal limit at the edge of the property you have no recourse, the law/statute is not being broken.
You could try to sue him but that's a crap-shoot. Probably start with trying to get a temporary injunction.
Trying to "fix" the problem yourself by breaking or stealing the device, counter-harrasment of some sort, is just as likely to get you in trouble. Noise cancellation - microphone, amplifier with a high-pass filter, and a cheap stero speaker (or just the tweeter) may work locally.
Brett
I truly find it shocking that 90% of the top postings I see are about shooting or sueing this neighbour. Nobody with a brain online anymore? Nobody wondering about this situation?
Nobody asking himself if this is truly meant as an attempt to annoy? Could it perhaps be possible that old man has a mosquito problem?
Has the poster actually spoken to the man? How did this conflict start? What was the Posters part? What can /he/ do to resolve it? Do you truly believe that the elderly person wants to spend his last days in conflict with his neighborhood?
Incredible, how many of you resolve to violence and lawyers. Both are so... expensive (in every way thinkable)!
If there's no way to get him to shut up, there's always a chance that an Audio Spotlight will show up on eBay (about $2500!), in which case you could beam the sounds of hardcore bestiality at his door, so that every time he opens his door to get his newspaper, he's in for a surprise. ;-)
Build a noise canceller for the given frequency. :)
A-law is an audio compression scheme.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Either the new owners will take care of the problem in their own way, or the old man will stop the annoying buzz, and maybe even decamp from the neighbourhood.
Just be sure you mention the buzz problem to the buyers... _you_ don't want any problem from them!
Betcha if you inject in some epoxy or expanding foam into said cone in quantities that won't be visible from the outside, the horn tweeter will stop making said annoying tone or at least attenuate the sound output or alter the frequency so that it won't be as bad.
Do it right and it'll probably still look like it was still working this way too. Much faster than trying to disassemble something and disable it while making it look like it's still working. The old fart can't hear it anyways, so he'd never know that you'd broken the horn tweeter as many others have pointed out.
You can also just go for a brute force/economic war approach:
Your cost: A couple of bucks for a tube of quick setting epoxy with syringe type applicator. Or, if you don't want to do this manually or the unit isn't readily accessible try some home made/customized paint balls filled with acid/epoxy/superglue/something nasty His cost: $600-$750 + shipping per unit disabled.
Just how many times do you think this guy will be able to afford to replace this device repeatedly? He's probably on fixed income so it's either the Mosquito or the Heart Medications/Doctor's Visits/Food/Heat/etc. The problem will soon go away given enough cheap paintballs I suspect.
War after all is really a matter of economics. Does the damage you cause cost more to your opponent than it does to you and which of you can continue spending money while racking up damage/cost the longest? The guys with the biggest budget or the ability to do massive damage to the other side for cheaper usually wins.
Dave
There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
My god, you are a dumbass. Read the article shithead. "Mosquito" is only the brand of the device.
I'll say it again because I know you're too fucking lazy to read the previous sentence: "Mosquito" is only the BRAND of the device. Read the fucking article next time, asshole.
There's nothing magic about age 40.
And 16KHz just isn't that high. You should be able to find many cops who can hear it. At least half of cops on patrol are under 40.
Also, note to the designers of the Mosquito:
Something isn't ultrasonic if humans can hear it. Early TV remotes were ultrasonic. They were 38KHz or 44KHz. That's well above the range of human hearing and humans couldn't hear them.
To those who say this wouldn't show up on a sound meter, A-weighting is only down 10dB at 20KHz and 7 at 16KHz. 7 is a lot, but the difference between audible and annoyingly loud is far more than 10dB, so it would show up.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
A fair number of posters seems to be under the impression that this device has some "legitimate" use in repelling mosquitoes. Wrong. There is no evidence that mosquitoes are effected by sound at any frequency. The device in question is designed to annoy young people (check the website if you like), and nothing else.
Well IANL but I am a FY LS. I don't think this is really a matter for the police, from my probably naive student view this seems to be a textbook case of tort law (i.e. civil suits). Your neighbor may place anything on his property, but if it interfere with the enjoyment of your property then you could get the device removed/compensated. It might even work as a small claims court (where you won't need a lawyer). Of course you could also sue the manufacturer as well.
Lots of good feedback already (no pun intended), but in addition to phase cancellation or documenting the noise with a db meter, you could also record it. Grab a copy of http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ to visually show what's going on, and if you're still not believed, pitch-shift it down an octave or two and play it back. I guarantee they can hear 4,250Hz (I still can and I turned it off 30 seconds ago. Doh!). If you simply can't get anyone to believe it's bothering you, plan-b is to disable it. Before you get a BB gun involved though, I'd try to just cut the power or turn it off. As has already been said, if he can't hear it on - he can't hear it off. I have a similar (but tougher I think) issue that I might need to officially ask Slashdot - about light pollution. My yard would be a near perfect place to see astronomical events if it weren't for my neighbor's bazillion-watt mercury vapor light. He's already said he won't turn it off, and he's literally the stereotypical "pissed-off old guy with a shotgun" that lives next door. If you tripped and fell into his yard from mine, he'd be in the backyard with a gun yelling at you (he always yells as he's deaf, but wants to make sure you hear him). I'll admit that I haven't looked into his or my legal rights regarding the subject, but this thing is bright enough that everyone in the fam' that has a bedroom on that side of the house has to close their (room-darkening) blinds at night to get any sleep. I know the bulbs for the thing cost a fortune, but I haven't been pissed off enough yet to shoot the thing out. Oh - he also burns his garbage. A wonderful aroma with the windows open on a warm summer's day. I won't go into that one.
If you've got a laptop with a decent sound card (if you're posting on /. you ought to) and install the trial version of this on it. It's a kick-ass real time spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope, tone, and noise generator. Show the cops the spectrum analysis to prove the presence of the device. It's kinda like the dB meter idea, but more freeer [sic]. Plus, if the cops still don't believe you, just generate a little white noise or like a 4 kHz tone and blast it back at him ;) It's a 30 day free trial of the program that becomes an infinite day free trial with a little regedit majjic...
I love the way everyone here says to go over and break his stuff.... Lovely...
Ok, so he's probably an annoying old paranoid crank. He's not going to stop being annoying. If you go over and break his stuff, he'll just become more annoying.
So don't go starting a neighborhood war.
You might try... oh... I don't know... TALKING to him about it? You know, person to person? And leave your attitude at the door.
If that fails, and it may well do so, go talk to your neighbors. Get about 20 of you. go knock on his door together and POLITELY state that his little toy is driving the entire neighborhood nuts and you'd all really appreciate him turning it off. Bring food. Make it an event. Hell, throw a neighborhood barbecue while you're at it.
Don't consider the situation an obstruction to be overcome. Instead, consider it a chance to meet your neighbors. Who knows, you might find out they are actual people, with lives and interests and stuff. Who knew?
And shame on those of you who immediately decided the best course of action was to go on a shadowrun against an old man. Sheesh.. People...
-T
You can contact the DHS about public health concerns (or the cdc)... Tell them that your neighbor has been acting very strange lately, and that he installed a dangerous looking electronic device on his house. Also, that now you and your other neighbors are experiencing headaches and nausea, but only while in the vicinity of the device.
Grow up!
Is that you? http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid =38&threadid=1904656&enterthread=y
The old flaming bag on the porch?
I'm suprised no one has suggested it yet.
"A flaming bag, eh? Well, these new Italian loafers will make short work of it."
And so forth...
I like the idea of disabling it, but leaving the LEDs functioning, so that the neighbor still thinks it's working...
-Steven
If you have a friend who has been diagnosed with epilepsy who *JUST* so happens to have a siezure triggered by the device, the operator of said device would be in quite a deep pile of shit and financial liablity. Especially if you have a lawyer friend draft up a notice to your neighbor informing him that his activities may well have life threatening impacts on you and your guests at your home. After serving notice to your neighbor, it would behoove you to also place a small ad in the announcements section of your newspaper, so that it is a matter of public record that your neighbor has been notified of this. Then, just SUE HIS ASS OFF. I'm certain that if your epileptic friend had actual harm done (or heaven forbid, died because of a siezure induced by the device) you could possibly even convince the DA to press criminal charges. I'd love to see the old fucker tried for manslaughter.
Just my $.02
Just kill the cocksucker, you pussy.
You could escalate the conflict by using high tech countermeasures which will piss him off and turn his relatives and friends against you, or make peace and have a nice quiet neighborhood. Hmmm, which way to go, never ending warfare on the one hand, or peace and quiet on the other?
If you go with high tech warefare then you will stimulate the economy by propping up the companies selling sonic noise cancelling systems. And he will of course provide even more stimulation to the economy when he installs an infra-red insect repellent that fries your border plants. And then you have to invest in a cryogenic thermal redirection unit to protect your flowers, after which he will escalate with a plastic dissolving mist spray device, all great news for the high tech neighborhood armament corporations, aka, the militarized neighborhood complex.
This will be fraught with unforseen complications and collateral damage. Your paper boy will refuse delivery, the water meter reader will not dare enter the property, causing an unpaid bill, and various charges about maliciously killing pets will pop up. You can stay the course until he gives up, but just make sure you understand that you may be liable for accidents caused by radio frequency interference with passing vehicle's electronics.
Or you could just walk up to the guy and say "Hi neighbor, is there a problem, and if so, lets work it out."
Naahh, not a chance. Get out the mini trebouchet and carpet bomb the hell out of him with marbles, eggs, and anything else you have handy! Screw the bastard more than he ever thought of screwing you! Worry about the consequences later, after all you don't have to pay for it, or at least not most of it.
Try to behave like a man. Knock on his door, and ask him _politely_ why he thinks he needs to keep you and your friends away from your home. And I mean, politely. And alone, not with a gang of youths in the background. And listen to what he says. If he doesn't want to talk to you, try again. This may be the hardest thing you have ever done in your life, showing some respect for the people around you, thinking about the consequences of your actions and behaving like a responsible adult. Maybe think about things that you do that you think are funny when you are drunk, and think what other people would feel about them.
Now if you are completely without fault, and the reason for your problem _is_ indeed just paranoia, then the easiest and best solution is to just stay away. It doesn't cost you much, he feels better, and you feel better because you have done The Right Thing.
Some idiots here suggest you should escalate the problem. The problem with that is you don't know where it will end. If you escalate enough, it can end with destroyed lives, his or yours. Think about that.
Connect desibel meter measuring the frequency, have computer computing the strength of the noise at source. ...
The play a message at same desibel rating saying. "This device measures the strenth of continuous high frequency noise emitted by "neighbours name" that babies and kids can hear, it can cause hearing damage in babies". Following is the noise is the original noise at similar strenght converted to frequency that adults can hear too.[The original noise converted to frequency that annoys adults.] Please make him stop. This message will automaticly shutdown when his device shuts down. Please help. We are desperate, and cannot concentrate on our schoolwork because of his noise. "neighbours name hates kids and wants to damage their hearing, and prevent them from doing their schoolwork."
©God
...they don't know his email address.
No more annoying moschitos in the neighborhood. :-)
just jump the fence and switch off his power at the meter.
next time jump the fence and kill the power again padlocking his meter box
then if he installes his own padlock just keep tripping his fuses
The problem with most of the solutions given here is that they are illegal. What you really need is a way to demonstrate to your local council's (I'm assuming that you're in the UK) Environmental Health department. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/support/noisyneighbours .shtml for more details. The key thing though, is to get a device to frequency-shift the sound - the sort of thing used to listen to ultrasonic bat calls or to change the pitch of someone's voice on the phone. This way you can show those older investigators how annoying the sound is - or you could always ask for them to send their youngest officers...
Send him a formal letter that looks like it came from someone big that tells him that there is a product recall on the product due to a link to cancer/death, then tell him to post it some where and a refund would be sent back to him, Then state if he continues using the device he would be loose all legal rights against the manufacturer.
:)
If you word it right and use a good color laser printer it works every time, You can even send it back to him with the speaker removed
Get a dog, then accuse the neighbor of animal cruelty.
PETA may throw red paint on them.
Rig a microwave to work with the door off. Point towards unwanted electrical things. Turn on for ~30 seconds.
It should blow most things in front of it, so be very careful!! Also, don't point it at humans!!
The site linked to had the following to say about it's product:
"The Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent is the solution to the eternal problem of unwanted gatherings of youths and teenagers in shopping malls and around shops. The presence of these teenagers discourages genuine shoppers and customers' from coming into your shop, affecting your turnover and profits. Anti social behaviour has become the biggest threat to private property over the last decade and there has been no effective deterrent until now.
Acclaimed by the Police forces of many areas of the United Kingdom, the Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent has been described as "the most effective tool in our fight against anti social behaviour". Shop keepers around the world have purchased the device to move along unwanted gatherings of teenagers and anti social youths. Railway companies have placed the device to discourage youths from spraying graffiti on their trains and the walls of stations. "
The site linked to doesn't say that the device is used to repel mosquitos; it says that it's used for annoying or rebellious teenagers. The old man is just using the product for the purpose that the company intended!
Get a microphone with decent high fequency response. Plug into computer. Using an RTA (Real Time Analyzer) show the police the giant solitary spike around 18K, or whatever it's at.
The reason the police can't hear it is cause they're in cars with sirens all day long - the sirens damage their hearing. Get a police detective to come out - they should be able to hear it since they sit in an office and aren't around sirens all the time.
-Eric Kincl
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
If you currently cover your ears around the device, keep doing that. He'll never know the difference.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
By way of discussion of a general way to disable electronics; not advocating criminal damage or violation of local spectrum use codes;
..
.. somebody check, quick ..
Get a shotgun and cartridges (wider the bore*, the better).
1) Saw the barrel right down to within 2 inches or so of the top of the cartridge (may be illegal in your jurisdiction: check!).
EXTREME CAUTION - handling unstable explosives
- the catridge has, on the inner side of the metal cap, a small amount some unstable explosives (google picarates)
that are designed to go off when the cap is struck. This charge is enough to blow off a finger or maybe a hand.
It's purpose is to set off the [stable] main powder charge. The powder charge could take your head or leg off.
No naked flame, sparks, live wires, hard surfaces, loose tools, children, pets, etc etc etc.
2) pry open the cartridge and ditch the shot (keep the powder charge + wadding).
3) form an empty tube of cardboard, roughly pencil thin, and wrap enough very-thin (e.g. from a small transformer) copper wire
around it so it's wrapped diameter fits snugly back into the part-empty cartridge
NOTE
you need to wrap so that the full thickness is reached before moving onto the next layer - i.e. not all-the-way-up-the-tube
-then-back-to-the-start--for-each-layer
4) get a bar magnet fitting just a bit loosely into your tube
5) place the coil + magnet into the cartridge. the coil should rest about an inch from the top of the wadding.
Glue the coil in place.
6) Inert the bar magnet into the tube and glue the end to the top of the wadding
7) [needs experimentation or a physics person] maybe fix a load resistor (e.g. pencil lead) across the two free ends of the coil wire
Now, when the cartridge is fired in the shotgun,
1) the magnet accelerates through the center of the coil
2) the coil builds a magnetic field
3) as the shockwave of the powder charge successively destroys the coil from one end to the other,
the magnetic field is sucessively compressed into one end of the coil
4) as the final section of the coil is destroyed, an electromagnetic pulse is emitted
5) as no metal barrel is there to interfere, the pulse travels in the general direction of the aim of the gun.
So, when aimed in the general direction of a mosquito alarm, within say a hundred feet (?), it ought to fry it's circuits.
Perhaps circuits of a bunch of other stuff in the general direction.
Range is unknown; will be fairly loud (wear ear protectors).
I haven't tried this myself... Caveat experimentor
* bore (not boar[=pig]) is measure of inner width of barrel. works like this: "12-bore" = width of sphere of 1/12th a pound of lead ; "18-bore" = width of sphere of 1/18th a pound of lead - so smaller bore is bigger. mmkay? 'Guage' probably same thing in USA
Produce an inverse sound wave to cancel it out.
Get one of those 9volt battery-powered chirp things that emit a chirp every 3 minutes.
Chuck a couple in his house somehow.
he will go insane.
Analysis: before implementing a solution, is to make sure you've got the full picture. Note that your neighbor is in fact being harassed by something, if not intentionally. What is that thing? If it's something you are doing... Trade Study: will it be a major or minor imposition to not do it; can you bring yourself to politely inform your neighbor that you'll not do it in exchange for taking the offending device offline?
Wow, an intelligent response at last.
If Slashdot moderation were any good, this response would get modded up to the max and every other response to this article modded down to -1.
You can use nailgloss (?)(the stuff women use to paint their nails with) too. Get a cheap vial in the most disgusting color you can find (prevents the s.o. from using it) and bring it on thick on the offensive coil.
We used this in a tv-shop I have worked in, and it works like a charm (+ it's cheap!)
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
...just conspire with the neighbours one day, and thank him for turning it off. Have the neighbours do the same. He may protest that it's still on, but you simply assure him that you certainly can't hear anything anymore (for drama, cock your head and pause a second when you do this). Now obviously he'll take the thing down and maybe try to fix it and remount it, but continue to ignore it and be pleasant to him. Hopefully he'll get the idea that even if the thing isn't working anymore, it obviously was not worthwhile in the first place, and either pack it away or ship it back for a refund.
In a world without walls, there is no need for Windows.
Unless you can EXACTLY duplicate the signal - which you can't - and transmit its inverse from EXACTLY the same point - which you can't - noise cancelling over an area will not work. It works in headphones because the area covered is much smaller than the sound wavelength - that is not so here.
= 63 in a small room, where there will be lots of echoes. I'm 60 but I can hear it if I turn the volume up, a high pitched warble that changes in a very disconcerting way when I move my head. (Not everyone over 25 is deaf!)
Imagine throwing two stones into a quiet pond. The two expanding waves will intersect and cancel at some points - but half a wavelength further on they will be in phase and so double. So it will be with the sound - varying from silent to twice as loud depending where you are. As the wavelength will be small, moving your head will be very uncomfortable! You can try the effect if you play the clean MP3 sample you'll find at http://www.star94.com/shows/index.cfm?show=cr&cid
Meanwhile - IGNORE the idiots here suggesting various illegal measures. Those WILL get the police involved, but not in the way you want. However, if you could get the authorities to recognise the problem (get the neighbours to all complain to your local councillor as well as the police), you may be able to persuade them to take out an ASBO against the offender preventing him from continuing the nuisance. (For our US friends, an ASBO is an "Anti-Social Behaviour Order", and ignoring it becomes a criminal offence).
Just tell the old man one day that you think it's hilarious how someone broke his system and he can't even hear that it's not working anymore. If a few kids start laughing at him he'll think it is broken and have to take it back. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
If this person can't hear the noise, how does he know it's operating properly at all? Does he just assume that the influx of complaints is an affirmation of the mosquito's noise working?
:) I mean, he's 80...do you really think they'd do an autopsy to figure out the cause of death? Dubiously. [/jokes]
It should just be a normal speaker wire or coaxial cable running to this device, either inconspicuously use some wire cutters on it, or otherwise discreetly disable the line itself. It doesn't take a electrical engineer to screw up some speaker wire, and he won't know if the sound has stopped.
For gags too, you could put a slow tap of arsenic in his water pipes so he gets stomach cancer-like symptoms and dies. That's just the more sadistic side of me though
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
I have a somewhat related situation, that of a neighbor putting their little-but-fucking-noisy dog outside on the porch to bark all god damn day long (9:22 AM through 8:30 PM), for several hours averaging one half bark per second. When I moved here almost two years ago, the neighborhood was quiet and I could open my door during the day. Would the neighborhood association rules be of use in having the neighbor eliminate this sound?
It's no fun being old. Just talk to him and see what his problem is. I do hope /. does not reflect current American suburban behaviour. Getting along with your neighbor is a good place to start making peace.
move away
Just start going to raves every night. You'll quickly damage your own hearing, and won't be able to hear it anymore. Yes, this is a joke! Go talk nicely to the guy! Talk in a mature manner and don't threaten or use profanity. It might be a good idea to even carry a concealed recorder. This can help in several ways: 1) You might be able to get him to remove the device once he realizes it is annoying even beyond his own property. 2) You might find out what he is pissed off about, correct it, and get him to remove the device. 3) You might get him to at least admit the device is installed just to annoy others 4) You will at least be able to prove that you talked to him and asked him nicely to remove the device. These last two points, along with the recording, can help you tremendously if you decide to go to small claims court. Most judges will be pleased with you if you can show that you tried to resolve the matter in a civilized way and the other party refused to cooperate. The judge will then find in your favor, get him to remove the device and probably fine him a small amount as well. Before going to the court, follow up the verbal communication with a letter. Again, the letter should be mature and must not include profanity. It should be serious, and explain carefully that he is having a deleterious effect outside his own property. Mention in the letter that you have verbally asked him to remove the device. Assuming it doesn't work, take this letter to the court as well. There is actually a good chance that you will be able to resolve the conflict without either court action or violence. Once you have succeeded with that, head on over to the middle east and resolve that conflict!
By the perception of illusion, we experience reality
"As the Mosquito emits a sound that's well out of his hearing range, he can't hear it, while most of the rest of the neighborhood is under 40 and can; at which point it's causing everyone a great deal of discomfort."
Perhaps the older folks are really unaware of how annoying the sound is. Construct a device that emits a similar noise, but at a lower frequency that everyone can hear - maybe 3000 hz to 5000 hz.
If you really want this to work, only turn it on when he turns his machine on - and KEEP YOUR BIG MOUTH SHUT! Then, either he will think his machine is no good and get rid of it -or- the entire neighborhood will go after HIM.
I was harrassed by one of these devices in England. They usually affect only people under 20. The Mosquito is intended to act as a teenager repellent and works well except that it's fantastically immoral and illegal to harass innocent people in this way. It's pretty dangerous too for babies who's parents don't realise they've left the buggy underneath this noise. Fortunately after I complained the shop took it down.. blog entry.
Why not try reasoning with him?
Talk to him politely, tell him that the device annoys you and your friends to no end, but that you understand why he would put it up in the first place. Ask him if there is something in particular that prompted him to install the device. Then ask him if he would be so kind as to turn it off, and that you in turn would make sure that your friends (of course, it never was you!) stay off his lawn, do not play loud music after 10pm, throw eggs at his house on Halloween night, or do whatever it was that you did to piss him off in the first place.
Of course, you must make sure you hold your end of the bargain, otherwise all bets are off.
You'll be surprise how effective a short face-to-face encounter in good terms can be. At the very least, it shows you respect him, and that you're willing to reason with him, so if he retorts with a loud "FUCK YOU, YOU LITTLE PISS-HEAD!! AND GET OFF MY PROPERTAH!!!", you can tell the police you tried your best.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
If your over-40 neighbours are making all the noise, you have some serious problems. Play some Rage against the machine at 120 dB, and they'll get the picture very soon...
This is one of those time a civil lawsuit is probably in order. The illegal device the old person bought is specifically designed to annoy young people by way of emitting ultra-sonic (to old people) sounds that, well, annoy young people. Take lots of pictures of the device on the old person's property, turned on and set to do its deed. Get young witnesses to sign affidavits attesting to the audible and annoying nature of the sound. Then all you have to do is also enter all of the product literature for this particular device into the court record. Since this device is specifically designed for one purpose -- to annoy young people -- and its sound emissions do not stay on the property of the old owner, the old owner is certainly responsible for what it is doing to the young people's enjoyment of their own private property and any adjoining public property.
Of course, first sending a very gracious but firm certified letter asking for the removal of the nuisance can only help your side look good and reasonable.
HERF gun. I'd bet these same police wouldn't have the faintest idea what one is ...
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
No, really.
If you cant get the police to encforce their noise ordinance ( everyone has one ) take a brick and take care of the situation.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It uses a cheap Pizeo tweeter. take the four screws off the tweeter, cut one wire, screw tweeter back in place.
This "new and revolutionary" device is old as dirt. I remember building pain field generators with that exact tweeter (ok 20 of them) back in high school. 20 tweeters in a series,parallel, amplifier, signal generator start sweeping until people complain, turn it to 11!
Hell this thing is even cheezy-made. It's in a halogen lamp housing and probably has less than a 10 watt amp in there.
Want to have more fun? open case, find where the signal generator goes to the audio amp, cut that trace and install a wire antenna on the amplifier input side. now the local AM radio station. and all CB users will come over it like a speaker.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Once you have that signed statement in hand, go rent a 5-watt infrared cutting laser. While standing on your own lawn, set the guy's landscaping on fire.
...in the neighborhood I used to live in. One of our neighbors had a sixteen year old who liked to ride his dirt bike in cricles around their lawn. There's no formal law against this, as the muffler on the bike was at or below "acceptable" noise standards, and he didn't ride after 9 pm. However, the noise, and the large billows of blue smoke wafting through our back yards (all of which were closely situated) drove us crazy. It got so none of us could use our back yards that summer. We asked our neighbor to find his son somewhere else to ride the bike, and he told us to go to hell. We called the cops every time he was out there - not because they'd actually do something about it, but so we could display the call records as evidence in court. We finally ended up filing a formal comaplint and took him to court. I hated to do this. I'm a big believer in individual rights, but he was making our lives miserable. The magistrate concluded that what he was doing could indeed be considered disturbing the peace, and he was forced to find his son another place to ride until the son turned 17, when he bought a street bike.
If I were you, I'd talk to a lawyer. Even if what he's doing is legal, it can still be a public nuisance, and there may be local laws which cover this.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
I haven't looked to see if anyone has suggested this already; but I ain't got time to read through 50,000 postings from people who secretly wish they were lawyers, so I'll just go ahead and blurt it out.
What you need to do is build some kind of noise cancellation device, where it records the sound the of mosquito machine, and plays back the inverted wave. I can't give you any more details on that because I'll risk sounding like someone who secretly wants to be a physicist, and I'm not.
I'm sure there's plenty of info out there on how to go about doing that - but the important thing is that you know it can be done.
Seriously, how hard can it be....?
No sig today...
... is between 15 and 20 metres. Exactly how close are you getting to this guy?
In addition, ultrasonic noise is stopped by just about anything between you and the thing creating it, unlike bass frequencies. That's why foghorns don't sound like high-pitched little insects.
All this stuff about "anybody over the age of 25 can't..." is just bullshit.
No sig today...
If you want evidence, get a microphone and hook it to your laptop. Invite a cop or at least a witness over, show them how the pretty histogram bounces up and down as you talk, then point the microphone at Crazy Lady's house and show him the huge spike at 18 kHz. Make sure Crazy Lady isn't wise to your evidence collecting.
If she really is crazy, maybe she's crazy enough to accidently burn her own house down and try to blame the neighbor kids who braved the flames to rescue her, packed her suitcase with three changes of clothing, her Bible and all of her pills, then drove her down to the bus station and made sure she got on the bus with $100 and a ticket to a random city on the opposite side of the country. Know what I mean?
This is not my sandwich.
Just blast it with a shotgun or m-80's or something. Yeah she could replace it but surely she doesn't have the stamina you youngsters have, you can outlast her!
Want peace? Xiang is right: noise cancellation is by far the best solution. Then you under-forty guys won't hear the sound anymore, and your gregarious neighbor - who never heard it to begin with - thinks it's (still) working and will relax too: everybody's happy! Want war? Make the police or other authorities hear it too: record the sound and play it back at a lower pitch! A pitch that IS audible to over forties! Have fun in court...
If this neighbor is bordering your property, and especially if the bedroom is near the edge of your house, you're perfectly within your rights to install security flood lighting around your property. (Even if it happens to be attached to a tree, aimed in an no so precice direction.)
Get some 12v lighting, and replace the bulbs with the annoying high temp blue bulbs that you see kids installing in their cars. (some minor modifications may be required for the car lamps to fit, as well as heat testing) A few dozen of those around your property should make it look like the surface of the sun. And hey, if your friendly neighbors are also in need of some security lighting (speciffically the ones surrounding his property) provide some free consulting services on installing a system for them.
he has a porch; got a dog? got a bag? got some gas? since he can not hear, perhaps he can not smell either.
I'm past 40 and I can still hear those high pitched whinny fans from PCs even when they are enclosed and supposed to be silent. Funny thing is the younger teens and geeks don't seem to be bothered by them. I guess annoyance is in the ear of the beholder then.
This Slashdot story has more potential for talk about ardware hacking, physics babbling, paranoia nursing and 2AM-James-Bond-action than anything I've read here in months. I don't mind a link to a store in a story this intriguing.
Get off my damn lawn.
Kids.
Old people can't hear low frequencies anymore than they can hear high frequencies. So get a really big, high powered speaker, aim it at this home and play something down around 30 cycles. Really make the dishes shake. Repeat frequently. He'll think it's earthquakes and move to Florida. The older police won't be able to hear it either, so you're even.
Long time ago, my mother bought some of these devices that supposedly repelled bugs, mosquitos etc. They were a set of four, and she put them in various places in the house. Likewise, they drove my ears frickin' bananas.
Take advantage of the fact that the old people, and do what I did: opened the boxes up and clipped the wire leading to the transducers.
The man can't hear the noise. Get access to the thing. Open it up. Do a little surgery.
the brown note
Thanks for the link. I have to say after hearing it, if you can't hear that, you are freaking deaf. And I'll add that I'm way past 25 and spent way too much time listening to loud heavy metal as a teenager.
But what I would have always wondered, if that many people over 25 can't hear things like that, how many people are getting ripped off on high-end speakers and high-quality stereo equipment?
Somewhere, I bet there are older people complaing about MP3 and ACC audio not being high enough quality, and all the while they couldn't even hear a good portion of the high-end of the original CD that the songs came off of.
Transporter_ii
Ron Paul
Why not show this to the cops on a spectrum analyzer? Just get a mic and an app which displays freq vs amplitude.
Just sneak onto his property at midnight, or even 10pm, when the old coot is sound asleep, and open the unit up and sever one of the wires or whatnot inside the unit, then put it all back together.
If he's as old and codgery as you say, he'll just think the unit died.
If he buys a new one, repeat. Eventually he'll stop buying them as a waste of money.
"Is this not a rare fellow, my lord? He's as good at any thing, and yet a fool." -from "As You Like It", Act 5,
It probably has a light or someway to tell you when it's turned on (besides the buzzing that he can't hear)? Just sneak into his yard, crack it open and disconnect the annoying part but leave the light intact. He'll never know it's not working because he can't hear it.
Alternatively find someone with a dog and get them to call the SPCA for harassing the dog.
Steve
Mosquito device annoying youths with its sound? Now you know how I feel every time your subwoofers rattle my windows more than a block away. There is a lesson here if you can see it.
(1) He's a young person
(2) He posts on Slashdot
I think the chances of him being good and reasonable are slim to none.
Old people die all the time. No one will miss an SOB like this. Falling down the stairs is normal for people like him, and he probably won't be discovered for weeks. Its easy. Do it.
/. saying "oh no, 2 wrongs, bad ,ohhhh" because that is bullshit. Legal options have been exausted. Destroy the device.
Or.... destroy the device. Don't listen to moralizing fags on
turn it off, if he can't hear it he'll never know.
Hire an actor, rent a van, put on a vinyl sign "Mosquito Eater repairman" (or whatever the device is called), the actor will tell him he is there to repair the device, shake head and say the dilithium crystals are shot, get a "new" mosquito eater from the van, replace it with one that looks like it works but doesn't really it just lights up.
Get it measured, and documented by a real audio pro. Then sue him.
Can't argue with objective, professional measurements.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
1) Buy or borrow a directional speaker, and aim it at his house. 2) Download an mp3 of a dog barking 3) Play on a loop 4) Call him to complain that his device is making your dog bark.
I'm sure that is why the old geezer put the thing up there anyway. "regardless of their actions" is a bit strong -- someone is hanging around there, aren't you? and are they perfectly silent and peaceful everytime? not? The mosquito thing is better than the old solutions of spraying cold water or throwing eggs.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
It's amazing what a piece of scotch tape placed strategically over the sound emitting port of most modern electronics will do. In this case, it would also have the benefit of avoiding vandalism.
Of course, you would have to trespass to place it there...
go talk to him. reason with him. he is not a troll, he is just old and probably a little disconnected from society. ever read to kill a mockingbird?
Set off an EMP blast to take out all of his electronics!! If you're lucky, it'll take out the Mosquito, his hearing aids, and his pacemaker!
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
They tried this as experiment at a Rotterdam bus station. It barely has any effect and in fact backfired as youth learned to use it to their advantage - albeit in a completely different way. The "Mosquitone" ringtone is a high frequency sound and indeed: none of my co-workers can hear it (they're all early to late 30s), but I (29) can and although the correlation is obviously not 100%, it works most of the time. So teenagers use it in classrooms.. they can hear text messages coming in but the teacher does not.. clever.
And it's not unbearably annoying anyway. It's just like the noise you hear after a rough gig or party.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Call the police about alarm. After the 2nd time, they start charging $$$ for false alarms. Construction company gets the message, fixes it. Or not...then I'd cut the wires.
Hmmm...I see /. now flash ads up while you're trying to write a comment. I think this may be the last time I visit this web site.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Also, a recording audiometer would show the frequency (which BTW, doesn't go very far)
Did you ever consider that maybe because he can't HEAR it he doesn't know there is a problem? Can you talk to him about it calmly and respectfully, or have you already become such bitter rivals that you would/could never do that..
While I agree with the vein of your argument, the above comment just shows that you don't know anything about this thread. The device he installed does only one thing: create a high-pitch annoying noise that generally can't be heard by older people who have lost that range. He certainly knows there's a problem, because he purchased a device developed to create this problem.
Everything I hear about those device is that if you pass them by, you will not notice it (amongst other urban sounds) but if you try to hang around it, it'll ANNOY you. And annoying is not assaulting. No one is forcing you to hang around the old geezer's porch.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
-Unknown, Hanlon's Razor
1. You could just politely ask him what it would take to shut it off.
2. Find a younger cop.
3. Go to the town meeting and bring it up. Do the research and show stats. Sound ordances are there for a reason. Technology changes so should the laws.
I'd go with #3 first. Either that or do what the first poster said. Get off damn his lawn.
The real question is what did you do to piss this guy off.
Sure, that's one way of doing it, but since this is Slashdot there is one more way that must be mentioned. Not only more fun and geekish, but also has the potential to be used several times. Build a very small, capacitor-based EMP unit and roast the box. A one-way off switch has its uses.
I just downloaded the mosquito 'ringtone' from the NPR story on this nuisance device?
Most people over 30 supposedly can't hear this?
I'm almost 26, and I can here it just FINE -- it's annoying.
It also scared my cats. It could be argued that this device is meant to torture animals -- that might get the coot into hot water.
Note that the speakers I used don't have good high-frequency response -- with better speakers, it might have been louder and more irritating of a noise.
PS - don't physically trespass or retaliate. These devices aren't meant for dense neighborhoods, and clearly the coot knows this is going to annoy a LOT of people in the neighborhood. His plan is not to annoy you into leaving the neighborhood, but to cause you to do property or physical harm (or threaten to). He's waiting for you with a shotgun or a video camera and either way you're not going to win.
I'm not a lawyer, but in some areas it wouldn't be illegal to steal his trash once it is on the curb. There might be something incriminating you can report him for, like tax fraud (you could get lucky). You can do a background check on him. It's pretty tough to get old without having done SOMETHING wrong you hope no one finds out about.
1) Wait for him to leave for a weekend or so. 2) Insert garden hose into basement window. 3) Turn water on.
I have a 36" Sony CRT HD capable TV. The first thing I noticed about it was that it didn't emit the typical high pitched noise that other TVs do. I would guess it has a higher scanning frequency.
Have you asked him nicely if he would turn off the dang thing?
I probably would have gone crazy and snuck over at night to dismantle the thing after a few days of putting up with that whine.
That's a really good idea! Sneak over at night, pop the case open, and disconnect the buzzer! He won't know if you put it back together properly because he can't hear it anyway and it'll look the same. This is, of course, providing the device is on the outside of his house. But this is way better than that anything in the revenge book from amazon mentioned earlier
You do of course realize that if the old guy has installed this device, he probably realizes that it is driving people nuts, as that is its sole intended purpose?
Your advice is the equivalent of GWB trying to talk politely with Osama, and tell him "hey, dude, you know those planes? They really hurt our feelings, man".
No. Shit. Sherlock. That was kinda the idea.
I've dealt with neighbours like this before. They're fully aware of what they're doing. THAT'S THE POINT. This isn't some big misunderstanding and lack of community hugging due to suburbanites locking themselves in their McMansions and not chatting over the clothesline like in the 1940s. The guy is a prick, he knows it, and what he's done is a pretty clear demonstration of that fact.
In terms of solving the problem, city noise ordinances should do. Unfortunately, we don't have laws against being an asshole (yet), so my advice to the submitter is "move". If he isn't kicking off any time soon, you're just going to deal with the next level of his tricks. And so on.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
This isn't mosquito noise (like recordings of bugs) This is a single high-pitched tone from something like a piezo-electric buzzer. There isn't a range of sounds, but an individual tone. Mosquito is simply the devices name
Contact the FCC and claim the device is messing with something of yours, like a baby monitor or whatever.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Either take a baseball bat to said device in the middle of the night. Or call the police for distrubing the peace.
It doesnt require an ask slashdot to have balls to solve the problem on your own...or get the authorities involved. Get a young cop over there and they will hear it.
I would personally just take a baseball bat too it, but thats me.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Make friends with the old fart. Then there won't be a need for retaliation and all of you will be happy.
I know, I know. It lacks the cleverness and satisfaction of revenge and retribution, but you and the old guy need to grow up anyway.
A bulk package of foamies can be posted near the edge of the affected area for use by passers by.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
No no, you don't want to do anything he can press charges about, and you shouldn't do anything that isn't a direct step in solving the problem.
Find the noise device, find its speaker, and stick a hat pin in through the speaker grille to pierce the speaker. Then remove the hat pin and walk away. The hole will cause the speaker to tear itself and will cease making any meaningful volume of noise, and the old coot won't be able to hear the difference. More importantly, he can't really do anything with the police about it because to explain how it's broken he'd have to explain what it's supposed to do in the first place, and then he'd be admitting that your complaints about him were true. He can hardly complain "hey, they broke my illegal noise making machine!"
The recording is of the song "Louie, Louie" played by a variety of bands. My favorite is one by the Rice University Marching Band. I give your neighbor 3 hours tops before he commits an irrational property crime of significant proportion, all recorded on video.
there have to be plans online. locate the device and disable it. make sure the emp is small otherwise you destroy a lot of things
Hey man, you here that annoying sound? It's coming from the litle black box in that grumpy old bastards yard. I think this is all that needs to be said to a teenager to evoke random acts of vandalism in the wee hours of the night.
Its common sense. Don't listen to some of these morally conscious fools, its a victimless crime, any personal property being used as a weapon of mass discomfort is public domain.
You can get another device that is tunable and almost match the frequency of the mosquito, aim it at his house. Your device's sound and his will produce a product of both which is far more annoying. If it is placed right and not too loud, and tuned just right, it will make him so sick he will either go nuts or blame the mosquito for his problems and toss it. The catrch is that if it not done right it will make a lot more people sick as well.
While I think that a resolution that repairs the relationship is greatly superior, I don't know how to accomplish that. So here's a technical approach -- downconvert and reflect the noise back at him.
How--
connect a microphone to your sound card, preferrably a directional one that you can aim at the source of the noise. Find a sound-tools library with filters and code a highpass filter with a ~10 KHz corner. Sample the output of the high-passed spectrum at a 2 ms rate (500 Hz). Apply that output to the input of your 100W subwoofer. Set the subwoofer to have a 250 Hz upper corner, most have an adjustable setting.
Since there isn't normally much audio power in ambient settings, as long as he's "quiet" there will be no output. However when he fires up, the sampling by your system will downconvert the spectrum from 10 KHz to the upper limit of your hardware, folding it into the 0-250 Hz region where your subwoofer will enthusiastically play it back to him.
He should quickly discover the correspondence between his having the mosquito noise-maker engaged and that extremely loud and annoying frequency-translated version of it that shakes the side of his home. Not being foolish, he will turn it off at which point your system will go silent except for possibly a "burp" or two from a bat that flies through the microphones pattern.
As I said, this is really a second rate solution because it doesn't solve the fundamental problem --relationship-- but perhaps it will be interesting.
n6gn
I really have no idea where in the country this author lives, but I will say that the mosquitoes in the rural northeast United States have been exceptionally bad of late. I wonder if this man is legitamately trying to keep these insects away from him.
I personally have found that even tiki-torches and Citronella candles to be marginally effective at best and catching mosquitoes attracted to the light at worst.
Maybe there is something more effective for what he is trying to use it for. Is there a proven way to effectively and consistently eliminate mosquitoes without containing oneself within a screened cage, annoying others with buzzing sounds or doing bad things to the environment?
How about making friends with him? He's less likely to try and harass his friends and more likely to listen to their complaints if he knows you on a personal level. Have him over for a beer and cards. Say hi in the street. Help him clear debris out of his yard after a storm. It's amazing how quickly we think to resort to terrorist methods instead of being civilized.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
set up a kickass speaker system and turn it up to eleven with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note/.
I would guess it has a higher scanning frequency.
Or better insulation.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If the device is visibly installed on the property and can be identified as this "Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent", then local noise ordinances can be enforced by the police. Just because they can't hear it doesn't prove it's not operating and disturbing the f**k out of everyone else.
Another option is to form a homeowner's association in the neighborhood and draft by-laws that prohibit the installation of such devices, thereby creating civil recourse for its removal.
The final option I'll suggest is to get a quorum of your neighbors to meet with this guy and talk this whole mess out! Stop playing stupid juvenile games and start having an adult reaction to this. If there are many people in the neighborhood that this guy is aggravating, or if you and other neighbors are truly aggravating him, then agree to compromise on issues. I thought modern society had evolved beyond this sort of juvenile behavior, but it seems not.
Or at least tell us the whole story. What did you do to invoke his anger?
Just turn up the volume on your own ipod's little speakers. Studies show they will perminantly damage your hearing, then it no longer bothers you!
-
I hope this doesn't get modded +Funny . . .
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Is to make him your friend instead.
Obviously this will require skills that the subject does not posess, but you might give it a shot. Get to know his name, and greet him with his name every time you see him. Smile happily at him even if he gives you a dirty look. If he does not know your name, politely introduce yourself to him. Just make sure he recognises you as 'Johnny from number 18', not as another faceless youth he can direct his anger to. Once you have built up some credit with him, use that credit to point out to him that his device (that he probably forgot anyway) is really causing you discomfort. He will probably turn it off without hesitation.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
So sometimes, another "wrong" is the "right" solution.
Used for etching and decorating concrete, available at most "home improvement" stores.
Get some, get some GLOVES and a plastic brush.
Some night apply same in a nice pattern on the cement curb in front of his house, like a sign. Write "ASSHOLE LIVES HERE" or something similar. (Or "FREE HOOKERS AND BLOW")
Him painting the curb would probably be illegal, call the cops on him when he does that. Same with removing it or applying more acid.
I hate dogs. Seriously. They're miserble, smelly, loud, stupid creatures that do things like eat shit. Sorta like your mom. WHA-TAAAH!!
Secretly causing a "forced malfunction" is probably the best solution.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
i dunno about where you live, but in my state (CO) community (there're pretty strict rules here that define what a community is and where its borders are, ask a cop if you have anything like that going on where you live) rule usually goes. if some old duffer was doing stuff like this, all we'd have to do is get the neighbors together, have everyone sign a letter to the city, send it to the police chief and the the mayor, or present it at a city council meeting. then the dude would be presented with a few options by a police officer, those options being the guy takes the mosquito-noisemaker down or the cop does. of course, all of these actions could be preempted by a well-aimed (and frozen, if you're dealing with a metal target) potato gun round.
A text-to-speech playback of this Ask Slashdot on a loudspeaker would drive neighbors young and old to another Zip code.
Users of said device, as I understand it, just want teens/kids to stay away from Their porches/storefronts. The range of the device is just enough so they'll hang around in other venue. Now, when a group of kids is in YOUR porch, or in YOUR driveway just "hanging out", they are normally loud. I know, when my 7yo was a newborn I used to get in my driveway and say to a bunch of kids "please, get out of here, you are being noisy and will wake up the baby", every saturday. And they kept coming back. So, (minus the part where [a] besides being 35, the mosquito noise annoys me too and [b] it would certainly wake up the baby) a device like that would be nice to keep them out.
That is why I am saying: if your neighbour has one of those, just hang out in your home or anywhere NOT his porch/yard. Because that's the range the device usually has. It's NOT anyone's right to make noises in front of my house (down here, it's a felony called "disturbance of peace"), despite of the time of the day.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
All this talk about EMP guns and escalating hostilities makes no sense. Just pull it off the wall one night and snip one of the speaker wires. Put it back and he'll never know. If he is too old to hear the thing himself, he is too old to hear if it stops working!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Trust me, I feel your pain, man. I was working one place where my CRT was going bad, and making a high pitched squealing noise. I told our IT guy, and he said he couldn't hear anything. I told him to get the damn monitor away from me. So, the next day, I came into work, and I had a new monitor, but I could still hear that high pitched squealing noise... coming from BEHIND me. He apparently thought I was crazy, so he had solved the problem in the laziest way he could -- by swapping my monitor with the one in the cubicle behind mine. I walked over to his desk, told him to follow me, and then I pointed out the offending monitor. He was in shock. I was like, "Yes, I CAN hear it, and no, I'm NOT crazy, and for the last time, WOULD YOU GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME?"
Send the old bastard a letter threatening legal action, and demand suitable compensation for the period of harassment. It is easy to demonstrate the level of noise of different frequency components using a computer and microphone. Take screenshots of a simple oscilloscope type output, and send copies to the old bastard. If this fails, you have the evidence you need for legal action for harassment. ...)
Parasites that harass others in this way rank among the worst kinds of scum on that planet. I am sure you can make the old bastard pay. Sign him up to every mailing list in the country (eg. gay publications, womens clothes catalogues,
For those of you curious about the so-called Mosquito Ringtone a.k.a. teen buzz a sample as a WAV file is available online: http://www.jetcityorange.com/MosquitoRingtone.html
I can' hear it and I'm 54. My kids can, and laugh at me. For completely different reasons I suspect.
High powered rifle.
Make sure the trajectory can't be followed back to your house; and use a big enough, expanding round that he will question whether or not to even call the cops.
When asshats like this win, we all lose
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Go on over to his house, ring the bell, and when he answers, give him your friendliest smile, then cockpunch him.
The population is too large to limit yourself to peaceful solutions. Do what you feel!
...that'll teach him a lesson!
genetically well endowed? what the hell do you use to listen with?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Whoever enforces the ordinances against excess noise in your community, which is often not the police, should have a sound-level meter. When there's a problem with noise from industry or roads, they don't just send somebody to listen and say "yes, it's too loud" - they measure the sound level. Since lower frequency sounds tend to be the problem, many sound-level meters only go up to 8KHz or 12.5 KHz, but some models go up to 20KHz. A measurement with such a wide-band sound level meter should do the trick.
break it; in an unobvious way... the young people will notice it's broken, but the old dude will have no idea
If con is the opposite of pro. Then isn't congress the opposite of progress?
Many noise pollution / zoning ordinances specify decibel levels at certain periods of time, not frequencies or amplitudes. If you could show that the noise was above a certain volume even at an inaudible frequency or at a frequency that was audible to some but not all, then you've caught him violating the ordinance. You just need a decible meter that'll measure those frequencies.
Demonstrated infrasonic weapon
The U.S. DOD has demonstrated phased arrays of infrasonic emitters. The weapon usually consists of a device that generates sound at about 7 Hz. The output from the device is routed (by pipes) to an array of open emitters, which are usually one wavelength apart. At this frequency, armor and concrete walls and other common building materials vibrate, and therefore provide no defense. The frequency is chosen to be near the resonant frequency of internal organs, causing illness, deafness, and internal injuries.[citation needed] The resulting weapon is the size of a truck, fragile, and has a shorter range than missiles or artillery shells.[citation needed]
As a defense to such a weapon, mechanical "diode walls" to convert the oscillating air into a steady flow have been demonstrated. Although not common at this time, they could be mass-produced and would provide an effective countermeasure.[citation needed]
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Get out the mini trebouchet and carpet bomb the hell out of him
Screw that!
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
WTF? Are you on another website or something? This is slashdot.
Use duct tape.
If that fails, WD-40.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I really doubt it is that one sided. Normally it takes alot to drive an old man to retaliate. HE might have been hearing something that YOU haven't been hearing, and that HE couldn't flag to the cops.
Perhaps you can prevail upon him to show you mercy with the following advice from the Bible:
Make peace with him as soon as you can.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Do not resist evil.
Do not retaliate.
Always forgive.
Bless your enemy.
Pray for your enemy.
If your neighbor sues you with the law, yield to him.
Meanwhile, don't be a hypocrite. That means you also keep the advice yourself. To be sure of that, figure out how to stop bugging him, or ask the young offenders to stop bugging him.
I must admit that my sympathy goes out to the old man, since my OWN neighborhood has been plagued by a bunch of offensive juveniles, who, for some time now, have taken perverse advantage of my goodwill, shouting profanity, taking the LORD's name in vain, and shouting jockspeak from a basketball court just in front of my house. They ingnored and sometimes threatened ME, and meanwhile I've had alot of trouble conveying to the police just how disturbing their noise has been. It seems that I've been in your shoes, but reversed.
I played basketball at their age, but it didn't turn me into a terrorizor.
Just curious, have you tried earplugs?
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
...and sue the holy crap out of both the old man, and the makers of the Mosquito device since they probably have the deepest pockets.
If you want what should be a legal method of dealing with this, make a sound cancellation device.
To make one, you basically need a microphone, a bandpass filter in the frequencies he's emitting, an op amp that is set up to shift the input 180 degrees (negative unity gain), and a speaker. If you're the kind of person who knows a little about electronics, it shouldn't even be too hard or expensive.
If you station a few of these around his house, you might be able to cancel out the vast majority of the noise. The key will be to try to put these as close to directly between the listener and the noise maker as possible.
record the sound to get the frequency and then generate an inverse wave of the same frequency. that should cancel out the annoying noise.
They used to use infrasound in cinemas to vibrate people's colons and make them more nervous. Perhaps there's a subsonic tone that has no effect on the young, but makes the old shit themselves?
You modify your day-to-day activities somewhat - explain to him that you aren't trying to harass him., and ask him politely to turn the device off since you find it unpleasant.
I mean, you have tried to come to a reasonable accommodation, right?
That has got to be torture. Seems like a device an evil overlord would use to torture his enemies (and minions)
Change the pitch so that it is lower. (that way he can hear it too)
Get two ultrasonic speakers and position them so their interference patern is right at his front door. (Might take having a neighboor help.) Make it play sounds of doorbells ringing. Or wire his doorbell to a remote so you can make it ring. Often.
Or like others have suggested, disable the evil device in a manner that that is not noticible.
Wrap his house too (in TP.) Egg his car. Sue him for damages to your mental well being. Blame everything bad that you do on temporary insanity.
Just take a baseball bat to it, or get a neighborhood kid to do it. (Think "Office Space.") Those things aren't cheap. Maybe he won't replace it.
You could pettition the neighbors to have it removed. Call the police everyday. Have your neighbors call the police everyday. Have your neighbors gather around to tell the police that they hear it too. Have your neighbors gather around his home with shovels, pitchforks, and torches etc. Tell him that he is being banashed from your neighborhood.
Write the local newspaper\radio\TV stations tell them your story. Tell them how the badguy makes babies cry. Get them to mention the badguy's name.
Send him brochures for local retirement homes. Give his phone number to a few of them so they can call him often.
Get a mosquito sensor, to detect when it is turned on, use it to power a 12Khz sounder focussed at his windows.
When he turns of the mosquito noise, the noise he can hear will go off.
When he turns it on again, he will hear it.
He will think it has gone wrong; and you know he feels the same pain you do.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
You can blast him with a moderate-powered laser right in the eyes when he goes out to water his lawn. See how much the fucker likes that.
Wow. I'd seen another attempt at this kind of thing in the past. It used a constant blower and a butterfly valve. When the valve was in "neutral" air just recirculated between the blower's input and output, but shifting the valve to either side caused air to move in and out of two other pipes, the far ends of which were to be spaced out on either side of a stadium stage. Same physics, more or less. I might try to make one of these...
Hasn't anyone ever heard of a bb gun? If this thing is as much a nuisance as the poster suggests it is this should be a walk in the park. Don't do it yourself, but if all of the kids in your neighborhood are too lazy to figure it out themselves 'gently' point one of them in the right direction.
:) What, you want like an invisibility cloak or someone to send you the schematics for a high powered noise canceling device?
I'm not *that* old and I remember the bb gun being as much a destructive tool as a toy.
Its just a matter of finding the right too for the task. He's a pensioner, how many of those damn things do you think he's going to buy?
He's hitting you with kid-gloves and you need to 'ask slashdot'?
Quack, quack.
-n/t-
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
As the Mosquito emits a sound that's well out of his hearing range, he can't hear it, while most of the rest of the neighborhood is under 40 and can; at which point it's causing everyone a great deal of discomfort.
Oh just grow up!
If he can't hear it, I think the easy fix is to wait until he is gone, then replace the batteries with dead ones, snip the power cord someplace where it won't be immediately obvious, or disable the device in some other way. Since he can't hear it, he'll just assume that it's working and no escalation is necessary.
'the Internet is right.'
Just try and open it up carefully and cut a wire. He'll never know!!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Just listen to really loud rock music and damage *your own hearing* so that you don't hear the high pitches anymore.
Table-ized A.I.
This is just a guess but maybe there are zoning laws the affect the use of such a device. Do you live in an area with a homeowners association, maybe they can help. Also, if one of your neighbors have young kids the cops would be more understanding if some perants told them that the mosquito is driving their children into neurosis.
First of all, do not take the law into your own hands. Your options have not been exhausted yet. Call the police, and keep on them, explain to them the delicate nature of the problem. It's a noise problem, but it is only one where young people aged 24 and below it can hear it. Explain to them that its a device that emits a high frequency pitch at high volume, and that it has been on constantly.
I think you should be diligent about it for at least two weeks with the police. If that does not work there is a plan b.
Inform your neighbor with a written note, explain the situation in careful detail and be as polite about it as possible. Make two copies, one for yourself, and another for your neighbor. If you can get a written signature from your neighbor that he recieved the note, that would be perfect. Otherwise I think something through the post office, fed ex, or ups where they can give you a receipt that documents the delivery, that would be a good substitute. Do not under any circumstance give him more information than he needs, you have to be discreet about this. Only give him the note under the pretense that your are annoyed by the sounds, and simply nothing more.
Get a hearing test, to gauge the level of hearing you have. Its obvious that you have decent hearing if the noise bothers you so much, but you need a record on paper that indicates your hearing ability.
Print the page off the manufacture's website, this is admissable evidence. Get a sound meter, and film yourself using it, make sure that the gauge is clear and readable on the screen.
Next step is to file a small claims court lawsuit against your neighbor, get some character witnesses(preferably adults) who knows the neighbor as annoying. I don't know what kind of claim you can make as far as damages go, but perhaps you could sue him for the cost of the device.
So there you have it, you can explain to the judge how the police didn't cooperate even after two weeks of informing them, then you drop evidence one by one starting with the device description, the hearing test, the witnesses, and of course a copy of the letter you gave the neighbor.
It's the new bigotry. If someone isn't a member of your "group" it's fair game to be hateful towards them. All "political" correctness has done is redefine the "group". Look at the group a college student hangs out with, and it contains other races, other genders, other sexual preferences. But it doesn't contain the elderly, so it's okay to rag on them, call them "old goat", call the police on them, etc.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
slashdot his tires?
sorry . . . had to be said.
"If you're not having fun right now, you're wasting your time."
Just post his address and some of us will come over and take care of things ourselves, ya pansy.
Record it and play it back to them at half-speed.
(Or find a non-tech solution: like a younger police officer)
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
First, you get copies of the papers that talk about the "Mosquito" noise.
Second, you get a microphone and an oscilloscope. You can show the signal on generated on the o-scope.
Third, get a frequency shifter. You can drop the frequency down to something audible.
Forth, Record the sound.
Fifth, go to the police and/or D.A. and do a little demo. Convince them to see it live in the neighborhood.
And you people call yourselves techies, geeks, and hackers.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Why not just spray the hose on it. Better yet, mix up some salt water in a bucket, and dump the bucket on it, try to get it inside nice and good. It should start to rust and fail pretty quickly, the old man won't know any better. Get out the toilet paper, bb guns, and paintball guns and go to town with your teenage friends, what happened the the misguided youth of past generations?
Report the guy to the police as a public nuisance. (If you don't want to go there, you cn just wake him up at 5 AM to the noise of your newly bought Shofar, and claim that you're Jewish and are practicing for Rosh Hashana)
My new blog
Compassion for the needs of others and a desire to do right will however often win out.
What is this? An ABC After-School special?!
Best Free Utilities for Windows
damn it, I downloaded that MP3, and my dog started going nuts!
If you want an effective way to get the police involved that does NOT include having them put handcuffs on you (as many of the suggestions I see posted here could do), try using a sound level meter to document the sound intensity of the offending device. For extra credit, get an audiologist to help with the documentation of the nuisance. With that evidence, you stand a better chance of convincing the police that the annoying noise they cannot hear is real, and really is an objective nuisance that need to be addressed.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Has it become that hard to find a cop under 40? :P
So, it's ok to destroy the device 'cause it's pissing you off?
Well, perhaps, and this isn't a very long shot, it's there because these dudes are harassing the guy. Perhaps they harass half the neighbourhood. In which case the "many" would probably support the dissuasion of this group of youths from their usual activities.
Be nice to the guy. Get together with a recognisable community worker and some friends and paint his fence or fix up his garden. You can't disarm such a situation by escalation of "violence".
---
You need to use a modal logic.
Sir, I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. :-)
Just googling amicold and he appears to like the weed, PSP and Xbox [could be another amicold!]
So, I'm guessing he's dealing outside this guys house and has a penchant for violent disorder and lawlessness.
Perhaps he's been trying out what he learnt on GTA too?
Yeah. Well, at least you've figured out that he's really the one who is paranoid. Silly old man who's plotting against you, using devices the police can't hear... Thankfully, he's the only paranoid one here...
Stop the Slashdot effect! Don't read the articles!
Talk to the guy and tell him his device is hurting your ears. Offer to help him put up a birdhouse for purple martins. Looking out for the birds should keep him busy and out of everyones hair.
If that doesn't work, a box of 1000 crickets cost about $10. Sneak a few thousand crickets in his flowerbeds and then tell him you read those electric mosquito repellers attract crickets. Crickets can be a little noisy and he might turn off his device hoping the other bugs go away.
'Same speed C but faster'
If the device is violating noise bylaws, the police have an obligation to do something about it. If the cops insist on doing nothing, it's out of pure laziness. Call Internal Affairs. If that doesn't work, get together with your other neighbours, hire a lawyer, and sue the neighbour and the police department.
http://outcampaign.org/
Eletric G and marshal stack should fix the problem.
This needs to be modded up, its the only informative response that i've seen on this topic.
I am definitely going to try that tomorrow (or the soonest I have a spare toilet-paper / paper-towel tube available). What was getting to me about the sound is that it's not constant; it changes in pitch and amplitude from time to time, so I thought it was related to the HD or video card, but couldn't ever relate it to the use of either component. (It wasn't as obvious as my Windows laptop, which emits a strange sound from the video chipset whenever you scroll a window, for instance.)
Since I had been using this machine as a server and leaving it on all the time, it's been a real pain to have it turned off because of the annoyance of leaving it on. If your suggestion works, it will have saved me the purchase of a new server.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companding
"This is effectively a form of lossy audio data compression."
A-law and mu-law are both non-linear 8-bit representations of audio samples. They are generally considered to compress because they provide the same dynamic range as a 16-bit representation but use save space. But the intention of a-law and u-law is to represent the original signal as accurately as possible.
And no, u-law and a-law aren't used to improve the dynamic range of the signal, they are used to preserve it (and as much detail as possible) while using as little digital bandwidth as possible.
A system could be devised that used linear 8-bit samples instead of a-law or u-law, and it would also preserve the dynamic range of the sound, it just wouldn't preserve as much detail in low sounds. A logarithmic representation like a-law or u-law preserves dynamic range and still can represent signals with small dynamic range fairly well.
In short, an a-law or u-law encoding is used to get as much of the fidelity of a 16-bit linear system as possible in the bandwidth of an 8-bit system. It's thus a compression scheme.
It is not a system for improving dynamic range nor a system that is dependent on the frequency ranges of a human voice.
If you're gonna be pedantic about what others say, try to get your own stuff impeachably correct first.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
unimpeachably correct I mean.
silly me.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
if u disable it, he will never know. go over there one night, and break it, just not so its visibly noticeable.
You wouldn't even need to find somebody with a seeing eye dog. There are whole organizations that ENJOY getting establishments fined for having a bathroom stall less than an inch too small (plus cost of renovation), or a counter a few inches too high. Whether the establisment has handicaped patrons or not is irelavent to them. You just need to find one of these groups and notify them. They might take a little convicing, but they will do all of the work for you on this front. This is probably the most heavy handed approach you can take (short of breaking the law).
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Seriously, just smash the thing.
Old jerks care less than young jerks. Young jerks will push the limits, but don't want to get in trouble. Old jerks already know what they can get away with. Additionally, they can get away with more, because they are old.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I can hear it perfectly clearly through my PC speakers - these are actually fairly large monitors because I do a lot of audio work. They are pretty good speakers, so I'd expect them to reproduce pretty high frequencies.
Listening to the noise, it sounds like about a 14kHz tone modulated with a faint 3kHz tone. A quick poke about in Audacity seems to bear this out.
To be entirely fair, I used the downloaded ringtone *and* a file generated from audacity containing *only* the 14kHz tone.
Both were encoded at 192kbps. I copied them to a memory card and put it into my Nokia 6230i.
Playing back through the phone's internal speaker, neither were audible, either using my own ears or a rather expensive borrowed Neumann U87 and an oscilloscope. Through a wired headset (came with the phone) they were *just* audible.
I suspect the phone may be doing some downsampling because other test mp3s sound a bit different through it, with the high end a bit smeared. I didn't have another mp3-capable phone of a different make handy to test with, and I suspect that all Nokias would use similar decoding software.
Build one of these: http://www.diyhappy.com/quick-and-dirty-mosquito-t rap/
Give it to him as a gift an explain it's benefits over the annoying sound-box (i.e. you won't shoot him).
or else!
the post where I said that although I can hear the thing, and find it annoying, it's not physically painful really unless you stay 10min+ listening to it in a headset.
But, to be factual and just about your post, after I read it, I tested it here at home with me (35), my wife (34), the maid (30+), by brother-in-law and his wife (33, 29), my mom and my mother-in-law (50+, does not hear it), my son (7), all cranking up my speakers (as the real device would be). Every one of us (that can hear it -- including my son) just find it annoying, and would be annoyed to be in the next porch if this was turned on in an old geezer's porch, but it would not hurt us (I didn't tell the others what that was about so I could get blind results). IMHO, people who said the noise was painful were being overly dramatical. And I tested (my powered 15W RMS speakers to the max) and determined that ONE thin wall is enough to block que sound completely.
IN OTHER WORDS: all the tests I conducted lead to the following results:
1. The sound is annoying as hell to anyone that can hear it, but NOT physically harming or painful.
2. 35 year olds _can_ hear it.
3. 50 year olds can _not_ hear it.
4. MAIN CONCLUSION: if the old geezer is your next-door street neighbour and you live in houses that share a wall, it would be annoying to hang around your porch, too. Don't do that. Especially because hanging with your buddies in your porch certainly is noisy and annoying to him, too -- that's why he installed it to begin with. Just go inside and the noise will go away. No, you don't have the right to hang on your own porch if you are being noisy and annoying to your neighbours. That's it.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I downloaded the mp3, can't hear a thing thanks to years working as a soundman in clubs. Playing it over and over, turning my head, nothing.
Then I look over and notice all three of my cats huddled at the top of my stairwell all looking rather annoyed. Evidently there is something in that file.
I could hear the sound quite easily with my headphones and I'm turning 34 next week.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
Ordered mine already!
Alcaide's Cafe,
I know you could get really crafty and try to cancel out the soundwaves by using principles of physics and the superposition principle. this might be difficult, and a bit hightech but it has a potential to work.
You may have tinnitis - ringing in the ears - from all the loud pop concerts and iPod sessions.... and you are just blaming the poor innocent neighbor
Freeholding
As soon as I can afford the above I will be moving. Well said, there is an old lady in our block of flats that does nothing all day but find fault in everything. Bitter old people should be removed from society. Yes getting old sucks - deal with it don't make our lives a misery.
She we should all be able to "get along" but to some people, that means unrelentingly getting everyone to conform to their lifestyle, or move out.
For someone with your nick you should take a look at this charming info from wikipedia.
Legality
As incendiary devices, Molotov cocktails are illegal to manufacture or possess in many regions. Their use against people is typically covered under a variety of charges, including assault, actual or grievous bodily harm, manslaughter, attempted murder, and murder, depending upon their effect and upon local laws. Their use against property is usually covered under arson charges. In the United States, Molotov cocktails are considered "destructive devices" and regulated by the ATF.
"believing us to be attempting to harass him in our day-to-day activities." Define day to day activities. Playing music loud enough for anybody to hear outside your yard or yelling and screaming while playing a game is not acceptable behavior. When you get older, your hearing changes. What used to be music and voices is now noise. I don't blame the young. Your parents didn't teach you about being civil, having manners or being considerate to other, regardless of who it might be. You were taught to go out and inflict yourselves on other and that you had a right to do so. Nobody has any rights. All you have is luck and one day that will run out and you will be the old man. Alton The Gnome
There is precious little detail, to determine what is going on here. Many people in the neighborhood are under 40? From what I've heard, many over 25 have trouble hearing the mosquito (although I am not one of those). If it is a neighborhood problem, and enough neighbors actually complain to the police, it will be hard for them to ignore it, so I have to assume that it is only the poster that has complained. You might be too young to consider that the old man might actually be afraid of young people, and has sought a way that helps keep them more distant from him. I know that young men certainly seem to cultivate an intimidating appearance these days. And why not be fearful? What have you done to invite trust? What have any young people in your neighborhood done to reach out to him? Yes, I know, nasty, boring, paranoid, old codger.... Of course, he is thinking "nasty, loud, obnoxious, inconsiderate kids...." And any of the illegal and vindictive approaches suggested validates his point of view. You think maybe there is a reason he feels paranoid? You might not be the ones that got him this way, but it was probably kids that engendered his paranoia. You reap the benefits of inconsiderate youth before you. And, let's face it, kids that are inconsiderate of others, making their cars shake with their subwoofers, piercing my ears with their ipods cranked up to 90dB, are extremely evident, whether or not they are a minority contingent. In another time, in another place, he would be getting help, respect, attention, from the young people around him, and would be more likely to trust youth. Now, the only people that seem to even sometimes care are their own kids, and there's no guarantee of that, even. Yeah, you didn't make him that way. But how often have you gone out of your way to put an older person at ease, before? If you had, there probably wouldn't be an issue now, because you could just do the same thing again. However, if you can't be bothered to take some time out for a senior, well, is it any wonder seniors are distrustful of youth?
You can't possibly believe this hoax. It's so obvious!
If Old Man McPhee can't hear it, perfect. Just convince him that the machine burnt out.
Get a few friends who can stand the noise, hold a party on the porch, and when the old man comes out, thank him profusely for finally turning off that dammed machine. Hopefully he'll try to get his money back, or get a replacement machine. Just wait a few weeks, and repeat. After a few times, he'll be convinced that the thing is unreliable and hopefully just give up.
I think the answer could be called a BB gun ;-)
I thought I would deviate a bit and offer a more technological solution.
Let's examine the facts. He can't hear it, and neither can the police. That means you can't prove that it is making a load sound. However, that goes the other way too. He can't prove that it ISN'T making a sound and cannot even notice when it stops working.
Now, if you were to destroy the box, he would notice. If you stole it, again he would notice. If you pulled the power out, he would still notice because it wouldn't light up any more. Any cirucit disruption would cause the power indicator to not glow.
So, here is what you do. You get a 50 ohm resistor, and then sneak over there in the dead of the night with a screwdriver and a soldering iron. These devices are made with ultrasonic transducers. An ultrasonic transducer looks like a small can with holes in the top. It may also use speakers, which are readily identifiable. Simply sever the leads to the transducers/speakers and then solder a 50 ohm resistor in the place of each one. Put the device back together and no one knows that you have tampered with it.
If you do this, all indicator lights that the device has will still work. Every young person will notice the absence of sound, and the older people will be none the wiser. You get your peace back, and he gets to keep his smugness, everyone wins!
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
Young people are able to hear higher frequencies, thus able to hear this really annoying, high-pitched sound. So, use the fact that old people have a depleted immune system, and encourage every young person in the neighborhood with a cold to wipe their noses on their hands, and give him a good friendly, neighborly, handshake.
Sounds of this frequency are very easy to block as they're extremely directional.
If he wants to keep people off his lawn, just stick a cowel over it, so that it directs the sound down. If he has grass on his lawn, that should damp it down enough so that you have to physically be on his lawn to hear it.
The sane response is to borrow an ice cream truck. The noise is universally accepted - it is irritating beyond description, and will attract kids. I think it is the safe and appropriate answer to your problem.
AIK
WAV Version: http://www.jetcityorange.com/MosquitoRingtone.html
I'm 25, and on my system it opens by default with Totem player... and I can only *just* hear it. The MP3 versions I found, however, were very audiable.
If I open it with GNUSound and play it there, I *can't* hear it. It must be doing something different to what Totem does. I also used GNUSound to generate a 17KHz sine wave, and I can't hear that either.
When I delivered Newspapers when I was 11 years old
I knew hwo was home watching TV.
8-) they were elegible for collection
I still at the age of 39 3/4 can still hear that freaking annoying high pitched buzz
Leaves no trace... http://slashdot.org/articles/99/09/10/0826258.shtm l
I'm browsing this thread at -1 (nested). There are 942 posts, but I can see only 674 unique posts. My little slashdot post counter shows:
Total Posts Displayed: 1149
Unique Posts: 674
Duplicate Posts: 475
Fix the damn dupes and show the missing posts. 4 years after slashdot went from single page per story to multiple pages and this fucking issue has not been fixed.
.... and many others.
Geeks are suppossed to be good at spotting patterns.
This one is screaming at you but your political biases are stopping you to see it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In college, there was one kid who played his stereo loud alot. When we got fed up with it, we'd call his phone. Riinnng! He'd turn down the stereo, go pick up the phone, and we'd hang up. Usually he didn't turn the stereo back up.
Quick fix, no confrontation needed.
Recently, he installed a Mosquito ultrasonic noise device as an apparent attempt to 'get back at us' for our harassment.
Oh, boy. Thank God I live in an underdeveloped country...
1) collect poop from all neighborhood dogs and/or residents
2) surreptitiously remove the device from his house
3) put all of this together into a large paper bag
4) you know what to do with the bag
5) he stomps it out, gets poo on his foot, and, when cleaning it up, finds the device inside and realizes why he has poop on his foot.
... is to cast Silence on the device. Granted, it may only last a day or two, but since you've slept, just cast it again. That should take care of it. ;-)
My physics teacher in high school referred to sound waves propagating. Here is an example. There are 5 million google hits for "propagate sound waves" so maybe it isn't as incorrect as you think. According to Princeton, propagate (travel through the air) "sound and light propagate in this medium" is the 2nd definition.
Man, you really need that seminar!
This isn't an "anti-mosquito" device. The device in question is used to disperse loiterers and in general make an area uncomfortable for human beings. It is called a mosquito because it makes a high pitched noise, like a mosquito, that is very annoying and drives people away. It is used outside of 7-11s and the like to keep the riff-raff from hanging around. It has no other purpose except to annoy people. That may make a difference to the answer here but a lot of folks didn't actually read the relevant info (nothing new for /.).
Trespassing eh? Don't you know that's a crime?
Plus old people have to get up in the middle of the night and pee. Let's say he's in the bathroom, hears a clammer outside (you with your hammer) and then here comes gramps with his shotgun, or rifle, or old service pistol. You're on HIS PROPERTY with a tool that can be used to break-in, and even as a weapon. You're up to NO GOOD. He can legally shoot you. That's not good.
Why not play it safe and shoot the darned thing from a distance with a high powered BB gun? Least that's what I'd do. My neighbors leave me alone. Darned toot'n!
It's not a device to drive mosquitoes away! It's nicknamed "The Mosquito" because the noise is so annoying to those who can hear it and it's specifically designed to annoy younger people. You didn't even look at the link provided in the summary! Of course this is Slashdot, so I shouldn't expect you to.
http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/teenage_control
Fetch Text URL - Firefox Extension
I don't see the part where the poster says, "I went over to his house to discuss these things, and he wouldn't talk to me at all." Have you tried...talking? Trying to work out problems like an adult, rather than running to mommy Slashdot?
Judging by the "Just go talk to him" responses, quite a few of the posters have never had to deal with racism. Some people refuse to talk to others.
Here's a novel concept:
Get to know your neighbor. Do something nice for the guy. Wave and say hello whenever you see him.
If he comes to know and trust you because you're always friendly, he won't feel paranoid anymore.
It's worth a try. And don't give up after a month. It might take a few years, since it sounds like he's pretty paranoid right now.
http://www.atcsd.com/lrad.html
Remember the story about the cruise ship that averted would-be attackers with one of these? Just camp out in front of his house about 200 meters away and every time he pokes his head out blast him with it. You aren't vandelizing anything and he is getting a taste of his own medicine. There is a built in mp3 player; perhaps you could use this device to broadcast a message of peace at 150 dB (about twice as loud as a commercial jet) or maybe just a Mars Volta CD.
Despite the potential fun in blasting someone with this, I think you should first talk to the neighbor and try to understand what drove him to spend $800 on a teen deterrent. Be reasonable and try to imagine the situation if the roles were reversed.
If you summon the police again, show the data sheet on the mosquito device to the officer so that they understand that not everyone can hear it. If the officer can't hear it, surely he/she will get someone younger to come and check it out. The drawback is that the old man might turn the device off in the meantime.
You could put up a sound absorbant fence made of 6-8" fiberglass insulation. It'll work better if there is something solid on your side of it, but it's most important that the other side of it not block the fiberglass. You could improve the looks of it by putting grill cloth on the fiberglass side, but you don't want to. The uglier it looks, the better.
At this point, you have something to negotiate over -- You will take down the fence if he takes down the noise maker.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
I am an audio engineer... and the fluid in the basilar membrane will indeed harden over the years with everyone. Some people are more resistant to this than others, but it does happen to everyone in older age with measurable effect. This is called natural hearing loss.
I am 24 and have listened to high volume music for most of my life (concerts, headphones, etc) however I no appreciable hearing loss below 8kHz. I have not been officially tested for over 8k, but I have run tests on myself and it seems that my loss starts around 17-18kHz which is appropriate for my age.
Since I am about to go on tour next week mixing for 20 bands at a traveling rock fest, I got custom molded ear plugs (-15dB attenuators) I had my hearing tested last week. After the test the audiologist flat out told me that even though I have abused my hearing, my genes were strong enough to keep any noticeable noise-induced loss from occurring. Apparently it is not that way with everyone. Some people's genes are allow them to be more resistant to damage than others.
For more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilar_membrane
Libertas in infinitum
..is that acoustical HF in that range is VERY directional. So if it is in your pocket the radiated energy could EASILY be blocked by the fabric of your jeans. For that matter a piece of tape, or even your finger over the speaker or the vent for the transducer will probably block it.
.2573 inches) makes it hard to get to our ears easily without line-of-sight.
I have not seen them in use nor have I heard them, so they might have a way around this. I don't know.
But I am an audio engineer and with HF our ears use a localizing process called 'Interaural amplitude difference' as opposed LF freqs which use 'Interaural time difference' with a resolution 30ms or greater. This combined with the fact that at these freqs the WL is very short (.6534cm or
Libertas in infinitum
i dont know how u do it over there but here in nigeria we ignore the fact that he is an elderly person, walk up to him and tell him to get rid of it before we get rid of it ourselves of course ina polite way if he refuses we take it out.
A cellphone can't generate high enough frequencies or sufficiently pure tones to take advantage of the Mosquito effect.
Xenu loves you!
The "sharing" of music with everyone is one of my biggest pet-peeves. People don't seem to realize that neighbors might want to work at home, and don't want to be distracted with, e.g. loud music of any sort.
Indeed.... But you have an ally toward this problems and its not the police......
It's the RIAA!!!!!!!!!!!
To me, this type of "sharing" sounds like a public performance, which is expressly forbidden under the terms of most copyrights. Furthermore, they may have illegally obtained their music. I'm sure they would be happy to sue/imprision thy neighbor.
...then he won't know it's not working, will he?
You know what to do!
Turn it off. Mosquitos come, I believe that qualifies as "combating".
If you can't sleep through normal day sounds like dogs barking and cars passing in front of your house (which I find much more annoying than dogs barking), you shouldn't work the third shift. I perfectly understand getting angry when a neighbor is deliberately trying to annoy others with noise or other distractions, but anything else and you're the one being the bad neighbor, annoying the crap out of him with your ridiculous complaints.
And no, I don't have a neighbor that is complaining about me. I did, however, live in an apartment and often heard loud music from the neighbors that lived on the apartment down from me (repetitive music I disliked at that). They weren't deliberately raising the volume to annoy me, and the walls were thin. As such, I accepted that it was their right to listen to music, and if I really couldn't live with it, well, I should move. After all, I don't anyone trying to stop me from listening to music or, if I had a house, stop me from having dogs that will actually bark and make noise if someone is threatening to enter my house.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Tool - Jerk-Off
Someone told me once
that there's a right and wrong,
and that punishment
would come to those
who dare to cross the line.
But it must not be true
for jerk-offs like you.
Maybe it takes longer to catch a total asshole.
but I'm tired of waiting.
Maybe it's just bullshit and I should play GOD,
and shoot you myself.
Because I'm tired of waiting.
Consequences dictate
our course of action
and it doesn't matter what's right.
It's only wrong if you get caught.
If consequences dictate
my course of action
I should play GOD
and shoot you myself.
I'm very tired of waiting.
I should
kick you,
beat you,
fuck you,
and then shoot you in your fucking head.
To parent: nicely done whether intended or not.
To mods: no, i don't even want any moderation so save your points
is: sue the b--- for nuisance. Get an injunction. Or: get the Environment proection Authority in.