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Recordings of the Sounds Heard In the Cuban US Embassy Attacks Released (apnews.com)
New submitter chrissfoot shares a report from The Associated Press: The Associated Press has obtained a recording of what some U.S. Embassy workers heard in Havana in a series of unnerving incidents later deemed to be deliberate attacks. The recording, released Thursday by the AP, is the first disseminated publicly of the many taken in Cuba of mysterious sounds that led investigators initially to suspect a sonic weapon. The recordings themselves are not believed to be dangerous to those who listen. Sound experts and physicians say they know of no sound that can cause physical damage when played for short durations at normal levels through standard equipment like a cellphone or computer. What device produced the original sound remains unknown. Americans affected in Havana reported the sounds hit them at extreme volumes. You can listen to the "Dangerous Sound" here via YouTube.
>The recordings themselves are not believed to be dangerous
So we can rule out Kanye West...?
Sound experts and physicians say they know of no sound that can cause physical damage when played for short durations at normal levels through standard equipment like a cellphone or computer.
Obviously these people have never heard Trump speak. I actually envy them
The youtube sounds to see if they're legit?
I've got the order for 20 or so outdoor speakers pointed at my neighbors house waiting on amazon...
It's time to round up the nerds.
Everybody else seems to be content watching the weekly Sports Broadcasts on Saturday. Those nerds are messing around with wires and poking in parts of the computer they're not supposed to be in.
The score (from http://www.politifact.com/trut...) as of 2015...counts deaths of Americans in America:
24: number of Americans killed by terrorism in the last decade
208,024: number of Americans killed by guns in the last decade
Was it the "brown note"?
All we really know is there have been sonic attacks against both US and Canadian government employees. Since itâ(TM)s inpacting a small specific group itâ(TM)s unlikey to be natural or accidental and is likely a targeted attack.
While itâ(TM)s extremely unlikely it was a sanctioned government action from Cuba, there is no evidence and no reason to exclude Cubans or some of those in their government, as most likely there are some Cubans who dislike the US and which could try to cause harm, as well as there are Cubans who dislike their government and want the US to push back on the current regime, which is unlikely if the governments are friendly. Also it could be a unknown actor such as Russia who wants to create chaos.
Or, you know, maybe that wasn't a cicada but tinnitus.
This is egg on their face. It means that they cannot guarantee diplomatic safety in their own capitol, and if it's their own people doing it behind their back it means they cannot control their own intelligence services. Those are the sort of things that make a dictator get cold sweats at 2AM. It's a major crack in the facade of their power.
Let's say that it turns out to be "The Russians" and we catch them in the act. The obvious solution for the Cubans is to let us take the foreign operatives back to the US. It would even be justifiable for the Cubans to arrest the diplomatic mission of the foreign power and turn them over to US. Diplomatic immunity my ass. Doing this to a foreign embassy is an act of war because it is extremely serious non-lethal violence against a diplomatic mission. All bets are off at that point.
Obviously we need to loosen the definition of terrorism.
Pretty sure it's already looser than a 60-year-old whore.
I suppose a natural source could produce a noise like this. The problem is that something that is high-frequency AND has enough amplitude to do damage would be extremely directional. You would probably still hear something off-axis or reflected, but at a much lower amplitude. An omni-directional signal powerful enough to do damage to a human at a distance would also be shattering windows.
So you would have to assume that it's a natural phenomena that just happens to be emitting directly at embassy staff. The odds of this being natural start dropping off rather quickly.
*grin* subtle, at least initially.
I'm more inclined to believe that it's another state-actor or else a very, very large criminal enterprise, something on the international scale.
If a state-actor they want to limit the US and the West generally from bringing Cuba into the fold.
If it's a large criminal enterprise, it would be because they are using Cuba for some part of their operation that would be identified and shut down if the US were more heavily involved in Cuba.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Marines never left. We still are using a large bay there.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I played all 5 seconds of the YouTube link at very low volume and my dog jumped up from where he was lying down and began looking around the room with a "what the fuck was that" attitude.
And 80% of those gun related deaths are due to gang violence, obviously banning all gangs would solve that problem ;)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf
And most of those gang deaths happen in a few cities, Washington DC, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Oakland, banning those cities solves the problem too ;)
There could never be any plausible malicious intent by people in Cuba against U.S. Embassy personnel. There's just no precedent and no motive.
The Cuban people were NOT indoctrinated for years to view U.S. Government entities as their enemy. There is NO possibility that rogue elements within Cuban society might be doing this 'For Fidel' out of ideological zeal.
Nope. None of that should even be considered.
I'm pretty sure they US public has been more thoroughly indoctrinated to view Cuba as the spawn of Satan by the US media than the Cuban government could ever hope to indoctrinate the Cuban people to view the US as a mere 'enemy'. I attribute this largely to the fact that the average Cuban is better educated and generally better informed than the average American.
The actual sound is very creepy, but its slightly under volume. You may need to adjust your speaker volume. At 3min the tones begin to oscillate a little causing a slightly dizziness. Be careful. https://youtu.be/cyMHZVT91Dw?t=3m5s
Actually, 2/3s of those gun deaths are suicides, and about half of the remainder are gang related. A significant portion of the other half are police shootings, which leaves very few "innocent" gun related deaths.
Worked in broadcasting for a lot of years. I knew an engineer who had troubles with his next door neighbors in an apartment building. So, brought home an amplifier, tone generator and a couple of JBL's and set them against the wall, adjoining the neighbors bedroom. Not sure of the freq, 10hz or lower, and cranked it up when he wasn't home. If you put your hands on the wall, you could feel it, but not hear it. I think the neighbors moved out within a few months.
Reading comprehension fail.
*grin* subtle, at least initially.
I'm more inclined to believe that it's another state-actor or else a very, very large criminal enterprise, something on the international scale.
If a state-actor they want to limit the US and the West generally from bringing Cuba into the fold.
I agree with you. And a smarter administration would be asking the following questions instead of just assuming "evil Cubans did this 'cause they're commies!"
Is there a nation that thrives on chaos and disorder in the world, particularly when it is the cause of such chaos and disorder?
Is there a nation that regards human life so little that it sent agents on a public airline with a radioactive element to kill a dissident and gave no concern to the impact the radioactivity would have on its own agents or the unknowing passengers?
Is there a nation that would benefit from Cuban-USA relations deteriorating?
The answer to all of the above is Russia.
Right.... explain how that would work, exactly.
Making an analogy to something that doesn't even exist in real life is not an explanation... it is conjecture.
You could suggest that assuming it is a natural phenomenon is conjecture as well, but there's a whole lot more about the laws of nature that we don't fully understand than there is what we don't know about the limits of human technological achievement so far, so assuming it was natural unless or until you can at least actually show what sort of technology could actually do this seems like the safer bet.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
An attack carried out by a white guy with no ties to Islam or ISIS who spent years gambling and drinking and doing all sorts of not-even-remotely-muslim shit before snapping and murdering a bunch of people.
You Trump-sucking retards need to give up trying to tie Las Vegas to ISIS and accept that white men commit mass murder in the US far more often than any terrorist organization ever will.
A significant portion of the other half are police shootings, which leaves very few "innocent" gun related deaths.
... If you believe that the police only shoot guilty people. I'm not at all convinced of that, or even that most cases of a police officer drawing and using a firearm are justified given the circumstances. IIRC, police officers don't even make the top 10 of most dangerous professions in the USA, so their trigger happy attitude isn't really justified. Unless of course their job is relatively safe because they tend to shoot first.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
There is one question you are missing, before you can reasonably blame Russia, or anyone else for that matter:
Does any known technology exist that could have actually caused this to occur?
Hey, I'll admit that it's certainly *possible* that it could some unknown technology, but to the best of my knowledge, nobody has been able come up with any kind of theories about how that a weapon with that kind of technology would even work in the real world.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It was Jimbob farting.
Yep. For starters, we need to make it apply to white people too. Then that number would jump dramatically. Still be dwarfed by other gun deaths, but as I recall most of those are suicides, followed by accidents, followed by intentional murders over personal causes, none of which should qualify,
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I think the GGP's numbers are way off in terms of shooting deaths; GP's link indicates 11,000-11,100 firearm related homicides per year, 19,300-19,800 firearm related suicides per year. (Interestingly, or not, roughly 5,000 "other" homicides per year.) Police shootings account for less than 500 deaths per year based on the best available information-- CDC data shows 258 in 2011 and 412 in 2010; Washington Post tracks 400 per year in the last few years.
Another interesting tidbit-- if you look at total death rate by state, the highest rates are by far the rural states.
You're talking about diplomats/spies - arguably the most politically-driven profession on Earth. Foul play is the norm there, not the outlier.
And yet despite this, nobody actually has any idea what *real* weapon could do this. I'm more inclined to think there are things we don't know about the world around us and its natural laws than I am willing to presume nefarious intent with some heretofore unprecedented technology
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I seem to recall hearing that prolonged exposure to such ery low-frequency tones at high volume can cause cardiovascular problems - which makes that completely irresponsible and borderline criminal.
On the other hand I've got a friend who had issues with noisy neighbors - his solution was to really crank up his speakers and play an FPS whenever they got noisy. Got them trained to be more considerate pretty quickly.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Yeah the whole "Accoustic weapon" thing seems a bit too sci-fi for my liking. Like, what would be the point? The Cubans are *super keen* to not piss off the Americans right now, other than a few nationalistic grumbles, because post-fidel cuba knows thats how it gets out of its rut, but normalizing trade with its wealthy neighbor.
So I dont see a motive. And the weapon, excuse my skepticism but if its *high* pitches we're talking about thats even fishier,due to the higher difficulties of propagating high pitches along with the easier task of locating the source. Super low frequencies, maybe , but high frequencies? I highly doubt it. But a busted old tube television set, or whistling from a damaged HF transformer, theres are some noises that can get on your nerves very quickly, and both *entirely reasonable* things to occur natively on an island thats been subsiding on leftovers from the old USSR for half a lifetime.
So no motive, no weapon, a bunch of sick diplomats with symptoms may well just be an odd-ball bug going around (embassies see a lot of back packers, aka "virus vectors").
We sure theres a crime scene here?
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
So you're comparing yourself to NEWTON now because YOU WERE TOO LAZY TO READ ANYTHING ABOUT THIS SUBJECT and invented some BS FUD instead! Great work, gravity solved!
Isn't pop-sci grand? I'm perpetually fascinated and disgusted by the fact our leaders thought it fitting to try to educate the plebeians in order to fluff up the numbers of the intellectual class, without regard to the fact you simply can't fix stupid. "Geek culture" has to end - they infect /., they steal the word "nerd" to describe dressing up as characters from TVs and movies, and they constantly spew FUD for the sake of satisfying their own misplaced desire to be a part of a group they are intellectually incapable of being a part of by simply parroting everything they hear in the most inappropriate contexts while taking precious time from actual nerds who are driven into fits of raging and ranting over their stupidity. It used to be you could see someone playing with a robot, know your kin, and go start a conversation which goes into conspiracies or theoretical physics while finding a friend, now you just get ostracized by some intellectual parasite of a pop-culture-wannabe you had no desire to communicate with anyway because they from an outside perspective appear like one of you. Sadly we'll never take back the internet, but we might be able to switch to something with a high fatality rate when fucked up - like AM band HAM radio text messaging, at least then the problem will self-correct if the bastards try to follow us.
Another interesting tidbit, related to your last tidbit: if you look at gun ownership by state, the highest rates by far are also rural states.
I read the other day that it may also be a perfect example of mass hysteria...
Anyway: if the americans REALLY suspect a new weapon, they would not have closed the embassy, but replaced the personell with scientists to try and discover what was going on.
Paai
The "neighborhood factor," if there is really such a thing, doesn't really matter because gun control works in all neighborhoods: https://www.vox.com/policy-and...
Except of course for the fact that the tech you referred to couldn't cause this because if it could then they would know how the attack was done even if they didn't yet know who or why. Pay attention to this point: as an attack, nobody knows what really could have caused this (except for you, evidently). I haven't claimed to know for certain it was a natural phenomenon, I just think it's more likely to be the case than blindly subscribing to paranoid propaganda until we can show some real world working weapon that could have actually done this in those exact circumstances.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Hackaday had an article that it could be a directed microwave weapon, and the audio is a hallucination.
Seems more likely than the audio being the cause of memory loss, brain damage, etc...
The motive is hard to imagine.
Just leave the Army and Air Force out of it.... We don't need another bay of pigs..
Oh, and by the way, we already are in Cuba... We've been there for a long, long time and are not leaving any time soon.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Would a sonic weapon be protected under the 2nd or 1st amendment?
Yes.... And the 14th should you live in a state, not just a territory.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The details of the knock out gas used to resolve the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002 are *still* not known.
youre nuts. this is real. yours is not.
how do you know youre nuts ? because energy is dissipated through atmosphere, laser or not.
All we really know is there have been sonic attacks against both US and Canadian government employees.
That's jumping to conclusions.
My SWAG is that it's a CIA product that's to blame, like a high frequency vibrator attached to windows to thwart laser listening, and that with the panes used in Cuba, the unfortunate side effect is that it acts as a speaker element and causes the sound "attacks".
I.e. Hanlon's razor.
Yes, but there are plenty of plausible theories as to what it could be. No one has yet to provide a *reasonable* hypothesis as to how a sonic weapon that fits the facts presented would actually work.
I certainly did not do this, nor vote for anyone who signed off on this crap. Try spouting off extremist Islamic crap in the USA and you are just going to be even more hated, it actually does the opposite and ignites fear and anger against them. Direct calls for violence are not protected under free laws, but that wouldn't stop someone like yiannopolous from speaking.
Sorry, but I couldn't hear a thing despite turning my speakers up.
Or by the Russians?If the Cuban government didn't want them there they would simply ask them to leave. Cuba is one of Russia's few allies
http://saveie6.com/
Deaths from suicide are usually included in that figure because people who attempt suicide using guns are much more often successful than those who use other means (like sleeping pills). So easy access to guns results in more deaths from suicide.
Who says it was Cubans doing it? Maybe Russian spies? Or a conflicted Cuban Government with some departments or factions wanting no deal
http://saveie6.com/
I play the Unfounded Paranoia game too:
Anyway: if the americans REALLY suspect a new weapon, they would not have closed the embassy, but replaced the personell with scientists to try and discover what was going on.
If America is developing the same kind of weapon, we would rather pull our people out instead of tipping our hand by deploying a countermeasure.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
See, we all think those commies are soo much smarter than we are, they have devised a sonic "weapon" that even our best experts can't explain.
Here, let me try.
This is the sound of jury-rigging. If you've got not parts, and no money, and no normal source for repairs, you just put stuff together as best you can. This particular noise is the sound of a fan scraping a trash-can lid that washed up on shore 20 years ago. /sarc
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
They could figure that out relatively easily. Also, the effect would be limited to personnel in/near the embassy. Apparently, some attacks have occurred outside the embassy grounds.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Speaking of which, we're seeing exactly that same type of problem with gun violence in black neighborhoods here in Canada. But we don't see the same level of problem in say poor chinese, indian, or vietmanese neighborhoods.
Given that Canada doesn't track racial statistics as they relate to crime very well (or at all in many cases), I'm going to have to see a citation for that.
The extreme volume is at an inaudible frequency. What you're hearing in the recording would be a audible resonance frequency of that inaudible frequency. The relative power of resonance frequencies drop off pretty fast.
Deaths from suicide are usually included in that figure because people who attempt suicide using guns are much more often successful than those who use other means (like sleeping pills). So easy access to guns results in more deaths from suicide.
It's a shit way to make it look like guns are an actual cause of death. Suicide is suicide, it doesn't matter how it happens. It would be like blaming gravity for people who jump off a bridge/building. But look at the stats for how that breaks down under sex. It's mainly men who will use guns, or really any method to commit suicide via any violent/excessive method because they want a method that's successful. It's also one of the reasons why male suicide makes 70-80% of all figures, they're choosing a method that's final. Women on the other hand are most likely to use things like sleeping pills because there is a far higher purchase put on 'how they look' even after they're dead, that reduces the chance of a successful suicide.
A person determined to commit suicide though it really doesn't matter, they'll use anything at hand.
Om, nomnomnom...
I seem to recall hearing that prolonged exposure to such ery low-frequency tones at high volume can cause cardiovascular problems - which makes that completely irresponsible and borderline criminal.
On the other hand I've got a friend who had issues with noisy neighbors - his solution was to really crank up his speakers and play an FPS whenever they got noisy. Got them trained to be more considerate pretty quickly.
irresponsible and borderline criminal is pretty much how I remember said engineer
Except when it doesn't right? Keep in mind that you can "fix" crime statistics into different categories if you change the race of the offender. Something that's very popular in Chicago and Philly right now.
Om, nomnomnom...
They could figure that out relatively easily. Also, the effect would be limited to personnel in/near the embassy. Apparently, some attacks have occurred outside the embassy grounds.
From what I can tell, only in places where the spooks might see reasons to install anti-surveillance equipment, like the domiciles of operatives.
And, again, it's alleged attacks. Without us having seen any actual evidence for it being attacks, you're begging the question.
Not to rain on your narrative, but the vast majority of deaths from guns are suicides (60.5%), not mass murders or single homicides. During the ten years from 2003 to 2012, the most recent year for which data are available, 313,045 persons died from firearm-related injuries in the United States. In 2012, 64% of gun deaths were suicides. Over the past 30 years, suicide has exceeded homicide even when firearm homicide rates were at their highest, and it was also the case for most of the twentieth century.
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122535
This is not to take away from the fact that in the U.S. deaths and injury from firearms far outnumber those of other developed nations, or that guns are used in nearly 70% of all homicides in the U.S., but statistics need context to be accurately understood.
No, apply it to guns. If guns are terrorists....
Don't listen to it! Seven days later you will die!
Or ghosts are real and Castro is pi$$ed.
That doesn't jive at all with the experiences of my friends that went to Cuba after obtaining a press pass. I'm sure some Cubans grew up hating America just has some Americans grow up that way. They are in the definitely minority though.
I'm also not sure where you are getting this idea that they were rioting over normalization of relations. The rioting they did last year was over democracy reforms, they felt emboldened by normalization and were not against it.
While I agree we shouldn't jump to conclusions, you seem to be doing an awful lot of that yourself.
"Gun control works in all neighborhoods"... LOL.
Gun control doesn't work in "bad" neighborhoods. That's the problem. Thugs, who typically infest "bad" neighborhoods, buy stolen guns on the black market specifically to use in the commission of crimes. There's absolutely no reason to buy black market guns other than to commit crime.
In "good" neighborhoods, the gun owners typically purchase their guns from a reputable dealer and get whatever needed licensing, registration, and background checks done as part of the purchase process.
Obviously, this breaks down as "bad" = poor, "good" = not poor (but not always rich), when considering how those adjectives apply to various neighborhoods. Guess which neighborhoods have hideously-high gun crime rates. Hint: it's not the "good" ones. It's never the "good" ones. The "good" neighborhoods are always shocked by a gun crime, while the "bad" neighborhoods only get on the news when there's a mass-slaughter, and they always interview some long-time resident that says, basically, "gunshots are an everyday occurrence around here, but never like this".
The reason "black lives matter" has become a catchphrase of late is because so many crimes happen to black people in these poor neighborhoods that everyone collectively stopped paying attention to it and began to simply expect it to happen. Like "the sky is blue" or "bears shit in the woods", so is "black people shoot the ever-loving fuck out of each other in the ghetto". Eventually, even the police stopped paying attention and simply didn't respond anymore to incidents in those areas where this happens a lot, because, hey, they're government employees, they don't get paid enough to go into harm's way to sort this shit out if it's just going to happen again and again. BLM isn't about people thinking black people are worthless. It's about people being lazy and not coming to the aid of other people in violent neighborhoods. Skin color is secondary, and is really not even the point. BLM could just as easily be called "Poor Lives Matter" or "Violence-marred Lives Matter" or "People Are Fucking Sick Of Being Stuck In A Hellhole, Both Physically And Economically, With No Way Out" or, simply, "We're Despondent And Desperate, PLEASE FUCKING HELP US, ASSHOLES".
As you can see, "gun control" is just another non-fix for a deeply broken system that allows politicians to ignore the real places where they've failed to govern effectively.
There could never be any plausible malicious intent by people in Cuba against U.S. Embassy personnel. There's just no precedent and no motive.
The Cuban people were NOT indoctrinated for years to view U.S. Government entities as their enemy. There is NO possibility that rogue elements within Cuban society might be doing this 'For Fidel' out of ideological zeal.
Nope. None of that should even be considered.
I'm pretty sure they US public has been more thoroughly indoctrinated to view Cuba as the spawn of Satan by the US media than the Cuban government could ever hope to indoctrinate the Cuban people to view the US as a mere 'enemy'. I attribute this largely to the fact that the average Cuban is better educated and generally better informed than the average American.
I really just wish that Americans would figure out how to associate government actions with the government, and not condemn the country or people in it for the actions of their government. Your statement that the American public views Cuba as evil is surprising to me, because I don't think that at all. That may happen for some countries, like North Korea where things are a bit more extreme. But Cuba? I don't see it.
And I sure as hell hope that people in the rest of the world don't judge all Americans based on what our government does and says.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It's not at all clear that "there is *FAR* more about the universe that we don't know than what we don't know". That *might* be true, but it's not really the way to bet unless you are counting all the small details.
OTOH, the small details can have a significant effect on how well the implementation works, so it's not really unfair to count them, it's just very different than the major rules. But if that's what you mean, you shouldn't mix them with things like Newton's law of universal gravitation. You should make a clear distinction.
That said, we clearly *are* missing a few of the basic laws, and it's possible that we're missing most of them. It's also possible that we've so misunderstood the ones we have that they'll need to be completely reformulated. But that's not the way to bet. Unless you can get really long odds.
From my "all I know is what I (happen to) read in the papers" point of view this "attack" could be anything from allergies affecting their nerves to a subtle poison attack to them wearing ear buds that operated on a frequency that was locally used for industrial control. But if the US govt. thought it was a secret weapon, wouldn't they try to discover what it was and how it worked before removing their source of information?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If this is true, the parent post should not only be modded up, but even added into the summary.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I've known more than a few intelligent Cuban-Americans (except for Otto Reich, whom I don't know), so allow those still back on the island a little leeway please. If they used concentrated bursts of directed microwave transmissions (something the old Soviets were researching back in the 1960s) along with those sounds, people might tend to believe the sounds were the cause and not look for any microwave sources.
Counter protests are quite American and should continue. However if things turn out badly, only the perpetrators of actual crimes should be arrested. This grouping up and arresting everyone, often starting with journalists and observers using recording equipment, and often with bogus charges, is some seriously facist crap that needs to be shut down yesterday.
I can't believe you're so actually so naive as to not know the difference between doing something with the active intent to cause mental and/or physical harm to someone, and doing something which inadvertently leads to situations in which someone might assume a risk of injury. Driving a car while a person is on the sidewalk is dangerous, and that person might fall into the street and get hit. That doesn't put nearly the same liability on the driver as if the driver were to deliberately aim his or her vehicle at some pedestrians and chase them down the sidewalk.
They sorted this problem out in East Menlo Park by asking the local research groups (NASA?) if they could do anything. They came up with a "gunshot detector" which triangulated or quadratulated the location of the shot and the type of weapon. Everything from someone clapping their hands, a car backfiring or a real gunshot could be identified.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Why would I go into the lion's den, asshole?
Why wouldn't you? They're such great people, no reason to fear them, why wouldn't you go there? What's stopping you?
Canada does, it's just suppressed by organizations because of political correctness.
So if the data is suppressed (and your article confirms it is not collected at all in some jurisdictions), how do you know there is a trend of gun violence specifically in poor black neighbourhoods, but not in other racial categories? Personally I think Canada likely has similar, if less inflamed, issues as the US in terms of racial disparity and over-representation in criminal statistics simply because CA/US cultures aren't that far apart. However I find claims of specific trends lack credibility without actual data to back it up. I would love if we had actual public data on this so we could try to address issues that might exist.
Or you can simply pay attention to the media, which paint a picture of what's happening too.
No, there is too much bias in media. I take trends in media as trends in what people are interested in at the time. When I see an uptick in articles about police killing unarmed black civilians, I don't assume this is suddenly happening more often, only that people are suddenly more interested in those stories.
Yeah, but it's not really Cuba's fault that the USA keeps all their political prisoners there.
It would be like blaming gravity for people who jump off a bridge/building.
More like blaming a lack of guard rails. The point is not that having easy access to guns makes suicide possible, yes of course if someone is really determined they can always find a way to kill themselves, the point is that having lots of guns lying around makes suicide quick and easy.
The difference between someone who is dead and someone who had a brief but intense episode of depression is sometimes a matter of convenience - how easy is it for them to kill themselves in that moment?
I wasn't trying to troll at all... only refusing to blindly believe in a baseless claim that is driven more by paranoia than by any facts.
It's obvious that we don't really have any facts to come to a reasoned conclusion, but that's still no reason to come to the conclusion that somebody was attacking them
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
That is exactly what I've been trying to say, yet somehow, I'm getting labelled as a troll.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The thing that surprised me most about this whole affair was that no-one seems to have modified a gunfire location system to see where these sounds originated.
I understand that ensuring the safety of your diplomatic staff is of primary concern but, given the US's traditional response to threats, I'd have expected a 'squad' of marines or a pair of men in dark glasses knocking on the door of room 623 in the overlooking office block* within a week of 'hearing' the sounds.
*An example. Not the actual location of the origin of the sounds, as far as I know...
You put a dozen focused emitters in various locations and point them at your target, syncing them up for constructive interference.
Just because "blame the foreigners" is commonly used to distract from a country's own failings doesn't mean that foreign governments aren't, in fact, at fault for a good many things.
Christ, you are a dullard. Seriously, you have no critical thinking skills whatsoever.
Look, the AC had a point. That this was just some sort of "natural phenomena" that we just haven't discovered yet which caused focused brain damage to diplomats strains credibility. It's not 100% impossible, but the odds are so much against that that the onus is on the natural phenomena crowd to prove it.
Or, like the article actually says, nobody has been able to figure out how any existing technology could *actually* produce these specific kinds of results in the context in which they occurred.
That, and that alone, is my reason for doubting that it was a weapon... because in my observation, when it comes to things that you currently lack the ability to explain, it's usually much more reasonable to presume that there is a natural explanation behind to than to blindly ascribe some intelligence behind it, and it is most definitely blindly in this case, because we not only don't know the who or the why, we don't even actually know the how beyond waxing into science fiction.
Sure, it could be a weapon that nobody's ever heard of before and is being kept super-secret, but by virtue of the conspiracy theory fallacy, this is not a sufficient basis to come to any sort of reasoned conclusion that it was actually a weapon.
The only thing that we can say for sure is that we don't know what really happened beyond some people were quite seriously harmed, and whatever caused it, it seems that sound played an important factor. Should this be investigated? Abso-friggen-lutey... but approaching this with the supposition that it must be some kind off weapon is baseless paranoia, not healthy caution.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Number of Americans killed by automobiles in the last decade (as of 2016): 350,408. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
You'd think in a country that literally went through McCarthyism, that people would be more suspicious about blaming TEH ROOSHINS for our problems. Especially the Left, they were the victims of this vile crime! Serious WTF here. We all know, right, that Podesta penned this dolchstoss-legende the day after Hillary lost the election. Right? Please tell me we know this.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Hackaday had an article that it could be a directed microwave weapon, and the audio is a hallucination.
Seems more likely than the audio being the cause of memory loss, brain damage, etc...
The motive is hard to imagine.
If it was a hallucination, we wouldn't have an audio recording of it.
Good summary. Including the part about the Cubans be super motivated not to piss off the US.
In fact I think that is the general pattern. The designated enemies of the US can deem it necessary to display sabre rattling of an essentially defensive nature, but they by and large try hard to keep the door open for improvements in the relations.
There's also the possibility that the US already knows the explaination of the sounds but is embarassed about it so keeps quiet.
Clearly, any weapon this mysterious is backed by a resolved, national consensus. That much we know.
We also know that incompetence bests malice in the post season every damn time. So my guess is that they were targetting Canadians, but got a few passports mixed up, and ended up angering the Americans completely by accident.
Why Canada? Because the Cuban national consensus is *not* super keen right now to avoid pissing off Canadians.
The fingered waveform is suggestive of OFDM which would make the objective most likely communication, not physiological harm. But, hardly a pattern normally seen in nature. Perhaps some sort of intentionally-non-RF data exfiltration technology that worked without anyone noticing until someone tried to run a different modulation scheme over it.
Oh also, mandatory advice on what to do if you here this sound.
Someone had to do it.
The recording might not be authentic.
Sonic weaponry is not new and far from unknown... causing damage isn't even that hard. The question is whether they've perfected making specific targeted changes to a person with this tech.
For example: I could turn anyone into a mindless pile right now using little more than the pencil on my desk, BUT if I wanted to, instead, slightly change your behavior I'd need a *really fancy pencil ;)
The sound in the video is fairly similar to a mixture of a tornado siren and some cicadas but the length of the sample is too short.. would be interesting to do some waveform analysis on how the fluctuations change over a much longer period of time. The brain has a way of filtering out a fairly constant "annoying" sound so the fluctuations you can hear in the short segment probably have a fairly calculated variation pattern to continually force the brain's pattern matcher out of sync (while maybe at the same time gaming the matcher to change behavior with parts of the signal that don't change..)
Hacking the brain is fun! :-D
Americans killed by guns in recorded history: 0
Is that like that philosopher who insisted that nobody was killed by a sword, they died from not avoiding the sword?
Here's a shock for you, guns do kill people.
On a side note, concealed carry warning and brandishing probably stops that many robberies, rapes and murders in a week...
Because...you must think that attempted robberies, rapes, and murders are so common that there are thousands a week! What kind of crime-ridden world of fear do you live in?
Americans killed by medical mistakes each year: about 250,000
And we've got a whole group of people arguing about that problem too!
Americans killed by antibiotic resistant bacteria each year: 23,000
Also discussed.
Clearly guns are not that big a threat unless you are an alt left fascist progressive looking to dominate and subjugate the American people.
Nope, guns are a big threat to the American people, what with deaths from toddlers with guns, whereas imaginary fears of alt-left fascist progressives looking to dominate and subjugate the American people aren't a threat at all, except so insofar as they lead right-wing pseudo-conservative trolls to instigate feigned outrage in America.
Every dictator in the last 100 years from Stalin to Mao on down the line disarmed their people first and then murdered millions of them.
Nope. In fact, many dictators armed their people, then told them to go forth and kill "not their people" because well, that's a great way for dictators to keep power.
You must not be familiar with history.
Guns are in fact inanimate objects controlled by their wielder, which is why every LEO in the country carries one.
Guns, are in fact, tools that ought to be regulated like many other tools, such as lawnmowers, chainsaws, pressure washers, and nail guns, and no, not every LEO in the country carries one. For example. And some shouldn't.
Any group that uses "gun deaths" are political shills with no interest in truth.
I wonder if you realize that group includes yourself.
Gun deaths usually include suicides (who just use different methods in gun free countries), criminals shot by police or citizens, and other justified shootings that are actually a good thing for society and end up saving lives.
Nope, actually, they're not using different methods, the suicide rates are often lower, self-defense and other justified shootings are excluded from the counts though actually...the number of such shootings is a problem, not even counting the various incidents.
Sorry, I know you don't want there to be any problem except not having enough bullets for all those dirty leftists who you hate with all you
It might also be worth mentioning, then, that legal access to assisted suicide would reduce gun deaths by up to a third. Take a few other easy steps toward a better society (better social safety net, worthwhile education, fair economic opportunities, etc) and I think you could knock off another third.
We know magic doesn't exist, but sufficiently developed tech seems like magic. We know these incidents targeted only western diplomats in Cuba. So, it was created by people to harm other people. That is... a weapon.
Who could develop such a high tech weapon? Cubans or Russians?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Right.... show me the weapon, or even come up with some kind of explanation for what kind of weapon it actually might have been, and I might be inclined to believe you.
Megahertz-capable high-power ultrasonic transducers are commonly used in underwater applications. If you want to create a dangerous super-audible signal it is trivial. And phasing can deal with directionality. This is all a quite trivial extension of existing technology.
If you doubt that you can focus ultrasonic signals, think about what is now a nearly ubiquitous application of that. If you can't think of one, ask any pregnant woman to "see the pictures". If you can't imagine ultrasound being able to cause damage, ask any tree-hugger, I mean, whale-hugger, about US naval sonar -- another example of focused sound.
The mindset that there must have been some kind of intelligence behind it is entirely unsubstantiated superstition until you can at least *hypothesize* how it might actually happened.
Ok. Just did that. And since the damage was being done to US and Canadian citizens and not to a large number of Cubans, that makes a "natural process" very doubtful. Is there some genetic difference between US/Canadians and Cubans that would account for a difference in damage to someone's hearing?
Occam's razor.
Except of course for the fact that the tech you referred to couldn't cause this because if it could then they would know how the attack was done
Knowing one way of doing it is not proof that it was done that way. No, until they find the actual source they won't know how it was done, but they can guess. That's sure a lot more productive than repeated denials that it was being done based on ignorance of technology.
I bet that the people who are looking into this have theories, but they aren't giving you a daily briefing because you don't have a need to know. Nor do I. The difference between you and me appears to be that I can think of ways that current technology can be used to cause harm to people and you can't.
until we can show some real world working weapon that could have actually done this in those exact circumstances.
Yes, nobody can point to a secret weapon, so it doesn't exist. Nobody could point you to the A-bomb until we dropped a couple of them, and even then there was nothing left to point at. Apparently A-bombs are "natural phenomenon" because I can't point at the ones that wiped out Hiroshima or Nagasaki as proof of how it was done. Since I don't have access to any of them, I can't even point at an existing atomic weapon as a potential cause.
I wasn't alleging that there needs to be a complete proof that it was an attack before you can reasonably label it as one, I am saying that there needs to be proof that it *COULD* have been a weapon.... that is, the effects and the circumstances that surrounded them, could plausibly be caused by some weapon that is known to factually exist.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Sshhhh... they killed my fucking dog man... >:-(
I'm more inclined to believe that it's another state-actor or else a very, very large criminal enterprise, something on the international scale.
Of course it is a state actor. Also it seems very clear that it is probably a false flag op trying to create friction between Cuba and the US. Lets think about this: In recent years there are has been a considerable thawing of relations between the US and Cuba. Previously, it was a Soviet friendly country right off the coast of the US. If Cuba suddenly becomes A BFF with the US, what do you think happens to relations with Russia?
Moreover, Putin has signed off on outlandish 'James Bond' operations before. (Poisoning a journalist with radioactive material, conducing false flag terrorist bombings, etc.). Using exotic ultrasonic weapons to deafen embassy personnel sound like something right out of his playbook.
Police detectives look for motives when working on a case. I'd say Putin has a pretty good motive to keep US - Cuba relations on ice.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
You've cracked the case! These are excellent questions!
The answer to all of the above is Russia.
Oh... the answer that I came to was America. Except for the radioactive part of course.
What lies am I supposedly telling here? I never once said that it was certainly a natural occurrence, only that I'd be more inclined to suspect that it is one unless or until somebody has offered any proof that some sonic weapon which we *KNOW* can actually be built in the real world, and would actually cause the kinds of effects we are seeing here, and in those circumstances.
I'm not suggesting that they should necessarily offer some kind of irrefutable proof that it was a real attack to suggest that the idea that it was an attack should be more likely, I'm only suggesting that some kind of real evidence be shown of some *ACTUAL* weapon, that really does exist or that we *KNOW* that the technology exists to build, which can produce the kinds of effects that were observed here, not just offering the conjecture that it must have been some kind of super-secret sonic weapon that operates on some heretofore completely undiscovered principle just because we can't imagine what else it could have been. That's just paranoia, and not healthy scientific skepticism.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You misinterpreted my meaning.... it's my bad, however, I could have been more clear.
I did not mean to suggest that there's more about the universe than there is that we don't know about what humans CAN or COULD accomplish, I meant that there's more about the universe that we don't know than there is that we don't know about what humans have *actually* accomplished to date.
Offering the explanation that it was a sonic weapon presupposes that somebody has managed (past tense) to invent this thing, despite the fact that nobody around seems to really have the faintest clue how such a weapon would even actually work. While some sonic weapons do exist, none that are known to exist would (or could) have caused this... if it was a weapon, it is using some completely unknown technology to achieve its effects.
And at that point, you may as well say that it was UFO's and aliens.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The phrasing presupposes that it was a weapon... all we know is that only western diplomats in Cuba were affected. Sure,it might have been a weapon, but nobody's been plausibly able to show how such a weapon would have actually even worked, so there's no reason to presuppose that the technology exists anywhere without subscribing to conspiracy theories.
Now granted, some conspiracy theories turn out to be true, but there's a reason why anyone should approach such a theory with a healthy dose of skepticism, and never presume one to be true until you have reasonable basis to not only conclude the explanation within the theory to be probable, but consider it no less likely that such a secret could even be maintained.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Most suicides attempts are momentary lapses in impulse control. If it were extensively premeditated, people would wear diapers to control bowel release, and do it on a plastic sheet in the tub to not make a mess, or dig a hole in the woods and rig up a dump for quick burial.
So yeah, guns make it easy to successfully commit suicide. The easiest way there is. Point and click. Done. Usually. Sometimes you bleed out slowly, or are just brain damaged. Reducing gun availability makes it harder to commit suicide. Suicidal losers are brain damaged or lazy and unsuccessful, hence suicidal nature. Make it harder and they'll give up. One more thing they are not good at.
That's funny... because according to the article, nobody is able to figure out how the believed sonic weapon that did this would have actually worked.
Yet apparently, you can do it... cool.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Does any known technology exist that could have actually caused this to occur?
Intermodulation from multiple high power ultrasound transmitters.
That was basically what I was speculating on, and the possibility of using parabolic dishes or some other highly directional means to aim the signal at each point of emissions.
Think this XKCD but with a little less humor.
The descriptions we've had publicly released indicate that the points of effect are very narrow, sometimes as narrow as a single room, sometimes as narrow as the bed. If ultrasound transmitters are positioned in adjacent floors or adjacent buildings, or even in vans on the street, all trained on the room or the bed, then when the signals aren't overlapping they're not really having any effect, but where their paths overlap they intermodulate and that's where a human is medically affected.
What we haven't really been told is if these attacks have been on the personal residences of staff that are outside of the embassy, if they've been on official staff apartments within the embassy, and what the architecture and construction is. I expect all of these have been above-ground. As bedrooms I expect that there are windows, and if the weather in Cuba is like the weather in Hawaii, windows may be thin or may spend a lot of time open to the air. If there's essentially no barrier, then perhaps sleeping in a different part of the building with either no windows, or with windows that only open into a fully enclosed interior courtyard might prevent attacks from being practical, or if materials like dual-pane windows manage to block some kind of ultrasound or infrasound waves, install those and instruct staff to keep exterior-facing windows closed, only opening windows to interior courtyards at night.
Admittedly I'm not an acoustics expert but if they think that inaudible sound is causing the damage, it would seem that moving to where that sound cannot reach would be the simplest solution.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The descriptions we've had publicly released indicate that the points of effect are very narrow, sometimes as narrow as a single room, sometimes as narrow as the bed.
Reflections will cause phase cancellation and reinforcement. In extreme cases, the origin may be completely masked by this.
If ultrasound transmitters are positioned in adjacent floors or adjacent buildings, or even in vans on the street, all trained on the room or the bed, then when the signals aren't overlapping they're not really having any effect, but where their paths overlap they intermodulate and that's where a human is medically affected.
They may still have an effect but the nonlinearity will produce mixing products in the audible range.
The thing which puzzles me is that if ultrasound is being used, then it should be unambiguously detectable with the proper instrumentation. Even I could hack something together in a day. Ultrasound receivers usually include a focusing dish for both directivity and sensitivity but that would not be needed at high levels.
No... I responded to this... which isn't even an AC post, so I'm not sure how you thought I was responding to myself.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Ah... so of course all of the experts who are completely dumbfounded as to the actual cause of this even are overlooking this perfectly obvious explanation. Cool.
How did you get so smart?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In case of Sonic Attack on your district,
follow these rules...
If you are making love, it is imperative to bring all bodies to orgasm simultaneously
Do not waste time blocking your ears
Do not waste time seeking a soundproof shelter
Try to get as far away from the sonic source as possible, but do not panic...
Use your wheels, it is what they are for
Small babies may be placed inside the special cocoons, which should be left if possible, in a shelter
Do not attempt to use your own limbs
If no wheels are available, metal, not organic, limbs should be employed whenever practical...
Remember, in the case of Sonic Attack,
Survival does mean every man for himself
Statistically more people survive
if they think only of themselvesDo not attempt to rescue friends,
relatives, or loved ones.
You have only a few seconds to escape
Use those seconds sensibly or you will inevitably die
Do not panic
Think only of yourselves...
These are the first signs of Sonic Attack:
You will notice small objects, such as ornaments, oscillating.
You will notice a vibration in your diaphragm
You will hear a distant hissing in your ears
You will feel dizzy
You will feel the need to vomit
There will be bleeding from orifices
There will be an ache in the pelvic region
You may be subject to fits of hysterical shouting,
or even laughter
These are all sign of imminent Sonic destruction
Your only real protection is flight
If you are less than ten years old,
then remain in your shelter and use your cocoon
But remember: You can help no-one else,
No-one else,
No-one else...
Read more: Hawkwind - Sonic Attack Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Ban gangs in cities; only gang farmers should be allowed.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
"Sound experts and physicians say they know of no sound that can cause physical damage", but there is indeed one that the japanese use on a regular basis against my Sea Shepherd comrades! It's called the LRAD. The Long Range Acoustic Device's purpose is to make sound - lots of sound. It produces very loud sound that is audible over relatively long distances. But it's not limited to producing painful noise for use as a weapon which causes disorientation. It can also amplify voices or recordings to a level that is loud and clear but not painful or debilitating. It's usually used for "non-lethal, non-kinetic crowd control". https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Ah... so of course all of the experts who are completely dumbfounded as to the actual cause of this even are overlooking this perfectly obvious explanation. Cool.
How did you get so smart?
Did you mean the engineering experts at the embassy? I bet they have a lot of those. Any expert can be defeated with politics.
The question was about "any known technology" and I answered it. There is a trivial test which could have immediately identified if this was the cause yet it has not been done and this is months later. My conclusion is that there are no experts involved or at least there were none during the extended time that whatever it was was going on. Is that so surprising when politicians are in charge?
I doubt dissent is looked upon fondly within the cuban government. If Raul Castro wants to be nice to america in return for not being embargoed to hell and back, theres a good chance department heads know disobeying President Castro is a good way to get gulaged.
But now you mention it, russians on the other hand, DO have a motive, which is to say it probably isn't fond of its old vassal state fluttering its eyelids in admiration to its former (and russias current) nemesis. Unfortunately for Russia, The USA is the quarterback in this highschool love triangle, so all spurned Russia can do is pass whispers around accusing cuba of being bit of a loose woman and, uh, deploying crazy accoustic weapons (?). If indeed it is a sound weapon, the fact it makes the US government look even crazier than trump already bonkers contributions to international politics , makes such an approach more interesting.
HOWEVER As to the scientific validity of it, the fact its supposed to be *high pitched* instead of some sort of bowel upsetting low rumble has me skeptical at best.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
So if the data is suppressed (and your article confirms it is not collected at all in some jurisdictions), how do you know there is a trend of gun violence specifically in poor black neighbourhoods
By paying attention. Something that most people don't do now. When the CBC is saying the same thing, there might, maybe, possibly, maybe, be something there.
Or you can ignore it all, along with people saying the same thing. Take your pick.
Om, nomnomnom...
More like blaming a lack of guard rails.
So when someone climbs a crossing, walks along a set of tracks, gets on a bridge and jumps onto the ground below it's because of a lack of guard rails? Brilliant. Fences everywhere then right? You'll be taking up collection along the grand canyon first I'm guessing.
Om, nomnomnom...
So when someone climbs a crossing, walks along a set of tracks, gets on a bridge and jumps onto the ground below it's because of a lack of guard rails?
This is an awfully specific bridge that you're talking about. Maybe it wasn't a very good analogy to begin with? Maybe when I said, "more like," I didn't mean, "exactly like"? Maybe you should read the rest of what I said instead of focusing on your own dumb analogy?
I am saying that there needs to be proof that it *COULD* have been a weapon.... could plausibly be caused by some weapon that is known to factually exist.
You want proof of something that nobody it going to tell YOU about because it is probably classified. I've already presented a reasonable hypothesis of how such a weapon could operate even if I cannot prove that it exists. By demanding proof that the weapon exists you demand something you know cannot be provided to you, and so you will never accept anything by "natural causes", no matter how unlikely it is that a "natural cause" would impact only US and Canadian diplomats and nobody else.
No... I responded to this... which isn't even an AC post, so I'm not sure how you thought I was responding to myself.
Because the broken /. message display system (maybe the "classic" version, I don't know) when not showing a message that is below the mod cutoff indents the messages incorrectly to make it look like the reply was to something else. For example, I see two comments in a row from you, one that appears to be a reply to yourself.
And the broken /. display system doesn't clearly identify which is "parent" when the "read parent" link is selected. I've gotten entire threads displayed by doing that, and I have to still guess which is the parent being replied to.
That's why is it is good to quote some context from the parent so everyone knows.
The last time the definition of terrorism was redefined it became so vague as to make very single civil rights spokesman from the 1960s into a terrorist.
We actually need a succinct definition of "terrorist acts" so there is some standard for the term.
Currently, you are a terrorist if you say " is an ignorant putz and should be removed from office, preferably in handcuffs at gunpoint." You become a terrorist for trying to influence a change in government policy by threatening violence.
NRRPT/RCT