from the I'm-sorry-but-I-can't-hear-you... dept.
"Dr. Glen MacPherson doesn't remember the first time he heard the sound. It may have started at the beginning of 2012, a dull, steady droning like that of a diesel engine idling down the street from his house in the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. A lecturer at the University of British Columbia and high school teacher of physics, mathematics and biology, months passed before MacPherson realized that the noise, which he'd previously dismissed as some background nuisance like car traffic or an airplane passing overhead, was something abnormal."
"It's a very, very low wavelength noise, perhaps between 50 or 56 Hz," Moir told Mic. "And it's extremely difficult to stop infrasound because it can have a wavelength of up to 10 meters, and you'd need around 2.5 meter thick walls, built with normal materials, to keep it out. It gets into our wooden houses very easily. And part of the reason people have so much trouble identifying the source of it is because of how low frequency the Hum is: It literally moves right through your head before you can figure out which ear picked it up first."
also see...
http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_18_4_deming.pdf
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/jul/22/research.science3
From the map shown in the article there seems to be quite a concentration of this in and around New Hampshire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @06:05AM
The Democrats are causing it! Eight years ago the Republicans were causing it! I know it's true because the hum said so!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday July 07 2014, @06:27AM
This happens every summer in Seattle.
Its the Midshipman Fish calling for its mate.
http://www.king5.com/news/cities/seattle/West-Seattle-hum-could-be-FISH-168853826.html [king5.com] 2012
Actual Sound clip: http://westseattleblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/duwamish-noise.m4a [westseattleblog.com]
http://www.ultrasen.com/mysterious-seattle-hum-blamed-on-fish/ [ultrasen.com] 2014
I suspect its the same fish in BC, don't know about the East coast tho.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday July 08 2014, @09:07AM
You can't fool me, I know the real source. Cthulhu is snoring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @06:29AM
Can the typical microphone on on a smartphone detect sound in that frequency range?
If so, it seems like it would be useful to have an app that detects the hum and logs it so we could get better than anecdotal reporting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @07:54AM
There are a number of vibration monitoring apps, by the sensors in your typical smartphone are going to be too high a frequency, you'd need to do some filtering.
But it's much funner to give than to receive, AutoZen will* blow your mind.
http://www.linuxlabs.com/autozen.shtml [linuxlabs.com]
* offer void in the State of California
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 07 2014, @12:45PM
"in that frequency range"
What range is that? This is a trick question because no one knows.
Talk to an EE type about intermodulation distortion. You can feed two beautiful pure sinewaves at 1.001 MHz and 1 MHz at "too high of a level" into any circuit component of any sort (active or passive) that is not perfectly linear in response (and yes, there are non-linear respone passive components, duh, even ones that don't officially involve semiconductors) and you'll get a nice 1 KHz signal out of mixing products. And mixing products can mix against other mixing products. And no matter how good of a scientific instrument you use you'll never see a 1 KHz signal in the input, in fact the better and lower distortion of a spectrum analyzer you use, the less likely you'll see any distortion products at all.
My grandfather flew multiengine bombers in WWII and had weird stories about what happens when engine RPMs are close but not the same. Parts of the plane violently shaking, stuff like that. Any individual engine outputs a simple repetitive clean signal around 10 Hz or whatever depending on RPM, but the mixing products were nuts.
Might be two switching power supplies on two battery chargers in your house one switching at 50.000 KHz and one at 50.0001 KHz and those two signals get in your ear, nonlinearily mix, and your ear goes completely bonkers although no 1/10th Hz signal exists other than in your nonlinear ear.
And if you think your ear innards and your auditory perceptual system are linear, not non-linear, I've got a bridge to sell you.
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Monday July 07 2014, @04:46PM
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 07 2014, @05:09PM
Hmm the EE interpretation of that stuff is it starts out with some fairly sensible intermodulation distortion happening inside the brain (hmm, well, OK, plausible at least) by piping different signals in each ear, and then it starts to fly off the handle into soft science land complete with biorhythms and astrological charts and perceptions and feelings.
No I'm just talking about plain old reciprocal and non-reciprocal signal mixing. This stuff does seem magical to non-EE non-RF non-analog types but its not magic and I would guess sound in an eardrum non-linear mixes resulting in weird sum/difference products just as well as radio signals in a mixer stage... The world in general is unfortunately less linear than the general public would like to believe. Ask anyone who's tracked down EMI/EMC/RFI problems for some fun stories, which although RF probably apply to audio too.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday July 07 2014, @09:07PM
There is an unfortunate tendency to go into the weeds in the community interested in binaural beats.
But the fundamental principle is reasonably sound. Because hearing is actually a fairly dynamic process complete with brain generated counter signals to better characterize what you're hearing and phase discrimination to locate the sound, there are many opportunities to inject a signal (but not with precision, alas). Since the effect doesn't work if the L and R signals are mixed before you get to the headphones, it seems the beat frequency is the result of neural processing in that case, not the sounds mixing on the eardrum.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday July 10 2014, @01:54AM
Thanks for the insight on multiple sources intermodulating. I could see where your grandpa really picked up an education on the practical aspects of intermodulation by demonstration. I believe you nailed it why I seem to sense strong infrasound around amusement parks.. several large motors, vibrating the ground, but at very slightly different frequencies, all driven from 60Hz mains, but slipping a bit as induction motors do when you load them.
I get the strong idea its infrasound that makes animals seem to be far more aware of an impending earthquake than we seem to be.
Now one thing about running multiple SMPS together... I have inadvertently made extremely chaotic systems that way. Once I read James Gleick's book on chaos, I finally understood what I had done. It seemed so strange to hook together two power converters, only to have the thing seemingly work perfectly, then one day, BAM!, they take everything connected to them out for no apparent reason. And that was it... intermodulation products screwing up the loop filters.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @01:42PM
Most cell phones don't have good enough microphones for that, and unless they're recorded in wav or flac will likely dump those frequencies anyway. Also, according to the study; the "hum" is perceived as a sound but is more likely a electromagnetic phenomenon.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday July 07 2014, @06:53AM
I find the noise produced by helicopter rotors quite upsetting. It appears to be down in the tens of hertz range. It causes giddiness, nausea, and loss of "thinking right".
Sometimes, upon hearing it, I see colors, usually nauseating colors, not bright ones. - and smell nauseating odors as well - similar to what one would expect from a dumpster behind a restaurant - yet I know it is some sort of artifact, as soon as the helicopter pilot decides to take his craft elsewhere, everything returns to normal.
Large machinery with resonances in that frequency range will do it too. I do not know if its coming in through my ears or through another channel, as I experience identical feelings on boats - but only if the engine is running. The small boats do not do this.. its the big ones with the big diesels.
I had noticed it as well around amusement parks. Uncalled-for fear / nausea / giddiness.
I remain convinced there is something in me reacting to extremely low frequencies - but I cannot seem to nail it down.
Several minutes of it and I am not in my right mind and I am ready to climb the walls.
Anyone else have any insight on it?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday July 07 2014, @07:27AM
It would be interesting to know if you have this same reaction to recordings, perhaps some of those on This Page [soundbible.com] and see of you experience these effects when it is when it is simply sound, or if you need to have the associated pressure waves strong enough to be felt in addition to being heard.
I hate driving with a setting sun coming through stands of trees. The flicker drives me nuts. Same for any scene on a large screen or Movie screen that includes a strobe effect. But for me, there is no colors or smells involved, just a headache.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday July 07 2014, @08:12AM
Thanks for the link, Frojack!
I will be bring my headset in and see if it does it. I have my doubts that the equipment can reproduce the pressure waves, but I will find out.
I am surprised you do not experience visual patterns and colors on the flicker. A strobe light can cause me to hallucinate all sorts of various geometric patterns and colors at certain frequencies, and unlike the helicopter rotor, the effect is pleasant, albeit I prefer to be seated during the experience - as I will become quite disorientated. This will happen only on a quite narrow range of frequencies. Around 12 Hz or so... Pulse width seems to make no difference, as staring at an LED driven from a square wave will do the same thing.
I can drive a white LED at that frequency, and I honestly could not tell you which color the LED appears to be!
This was sufficiently puzzling to me that I had already done some research and apparently what I am seeing is related to a
Benham's Disk [dailymail.co.uk].
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday July 07 2014, @08:18AM
Oh, incidentally, the graphic on the link I offered does animate for me, but does not "trip" me. I believe its not hitting me at the correct frequency. What I experience only happens at a specific frequency. Too high or low and I either do or do not perceive it as blinking. At the critical frequency, I cannot tell you what it is doing - all I see are geometrical patterns.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by hendrikboom on Monday July 07 2014, @03:33PM
Sounds like a form of epilepsy to me, even though IANAD. My first wife had this, and one of the neurological exams done on her was to measure her brain response to flickering strobe lights. Subjectively, during the test, she had visual effects like the ones you describe.
I tried looking at flickering strobe lighte myself at various frequencies, but had no such effects.
My wife eventually died from a convulsion at a dangerous moment.
If you have any other reasons for alarm, perhaps you should have yourself checked out by a neurologist.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday July 09 2014, @12:49AM
As far as the multicolored visual snow and disorientation I experience seeing lights blinking at a certain frequency, I feel I did nothing more than rediscover what Benham ( I have posted his link in this thread ) hand noted over a century ago.
Maybe its related to "the brown note" ( SouthPark did an episode on it ), however the jury's [abovetopsecret.com] out on that one. [youtube.com] . Some say there is, some say its not. My own personal experience seems to vindicate there is such a thing, however it takes a pretty massive source of energy at a certain frequency to pull it off.
I tried the helicopter audio link by Frojack. No reaction. Nothing more than I get from a lawnmower.
I used to live close to a regional airport frequented by lots of small planes... never noticed anything like this from that either. I remember a lot of complaints about noise, but it wasn't the kind of noise that did me in, it was just noise noise - like a lawnmower. Mildly irritating, but not nauseating or would make me irrationally angry.
I believe it would probably take a huge speaker to get the kind of low-frequency pressure wave out that gets to me like that.
Everything in me says its not epilepsy, but some sort of simple resonance. The same thing that would destroy a bridge if cars or soldiers marched across in cadence at a certain frequency. The same phenomena that made mincemeat of big steel shafts in some machinery I had made. The reason I got the full attention of the security guards at Six Flags amusement park when I discovered a rope bridge there had very high Q to it and I started physically exciting it at resonance to demonstrate resonance to my sister, who seemed to really enjoy the ride, as I had her flipping all over the place at the other node.
Resonance is a funny thing. I used to have a little hemispherical bowl of water on the stand where I have a grinding wheel mounted. If I had the thing about 2/3 full of water and turn the grinding wheel off, as the wheel slows down, the water passed through a resonance mode where it would first make a pattern of round ripples, then gather itself in the center and make a quite tall column of water right in the center of the bowl, then go away as the wheel dropped out of resonance.
YouTube has a rather unusual thingie on resonance here.. [youtube.com]
Incidentally, there are some ultrasonic frequencies I have discovered that feels like someone driving an icepick through my head. I have every reason to believe what is happening is almost identical to that YouTube link on resonance in my cochlea.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by khedoros on Monday July 07 2014, @10:11PM
Anyhow, I'd try seeing a neurologist. While the effects that you experience don't sound too bad, I'd want to make sure that there wasn't a more harmful symptom waiting to pop up.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Monday July 07 2014, @12:26PM
Isn't it obvious? It's the fnords!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 07 2014, @12:31PM
I've heard people with migraine headaches report the same symptoms. Possibly whatever they use to control migraines would work on you. Possibly this has absolutely nothing to do with either the cause of your problem or with masking the symptoms.
More specifically in a completely different direction: my mother in law reports some chronic symptoms, although not nearly as bad as yours, WRT some middle/inner ear weirdness which she takes medication for. Its possible you've got it worse. Sounds totally likely if your vestibular system is just barely operational and some weird auditory signals come in then your inner ear system resonates and finishes going nuts.
Even more specifically in yet another direction: I've had a bad ear infection where I basically felt seasick on land. So obviously I'm having a stroke, right? At urgent care they're all like, your ear is so infected I'm sure you literally can't tell which way is up without using your eyes and muscles, resulting in what boils down to intense seasickness. Couple days of antibiotics and I felt great. When you're dizzy and puking you don't really notice your ears are somewhat sore, even if thats actually the root cause. You might just have a chronic infection that brings you right to, but not over, the brink and all you need is a rumbly truck or helicopter to send you over the edge.
I suspect you'll be in for an interesting time exploring the orthogonal relationship of curing causes vs masking symptoms, and probably some fun with moving baselines along non-linear response curves.
If you want to fool around with masking symptoms next time thunderstorms roll thru or you get to hang out by a big diesel you could try those anti-sea sickness patches and see if its better (or possibly worse?)
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Monday July 07 2014, @01:48PM
Same happened to me, but the infection was viral instead of bacterial; ergo, no antibiotics. I was down for a week with sandbags on either side of my head to prevent motion.
On-topic for the discussion, the GP should definitely get his ears checked by a doctor to see if infection is an issue.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday July 09 2014, @01:07AM
Thanks for the interest... I am pretty sure I have no infections. This has been going on for years, and completely correlates to sources of ultrasound pressure waves. Things of a fast whoomp-whoomp-whoomp nature. You will only hear the whoomp if its not a sine wave driver and what you would be hearing is the harmonics. It does not seem to be the harmonics that get to me... rather it is that low frequency driver, which I can't even hear... Kinda like some ultrasonics that I have noted certain ones are very painful, yet I can't hear it or tell where its coming from. I can't even tell its a sound... its kinda like instant headache on a dial.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday July 09 2014, @02:21AM
I have been trying to figure out this thing for some time now.
I flat do not like to be anywhere in public or around other people when this happens. I am highly likely to make an ass of myself big-time.
Its almost as if I were being compelled to drive when I know I am flat-ass drunk.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Monday July 07 2014, @01:32PM
Technically, the referenced frequency is not infrasound. The textbook definition for the audio spectrum is 20Hz-20kHz. There's some perceptual wiggle at the bottom depending on how pulsed or smooth the wave-shape is, but anything in the 50-60 Hz range is definitely going to be audible as a low pitch rather than a series of discrete events.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @02:44PM
You know what causes memory loss and cognative impairment? Slamming your head against something. Several months back I accidentally did this and to this day I still have headaches.
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Monday July 07 2014, @06:18PM
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Monday July 07 2014, @09:18AM
The article is a little ambiguous as to whether the hum has been measured with a microphone. It just says that the "general consensus among sufferers is that the Hum is comprised of very low frequency". Rather vague. Further down it does say that the "sonic fingerprint" has been measured and gives a few details, but overall I'm surprised how little quantitative information there is.
The other point is that the map of where it occurs isn't as informative as it might appear at first pass. The reason is that the points on the map are highly correlated with population density. The regions where there aren't a lot of reports are the regions where there aren't a lot of people. So, basically, the hum occurs everywhere with pretty much equal likelihood. This is obvious both from the population density [modernsurvivalblog.com] maps and from the light pollution map [astro-observer.com], which is a good proxy for population density.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday July 07 2014, @03:01PM
Obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com].
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday July 07 2014, @04:43PM
I too found that article full of air and little enlightenment. Crazywwild speculation and mixing of sourced.
The fish story i posted is true, an any place near coastal waters is likely to have a seasonal influx of these fish, as they gather to mate in huge numbers and can put out quite a din that travels through water and land for quite some distance.
When you hear it, it can be impossible to tell what direction it is coming from and the fish like to sing at night when normal noise levels are lower, making the fish singing all the more noticeable.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @10:24AM
at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum [wikipedia.org] lists many occurrences and possible explanations. Though a mechanical source is plausible, my guess is that it is some form of tinnitus and possibly some form of 'folie a deux' as well..
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Monday July 07 2014, @10:50AM
If it was genuine tinnitus you could stick a sensitive microphone into a sufferer's ear and you would pick up the sound. I wonder if this has been tried.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @01:51PM
No.
Source: WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Monday July 07 2014, @05:46PM
Some forms of tinnitus are acoustically measurable. The cochlear is the organ that detects sound. This happens by cochlear hair cells picking up vibrations along what is known as the basilar membrane, which effectively does an FFT on the incoming sound. So different frequencies cause resonances at different points along the membrane. To stop these frequencies spreading too far and "sharpen" the representation of sound, there are classes of hair cell which can alter the stiffness of the membrane. The manner in which this happens is based on acoustic feedback. So the sounds you hear are transduced into nerve impulses that travel along the auditory nerve. There is early processing of this information that happens in the brainstem. Some of this information is is sent *back* to the cochlear and used to modulate the stiffness of the basilar membrane. When this goes wrong, you get tinnitus (at least some forms of tinnitus occur this way). So the tinnitus you hear can be caused by the basilar membrane being driven inappropriately. In other words, it vibrates based upon descending information from the brain. The basilar membrane is connected to the eardrum by some little bones. Thus, centrally-generated vibrations in the basilar membrane move the eardrum, causing it to behave like a little speaker. These sounds can be picked up by a microphone, if the tinnitus is generated this way.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday July 07 2014, @10:39AM
Nice to know I an not crazy. Do you get this when you have difficult decisions to make, like whether to kill someone to ascend to the throne, just in the instance that you might so ascend, or just all the time? I would rather like to know. And is it a "Brown Note"? That would also be helpful to know. And if would be helpful to know if you have negative reaction to people being flippant about your condition, because, since we cannot hear what you claim to hear, we would not know when to be alert for the reactions that the alleged hearing may cause.
Have we had enough of Homoepathogoicallicamy on Solyent News yet? We do have a well established solution at hand, you know. Solyent Green is the cure for hearing strange noises! Yes it is! Just step this way! ::thud::
(Score: 3, Funny) by lx on Monday July 07 2014, @12:21PM
Interestingly, spasms in the general region of the patella are very common when discussing these phenomena.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday July 07 2014, @12:32PM
I've been making a list for myself of stories that appear over and over each year on slow news days like holiday weekends. The 24/7 news cycle has these go-to stories to fill up the cycle when nothing is happening.
- mysterious sound no one can hear
- what happens to your digital life when you die
- eliminate the penny coin
- cursive handwriting is dying out
- polls and other filler presented as news
- studies that find a correlation between two things but no causation
I don't count the endless parade of authors promoting the books they're selling, because that is filler all the time, not just on slow days.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday July 07 2014, @03:15PM
The period variously known as the silly season [wikipedia.org] occurs due to annual holidays and a lack of academic, sport and political news. When this happens, journalists get desperate to meet deadlines and all kinds of crazes, nutjobs and pranks get featured. It is, however, a relatively easy time to promote business interests.
1702845791×2
(Score: 1) by hendrikboom on Monday July 07 2014, @04:33PM
The Netherlands lost its penny a few decades ago. People just couldn't get enough of them to make change. Everyone wondered where tall the pennies were going. The mint reported it was making just as many pennies as always. Storekeepers started giving out change in the form of candies, because they could still buy candies.
I'm not sure how they resolved it, but I suspect that the government eventually decided to abolish the penny.
In Canada, we just abolished the penny recently. Bills are rounded to the nearest multiple of five cents when paid in cash. For credit cards and cheques and such, no rounding is done.
For a while my local grocery store rounded every bill down (and never up), saving me a nickel about half the time. It seemed like a nice gesture to give the illusion of benefiting the customer, even though raising their prices just a fraction of a cent on the average would probably compensate for it, unnoticed.
After a few months, they started rounding properly, so I suspect it had just been a bug in their cash register software.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @01:27PM
I've heard it, but in specific circumstances rather than specific places - every time I took ketamine (or methoxetamine). It always sounds like it's coming from outside the room, just down the road, a few hundred feet away, and sounds very close to a large idling diesel engine. This is reproducible between different people, different times, and different places. We called it "the hum of the world".
So my guess for the source would be a) it is an artefact of the brain possibly triggered by a pollutant (which would account for it being localised and for lots of people hearing it), or b) it's not sound, but something else (radio waves?) that the brain can only interpret as sound, again possibly triggered by a pollutant making you more sensitive to it.
My two cents.
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Monday July 07 2014, @02:10PM
A court order closed a gas fired power station in Melbourne for sound issues in 2007.
http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/health-risk-to-close-power-plant/story-e6frf7kx-1111113511468?nk=7b0b61ea958328fd55cab6a783787600 [heraldsun.com.au]
Not sure if infrasound was confirmed to be issue in that case but could be related.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @05:34PM
I hear this noise all the time. It usually emanates from jacked-up, late 80s model cars with chrome rims.
(Score: 1) by arashi no garou on Monday July 07 2014, @06:59PM
There's a train that runs between my house and the town just south of us, and in that town someone has registered "the hum" on the above linked website. What they described sounds like a train, and what my wife and I hear sounds like one too. We're about 1.2 miles north of the tracks, and the report came from someone who lives very near the tracks. Due to the nature of that town (former hub/depot) trains always move slowly through there, and so the sound lasts for up to 30 minutes some days.
My wife hears it much more clearly than I do; usually she hears it first and if I strain I can hear it. Stepping outside the house makes it quite audible.
I'm making a wild assumption here, but I wouldn't be surprised if many of these occurrences around the world are trains.
(Score: -1) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @09:39PM
tru dat!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rune of Doom on Monday July 07 2014, @07:16PM
Years ago, I was living in an old (early 1900s) house converted into apartments. There was a barely audible hum that I couldn't drown out with any sort of white noise. The hum would start late in the evening, and continue until the early hours of the morning. Given that was when my work schedule required me to sleep, I spent a month slowly going non-functional from sleep-deprivation, while trying everything imaginable to block it, drown it out, or find the source. Multiple visits to medical specialists. Did reading on the Taos Hum and similar reports. Even went so far as to get the landlord to shut down power to the entire building in the middle of the night, which did nothing but convince my neighbors I was going crazy.
Finally figured out that it was somehow connected to pressure in the antiquated plumbing. It started after everyone was asleep and there was zero water outflow from house plumbing. It would disappear in the morning, because other residents of the building would get up and start their daily routine, including turning on taps. The fix was to leave a tap running on low overnight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @09:45PM
maybe the evil fire elementals that were attempting to open a portal into this dimension in your apartment were frightened off by their fear of the running water.
seriously, that's a fascinating story you have there - the real one.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Monday July 07 2014, @10:05PM
idk, your version sounds pretty interesting too
(Score: 2) by yellowantphil on Tuesday July 08 2014, @12:59AM
That isn't "very, very low"--I can occasionally sing that low, first thing in the morning. 55 Hz is the A a few ledger lines below the bass clef: MIDI note A1 [wolframalpha.com]. A bass guitar can play down to about 40 Hz.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 08 2014, @07:13AM
MYSTERY SOLVED! So The Hum is nothing but yellowantphil singing in the morning, possibly accompanied by a bass guitar.