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The State Department has not provided further details about the medical condition of the affected staffers. But government officials have suggested anonymously that the diplomats may have been assaulted with some sort of sonic weapon.
Experts in acoustics, however, say that's a theory more appropriate to a James Bond movie.
Sound can cause discomfort and even serious harm, and researchers have explored the idea of sonic weaponry for years. But scientists doubt a hidden ultrasound weapon can explain what happened in Cuba.
"I'd say it's fairly implausible," said Jürgen Altmann, a physicist at the Technische Universität Dortmund in Germany and an expert on acoustics.
Once again, the New York Times gets it wrong. James Bond is not the movie genre they're looking for.
mrpg also brings us this less-critical AP report, What Americans Heard in Cuba Attacks: The Sound.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @04:30PM (14 children)
"It's a failure mode of human cognition and means something isn't working right."
(that is a pretty awesome turn of phrase btw.)
While mass hysteria may be a factor, in which direction?
There is confirmation bias in modern culture that the whole thing is irrational. Consider the source of the bias, and the merits of the bias, and at least I'm compelled to try and compensate for it somewhat. Which is to say that hysteria declaring it to be bullshit is as likely to exist as hysteria declaring it to be true.
However, there are such things as a freq counters and wave form analysis software. Somebody complained. Somebody else looked into it. When the looked into it, they would have used tools to do that, and those tools would have produced data. So there is a guy somewhere who knows.
That guy was almost surely not the guy who talked to the press. So the whole faf will flutter in the public consciousness for a while, and then be filed under "kook alert", when in fact something may have actually happened. Then it will reinforce negative confirmation bias, for the next case of battery by electronic harassment.
Note that the development of in flight radar was concealed using stories about carrots. Today that wartime propaganda about it is still repeated as the old wives tale about carrots improving your night vision.
Looking at all the kookery surrounding electronic harassment in the same light, gives a different view.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 19 2017, @06:05PM (13 children)
The "old wives tale" also happens to be true [nutrition.org]. The linked research article discusses the link between vitamin A which is in large concentrations in carrots (actually beta carotene which is transformed to vitamin A in the body) and improved vision, including improved low-light vision.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday October 19 2017, @06:59PM (12 children)
Your linked article says nothing of the sort. It discusses the link between a deficient diet and deficient vision. Not improved vision.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 19 2017, @09:33PM (8 children)
Either way is fine. You would agree that not having deficient vision is an improvement over having deficient vision, right? When discussing a relative quality, there are numerous equivalent ways to describe it.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday October 19 2017, @10:12PM (7 children)
No.
In the context of the discussion, an improvement would have to be something better than normal.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 19 2017, @10:24PM (6 children)
And here, normal is a vitamin A-deficient diet. There's no point to this argument.
(Score: 3, Touché) by NewNic on Thursday October 19 2017, @11:05PM (5 children)
We know that, wherever you are, normal means deficient, but I don't think that the deficiencies are limited to your diet.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 20 2017, @02:51PM (4 children)
You once again seized on a red herring (in the above example net immigration to California is completely irrelevant to whether more Californians are immigrating to Colorado and other nearby states than people from the rest of the US) and start ad hominem attacking. Here's your gold star for participation!
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday October 20 2017, @04:54PM (3 children)
Am I starting to needle you? Good.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 20 2017, @05:33PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday October 20 2017, @07:03PM (1 child)
The truth hurts some times, doesn't it?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 20 2017, @07:10PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @09:45PM (2 children)
Marijuana, however, does improve your night vision.
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Thursday October 19 2017, @10:01PM (1 child)
Mushrooms Really improve night vision!
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday October 20 2017, @01:24PM
Peyote for the win!
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.