Ray Gun Puts Voices Inside Your Head 517
Sportsqs writes "The Sierra Nevada Corporation claimed this week that it is ready to begin production on the MEDUSA, a damned scary ray gun that uses the 'microwave audio effect' to implant sounds and perhaps even specific messages inside people's heads."
Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
There you guys sit, all laughing at me at pointing and jeering at my Tinfoil Hat 3000(tm), but look who's sitting pretty now! Ha! Fsckers!
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
There you guys sit, all laughing at me at pointing and jeering at my Tinfoil Hat 3000(tm), but look who's sitting pretty now! Ha! Fsckers!
You won't be sitting pretty when you shiny new hat starts to spark and arc like a fork in the microwave!
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, that's the REAL purpose of this weapon - something to use against all the tinfoil hats out there!
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
Something tells me these are not the droids I'm looking for...
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
i agree and the wonderful folks at sierra nevada deserve more grant money
i agree and the wonderful folks at sierra nevada deserve more grant money
i agree and the wonderful folks at sierra nevada deserve more grant money
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
1) Subliminal messages don't work. It's a sham that a psychologist made with fake data,,,
That's right! It's nothing but a load of rich creamery butter!
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Informative)
TFA doesn't give much in technical details, but as I understand it, they are using the human skull as a heterodyne circuit. Basically mixing two microwave signals inside the skull to create audio.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Subliminal messages don't work. It's a sham that a psychologist made with fake data that scared the crap out of politicians so that a law was implemented quickly and people fear it to this day (though I still do fear spammers using this, as they have no morals).
So... Why exactly do you fear it if it doesn't work?
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Subliminal messages don't work. It's a sham that a psychologist made with fake data that scared the crap out of politicians so that a law was implemented quickly and people fear it to this day (though I still do fear spammers using this, as they have no morals).
So... Why exactly do you fear it if it doesn't work?
Because audible spam in my head would be even worse than the e-mailed spam in my in-box or the visible spam on billboards (and bus stops, sides of buildings/cars, etc.)
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
Because audible spam in my head would be even worse than the e-mailed spam in my in-box or the visible spam on billboards (and bus stops, sides of buildings/cars, etc.)
Nah -- the voices already in my head will be able to shout it down...
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:4, Informative)
I saw this last week in New Scientist [newscientist.com]. You're jumping to some very flase conclusions. It has nothing to do with subliminal messages. From the linked article:
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Interesting)
I see enormous benefits in this technology.
1. Listening to music as loud as you want while not forcing it on others
2. Rocking out to the loudest concert in history without anyone outside the venue hearing a whisper of it (on second thought, the RIAA might require this, so maybe it's not so good)
3. Throwing a gigantic party with great tunes while letting the geezer next door -- who never listens to anything harder than Captain and Tennille -- get his beauty sleep
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
80,000 ACDC fans screaming "....TNT, I'm Dynamite...." out of tune ..... nothing peaceful about that....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Rocking out to the loudest concert in history without anyone outside the venue hearing a whisper of it (on second thought, the RIAA might require this, so maybe it's not so good)
Followed by a dead-black spaceship plummeting into a nearby sun.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm...
Now avoiding TFA like the plague, it occurs to me that "shockwaves" within the skull able to cause hydrostatic pressure loads comparable to 120+ decibels (is that loud enough for ya?) hitting your eardrums might just damage something other than eardrums.
But lets not even think about the fine possibilities such as massive damage on the cellular level - just consider the overpressures that could be set up within blood vessels. It will be interesting to see if there is any increase in "massive cerebral hemorrage" as a cause of death going forward.
Or an increase in the wearing of hats by the political class anytinme they give a speech :)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
1) Subliminal messages don't work. It's a sham that a psychologist made with fake data that scared the crap out of politicians so that a law was implemented quickly and people fear it to this day (though I still do fear spammers using this, as they have no morals).
Yeah, I can account to this. Back in when I was in a course in psychology we did a blind study and on sublidrinkminal messduffages to influbeerence a taste test. One side we would set it up with out a subliminals being piped in in the music and one with. The resdrinkults were wimorethin 2% of eaduffch other. We beerconcluded that subliminal messages where bullshit.
Equality (Score:5, Funny)
It's like curing Schizophrenia the backwards way!
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to make fun of you, but then my new friend Roger told me not to.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ahhh! You sound just like Jake!
I AM laughing at you! (Score:5, Funny)
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/ [mit.edu]
Conclusion
The helmets amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. According to the FCC, These bands are supposedly reserved for ''radio location'' (ie, GPS), and other communications with satellites (see, for example, [3]). The 2.6 Ghz band coincides with mobile phone technology. Though not affiliated by government, these bands are at the hands of multinational corporations.
It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings.
Ha Ha!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been saying this all along. Tinfoil hats,and Faraday cage like devices in general, can't be relied upon unless they're grounded.
In many cases, you'll get significant attenuation without grounding, as in the case of foil shields for protecting passport RFIDs, but grounding, even imperfect grounding, would improve shielding tremendously.
Obviously, you should run a wire from your tinfoil hat to a conductive grounding strip attached to the heel of your shoe. Then you replace your floors with carbon impr
Re:I AM laughing at you! (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously, you should run a wire from your tinfoil hat to a conductive grounding strip attached to the heel of your shoe.
Actually, the devices I've used connect to the toe of your shoe, not the heel - Both heels are often lifted while walking. And you need to be sure that you run wires to both feet instead of just one. Also, unless you have a conductive floor (we did when we were using these, but for a very different purpose), spikes are more effective than strips. But you need to plan for the terrain. 1/4" spikes are fine for walking (and very effective for grounding) in damp vegetation or earth but may impede your progress on asphalt. In that case, you'll need very shallow spikes and will just have to accept limited grounding unless you're willing to run a very long cable to a copper rod.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps we can beam an entire education into the minds of young people. Think about it. Roughly half of America's young people reach the age of 18 at being virtually retarded these days. Beaming voices into peoples' heads might be a highly useful tool.
It also might be used to teach people what Islam really is in places like Iraq where an entire religion has been subverted and perverted into a really nasty mess. Teaching real Islam to the public might cure thi
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm, I thought of the Islamist tack as well, but I had a different approach. Let's use their zealotry against them.
We'll see how motivated they are to blow themselves up when Allah himself tells them that suicide bombing is a deal breaker on the whole eternal paradise thing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Brilliant! I hereby nominate you for the position of Head Messiah at the newly founded Ministry of Godly Voices.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that sure worked for Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. They never committed any atrocities at all.
The reality is that there are a few nutballs out there in every religion, including atheism.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Atheism is not a religion. Religion requires faith and absence of faith is not faith. Insistence on evidence is the inverse of faith.
You appear to have atheism confused with agnosticism. Agnostics are the ones who neither believe nor disbelieve in divine being(s) because of the lack of evidence, while atheists believe that there are no divine beings with no more evidence than believers in any other religion have. In other words, atheists base their beliefs on faith, not evidence, since there is no accepted evidence that either proves or disproves the existence of divine beings.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually you've got the right idea with a tin foil hat. But since the signals may not be coming from the sky, the foil should wrap around as much of your head as possible. Looking through a metal screen or metal full of tiny holes should be effective in blocking signals approaching your face. The holes just have to be small relative to the wavelength of the signal. That should sound familiar since that's what's done in the windows in doors of microwave ovens.
Since the microwaves are in very short pulses
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, nobody's laughing at you. That's just me with my ray gun putting laughing voices in your head.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Insightful)
The tinfoil hat might actually be one of the few ways you can block this without any special materials or equipment.
If they see someone with a tinfoil hat, they'll probably just yell at him.
Re:Blocking (Score:3, Funny)
Are we reaching Alternate Universe X-Men territory?
Magneto is now the good guy & Professor X is evil?
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:4, Informative)
The tinfoil hat might actually be one of the few ways you can block this without any special materials or equipment.
Half a Faraday cage is as good as none.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Informative)
It's more scary than cool.
The article at NewScientist [newscientist.com] says:
MEDUSA involves a microwave auditory effect "loud" enough to cause discomfort or even incapacitation. Sadovnik says that normal audio safety limits do not apply since the sound does not enter through the eardrums.
Also from NewScientist, a member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Illinois in Chicago who has also worked on the technique has commented that while feasible, attaining the necessary volume might involve power levels that could cause neural damage.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that'll stop this from widespread use.
Like how they banned Tasers, because attaining the necessary pain might involve power levels that could cause cardiac arrhythmia.
Oh, wait, no they don't... All those people died of "excited delerium" [slashdot.org], not Taser-induced arrhythmia. Slip o' the tongue there, don't sue me bro...
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Informative)
Tasers are a great example of why you can't trust your end user.
A Taser was designed to replace a gun. "Instead of shooting someone, you can INSTEAD tase them to incapacitate them."
Once they got into the hands of the end users, the got into usage creep. "Fighting is hard work. I'll use the taser." "Arguing takes effort. Taser." "Talking meh taser."
Now they're used for when you owe the bus driver a dollar. [www.cbc.ca]
(Despite what the article states, they have said in radio interviews that they use the tasers for non-compliance, including non-payment of fares.)
They're being overused as a compliance tool instead of their intended purpose, which was to prevent acute lead poisoning.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Interesting)
A Taser was designed to replace a gun.
Although I agree with your overall point that Tasers are seriously overused, your initial premise is incorrect.
Tasers were never intended to be used as a replacement for a gun. They are an additional non-lethal weapon to use alongside the baton and pepper spray.
Unfortunately, politicians and even the police themselves use the "Tasers replace guns" myth to win people over to the idea. After all, who wouldn't prefer to see a Taser used instead of a gun?
But that's not what happens. When the situation calls for a gun to be used, then the officer will use their gun. Period. They will never consider using the Taser instead, and they were never expected to. This is why the number of incidents involving police using their guns has not decreased since Tasers were introduced. Nor was it expected to.
The problem is that Tasers seem really harmless. You press a button, and the guy falls to the floor. Shortly thereafter, he gets up and he's apparently fine. So, hey, why not use it even in cases where the use of a baton or pepper spray would cause mass outrage?
And that's exactly what's happening now.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and as an aside, don't you just love how when you read a report on any Taser incident, the police never mention the LAW, it's always about POLICY. Think about that, they are concerned with POLICY over LAW, something you would expect from a for-profit industry trying to maximize gains, but from a government agency specifically designed to uphold the LAW?
I know, some people are going to say that they follow policy which is more strict than the law, to which I call bullshit. If -I- were to taser you fo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> If -I- were to taser you for noncompliance, I go to jail, because of
> my lack of a State Authorized shiny piece of tin on my chest.
One definition of 'government' is that it is the entity which claims a monopoly on the 'legitimate' use of force. Something to keep in mind when considering giving it additional authority, especially if the task can possibly be done by a private entity.
But thankfully our form of government (US) doesn't give a monopoly on teh use of force to the State. You CAN tase a br
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah!! Get rid of all these taser and microwave weapons. Bring back good old night sticks, trunchons, jack boots, and guns. It's a lot easier to prove that victims were hurt by those weapons than by tasers or microwaves. Or their own decisions to resist arrest or not leave buildings.
You joke, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
...up until recently, generations of police officers learned how to use physical force to gain compliance. And generally speaking they knew how to do it with minimal force and maximal compliance -- a friend who is a 2nd generation police officer had his father demonstrate some of the techniques, and it was fairly amazing how well he could hurt me without actually "hurting" me (ie, leaving lasting marks, breaking bones, bruising, etc.)
The gripe my friend the cop has is that with all the touchy-feely policing (and the expensive court payouts) they have, you really can't gain compliance through physical force the way you used to be able to, so they are largely left with their guns and their tasers. And since the tasers aren't lethal, they're somehow considered "OK" to use for any problem solving short of killing someone.
I think they should start allowing the police to carry saps and clubs again as well as teach them physical force and stop letting them use a taser as a universal problem solver.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:4, Informative)
Sadovnik says that normal audio safety limits do not apply since the sound does not enter through the eardrums.
Such bullshit!
(Directed at Sadovnik, not you, Digital).
Hearing loss usually has nothing to do with mechanical damage to the eardrum or ear; rather, it's almost always due to the fact that loud noises cause the cilia in your cochlea to get ripped out (and they do not grow back). This microwave thing is still exciting your cochlea, so it's doing the same damn thing. The only difference is that the vibrations originate within your head, whose tissue is rapidly being heated and cooled by the microwaves. But your cilia don't give a damn about where the vibrations come from.
Ugh.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
This [dkimages.com] + this [ggpht.com] = WIN!
N.B. Links are JPEGs.
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ha! See! I told you! (Score:4, Funny)
We can target people without the metal hat's just fine, but we can target people with them faster and at greater distances.
In fact, we have had between an 84.6% and 97.5325333333% success rate with people wearing foil helmets. The success rate depends on the type of metal used in the foil and the weave designs.
In people without metal hats, we found that we get about an 89% success rate on average.
So yes, the metal hat's do prevent us some, but the problem is, with the unsuccessful it is not that the message does not get through, it is that death is a side effect and thus is defined as a failure during our tests.
We tested over 10 million diverse humans, and found that the only people to survive with 100% success rate were those that were born with both sets of sexual organs. But we consider them useless statistics anyway since they are unable to reproduce.
Another interesting side effect is we have the ability to also define genetic memories of the voices. That way every spawn from the target is also a victim.
We thank you for reading the FAQ of BrainTrain International Corp.
Since 1986... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Since 1986... (Score:5, Funny)
Reagan? Wasn't that the name of the possessed girl in The Exorcist?
Thanks to these microwave guns, you no longer need to be schitzophrenic to hear voices. There have been a lot of tinfoil hat jokes (of course) in the comments, but it appears that if you're going to be part of a political demonstration from now on, a tinfoil hat may be necessary to keep the Secret Police out of your head.
Sierra Nevada? (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how many Pale Ales you have to drink to get the same effect.
That's Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, this time she's not sentient.
This goes just too far. If there were ever to be a law against free speech, this would be it, because I don't want to listen to what this thing has to say. I value silence. That ear plugs wouldn't work against this thing...
Re:That's Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
If there were ever to be a law against free speech, this would be it, because I don't want to listen to what this thing has to say. I value silence.
You already have this. The right to free speech is NOT the right to be heard by everyone, despite what a lot of people think.
They obviously didn't consider.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They obviously didn't consider.. (Score:4, Informative)
I have schzioaffective disorder, I've learned how to be like John Forbes Nash and create a reality filter to tune things out like voices and hallucinations by ignoring them.
Is this the same... (Score:5, Funny)
The Sierra Nevada Corporation? (Score:5, Funny)
Are they working out of Black Mesa?
Re:The Sierra Nevada Corporation? (Score:5, Funny)
that was a joke,
ha ha
fat chance
Whatever (Score:3, Interesting)
So will the 2.0 version use Gamma Radiation? (Score:5, Funny)
In my day they only had ads on TV and radio. And in magazines and movies and ball games and on buses and milk cartons and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no-siree!
Where did the development $ come from? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
'Where did the development $ come from?' ... as usual, it came from you and me.
(no, really - from http://www.sncorp.com/about/ataglance.shtml [sncorp.com]
"SNC (The Sierra Nevada Corporation) is a Privately Held Corporation and is considered the Top Woman Owned Federal Contractor in the US based upon the capabilities and resources to deliver high-technology systems and integration programs at the $1 Billion level")
-still, I like their beer...
That explains it. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Never mind the voice that's telling me to visit a house that's about to be filled with popcorn. Just think, they could have avoided the effort of the implant, and used microwaves for both.
Re:That explains it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think there's a similar effect that explains the "whooshing" sound you hear when you watch shooting stars.
For years, scientists have believed that the sound was a figment of human imagination, even though many people would swear to hearing it. The problem is that the meteors are miles and miles overhead, but the sound is heard simultaneously. Now I've personally heard the whoosh of a bolide during a the massive meteor shower, and I'd be prepared to swear it was simultaneous with the flash of the meteor trail, even though I know that sound could not travel that fast, even if it were a mere few thousand feet.
It's even more psychologically convincing because the sound isn't really a "whoosh"; it's not what you'd expect. It's more like the sound of slurping the last bit of milkshake with a straw, listened to through a long PVC pipe.
I read a few years ago that physicists found an accoustic effect created by the low frequency electrmagnetic energy working on water droplets of a certain size. This would make sense because when I did hear the "whoosh", I was lying on my back on the dewy grass. I've also read that wireframe glasses can account for the simultaneous sound.
Getting laid more (Score:3, Funny)
Denise Richards & the olsen twins here I come..
Re:Getting laid more (Score:5, Funny)
Toot with this i can now insert the message "Sleep with me" in the heads of attractive women everywhere!!!
Denise Richards & the olsen twins here I come..
Ok, now I'm confused.
scary. (Score:5, Insightful)
imagine playing Cliff Richard to you victim incessantly. unable to sleep. unable to get away from it. all you need is somebody to point this thing at his head.
imagine doing it at just enough of a low level so he is not aware of it.
imagine jururs being threatened at long range. imagine blackmail from a distance.
what if an unverifiable, untraceable voice announces in your ear "rob the bank or I shoot your wife", what would you do?
this is damn scary, where is my magneto helmet?
Re:scary. (Score:5, Interesting)
imagine playing Cliff Richard to you victim incessantly. unable to sleep. unable to get away from it. all you need is somebody to point this thing at his head.
Imagine the rick rolling possibilities. We're in for a world of pain if these things become available on the internet.
On a more serious note, engineering and scientific work ethics? Does that at all exist anymore? I can't imagine anyone willingly developing a technology with so many malevolent uses. Didn't we learn anything from the Manhattan project?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Could a microwave gun really hit a single head out of a crowd?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It wouldn't be a gun, but a parabolic dish. A quick Google search on such dishes shows the main beam spread is 40 arc seconds, so you could get most of your energy onto a 40 cm head from 1 km away, but heads near the path would catch much radiation as well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't react. If they believe they can't contact you, then they'll try something else to get whatever they want out of you before killing your wife. It will at least give you some awareness of the situation and probably buy your wife some more time.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Obligatory Futurama (Score:3, Funny)
Buy Lightspeed Briefs!
These are not the droids you are looking for. (Score:3, Funny)
"...These are not the droids we're looking for."
You weak minded fool! He's got a Jedi mind gun!"
One step closer to Futurama (Score:5, Funny)
Fry: So you're telling me they broadcast commercials into people's dreams?
Leela: Of course.
Fry: But how is that possible?
Professor Farnsworth: It's very simple. The ad gets into your brain just like this liquid gets into this egg. [Holds up an egg and injects it with liquid from a syringe until the egg explodes.]
Although, in reality, it's not liquid, but gamma radiation.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.
Re:One step closer to Futurama (Score:5, Interesting)
Futurama lifted that almost word for word from Isaac Asimov's Dreaming is a Private Thing.
Be great for parents of teenagers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, combine it with some prerecorded messages and parents will snap these up "for the children".
Top sellers could be:
All with constant repetition which only ends when the desired action is performed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just what we need (Score:4, Insightful)
What's Next? (Score:5, Funny)
OK, I can deal with the fact that the Tinfoil Hat people have been right all along. Fine. I apologize for some of the unkind things I've said about them.
But dammit, I'm NOT going to start being nice to all the Moonbats, People Who Live In Their Parents' Basements, Loons, Head Cases, Half-wits, Technophobes, Technophiles, UFO Abductees, Conspiracy Nuts, Jerks, Berks and Wanna-be Captain Kirks just because, like a broken clock, they might manage to be right twice a day.
I mean it!
Hypersonic Sound (Score:4, Interesting)
These sound like HSS speakers, which use ultrasonic carrier waves to demodulate sound when the frequencies come into contact with flesh and bone.
http://www.atcsd.com/site/ [atcsd.com]
And friend of mine has a couple of these speakers. We recently used them at an art opening to beam the music of the primes into people's heads (playing the digital root of each prime number through a hexatonic scale, rests in the music were created by the occurrence of the primes in the digital-roots matrix we used to develop our own unique prime number sieve).
Here's another report from a more reputable source (Score:5, Informative)
First message sent (Real Genius homage) (Score:5, Funny)
Ken! This is Jesus. Stop touching yourself!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It was Kent but yeah. Exactly where my mind was going with it, too.
"Look, it was hot and I was hungry..."
Bummer (Score:5, Interesting)
As a deaf guy it saddens me when tech like this is used for military purposes and it's consumer uses are not considered.
Remember the thing where you put the transmitter on your tongue and you can hear bypassing the ears? I'd like to try one of those. But rather than look like a drooling idiot I'd love to get my hands on one of these babies. Just strap it on a hearing aid and skip the ears entirely. Way better than a cochlear implant, non-invasive and perfect sound. Nice.
I think the (tinfoil hat) joke is on us this time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Massive wiretapping? Check.
Ubiquitous surveillance? Check.
Substantial expansion of state power? Check.
Secret prisons and disappearances? Check.
Directed energy weapons (both pain and sound)? Check.
Classified laws? Check.
Mercenaries who answer to no law?? Check.
Seriously. They still have some really wacky ones about reptoids and masons and things; but much of conspiracy lore is so common that it doesn't even make the front pages anymore. The joke is on us.
no problem here. (Score:3, Funny)
The Voices are strong, they drown out all other sounds.
crap - advertising you cant turn off (Score:3, Funny)
just what we need - advertising with no volume control, :-P
and no way to turn it off.
Tinfoil is so tacky... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And we wonder why people are paranoid? (Score:5, Informative)
Paranoia is serious. I lost a best friend of many years to paranoia when he became so convinced that the government was out to get him that he hung himself. This very week my brother in law attempted suicide due to his hallucinations that involve his believing that the FBI is invading his mind. He is now being held under the Baker Act for 72 hours. Just maybe a different prescription might quiet his hallucinations. Paranoia can and does frequently cause murders where the sufferer becomes so convinced that someone is out to do him harm that he strikes first as a desperate act of supposed self defense.
Believe it or not mental illness means nothing in Florida. If you are so crazy that you think Santa Clause is an FBI agent out to kill you and you strike out that does not meet the standard for legal insanity here. The idea that you feel it is right to preserve your own life will be taken as proof that you have a knowledge of right and wrong, Society is sick.
Re:And we wonder why people are paranoid? (Score:5, Informative)
Everything in your post is informative, up to the statement that "paranoia can and does *frequenttly* cause murders..." I work in mental health, and have had experience with the circumstances you describe. However, there are 1000's of more paranoid folks who don't go on to commit homicide/suicide than those who do. Just a quick google turned up this:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/318/7193/1225 [bmjjournals.com]
which estimates roughly 8% of homicide perpetrators having contact with the mental health profession, but that certainly doesn't equate to them all being paranoid, or even having a true psychiatric diagnosis.
http://www.psychlaws.org/BriefingPapers/BP11.htm [psychlaws.org]
puts the a conservative estimate around 9%-15%, but again this is all mental illness, not just mental illnesses that involve paranoid ideation which is certainly less,And finally here:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/20/2064 [nejm.org]
cites a study showing an approximately 5% prevalence rate of schizophrenia amongst persons convicted of homicide. Now I understand this is orders of magnitude higher than the general population, and there is certainly an increased risk of self-inflected injury or homicide as compared to folks who don't have a history of schizophrenia. But the fact still remains that the overwhelming majority of folks with a psychiatric illness, including paranoid schizophrenia are not at risk for perpetrating violence against themselves or others.
Not necessarily disagreeing with your post, per se. Just pointing out the other side of the equation as there is a common misconception that those with mental illness are a risk to themselves and others.
thx,
jeff
Re:And we wonder why people are paranoid? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are so crazy that you think Santa Clause is an FBI agent out to kill you and you strike out that does not meet the standard for legal insanity here.
That's OK with me. Sorry if it seems callous, but a mentally ill murderer is still a murderer. Criminal law serves to protect the public. It sucks to have mental illness and to be locked up, but it sucks more to get stabbed to death on a subway train.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My Name Is Earl [wikipedia.org] did this in the episode "Made a Lady Think I Was God". Roseanne Barr played a mean nasty woman who wore hearing aids, and Earl found out that her hearing aids picked up his walkie-talkies.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's one of the things that the guy selling the thing (in TFA) mentioned, actually.
My understanding:
This device creates vibrations in the target by rapidly heating and cooling it. Since these vibrations are in the tissue (especially bone) of your head, they reach your inner ear (cochlea) directly. So, they could help with certain kinds of deafness: namely, deafness caused by mechanical damage to the outer ear, but which leaves the nerves in the inner ear intact.
However, it seems you should be able to a