Aria 
Kit BashirToday I learned that Apple Air Pods Pro in noise cancelling mode perfectly cancels the clicking of a geiger counter. You would not know it was making a sound. I hope that this is not relevant to /your/ day.
allrite@Unixbigot TBF, back in the old days how would you know if it was a Geiger counter or scratched vinyl/tape?
Aaron@allrite @Unixbigot I assume timbre.
@Unixbigot @allrite A click is distinct from noise. I swear I'm not trying to be "well akshully" about this, it's a core memory of my IT career.
The first real datacenter I had access to, first time I was in, was a wall of white noise. Sounded like standing next to Niagara Falls - loud but not quite as deafening. One of the NOC staff was making his rounds, abruptly stopped at one rack and started tapping on a server. "There's a fan going out," he explained. "I can hear it clicking." I was dumbfounded.
About a year and countless hours later in that same room of white noise, I had a crash cart attached to a server, waiting for it to boot. Waited ten, fifteen minutes - abnormally long, wouldn't go just hung on BIOS. Then I heard it: a drive clicking, trying to spin up, but unable to. Watched the activity lights for a bit, pulled the stuck drive, and it booted immediately. OS complained it was missing a disk - of course, one failed! But I literally heard it failing in the wall of noise.
The first real datacenter I had access to, first time I was in, was a wall of white noise. Sounded like standing next to Niagara Falls - loud but not quite as deafening. One of the NOC staff was making his rounds, abruptly stopped at one rack and started tapping on a server. "There's a fan going out," he explained. "I can hear it clicking." I was dumbfounded.
About a year and countless hours later in that same room of white noise, I had a crash cart attached to a server, waiting for it to boot. Waited ten, fifteen minutes - abnormally long, wouldn't go just hung on BIOS. Then I heard it: a drive clicking, trying to spin up, but unable to. Watched the activity lights for a bit, pulled the stuck drive, and it booted immediately. OS complained it was missing a disk - of course, one failed! But I literally heard it failing in the wall of noise.
Andrew@aaron @Unixbigot @allrite noise has a Fourier Transform thats a constant, a repeating click has a Fourier Transform thats a Dirac comb.
Roadskater, Ph.D.@aaron @Unixbigot @cinebox @allrite All I want to know is, did you people used to mark your music CDs with a green El Marko pen, because it sounded better that way?
AJCxZ0
Alexander The 1st@Unixbigot @cinebox @aaron @allrite Well now I'm imagining noise cancelling headphones that have a "Noise Sampler" step to sample the ambient noise over a user-defined period of time, and then have it specifically try to cancel nosies in that specific sample.
Barry Schwartz 🫖@Unixbigot @cinebox @aaron @allrite For noise cancellation what matters is that it be external to the headphones and easily predictable by a simple sampling method.
And it is "noise" in the technical sense of being "additive noise"—that is, it is something that needs to be subtracted from the received signal to recover the original signal.
So there. :)
I don't know what methods they are using these days. Probably stuff like maximum entropy just as in decades past.
Alex von Kitchen
LR
NullNoMore
🍂Evan Balster🍂@lritter @cinebox @aaron @Unixbigot @allrite
Over an infinite timespan, the fourier spectrum will be the same for white noise as it will be for sparse random impulses. The distribution of sample values doesn't matter, even if 99% are zeroes; only that they are uncorrelated across time.
A comb-shaped spectrum corresponds to a train of pulses spaced at regular intervals, but an uncorrelated process like radioactive decay will create a flat spectrum.
Andre@aaron @Unixbigot @allrite Site sysadmins can hear the death-click of a drive from a long way away. And also known then picld has been disabled by a stupid 'security' script on one daktari in a 12 rack suite.
Weedkiller@aaron I can relate to this. I studied a bunch of electroacoustic music composition at uni, and the “what is noise” question has at least as many subjective and contradictory answers as “what is music”.
Steven Sandoval@aaron @Unixbigot @allrite That's how I imagine getting direct neural implants will feel like: noise until my nervous system learns to interpret the new signals.
AzureArmageddon@baltakatei @aaron @Unixbigot @allrite We may yet learn what it's like for a baby's brain to compile drivers for all their body parts in real time.
Luka Rubinjoni@Unixbigot @aaron @allrite It's not a Geiger counter if it doesn't detect ionization events with a self amplifying avalanche in a Geiger tube. Otherwise, it's just a (sparkling /edit/) ionization chamber. (spirals into a flame war about proportional detectors)
@Unixbigot @aaron @allrite Perfect! (there's also a spark chamber joke somewhere here, but it needs work...)
S0N1C@Unixbigot
yes! Eberline clicks > Ludlum clicks :)
yes! Eberline clicks > Ludlum clicks :)
Billy Smith@funranium might know... :D
furranium@BillySmith @Unixbigot @aaron @allrite Why, I got to discuss being an aficionado of fine clicks, ticks, and beeps just the other day. There is no official "this emission must make this sound" but I have noticed a tendency for certain commonality in sound for certain detector types across manufactures. I suspect convergent evolution in the marketplace for customer expectation.
@funranium @BillySmith @aaron @allrite perhaps making the sound of clicking their claws together is sensor equipment trying to evolve into crabs…
mathew@allrite @Unixbigot A serious problem with my original copy of Kraftwerk's "Radio-Activity".
Krystian Majewski@Unixbigot „not great, not terrible“
Jono@Unixbigot ahhhhhh, why do you have Siad counter and why is it going tick?
😬
😬
@jono The counter is a client product that I designed. The source of clicks are our fabulous local mineral sands.
Ralesk@Unixbigot @jono So I tried my JBL TUNE 660 NC on this, and first I thought it was the NC taking it out, but the ear muffs cover the clicks pretty well without NC too so now I'm not sure if the NC is actually helping :D Further experimentation is necessary.
@Unixbigot @jono Hmm, if I make it loud enough it doesn't make a difference, I hear it either way. But the low hum in the video gets filtered by the NC. Interesting.
baer@Unixbigot
You are so lucky you can source local radiation.
My wife wants to show radioactivity in mushrooms in Germany (introduced by the Tschernobyl desaster). Unfortunately (?) the radiation in our area is so low that consumer Geiger counters cannot detect it.
So, I build a fake setup with an ESP32, two Hall sensors and a beeper. Tape a magnet to the counter et voilà, you got your radioactive mushrooms.
You are so lucky you can source local radiation.
My wife wants to show radioactivity in mushrooms in Germany (introduced by the Tschernobyl desaster). Unfortunately (?) the radiation in our area is so low that consumer Geiger counters cannot detect it.
So, I build a fake setup with an ESP32, two Hall sensors and a beeper. Tape a magnet to the counter et voilà, you got your radioactive mushrooms.
@baer have you tried the mantles¹ for gas lanterns?
@Unixbigot
That's a great idea. I could get my hand on those.
My wife (a science reporter) meanwhile had tested the consumer gadget at a nuclear research facility.
It worked on a Cesium 137 test plate, but required a lot of radiation.
The tech basically said: if you measure this, you don't have to run away anymore ;)
That's a great idea. I could get my hand on those.
My wife (a science reporter) meanwhile had tested the consumer gadget at a nuclear research facility.
It worked on a Cesium 137 test plate, but required a lot of radiation.
The tech basically said: if you measure this, you don't have to run away anymore ;)
Lesley Carhart 
@Unixbigot Yep this might be a problem
mtp@Unixbigot I'll trade your false negatives for my false positives: the one for my left ear continuously emits minute clicks.
@Unixbigot not great, not terrible
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@Unixbigot I find the concept of noise cancelling headphones for pilots rather curious. I know lots of people use them, and that I never have so have no personal experience, but I still have this feeling that I'd really want to hear any slightly unusual noises that the engine made without something trying its hardest to hide them from me. https://www.bose.co.uk/en_gb/products/headphones/aviation_headsets/a30-aviation-headset.html#v=A30-HEADSETAVIA-BT-EL-GADUAL-BAT-WW
Z̈oé@TimWardCam @Unixbigot planes are well instrumented and constant noise causes early fatigue which isn’t the safest thing to have while operating a plane
Matt Sqwrl@uint8_t @TimWardCam @Unixbigot Being able to hear ATC and the rest of the crew clearly is also helpful.
@mattsqu @uint8_t @Unixbigot Sure. I've always found a decent audio panel and DCs perfectly acceptable.
@uint8_t @Unixbigot The things I've flown have had no instruments that would have told me about the engine anomalies I have experienced.
Inter-Integrated Catgirl@Unixbigot death by not connecting your geiger counter over bluetooth
Emil Jacobs - Collectifission
dbenzhuser@Unixbigot Well, if it gets really bad, I suspect the AirPods will start to emit strange noises themselves. So this shouldn't be a problem.
Fabien@Unixbigot @glynmoody Could you add this to the recognise sounds accessibility feature?
litbong@Unixbigot don't use airpods pro in noise cancelling mode in chernobyl ⚠️
@Unixbigot The more ubiquitous ANC becomes the more a solution is needed. What about establishing certain combinations of frequencies as warnings always let those through unless blocked by the user?
InsertUser@talinx @Unixbigot Just use a thing that plugs into the headphones.
Nic@Unixbigot I hope that learning was not from actual experience in the field!
@nicbest on the test bench in the lab, but real gamma rays
afx@Unixbigot Who is braindead enough to work with noise cancellation in an environment that needs a Geiger counter?
@afx oh my sweet summer child
@Unixbigot Of course, there are always candidates for a Darwin award.
PlasmaGryphon@afx @Unixbigot even before earbuds, I've had to deal with many people over the years wearing headphones working in a lab that used auditory warnings.
A "realistic" superhero origin wouldn't be someone trapped in an experiment that couldn't be opened, but someone working behind a piece of equipment that went unnoticed and didn't hear warnings to clear out of experiment area.