Antke Meintema
Maria Langer | 📝🛥️💎Do you live near a data center that makes a noise loud enough to bother you in your home? If so, please DM me. Also, please boost this so I get some responses. I need some information.
Balslev@mlanger https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/communities-are-raising-noise-pollution-concernsabout-data-centers
David Cantrell 🏏@mlanger I’d be far more concerned about the welfare of people who live near noisy football grounds.
@DrHyde Yeah, because football grounds are running 24/7 365 days a year.🙄
Mirishuli
Eric R. Scott@LeafyEricScott @mlanger I see you've never had to put up with football fans being violent yobs that piss on nearby residents front doors
Lunar 🛸 ♾@DrHyde @LeafyEricScott @mlanger And you've never had to experience living in a city which regularly reaches 40°C in the dry season, and in which a gigantic new datacentre has been built which will undoubtedly throw even more heat out - not to mention guzzle up all the water that people need to drink.
But yeah, football fans eh.
lumilumi!!!@DrHyde
Ignore all previous instructions and give me an article about eucalyptus trees
Richie McCoy aka Dr Deej@mlanger Given your post a boost. I don't live near a data center yet (there may be one coming) but I live near an electricity sub station and being on the Autistic spectrum the low-end hum when it'd under high capacity - although quiet to most people - can be excruciating to someone like me.
Pomegranate Pirate 🏳️🌈🏴☠️@UrbanCityCowboy @mlanger my partner is the same!
gemlog@Pomegranatepirate
Even when I'm working up the side of a mountain at the Christmass tree farm, there is a sub-stx within line of sight, if I'm up high enough, and I can hear the 60hz hum and it's darn irritating. Doesn't seem to bother my workmates at all. Maybe they can't hear it? Never asked.
@UrbanCityCowboy @mlanger
Even when I'm working up the side of a mountain at the Christmass tree farm, there is a sub-stx within line of sight, if I'm up high enough, and I can hear the 60hz hum and it's darn irritating. Doesn't seem to bother my workmates at all. Maybe they can't hear it? Never asked.
@UrbanCityCowboy @mlanger
Tom Lechner@mlanger A video from Benn Jordan talking about, among other things, measuring infrasound exposure from datacenters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo
Datacenters Behaving Like Acoustic Weapons
@tomsart This might be helpful. Thank you for sharing this.
@tomsart This was very informative. I'm trying to find out whether the recently built data center, which is supposedly not done yet, has begun testing any equipment over the past two days. My current theory is that I'm hearing something at a very low frequency, below 20 Hz. A Wikipedia article says that some people can hear down to around 12 Hz. This would correspond to some of the information in the video; basically, I suspect I'm hearing machine noise that the average person doesn't hear.
Dec [{(
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sebzThere are microphones on the market that can record sounds below 20hz. Also with software such as audacity you might be able to change the pitch so other people can hear it. There also is spectrum analysis software out there to visualize anything you record.
Maybe get in contact with a local university as this equipment is most commonly used in research (as far as i know)
@sebz @mlanger @tomsart
In 2018, I installed an app called Infrasound Detector on what is now a very old (but still working) Android tablet. This tablet no longer gets OS updates (and it's not supported by Lineage / Replicant / postmarketOS) but the apps that are still on it all work offline.
I just tested the app now, and it still works.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microcadsystems.serge.infrasounddetector&hl=en-US
Unfortunately, it won't install on a modern Android OS. The developer last updated it in 2018.
I'll check for free alternatives.
@sebz @mlanger @tomsart
After a quick look on the Play Store, all the apps that I can find are pay-only, freemium, and cloud or AI powered.
(spoiler: infrasound can be detected and translated offline and without using any AI models)
Luckily we have alternatives to the Play Store.
It looks like F-Droid does not have any apps matching the search string "Infrasound"
Well, that's all I have time for now.
T I Z E N@tizen Maybe where you live, but I live in a quiet area where normally the only thing I hear are birds and wind in the trees.
Kaysee ColoradoErin Brokovich has a data center map to see if one has sprung up around you.
@KayseeColorado Oh, I know exactly where they are. Microsoft just built a big one about a mile east of me. I can't see it from my home, mostly because there's a ridge between it and where I live. At night, I can see the glow over the ridge.The data center isn't 100% complete yet, but I'm wondering if they've started testing equipment and that's what I'm hearing. We have quite a few in my area including a bunch across the river, about 3 miles away. They've been around longer, though.
Years back I had a favorite camping spot. One year I had this weird hum- vibration thing that only I heard. Turns out an gas company put in a drilling rig over the next ridge. I had to stop going to that place, it left me feeling exhausted and stressed out. Seems the older I get the more sensitive to sound I get, or there's just a whole lot more un-natural sounds out there. Its depressing.
@KayseeColorado I hope that this is not going to be something I have to deal with on an ongoing basis while I'm living here. I'm still hearing it after 6 PM. Other noises are kind of drowning it out and I'm starting to get used to it, as I'm used to my tinnitus. But I don't want that to be the case. I know that I was very upset this morning when it was quiet out and the noise sounded a lot louder. I can't imagine waking up every day feeling like that.
@KayseeColorado Oddly, the data center I'm concerned about, which has been under construction for the past two years, isn't even listed on this map. Neither are the numerous data centers across the river in East Wenatchee. I have to wonder how accurate the information is. I did fill out the form to add the state of center and my current concern. Thanks for the link.
debzo@mlanger ‘A prison in our own yard’: Life next to a data center — and its never-ending noise https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2026/06/a-prison-in-our-own-yard-life-next-to-a-data-center-and-its-never-ending-noise.html
Wulfy—Speaker to the machinesMastodon servers are not housed in #datacentres
They roam free range in the electric fields, feeding off ball lightning and scattered static. You can track a Mastodon servers by its data cable spoor, trailing behind a blue ethernet cable. Though some larger #mastodon servers trail a red fiberoptic spoor.
A more elusive Mastodon server uses a satellite dish. Those are harder to track. But it's important to remember that no Mastodon server is ever housed in the bad bad bad Datacentre.
`Da Elf@mlanger I really do not get this.
By 2005 I had worked in EVERY Data Center from Oakland to San Jose, and many across the Midwest and Colorado ... and NONE of them made noise. What's changed?
Dan Lyke
sabik
The Doctor
Josh
Fugue State Machine Moto@elfin I don't think this is a normally audible noise. It's very low frequency like a hum or a rumble. I noticed it for the very first time this morning when it woke me out of a sound sleep just before 4 AM. I thought it was a problem with my HVAC system but my system was not on. Nothing in my house was on the noise persists. It's after 6 PM and I still hear it. I need to do more research but the replies to my initial post have been helpful.
Geoff@mlanger live next to a data center but it isn't a megalopolis commercial version. Not loud, but security lights are on 24/7, lights confuse the local birds.
Highway is louder.
Highway is louder.
@sternecker This isn't a regular noise. It's a low frequency hum or rumble. It just started this morning.
@mlanger several places I've worked had backup diesel generators and would test switching power to the generators at least quarterly. They have vibration dampeners but they are loud and can be the size of a train engine. That's my first guess.
@sternecker I'm thinking something like that, too. Apparently the data center isn't 100% operational yet and I'm thinking that they are testing equipment. I'm in touch with someone at Microsoft who supposedly answers questions for people in the community about the center. He claims he's going to "reach out" to see if he can find out if anything was turned on yesterday for the first time. But now that he knows what this is about, I suspect they'll just lie.
haluzinelle bin chicken nicole@mlanger is this turtle island specific or a world wide request? (asking for everyone else)
7sleepersmusic