All too often we find ourselves in situations where we are exposed to an unwanted aural stimulus. Faced with a number of options to deal with the situation, I usually find the most effective and speedy route to take is to write a letter of complaint. But what if we don't know to whom this letter should be addressed?
A small tube contains a rolled-up letter which you've written complaining about the noise emanating from an unidentified source. The tube then fits into a dispatching unit, which you have trained to recognise the noise in question; it should be pretty easy to get a fix on sounds like alarms, which offend at fairly high frequencies in fixed patterns.
The dispatching unit is then launched from a window, where it homes in on the source of the noise. Once located, the letter of complaint can be delivered. If the noise is coming from a building, the unit descends towards the ground and fires the tube through the letterbox. If there is no letterbox, or the source is a vehicle, the tube is fired onto a flat surface and sticks thanks to a rubber sucker. Lastly, if the source is a person, the unit fires the tube at a medium velocity towards the groin area and emits a few high-pitched squeals of its own. Message successfully delivered, the unit now returns home.
[History]
Every day this week I've been woken up by an obnoxiously shrill burglar alarm belonging to an as-yet-unidentified, probably-away-on-holiday neighbour. It normally keeps going for a full 30 minutes before stopping, and often starts up again 5 minutes later. I wouldn't mind so much if I thought the place actually was getting burgled, but I'm pretty sure I'd have heard about it if it'd happened 5 days running.
As I can't be bothered to get dressed and leave my flat at the unholy hour of 6am to locate the source of this pillow-piercing nuisance, I came up with this idea instead.-- lyserge, Nov 25 2004 Stop birds from activating house alarms http://www.halfbake...idnight_20ScarecrowVaguely related - see anno [spiritualized, Nov 26 2004] I live in London and found that contrary to my expectations, the 24-hour noise pollution helpline was actually staffed by a real person all night, who was helpful (if a little sleepy) and would have sent an inspector round immediately had the noise continued.
The homing letter would have been more fun though.-- wagster, Nov 25 2004 Hi Gnomethang - if I'd only included the bit underneath the heading [History] then I could understand you saying this was a rant and should be deleted. But I have come up with a novel (as far as I know) delivery mechanism for a letter of complaint too.-- lyserge, Nov 26 2004 As far as I can see, this seems like a valid, non-mfd idea.
This dispatching unit you describe would have to be a very advanced piece of equipment. I can visualise something that is able to home in on a certain frequency, and then follow the gradual rise in strength of sound vibrations (rarefactions and condensations). This something would look like a plumber’s plunger, and once it has reached its destination, for example a burglar alarm, it would stick to it with its rubber sucker. Activated by the impact, a heavy weight, tied to the end of a length of string or rope would lower itself from out of the stick of the plunger. The force of the impact would cause the rock to swing like a pendulum to and fro the direction of the burglar alarm.
Because most burglar alarms are positioned above a window (presumably because the burglar alarm will be in a better position to detect a break-in from this position, even though we all know that birds of flight can easily set off alarms, see link), this rock will smash through the window. Wrapped around this rock is a note that reads something along the lines of “please keep the volume down.” Imagine being a noisy neighbour, partying through the night, being on the receiving end of this dispatching unit.
Warning - I am not a scientist.-- spiritualized, Nov 26 2004 Another thing. I often hear the hours of five and six being unfairly referred to as unholy. These are the only two out of a possible twenty-four hours that I am actually ever asleep.-- spiritualized, Nov 26 2004 I thought this was going to be a generic letter of complaint sent out 'message in a bottle' style and attracted towards *any* noise source.-- stupop, Nov 26 2004 Why not go burgle his house? Nobody'll notice.-- moomintroll, Nov 26 2004 I'd be too groggy to do it effectively.-- lyserge, Nov 26 2004 A semi-ethical solution is to call the emergency police, and don't mention that the alarm has gone off for the last 5 days. The police may try to contact the owner to tell him his house was possibly burglarized, hopefully inciting the owner to cut his vacation short and come back home - only to find out nothing has happened.-- phundug, Nov 26 2004 you could resort to primitive behaviour and throw a rock throught the window with the message "SHUT THE FUCK UP" on it-- umm0i, Nov 27 2004 [lyserge] If you explain to the neighbors WHY you are burgleing his house, they will most likely help. Might as well have something for the pain, eh?-- James Newton, Nov 27 2004 random, halfbakery