4 ms·

It sounds like it's a claim along the lines that you can't tell "I love Lucy" is on because you are listening to the audio and not looking at the screen.

by Lerc 5mo ago

CGMthrowaway 5mo ago
fMRI is a step above dowsing rods. It's plugging a multimeter into an outlet and guessing what type and brand of appliances you are running in your house.
- fgfarben 5mo ago
  Have you heard of time-domain reflectometry? A $20,000 multimeter could have the "impossible" feature you describe all but built in.
- yummybrainz 5mo ago
  I'd say you're right about any given individual channel: the activation of a single voxel doesn't tell us much about all the fancy computation happening in that ~1 mm^3 of tissue. But the pattern of activity of thousands of voxels across cortex does contain reliable information! And a decent amount of it too, at least in sensory cortices.
- BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
  I was at a talk maybe 15 years ago in which the speaker gave pretty convincing evidence that given a time series of voltages you could learn a lot of things about what kind of appliances you've got running.
  - zdragnar 5mo ago
    There are a lot of devices that have reasonably distinct patterns to their power consumption. Motors- especially well pumps, but also large central air fans and some others- are going to look very different from a microwave or vacuum cleaner or refrigerator, especially if you have time of day on your readings. Constant lower draw devices- chargers, lights, speakers and such- are going to be harder to distinguish, though.
    - aix1 5mo ago
      Turns out it's a (somewhat) active area of research. https://ubicomplab.cs.washington.edu/pdfs/electrisense.pdf https://ubicomplab.cs.washington.edu/pdfs/electrisense.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266461208_Multimedia_Content_Identification_Through_Smart_Meter_Power_Usage_Profiles https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266461208_Multimedi... https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/9/2485 https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/9/2485
- lostlogin 5mo ago
  Try it with a crude task - eg finger tapping. It’s pretty convincing.

It sounds like it's a claim along the lines that you can't tell "I love Lucy" is on because you are listening to the audio and not looking at the screen.

by Lerc 5mo ago

It sounds like it's a claim along the lines that you can't tell "I love Lucy" is on because you are listening to the audio and not looking at the screen.

CGMthrowaway 5mo ago

fMRI is a step above dowsing rods. It's plugging a multimeter into an outlet and guessing what type and brand of appliances you are running in your house.

fgfarben 5mo ago
Have you heard of time-domain reflectometry? A $20,000 multimeter could have the "impossible" feature you describe all but built in.
yummybrainz 5mo ago
I'd say you're right about any given individual channel: the activation of a single voxel doesn't tell us much about all the fancy computation happening in that ~1 mm^3 of tissue. But the pattern of activity of thousands of voxels across cortex does contain reliable information! And a decent amount of it too, at least in sensory cortices.
BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
I was at a talk maybe 15 years ago in which the speaker gave pretty convincing evidence that given a time series of voltages you could learn a lot of things about what kind of appliances you've got running.
- zdragnar 5mo ago
  There are a lot of devices that have reasonably distinct patterns to their power consumption. Motors- especially well pumps, but also large central air fans and some others- are going to look very different from a microwave or vacuum cleaner or refrigerator, especially if you have time of day on your readings. Constant lower draw devices- chargers, lights, speakers and such- are going to be harder to distinguish, though.
  - aix1 5mo ago
    Turns out it's a (somewhat) active area of research. https://ubicomplab.cs.washington.edu/pdfs/electrisense.pdf https://ubicomplab.cs.washington.edu/pdfs/electrisense.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266461208_Multimedia_Content_Identification_Through_Smart_Meter_Power_Usage_Profiles https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266461208_Multimedi... https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/9/2485 https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/9/2485
lostlogin 5mo ago
Try it with a crude task - eg finger tapping. It’s pretty convincing.