3 ms·

Scientists can use their ears instead of their eyes to process data more rapidly

18 points by curtis 12y ago

anigbrowl 12y ago
I want to work on this sort of thing! I've spent the last ~20 years listening to synthesizer and field recordings in a professional capacity. It'd be great if they opened this similar to projects like GalaxyZoo or the like - I'd love to leverage my audio skills for scientific ends.
linker3000 12y ago
I work alongside a group of engineers responsible for HDD testing, failure analysis and firmware development. One of their tools of the trade is an old radio shack telephone amplifier with a magnetic suction cup pickup. Using this unit, the engineers listen to the noise coming from the HDD electronics and motors and can identify firmware versions, drive states (like heads parking) and posible timing issues - I often hear discussions like 'this drive must have the r3 firmware mod as the cache preload kicked in slightly later' and 'sounds like this unit has a manufacturer x motor'
rflrob 12y ago
By the way, this is more or less what Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster's character) was doing in Contact. People often assume that it was an error, because "radio telescopes don't produce sound", but anything produces sound if you process it right.
sharpneli 12y ago
Back when I was a student we played around with the concept of listening to ultrasonic echoes in a similar way. Basically human ear can get far more information from a reflection than what one can get from it by eyes. Eventually you could do Non Destructive Evaluation better by just listening to the data and not just looking at it "Sir, this weld sounds wrong". But alas, IT pays more so that thing was buried on that lab :)
draugadrotten 12y ago
I grew up with the bleeping chirps of software loading from 300bps modems and "turbo" C64 tape recorders. I could easily recognize different games from the sound they made when loading, and it is trivial to recognize the various modem handshakes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvr9AMWEU-c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvr9AMWEU-c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmPpl6UMuH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmPpl6UMuH0

18 points by curtis 12y ago

I want to work on this sort of thing! I've spent the last ~20 years listening to synthesizer and field recordings in a professional capacity. It'd be great if they opened this similar to projects like GalaxyZoo or the like - I'd love to leverage my audio skills for scientific ends.

linker3000 12y ago

I work alongside a group of engineers responsible for HDD testing, failure analysis and firmware development. One of their tools of the trade is an old radio shack telephone amplifier with a magnetic suction cup pickup. Using this unit, the engineers listen to the noise coming from the HDD electronics and motors and can identify firmware versions, drive states (like heads parking) and posible timing issues - I often hear discussions like 'this drive must have the r3 firmware mod as the cache preload kicked in slightly later' and 'sounds like this unit has a manufacturer x motor'

rflrob 12y ago

By the way, this is more or less what Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster's character) was doing in Contact. People often assume that it was an error, because "radio telescopes don't produce sound", but anything produces sound if you process it right.

sharpneli 12y ago

Back when I was a student we played around with the concept of listening to ultrasonic echoes in a similar way. Basically human ear can get far more information from a reflection than what one can get from it by eyes. Eventually you could do Non Destructive Evaluation better by just listening to the data and not just looking at it "Sir, this weld sounds wrong". But alas, IT pays more so that thing was buried on that lab :)

draugadrotten 12y ago

I grew up with the bleeping chirps of software loading from 300bps modems and "turbo" C64 tape recorders. I could easily recognize different games from the sound they made when loading, and it is trivial to recognize the various modem handshakes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvr9AMWEU-c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvr9AMWEU-c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmPpl6UMuH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmPpl6UMuH0