I am a freelancer in the publishing industry, so words are very important to me. I'm a leftist living in a world gone mad, so politics are very important to me. I'm an environmentalist living in a degrading world, so pick up your damn trash, get rid of your gas guzzlers, and don't touch ANWR, you self-absorbed capitalists!

Do leave comments: let's make this a conversation. If you prefer, you can contact me at friuduric at yahoo dot com.

19 January 2007

How Old Are Your Ears?

I remember reading something about this a few months ago. There is a small shop in a village in England that was being overrun with troublemakers. Teens would come in and shoplift things all the time, they'd hang around outside and scare off other customers, and so the shopowner decided to put in this "mosquito" sound. Supposedly, teens can hear certain ultrasonic sounds that we elders can't. It worked, he said. The traoublemakers weren't hanging around anymore, and his regular customers said they didn't notice anything.

I found this quiz online yesterday (I can't remember where, I was surfing around, and now I can't give credit where credit is due, sorry!), and found out:

You're a little frustrated that you can't hear all the tones that the young 'uns can but will be more than happy if it means you don't have to listen to their damn ringtones on the bus anymore.

The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 14.9kHz
Find out which ringtones you can hear!


If you have kids around, have them sit next to you as you take this audio quiz. It will feel really weird to hear nothing and have them say, "Yeah, I can hear that!"

Try it!