Apple silent on mysterious noises from Sunnyvale complex | Hacker News Reader

Apple silent on mysterious noises from Sunnyvale complex

mercurynews.com

133 pointskafkaesq99 comments

Since EVs are very quiet, it could be a rolls machine, which is basically a treadmill for a car. They are used for running tests on vehicles and are outrageously loud. They can be used during prototyping. In a car factory it's at the very end of the assembly line and sometimes used for debugging vehicles that have come off the line with issues.

In the automotive industry, we call them dynamometers. Though you'll never hear anyone say that, we just call them dynos.

Not necessarily, it could be a rolling road, which is more similar to what the OP described.

A rolling road is another term for a chassis dynamometer.

I thought a dyno is a mechanism that a standalone engine can be rigged up to on the bench to test it under (typically computer-) controlled conditions, measure its output, simulate different driving conditions, etc.

In N.A. generally that is referred to as an "engine dyno", and what's known in the UK and other colonies as a "rolling road" is a "chassis dyno".

I've never heard any term except dyno (or dynamometer), but I much prefer those terms simply because it's more apparent to someone that doesn't have an understanding of engine & car testing.

I'm a fan of names that give insight into what the thing/product/service/company actually does.

dynos can measure at the engine (in which case they measure brake horse power) or at the wheels. Most individuals are more familiar with the ones that measure at the wheels, as that's how they would measure the effect of after-market modifications.

Not in my world, http://hackedgadgets.com/wp-content/rolling_road_wind_tunnel...

Here is what I would call a chassis dyno http://www.maha.de/roller-function-tester-fps-2700.htm These are very very noisy, because the tires are moving at 70 or 80 mph (whatever you set) and make as much noise as tires going 70 down a highway (only 1 axle though!)

A rolling road is different in that the floor moves under the car, not just rollers under 1 or 2 axles. Like this http://www.qmtmag.com/images/Windshear_RR_05.jpg The chassis dynos are noisy, these are super noisy.

Disclosure: I sold Maha dynos from 96-2000 with SnapOn/Sun branding, about 40 of them.

So that's what they are called. When I worked for Chrysler everyone in the plant called it the rolls machine.

This was quite the sensationalist piece. Maybe something is going on, but maybe the explanation is more boring. Since everyone is taking wild guesses, allow me to partake:

The building is Apple's HR center. The people there mostly write reports on health insurance utilization.

The noise is office remodeling. They do it at night because people are working during the day.

I have it on good authority that there are several capacitors in the building. They're mostly used to filter the output of switching power supplies. Why right now, there are probably hundreds of capacitors inside your house!

Give me a break.

And a "repair garage"!? What could that possibly be used for besides a secret new Apple car?

Well went thru the links and not one sound clip I heard of this noise - which I find equally just as odd, lots reports of the noise and clips of people getting there slot of TV fame, but not one link to the actual noise - least what I gleaned thru.

So who knows, just equally as odd no recordings I could find of this noise, though there must be some out there somewhere I'd imagine if it is that much of an issue.

Given the ubiquity of sophisticated cell phones and other recording equipment, it's best to regard the lack of a recording as strong evidence that it does not exist. Just as if multiple people claimed the Loch Ness Monster had surfaced in San Francisco Bay but somehow there were no photographs of it.

It is incredibly hard to record silent noises with standard equipment.

Cell phones have shitty mics (because physics).

You would need a condenser microphone for low level noises. Around $100.

TV camera crews have them, not even one stood around waiting for the sounds?

Even better, hang it from a 20' cable below a drone and fly it over. Stream the audio back in case they somehow manage to disable the drone. I'm sure lots of people in the Bay Area have the equipment right now to do this, just a matter of if anyone cares.

You'd need a good wind blocker on the mic, and you'd get a lot of drag from the 20' cable, but this seems doable.

Pardon my ignorance, but is it really feasible for a drone to carry a 20 foot cable with a mic? Wouldn't it drag pretty far behind the drone, making it unwieldy? Wouldn't you need 20 additional feet of clearance to avoid obstacles? There aren't a lot of tall buildings in Sunnyvale, but there are birds and other drones in the sky.

I think this thread is a bit pie in the sky and a bit of "just for fun" impracticality, but I do think one of the bigger octo drones, carefully piloted, could pull it off.

Ah, drones seem so magical and powerful to me that I didn't pick up on it :)

Remote-activated cable reel. Roll it up and get into position, then lower the skyhook. Pack it back up and fly off into the sunset! Now I want to do this. Yes you'd need a big wind screen (they make those and they're not crazy expensive) and a fairly large drone to deal with the extra weight of a condenser mic + XLR cable + 48v phantom power circuit + any reel mechanism, but considering the payload capacities of current drones in the 1-2kg range for a DJI Phantom 2 ( http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/flying-at-high-density-... ), it would require some engineering (and maybe removing the mic from the heavy casing or finding a really light mic), but definitely not impossible or even very challenging to do with off-the-shelf stuff and a bit of diddling.

In a few years we'll just have autonomous micro-drones flying directly into Apple's secret buildings streaming video back.

a few years? who's to say it's not already happening?

Why not a video drone ?

Yes, but article clearly states the neighbours can't stop talking about it. They're so busy talking about it that they haven't made time to record it.

Be patient. As soon as they all stop talking about it we can hear the noise.

What a BS linkbaity vaporous article. For all anyone knows Apple could be repairing an AC unit. Oh, and while I'm in a ranty mood. Aren't all labs "mysterious" from the outside?

That would hardly explain the hypervigilant security people harassing bystanders on public property and thoroughfares.

Isn't hypervigilant security normal for Apple?

No: I cut through parking lots and walk right next to lots of other Apple buildings in Sunnyvale. Occasionally I would see a guard in a car, but I'd never get stopped or questioned.

Looks like a small data center under construction by converting an existing building. Large amounts of HVAC equipment for the size of the building. Cooling towers. Big fuel tank. Cummins Diesel emergency generator, size around 1MW. Lots of electrical conduit on outside of building.[1] Picnic area and half basketball court. Several construction trailers on site, so some remodeling is going on. Beeping trucks and banging on sheet metal sounds like HVAC work.

It's annoying the neighbors because it's directly across a drainage ditch from suburban houses. Nobody likes nighttime industrial construction opposite their backyard.

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/dcK3MjKdh822

A residential area in Sunnyvale seems like an inopportune place to put a data center.

Why? Not an expert on DC location or construction. What makes it any better or worse than somewhere else?

- land price

- water/electricity price

- local wages

- internet bandwidth

I know of at least five large data centers in the Sunnyvale / Santa Clara area.

Mind sharing names? My company shut down its Santa Clara DCs around two years ago for reasons mentioned elsewhere in this thread

A quick Google search would easily answer this for you, but I'll oblige.

Equinix SV2, SV4, SV6 are all in Sunnyvale/Santa Clara, but Equinix also has 4 more very close by in Palo Alto, Mountain View, and/or San Jose.

CenturyLink has two DCs in Sunnyvale.

You can find a dozen more listed here:

http://www.datacentermap.com/usa/california/santa-clara/

And this doesn't include the many privately held by major internet brands in the Valley.

Thanks. Should've googled it myself. One of the first things I got to do when I joined my company(first job, just moving into the valley) was to tour our soon-to-be-dead DC. Was a really cool experience.

Area with expected earthquakes.

I'll agree with most of your points as to why it's not likely the most cost effective, but the point re: internet bandwidth is just absurd.

Look at the map GP posted. That residential block is sided by the Apple complex, a block of large industrial buildings, a Home Depot and an expressway.

Apple is just generating some buzz.

Did you read the article? It's not a "buzz," it's a "loud hum."

Not sure if how company who netted $18 billion in their last quarter needs to generate buzz.

Either way, bringing a car to market is a wise move for Apple never struck me as a great idea. I've always suspected there's just too much good will and little-guy championing for Tesla to make Apple's offering a thing we want to own. Tesla vehicles are also incredibly well designed, aesthetically pleasing, and have a tonne of respect for laying the groundwork for this emerging industry.

Could it have been better for the brand to partner with Tesla and restore some credibility? Not sure. But I do predict they'll call this thing the Apple Auto.

Now I'm just hearing a loud woosh.

How about, oh I dunno, actually posting a recording of the noise?

Another article from Mercury News.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29558045/apple-silent...

Thanks. We changed the URL to that from http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Nei..., which sees less substantive.

I'm curious about the words "working-class neighborhood". Is this tongue-in-cheek? I've been trying to find housing in that area and it's on par with East Bay, if not worse.

I rented over there after college. I think working class is accurate. Lots of work trucks parked in the street, caltrain in the backyard and families with not a lot of income.

Perhaps they are working at night because it would make it very difficult for personal drones to get good imagery.

I stay right besides sunnyvale apple office but have never heard of anything! :/

This isn't at the Sunnyvale office; it's an unbranded black site. Perhaps they interrogate their Google captives there as well; it's just about halfway between Apple and Google HQs.

It's a theory.

"One reason why Apple could be working at night is that electricity is cheaper then" Is the author serious?

Are you?

http://www.pge.com/en/mybusiness/rates/tvp/toupricing.page?W...

Instead of a single flat rate for energy use, time-of-use rate plans are higher when electric demand is higher. This means when you use energy is just as important as how much you use. Winter has two rate periods: off-peak and partial-peak. Summer has three: off-peak, partial-peak and peak. During peak periods, defined as weekdays from noon to 6 p.m., May through October, your business's electric rates will be higher. In return, time-of-use rate plans at all other times will be lower than the peak rate. All business customers will transition to time-of-use rate plans over the next several years, as required by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Doesn't California also have some the most expensive electricity in the US?

If only Apple could afford their PG&E bill.

Residential rates appear to be reasonably high (9th highest if I read this right: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/) but (a) presumably they're not exactly smelting aluminum and (b) don't they have a giant money pit that Tim Cook dives in Scrooge McDuck-style.

We're talking about a company with $200 billion in cash lying around. They could build a few large nuclear plants without making a significant dent in that pile of money.

Yes. Sure, we all know that electricity is cheaper at night, but would it make overall sense for the engineers to do their work at night for this reason?

First, they don't have to use the energy when they draw it from the grid. Charge an EV at night and test it all day.

Second, it only costs a couple bucks to charge an EV car even at peak rates. Surely the engineer's time and schedule is more important.

All the machinery they are using to build and test the cars most likely do not run on batteries.

Depends on what type of work they are doing there. If it's light manufacturing, given the discussion of wobbly sheet metal and the like, you really wouldn't have many engineers there on shift, you'd have machinists who like working second shift/graveyard. Plus, given the location and security presence, it makes it a lot easier to chase curious people away while people are working.

Why should apple care about that? The cost of salary utterly dwarfs energy cost so much that even thinking about the slightly cheaper rates at night is a joke.

Apple is not a process manufacturer where energy is a large part of the budget.

Unless they're melting their own aluminum. =)

Note the article doesn't really mention electric-type humming.

One neighbor described the sounds he hears at night as "sheets of metal slamming, clanking, almost a grinding sound."

This idea they're running large amounts of electricity to charge EVs seems far-fetched. And if a charger is making that much noise to wake the neighbors then, well, they have larger technology issues to handle.

Also: when you're a large industrial electricity consumer and you pull megawatts for your work, the utility usually wants you to run at night so you don't brown out the grid for everyone else during the day. Just another data point.

I realise you're joking, but one doesn't turn an aluminium electrolysis cell on and off at a whim (as in off in the day, on in the night). Shutdown and restart is bloody expensive, dangerous, and hard work to boot.

I'm half-joking. If this plant is pulling large amounts of current, no matter what they're doing, the utility might be asking them to do it at night.

Sure. That's why you don't build an electrolysis cell in a location where electricity is (sometimes) scarce.

I'm half thinking that this is all shadow games, Apple having two guys running around and making mechanic-sounding noises to stir up the rumor mill. Mainly because a) making cars isn't really something that produces a lot of noise and b) because you don't put your real skunk works in a residential area. But you do put a fake one there.

It would be interesting if someone with a thermal imaging camera could have a look at that plant during day/night. If they're pulling loads of 'leccy only during the night, the plant should show anomalous cooling behavior.

Lockheed Martin might have OPSEC needs that require building a fake skunkworks, but Apple certainly does not. One imagines they put it in the suburbs because it was an area which is convenient to commute to, which was a boon to recruitment.

They might not need it for OPSEC, but they do have a stock price to worry about. Financial analysts are making increasingly frequent statements that Apple needs a new market to be the game-changer in if they are to sustain their growth, and Cook has said that anything car-related and groundbreaking will, if it exists, be relatively far into the future. Thus the need to stoke the rumor mill.

While I find that claim much more credible, if I were Apple, I'd focus on breaking into new markets, instead.

I'm suggesting they're doing both, breaking into new markets as a long term strategy, increasing buzz/rumors as a short term strategy.

Question: Do you not have noise complain laws in the US? I mean if some company is producing that noise, waking people up, I would start calling the cops on them every time it happens. And regarding the security guards, maybe a daily pick-nick on the public property outside the buildinge would be a nice way to point the middle finger at them :) Just my two cents...

We have noise complaint laws, sure. They're different depending on the jurisdiction, of course, but they exist.

And as for the security guards, it doesn't sound like they're protecting public property. Depending on the laws in that area publicly accessible does not imply that people are allowed there, just that they can easily get there.

It's so real in fact, theres a new website for apple car fans called applecarfans.com

Maybe Dr Dre setup a studio there for Beats Music.

"Something is going on in there...I can't tell you what"

And people say investigative journalism is dead.

My conspiracy theory:

"Guys, turn these loud speakers on tonight. Trust me the press will go nuts!"

Must be nice to be Apple :)

Is there a recording of the noises?

Someone go throw a drone up and get a live feed with audio. Problem solved.

My God! Reversing trucks that make a beeping sound! Bangs! Thumps! This is quite extraordinary. Certainly not the kind of thing you would expect from almost any warehouse or industrial facility of any kind in the world.

Induction furnace?

Heh. This reminds me of the mystery in the movie The Burbs.

Circumstances do not permit me to comment, but I would advise the neighbors to stock up on silver bullets and pray that the containment field holds.

Nah, probably it's the new iRaptor, considering how close they are with Genentech.

Judging from the product placement in the new Jurassic World movie they are much closer with Samsung.

Getting a head start on their own pre-mined crypto-currency?

In reality probably just something mundane, Apple does secrecy well, and this would just be amateur

Maybe Apple didn't hear the question?

It's probably just Bubbles working away on his carts!

I'm expecting overhead drone imagery on YouTube in 3...2...1...

Probably just testing a new sleep app that triggers the Inception horn through giant Beats speakers when you reach REM stage.

Quite obvious. The sound and the apple car is just them trying to get a DeLorean to travel back in time. That way they can get Steve Jobs back.

Wow - nobody thought this was funny?

What the hell is he building in there? We have a right to know.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JaLjwSpZ6Cs

He has no friends

but he gets a lot of mail

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