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Comment by vortico | Hacker News Reader

Garbage, sensationalist title with mentions of "unknown origin". Even the article says the likely source is Zug island, but of course this wouldn't get as many clicks.

According to the mentioned University of Windsor report (http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/windsor_...) "A previous study confirmed the existence of the low frequency excitation and estimated the source to be in the vicinity of Zug Island". If this article was written with the assumption that the source is likely known, it would have been a reasonable read. Instead, it should have focused on getting the city to do something about it, by approaching the property with a noise complaint warrant, discovering the source, fining those responsible, and changing policy if needed to solve it. If all of the above is impossible for whatever reason, why doesn't the article mention the reasons instead of making it the issue seem like sensasionalist "mystery" news.

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Findings from your link, seems you didn't read it.

Number 1 "We do not find common signals at both arrays which could plausibly be associated with the Hum. We are unable to geolocate a definite source for the Hum using common cross-bearings."

Number 5 "The bulk of our observations from both stations do not support the hypothesis that the source of the Hum emanates from Zug Island"

From the bottom of the document that you cite:

> We note that the bearing from Array 1 to the most probable source of the Hum points well to the South of Zug Island. The bulk of our observations from both stations do not support the hypothesis that the source of the Hum emanates from Zug Island.

Even if it is from Zug Island, "unknown origin" is still appropriate until they know WHAT is causing it.

They have it narrowed down to a few thousand feet. To call it "unknown" is just unfair. They might not know which steel plant is producing it, but they can narrow it down to a small handful, far from "unknown". They have enough evidence of which company is producing the sound (United States Steel), so the only thing stopping them from getting police or lawmakers involved is the fact that no one on the US side cares enough. The article could have mentioned this caveat, but after the couple sentences about the likely cause, it's followed by more "It’s like chasing a ghost" rhetoric.

It's constrained, but it's still unknown. It's not saying there is no clue about the origin, and narrowing it to a few thousand feet/a few possibilities still means the source is unknown.

The location of my son is unknown, since I don't know which side of the room he's on right now.

Different case IMO. There you know both the object and the location to some margin of error. If there was a strange noise in the room, you might know the location to the same degree of precision (i.e. it's somewhere in the room), but until you determine the object making it, the source of the noise is still unknown.

> If all of the above is impossible for whatever reason, why doesn't the article mention the reasons

I'd say you didn't read the article. They're pretty clear that it's because Zug Island is in the USA while the sound problem affects a city in Canada.

See this sister comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16425313

So, Canada should tell the US, please stop doing all your noise... or else?

Yes, that's my point. This would be an interesting article if it explored the possibilities and difficulties in solving the problem due to the national border instead of just throwing up its hands and saying "It’s possible that no matter what is done to relieve or attenuate the noise, it might never be enough".

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