The noise (cont'd)

OK, I thought I'd tell you exactly what happened yesterday. I was in bed, and I was just about to fall asleep when the phone started ringing. It gave me a serious fright, just like everything does when you're half asleep, and my heart was pounding like crazy when I picked up the phone. Who the hell was calling so late? Then I got even more worked up when I remembered that I can't answer calls with my stupid phone. So by the time I put the phone to my ear I was really pissed off.

That's when I heard the noise. Not only that, but I could clearly hear a voice on the other end, but I don't think I just overheard a conversation, because it sounded like someone reading from a list over and over. I couldn't make out any words. I freaked and just froze at first, but then I finally remembered that I wanted to record it, so I booted up my computer and held the microphone to the receiver. Unfortunately, the noise stopped just a few seconds after that.

When I listen to the sample now, the voice isn't as clear. After listening to it a few times, I'm starting to doubt that it was there in the first place. If you can hear anything besides noise in the recording (there's a link to it in the previous post), please leave a comment here.

Oh by the way, my neighbour's car is still missing from the driveway. Seems like he's been gone all night. So if he's not doing this, who is? In one of the comments here, someone suggested that the phone company is messing with me. Does anyone else think they'd do that? Purposely lowering the quality of their own service? What, they want me to switch back to my old carrier?

the noise

I don't know if I'm calm enough yet to to make any sense, but I've recorder the noise. I uplaoded it so you can check tell me if you know what it means.

Click here to listen

Talked to my neighbour

OK, my neighbour is officially crazy. I don't know what the hell is wrong with that guy. I asked if he knew anything about the noises in my phone, and he went ballistic! He started screaming at me and said he had nothing to do with it and that I shouldn't talk about it again. He went into a long tirade, but half of it was in Russian, so I have no idea what he was on about. I don't know what his problem is. Anyway, he seemed genuinely outraged that I even suggested he could be messing with the phone lines, so now I'm not so sure he's the one doing it. Either that, or he's hiding something and is scared of getting caught. I don't know, I've never seen him upset before.

When he was done talking, he virtually pushed me out of his house and then drove off somewhere. That was six hours ago, and I noticed just now that his driveway is still empty.

Oh, and here's a phone update: I can't even call out anymore. So now it's totally useless. I still get a dialtone, but when I call a number it just goes dead. Wheee.

Irritated

Now my phone is really acting weird. It starts ringing, but when I pick it up I get a dialtone. This has happened so many times today that I've actually lost count. And it's from a private number, so I can't call back even if I wanted to. So naturally I called the phone company, and they told me one of their switches can't connect out to the rest of the network or something, and that they're working on it. It should be done "sometime today". Sheesh. Then I realised that those calls could be important. Sometimes numbers show up as private because people call from inside a local phone network, like a big company or a government authority. I called again and asked for compensation, but apparently they only do refunds, and one day equals 3 Swedish kronor, which is under their refund limit. Now I'm thinking of switching back to my old carrier, although they're more expensive. Crap.

As if that weren't enough, I got that weird noise again when I called my phone company the second time. I didn't want to complain about it again since I didn't want to get my neighbour in trouble, but I have to tell him to stop doing whatever it is he's doing. Now I'm kind of afraid that he's responsible for crashing that switch.

It's weird though, today it didn't sound so much as just noise as some kind of signal. I could almost swear I heard a voice in the background. For some reason, my heart started racing and I felt very much like a little kid. It reminded me of one time when my brother and I were playing around in the woods with walkie-talkies, pretending to be commandos, and we suddenly picked up someone else's communication. Has that ever happened to you? Whatever it was, it was as if the game had turned into reality. It was kinda scary.

If I hear the noise again, which I hope I won't after asking my neighbour to stop, I might be able to record it. I have a headset connected to my computer, I'll just try holding the mic up to the receiver and see if it registers. I don't know how many read this blog, but maybe someone out there can help me figure out what this is.

Telephone

I tried to call a friend of mine yesterday, but I couldn't get a dial tone. Instead I got a low humming noise, kind of like a radio that is almost tuned in to a station. None of my phones were off the hook, so I called the phone company on my cell phone and told them to fix it. They said there should be nothing wrong and asked me to check it again. Lo and behold, it worked.

Now, I wouldn't mention this at all if it weren't for the fact that later that night I heard the same humming noise from my neighbour's house. So today I went over there and told him about the phone acting weird and the noise, and I could literally see the blood drain from his face. He turned so white I thought he was going to pass out. He never really answered me, but I guess he must have been messing around with stuff he shouldn't have. I just can't figure out what it might have been. I had no idea he was into telecommunication. He's never talked about it, and he doesn't teach any courses even remotely related to that stuff.

He did have a new version of the simulator though, and it totally rocks. I don't know if it's me getting more used to the controls or if it's his tweaking or both, but everything went so smoothly this time. When I told him he should license it to amusement parks and totally revolutionise those VR rides, he just laughed. It wasn't a nervous little laugh either, it was almost Santa-class full-body laughter. Him going from white as a sheet to jovial laughter was too confusing a contrast for me, so I said I had some work to do and got out of there. I hope he's a bit less weird next time I see him, because that simulator is getting to be a lot of fun.

Freaky

I just reread the first post while setting up an RSS feed, and I realised that it might seem as if I'm not freaked out about having a crazy Russian neighbour with a giant robot in his basement. Believe me, I am. It's been a couple of years since I first saw the lab though, so I'm starting to get used to the idea. Sure, it still hits me sometimes when I'm sitting here in front of my computer that he could be doing any kind of weird experiment down there right now. And when he emails me and says I "have to come look at something", I get a bit apprehensive at first, but then I just have to go look despite myself. Also, I told you already, he's a very likable guy.

So I set up a FeedBurner RSS feed now, it's pretty cool. You can subscribe to that if you want to keep track of this blog. I even got one of their nifty counters to show how many daily readers I have via the RSS feed. Obviously, this blog is currently in its infancy, so there are 0 readers so far.

The first post!

OK, I've got all the templates the way I want them (although I'll probably change them a bit later on), and so this blog is a go. Which is a good thing, because I want to write in it! I'm not sure where to start, I'd like to talk about what's happening in my life now, but I think it'll be confusing without some background info. But background is boring. I want to keep these posts short, so I think I'll just tell you the old stuff as I go along and just hit you with the new stuff right now.

Today, I fought space monkeys while wearing an exoskeleton armour. Yes, basically those big robots in Japanese cartoons, only not that big and shiny. This is a prototype after all, so it doesn't have a top-of-the-line paintjob. In fact, it doesn't have a paintjob at all, so it looks a bit crappy aside from the fact that it's a big kick-ass robot. Also, I didn't actually drive the robot, because it's not done yet. You can sit inside it, but it's basically just an empty armoured husk. What we're doing now is just some usability tests in a simulator.

So yeah, here's some background. The simulator was designed and built by my neighbour and university lecturer, who defected from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He used to be a scientist there, apparently doing research on some kind of "versatile armoured personnel carrier." Basically a next-gen tank. According to him, the project never really got off the ground.

This guy seems nuts sometimes, he's kind of paranoid and seems to think that people are looking for him. His Swedish is still not very good, so he sometimes asks me about something he's heard on the news about the Russian mafia. I try hard not to smile when he uses an obviously phony matter-of-factual tone of voice to start a "casual" conversation: "I heard on the news, it was something about Russia." You know, I always thought the russian accents in movies were exaggerated, but they're apparently spot on! This guy's a lot of fun to be around. He's a great guy, something between a nerdy middle-aged man and your typical sweet/wise old man, and he can talk passionately about some dusty old theories that you can't help but care about just because his ramblings are so entertaining.

Anyway, the simulation was fun. He wants the controls to be as intuitive as possible, and apparently he has a bit of usability testing left. He wants it to feel like a second skin. Well, in that case it's a very weird skin at this point. I found the simulation to have kind of sluggish response times, which was a bit disappointing. The simulation is basically a game where I was sitting in the robot, controlling it, and fighting big monkeys in space. Did I mention this guy is a loon? The controls involve moving like you want the robot to move, but to only kind of hint at the movements enough for the controls to register them. It's hard to explain, and very awkward at first, but it felt pretty natural after a while once I started getting the hang of it.

This post ended up longer than I wanted it to be. I actually went back and edited, but for everything I delete I add some other stuff. There's just so much to talk about. It'll have to wait, I can't be writing here all day.