Super People!

[mishalak]

trickofthedark wrote about supertasters, those people who taste bitter and hot things more intensely, and so don't like things like brussels sprouts. It the high level of flavanoids. I suspect that it is also what gets some people about sulfides used to stop fermentation in wine.

Anyway supertasters often find things like meat that have not been carefully prepared to have a off or metallic taste that the majority who are medium tasters or those who are non-tasters who don't get the bitter taste at all.

In my comment I noted that I didn't have this problem, but put in a bit about me being sympathetic because I hear things that most people aren't bothered by. Up in about the same register as my mild tinnitus I can hear the sound of cathode ray tubes in standard computer monitors and televisions. When the volume is off the noise is especially noticeable. And it can be really, really annoying.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

Florescent lights used to be worse, but I think the newer ballasts (that's the right word, right?) work better so they don't buzz as much. Or else my ears are slowly becoming less sensitive as I get older. Anyway when I get a new job I'm going to get a LED monitor for my computer and then life will be as perfect as for those people with digital watches in HHGG.

Comments

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

I haven't been able to hear TV's (and old, low-refresh-rate monitors) for twenty years. :(
OTOH, I can hear my tinnitus all the time.
And it's not what I would call mild.

PS: running a decent monitor and graphics card at a nice high refresh rate (say 85 Hz or higher) seems to help. I'm not sure what, if anything, that does to the horizontal sweep rate however, which is what you hear. I should know, and I probably used to, but I don't remember.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice. I just bumped up the refresh rate to 100 hertz according to the control panel thingy, that helps but there is still some electronic noise of some sort which may not be from my monitor. I used to hear a change in display noise, like when I went suddenly from a mostly white screen to a mostly black one or with some animated gifs. It was very faint, but detectable and it seems to be gone now.