People living near Sackville, New Brunswick sometimes hear voices.

Little, faint whispers from the kitchen.

A bit of a hum from the office.

Sometimes the voices are in English, sometimes Asian or European tongues.

Yet they’re not crazy, and their houses aren’t haunted.

So what’s going on?

The residents of the area are the audience for an unusual phenomenon known as “external rectification,” where metal objects pick up radio frequencies and act as a speaker.

‘Here’, a local paper, recently wrote an article on the effect:

“The plumbing acts as an antenna,” area artist and burgeoning historian Amanda Christie said. “When two pipes cross, the appliance ends up acting as a gramophone speaker. All of a sudden, people will hear the radio coming from their sink, but this happens with other things, too, that have pieces of metal touching at the right point.”

The reason residents hear Chinese, Swedish or German voices is because the frequency is from the nearby CBC Radio Canada International transmitter, which is also used by a bunch of Asian broadcasters, Radio Sweden, the BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle as part of a transmitter time exchange agreement.

The transmittor is pretty powerful. It’s Canada’s only shortwave transmitter station, broadcasting to Europe and South America.

Christie is working on an art installation based on the effect:

“It’s a part of the history of the region that isn’t written anywhere. Seems that if you live here, you just know about it,” she said. “There’s mythology, too. Some say the radios affect their dreams. Others say they keep people in Sackville, while some say they force them away. Like a magnet – it attracts and repels.”

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	The Odd File	Posted at 6:32 pm (22 Jun 2010)

It seems the CBC’s digital vice-cop, Websense, considers CBC’s Exposure program to be a “Malicious Web Site.” Really? I didn’t think the films were that bad…

(No, the headline wasn’t a typo. See LOLspeak.)

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	The Odd File	Posted at 2:47 pm (28 Apr 2008)

Okay, fine, so there’s no such thing as a Caption Writer at the CBC. I mean, people do write captions, of course, but it’s usually the story producer who develops the captions (“lower thirds” in the parlance).

But then how do you explain this caption, from one of CBC Television’s “Living” programs (not sayin’ which one), and emailed to me by a viewer.

Airport Dude?! Really?! Did someone lose his business card? Couldn’t we at least have said Airport Official or something? 

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	Living In, The Odd File	Posted at 11:56 pm (24 Apr 2008)

Spark producer Dan Misener is getting married shortly. So when he headed over to the H.R. section on the CBC intranet… er, portal… er, iO! to get some information about benefits and time off, he was surprised to find this:

Have you ever had any strange Mothercorp experiences as a result of your own nuptials?

This week on Spark, Virginia Postrel explains the cultural currency of type (full interview) and a chance to play Font, Coffee, or Baby Name? and using zenware to focus on your writing (full interview).

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	Human Resources, The Odd File	Posted at 11:19 am (23 Apr 2008)

A Toronto viewer who goes by the name qsharp spotted this unusual caption on CBC Newsworld. I suppose sometimes words just aren’t enough…

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	CBC Newsworld, The Odd File	Posted at 2:37 pm (12 Feb 2008)

It’s kind of hard to know where to file this one. But believe it or not, the design on this African dress is purely coincidental.

The dress, known on its retailer’s web site as Office and Career Outfit ca-1011A comes in four sizes and costs $150 (!).

It comes with a skirt, blouse and head-wrap.

According to the promotional material, you can “Wear to work, office or to entertain – with or without head-tie.”)

I dare you.

I seriously dare someone to wear this to work.

Hat tip to Jonathan Pinto.

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	The Odd File	Posted at 12:57 pm (12 Feb 2008)

Needless to say, I get a lot of spam at the email address of this blog. But this morning, I found one that usuallly accurate in its targeting:

To TV Channel
President of the TV B.O.D.

Dear Sirs,

I send you my offer for 410 documentaries to your TV channel for a period of ten years. Samples can be sending on request. Available format is MPEG-II and texts in TXT, also many others format.

I think that the most value of my work is that can be used as DOC-wedges in gaps to the normal channel flow for a long period. I hope to have long term cooperation on these and other works.

Then followed a list of more than 400 short documentary works, such as:

• Roman History Caesars and Coins 11:10
• Roman Emperors Portrait Sculptures 13:01
• Sumo in ancient Greece 2:2
• Ancient Chinese war machines 7:22
• Ancient Greek Sculptures 8:25

Passionate Eye, are you listening?…

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	The Odd File	Posted at 12:41 pm (12 Feb 2008)

Turns out, the CBC’s version of this:

is a wordier, more corporate-looking version:

Who’da thunkit?!

Photo: Peter Rukavina

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	The Odd File	Posted at 3:51 pm (14 Nov 2007)

You’ve got to admire the great illustration Tory pundit Stephen Taylor did to note the recent controversy surrounding a planned airing of a documentary about Falun Gong.

You can see the full illustration here.

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	The Odd File	Posted at 12:44 pm (13 Nov 2007)

The crew at the Gemini-winning The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos have put together a nice little piece about the new and, uh, not exactly popular, recycling program which launched recently at the Death Star Toronto Broadcast Centre.

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	Behind the Scenes, CBC Policies, The Hour with George S., The Odd File, Toronto	Posted at 3:16 pm (17 Oct 2007)

Called into the Audience Relations phone line:

“Why do all of the hosts and reporters say Toronno instead of Toronto? I know someone there has advised them to do so. I need to talk to that person.”

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	The Odd File	Posted at 1:38 pm (24 Aug 2007)

Nope, those aren’t CBC employees on the CBC’s human resources intranet page…

Unless, of course, Microsoft hired them right after the CBC shoot was done…

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	Bloopers, Human Resources, The Odd File	Posted at 1:07 pm (21 Aug 2007)

There was a funny job posting on the CBC job board Friday:

National Reporter / Reporter national (not a real job – don’t apply) -CAL00120

On a continuing and regular basis, performs reporting and editorial assignments for radio, television, or other media which involve the gathering, writing and presentation of information related to national and international issues, the Parliament of Canada, and regional issues judged to be of national import. Work adheres to CBC journalistic and programming policies, standards and practices. General direction is provided but there is a high expectation for initiative and independent judgement. Work regularly requires the co-ordination of the activities of others.

I guess they were testing the system?

Anyway, the listing has been taken down. In case, you know, you wanted to not apply for it.

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	Bloopers, Getting a Job, The Odd File	Posted at 2:16 pm (11 Aug 2007)