What Are You Deaf, Gramps?

Students are turning to special children-only ringtones to evade hard-of-hearing teachers:

In settings where cellphone use is forbidden — in class, for example — it is perfect for signaling the arrival of a text message without being detected by an elder of the species.

“When I heard about it I didn’t believe it at first,” said Donna Lewis, a technology teacher at the Trinity School in Manhattan. “But one of the kids gave me a copy, and I sent it to a colleague. She played it for her first graders. All of them could hear it, and neither she nor I could.”

The technology, which relies on the fact that most adults gradually lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds, was developed in Britain but has only recently spread to America.

. . .

The cellphone ring tone . . . was the offshoot of an invention called the Mosquito, developed last year by a Welsh security company to annoy teenagers and gratify adults, not the other way around.

It was marketed as an ultrasonic teenager repellent, an ear-splitting 17-kilohertz buzzer designed to help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores while leaving adults unaffected.

The principle behind it is a biological reality that hearing experts refer to as presbycusis, or aging ear . . . [and] most adults over 40 or 50 seem to have some symptoms, scientists say.

While most human communication takes place in a frequency range between 200 and 8,000 hertz (a hertz being the scientific unit of frequency equal to one cycle per second), most adults’ ability to hear frequencies higher than that begins to deteriorate in early middle age.

“It’s the most common sensory abnormality in the world,” said Dr. Rick A. Friedman, an ear surgeon and research scientist at the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles.

But in a bit of techno-jujitsu, someone — a person unknown at this time, but probably not someone with presbycusis — realized that the Mosquito, which uses this common adult abnormality to adults’ advantage, could be turned against them.

The Mosquito noise was reinvented as a ring tone.

What’s Next — The Brighton Beach Country Club?

We’ve often joked about this. Now it’s happening for real:

Like many New Yorkers, Brian Coles can’t wait to leave the city for his beach house when summer weekends roll around.

Coles, 35, looks forward to his glass of wine on the beach at sunset, an oceanfront jog and a nice seafood dinner.

But Coles isn’t heading to the Hamptons or the Jersey Shore for his time on the waterfront: He’s Brooklyn beach-bound — Brighton Beach, to be exact.

“I’m totally in love with Brighton Beach,” said Coles, 35, whose two-bedroom Brighton Third St. co-op has seen a 60% increase in value since he paid $185,000 for it in 2004.

“I have a lot of friends with homes in the Hamptons, and they spend six hours getting there,” said Coles, who added it’s usually a breezy half-hour drive from lower Manhattan to his weekend home.

. . .

Coles is one of a growing number who is trading Long Island beach passes and Jersey Shore weekend traffic for a second home in Brooklyn’s waterfront neighborhoods.

Although during the colonial era wealthy Manhattan residents had homes in Brooklyn Heights and elsewhere, the idea that this would happen in an era of modern infrastructure — with planes and automobiles, just to name two such crazy inventions — seems, well, odd. The only thing odder is spending a full month on vacation in the next borough:

Psychologist Michael Mason and his family spend most weekends at their apartment in the Oceana after a one-hour drive from their Briarcliff Manor home.

“The food stores are fabulous. There’s a Russian bazaar with all these delicacies: caviar, sturgeon, bread,” Mason said.

The family plans to spend its July vacation in Brighton Beach.

“When I tell my friends Brighton Beach, they have no conception,” Mason said.

You think?

Ooh, Page Six Freelancer, I’m So Scared!

The worst thing about all these mafia stories is that it creates a culture in which Page Six freelancers shake down their subjects for either favorable or no coverage:

A freelancer for The Post’s Page Six gossip column is under investigation by the FBI on suspicion of making “extortionate demands” in return for not writing any damaging stories about Beverly Hills billionaire Ron Burkle.

Jared Paul Stern, who worked two days per week on Page Six, allegedly demanded $100,000 from Burkle, who made his fortune in supermarkets, plus an annual stipend of $10,000.

Sources close to the investigation say the FBI has been investigating for two weeks under the direction of Mark Weinstein, the chief of the economic-crimes division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and has Stern on video and audiotapes.

In exchange for money from Burkle, Stern allegedly would “refrain from writing damaging, negative stories and write puff pieces” flattering to Burkle.

Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Cindy Fucking Adams?

Geez, That Sounds Almost As Interesting As Watching People Play Poker

Encouraged by America’s apparent willingness to watch people play cards on television, ESPN is now betting that viewers will tune in to watch old guys drink beer and play dominoes:

To the occasional domino player, it is a stretch to even call this quiet game of straight-faced strategy a sport. But anyone who has spent time in a Latino neighborhood in New York City could testify that dominoes played there — with the slammed-down tiles, the verbal sparring, the bragging and bluffing — is no parlor game.

From the opening bid, a simple sidewalk match will quickly escalate into a raucous, freewheeling spectacle: a mini-fiesta where salsa and cigars, Bacardi and brown-bagged beers have as much a role as the little colored tiles with dots.

The games almost always draw spectators, so perhaps it is no surprise that the ESPN sports network has declared dominoes the next big spectator sport and is promoting it as both a colorful cultural touchstone and a highly competitive game, complete with rankings, formal tournaments, celebrity events and sponsors.

But don’t take their word for it — ask Luis Guzman:

[T]he well-known Puerto Rican actor, said in an interview that the domino table was an arena where the very dramas of life play out: love, hatred, revenge. Tempers can flare and lifelong relationships can begin and end around a domino game.

Mr. Guzman recalled that when he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, it seemed that every male Latino played dominoes.

“My pops would play for hours on end; all the men did,” he said. “I know best friends who stopped talking to each other for years because of one game. After 10 years, one would still be saying, ‘Man, why’d he play that one when he knew the other guy was holding the 6-3?’ I know a guy who jumped out a second-story window and broke both legs after losing a domino game.'”

The Perverted Chess Match And Its $600,000 Stake

Until recently zoning laws in Staten Island allowed for two 15-foot-wide two-story houses to be built on one lot, leading some to wonder what to do with that giant pleather sectional:

Horrified Staten Island residents are living next to two homes under construction that are just 15 feet wide, but twice as tall as most houses in the neighborhood.

The two-story structures — jammed onto one lot — are strikingly out of place on a suburban Jefferson Ave. block in Grant City dotted with low-rise homes, neighbors gripe.

It’s also the latest example of what critics call the overdevelopment of the boroughs.

“Most of the houses here are ranches. Then you have these huge monstrosities built on top of us,” said Susan Fontano, an unhappy neighbor of the two new houses.

“We’re suffering. This has to come down,” said next-door neighbor Ivan Valic. “They built their bay windows on the side facing our house. I feel like I’m in a sardine can.”

The city agrees the houses are wildly inappropriate.

Even so, because the plans met zoning regulations when they were submitted in October, they were approved and are legal. Zone rules that would have prevented the buildings from going up went into effect in December.

. . .

“This is a perverted chess match,” said City Councilman James Oddo (R-S.I.). “This is a very ingenious industry. They’ve made money, and they are always looking to maximize their profits.”

The developer of the Jefferson Ave. homes defended the structures — and himself.

“I’m not doing anything wrong,” said builder Ely Reiss. “If they want to change the zoning, that’s what they should do.”

Reiss said the homes will likely be listed for more than $600,000 each.