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Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

washingtonpost.com

51–60 of 214 posts

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#51

Where can hobbyists purchase hackable/programmable internet buttons such as this for a reasonable price? I've seen a few around the place but the costs are exorbitant for what they are, and hacking the Amazon buttons is too much effort (and they're hard to get outside the US)

Is the $15 AWS IoT Button[1] too expensive?

[1] https://www.amazon.com/1st-Generation-AWS-IoT-Button/dp/B01C...

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#52
post #43

In the UK Gatwick and Heathrow airports have been there for a generation. By this I mean that the vast majority of people moved to their noise-affected houses knowing the airport was there already. Do these people deserve our sympathy? Initially i find it hard to be charitable towards them. In my local town there is a pub that has been there for around 600 years. A particularly pushy person moved in next door, compla…

I think the issue in question is that these were areas that were originally not under the flight paths, but the flight paths were recently changed to put their homes under them. So, perhaps they deserve some sympathy for the reduction in their quality of life and in the value of their homes?

I suppose there is something in what you say, but presumably this is still only an issue in the locality of an airport?

I mean I am under a flight path, but the planes are very high and I can't hear them?

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't answer his question. So the changed flight paths 10 years ago.. are they giving these buttons to people who moved under these 'new' flight paths a year ago?

What? The buttons are a totally private endeavor. You have to buy the buttons. They aren't "giving" them to anyone, and anyone can buy them. And again, all those questions are answered from reading the article. Also, I was responding to him saying that he didn't think people should have a right to complain if they knowingly bought a house under a flight path. I'm saying that of the people they are quoting in the arti…

You're being bizarrely pedantic. I never meant to suggest that Airnoise is public endeavor nor that the buttons are free.

>"I'm saying that of the people they are quoting in the article, it sounds like many of them have owned the same house for a long while and their problems with aircraft noise are only because of the FAA changing flight paths."

And his point is that while the people interviewed for the article may have been living there for a while, many of the complainers probably haven't been. Does the guy behind Airnoise.io vet that the people using his system have legitimate grievances (e.g. the flight paths were not over their house when they bought the house)? I seriously doubt it.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#54
post #50

In the UK Gatwick and Heathrow airports have been there for a generation. By this I mean that the vast majority of people moved to their noise-affected houses knowing the airport was there already. Do these people deserve our sympathy? Initially i find it hard to be charitable towards them. In my local town there is a pub that has been there for around 600 years. A particularly pushy person moved in next door, compla…

The pub situation feels very different: There you have the a 600 year tradition and the enjoyment of a whole neighborhood/community pitted against the annoyance of a single person. The ruling feels unjust, and I have little sympathy for the woman. In the airport case, the noise makes everyone's life worse. As for "you knew it when you bought," air traffic might have increased over the years, you might not have realiz…

On the other hand the whole community uses the airport? Presumably living close to it has it's own advantages? I don't have to suffer it so I am probably underplaying, but presumably it is a trade off?

It is really annoying in my area how hard it is to get to the airport, whereas if I lived close by I could take a bus. Maybe this is just the trade off people make?

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#55
Wow, I had no idea this existed. I built a similar thing for my own personal use for my local airport (Minneapolis/MSP). I looked at using an Amazon Dash button, but the lifespan is not great and the convenience is not high. Instead, I use SMS via Twilio and their cloud functions (source: https://github.com/justinph/macnoisebutton)

It's pretty handy to be able to say to my watch "Hey Siri, text complain to Dan Boivin" to make a complaint. (Dan Boivin is the chair of the Minneapolis Airport Commission, who I have entered into my contacts).

For those griping about people buying homes after airports existed, there are a couple things to defray that argument. Yes, the airports existed, but the traffic at airports have increased. Airlines are flying more smaller regional jets, which means the frequency of flights have increased. The FAA recently changed flight patterns (part of NextGen) that resulted in some areas seeing much more air traffic than they had in the past. And, airlines are not doing the steep takeoffs like they used to in an effort to conserve fuel, putting planes closer to the ground for longer, resulting in more noise.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#56

In the UK Gatwick and Heathrow airports have been there for a generation. By this I mean that the vast majority of people moved to their noise-affected houses knowing the airport was there already. Do these people deserve our sympathy? Initially i find it hard to be charitable towards them. In my local town there is a pub that has been there for around 600 years. A particularly pushy person moved in next door, compla…

Sure, an airport may have been there, but, in Boston at least, technology changes have made it so that if you are in the flight path, you have a much higher frequency of planes overhead.

See the traffic from runway 33L at Logan airport as an example: https://www.universalhub.com/comment/559152#comment-559152

Basically, flights used to have diverse paths, so you would hear a plane occasionally. And so would everyone else around. But now, if you are directly under the path, you will hear flights consistently every 90 seconds for hours on end. That is a major change, and a recent one at that.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#58
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pub situation feels very different: There you have the a 600 year tradition and the enjoyment of a whole neighborhood/community pitted against the annoyance of a single person. The ruling feels unjust, and I have little sympathy for the woman. In the airport case, the noise makes everyone's life worse. As for "you knew it when you bought," air traffic might have increased over the years, you might not have realiz…

On the other hand the whole community uses the airport? Presumably living close to it has it's own advantages? I don't have to suffer it so I am probably underplaying, but presumably it is a trade off? It is really annoying in my area how hard it is to get to the airport, whereas if I lived close by I could take a bus. Maybe this is just the trade off people make?

>> On the other hand the whole community uses the airport?

Really? Most people cannot afford regular air travel. Most people fly very rarely, less than once a year and then only for extraordinary things. If you live under an airport what you see is people much richer than you flying around doing the stuff you can only dream of doing. It is much easier to make a complaint about a service that you do no regularly use.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand the whole community uses the airport? Presumably living close to it has it's own advantages? I don't have to suffer it so I am probably underplaying, but presumably it is a trade off? It is really annoying in my area how hard it is to get to the airport, whereas if I lived close by I could take a bus. Maybe this is just the trade off people make?

>> On the other hand the whole community uses the airport? Really? Most people cannot afford regular air travel. Most people fly very rarely, less than once a year and then only for extraordinary things. If you live under an airport what you see is people much richer than you flying around doing the stuff you can only dream of doing. It is much easier to make a complaint about a service that you do no regularly use.

In terms of flying, maybe (and then, given the price of budget airline flights, I don't completely agree with this, although flights are obviously only a part of the cost of a holiday).

A counter-point might be that the airport and surrounding industry provides you opportunity for work.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#60

In the UK Gatwick and Heathrow airports have been there for a generation. By this I mean that the vast majority of people moved to their noise-affected houses knowing the airport was there already. Do these people deserve our sympathy? Initially i find it hard to be charitable towards them. In my local town there is a pub that has been there for around 600 years. A particularly pushy person moved in next door, compla…

> ...the vast majority of people moved to their noise-affected houses knowing the airport was there already... Do these people deserve our sympathy?

I totally understand where you’re coming from, but as the article discusses, the flight paths are currently being actively changed:

> But the shift has angered residents, who live in neighborhoods that are below the new flight paths.

Unfortunately it sounds like many of these people may have lived in their homes for many years in peace and quiet.

There doesn’t seem to be an easy way out of this one other than maybe routing the new flight paths towards the least populated areas or something along those lines.

I do wonder why these types of changes aren’t brought to public discussion before they’re put into place.

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