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Everything Is Getting Louder

theatlantic.com

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Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#91

Post by spodek »

I live across the street from a firehouse in Manhattan. They are noisy and politically untouchable so calling 311 doesn't help.

They test these devices to get through doors that are basically chainsaws every day at random times.

I once asked a fireman why they test them daily. He said, "It would be a shame to find out it didn't work when we got there."

I asked innocently, "When you test it, you know it works, but as soon as you stop it, you don't know if it works any more. That test might have been its last working. How do you know daily is the right amount?"

He said, "It would be a shame to find out it didn't work when we got there."

I took away that there was no reason for daily. They just did it that way.

If anyone out there knows a proper testing frequency for chainsaws, I'd love to find out, especially if it's well documented and less often than daily.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#92

Post by hammock »

techsupporter wrote: post #31
acranox wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But it’s also slightly more nuanced. Honda for example works like this. One press of the remote, locks all the doors. The second press will beep the horn if all the doors are successfully locked. If you left one of the doors open, the horn won’t beep on the second press. So it’s a away of getting confirmation that all doors are closed and locked. It seems useful, but when my neighbor comes home in the middle o…

What gets me are the number of people who will put their keys in their pocket and just beat the ever loving hell out of the "lock" button as they walk away. So it's all "beep," "beep beep," "beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep" until they finally get out of range. I'm sure those are the same people who, if or when they are pedestrians, stand at the corner and repeatedly slam the crosswalk request button.

Haha this is some kind of ocd thing

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#93

Post by BurningFrog »

spodek wrote: post #91

I live across the street from a firehouse in Manhattan. They are noisy and politically untouchable so calling 311 doesn't help. They test these devices to get through doors that are basically chainsaws every day at random times. I once asked a fireman why they test them daily. He said, "It would be a shame to find out it didn't work when we got there." I asked innocently, "When you test it, you know it works, but as…

My impression is that there isn't much to do in a firehouse when there is no fire.

So "testing the chainsaw again" might end up being done a lot. Since it's a thing you can do.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#94

Post by 01100011 »

If you don't hear a hum, don't look for it. Once you're aware of it, it can drive you nuts. I spent quite a while looking for the source of a low-frequency hum at my old house and never came up with anything. As far as I could tell, it wasn't just the sound of blood rushing in my veins or tinnitus.

Out of curiosity, is there a good sensor for picking up acoustical vibrations between, say, 0.5-50Hz? Would a MEMS sensor go that low and have a flat response?

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#95

Post by Simulacra »

Wasn't there some type of legislation or something that mandated that all sound from a single TV channel stay at the same volume? IIRC it was something around the car commercials etc. that were always louder that the other programs.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#96

Post by [deleted] »

CalChris wrote: post #75
jcrawfordor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A local industrial supply house like Grainger should have a range of Peltor products available in-store, so you'll get to try them on first. Look for any general industrial supply or specifically safety distributor in the warehouse-and-factories part of town, they're almost always happy to sell you one unit. Otherwise these kinds of things can be hard to find. Otherwise McMaster-Carr is a mail/online-order industrial…

I've used McMaster but they don't carry the Peltor. However, Grainger does carry 3M Peltor and carries the X5B behind the ear model. It's $47.45 at Grainger and the X5A is $30.97 from Amazon delivered. Strange that it's not more available and less expensive. An alternative is the Peltor Optime 105 Behind-the-Head Earmuff which is 28 dB (vs 31 dB) and readily available at $23.99 from Amazon delivered. It also weighs s…

[deleted]

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#97

Post by dominotw »

abjKT26nO8 wrote: post #33
htk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Howard Leight’s Max every night during sleep to keep my sanity.

As blunte pointed out[1], earplugs make the situation worse. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237273

what about bose sleepbuds?

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#98

Post by thaumaturgy »

I slept for about 18 months in a second-story room overlooking one of the busier streets in town. That'll never happen again. Motorcycles were especially obnoxious; I usually sleep like the dead, including all the way through an energetic northern California earthquake, but we had a regular that would rip up and down the street sometime after 1 a.m. and it often interrupted my sleep.

Also -- and this hasn't previously been a popular thing to say on HN, but here it is again -- this is largely an urban living problem. Smaller towns have their noisy bits too, but they don't tend to have the constant, non-stop din that is a signature aspect of metropolitan areas.

I've been camping at a few different parks and the like since moving out, just getting some R&R, and it's amazing how much better I'm sleeping and, gradually, feeling.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#100

Post by tzs »

abjKT26nO8 wrote: post #6

For me the trigger is TVs. I've been renting a flat in a poorer area for over a year now. The walls are a lot thinner than in other places. There are a lot of people today (mostly 50+ year-olds) who cannot fall to sleep without the TV on. My neighbor is one of them. And the thing with TVs is that the most irritating sound frequency they emit is the one that is barely audible when you're in the same room, but when you…

Not being as close to neighbors is the primary reason I moved from an apartment to a house several years ago.

This was both to not have to hear them when I'm trying to sleep, and to not have to worry about me being the obnoxious noisy neighbor for them when they were sleeping because I was often quite the night owl and would have liked to be able to watch a movie or listen to music at 3 AM.

Here's an aerial view centered on my house [1]. To give an idea of scale, from the center of my house to the center of the house to the left is 130 ft.

Being able to watch/listen whenever I want as loud as I want, and have quiet mostly whenever I want [2] has definitely resulted in a calmer, happier, less stressful life.

[1] https://imgur.com/hKnTWji

[2] During spring and summer, there is a bit of lawn mower noise.

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