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Everything Is Getting Louder

theatlantic.com

221–230 of 316 posts

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#222
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find the speaker/chirper/noisemaker and disable it, using wirecutters if necessary. Black tape works great on LEDs.

I have a roll of black stickers that get stuck on everything. Latest offender though is a power board that has an LED near the USB ports. I've covered where it's supposed to shine through, but its bright enough that it shines through the USB ports as well. Even if something is plugged in to them! Is it generally safe to assume that cutting a noisemaker (or LED?) off wont break the rest of the product?

Put a small square of tin foil to cover the LED, and tape over it. It's non-invasive and I haven't found any LED that shine through tin foils.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#224
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dogs are not the problem - the people are. Your dislike of dogs should be more a dislike of freckless pet owners. It's the same with some special birdies in aviary. They can drive you nuts because they don't belong to this environment. It's mostly not the animals but the owners who are the cause of the problem.

This is just the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument, but with dogs. Of course if every dog owner was perfect then we wouldn't have problems with dogs, but you will never get everyone to be perfect, it's a losing battle, wether they be gun or dog owners. I'm willing to bet that 99% of dog owners around me are responsible, but whetever percentage of dog owners are not responsible are the cause of all…

we need to ban assault dogs, and close the dog-show loophole! :P

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#225
I think it's time we start to think seriously about noise pollution and regulation. Most countries have laws around noise, but policing typically isn't helpful. You tend to have a 'self-mediation first', 'police warnings second' and 'court cases third', policy, which I think is mostly fine. But if authorities don't take it seriously, it usually gets stuck in the first phase and never progresses beyond neighbour-disputes. Frequent-noise makers aren't typically the most reasonable bunch to speak to.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#226
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60dB As trained sound engineer on HN, you sould use units which mean something, now you essentally just said '60 times more' so people will ask you 'more than what?' :)

I would have thought that SPL is implied, given that no other unit would make sense in that context.

Yes, but I have the impression a lot of people who never came into contact with some kind of audio/hearing theory have no clue about that, so I think it is better to write it explicitly. Mainly because people who don't know what SPL means can just go and look it up, also learning comething, instead of remaining clueless and using dB as-is treating it as some absolute quantity.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#227
post #201
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live with an endless barking dog. It isn't mine, but it wakes me constantly. If there has been peace for a while and it barks, I can feel my entire body change "mode" to stressed. It is uncanny. Even if mentally it hasn't bothered me, my body still goes into battle mode.

I have the same reaction (physical) to a screaming kid. It has made raising my baby incredibly difficult (especially the first year). Mentally, I understand that it's just a crying baby and that's what they do, but physically I was shutting down - body tensing, a surge of extremely stressful energy rushing through my body and ultimately being left unable to function. My wife thought I was nuts and was just faking it.…

I don't know about the paralysis but I once read an internet fact that stated our brains are innately wired to react to babies and children's screams in order to ward off potential threats to our retirement plans.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#228
post #20

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…

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

When earplugs are not an option (or insufficient) I've found a pair of sleep headphones have been helpful in combination with a noise app, such as the Cozyphones shown here: (halfway down the page)

https://www.audiophileon.com/news/best-headphones-for-sleepi...

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#229

I have 3M PELTOR X5A Ear Muffs. I use them all the time, from getting a snooze while my car charges, to working in louder than necessary cafes, to getting decent if slightly uncomfortable sleep in a hotel. They're $31 delivered from Amazon. It amused the hell out of me that I had to click through an agreement saying I was a profession. I am a professional. Since these are 31db ear muffs, they're heavier than somethin…

I'm reluctant to go this route because it also blocks out important sounds like alarms or knocks on the door in case of an emergency.
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