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Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021)

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Re: Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021)

#241

Post by ajuc »

sarchertech wrote: post #231
ajuc wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cities aren't inherently louder than countryside. Car traffic is noisy, but the volume is proportional to the speed. Cars going 30 km/h aren't THAT noisy. You don't hear them through the windows. Cars going 90 km/h are VERY noisy and at that point it doesn't matter if they are electric or not - you mostly hear the tires and the aerodynamics. Using car horns at cities is forbidden anyway, unless there's a crash or a d…

All else being equal, more people = more noise. Since all else isn’t equal, you could design cities that are quieter than the most suburbs. But you could also design suburbs that are quieter than most cities. In the US at least I linked a study that showed cities are far louder on average.

You cannot have significantly more people/square meter with everything else remaining equal. Cities are like stars - quantitative change in density causes qualitative change in behavior.

Once you have density high enough you can't live in separate houses. People move to commieblocks or other kinds of multitenant buildings. This shifts everything closer together, makes public transport profitable and having a car becomes optional. These kinds of neighborhoods are quieter than the countryside usually. It looks like this: https://spoldzielnialsm.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Obecni... https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ud9-Z0UHVHg/W7-qUjfNT9I/AAAAAAAAi...

Or if you're insane you can mandate enough parking space that this doesn't happen and instead you have highrises in the sea of parking lots.

Re: Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021)

#242

Post by zachrip »

vishnugupta wrote: post #207

This is obvious to those (like me) who get stressed out with excessive noise. Despite having born and brought up in India I could never get used to constant white noise. It stresses me out like crazy. I realised the value of silence the first night in Netherlands. I could physically feel heart go down and mental peace. They take noise levels seriously and it shows! Edit: Details.

I moved to Amsterdam last year, it's been great for a lot of reasons except one: When we moved, it was during lockdown. We checked out the place and we knew it was in a touristy place but it's not too bad. One thing we didn't realize is the small, unassuming cafe turns into a night club Thursday-Sunday and plays extremely loud music until 4am. When we initially moved, they couldn't because of lockdown. We asked the makelaar if there was any noise we should be aware of, he just mentioned that the area is near tourist heavy spots but didn't mention anything else. Now I have to sleep across the apartment on the couch just to partially escape the noise. I'm so tired. I have to endure 7 more months of this before I can leave to a quieter place, going to do much more investigating for the next move and hopefully find peace.

Re: Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021)

#244

Post by vihren »

drstewart wrote: post #2

This is one of the things I struggle with the most in life. I feel like most people don't seem to care about noise pollution and zero care is put into designing living spaces or cities to minimize it. I've moved into apartments and nearly cried because I realized that there was some noise pollution that wasn't apparent when I visited it (e.g. a water boiler that ran constantly at night, road noise during the day, etc…

I have the same problem. I have recently moved to Switzerland and I am so grateful for the culture here. Noise is not tolerated, as it should be.

Re: Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021)

#245

Post by Panoramix »

Zircom wrote: post #50
eliseumds wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done pretty much everything I could imagine to try to identify the root cause, no doctor could give a reasonable diagnosis. My tinnitus started after a night with earplugs, but it could have been a coincidence since I also used noise-cancelled Sony headphones. Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not to be rude but you ascribing an equal likelihood of causing tinnitus to one night of using earplugs(which BLOCK sound from your ears) vs presumably regular/sustained use of noise cancelling headphones(which BLAST sound into your ears) borders on ridiculousness and make me think you're just trolling..

My tinnitus started after a night out with earplugs. Basically the earplugs pushed wax buildup deep into my eardrum. It took quite a while to remove that wax, and while that improved things a lot, the tinnitus stayed after that.

Re: Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021)

#246

Post by ubercore »

seattle_spring wrote: post #29
drstewart wrote: post #2

This is one of the things I struggle with the most in life. I feel like most people don't seem to care about noise pollution and zero care is put into designing living spaces or cities to minimize it. I've moved into apartments and nearly cried because I realized that there was some noise pollution that wasn't apparent when I visited it (e.g. a water boiler that ran constantly at night, road noise during the day, etc…

People are so unbelievably disrespectful with noise in the US. Peaceful hike? Here's Katy Perry crackling out of my iPhone at full blast! Luxury apartment at $4k a month? No insulation between units, and the guy above you comes home at 2am and never takes his shoes off. Small country street? Here comes Chad with his straight-piped civic with the muffler removed!

Moving from a mid-sized city in the Northeast to a mid-sized city in Norway (relatively big one for Norway) has really made me realize how loud cities are in the US!

Re: Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021)

#247

Post by quickthrower2 »

zeta0134 wrote: post #150
QuikAccount wrote: post #26

Anecdata but I recently got headphones with noise cancelling and my quality of life shot through the roof. According to my smartwatch, my heart rate is lower and stress levels are down. Unfortunately, I have to take my headphones off to go to sleep and I'm immediately reminded of the shoddy fridge in my apartment, vent noises, and my neighbor who doesn't realize it's 11:30 PM.

To finally solve for this, I installed a set of 2.1 computer speakers under my bed, and I have my phone run a 10 hour recording I found of an air conditioner. The noise this generates sounds just like the real thing, and I keep it juuuust loud enough to drown out the road noise and upstairs neighbor's heavy footsteps. A click or two louder if their dog starts going nuts at 3am. I'd prefer actual quiet, but a low stea…

“The ocean machine set to 9” as REM sings

Re: Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021)

#248

Post by beebeepka »

Cars, and now when it's warmer, motorcycles. It's incredible how nothing is being done to motherfuckes emitting 10 times the noise of a packed bus. In fact, it's celebrated.

How is it fair to allow a single piece of shit to emit orders of magnitude more noise than hundreds of people combined.

I complain about it all the time but almost nobody else seems to care. I love motorcycles but I do loathe the majority of riders as they are well beyond inconsiderate. They will do almost anything to emit more noise.

Re: Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021)

#249

Post by burntoutfire »

ajuc wrote: post #209
eurasiantiger wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is the speed limit right outside your house/apartment?

On small roads between the blocks ("strefa zamieszkania") it's 20 km/h. Also pedestrians have right of way over cars on these roads everywhere, no matter the crossings. Usually these roads are made of bricks and have these "bumps" so you won't go much faster even if you wanted to. That's the closest road to me (like 50 meters from my flat). On regular roads it's 50 km/h. There's one like 300 meters from my flat. On a…

It's worth adding that 90%+ of Polish drivers ignore speed limits...There's hardly any police or speeding cameras (apart from a few selected areas which everyone knows about, and does not speed there), so the speed limits really work on sort of "opt-in" basis.
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