Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart (2021) • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by burntoutfire » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:08 AM UTC

kdmccormick wrote: post #82

tayo42 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this "conversation" with my neighbor (it was more like me being yelled at) It kind of blew my mind they didnt care about noise interruptions at all hours and told me its my problem. Like maybe if you got a full night of sleep you wouldn't be so angry? I guess this study supports that. The noise in my current apartment is endless, car alarms, screaming and crying kids along with their loud toys, idling cars, the…

> instruments being practiced As a musician... although I understand that, in the end, instrument practice is still noise, it hurts to see this listed among the rest of your items. Last year, I had to move out of an apartment complex because our neighbors would not tolerate even 30 minutes of practice a day (in spite of the ~2 daily hours of lawn care racket, but whatever) and complained to building management. I get…

> how do you expect new musicians to come into existence, new music to be made? Is it not a racket worth its trouble?

For me, the absence of stress caused by someone playing unwanted music into my apartment would absolutely be worth no new music being made. Lack of stress is just more basic and immediate need.

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

#262

Post by wellthisisgreat » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:09 AM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #56

seattle_spring wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I find by far the biggest disruption in US suburbs is lawn equipment. Suburbs are louder than cities imo because there is always a leaf blower, lawn mower, and weedwacker going at all times during the day within 100 yards of you. Often for hours. Moving from Palo Alto to SF things got way quieter.

It baffles me that cars with ultra-loud stereos that trigger car alarms are legal and people who drive them aren’t fined regularly.

The tradition of speaking in public using phone’s loudspeaker is the close second in terms of cultural inadequacy

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

#263

Post by code51 » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:14 AM UTC

Logically, shouldn't there also be a study taking a look at heart problems and blood pressure levels in people with congenital deafness?

We would then be able to separate the effect of noise vs. life stress. Surely, for any study about stress, socioeconomic status should also be a factor.

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

#264

Post by moviecrazy » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:21 AM UTC

jborichevskiy wrote: post #168

latchkey wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My quality of sleep shot through the roof when I started sleeping with earplugs many years ago. Much deeper sleep. Now, I can't fall asleep without them. I have an unproven theory in my head that shutting off my hearing while I sleep, quiets my subconscious and even when I'm asleep, my ears are still working so this helps another part of my brain rest as well.

Another happy ear plugger chiming in. I have them in every backpack and suitcase now because it makes falling asleep anywhere a fairly consistent experience -- along with an eye mask to be complete. These are the best ones I've found so far: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M6AI2HF/ref=ppx_yo_dt...

+1. Can vouch for these and have in every backpack as well :)

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

#265

Post by wozniacki » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:26 AM UTC

ben-schaaf wrote: post #38

Gigachad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo it should become regulation that all cars have to have some audio transparency tech like headphones have. Then we would be able to lower the volume of emergency sirens which are obscenely loud to penetrate cars.

Massively reducing car usage is a much better solution with much more wide-spread benefits.

These kinds of all-or-nothing approaches are not feasible - even in high-walkability scoring cities. Just look beyond your city's micro-core and see how reliant people are on cars - I'm talking places as diverse Oslo, Norway, Rome, Italy or Amsterdam, NL ( the HN bicyclist collective's favorite city ) [1]

People rely on cars for very valid, strong & un-substitute-able reasons in 1000s of cities on this planet ( even without counting the countries in the developing world which are just now getting a taste of vehicular freedom ). HN represents a tiny slice of of an already small slice of wishful thinkers whose pipe dreams get a dose of reality the moment you step outside your NIMBY bubble.

Even reduced car usage - in what is touted as the most bike-friendly city on earth at least here on HN - looks like this in the Baarsjes and Oud West neighborhoods of Amsterdam.

Een rondje door de Baarsjes en Oud West.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN7ox6bxBlI

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

#266

Post by Synaesthesia » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:28 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #25

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 wish we would take car caused health impacts as serious as we did covid. We have a never ending stream of research and yet no one cares. We can’t even take action against modded motorbikes and cars which damage peoples health for zero functional gain.

Maybe we should have a system which looks at human needs first and tries to address them, rather than as a side effect of making profit.

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

#267

Post by Tade0 » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:33 AM UTC

bigDinosaur wrote: post #239

Tade0 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try the less nice ones then. In terms of decibels cars are indeed louder. But not all noise is created equal. I have noise-cancelling headphones - they do a great job removing white noise(so traffic, among others), but aren't too effective against sounds with a more focused spectrum like people yelling in the middle of the night, bottles being broken or trash being collected in the middle of the night.

I...have walked around the less nice parts of Paris? I'm not sure what your point is. In the less nice parts of Paris, the noisy areas are still mostly the areas with busy roads. It's simply the biggest source of noise pollution in cities and I haven't found anything that comes close. Maybe in specific areas you can find people playing obnoxiously loud music with helicopters buzzing over constantly but that's certain…

Not much a problem in my city, but those which I've been to that are seen as "walkable" and with a "vibrant city life". Essentially all places with considerable tourist traffic.

Paris is very densely populated - I'm surprised anyone attempts to drive there, because at these densities and distance between buildings it must be horrible.

My point is: it's not that clear cut. Removing cars is what makes places like Paris bearable, but the problem lies in the sheer population density that a truly walkable city over a certain scale requires.

I moved to a city that has 2/3 the population density of my previous location and even though it's just swamped with traffic, it's actually quieter on average.

I feel like population density is completely left out of the conversation. From my experience there's a middle ground between car-oriented suburbs and human pile-ups like Paris(or other cities approaching this density) which is rarely explored.

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

#268

Post by seer » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:43 AM UTC

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 think you'll be very interested in the "Not Just Bikes" channel as he talks a lot about urban planing. There's a lot of political will and momentum for making living spaces ... livable in Europe. Places like The Netherlands and Denmark in particular. A video specifically about noise pollution and how European cities are trying to solve it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8

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

#269

Post by xattt » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:43 AM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #176

quadrangle wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cities aren't loud, cars (and trucks) are loud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8 Video discusses this thoroughly. There ARE quiet cities amazingly enough. And suburbs are a HUGE source of the noise IN the cities they surround because it's the car traffic from suburbs into the cities that makes much of the noise. Cities ARE loud, but they don't HAVE to be.

And electric vehicles are a lot less so. Everytime I get passed by an e-bike my brain has a little pleasure seizure from not having to suffer the expected rawkus.

I am dreading an EV dystopia where all vehicles are going slow enough to create a cacophony from the mandated low-speed sounds.

It would sound like something out of a William Gibson novel.

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

#270

Post by _ink_ » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 8:49 AM UTC

From my own observations, I have the feeling that noise is not very good to me. In the sense that it increases my blood pressure significantly and also puts stress on me. Is it possible to verify that somehow? Like are there devices that measure blood pressure and/or stress hormones frequent and accurate enough to see the effect?