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Modern decor may be straining people's brains

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Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#181

Post by bluebarbet »

kulahan wrote: post #176
bluebarbet wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly the first convincing argument I have ever heard in favor of the materialistic accumulative American lifestyle.

You don't need to live a consumerist lifestyle to have a home that's properly outfitted (curtains), comfy (rugs, chairs), and quiet (walls/divisions). Also for a fun large-scale argument: we're relatively sheltered from global depressions. All we really have to do is convince Americans to keep spending money and it kinda works out, because the whole economy is structured around that anyways. That's also why the econo…

Sheltered from global depressions maybe, but ultimately not from ecological breakdown caused by the externalities of uncontrolled resource throughput.

But your broader point is well taken.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#182

Post by bob1029 »

sirwitti wrote: post #150

One aspect that is often overlooked is a room acoustics - especially reverb time. Have you ever felt cosy in a large church? Or, if you have ever been to a wedding and wondered why everybody started talking louder and louder and it's hard to understand, a room with too large reverb time is a very probable causes. This is very draining mentally. The same goes for living spaces, especially since newer homes tend to use…

The most important aspect of a room's acoustic performance are its dimensions. Rectangular rooms have 3 axial modes that dominate. These modes are easily excited and store energy which you perceive as rumbling, booming, droning, etc. A very small input can get a large room going like crazy if it is mechanically coupled to the room in any way. Even decoupled sources (your neighbor's home theater system) can easily excite the axial modes.

Any dimension longer than 28' is going to pass the infrasonic threshold (20hz). This tends to be OK as you go further into it. Humans are sensitive to infrasound, but often not at this level of intensity. However, designing rooms with all dimensions larger than this exceeds the limits of most practical residential real estate.

An 8' dimension would give you a 70hz fundamental. This is quite audible, but also in a range of frequencies where treatments like bass traps are very effective.

The room dimension range between 10' and 28' is where the dragons live. These frequencies are audible and significantly more difficult to treat. They will cut right through treatments like rockwool and mass loaded vinyl as if they didn't exist.

One of the best mitigations is to simply not have rectangular rooms. The second best is to have really small ones. Older homes tend to feel cozier because the room fundamentals are not in that weird range.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#183

Post by yoyohello13 »

znpy wrote: post #149
yoyohello13 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are obviously Christian. Christians tend to have a dim view of anyone that doesn't marry and have children (unless they join the clergy).

Most religions do. For example I don’t think islam has a much better view of unmarried and kidless people.

The abrahamic ones for sure.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#184

Post by TacticalCoder »

sgt wrote: post #94

> Many LED systems use a dimming technique that rapidly switches the light on and off (sometimes hundreds of times per second). While this is invisible as flicker to the naked eye under normal conditions, eye movements can expose it This is what I've always felt too, but if you talk to any lighting "expert", they'll say "no that's simply not the case with LED lighting since the year... 2009 or whatever ...". Highly s…

> This is what I've always felt too, but if you talk to any lighting "expert", they'll say "no that's simply not the case with LED lighting since the year... 2009 or whatever ...". Highly suspect.

Way before the Internet I had games running at 50 Hz (PAL). And we fully knew the difference between, say, a 2D game scrolling at full-frame rate and a game running a 25 fps: we could tell immediately. Same for intros and demos.

Yet the number of times I had armchair experts explain me, despite me literally seeing with my own eyes the difference, that "the human eye cannot discern more than 24 fps". Teachers. Friends of my parents. My parents.

Later on I could tell a CRT running Windows @ 60 Hz vs 75 Hz in a split second: I simply could tell.

And still: same armchair experts "you cannot detect that, your eyes cannot physically detect more than 24 fps, because science!".

It's the absolute worst thing: you see something with your own eyes, other people see it with their own eyes. And yet "experts" explain to you "that is impossible".

While you could fucking literally demo it to them: but they're not interested "becuz it's impossssssible".

I hate LED lighting. Or at least I hate having only LED lighting. But there's IMO a simple trick to make the lighting much warmer and reduce the flicker (even if you don't consciously detect it, like 60 fps vs 75 fps: it's simply there) and still keep electricity consumption in check: just have one incandescent light bulb per room. Maybe two in the living room.

This immediately gives the feeling of a much warmer place (and, technically speaking, it is actually... warmer, ah!).

You can still legally, even in the EU, buy "special purpose", incandescent lamps that give a very nice warm yellowish light.

Just don't forget to wait if you plan to touch one after turning it off because they really get very warm.

Now of course you do that and you'll have sore people say: "even one incandescent lamp is too much, you should be 100% LED, not 95% LED, to save the planet!" followed by "we should ask the EU (and others) to ban once and for all ALL incandescent lightbulbs".

Basically: go order on Amazon or whatever a few small "special purpose" incandescent light and some little lamp to put them in. Put one in each room.

You'll thank me later.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#185

Post by kmfrk »

obscurette wrote: post #31
michaelchisari wrote: post #5

If you've ever been in an home owned for generations, filled with books and knickknacks and heirlooms and family photos, despite the clutter it all feels comforting in a way that modern decor doesn't. The article doesn't touch much on why modern decor emerged as it did. It's a market response where everyone needs to (or feels the need to) pick up and move at a moment's notice. Companies are either expanding or like t…

I had a discussion regarding this some time ago with my grandchild who has an ADHD diagnosis. She has troubles being in noisy (especially visually) environments, yet she finds my home (relatively large home full of books, music always playing etc) comforting. She explained that all this stuff in my home is interesting for her and speaks with her - "It's you and grandma, it's full of stories". But the very modern and…

The acoustics of homes with clean walls and floors can also be absolutely miserable.

Some small dining rooms amplify all the worst noises and make it terrible to be in, drains your mental battery like few other things.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#186

Post by TacticalCoder »

ulnarkressty wrote: post #97
fluxusars wrote: post #71

The moiré effect of vertically striped wood walls gives me a headache.

The stripey wood-and-black-rubber 'sound dampening' panels are all the rage these days and I don't really understand it. Our management had the bright idea to put these things in all our meeting rooms on the wall with the TVs we use for remote calls. People started getting sea sick looking at them. Of course removing them would mean the management made a mistake, so they will stay there until the next bright idea hit…

I cannot thank you and GP (and others in this thread) enough for these comments. I thought they looked cool (although a bit of dust-catchers) and was planning to redo my bedroom with those.

I'm definitely going to do something else instead.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#187

Post by nicbou »

michaelchisari wrote: post #5

If you've ever been in an home owned for generations, filled with books and knickknacks and heirlooms and family photos, despite the clutter it all feels comforting in a way that modern decor doesn't. The article doesn't touch much on why modern decor emerged as it did. It's a market response where everyone needs to (or feels the need to) pick up and move at a moment's notice. Companies are either expanding or like t…

A home you inhabit for a long time molds to your day-to-day life. The objects you surround yourself with are not a design choice, but a series of practical solutions to everyday problems. A house becomes a home when you absent-mindedly put down your favourite teacup, and it falls on the coaster you put there five years ago. There's a pillow that makes your reading chair fit just right. The art on the walls was curated over years, and each piece means something.

Modern decor is what happens when you just go on Pinterest and outsource taste for a place you don't own and don't expect to live in for long. It feels sterile because it does not represent any specific person, only an algorithmically-designed aesthetic built from off-the-shelf components.

I help immigrants move to Germany, and I think that people only become Berliners when they can put their own art on the walls. It means that they finally get a sense of permanence, and have a space of their own that they want to invest in. It changes your whole perception of the city you live in.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#188

Post by [deleted] »

fcarraldo wrote: post #42
WillAdams wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the rich can afford to own nothing/exert effort to have empty space without consequence. Ordinary folks when presented with an object have to perform a mental calculation over the cost/inconvenience of storage vs. disposal and if wanted again, replacement.

The rich also can afford to keep their minimalist modern spaces clean and clutter-free, through paying staff. These environments tend to look awful when not tended to continuously because a single out-of-place item is so clearly visible. Cluttered old homes with lots of things all over the place make it a bit less jarring when there's a stack of work left out on a table.

[deleted]

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#189

Post by kulahan »

bluebarbet wrote: post #181
kulahan wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to live a consumerist lifestyle to have a home that's properly outfitted (curtains), comfy (rugs, chairs), and quiet (walls/divisions). Also for a fun large-scale argument: we're relatively sheltered from global depressions. All we really have to do is convince Americans to keep spending money and it kinda works out, because the whole economy is structured around that anyways. That's also why the econo…

Sheltered from global depressions maybe, but ultimately not from ecological breakdown caused by the externalities of uncontrolled resource throughput. But your broader point is well taken.

Yeah, I said "fun" not "good" :)

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#190

Post by [deleted] »

kakacik wrote: post #113
fcarraldo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich also can afford to keep their minimalist modern spaces clean and clutter-free, through paying staff. These environments tend to look awful when not tended to continuously because a single out-of-place item is so clearly visible. Cluttered old homes with lots of things all over the place make it a bit less jarring when there's a stack of work left out on a table.

They are awful to even look at, IHMO. Cold, sterile, tells something about people living in such fugly soulless places. Which is fine to be honest, its nice to see clearly the type of person on the other side of the table, no need to dig through empty speech clutter for clues. But impressive it is not.

[deleted]
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