Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Noise pollution hurts the heart

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 286 posts

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#151

Post by sebmellen »

jborichevskiy wrote: post #137
sebmellen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost criminal that houses are built so close to the airport. I have a few friends who live downtown in that area and it seems like hell.

Indeed. I understand it's a multi-faceted issue given the economic development the airport has provided (and continues to provide), but it seems health and wellness externalities were not priced in fully. Now that the airport is built and housing density only continues to increase - where does this lead? From the wikipedia article: > SAN is in a populated area. To appease the concerns of the airport's neighbors regar…

I've taken off later than 11:30 PM, i think realistically 12:30 is the cutoff, especially on very busy days. I remember hearing that the first month of lockdown was blissful because there were so few flights coming through.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#152

Post by reddit_clone »

undefined1 wrote: post #85
ryanianian wrote: post #13

Damaging the heart sounds right. My neighbor has a unique obsession with his leaf-blower. It's like his daily 30-120 minutes of exercise at random times of the day. Even with all the noise-cancelling technology in the world, it ruins me for at least 2-3 hours and makes both video-conferencing and deep work basically impossible. Here's the thing: Nobody cares. The neighbor can say no to polite requests to figure out a…

leaf blowers are such a pox on neighborhoods. we really need to find an alternative. is it possible to make an electric leaf blower that is both powerful and quiet? or forget the leaf blower altogether and pay kids to rake up leaves instead. make it the new paper route. $N per bag.

Indeed. Are leaf blowers that much more efficient than good old fashioned rakes?

Especially if you pay some kids to do it? They get exercise and money out of it. We get some peace and quiet.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#153

Post by dazc »

goldenchrome wrote: post #95
ryanianian wrote: post #13

Damaging the heart sounds right. My neighbor has a unique obsession with his leaf-blower. It's like his daily 30-120 minutes of exercise at random times of the day. Even with all the noise-cancelling technology in the world, it ruins me for at least 2-3 hours and makes both video-conferencing and deep work basically impossible. Here's the thing: Nobody cares. The neighbor can say no to polite requests to figure out a…

Have you talked to your neighbor? It could be as simple as a lack of awareness on their part.

The problem with annoying neighbours is that they lack the common decency to comply. By definition, if they had the required decency then they wouldn't become annoying in the first place.

The general advice always seems to be to talk to your neighbour about the problem but, in my experience, this never works and is more likely to aggravate an already testy relationship.

Thus far, until 'being annoying' becomes an acceptable defence for murder, the only strategy that works 100% is to move.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#154

Post by Unklejoe »

undefined1 wrote: post #85
ryanianian wrote: post #13

Damaging the heart sounds right. My neighbor has a unique obsession with his leaf-blower. It's like his daily 30-120 minutes of exercise at random times of the day. Even with all the noise-cancelling technology in the world, it ruins me for at least 2-3 hours and makes both video-conferencing and deep work basically impossible. Here's the thing: Nobody cares. The neighbor can say no to polite requests to figure out a…

leaf blowers are such a pox on neighborhoods. we really need to find an alternative. is it possible to make an electric leaf blower that is both powerful and quiet? or forget the leaf blower altogether and pay kids to rake up leaves instead. make it the new paper route. $N per bag.

I have an electric leaf blower and it's loud as hell. I think most of the noise comes from the high velocity air itself.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#155

Post by throwaway0a5e »

elicash wrote: post #40

A bit unrelated, but I'd love to use a Zillow-like platform but filtering homes for noise pollution, light pollution, air pollution. (Also climate and flooding.) Most people wouldn't use it, because they've basically decided which city/town (bc of work/family) and are just trying to narrow down which home. But it'd be very useful to me, personally, as someone who can do my job from anywhere. Also, I'd imagine it's im…

I wish you could filter by what other people have searched for.

I want to look at the neihborhoods that all the people who don't give a crap about anything are clicking on.

Listening to jake brakes and a train a few times a day is a lot bad for my health than easily irritated neighbors.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#156

Post by graeme »

nothinggoesaway wrote: post #129

Folks with sensitivity to sound: consider supplementing chelated magnesium. When I tried magnesium glycinate to help with sleep, I happily discovered my daytime sensitivity to loud sounds improved too. Turns out this is common: https://psychcentral.com/blog/living-with-extreme-sound-sens... > In my practice, 85 percent of my patients came to me with a severe magnesium deficiency. A deficiency in this mineral often le…

Why chelates specifically? As opposed to, say, magnesium citrate.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#157

Post by dazc »

johnchristopher wrote: post #31
belly_joe wrote: post #2

I feel the sound -> stress connection palpably. Especially sudden loud noises like a horn honking cause me to feel upset for a long while after being startled. Seems like a convincing argument to me for car-free spaces, although honestly I just wish we had stronger social norms against unnecessarily using a car's horn.

I have stopped explaining people how my neighbor's friends honking when coming in and leaving drives me up the wall. There's the sound and then there's the rage from "that was fucking useless to do, you just spent 15 minutes saying goodbye on the doorstep, it 11PM, please be quiet" but I am the grumpy one. So I say nothing anymore. Fun thing is, when I am in the city, I like opening the windows in summer and car nois…

Maybe it's the lack of consideration that annoys you more than the noise itself?

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#158

Post by ryanianian »

nitrogen wrote: post #79
ryanianian wrote: post #13

Damaging the heart sounds right. My neighbor has a unique obsession with his leaf-blower. It's like his daily 30-120 minutes of exercise at random times of the day. Even with all the noise-cancelling technology in the world, it ruins me for at least 2-3 hours and makes both video-conferencing and deep work basically impossible. Here's the thing: Nobody cares. The neighbor can say no to polite requests to figure out a…

A partial solution would be soundproof houses, though that doesn't rescue one's backyard or park from loud neighbors. Every house or apartment should have at least a room or two that are impervious to outdoor noise. At the same time, there are really good reasons to make noise sometimes, from music to machines, so better ways to do that without overly bothering others are needed too.

I've spent serious time looking into this. One of the biggest sources of noise is windows or other places air can start to get in. I re-sealed my windows as best I could, but it's still a crisis of sound. Windows that claim to be sound-isolating either don't open at all or are very expensive to buy or properly install.

But: These are the kinds of "nobody cares it's your fault it bugs you and you need to find a solution" comments that are pervasive. Sure, I need to do my part as someone who's bothered by the sound, but there is no real incentive for the producer of the noise to cut it out.

Not singling you out in particular, just showing that even honest proposals for solutions tend to miss the elephant in the room: noise pollution that isn't pure sustained decibels can still be damaging.

Say I have an obnoxious horn that is a few db below the ordinance/limit. Many may claim that's a nuisance although somehow the blower isn't. But why shouldn't I get to play with my horn for a few hours every day? Maybe my leaves don't like it. The fact that the leaf-blower sound comes from doing a "chore" seems to change the equation in ways that are hard to articulate.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#159

Post by arminiusreturns »

nitrogen wrote: post #79
ryanianian wrote: post #13

Damaging the heart sounds right. My neighbor has a unique obsession with his leaf-blower. It's like his daily 30-120 minutes of exercise at random times of the day. Even with all the noise-cancelling technology in the world, it ruins me for at least 2-3 hours and makes both video-conferencing and deep work basically impossible. Here's the thing: Nobody cares. The neighbor can say no to polite requests to figure out a…

A partial solution would be soundproof houses, though that doesn't rescue one's backyard or park from loud neighbors. Every house or apartment should have at least a room or two that are impervious to outdoor noise. At the same time, there are really good reasons to make noise sometimes, from music to machines, so better ways to do that without overly bothering others are needed too.

This, at least in America, is the real heart of the problem. Our building practices have leaned so cheap for so long on thin margins, that walls, even exterior, are paper thin to the point of being ridiculous.

This becomes much more obvious if you have travelled around to other countries, and it's not all about wealth. Yes, rich ones such as Switzerland are a great example because of the heat containment requirements they have, there are poorer countries that still know how to build a house without sound going through it as if it was nothing.

This doesn't mean noise pollution shouldn't be tackled itself, but cities are noisey, and people at least deserve to have domiciles that give them a refuge.

This means you need to start participating in your city and county governments if you really want change (like many things!)

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#160

Post by graeme »

sjg007 wrote: post #139
DigitallyFidget wrote: post #29

I'd like to see an actual legitimate source of research regarding this. I can understand how some people are sensitive to the disruption of noises and how that can induce stress to those individuals, but the connection between noise and heart damage seems indirectly related.

With the new apple watches and iphones it should be possible to get a widespread map of noise pollution even finer grained than EPA monitors.

True. Noise gets logged in the health app from the apple watch, so a research study could tap into that quite easily. They already do that for heart rate and other metrics.
Post reply on HN