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How Restaurants Got So Loud

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#261

Post by mhb »

clairity wrote: post #227
decebalus1 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably won't be the most popular opinion but I'm siding with the business for this one. I never got people who use cafe bars, delis, etc.. as personal offices. I personally can't get 'in the zone' in such a public place where: - I need to buy/consume something every X minutes - have to overhear irrelevant stupid/mundane conversations - people have a habit of bringing their dogs everywhere now and I'm not even go…

even if you don't relate, other people have different desires and motivations and it's worth trying to understand that (for social harmony at the very least). you seem to want quiet and solitude in public places, but that's just not the norm. rather than distracting, i find cafes ideal places to work, as they have the right amount of low-recognition distraction (unlike home, where things are too quiet and my bed is s…

Dogs like to roll and play in filth. They shouldn't be around where people are eating.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#262

Post by [deleted] »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #146
apacheCamel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is a very negative way to view the situation. Libraries should totally be "fun". It should be "fun" to go and find a book that you enjoy or just spend time reading in an area dedicated to the love of books. It shouldn't be a place to just drop the kids off and leave, but it should be a place kids want to go. Reading can be fun and I almost feel like it is a "trendy thing" of my generation (Millennial…

Where have you seen the reading hate trend?

[deleted]

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#263

Post by clairity »

mhb wrote: post #261
clairity wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even if you don't relate, other people have different desires and motivations and it's worth trying to understand that (for social harmony at the very least). you seem to want quiet and solitude in public places, but that's just not the norm. rather than distracting, i find cafes ideal places to work, as they have the right amount of low-recognition distraction (unlike home, where things are too quiet and my bed is s…

Dogs like to roll and play in filth. They shouldn't be around where people are eating.

so do children.

keeping dogs away from human eating areas reduces your chances of disease by a negligible amount. you would be much better off requiring everyone to wash their hands and/or disinfect their phones upon entering.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#264

Post by b_tterc_p »

jlokier wrote: post #108

There's an ice cream and bagel place in town. In the late evening it's consistently packed with people on their laptops or reading books. One day I noticed the music was much louder than usual, and asked the staff to turn it down. I figured it was a mistake because it was normally much quieter. They told me this was the new company policy. To set the music uncomfortably loud to make people leave, after finishing thei…

The architectural design of making chairs uncomfortable so people don’t stay in your restaurant for long has been a neat niche of mainstream fast food chains for a while.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#265

Post by JohnBooty »

saiya-jin wrote: post #98
JohnBooty wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, my hearing's not the best and I really just cannot hear what people are saying half of the time. It's like... everybody's struggling to hear each other, but I really cannot hear. I just can't do those kinds of spaces, at least not if I want to have a conversation.

Test your hearing on higher frequencies, those are usually the first lost when hearing degrades. Normal headphones/loudspeakers can go way higher than people can hear, so you can do basic test yourself. I have something similar - normal conversations are OK, but in loud environment it becomes very hard. Its not great to be the only one in group who doesn't understand what others are saying. I blew my hearing probably…

(I realize that online hearing tests aren't reliable, but they would have false positives, not false negatives)

Frustratingly, I've done those online hearing tests which test your ability to hear human voices amidst background noise and they tell me I have no hearing loss.

However, my hearing cuts out around 9khz, which is low. Definitely not my listening equipment because my wife can hear >9khz just fine on the same gear.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#266

Post by amluto »

keithpeter wrote: post #168
amluto wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Palo Alto, there’s a cafe (more or less) call Hana House that has three big sections. One of those sections is very comfy, quiet, has proper acoustic design, lots of outlets, and, gasp charges for time. It’s actually a fairly nice model. If you want to work in someone’s commercial space, paying for it is entirely reasonable.

Strikes me as a sensible business model if you can actually cover the recurring costs by getting enough people in. UK version... https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jan/08/pay-per-minut... London: https://london.ziferblat.net/ Manchester: https://www.ziferblat.co.uk/ 8p/min = £4.80 per hour. Bearing in mind I'd pay £5 for coffee and a cake in many places that seems reasonable. UK: many public access spaces have p…

In Taiwan, there are some excellent tea houses that have an unusual billing model. You can drink their tea for the list price, or you can bring your own tea leaves but use their water, etc by paying for time.

These are not generally the kind of places where you would bring a laptop.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#267

Post by 8note »

jlokier wrote: post #135
something2 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does wearing noise-cancelling headphones actually protect your ears? My understanding of noise-cancelling(at least the active kind) is that it would play the noise you would normally hear but in a mirrored fashion to dampen out the noise you'd hear. I'm just wondering if that would protect your ears, do as much harm, or double it.

I don't know if it truly protects them from damage overall. That would take science. See "complicated" below :) But the basic answer to your question is, no, it doesn't double the sound energy. To the extent the headphones are successful at creating an inverse sound to cancel incoming sound, that will reduce the sound energy reaching the inner ears. The sound and its "mirror" don't add up to increase energy, rather,…

won't that depend on how well synced the waves are? if you get the wrong phase, you're doubling the amplitude

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#268

Post by JohnBooty »

eponeponepon wrote: post #104
JohnBooty wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's kind of the problem with this entire discussion. People are discussing entirely different sorts of libraries.

Well, no. People are trying to draw a functional distinction between two types of libraries that isn't really there. First, old-fashioned academic libraries existed; later, public lending libraries existed, but only because various people noticed that the existence of academic libraries was a good thing thing that should be more widely accessible to people outside academia and/or religious institutions. At no point h…

   At no point has the purpose of public lending libraries been to provide the community centre
I'm in my 40s and here in the United States, in my lifetime libraries have always doubled as community spaces: hosting events like readings, book clubs, art classes, and so on.

Of course, they have not traditionally been free-use community spaces in the sense of "hey, come to the library and drop your kids off so they can run around and play" or anything like that. But I don't think anybody's asking for that, either.

Judging by your spelling of "centre," perhaps you're not in the U.S. and therefore have a different experience and perspective.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#269

Post by decebalus1 »

clairity wrote: post #263
mhb wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogs like to roll and play in filth. They shouldn't be around where people are eating.

so do children. keeping dogs away from human eating areas reduces your chances of disease by a negligible amount. you would be much better off requiring everyone to wash their hands and/or disinfect their phones upon entering.

> keeping dogs away from human eating areas reduces your chances of disease by a negligible amount.

Citation needed

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#270

Post by err4nt »

war1025 wrote: post #249
err4nt wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closest café to me is a 'concept café' being run by a local coffee roaster. I'll often go The problem with that café is their hours miss both the before-work rush, and the after-work rush, with them closing shop at 6pm. You have to be _open_ to take money.

The problem is being open costs money. In order to be profitable, you need to bring in more money than the cost of the labor, and that's after you account for cost of the product and the other fixed costs. There is also the trouble that most of the people who will be around at close of business likely came in an hour or two earlier, so you are essentially paying someone to monitor the cafe without bringing in any new…

I would think the morning before-work rush would be the best time to capture money as a coffee shop, same with the after work time. They are basically only open while working people are away from the neighbourhood and have their doors shut when the biggest rushes of people would be there.

And it's not just them, I see a lot of local businesses in this area struggling, but the problem is they aren't open to take my money at reasonable times. There's another café even closer to me that is trying to make it, but they are closed 2 days a week and it's not the weekend, I'm not sure which days they are, so it's hard to check it out. It's just baffling to me - you pay rent 24/7, you have bills every month, and staff … but if you want to take money (generate income) you have to be open. If you want to make the most money, shouldn't you try to have your doors open the most amount of time you can?

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