Related: Cities Aren't Loud, Cars are Loud https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8
People with subwoofers in apartment buildings are pretty loud too.
The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
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Re: The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
#42This is almost interchangeable with a light pollution map. E.g. http://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/large_light_pollution_ma... Funny how often human effects on the environment correlate with human population density.
I was noticing the same thing. Equally easy to pick out the major US cities. In the West, anyway ... where the lack of major oceanside cities above San Fran is especially notable. (Why is that?)
Re: The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
#43I drove through Wyoming or someplace like that one time on a less traveled highway and stopped at a gas station. It was flat for as far as the eye could see in all directions and the utter silence that confronted me after stopping the car and getting out was jarring. Absolutely no sound. I remember pausing and taking note of it. Really made an impression on me.
I went on a roadtrip once through the southwest US. The utter silence in many places was one of my favorite parts, as well as the many areas with flat scenery to the horizon. I would often stop at a good view – mapped or not – and just enjoy it, whether or not there was a slight wind at the time and place.
It really is something to turn off your car, walk to a good spot, and feel for a moment like you might be the last person on Earth.
Re: The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
#44It pains me that noise pollution isn't taken as seriously as other forms of environmental damage when it's the one that most directly impacts (urban) people's quality of life.
Yet if the beat of a metronome will depress intelligence, what do eight or twelve hours of noise, odor, and heat in a factory, or day upon day among chattering typewriters and telephone bells and slamming doors, do to the political judgments formed on the basis of newspapers read in street-cars and subways? Can anything be heard in the hubbub that does not shriek, or be seen in the general glare that does not flash like an electric sign? The life of the city dweller lacks solitude, silence, ease. The nights are noisy and ablaze. The people of a big city are assaulted by incessant sound, now violent and jagged, now falling into unfinished rhythms, but endless and remorseless. Under modern industrialism thought goes on in a bath of noise. If its discriminations are often flat and foolish, here at least is some small part of the reason. The sovereign people determines life and death and happiness under conditions where experience and experiment alike show thought to be most difficult. “The intolerable burden of thought” is a burden when the conditions make it burdensome. It is no burden when the conditions are favorable. It is as exhilarating to think as it is to dance, and just as natural.
Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence. But in that helter-skelter which we flatter by the name of civilization, the citizen performs the perilous business of government under the worst possible conditions."
- Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, 1922
Re: The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Loud pipes save lives" ugh
If I was a cop, I would make it my sole mission to ticket each and every one all day long.
This is a perfect example of why cops should be paid more. If you could be convinced to be a cop the world would be a better place.
Re: The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
#46This is almost interchangeable with a light pollution map. E.g. http://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/large_light_pollution_ma... Funny how often human effects on the environment correlate with human population density.
I was noticing the same thing. Equally easy to pick out the major US cities. In the West, anyway ... where the lack of major oceanside cities above San Fran is especially notable. (Why is that?)
Being next to the ocean up in the PNW sucks ass. Windy, misty cold for 10 months and then 7 weeks of windy and misty. You get 1 week of pleasant weather spread through the 7.
Re: The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
#47Is there a similar map for light pollution? I’m excited Ben trying to find a good place around me to look at the stars at night, just got into stargazing.
Re: The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
#48Related: Cities Aren't Loud, Cars are Loud https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8
Correction. Internal combustion engines are loud.
No, as someone who used to live next to an expressway (45-50 mph traffic), the problem is 95% tire noise. Modern cars not accelerating make very little noise from the ICE.
The tires are like nails on a chalkboard to me after living that way for a 5 years. It cut through my apartment walls and morning rush hour served as a mandatory alarm clock.
The only time engines were an issue were people with modded exhaust or people street racing (motorcycles or cars).
Re: The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
#49Is there a similar map for light pollution? I’m excited Ben trying to find a good place around me to look at the stars at night, just got into stargazing.
Re: The Sound of Silence: A Noise Map of the U.S.
#50This is almost interchangeable with a light pollution map. E.g. http://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/large_light_pollution_ma... Funny how often human effects on the environment correlate with human population density.
I was noticing the same thing. Equally easy to pick out the major US cities. In the West, anyway ... where the lack of major oceanside cities above San Fran is especially notable. (Why is that?)
Lack of well-protected harbors north of the Bay Area.
As you move North the winter storms get more and more fierce. You have to go pretty far inland (Portland or Puget Sound) to reach calm waters and a low enough wind speed to hold down construction costs for tall buildings.
The closest thing to an exception is Grays Harbor, which is topographically equivalent to the SF Bay but extremely shallow -- much too shallow for container ships. They have to dredge it every few years just to get the ag/lumber/automobile ships into the port.