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How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

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Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#91

Post by grawprog »

cartoonfoxes wrote: post #59
StuffedParrot wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The homeless actually make great conversation and it humanizes them. If you don’t give cash, at least don’t alienate them. Granted it can be very emotionally draining.

I take it you have never been assaulted by an angry drunk before.

No, but I didbsit there and listen to a really drunk dude sitting on the street once who'd just broke his 10 year sobriety after coming home and finding his wife fucking s room full of men about a half hour before I ran into him. He was about halfway through a 40 of whiskey by that point.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#92

Post by triceratops »

coldtea wrote: post #86
triceratops wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q-tips aren't supposed to be used for cleaning wax out of ears. That's not what they're for, and the manufacturer and much of the medical establishment actively advises against it.

> Q-tips aren't supposed to be used for cleaning wax out of ears. Well, they've worked just fine for me and millions of others (it's their most popular use). That said, there are indeed accidents from misuse. Not sure what other people buy them for in the billions and have them at every bathroom. Cleaning vinyl records and nails?

They're (meant to be) used for applying and removing makeup, taking samples of fluids for medical purposes (e.g. DNA swab), cleaning small items such as jewelry or electronics, applying glue in arts and crafts.[1] Using them for ear cleaning is associated with a number of risks to the ear.[2] But you do you.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_swab#Use

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_swab#Medical_risks

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#93

Post by egypturnash »

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #64
egypturnash wrote: post #28

Lately I've been spending a lot of my working-with-a-laptop-at-a-cafe time at places that have outdoor seating. And another chunk of that time has been sitting outside at a very nice park I live nearby. There is no music except for occasional snatches of it from passing cars. Instead there is the wind in the trees, various birds having their conversations, and perhaps kids playing if I'm near the playground. It's rea…

I went through a period of listening to natural sounds, rivers, forests, rain, thunder, waves, etc. It's surprisingly easy to detect loops and repeats. There are some nice apps for blending sounds. Seems like a good space for ML to play, producing unique, but authentic feeling sounds.

You could also just get a recording from someone who went out to a beautiful-sounding place and recorded several hours, these have existed since before digital sampling techniques, much less machine learning. Looping short samples is pretty much the worst way possible to generate a soundscape.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#94

Post by lloydatkinson »

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #64
egypturnash wrote: post #28

Lately I've been spending a lot of my working-with-a-laptop-at-a-cafe time at places that have outdoor seating. And another chunk of that time has been sitting outside at a very nice park I live nearby. There is no music except for occasional snatches of it from passing cars. Instead there is the wind in the trees, various birds having their conversations, and perhaps kids playing if I'm near the playground. It's rea…

I went through a period of listening to natural sounds, rivers, forests, rain, thunder, waves, etc. It's surprisingly easy to detect loops and repeats. There are some nice apps for blending sounds. Seems like a good space for ML to play, producing unique, but authentic feeling sounds.

You’d think and yet Spotify playlists are mostly full of exactly that - short clips maybe 2 minutes long, it’s so jarring it’s impossible to listen to.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#95

Post by jpindar »

taurath wrote: post #71

What I can’t stand is the lyric heavy “upbeat” music in grocery stores, even when it’s absolutely dreary out or late at night. I’m sure some folks like it. Maybe I should grocery shop with earbuds.

I do grocery shop with earbuds sometimes, because the store near me plays nothing but cheezy old love songs. I mean literally every song is a 'romantic' one. I'm not against all old pop music but that's just too much.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#96

Post by foreigner »

snailmailman wrote: post #53
foreigner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Maybe it could work like those song recognition apps. A microphone identifies the background music and then it plays an inverse waveform in to your earbuds to cancel it out. I would pay lots of money for that.

This is exactly how active noise cancellation works on many modern headphones/earbuds, although I don't think they actually try to identify the song.

Active noise cancellation devices that I've heard of try to analyze the noise to predict what it will do next so they know what to cancel out. They're expensive because they have to be fast enough to react to changes in the sound, and imperfect because they will always lag behind changes to the sound they're trying to cancel.

If you could identify the song then you could simply fast-forward it to know "what it will do next" and the cancellation would be much easier and more accurate.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#97

Post by coldtea »

triceratops wrote: post #92
coldtea wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Q-tips aren't supposed to be used for cleaning wax out of ears. Well, they've worked just fine for me and millions of others (it's their most popular use). That said, there are indeed accidents from misuse. Not sure what other people buy them for in the billions and have them at every bathroom. Cleaning vinyl records and nails?

They're (meant to be) used for applying and removing makeup, taking samples of fluids for medical purposes (e.g. DNA swab), cleaning small items such as jewelry or electronics, applying glue in arts and crafts.[1] Using them for ear cleaning is associated with a number of risks to the ear.[2] But you do you. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_swab#Use 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_swab#Medical_risks

>They're (meant to be) used for applying and removing makeup

There are specialty items mostly commonly used for the latter (cotton pads), and I'm not sure the reason almost every household has cotton swabs in their bathroom for fringe activities like: "taking samples of fluids for medical purposes (e.g. DNA swab), cleaning small items such as jewelry or electronics, applying glue in arts and crafts".

That leaves "applying makeup" as the other main use.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#98

Post by lisptw102019 »

coldtea wrote: post #97
triceratops wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're (meant to be) used for applying and removing makeup, taking samples of fluids for medical purposes (e.g. DNA swab), cleaning small items such as jewelry or electronics, applying glue in arts and crafts.[1] Using them for ear cleaning is associated with a number of risks to the ear.[2] But you do you. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_swab#Use 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_swab#Medical_risks

> They're (meant to be) used for applying and removing makeup There are specialty items mostly commonly used for the latter (cotton pads), and I'm not sure the reason almost every household has cotton swabs in their bathroom for fringe activities like: "taking samples of fluids for medical purposes (e.g. DNA swab), cleaning small items such as jewelry or electronics, applying glue in arts and crafts". That leaves "ap…

(Yeah, I use them in my ears too).

Cotton swabs aren't as precise as a Q-Tip for some types of cleaning/detailing.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#99

Post by e40 »

partyboat1586 wrote: post #57
e40 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you played music too loud, actually. Playing music on a low volume will not give you tinnitus.

Playing music at a low volume also won't block out background noise.

Then get some noise canceling headphones, over the ear, and that will take care of the background noise.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#100

Post by triceratops »

coldtea wrote: post #97
triceratops wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're (meant to be) used for applying and removing makeup, taking samples of fluids for medical purposes (e.g. DNA swab), cleaning small items such as jewelry or electronics, applying glue in arts and crafts.[1] Using them for ear cleaning is associated with a number of risks to the ear.[2] But you do you. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_swab#Use 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_swab#Medical_risks

> They're (meant to be) used for applying and removing makeup There are specialty items mostly commonly used for the latter (cotton pads), and I'm not sure the reason almost every household has cotton swabs in their bathroom for fringe activities like: "taking samples of fluids for medical purposes (e.g. DNA swab), cleaning small items such as jewelry or electronics, applying glue in arts and crafts". That leaves "ap…

I didn't say most households were using them for their intended uses. And I'm not trying to convince you to change course.
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