[HN Gopher] Noise is all around us
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Noise is all around us
Author : akeck
Score : 48 points
Date : 2023-05-21 21:33 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thewalrus.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (thewalrus.ca)
| 22c wrote:
| Of course this is completely anecdotal, but I was walking around
| a zoo in a city I'm visiting today and couldn't help but notice
| how much noisier the zoo was, both in terms of how much traffic
| and city noise breaches the walls, and how much noise the
| visitors make (yelling after each other across the zoo, talking
| loudly, just generally not attempting to keep their own noise
| down) when compared to visiting zoos in my home country.
|
| I also observed that the animals seemed to be a lot more likely
| to shy away, and (in my completely not zoological/biological
| opinion) perhaps even slightly more on edge or distressed in some
| cases. This also meant whenever an animal _was_ doing something
| interesting, the visitors would all be interested in that one
| exhibit, which caused further noise and commotion.
|
| I couldn't help but think how much nicer the zoo could've been
| for both guests and the residents if more of a focus was placed
| on reducing the noise levels.
|
| It was also quite a culture shock to me that smoking was allowed
| throughout the zoo as it seems to me that a ban would be easily
| justified on the grounds of animal comfort/welfare (not to forget
| all the children walking around, too).
| jmartrican wrote:
| My neighborhood has become too noisy because of cars with loud
| mufflers. They sound like Harley Davidson motorcycles. The motor
| cycles around here are loud too, I think they are modified also
| to be louder. I actually want to move to a quieter town. I think
| the cops and the local governments need to pay attention.
| june_twenty wrote:
| The Environmental Noise Directive (END) doesn't stop countries
| permitting houses to be built along motorways, next to fire
| stations or near airports/flight paths or trains. Once the houses
| are built people will live there.
|
| What we need is some good tech to make our homes and gardens more
| peaceful and quiet.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| > "Telling people to be quiet is not a good thing," he says.
| "Part of the charge to us as human beings in the world is to
| listen to other people, right? Especially if they are suffering.
| Especially if they are crying out to us for help. If our
| expectations are 'I should not have to hear anything,' and I can
| convince myself that the right way to live in the world is to
| live in this acoustically tailored environment, then I don't have
| to hear all that stuff. . . .
|
| I think the writer here is confused, they very likely mean
| 'listen' in the metaphorical sense not the literal sense, since
| it's obvious there are real world scenarios where it's physically
| damaging to actually listen.
|
| But if they mean 'listen' in the metaphorical sense, as in
| perceiving another's mental thoughts through any medium, then the
| noise levels of everyday environments has little to nothing to do
| with it.
| [deleted]
| phaserphile wrote:
| The developed nations have known exactly how to build structures
| that ACTUALLY reduce noise for 70+ years, but they didn't care
| enough to mandate such construction techniques into the building
| codes at our own peril.
| kibwen wrote:
| Improved standards for thermal insulation (important for
| reducing energy consumption from heating and cooling) will have
| a side effect of improving the acoustic insulation of
| structures. Not quite to the same extent as dedicated acoustic
| insulation, but better than nothing.
| bm3719 wrote:
| I think of ambient silence as the most valuable sound of all.
| Think about what it'd cost you to get freedom from your
| neighbor's lawnmower, traffic, sirens, construction, dogs
| barking, and the rest of the mindless noise that involuntarily
| assaults the average person's brain all day. You might think you
| can move out to the country, but most of the homes you might buy
| still have plenty of it. Neighbors will have bigger lawns that
| require even louder diesel tractors to mow, large dog ownership
| is at a higher ratio, recreational gunfire is more common, or you
| might hear a chainsaw running all day. In fact, it might be even
| more noticeable due to its irregularity.
|
| I hope the future is a quieter place. Electric motors replacing
| internal combustion engines is a step in the right direction. I
| suspect we'll need a full cultural shift and actual noise
| ordinance enforcement to get there though. Otherwise, it only
| takes one guy with $100 buying a leaf blower to ruin everyone's
| day.
| Turskarama wrote:
| With modern (unmodified) cars a lot of the time tyre noise is
| actually more significant than engine noise, so a switch to
| electric by itself won't do it.
| jmugan wrote:
| I'm always surprised that we tolerate so much unnecessary noise.
| We let people fly helicopters around and run leaf blowers. We
| even allow trucks to go beep beep beep and alert everyone within
| a kilometer that they are backing up, even though we have
| rearview cameras, like it's everyone else's responsibility to
| scurry out of their way.
| lstamour wrote:
| Re trucks beeping - that's partly legal responsibility isn't
| it? I mean, we have had the ability for trucks to beep as they
| back up for far longer than we have had the ability for them to
| realistically have functioning rear view cameras. And since the
| normal expectation is that vehicles go forward, it makes sense
| to alert when doing something unexpected, like backing up. And
| so the laws we have mandate and expect beeping noises from
| large vehicles because the idea that laws would mandate rear
| cameras hasn't caught on yet.
| Turskarama wrote:
| More modern trucks use white noise instead of a beep anyway,
| it's both much easier to tell direction from a broad spectrum
| sound, and significantly less annoying at the same time.
| jmugan wrote:
| I haven't heard any trucks around here do that, so maybe
| they work really well.
| kibwen wrote:
| I've never heard of a truck using white noise instead of a
| beep, but that might just be working as intended. Here's a
| video of what it sounds like:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rwJ5NCf1Vw
| jmugan wrote:
| It looks like it is required in the US only when the view is
| obstructed, which I interpret to mean only when there isn't a
| camera. I would guess people keep using them because there is
| no perceived downside, and if they hit anyone they can say,
| "Hey, we told them we were coming."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-up_beeper
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