Ask Slashdot: Hacking Urban Noise? 474
b1tbkt writes "I live at the corner of one of the busiest intersections in my city (pop. 350k). Although I've replaced all windows, insulated, and caulked every square inch of the place, the fire trucks and cars with obnoxious stereos still regularly intrude on my home office. Most of the noise comes in through the windows. I'm considering mounting an oblong parabolic reflector in the ceiling above the windows with a steady feed of white or brownian noise directed into it (e.g., via a small speaker placed within the reflector) to create a 'wall' of sound that would act as a buffer to the outside world. Active noise cancellation would be nice, too, but that's probably more than I want to take on. I don't see any products on the market for this sort of thing. Does anyone have any experiences to share with similar homebrew noise remediation efforts?"
Re:George Bernard Shaw (Score:5, Funny)
I havent built it yet, but one day...
I wouldnt shed a tear for these obnoxious people. They disturb hundreds of people daily, so fuck em.
Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
Re:are the windows.. (Score:5, Funny)
Use your stero (Score:4, Funny)
Crank up the sound level on your stereo to really high levels and use it constantly to mask street noises. Magically, after a while, you won't need it any more.
Re:And the motorcycles .... (Score:5, Funny)
And the motorcycles.
It's all about our narcissistic society. "Hey look at me! I'm special!"
Yep. South Park did an episode on it [southparkstudios.com], and nailed it as usual.
Re:And the motorcycles .... (Score:1, Funny)
Motorcycles aren't about narcissism, they're about freedom.
What?!?
So, car drivers aren't free?
I guess the Founding Fathers were all motorcycle riders then.
So, I should give up voting and just get a bike if I want to be free?
And I guess we should send motorcycles to North Korea and free the people there?
Re:Get a Pair of Headphones (Score:5, Funny)
Headphones don't block noise and turning them up to block noise will damage your hearing.
So they do help :).
Re:are the windows.. (Score:5, Funny)
So you're saying he should try replacing his windows with linux? It might just work, I've certainly seen installations where I couldn't get any sound to come through linux.
Re:It does not have to be far (Score:3, Funny)
We're in London, after all.
Yes, capital of a country which, except for miles and pints, went metric around 1970.
Dont know about that, they still count money in pounds.
Re:It does not have to be far (Score:4, Funny)
Really, cause I know a guy who tries to make pithy jabs at the US but can't manage to spell "imperial" or "Liberia" correctly.
Oh, and if you love the TSA so much why don't you marry it, etc.
Re:And the motorcycles .... (Score:4, Funny)
Motorcycles aren't about narcissism, they're about freedom. With the exception of Harley Davidson bikes, which are deliberately tuned badly to make noise, most of the good bikes (think Honda orr BMW) are actually pretty quiet, and, especially among older motorcycle drivers, they are far and above the most courteous drivers on the road, which seems kind of counter to the notion that they're narcissistic.
If Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is anything to go on, they're not narcissistic, they're philosophers who go insane when they come to the conclusion that quality is synonymous with the Tao.
Re:The motorcycles are for lazy people (Score:5, Funny)
Less than two weeks, fat ass.