5 ms·

Why did you start wearing earplugs? I know in the online music community that developing tinnitus is a fear/paranoia akin to fear of surveillance in the tech co

by creep 9y ago

Why did you start wearing earplugs? I know in the online music community that developing tinnitus is a fear/paranoia akin to fear of surveillance in the tech community-- not that these fears are unfounded, but many of such types tend to obsess. Is this the case with you? What happened to you that impacted your life to this point?

sandov 9y ago
>I know in the online music community that developing tinnitus is a fear/paranoia akin to fear of surveillance in the tech community I wish I was in the online music community before getting tinnitus. My tinnitus doesn't bother me now, but it did make me unhappy for a couple of months
nate_meurer 9y ago
I have some tinnitus, but probably no more than the average person and it rarely bothers me. No, I just really like my hearing. I resolved to always wear earplugs out of the house one day after a particularly nasty bus with squealing brakes made my ears ring. I ride my bike a lot so that just made sense. At home, I was putting in ear plugs when putting away dishes, because I want to just get that shit done, pulling handfuls out of the dishwasher and stacking them hard and fast, like you do if you're not a priss. Except the sound was making me act pretty damn prissy. I cook a lot and I'm impatient, so that just made sense too. Some other things like that caused me to just keep plugs on hand all the time. But I realized I couldn't possibly predict all of the potentially damaging acoustic events in life. It also occurred to me that maybe the full 30+ dB earplug is overkill for most of these things, and I could use something like half of that full-time, and still be perfectly functional. I consider these "mild" earplugs similar to clothes, which I also wear most of the time even though they're not, strictly speaking, necessary. EDIT: I also wear glasses at all times when I'm out of the house. Not for vision -- I have excellent vision -- but plano lenses for protection. I started doing this after one day in college when a fucking tree branch nearly went in my eye as I walked down the street. I just didn't see it. I think I was looking sort of downward, and then looked up just in time to catch a spear in my eye. The only thing that saved my cornea was the fact that I was wearing sunglasses. I've had several other instances of random shit flying or poking at my face, but that was the closest I've come to a serious eye injury. Just normal fairly slender wire-framed glasses, with clear polycarbonate lenses that filter almost as much UV as sunglasses. Nothing fancy. Haven't had my eye poked out since, happy to say.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- creep 9y ago
  Lol maybe you should start wearing a gas mask on the regular too? There are a lot of harmful chemicals in the air. Especially if you're on the road a lot biking.
  - nate_meurer 9y ago
    Alright so this will make you LOL a bit more... I recently started keeping a 3M dustmask in my car -- the paper sort with the small outlet valve in the middle -- to wear when traffic is real heavy, especially on cool, still days when traffic smog tends to hug the ground. Pollution where I live is nothing like China or India, and I'm not yet thinking about using a mask when jogging or biking, but in-car pollution in heavy traffic is turning out to be much worse than previously thought [1], and there is some interesting evidence that fine particulates, especially metallic particles like those that are prevalent in engine exhaust, contribute to Alzheimer's risk [2]. 1 - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170721135331.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170721135331.h... 2 - http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/brain-pollution-evidence-builds-dirty-air-causes-alzheimer-s-dementia http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/brain-pollution-evide...
    - creep 9y ago
      Did you know that stress and anxiety increase your risk of heart disease significantly? 1 - http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/StressManagement/HowDoesStressAffectYou/Stress-and-Heart-Health_UCM_437370_Article http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/StressManagement.... 2 - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.565.6839&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.565...
      - nate_meurer 9y ago
        Hmmm, I'm sensing a subtext here :) Honestly, stress and anxiety are things I don't struggle with, at least not according to my vitals. My resting heart rate is typically in the high fifties (but I recorded 47 bpm at my last checkup). I actually struggle a bit with low blood pressure, often getting light headed when I stand up. I don't have insomnia, I'm on no medication whatsoever, I've never had stomach ulcers, I have a full head of hair, and people routinely guess my age about 10 years too young. I think you might just be struggling a bit with the idea of someone who evaluates long term risk differently than you do. You might end up on the other side of that at some point. For example, I know a guy from Cambodia who thinks you're an idiot for insisting on wearing shoes when you leave the house. He'd say you're destroying your feet's physiological function by cramming them into shoes, and that your only problem is that you've refused to allow them to toughen up to the level they naturally would to match their environment. Now are you going to start motorbiking barefoot around town? I'm guessing not. I get it from the other direction too. Some people think I'm stupid for allowing my kids to ride their bikes in the park without helmets. I can explain that my kids are much more enthusiastic about riding because I don't load them down with a bunch of uncomfortable safety gear. I can also explain that my kids are far more likely to get a head injury riding inside a car, and we don't wear helmets in cars do we? These arguments sometimes work, but for the most part, people are pretty stuck on what they know from their own narrow experiences.

by creep 9y ago

sandov 9y ago

>I know in the online music community that developing tinnitus is a fear/paranoia akin to fear of surveillance in the tech community I wish I was in the online music community before getting tinnitus. My tinnitus doesn't bother me now, but it did make me unhappy for a couple of months

nate_meurer 9y ago

I have some tinnitus, but probably no more than the average person and it rarely bothers me. No, I just really like my hearing. I resolved to always wear earplugs out of the house one day after a particularly nasty bus with squealing brakes made my ears ring. I ride my bike a lot so that just made sense. At home, I was putting in ear plugs when putting away dishes, because I want to just get that shit done, pulling handfuls out of the dishwasher and stacking them hard and fast, like you do if you're not a priss. Except the sound was making me act pretty damn prissy. I cook a lot and I'm impatient, so that just made sense too. Some other things like that caused me to just keep plugs on hand all the time. But I realized I couldn't possibly predict all of the potentially damaging acoustic events in life. It also occurred to me that maybe the full 30+ dB earplug is overkill for most of these things, and I could use something like half of that full-time, and still be perfectly functional. I consider these "mild" earplugs similar to clothes, which I also wear most of the time even though they're not, strictly speaking, necessary. EDIT: I also wear glasses at all times when I'm out of the house. Not for vision -- I have excellent vision -- but plano lenses for protection. I started doing this after one day in college when a fucking tree branch nearly went in my eye as I walked down the street. I just didn't see it. I think I was looking sort of downward, and then looked up just in time to catch a spear in my eye. The only thing that saved my cornea was the fact that I was wearing sunglasses. I've had several other instances of random shit flying or poking at my face, but that was the closest I've come to a serious eye injury. Just normal fairly slender wire-framed glasses, with clear polycarbonate lenses that filter almost as much UV as sunglasses. Nothing fancy. Haven't had my eye poked out since, happy to say.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
creep 9y ago
Lol maybe you should start wearing a gas mask on the regular too? There are a lot of harmful chemicals in the air. Especially if you're on the road a lot biking.
- nate_meurer 9y ago
  Alright so this will make you LOL a bit more... I recently started keeping a 3M dustmask in my car -- the paper sort with the small outlet valve in the middle -- to wear when traffic is real heavy, especially on cool, still days when traffic smog tends to hug the ground. Pollution where I live is nothing like China or India, and I'm not yet thinking about using a mask when jogging or biking, but in-car pollution in heavy traffic is turning out to be much worse than previously thought [1], and there is some interesting evidence that fine particulates, especially metallic particles like those that are prevalent in engine exhaust, contribute to Alzheimer's risk [2]. 1 - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170721135331.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170721135331.h... 2 - http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/brain-pollution-evidence-builds-dirty-air-causes-alzheimer-s-dementia http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/brain-pollution-evide...
  - creep 9y ago
    Did you know that stress and anxiety increase your risk of heart disease significantly? 1 - http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/StressManagement/HowDoesStressAffectYou/Stress-and-Heart-Health_UCM_437370_Article http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/StressManagement.... 2 - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.565.6839&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.565...
    - nate_meurer 9y ago
      Hmmm, I'm sensing a subtext here :) Honestly, stress and anxiety are things I don't struggle with, at least not according to my vitals. My resting heart rate is typically in the high fifties (but I recorded 47 bpm at my last checkup). I actually struggle a bit with low blood pressure, often getting light headed when I stand up. I don't have insomnia, I'm on no medication whatsoever, I've never had stomach ulcers, I have a full head of hair, and people routinely guess my age about 10 years too young. I think you might just be struggling a bit with the idea of someone who evaluates long term risk differently than you do. You might end up on the other side of that at some point. For example, I know a guy from Cambodia who thinks you're an idiot for insisting on wearing shoes when you leave the house. He'd say you're destroying your feet's physiological function by cramming them into shoes, and that your only problem is that you've refused to allow them to toughen up to the level they naturally would to match their environment. Now are you going to start motorbiking barefoot around town? I'm guessing not. I get it from the other direction too. Some people think I'm stupid for allowing my kids to ride their bikes in the park without helmets. I can explain that my kids are much more enthusiastic about riding because I don't load them down with a bunch of uncomfortable safety gear. I can also explain that my kids are far more likely to get a head injury riding inside a car, and we don't wear helmets in cars do we? These arguments sometimes work, but for the most part, people are pretty stuck on what they know from their own narrow experiences.