13 ms·

STFU

1043 points by tanelpoder 9mo ago

SeanAnderson 9mo ago
What's old is new again! https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speech-jamming-gun/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speec...
- vunderba 9mo ago
  Years ago, I wanted to build this exact concept into a smartphone so I could just toggle it on whenever I needed to end an interminably long phone conversation. It’s basically the “Chinese food” Seinfeld gag.
- QuantumNomad_ 9mo ago
  > In general, human speech is jammed by giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds That’s what I seemed to remember also. I think 2 seconds like in the OP link is too long delay to work as actual jamming.
  - m463 9mo ago
    version 2.0 - why not both? one for noise-cancelling, one for social-cancelling.
- omoikane 9mo ago
  See also: https://improbable.com/2021/09/03/2012-japanese-ig-nobel-prize-winning-invention-patented-by-us-navy-in-2021/ https://improbable.com/2021/09/03/2012-japanese-ig-nobel-pri...
- zahlman 9mo ago
  Similar, but OP is about making people socially conscious of the noise they're producing (not through speech), while this "jamming" technique actually (at least theoretically) interferes with the cognitive process of choosing and forming words.
jimmiles 9mo ago
At my old job I had a phone that had IR remote capability. I'd turn off or mute the blaring TVs in our break rooms. Good times.
- cweagans 9mo ago
  There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure if it's made anymore, but there's a DIY kit that appears to do the same thing: https://www.adafruit.com/product/73 https://www.adafruit.com/product/73 I used to carry one with me everywhere (it was small enough to fit on a keychain). One night at a sports bar, I showed it to a friend. Before I could stop him, he pushed the button and every TV in the place went black, right in the middle of some PPV sports event. Anyway, he bought one on the spot.
  - ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
    There was a guy who sold a chip for that which you fitted to a car keyfob. In the olden days of the late 80s, Valeo used a pretty insecure not-rolling-code infrared thing for central locking systems. Anyway you'd get a handful of old Rover, Peugeot, Renault, or Citroën (and a bunch of others) fobs from the scrapyard and fit this pre-programmed PIC microcontroller, and when you pressed the button it would cycle through a bunch of volume down, mute, and power off commands for most common brands of TV. However the real genius one - and it was about 20 quid - was this. Remember Furbies? They would chatter away to each other, using infrared to communicate so they'd go in sync. Well, this one that transmitted the "GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW" command to any Furby in the room. Relatively expensive but worth it.
  - mschuster91 9mo ago
    > There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure about that one either but its functionality has been cloned for the Flipper Zero [1] [1] https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/ https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/
  - dylan604 9mo ago
    The Woz would be so proud
magicmicah85 9mo ago
So now there is two obnoxious people blaring sound? If you didn't have the courage to speak up, how are you going to have the courage to disrupt them and others?
- pseudosavant 9mo ago
  You don't have to figure out what to say back to the person. It is hearing their own self that makes them want to STFU. Apparently hearing their voice is just as annoying to them as it is to us?
- tshaddox 9mo ago
  Does it really take "courage" to speak up in cases like this? If anything, it's just as insulting to point out to an adult that playing loud audio in a crowded public place is inappropriate, as if they didn't know that!
  - socalgal2 9mo ago
    Yes, it does take courage, the person doing it is likely to react poorly and it could easily escalate into a physical altercation. for me, the worst offenders are men watching sports on public transportation or restaurants. I hate it, but I think different cultures have different norms.
    - SoftTalker 9mo ago
      It takes a bit of experience and tact. Saying "excuse me, would you mind turning down your phone a bit, please" as an opening request would not likely be confrontational especially in someplace like an airport. Few people are going to be itchy to start a fight over something like that in a place full of cameras, witnesses, security people, and with fairly limited exits.
  - michaelsshaw 9mo ago
    It can create an awkward situation which a lot of people are averse to. For example, I wouldn't speak up on other forms of public transport, but in airports in particular I go on a warpath.
ahupp 9mo ago
Hilarious. When working on a virtual reality VOIP product, someone added a test mode that played back your own speech with a delay. It was like part of your brain shut off, was a surprisingly strong effect.
- imzadi 9mo ago
  I'm old enough to remember when cell phones were primarily used for voice calls. Sometimes you'd hear yourself when you were trying to talk to someone, and it was infuriating. You'd have to hang up and call back, if the call was going to go on any length of time.
  - einsteinx2 9mo ago
    I've had this happen on modern video calls at work a few times as well, same solution too.
kittikitti 9mo ago
I think it's worse that you have to behave maliciously. They have a right to make sound in public places. I'm not one of those people who plays stuff on full volume in public places but sometimes I am a bit noisy. I think back to when I'm having fun and it often involves a bunch of noise. Society is becoming way too intolerant and conformist.
- michaelsshaw 9mo ago
  Airports aren't outside and they have a natural tendency to irritate people just by nature of existing. They aren't nice places and there's no need to make it worse by playing annoying TikToks
- phainopepla2 9mo ago
  Doesn't the right to make sound in public places extend to the hypothetical users of this app? I don't think a rights-based framing is the best way to look at this. It's about courtesy and respect for social norms. I don't see how society is becoming too intolerant, if anything I think we are more tolerant of anti-social behavior than ever before.
  - kittikitti 9mo ago
    The hypothetical users of the app will use it to shut down noise in public places. You are the one defending anti-social behavior here. If you don't like noise, don't go outside where other humans are. If you use psychological manipulation because you think people are playing videos too loud, maybe take a deep look in the mirror before talking about courtesy and respect.
- marssaxman 9mo ago
  If they have a right to play their sounds in a public place, then I also have the right to play the same sounds in the same public place at almost, but not exactly, the same time.
  - kittikitti 9mo ago
drob518 9mo ago
And the award goes to “STFU” for best practical use of AI.
potato-peeler 9mo ago
Isn’t delayed auditory feedback similar to echo?
- ndarray 9mo ago
  It's like a single bounce. Echo effects usually have multiple bounces, each quieter than the one before it.
- mkipper 9mo ago
  Yeah, this immediately made me think of DAF. My wife is a speech pathologist and hooked me up to a DAF machine for some research, and the effect was totally shocking to me as a layperson. I think I did worse than average, but I was basically unable to speak with delayed sidetone.
- neonmagenta 9mo ago
  Yea it can basically short circuit your thinking when trying to talk, BUT oddly enough it helps with stuttering with a short enough interval. There's in-ear attachments people can use that do this exact thing and it helps reduce the amount of stuttering and the brain getting stuck on a sound. My brother uses one, its crazy how it works
- ericwood 9mo ago
  If speaking strictly in terms of audio effects this is a delay, with "echo" usually implying feedback so the delayed signal is attenuated and fed back into the delay line, getting quieter each iteration and fading naturally.
analog31 9mo ago
I'm a musician, and any delay between the sound coming direct from my instrument and from my headphones completely bollixes my ability to play.This made online jam sessions with an acoustic instrument impossible.
quirino 9mo ago
One of my favorite web apps for testing your microphone and camera has this echo feature built in, with 0s, 1s and 3s delay: https://webcammictest.com/mic/ https://webcammictest.com/mic/
bityard 9mo ago
Okay, but... people with loud phones/voices in public places are absolutely fine with it because they don't care about anybody else's space or opinion of them. And they very likely are not afraid of instigating confrontation or assault either.
- pousada 9mo ago
  In my experience 99% of people will turn down the volume or use headphones if you ask nicely. I never in my life was confronted or even assaulted, even by noisy teenagers or grim looking men. Not saying it’s impossible but I would guess it’s very unlikely. Ymmv
  - konne88 9mo ago
    He's not completely wrong though. I was assaulted (pushed and fell to the ground) for asking someone to turn down their music at a pool. And I think I've asked less than 20 people in my life to turn down their music.
  - pixl97 9mo ago
    It 100% depends where you're at and the culture of that place, along with your perceived threat level. People that are perceived as no threat or a 100% chance of being a deadly threat if ignored typically have no problems here. It's the grey zone where conflict shows up. Think of a little 60 year old grandma asking nicely the vast majority of people will listen. Same if you're a 6'7" slab of rock with tear drops tattooed on your face. Meanwhile if you're a minority asking a racist to turn down the volume, this situation is going to cause conflict almost all of the time.
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    99% is way too high. More like 30 or 40%.
DefundPortland 9mo ago
[flagged]
tra3 9mo ago
In the style of cheap tiktoks: "There are two types of people...". My wife loves listening to her phone on max volume, but it sounds so bad compared to half decent speakers. Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!! Also why are people using speaker phones in public places at max volume. The speaker in your phone is designed to deliver the sound directly to your ear, probably at higher fidelity. I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers. Sorry if I sound cranky, I find loud noises challenging.
- ben_w 9mo ago
  I get you, I also prefer quiet. But I have a question: > I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers. Is this a non-sequitur, or a euphemism/figure of speech/etc. which I have never previously encountered?
  - scythe 9mo ago
    I think he means that electric handheld lawn equipment should be much quieter than gas-fired lawn equipment which is an infamous nuisance
  - dylan604 9mo ago
    Just unsolicited sharing of their own personal preferences with the rest of the forum readers
  - zdragnar 9mo ago
    I think the following line puts it into more context: > I find loud noises challenging. They're basically comparing other people's speaker music to noise pollution. Two stroke engines can be heard from a long way off, and I've got box fans that are louder than my electric weedwhacker.
- baxtr 9mo ago
  I find it absurd that music in cafés and restaurants has become so loud that it’s hard to have conversations with the people on your table. Sound pollution is a real thing.
alturp 9mo ago
Audio jacks have to come back.
connorgurney 9mo ago
I might be in a minority saying this - and particularly so here on HN - but I struggle to understand why you'd be willing to use a tool like this, as OP did, but not to politely ask someone to keep it down?
- brk 9mo ago
  Have you tried asking many people to "keep it down"? Generally that doesn't end with them politely keeping it down.
  - connorgurney 9mo ago
    As with anything in life, it depends on how you ask.
    - pixl97 9mo ago
      You mean "As with anything in life it depends on a huge number of variables such as location, number of allies the other person has, the threat potential you represent, the number of allies you have, your standing on the social ladder, if you're in a position of power, your ability to understand social clues, the exact method how you ask, yada yada"
      - ArnoVW 9mo ago
        No. It delends on how you ask. Did you walk over? Did you say hi? Did you lower yourself to be around their height? Give them a second or two to get used to you? Tell them first that their noise is loud ? Ask them in a respectable tone if they would lower it, just a bit? Did you give the impression that you were asking, not demanding? Of course I won't ask a drunk or aggressive looking person. But there is a wrong way to ask, and a better one.
        jraph 9mo ago
        I'm all for asking nicely in general but it doesn't work well with entitled people who don't give a shit about the people around them. The chances, regardless how nice you try to ask, that the person who elected to broadcast their tiktoks or calls to the whole wagon at full volume goes "oh, sorry, I'm so embarrassed, I'll turn this off", are very low. Last time I tried to ask "can you use headphones?", the guy answered "I don't have headphones" and put the volume even louder. A person who cared even a tiny bit would not have started to begin with. Asking is almost futile. These people simply seem to be used to get away with inflicting themselves to people around without consequences. The worse part is that if you do nothing, you participate in this. What can you do. I think it can only work if it becomes very socially unbearable, or if they got fined for this. Or, indeed, if it brought them nuisance. In that regard, this HN post's solution is interesting (not sure it's good though).
ivanjermakov 9mo ago
> me being me, didn't have the courage to speak up I hardly imagine a situation where speaking up is less "couraging" than using such tool to mock annoying person.
- bsimpson 9mo ago
  I think the word you're looking for is courageous.
- ddtaylor 9mo ago
  I imagine they keep their headphones on or play it off as the device doing it on it's own. The "work" of having to solve the problem hasn't gone away, but it has been translated from social into lying by omission and performative contradiction. EDIT: By performative contradiction I mean doing the thing the person is doing to demonstrate the contradiction.
- dartharva 9mo ago
  Speaking up would have a higher failure rate. Speaking up overtly stimulates the annoying person's defensiveness and propensity to challenge back. Subtle manipulation always works better.
  - dystopiandevel 9mo ago
    Be assertive and transparent and then use the app. Otherwise you are just being passive aggressive.
rw_panic0_0 9mo ago
solving problems with tech that are solvable with speaking to ppl is crazy social anxiety spares no one
EvanAnderson 9mo ago
I saw a video a few years ago with people speaking into microphones connected to a digital delay attached to headphones they wore. With something like a 200 - 300ms delay most people could only speak a few words before becoming unable to speak intelligibly. Something like that, with a directional microphone and one of those eerie directional speaker rigs I find in retail stores could be tons of fun for those irritating people who insist on using speaker phone in public.
arlattimore 9mo ago
> made with spite
- _vqpz 9mo ago
  Prompted with spite
thadt 9mo ago
In the 80's we had a way to deal with that kind of thing [1]. Just gotta practice to get the technique right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GyHQiuneU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GyHQiuneU
- ta2112 9mo ago
  Exactly! Also, that random ride across the bridge towards Marin is taking forever
- fusslo 9mo ago
  I had this exact scene in my mind and I am glad I am not alone, friend
lazarus01 9mo ago
Very funny! I believe the concept of public decency is entirely cultural and has less to do with courage. Where I live, if someone is being loud in public, you usually keep to yourself. So long as they are not being overtly offensive or profane. In other countries, like the Netherlands for example, people will have no problem telling you to be quiet or verbalize any violation of cultural norms. I believe it's like that in Germany and Scanda as well, from what I hear.
- phony-account 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - KomoD 9mo ago
    > But I can honestly say that in the past 25 years I have never, ever seen them saying anything remotely like this to another Swede. Let me guess, you live in Stockholm? :) As a Swede, I have definitely seen Swedes (usually older people) telling-off other Swedes and I even do it, recent examples: driving/parking like an asshole, being obnoxious, walking in the bike lane, not looking where they are going. I don't care if they're a Swede or a martian, it makes no difference to me.
arjie 9mo ago
There was an exhibit at the Exploratorium demonstrating a similar effect. You speak into a device and it plays your voice back to you delayed. If you're also listening for the other person this makes it impossible to speak. You can easily ignore it by just not paying attention to the audio back but it's surprising how, if you have to listen, this delay ruins everything. Someone saying a different thing, on the other hand, is easy to listen to while speaking.
bevelwork 9mo ago
That reminds of seeing Mike Rowe do something like this that just broke my brain of doing exactly that for extended periods of time for voice over work. https://youtu.be/J4LhdU3a1KM?t=111 https://youtu.be/J4LhdU3a1KM?t=111
test1072 9mo ago
https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu/blob/main/index.html https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/Pankajtanw... It's working. Op might consider adding to readme
sodafountan 9mo ago
I wonder if the future of AI is that we all just create our own programs out of thin air like this. Like if I need something, I just describe it to AI, and within seconds, it's generated and ready to use. Operating systems become redundant; you open any digital device, and it's just a portal into the most advanced LLM on the planet. Obviously just spitballing here. I wonder how far AI will advance.
- pixl97 9mo ago
  Operating systems, no. You still have to access what is going to be standardized hardware and make the analog bits behave digitally at low power. Applications, yea, 100%.
  - sodafountan 9mo ago
    I found it interesting that the OP defaulted to using an AI agent for his voice recording software rather than doing a Google search. Perhaps a sign of things to come? I would've chosen Google, but maybe I'll be falling behind in the future. Aside from getting an LLM up and running on a device, what's stopping AI from creating an operating system? I admittedly don't know much about operating system development, but aren't most operating systems written primarily in C? I guess what I meant by that is it would be interesting if the AI prompt itself were the OS, and all software would be generated via prompting the agent. No downloads, just a "What do you need?" prompt with the AI generating everything on the fly. Perhaps becoming so fast that you wouldn't even notice it thinking. Just: "I need to edit a document that was sent to my email" The AI would then retrieve the email, download the document and generate its own text editor to display the document in. All within a few milliseconds. Call it AIOS
    - pixl97 9mo ago
      >AI from creating an operating system? Nothing really... Creating a working operating system and understanding all the hardware bugs it could run into is a different story. Simply put when you look at the combined energy expenditure to create something like Windows or Linux and the numbers would likely stagger a person, like hundreds of gigawatts, hell probably terrawatts. This entropy expenditure is reduced by us sharing the code. This is the same reason we don't have that many top end AI models. The amount of energy you need to spend for one is massive. Intelligence doesn't mean you should do everything yourself. Sharing and stealing are solutions used in the animal kingdom as alternate solutions to the limited fuel problem.
lbrito 9mo ago
People blasting awful music any time of the day or night, anywhere (neighbours, beachgoers, public park, transit) is enough of a problem in my country (Brazil) that arduino/Raspberry Pi/ESP32-based bluetooth jammers are somewhat common. I would never try to use it though, as you can very realistically get killed in retaliation.
- mystifyingpoi 9mo ago
  How could you get in trouble (aside of this probably being illegal, at least I know it is in my country)? How would people know that you are jamming the signal, and not someone else?
  - lbrito 9mo ago
    Non-asshole-seeming people tend to be, unbeknownst to themselves, conspicuous in these scenarios
dekhn 9mo ago
Here's one I don't know how to solve: at work some folks take meetings in the bathroom. They're on their phone, they walk to a stall, do their... business while doing their business, all the while talking and listening, while toilets flush in the background. I understand cultural differences but taking business meetings in the bathroom seems inappropriate under effectively all circumstances.
- sublinear 9mo ago
  Report it to HR
  - pelagicAustral 9mo ago
    Under what punishable figure, pissing while working?
    - sublinear 9mo ago
      HR is not merely about punitive measures. This would be escalated to upper management to find out why people are under so much time pressure that they need to take calls in the bathroom, and at the very least doing so would be made some kind of violation of new policy. These are the kinds of reports the organization needs as ammunition in order to fix what sound like bigger problems with the organization and work culture. There's very little chance this hasn't been noticed and isn't a symptom of something more going on.
      - closewith 9mo ago
        > This would be escalated to upper management to find out why people are under so much time pressure that they need to take calls in the bathroom, and at the very least doing so would be made some kind of violation of new policy. Or why there are people so idle that they can defecate without working. Remember, HR protects the company, and complaints about heavy hitters because they work on porcelain aren't going to reflect well on the complainant.
sublinear 9mo ago
Is fighting antisocial behavior with more antisocial behavior really necessary? There is no singular solution that fits all situations. This entire discussion is pointless.
Craighead 9mo ago
You need it to be 200ms not 2 seconds Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) is the term you need to look into. Playing back what someone says to you back at them with a 200ms delay is literally a brain Denial of Service.
ericwood 9mo ago
Very similar in theory to Bob Widlar's legendary "hassler" circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Widlar#Personality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Widlar#Personality
jonathanstrange 9mo ago
My personal take is that having phone conversations at normal speaker volume is fine because people also talk amongst each other in public and there is no substantial difference, but watching videos or even listening to music on loud speaker is not okay because it's a public nuisance. However, it seems that the cultural norms differ a lot, I've heard of people who disapprove of almost everything and don't have much sympathy for them. Politeness goes both ways, and in my opinion using that app is impolite, too.
- bonesss 9mo ago
  There is a substantial difference between people talking amongst themselves and one person on a phone. Humans are social animals, we tune out conversations easily. Half conversations are just one interrupting, attention-grabbing … jarring start … … after … … … … another. It’s a series of unpredictable spontaneous one-sided outbursts, behaviours that otherwise belong to disturbed individuals. Listening to people in the phone is inherently more annoying, backed by decent research IIRC.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  Phone speakers are tinny and sharp and I find them a lot more annoying.
PeterStuer 9mo ago
On the one hand I love this. Otoh. Will the people who this is supposed to target actually care? To be fair, the callousnes of the people blastimg any audio in public is just beyond me.
overfeed 9mo ago
I wonder what fraction of people complaining about inconsiderate behavior in this thread, permanently use high beams when driving.
idsafsdij 9mo ago
this whole app is just theatrical programming. a vibe coded repo built so this guy could share a made-up anecdote about when he was passive-aggressive at the airport. By the author's own admission, even the name "STFU" was ripped from someone else's app that does the exact same thing We don't even get to see it in action! It's just the code, a gesture at what's possible if one could be bothered to pull the repo and run it themselves. "person asks LLM for an app that does audio recording and playback with a delay". fascinating, thank you P.S. the so called "discussion" thread linked in the repo is wild. "Garbage will be there everywhere... Have zero hope in the political system regardless of party in power" what does this have to do with anything man, i'm just trying to look at cool dev articles
athenot 9mo ago
This is a fun app. One way I deal with people talking on speakerphone, is inviting myself into their conversation and making comments as if I were an active participant. That usually earns me a weird look, and then they go off speaker so I can't hear what's been said. Success. Similar with folks watching reels on speaker, I fake a laugh or make comments about the content. It's awkward enough that they usually stop because they want a moment alone, not an interactive session with a stranger. Which ironically is the same thing I want too.
- xattt 9mo ago
  How do you deal with the small possibility that the offending person is unhinged (since they’ve already chosen to throw out societal mores out the window) and could physically hurt you?
  - away0g 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - jszymborski 9mo ago
      I don't think I've read a call to violence on HN before this one.
  - boogieknite 9mo ago
    [flagged]
  - Spooky23 9mo ago
    It’s a two-way street. I used to have to deal with unhinged people on the regular and one of the techniques that keep the peace and stay safe is to present an edge that gives the vibe that you may be more unhinged. My dad used to run housing projects, and my uncle was an assistant principal at one of the most violent schools in New York City. They were like Jedi masters of presence. They had stories that were absolutely insane.
    - 9mo ago
pjs_ 9mo ago
I love this… have been thinking about exactly this technology for years but combined with phased array directional loudspeaker and shotgun mic. Deploy during major political speech, instantly shut down brain of speaker, would appear to be an internal malfunction
_vqpz 9mo ago
The idea that 12 lines of vibe coded JavaScript prompted because someone was too scared to talk to someone disturbing him (but not enough to take a creep shot and blast him on Twitter) could make it to the top post of this website is quite sad.
- mmmlinux 9mo ago
  Too much engagement arguing if you should be able to hike and listen to music.
  - Sabinus 9mo ago
    I'm pretty amused this is what the post has deveolved into. If this was a Trump thread it would have been [Flagged] by now.
- fernandotakai 9mo ago
  i've seen people get beat up because they asked an anti-social c-words to turn the volume down. some people just cannot be reasoned and the amount of people like this is growing HARD.
  - _vqpz 9mo ago
    I don't know what makes you think passively aggressively playing the sound back at a person like that would illicit any better a response.
  - tombert 9mo ago
    I’ve never really understood that. I’ve never been beat up over it but people have gotten extremely defensive over it. Is it some kind of minor evangelism on their end? Like they think the music is so wonderful that obviously everyone should be listening to it?
    - hackable_sand 9mo ago
      It's really not that big of a deal
SuboptimalEng 9mo ago
Indian-American here. Thank you for this! I have hearing sensitivity and have repeatedly asked my parents to lower the volume on TVs, whatsapp videos, insta reels 100s of times. They always lower it for 5 minutes before raising it back. Likely because they are losing their hearing, but unable to admit that. I tend to be very mindful of others (maybe because I grew up in America), but my parents are not even mindful of my requests. Maybe it's a cultural thing? I expect those who have grown-up (or spent their whole lives) in India would do the same. Definitely need to test this out app out when I go home.
- dyauspitr 9mo ago
  On the flip side, people with hearing sensitivity are the most god awful people to deal with. It’s like the entire world has to quiet down for them when they could just as easily put in ear plugs instead.
  - anotherevan 9mo ago
    Hyperacusis is a real thing. One of my kidults has it, and yes, they use active noise cancelling ear plugs or over the ear headphones and sometimes the world is still too loud.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
- dystopiandevel 9mo ago
  Two words Flipper Zero
publicdebates 9mo ago
> app that plays back the same audio it hears, delayed by ~2 seconds. > idk i'm not a neuroscientist. all i know is it makes people shut up and that's good enough for me. Is it happening for the right reasons? What is going through the minds of those people in that moment, when they hear an audio recording of what just happened played back to them? Are they thinking they're being recorded? Are they nervous? Do they feel threatened? Might they act out on this in an unexpected and perhaps escalating way? These are why I would not use this app.
kogus 9mo ago
I love the ingredients for this project: made with spite and web audio api. do whatever you want with it.
maximgeorge 9mo ago
[dead]
anymouse123456 9mo ago
It is true that this app is more hostile than asking someone to keep it down, but people should beware of either approach, as it's not unusual for the same assholes who are comfortable blasting their audio in public spaces to also be comfortable getting into a fist fight. I have personally been threatened on multiple occasions because I asked someone to turn down (or turn off) their volume while watching videos on their phone in public. In one instance, I was in a doctor's office waiting room and a rather large, otherwise normal-looking man (likely in his late fifties) was watching videos at full volume while 4-5 of us were sitting quietly. We were all annoyed by him and exchanging looks, so I politely asked him to mute the video or watch it outside and he stood up and started threatening to fight me in a doctor's office waiting room! In my anecdotal experience in various tier 2 USA cities (i.e., not NY, SF, LA, etc), Gen-Xers and Boomers seem to be the worst offenders and also surprisingly, the most belligerent when confronted. If you're going to try either approach (this app, or asking), please do not be surprised if you find yourself in a rapidly escalating confrontation that may quickly result in physical violence. Sometimes, this calculus is more than worth it, sometimes it's not, but just don't think it can't happen.
phlo 9mo ago
My go-to for situations like these: Assume that the offender _clearly_ didn't mean to behave incorrectly, and help them overcome the mistake. Person in a public space listening to reels at full volume? Get their attention, then loudly point out that their headphones got disconnected and everybody can hear the audio. People leaving a train or bus and leaving behind trash? Loudly let them know that they forgot their water bottle or paper bag. If it's a single item, this works doubly well if you helpfully hand them the item, too.
omgJustTest 9mo ago
``` README.md straight up honest - originally called this "make-it-stop" but then saw @TimDarcet also built similar and named it STFU. wayyyyy better name. so stole it. sorry not sorry. ``` Probably the reason that the code "worked" from a single prompt. Could potentially have downloaded the github repo first...
- m463 9mo ago
  adding levels of indirection/abstraction is a common engineering move, especially in software engineering.
- einsteinx2 9mo ago
  > Probably the reason that the code "worked" from a single prompt I took a look at the repo, and the whole thing is 12 lines of JS and some basic HTML and CSS. I'm not surprised at all it worked the first time from a single prompt. No need to copy someone else's project for something so simple.
  - omgJustTest 9mo ago
    Good that you did. At least the author clearly delinated that it is indeed sloppiest of slop.
silexia 9mo ago
I absolutely hate the people who walk around or bike around or skate and carry a big speaker and force everyone else to listen to their garbage music.
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  Always garbage music. I heard one of them playing Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" (or whatever it's called), so not all new garbage either.
maximilianroos 9mo ago
I'm all for building apps to solve problems, but I would really encourage folks to ask people politely to do what you want them to do, rather than having an app do it for you. You can just ask people for things! And you will become a better person for it.
- delfinom 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - anigbrowl 9mo ago
    He was not beaten to death, liar. He shouldn't have been punched, but there is no need to just make stuff up.
    - fernandotakai 9mo ago
      sure. he wasn't beaten to death. but: 1. do you really wanna get into a fight because of this? because dude, i have a family to take care, so i would rather just not say anything. 2. you can easily die from a single punch
      - anigbrowl 9mo ago
        Nobody is suggesting he deserved to be punched or that there are some unreasonable violent people around. Yeah, he could have died. But saying he actually did is a lie deployed to get attention, I can't stand that.
  - tintor 9mo ago
    What is impressive in the video is two guys stepping in to help.
- dartharva 9mo ago
  Asking people publicly tends to challenge their ego and bring up defensiveness. It would fail a lot more than subtle manipulation like this, and instead bring additional confrontation.
ahmetomer 9mo ago
It seems that most of the people who suffer from loud voices in public spaces tend not to confront those scoundrels, and instead eat it up and wonder endlessly how they can be so mindless and rude to others. I am sometimes like that as well, but I would rather "fix" it myself because I just don't know of any practical ways to bring about a proper public commute etiquette. That's not my job. Today I went to Munich on public transportation — with a mix of transfers on trams and regional trains. I think I read about 50 pages, all the while traveling. It may sound like an ad, but it's not; I really appreciate my Sony XM4 — would not have been possible to focus on reading without it — which I've been using for years now. I put it on with ANC, and play a non-distracting focus music. This helps quite a lot!
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  Oh, some of us do confront them. You're lucky to be able to read on public transport. I barely can anymore because of these people.
wagwang 9mo ago
This is why going to the gym matters
- m463 9mo ago
  Do people talk on speakerphone in the gym too? so desensitization? :)
shevy-java 9mo ago
I have to admit: I found the two seconds delay quite entertaing there.
clueless 9mo ago
The fact that we can't just spin up a Claude code on our iPhones and have it program and run the end result right there in iOS should be chargeable offense by apple (and Android). Looking forward to the day that this capability exists.
- einsteinx2 9mo ago
  Since this is a web app, you kind of can do it today using web tools, but I know what you mean.
doktor2un 9mo ago
Doesn’t work on my phone
zahlman 9mo ago
I love that you're honest about having one-shot something with Claude and that you describe the experience in your own words without asking Claude to hype up the result for you. It's also a simple, genius idea. Congrats. [Edit: I guess this wasn't submitted by the author/prompter. Still, you get the point.]
friedtofu 9mo ago
Hey HN! Check out this vibe-coded shell script that Claude Opus one-shot that does the same thing(Pretty CrAzY!!!). This is a fish shell function but you can probably get claude code to convert it to bash or zsh function STFU #alsa records incoming audio from the default input device for 2 seconds arecord --duration 2 echo.wav #alsa plays back the echo.wav of the recorded audio file aplay echo.wav #Ctrl+C when the target looks your way!!! end STFU Guess I should create a git repo for this now and add an MIT license like OP, amirite? (Yes this is post is entirely sarcasm, except that I do use fish as my default shell.)
jlebar 9mo ago
I carry cheap earbuds I got off aliexpress in my backpack and offer them to people who are listening to music or tiktok without headphones. I have a nonzero accept rate! But you really have to be in the right frame of mind. If you approach someone in anger, they'll pick up on it and mirror you. The best line I've found so far is, "I know Apple stopped giving out earbuds with their phones; would you like some?"
- malfist 9mo ago
  I appreciate your empathy for the fellow human. Even if it's "undeserved" it still makes things better for everyone involved.
lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
We are at the stage where we can engage in AI warfare with bespoke AI generated weapons. Nice.
mrinterweb 9mo ago
This is so passive aggressive. I kinda love it and hate it if that makes sense.
hamburglar 9mo ago
I wonder how well this would work on a street preacher if connected to a megaphone.
blks 9mo ago
Dislike for ai profile picture
indigodaddy 9mo ago
Initially thought this was cloning and doing TTS, but then I looked at the html file. I'm dumb lol
NedF 9mo ago
[dead]
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
hereme888 9mo ago
Sorely needed app. Amazing how inconsiderate and shameless many people are these days: airport, bus, train, even the gym sauna just blasting random tiktok feeds.
disqard 9mo ago
Reminds me of SpeechJammer: https://sites.google.com/site/qurihara/top-english/speechjammer?authuser=0 https://sites.google.com/site/qurihara/top-english/speechjam... (which won the Ig Nobel prize in 2012)
burnerRhodov2 9mo ago
Im from LA... the type of people who play music or talk on speaker are not the kinda people you'd want to do this too.. This sounds like a perfect way to get stabbed. Fun light hearted github, that will passively agressively get someone killed.
xpe 9mo ago
I’ve read several dozen comments, but I haven’t come across the following stated quite this way: One option is to politely ask someone if they have headphones and/or to turn it down. Cont’d from ^: you can often lubricate the situation by giving some “reason” that lets the other person save face. You can be genuine or creative or both. (You might say you just really had a rough day and would appreciate quiet.) As a point of comparison, think about how many drivers forget to turn on their headlights even after the sun goes down. Some fraction of people screw up in spite of their self-interest. If you are genuinely afraid of speaking to someone, listen to your gut. Just try to check this against reality… if this happens at 1000X the rate of crime in the area, you might be miscalibrated. You might consider talking to Mr Blaring McLoud without mentioning your annoyance at first. This might help get you one step closer to asking nicely later. Some people are genuinely unaware, so erring on the side of kindness is a smart step one. Even when asking nicely without snark or impugning someone’s pride, you might still face rude behavior. I like the phrase “don’t mistake kindness for weakness.” You can walk away and figure out what you want to do next, knowing that you gave the other person a chance.
CapsAdmin 9mo ago
I moved from a very quiet culture to a very noisy one. Here people watch tik tok on full blast, people let their kids run amok in concrete cafes, constantly honk at each other, blast karaoke for all neighbors to hear, etc. These people have some ability to sift through noise. For example being able to talk to someone on the phone with a loudspeaker in a loud environment while both seem to understand each other well. But for some reason, the majority of people don't care, and so in some weird way, the concept of sound pollution don't exist. When sound pollution don't exist as a concept, there is nothing to get annoyed about.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
stephenhandley 9mo ago
/)_-) https://www.amazon.com/s?k=headphones https://www.amazon.com/s?k=headphones
milleramp 9mo ago
I wish there was an app for the other annoyances of the 'Bombay' airport. Like the get your ass in line app, or I don't need you to carry my luggage 5ft and demand a tip app.
evo_9 9mo ago
My 3 and 5 year old love this, very entertaining for small children. And I’ll most definitely use this for its intended use, great way to solve that problem. Nice job
pseingatl 9mo ago
Is this an iOS app? Android?
falkensmaize 9mo ago
This sounds like an “I want to get my ass kicked” application.
logicziller 9mo ago
So, a tool that ends up annoying more people than the first person.
jamesholden 9mo ago
This is a weird comment but, I read this before bed. In my dream, I was on a subway or at an airport or some travel place and I did this and the dude in my dream got mad and chased me. :D Even subconsciously, I seem to love this app.
throwaway758439 9mo ago
[flagged]
- NSPG911 9mo ago
  Thanks throwaway account. But have you fully read it? By replaying what was playing, it forces the original noise to stop and in return, the repeated noise.
m151 9mo ago
Next, we need an app like this for smoking in public.
the_wolo 9mo ago
I like it but what this program needs is some DSP: an overdrive, reverb, delay, flanger, chorus and what not :D
mancerayder 9mo ago
Unfortunately this is the most dangerous when it is most needed - on the New York City subway, especially when the train has a cell signal, when jackasses listen to reels of IG and TikTok and scroll at high volume. It's an incredibly rude world we live in - this behavior two decades ago would have led to a fight. Now everyone is scared to tell anyone anything, since punching or stabbing are risks. Also, I believe the new generation is hyper tolerant of such things compared to us olds.
TeamCommet1 9mo ago
I'm curious how you're handling the feedback loop from the device's own speakers. If the phone plays back the audio, doesn't the mic pick it up again and create an infinite echo? Or does the 2-second delay just turn it into a slow-motion oscillation?

1043 points by tanelpoder 9mo ago

What's old is new again! https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speech-jamming-gun/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speec...

vunderba 9mo ago
Years ago, I wanted to build this exact concept into a smartphone so I could just toggle it on whenever I needed to end an interminably long phone conversation. It’s basically the “Chinese food” Seinfeld gag.
QuantumNomad_ 9mo ago
> In general, human speech is jammed by giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds That’s what I seemed to remember also. I think 2 seconds like in the OP link is too long delay to work as actual jamming.
- m463 9mo ago
  version 2.0 - why not both? one for noise-cancelling, one for social-cancelling.
omoikane 9mo ago
See also: https://improbable.com/2021/09/03/2012-japanese-ig-nobel-prize-winning-invention-patented-by-us-navy-in-2021/ https://improbable.com/2021/09/03/2012-japanese-ig-nobel-pri...
zahlman 9mo ago
Similar, but OP is about making people socially conscious of the noise they're producing (not through speech), while this "jamming" technique actually (at least theoretically) interferes with the cognitive process of choosing and forming words.

jimmiles 9mo ago

At my old job I had a phone that had IR remote capability. I'd turn off or mute the blaring TVs in our break rooms. Good times.

cweagans 9mo ago
There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure if it's made anymore, but there's a DIY kit that appears to do the same thing: https://www.adafruit.com/product/73 https://www.adafruit.com/product/73 I used to carry one with me everywhere (it was small enough to fit on a keychain). One night at a sports bar, I showed it to a friend. Before I could stop him, he pushed the button and every TV in the place went black, right in the middle of some PPV sports event. Anyway, he bought one on the spot.
- ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
  There was a guy who sold a chip for that which you fitted to a car keyfob. In the olden days of the late 80s, Valeo used a pretty insecure not-rolling-code infrared thing for central locking systems. Anyway you'd get a handful of old Rover, Peugeot, Renault, or Citroën (and a bunch of others) fobs from the scrapyard and fit this pre-programmed PIC microcontroller, and when you pressed the button it would cycle through a bunch of volume down, mute, and power off commands for most common brands of TV. However the real genius one - and it was about 20 quid - was this. Remember Furbies? They would chatter away to each other, using infrared to communicate so they'd go in sync. Well, this one that transmitted the "GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW" command to any Furby in the room. Relatively expensive but worth it.
- mschuster91 9mo ago
  > There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure about that one either but its functionality has been cloned for the Flipper Zero [1] [1] https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/ https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/
- dylan604 9mo ago
  The Woz would be so proud

magicmicah85 9mo ago

So now there is two obnoxious people blaring sound? If you didn't have the courage to speak up, how are you going to have the courage to disrupt them and others?

pseudosavant 9mo ago
You don't have to figure out what to say back to the person. It is hearing their own self that makes them want to STFU. Apparently hearing their voice is just as annoying to them as it is to us?
tshaddox 9mo ago
Does it really take "courage" to speak up in cases like this? If anything, it's just as insulting to point out to an adult that playing loud audio in a crowded public place is inappropriate, as if they didn't know that!
- socalgal2 9mo ago
  Yes, it does take courage, the person doing it is likely to react poorly and it could easily escalate into a physical altercation. for me, the worst offenders are men watching sports on public transportation or restaurants. I hate it, but I think different cultures have different norms.
  - SoftTalker 9mo ago
    It takes a bit of experience and tact. Saying "excuse me, would you mind turning down your phone a bit, please" as an opening request would not likely be confrontational especially in someplace like an airport. Few people are going to be itchy to start a fight over something like that in a place full of cameras, witnesses, security people, and with fairly limited exits.
- michaelsshaw 9mo ago
  It can create an awkward situation which a lot of people are averse to. For example, I wouldn't speak up on other forms of public transport, but in airports in particular I go on a warpath.

ahupp 9mo ago

Hilarious. When working on a virtual reality VOIP product, someone added a test mode that played back your own speech with a delay. It was like part of your brain shut off, was a surprisingly strong effect.

imzadi 9mo ago
I'm old enough to remember when cell phones were primarily used for voice calls. Sometimes you'd hear yourself when you were trying to talk to someone, and it was infuriating. You'd have to hang up and call back, if the call was going to go on any length of time.
- einsteinx2 9mo ago
  I've had this happen on modern video calls at work a few times as well, same solution too.

kittikitti 9mo ago

I think it's worse that you have to behave maliciously. They have a right to make sound in public places. I'm not one of those people who plays stuff on full volume in public places but sometimes I am a bit noisy. I think back to when I'm having fun and it often involves a bunch of noise. Society is becoming way too intolerant and conformist.

michaelsshaw 9mo ago
Airports aren't outside and they have a natural tendency to irritate people just by nature of existing. They aren't nice places and there's no need to make it worse by playing annoying TikToks
phainopepla2 9mo ago
Doesn't the right to make sound in public places extend to the hypothetical users of this app? I don't think a rights-based framing is the best way to look at this. It's about courtesy and respect for social norms. I don't see how society is becoming too intolerant, if anything I think we are more tolerant of anti-social behavior than ever before.
- kittikitti 9mo ago
  The hypothetical users of the app will use it to shut down noise in public places. You are the one defending anti-social behavior here. If you don't like noise, don't go outside where other humans are. If you use psychological manipulation because you think people are playing videos too loud, maybe take a deep look in the mirror before talking about courtesy and respect.
marssaxman 9mo ago
If they have a right to play their sounds in a public place, then I also have the right to play the same sounds in the same public place at almost, but not exactly, the same time.
- kittikitti 9mo ago

drob518 9mo ago

And the award goes to “STFU” for best practical use of AI.

potato-peeler 9mo ago

Isn’t delayed auditory feedback similar to echo?

ndarray 9mo ago
It's like a single bounce. Echo effects usually have multiple bounces, each quieter than the one before it.
mkipper 9mo ago
Yeah, this immediately made me think of DAF. My wife is a speech pathologist and hooked me up to a DAF machine for some research, and the effect was totally shocking to me as a layperson. I think I did worse than average, but I was basically unable to speak with delayed sidetone.
neonmagenta 9mo ago
Yea it can basically short circuit your thinking when trying to talk, BUT oddly enough it helps with stuttering with a short enough interval. There's in-ear attachments people can use that do this exact thing and it helps reduce the amount of stuttering and the brain getting stuck on a sound. My brother uses one, its crazy how it works
ericwood 9mo ago
If speaking strictly in terms of audio effects this is a delay, with "echo" usually implying feedback so the delayed signal is attenuated and fed back into the delay line, getting quieter each iteration and fading naturally.

analog31 9mo ago

I'm a musician, and any delay between the sound coming direct from my instrument and from my headphones completely bollixes my ability to play.This made online jam sessions with an acoustic instrument impossible.

quirino 9mo ago

One of my favorite web apps for testing your microphone and camera has this echo feature built in, with 0s, 1s and 3s delay: https://webcammictest.com/mic/ https://webcammictest.com/mic/

bityard 9mo ago

Okay, but... people with loud phones/voices in public places are absolutely fine with it because they don't care about anybody else's space or opinion of them. And they very likely are not afraid of instigating confrontation or assault either.

pousada 9mo ago
In my experience 99% of people will turn down the volume or use headphones if you ask nicely. I never in my life was confronted or even assaulted, even by noisy teenagers or grim looking men. Not saying it’s impossible but I would guess it’s very unlikely. Ymmv
- konne88 9mo ago
  He's not completely wrong though. I was assaulted (pushed and fell to the ground) for asking someone to turn down their music at a pool. And I think I've asked less than 20 people in my life to turn down their music.
- pixl97 9mo ago
  It 100% depends where you're at and the culture of that place, along with your perceived threat level. People that are perceived as no threat or a 100% chance of being a deadly threat if ignored typically have no problems here. It's the grey zone where conflict shows up. Think of a little 60 year old grandma asking nicely the vast majority of people will listen. Same if you're a 6'7" slab of rock with tear drops tattooed on your face. Meanwhile if you're a minority asking a racist to turn down the volume, this situation is going to cause conflict almost all of the time.
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  99% is way too high. More like 30 or 40%.

DefundPortland 9mo ago

[flagged]

tra3 9mo ago

In the style of cheap tiktoks: "There are two types of people...". My wife loves listening to her phone on max volume, but it sounds so bad compared to half decent speakers. Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!! Also why are people using speaker phones in public places at max volume. The speaker in your phone is designed to deliver the sound directly to your ear, probably at higher fidelity. I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers. Sorry if I sound cranky, I find loud noises challenging.

ben_w 9mo ago
I get you, I also prefer quiet. But I have a question: > I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers. Is this a non-sequitur, or a euphemism/figure of speech/etc. which I have never previously encountered?
- scythe 9mo ago
  I think he means that electric handheld lawn equipment should be much quieter than gas-fired lawn equipment which is an infamous nuisance
- dylan604 9mo ago
  Just unsolicited sharing of their own personal preferences with the rest of the forum readers
- zdragnar 9mo ago
  I think the following line puts it into more context: > I find loud noises challenging. They're basically comparing other people's speaker music to noise pollution. Two stroke engines can be heard from a long way off, and I've got box fans that are louder than my electric weedwhacker.
baxtr 9mo ago
I find it absurd that music in cafés and restaurants has become so loud that it’s hard to have conversations with the people on your table. Sound pollution is a real thing.

alturp 9mo ago

Audio jacks have to come back.

connorgurney 9mo ago

I might be in a minority saying this - and particularly so here on HN - but I struggle to understand why you'd be willing to use a tool like this, as OP did, but not to politely ask someone to keep it down?

brk 9mo ago
Have you tried asking many people to "keep it down"? Generally that doesn't end with them politely keeping it down.
- connorgurney 9mo ago
  As with anything in life, it depends on how you ask.
  - pixl97 9mo ago
    You mean "As with anything in life it depends on a huge number of variables such as location, number of allies the other person has, the threat potential you represent, the number of allies you have, your standing on the social ladder, if you're in a position of power, your ability to understand social clues, the exact method how you ask, yada yada"
    - ArnoVW 9mo ago
      No. It delends on how you ask. Did you walk over? Did you say hi? Did you lower yourself to be around their height? Give them a second or two to get used to you? Tell them first that their noise is loud ? Ask them in a respectable tone if they would lower it, just a bit? Did you give the impression that you were asking, not demanding? Of course I won't ask a drunk or aggressive looking person. But there is a wrong way to ask, and a better one.
      - jraph 9mo ago
        I'm all for asking nicely in general but it doesn't work well with entitled people who don't give a shit about the people around them. The chances, regardless how nice you try to ask, that the person who elected to broadcast their tiktoks or calls to the whole wagon at full volume goes "oh, sorry, I'm so embarrassed, I'll turn this off", are very low. Last time I tried to ask "can you use headphones?", the guy answered "I don't have headphones" and put the volume even louder. A person who cared even a tiny bit would not have started to begin with. Asking is almost futile. These people simply seem to be used to get away with inflicting themselves to people around without consequences. The worse part is that if you do nothing, you participate in this. What can you do. I think it can only work if it becomes very socially unbearable, or if they got fined for this. Or, indeed, if it brought them nuisance. In that regard, this HN post's solution is interesting (not sure it's good though).

ivanjermakov 9mo ago

> me being me, didn't have the courage to speak up I hardly imagine a situation where speaking up is less "couraging" than using such tool to mock annoying person.

bsimpson 9mo ago
I think the word you're looking for is courageous.
ddtaylor 9mo ago
I imagine they keep their headphones on or play it off as the device doing it on it's own. The "work" of having to solve the problem hasn't gone away, but it has been translated from social into lying by omission and performative contradiction. EDIT: By performative contradiction I mean doing the thing the person is doing to demonstrate the contradiction.
dartharva 9mo ago
Speaking up would have a higher failure rate. Speaking up overtly stimulates the annoying person's defensiveness and propensity to challenge back. Subtle manipulation always works better.
- dystopiandevel 9mo ago
  Be assertive and transparent and then use the app. Otherwise you are just being passive aggressive.

rw_panic0_0 9mo ago

solving problems with tech that are solvable with speaking to ppl is crazy social anxiety spares no one

EvanAnderson 9mo ago

I saw a video a few years ago with people speaking into microphones connected to a digital delay attached to headphones they wore. With something like a 200 - 300ms delay most people could only speak a few words before becoming unable to speak intelligibly. Something like that, with a directional microphone and one of those eerie directional speaker rigs I find in retail stores could be tons of fun for those irritating people who insist on using speaker phone in public.

arlattimore 9mo ago

> made with spite

_vqpz 9mo ago
Prompted with spite

thadt 9mo ago

In the 80's we had a way to deal with that kind of thing [1]. Just gotta practice to get the technique right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GyHQiuneU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GyHQiuneU

ta2112 9mo ago
Exactly! Also, that random ride across the bridge towards Marin is taking forever
fusslo 9mo ago
I had this exact scene in my mind and I am glad I am not alone, friend

lazarus01 9mo ago

Very funny! I believe the concept of public decency is entirely cultural and has less to do with courage. Where I live, if someone is being loud in public, you usually keep to yourself. So long as they are not being overtly offensive or profane. In other countries, like the Netherlands for example, people will have no problem telling you to be quiet or verbalize any violation of cultural norms. I believe it's like that in Germany and Scanda as well, from what I hear.

phony-account 9mo ago
[flagged]
- KomoD 9mo ago
  > But I can honestly say that in the past 25 years I have never, ever seen them saying anything remotely like this to another Swede. Let me guess, you live in Stockholm? :) As a Swede, I have definitely seen Swedes (usually older people) telling-off other Swedes and I even do it, recent examples: driving/parking like an asshole, being obnoxious, walking in the bike lane, not looking where they are going. I don't care if they're a Swede or a martian, it makes no difference to me.

arjie 9mo ago

There was an exhibit at the Exploratorium demonstrating a similar effect. You speak into a device and it plays your voice back to you delayed. If you're also listening for the other person this makes it impossible to speak. You can easily ignore it by just not paying attention to the audio back but it's surprising how, if you have to listen, this delay ruins everything. Someone saying a different thing, on the other hand, is easy to listen to while speaking.

bevelwork 9mo ago

That reminds of seeing Mike Rowe do something like this that just broke my brain of doing exactly that for extended periods of time for voice over work. https://youtu.be/J4LhdU3a1KM?t=111 https://youtu.be/J4LhdU3a1KM?t=111

test1072 9mo ago

https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu/blob/main/index.html https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/Pankajtanw... It's working. Op might consider adding to readme

sodafountan 9mo ago

I wonder if the future of AI is that we all just create our own programs out of thin air like this. Like if I need something, I just describe it to AI, and within seconds, it's generated and ready to use. Operating systems become redundant; you open any digital device, and it's just a portal into the most advanced LLM on the planet. Obviously just spitballing here. I wonder how far AI will advance.

pixl97 9mo ago
Operating systems, no. You still have to access what is going to be standardized hardware and make the analog bits behave digitally at low power. Applications, yea, 100%.
- sodafountan 9mo ago
  I found it interesting that the OP defaulted to using an AI agent for his voice recording software rather than doing a Google search. Perhaps a sign of things to come? I would've chosen Google, but maybe I'll be falling behind in the future. Aside from getting an LLM up and running on a device, what's stopping AI from creating an operating system? I admittedly don't know much about operating system development, but aren't most operating systems written primarily in C? I guess what I meant by that is it would be interesting if the AI prompt itself were the OS, and all software would be generated via prompting the agent. No downloads, just a "What do you need?" prompt with the AI generating everything on the fly. Perhaps becoming so fast that you wouldn't even notice it thinking. Just: "I need to edit a document that was sent to my email" The AI would then retrieve the email, download the document and generate its own text editor to display the document in. All within a few milliseconds. Call it AIOS
  - pixl97 9mo ago
    >AI from creating an operating system? Nothing really... Creating a working operating system and understanding all the hardware bugs it could run into is a different story. Simply put when you look at the combined energy expenditure to create something like Windows or Linux and the numbers would likely stagger a person, like hundreds of gigawatts, hell probably terrawatts. This entropy expenditure is reduced by us sharing the code. This is the same reason we don't have that many top end AI models. The amount of energy you need to spend for one is massive. Intelligence doesn't mean you should do everything yourself. Sharing and stealing are solutions used in the animal kingdom as alternate solutions to the limited fuel problem.

lbrito 9mo ago

People blasting awful music any time of the day or night, anywhere (neighbours, beachgoers, public park, transit) is enough of a problem in my country (Brazil) that arduino/Raspberry Pi/ESP32-based bluetooth jammers are somewhat common. I would never try to use it though, as you can very realistically get killed in retaliation.

mystifyingpoi 9mo ago
How could you get in trouble (aside of this probably being illegal, at least I know it is in my country)? How would people know that you are jamming the signal, and not someone else?
- lbrito 9mo ago
  Non-asshole-seeming people tend to be, unbeknownst to themselves, conspicuous in these scenarios

dekhn 9mo ago

Here's one I don't know how to solve: at work some folks take meetings in the bathroom. They're on their phone, they walk to a stall, do their... business while doing their business, all the while talking and listening, while toilets flush in the background. I understand cultural differences but taking business meetings in the bathroom seems inappropriate under effectively all circumstances.

sublinear 9mo ago
Report it to HR
- pelagicAustral 9mo ago
  Under what punishable figure, pissing while working?
  - sublinear 9mo ago
    HR is not merely about punitive measures. This would be escalated to upper management to find out why people are under so much time pressure that they need to take calls in the bathroom, and at the very least doing so would be made some kind of violation of new policy. These are the kinds of reports the organization needs as ammunition in order to fix what sound like bigger problems with the organization and work culture. There's very little chance this hasn't been noticed and isn't a symptom of something more going on.
    - closewith 9mo ago
      > This would be escalated to upper management to find out why people are under so much time pressure that they need to take calls in the bathroom, and at the very least doing so would be made some kind of violation of new policy. Or why there are people so idle that they can defecate without working. Remember, HR protects the company, and complaints about heavy hitters because they work on porcelain aren't going to reflect well on the complainant.

sublinear 9mo ago

Is fighting antisocial behavior with more antisocial behavior really necessary? There is no singular solution that fits all situations. This entire discussion is pointless.

Craighead 9mo ago

You need it to be 200ms not 2 seconds Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) is the term you need to look into. Playing back what someone says to you back at them with a 200ms delay is literally a brain Denial of Service.

ericwood 9mo ago

Very similar in theory to Bob Widlar's legendary "hassler" circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Widlar#Personality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Widlar#Personality

jonathanstrange 9mo ago

My personal take is that having phone conversations at normal speaker volume is fine because people also talk amongst each other in public and there is no substantial difference, but watching videos or even listening to music on loud speaker is not okay because it's a public nuisance. However, it seems that the cultural norms differ a lot, I've heard of people who disapprove of almost everything and don't have much sympathy for them. Politeness goes both ways, and in my opinion using that app is impolite, too.

bonesss 9mo ago
There is a substantial difference between people talking amongst themselves and one person on a phone. Humans are social animals, we tune out conversations easily. Half conversations are just one interrupting, attention-grabbing … jarring start … … after … … … … another. It’s a series of unpredictable spontaneous one-sided outbursts, behaviours that otherwise belong to disturbed individuals. Listening to people in the phone is inherently more annoying, backed by decent research IIRC.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
nephihaha 9mo ago
Phone speakers are tinny and sharp and I find them a lot more annoying.

PeterStuer 9mo ago

On the one hand I love this. Otoh. Will the people who this is supposed to target actually care? To be fair, the callousnes of the people blastimg any audio in public is just beyond me.

overfeed 9mo ago

I wonder what fraction of people complaining about inconsiderate behavior in this thread, permanently use high beams when driving.

idsafsdij 9mo ago

this whole app is just theatrical programming. a vibe coded repo built so this guy could share a made-up anecdote about when he was passive-aggressive at the airport. By the author's own admission, even the name "STFU" was ripped from someone else's app that does the exact same thing We don't even get to see it in action! It's just the code, a gesture at what's possible if one could be bothered to pull the repo and run it themselves. "person asks LLM for an app that does audio recording and playback with a delay". fascinating, thank you P.S. the so called "discussion" thread linked in the repo is wild. "Garbage will be there everywhere... Have zero hope in the political system regardless of party in power" what does this have to do with anything man, i'm just trying to look at cool dev articles

athenot 9mo ago

This is a fun app. One way I deal with people talking on speakerphone, is inviting myself into their conversation and making comments as if I were an active participant. That usually earns me a weird look, and then they go off speaker so I can't hear what's been said. Success. Similar with folks watching reels on speaker, I fake a laugh or make comments about the content. It's awkward enough that they usually stop because they want a moment alone, not an interactive session with a stranger. Which ironically is the same thing I want too.

xattt 9mo ago
How do you deal with the small possibility that the offending person is unhinged (since they’ve already chosen to throw out societal mores out the window) and could physically hurt you?
- away0g 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - jszymborski 9mo ago
    I don't think I've read a call to violence on HN before this one.
- boogieknite 9mo ago
  [flagged]
- Spooky23 9mo ago
  It’s a two-way street. I used to have to deal with unhinged people on the regular and one of the techniques that keep the peace and stay safe is to present an edge that gives the vibe that you may be more unhinged. My dad used to run housing projects, and my uncle was an assistant principal at one of the most violent schools in New York City. They were like Jedi masters of presence. They had stories that were absolutely insane.
  - 9mo ago

pjs_ 9mo ago

I love this… have been thinking about exactly this technology for years but combined with phased array directional loudspeaker and shotgun mic. Deploy during major political speech, instantly shut down brain of speaker, would appear to be an internal malfunction

_vqpz 9mo ago

The idea that 12 lines of vibe coded JavaScript prompted because someone was too scared to talk to someone disturbing him (but not enough to take a creep shot and blast him on Twitter) could make it to the top post of this website is quite sad.

mmmlinux 9mo ago
Too much engagement arguing if you should be able to hike and listen to music.
- Sabinus 9mo ago
  I'm pretty amused this is what the post has deveolved into. If this was a Trump thread it would have been [Flagged] by now.
fernandotakai 9mo ago
i've seen people get beat up because they asked an anti-social c-words to turn the volume down. some people just cannot be reasoned and the amount of people like this is growing HARD.
- _vqpz 9mo ago
  I don't know what makes you think passively aggressively playing the sound back at a person like that would illicit any better a response.
- tombert 9mo ago
  I’ve never really understood that. I’ve never been beat up over it but people have gotten extremely defensive over it. Is it some kind of minor evangelism on their end? Like they think the music is so wonderful that obviously everyone should be listening to it?
  - hackable_sand 9mo ago
    It's really not that big of a deal

SuboptimalEng 9mo ago

Indian-American here. Thank you for this! I have hearing sensitivity and have repeatedly asked my parents to lower the volume on TVs, whatsapp videos, insta reels 100s of times. They always lower it for 5 minutes before raising it back. Likely because they are losing their hearing, but unable to admit that. I tend to be very mindful of others (maybe because I grew up in America), but my parents are not even mindful of my requests. Maybe it's a cultural thing? I expect those who have grown-up (or spent their whole lives) in India would do the same. Definitely need to test this out app out when I go home.

dyauspitr 9mo ago
On the flip side, people with hearing sensitivity are the most god awful people to deal with. It’s like the entire world has to quiet down for them when they could just as easily put in ear plugs instead.
- anotherevan 9mo ago
  Hyperacusis is a real thing. One of my kidults has it, and yes, they use active noise cancelling ear plugs or over the ear headphones and sometimes the world is still too loud.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
dystopiandevel 9mo ago
Two words Flipper Zero

publicdebates 9mo ago

> app that plays back the same audio it hears, delayed by ~2 seconds. > idk i'm not a neuroscientist. all i know is it makes people shut up and that's good enough for me. Is it happening for the right reasons? What is going through the minds of those people in that moment, when they hear an audio recording of what just happened played back to them? Are they thinking they're being recorded? Are they nervous? Do they feel threatened? Might they act out on this in an unexpected and perhaps escalating way? These are why I would not use this app.

kogus 9mo ago

I love the ingredients for this project: made with spite and web audio api. do whatever you want with it.

maximgeorge 9mo ago

[dead]

anymouse123456 9mo ago

It is true that this app is more hostile than asking someone to keep it down, but people should beware of either approach, as it's not unusual for the same assholes who are comfortable blasting their audio in public spaces to also be comfortable getting into a fist fight. I have personally been threatened on multiple occasions because I asked someone to turn down (or turn off) their volume while watching videos on their phone in public. In one instance, I was in a doctor's office waiting room and a rather large, otherwise normal-looking man (likely in his late fifties) was watching videos at full volume while 4-5 of us were sitting quietly. We were all annoyed by him and exchanging looks, so I politely asked him to mute the video or watch it outside and he stood up and started threatening to fight me in a doctor's office waiting room! In my anecdotal experience in various tier 2 USA cities (i.e., not NY, SF, LA, etc), Gen-Xers and Boomers seem to be the worst offenders and also surprisingly, the most belligerent when confronted. If you're going to try either approach (this app, or asking), please do not be surprised if you find yourself in a rapidly escalating confrontation that may quickly result in physical violence. Sometimes, this calculus is more than worth it, sometimes it's not, but just don't think it can't happen.

phlo 9mo ago

My go-to for situations like these: Assume that the offender _clearly_ didn't mean to behave incorrectly, and help them overcome the mistake. Person in a public space listening to reels at full volume? Get their attention, then loudly point out that their headphones got disconnected and everybody can hear the audio. People leaving a train or bus and leaving behind trash? Loudly let them know that they forgot their water bottle or paper bag. If it's a single item, this works doubly well if you helpfully hand them the item, too.

omgJustTest 9mo ago

``` README.md straight up honest - originally called this "make-it-stop" but then saw @TimDarcet also built similar and named it STFU. wayyyyy better name. so stole it. sorry not sorry. ``` Probably the reason that the code "worked" from a single prompt. Could potentially have downloaded the github repo first...

m463 9mo ago
adding levels of indirection/abstraction is a common engineering move, especially in software engineering.
einsteinx2 9mo ago
> Probably the reason that the code "worked" from a single prompt I took a look at the repo, and the whole thing is 12 lines of JS and some basic HTML and CSS. I'm not surprised at all it worked the first time from a single prompt. No need to copy someone else's project for something so simple.
- omgJustTest 9mo ago
  Good that you did. At least the author clearly delinated that it is indeed sloppiest of slop.

silexia 9mo ago

I absolutely hate the people who walk around or bike around or skate and carry a big speaker and force everyone else to listen to their garbage music.

nephihaha 9mo ago
Always garbage music. I heard one of them playing Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" (or whatever it's called), so not all new garbage either.

maximilianroos 9mo ago

I'm all for building apps to solve problems, but I would really encourage folks to ask people politely to do what you want them to do, rather than having an app do it for you. You can just ask people for things! And you will become a better person for it.

delfinom 9mo ago
[flagged]
- anigbrowl 9mo ago
  He was not beaten to death, liar. He shouldn't have been punched, but there is no need to just make stuff up.
  - fernandotakai 9mo ago
    sure. he wasn't beaten to death. but: 1. do you really wanna get into a fight because of this? because dude, i have a family to take care, so i would rather just not say anything. 2. you can easily die from a single punch
    - anigbrowl 9mo ago
      Nobody is suggesting he deserved to be punched or that there are some unreasonable violent people around. Yeah, he could have died. But saying he actually did is a lie deployed to get attention, I can't stand that.
- tintor 9mo ago
  What is impressive in the video is two guys stepping in to help.
dartharva 9mo ago
Asking people publicly tends to challenge their ego and bring up defensiveness. It would fail a lot more than subtle manipulation like this, and instead bring additional confrontation.

ahmetomer 9mo ago

It seems that most of the people who suffer from loud voices in public spaces tend not to confront those scoundrels, and instead eat it up and wonder endlessly how they can be so mindless and rude to others. I am sometimes like that as well, but I would rather "fix" it myself because I just don't know of any practical ways to bring about a proper public commute etiquette. That's not my job. Today I went to Munich on public transportation — with a mix of transfers on trams and regional trains. I think I read about 50 pages, all the while traveling. It may sound like an ad, but it's not; I really appreciate my Sony XM4 — would not have been possible to focus on reading without it — which I've been using for years now. I put it on with ANC, and play a non-distracting focus music. This helps quite a lot!

nephihaha 9mo ago
Oh, some of us do confront them. You're lucky to be able to read on public transport. I barely can anymore because of these people.

wagwang 9mo ago

This is why going to the gym matters

m463 9mo ago
Do people talk on speakerphone in the gym too? so desensitization? :)

shevy-java 9mo ago

I have to admit: I found the two seconds delay quite entertaing there.

clueless 9mo ago

The fact that we can't just spin up a Claude code on our iPhones and have it program and run the end result right there in iOS should be chargeable offense by apple (and Android). Looking forward to the day that this capability exists.

einsteinx2 9mo ago
Since this is a web app, you kind of can do it today using web tools, but I know what you mean.

doktor2un 9mo ago

Doesn’t work on my phone

zahlman 9mo ago

I love that you're honest about having one-shot something with Claude and that you describe the experience in your own words without asking Claude to hype up the result for you. It's also a simple, genius idea. Congrats. [Edit: I guess this wasn't submitted by the author/prompter. Still, you get the point.]

friedtofu 9mo ago

Hey HN! Check out this vibe-coded shell script that Claude Opus one-shot that does the same thing(Pretty CrAzY!!!). This is a fish shell function but you can probably get claude code to convert it to bash or zsh function STFU #alsa records incoming audio from the default input device for 2 seconds arecord --duration 2 echo.wav #alsa plays back the echo.wav of the recorded audio file aplay echo.wav #Ctrl+C when the target looks your way!!! end STFU Guess I should create a git repo for this now and add an MIT license like OP, amirite? (Yes this is post is entirely sarcasm, except that I do use fish as my default shell.)

jlebar 9mo ago

I carry cheap earbuds I got off aliexpress in my backpack and offer them to people who are listening to music or tiktok without headphones. I have a nonzero accept rate! But you really have to be in the right frame of mind. If you approach someone in anger, they'll pick up on it and mirror you. The best line I've found so far is, "I know Apple stopped giving out earbuds with their phones; would you like some?"

malfist 9mo ago
I appreciate your empathy for the fellow human. Even if it's "undeserved" it still makes things better for everyone involved.

lifetimerubyist 9mo ago

We are at the stage where we can engage in AI warfare with bespoke AI generated weapons. Nice.

mrinterweb 9mo ago

This is so passive aggressive. I kinda love it and hate it if that makes sense.

hamburglar 9mo ago

I wonder how well this would work on a street preacher if connected to a megaphone.

blks 9mo ago

Dislike for ai profile picture

indigodaddy 9mo ago

Initially thought this was cloning and doing TTS, but then I looked at the html file. I'm dumb lol

NedF 9mo ago

[dead]

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

hereme888 9mo ago

Sorely needed app. Amazing how inconsiderate and shameless many people are these days: airport, bus, train, even the gym sauna just blasting random tiktok feeds.

disqard 9mo ago

Reminds me of SpeechJammer: https://sites.google.com/site/qurihara/top-english/speechjammer?authuser=0 https://sites.google.com/site/qurihara/top-english/speechjam... (which won the Ig Nobel prize in 2012)

burnerRhodov2 9mo ago

Im from LA... the type of people who play music or talk on speaker are not the kinda people you'd want to do this too.. This sounds like a perfect way to get stabbed. Fun light hearted github, that will passively agressively get someone killed.

xpe 9mo ago

I’ve read several dozen comments, but I haven’t come across the following stated quite this way: One option is to politely ask someone if they have headphones and/or to turn it down. Cont’d from ^: you can often lubricate the situation by giving some “reason” that lets the other person save face. You can be genuine or creative or both. (You might say you just really had a rough day and would appreciate quiet.) As a point of comparison, think about how many drivers forget to turn on their headlights even after the sun goes down. Some fraction of people screw up in spite of their self-interest. If you are genuinely afraid of speaking to someone, listen to your gut. Just try to check this against reality… if this happens at 1000X the rate of crime in the area, you might be miscalibrated. You might consider talking to Mr Blaring McLoud without mentioning your annoyance at first. This might help get you one step closer to asking nicely later. Some people are genuinely unaware, so erring on the side of kindness is a smart step one. Even when asking nicely without snark or impugning someone’s pride, you might still face rude behavior. I like the phrase “don’t mistake kindness for weakness.” You can walk away and figure out what you want to do next, knowing that you gave the other person a chance.

CapsAdmin 9mo ago

I moved from a very quiet culture to a very noisy one. Here people watch tik tok on full blast, people let their kids run amok in concrete cafes, constantly honk at each other, blast karaoke for all neighbors to hear, etc. These people have some ability to sift through noise. For example being able to talk to someone on the phone with a loudspeaker in a loud environment while both seem to understand each other well. But for some reason, the majority of people don't care, and so in some weird way, the concept of sound pollution don't exist. When sound pollution don't exist as a concept, there is nothing to get annoyed about.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

stephenhandley 9mo ago

/)_-) https://www.amazon.com/s?k=headphones https://www.amazon.com/s?k=headphones

milleramp 9mo ago

I wish there was an app for the other annoyances of the 'Bombay' airport. Like the get your ass in line app, or I don't need you to carry my luggage 5ft and demand a tip app.

evo_9 9mo ago

My 3 and 5 year old love this, very entertaining for small children. And I’ll most definitely use this for its intended use, great way to solve that problem. Nice job

pseingatl 9mo ago

Is this an iOS app? Android?

falkensmaize 9mo ago

This sounds like an “I want to get my ass kicked” application.

logicziller 9mo ago

So, a tool that ends up annoying more people than the first person.

jamesholden 9mo ago

This is a weird comment but, I read this before bed. In my dream, I was on a subway or at an airport or some travel place and I did this and the dude in my dream got mad and chased me. :D Even subconsciously, I seem to love this app.

throwaway758439 9mo ago

[flagged]

NSPG911 9mo ago
Thanks throwaway account. But have you fully read it? By replaying what was playing, it forces the original noise to stop and in return, the repeated noise.

m151 9mo ago

Next, we need an app like this for smoking in public.

the_wolo 9mo ago

I like it but what this program needs is some DSP: an overdrive, reverb, delay, flanger, chorus and what not :D

mancerayder 9mo ago

Unfortunately this is the most dangerous when it is most needed - on the New York City subway, especially when the train has a cell signal, when jackasses listen to reels of IG and TikTok and scroll at high volume. It's an incredibly rude world we live in - this behavior two decades ago would have led to a fight. Now everyone is scared to tell anyone anything, since punching or stabbing are risks. Also, I believe the new generation is hyper tolerant of such things compared to us olds.

TeamCommet1 9mo ago

I'm curious how you're handling the feedback loop from the device's own speakers. If the phone plays back the audio, doesn't the mic pick it up again and create an infinite echo? Or does the 2-second delay just turn it into a slow-motion oscillation?