23 ms·

The Quiet Ones

• ghshephard 14y ago
  I suspect the author will be unhappy to hear that the key message I took away from his nice little story (with David Foster Wallace quotes, no less) - was that he was identifying himself as the jerk who loudly whacks away at his keyboard, annoying the crap out of people around him. When I'm near those people in a public space, I always wonder if they are having some kind of mental-breakdown, or whether they are passive-aggressively trying to get people to move away from them. Or perhaps some combination of both. Ironic, in that what he was trying to communicate was some concepts regarding recognizing the moral reality of those around him, when, in fact, he was one of those clueless types who likely hadn't considered the possibility that his whacking-away at his keyboard was really annoying others. As to why the "riff-raff" tend to be a little more considerate on public transport - One reason is usually because you don't want to piss somebody off and get a punch to the head. They tend to play things a little more roughly on Oakland public transport than they do on Amtrak.
  • smoyer 14y ago
    It would be even more ironic if he was working on this article. On a positive note, it does a good job of showing how our perception of quiet can be different. I love going out into the nearby woods where you can't hear noise from the cars and trucks that make up so much of our town's noise. It's amazing how a plane going overhead seems so loud after being in the quiet for a few hours. It's also pretty amazing how your ears adapt and if you choose to spend the night in the forest, you hear every small animal that scurries about.
  • aes256 14y ago
    > When I'm near those people in a public space, I always wonder if they are having some kind of mental-breakdown, or whether they are passive-aggressively trying to get people to move away from them. Whenever I come across someone typing loudly in public, I am reminded of this scene from Up in the Air: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ7EUCBxc9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ7EUCBxc9s
  • cyanbane 14y ago
    > Ironic, in that what he was trying to communicate was some concepts regarding recognizing the moral reality of those around him, when, in fact, he was one of those clueless types who likely hadn't considered the possibility that his whacking-away at his keyboard was really annoying others. I think that was his point.
    • ghshephard 14y ago
      No, I suspect that he likely doesn't realize that he is "that guy." I'm almost certain that he believes he is one of the elite, civilized folks who recognizes the "moral reality" of those around him, and that this is just an exceptional situation, which is not a typical example of his behavior. In reality, he's probably a jerk that ignores others.
      • apu 14y ago
        If you read his comics [1], you'll see that he's quite self-aware of his own failings and realizes that he is often a jerk himself (sometimes unknowingly). I also got the sense from just this article that he was quite aware of the fact that he was being the asshole. [1] http://www.thepaincomics.com/ http://www.thepaincomics.com/
      • charleshaanel 14y ago
        The point may be that we are all that "guy" (or girl) at some point. How often to we all ignore someone else assuming the other person is the jerk? This 'condition' is often exacerbated when you realize thinking is less "work" for you than it is the average person.
      • BHSPitMonkey 14y ago
        No, he explicitly describes the situation as finding himself on the "wrong" side of one of these conflicts. He understands that he was the bad guy that time.
  • chimpinee 14y ago
    I suspect some people can't type quietly because they don't know how. (The secret is to relax the fingers and hands by paying attention to the sensations coming from the fingertips.) I totally support the quiet coaches. However, they do come loaded with the risk of confrontation between the quiet and the noisy, which is far more disturbing than mere hubbub.
• eshvk 14y ago
  Idea for any startup founders out there: Have quiet breakout rooms where one can't talk in anything but a whisper. Hell, make it so that one can't even use a Das Keyboard in there. I would be curious to run an A/B test on productivity (say number of features produced). :-)
  • kmfrk 14y ago
    Someone already did the experiment, basically: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/06/study-of-the-day-why-crowded-coffee-shops-fire-up-your-creativity/258742/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/06/study-of-t.... :)
    • eshvk 14y ago
      Let me try to answer the question seriously: I have worked in coffee shops with ambient noise which I have been able to tune out. I believe that the experiment is subtly different that what I had proposed because it is looking at a different dimension of noise. The problem with noise at work is that it gets harder to tune it out especially when some of that noise might be relevant. This means that you get more distracted than when listening to some person with a nasally voice is asking for non fat soy latte. Well, that is my hypothesis anyway. :-)
      • pavel_lishin 14y ago
        I can filter out 99% of the noise at a coffee shop, because I can be certain it doesn't apply to me. I can filter out 50% of the noise at work, because it probably doesn't apply to me. I can filter out 10% of the noise at home, because if my wife is talking or our cats are meowing, it's almost certainly directed at me.
        • eshvk 14y ago
          > I can filter out 10% of the noise at home, because if my wife is talking or our cats are meowing, it's almost certainly directed at me. IMO the only advantage of working from home is that you can control all those free variables that make you distracted: E.g. Get a quiet study where you tell your wife, cat(s) etc that you cannot/will not be distracted during work hours. Doing that at work can be tried but depending on the work place, may not be kosher. I personally prefer working in the library. I have been most productive doing that back in school and sorely miss it.
• brianchu 14y ago
  The funny thing is that two months ago when I was taking a train in France with some friends, instead of having a quiet car, they had a noisy car. And it was really quiet in there, by our American standards. There were quite a few elderly couples in the car, it seemed. We were talking and laughing and were probably the loudest on the car. At the end, the person I was traveling with who knew French remarked that the family next to us was talking about how loud and annoying we were. No one told us to be quiet, of course, since this was the loud car.
  • peteretep 14y ago
    One of the following things is true: * Americans speak louder than other people * Something about the American accent means spoken American travels further and more piercingly than other languages * People expect Americans to be louder, so there's massive selection bias at work... Having travelled long and far, I suspect it's all three...
• manaskarekar 14y ago
  Makes you wonder, if the quiet car was full, would the author have come to this civil resolution? And where does one draw the line.. someone would call for a quieter car. Interesting read but doesn't suggest anything other than it is hard to find silence in public places.
• majormajor 14y ago
  I guess I'm one of the people who ruin it for everyone else. I'm ADD as all get out when it comes to something I'm not really into, but when I'm lasered in on something interesting, it would pretty much take a fire drill to break me out of that. I even prefer a background din in that situation over dead silence—so I've never been bothered by, or spoken out against, any of the trends away from silence. I love open-plan workspaces since I can have an ear open for anything particularly important or interesting (especially if it's relevant to what I'm working on).
  • peteforde 14y ago
    I would happily re-mortgage my house to afford surgery which would leave me with a brain that works as you describe.
    • Gring 14y ago
      Buy some earplugs. Same effect, much cheaper.
      • peteforde 14y ago
        I assure you that it's really just not that simple. I am adversely effected by all manor of sensory offence — including motion in my peripheral, heat, smells, unpredictable vibration. The real problem is that it's a downward spiral: if something is bothering me and I become agitated, I am far more likely to become aware of other things which conspire to keep me from being productive. Ultimately, I fall into a state of manic anxiety and get really down on myself for feeling so ineffective. I really wish I could just put in earplugs. They irritate my ears.
    • portlander52232 14y ago
      For around $50 you can have an audiologist make earplugs that are molded specifically to your ear. These are much more comfortable and give better attenuation than standard earplugs.
    • majormajor 14y ago
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• stickydink 14y ago
  The quiet car is great for returning home in the morning with a hangover...
• cletus 14y ago
  I sympathize with whoever criticized the guy for loud typing. Seriously, it's distracting/disruptive. I learnt to type on (manual) typewriter too but laptops and keys don't need to be stabbed with the force of a thousand suns to register the press. It can be just as loud as people talking and (IMHO) can be harder to tune out. After all, we're used to hearing people talk all the time. Oh and while I'm in the mood for ranting, people who eat with their mouths open--particularly when it's something crunchy--or who slurp in any way are going to be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. I don't catch long distance trains in the US at all. I sometimes take the subway but more often than not you're just standing for 10-15 minutes. In Germany, I don't recall having a lot of problems with noise (although, on one train back from Oberhausen, the smoke was so thick you couldn't see one window from the other in a very Cheech and Chong moment). England varied but was generally fine. What I'm not looking forward to is when cellphones become usable on planes because you know someone is going to sit there and talk loudly for the entire flight. One tip though: my Bose noise cancelling headphones are worth their weight in gold.
  • cglace 14y ago
    I sit by 3-4 loud typers at work and it regularly makes me lose focus for 10-20 minutes at a time and that is with my headphones on.
    • pavel_lishin 14y ago
      As a loud typer myself, please let them know. I'm usually wearing my headphones and have no idea how loud my keyboard sounds are - and if I'm in a bad mood, it tends to get louder, without me being consciously aware of it. I wouldn't be offended if someone pointed out how much noise I'm generating, and I doubt they would be, either. This would work especially well if your boss is willing to spring for quiet keyboards for them, and if they're willing to use 'em.
    • city41 14y ago
      It's one reason I'm a big fan of the current gen Apple keyboard, it's very quiet. Keyboards from PC manufacturers tend to be loud.
• pud 14y ago
  Off topic, but I think that's the most beautiful illustration I've ever seen accompanying an article. And the animation - just wonderful. (I've visiting from my laptop. Assuming mobile version probably doesn't look the same.)
  • natrius 14y ago
    The animation is present on mobile devices as well, though perhaps not on their mobile-formatted site. Do they even serve that site to WebKit browsers anymore? If so, they shouldn't.
  • bigtones 14y ago
    I agree, I've been reading NYT online for years and never seen an animated gif illustration before. I quite like it.
    • deleted 14y ago
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  • rolleiflex 14y ago
    I concur. It's both beautiful and understated—I appreciate the visual acuity, but I am more impressed with the fact that NYT, of all, is finally growing past the era of crying "we're interactive!!!" out loud and starting to make good, subtle and tasteful use of unique properties of the Web. This is elegant.
    • publicfig 14y ago
      This was incredibly evident during the election. They're really leading the pack in terms of using newer technologies as more than a tool to draw attention to their articles, but to actually add depth to them.
  • kafkaesque 14y ago
    I might be oversimplifying it, but the GIF might have something to do with this: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/11/us-word-of-the-year-2012/ http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/11/us-word-of-the-ye...
• Deejahll 14y ago
  Woah is that...? It is! Author Tim Kreider may be better known by some of us Internet folk as purveyor of the fine web-comic "The Pain": http://thepaincomics.com/ http://thepaincomics.com/
• wam 14y ago
  I used to love the quiet car. I appreciated the serenity and the opportunity to listen to just the noise of the train. But the hostile shushing (2-3 times near me per trip, usually) started to bother me more than the transgressions. I began to worry constantly, checking and re-checking to make sure I had my phone on silent mode. Now I sit one car back and relax. The quiet car is good for people who can deal with it, and that's fine with me.
• Fargren 14y ago
  I think this being loud is particularly ingrained on the US culture. I have to say, tourists from the US are notably loud on Argentina. We have a large amount of tourists on Buenos Aires, but it's always the US accent you can hear all the way across a crowded train wagon or room. I can't imagine why that is.
  • DavidAdams 14y ago
    I had some houseguests visiting from The Netherlands last night. I have never encountered louder talkers, even when we visited a nearby historic church and there was a rehearsal going on. I got a kick out of it, because I'm a notorious loud talker and my friends always give me a hard time about it.
  • shawn-butler 14y ago
    Given our evolutionary history as a tribal species, perhaps the human brain and auditory system is predisposed for survival purposes to make it seem as though unfamiliar dialects/voices/sounds are louder than they actually are. Without taking an objective measure of the decibels involved you might just be giving in to a stereotype?
    • Fargren 14y ago
      It is possible that it's some sort of auditory bias, but there's people from all over the world here (big tourist city and all), and it's almost always people form the US that I notice are loud. Even with the British, I can't normally hear them without being quite close, so it's not the language. Of course, I can't tell how many quiet Americans I've walked by without noticing because they are quiet.
      • newscasta 14y ago
        That's interesting, I've had the opposite experience, so I'm guessing it's a perception issue. I'm from Buenos Aires and currently live in New York, both loud cities. I find Argentine tourists around here are especially loud. Maybe I'm tuned to pick up my own accent, or maybe tourists are louder than locals? (the excitement of the new?) Or maybe, as you point out, we just don't notice the quiet ones and assume they are locals...
• weisser 14y ago
  The problem with the quiet car is that offenders usually do not realize they are in it. Unless you travel on Amtrak frequently (I don't do it often but certainly more than the average person) you may not even realize a quiet car even exists. It isn't common to have a quiet section on an airplane or any other form of public transportation so I can see why people would not expect this. Ignorance is no excuse for being loud repeatedly after this is pointed out but I almost always travel in the quiet car and have found that conductors only infrequently make announcements explaining that the car has special rules-perhaps 25% of the trips I've taken. I cannot blame someone for missing the sign that says, "Quiet Car" but I can place some responsibility on Amtrak for not making the quiet car and the rules that go along with it more obvious.
  • britta 14y ago
    Not every Amtrak line even has a quiet car - long-distance lines don't have them, and even some regional lines don't have them (such as the Pacific Surfliner).
    • weisser 14y ago
      I usually go Boston to CT or NY where there is always a quiet car but my point about it not being made obvious enough to those that aren't aware of its existence seems like a fairly simple fix. There will always be the people that do not feel the rules apply to them but most of the loud people I encounter in the quiet car did not realize where they were.
    • theatrus2 14y ago
      And some lines only have them at certain hours. For instance, Capitol Corridor (Sacramento <-> Bay Area) only has them for the super-early-morning and late night trains.
• jgannonjr 14y ago
  Did anyone else notice the hidden text "#@$%&!" at the end of the last paragraph? Does this have some kind of meaning or purpose, I can't figure out why it would be there... <p itemprop="articleBody"> We’re a tribe, we quiet ones, we readers and thinkers and letter writers, we daydreamers and gazers out of windows. We are a civil people, courteous to excess, who disdain displays of anger as childish and embarrassing. But the Quiet Car is our territory, the last reservation to which we’ve been driven. And we can be pushed too far. Our message to the barbarians who would barge in on our haven with their chatter and blatting gadgets like so many bulldozers is: <span style="color:#fff;"><em>#@$%&!</em></span> </p>
  • ibeza 14y ago
    Yea I was about to post about that too. I'm guessing it represents the quiet ones' gut response (a barbaric one) that is being masked with the politeness of the silence sign.
  • ikawe 14y ago
    A passive aggressive is unveiled? "shhh" == "fuck you" in the quiet car
  • vsync 14y ago
    I read this article in the printed newspaper at a coffee shop today. The "message" at the end of the article was a graphic of a finger over a pair of lips. Presumably from the description in the article it is Amtrak's "Quiet Car" logo. No idea how or why it ended up the way it did online.
  • Evgeny 14y ago
    I think random special characters generally are used as a replacement for some profanity / rude words
  • juiceandjuice 14y ago
    Ahh, a fellow highlighter. I noticed too.
• jerf 14y ago
  Sometimes, the urbanites on HN will pile on suburbia, wondering how anybody can live there. This is one of the reasons I often feel the same way, only in reverse. As I sit here, I can not hear any sounds not originating in my house. While I certainly visit the places with Musak, loud bars, et al, I don't live there. It isn't as grating when there is surcease. I'm not saying that Here It Is, The Reason Suburban Living Is Better Than Anything Anywhere. I'm just saying, if you're one of those people who just can't imagine what anyone would find appealing about the lifestyle, but were also nodding your head in agreement with this piece... now you can.
  • portlander52232 14y ago
    My experience with suburbia was that there was always yard equipment going, plus dogs and teenagers. These loud, punctuated sounds always bothered me much more than the regular, low din of a city. Moreover, most of the noise in cities in from automobiles, which are mainly a problem inflicted upon us by suburban development.
    • snogglethorpe 14y ago
      ... and there are neighborhoods in the centers of cities, typically residential with little car traffic, that are very quiet. Tokyo has a lot of these. It doesn't have a single "downtown", but rather a large number of busy centers, usually around railroad stations, and in many parts of central Tokyo, the "infill" between these is residential single-family housing or small apartment buildings. In many of those areas, streets are very narrow and windy, there's very little automobile traffic (people walk or bicycle), and it's often very quiet, to the point where one can sometimes hear people talking inside houses while walking down the street...
      • VexXtreme 14y ago
        The biggest problem with Tokyo is a lack of laws against public disturbance in terms of noise people are allowed to produce. All is fine and dandy until one of those stupid delivery trucks shows up near my building at 6am blaring "Hidari e magarimasu, gochuui kudasai. Hidari e magarimasu, gochuui kudasai. Hidari e magarimasu, gochuui kudasai". For people unfamiliar with Japan, various trucks here are not only equipped with visual (light based) turn signals, but audio based ones as well. This means that whenever they are taking a turn, they are blaring from their speakers "Turning left, please be careful. Turning left, please be careful" ad nauseam. Seriously, is that really necessary? Not to mention trucks with loudspeakers playing loud music promoting new bands and what not. I find Tokyo to be anything but a quiet city. To make things worse, sound proofing is so terrible in Japanese houses and buildings (construction standards are really poor here compared to the ones we have in the west), that despite living on the 6th floor I can often make out contents of the conversations of loud drunk groups returning from izakayas at 1am.
• 001sky 14y ago
  Respecting shared public space is becoming as quaintly archaic as tipping your hat to a lady, now that the concept of public space is as nearly extinct as hats, and ladies. -- QFT
• sramsay 14y ago
  I am nearly driven to madness by the torrent of noise in public environments. I don't expect places full of people to be quiet, per se, but I do not understand why every such space needs to have eight screens and speakers every ten feet pumping some kind of inane music. I spend a lot of time in airports, and I'm always amazed at how hard it is to find any space that is not subjected to either Fox/CNN or whatever insipid music they've decided would be "good for this space." I'm always grateful to find one of those ridiculous chapels that tries not to offend anyone of any religion while still being "spiritual." Because -- praise God! -- at least it's quiet. Honestly, I just want to read and think. I respect those who would rather talk, or sing, or whatever; I can move away from that if it's bothering me. But how do you move away from environments that are deliberately designed to make sure you are never without noise?
  • personlurking 14y ago
    You should never move to Brazil, lol. It's the capital of public noise and, more so, the public kind that invades the private space. Everyone accepts it and takes part in it, meaning those who want quiet are virtually nil.
• philip1209 14y ago
  Are the random white characters at the end of the last paragraph a message about blending in? http://a7d0f80a5fa1647cdaad-1414aef150de5db27755b8a53ed3a9c0.r40.cf2.rackcdn.com/Screen%20Shot%202012-11-18%20at%207.36.18%20PM.png http://a7d0f80a5fa1647cdaad-1414aef150de5db27755b8a53ed3a9c0...
  • tbloncar 14y ago
    Hm. Interesting. Might it be 'quiet!'?
• chaz 14y ago
  Silicone keyboard skins cut down on typing noise. It's a little weird at first, but I've found them to be helpful at keeping debris out as well as being the guy typing in a meeting without people looking at me. I always bring earbuds with me wherever I go as to not be distracted by other people.
• sbandyopadhyay 14y ago
  An article titled "The Quiet Ones" was posted by user "wallflower"? That's like a pun. A quiet pun.
  • namank 14y ago
    Article resonates with the user!
• gfodor 14y ago
  Unless I missed it, the author fails to mention the other front line in this battle: the airplane. Sure, the roar of the engines can be deafening, but the cellphone ban more than offsets that. I've found that more than anything else flying reminds me of just how productive you can be when free of distractions. Heck, the nature of productivity itself changes: instead of measuring it by how many emails you've answered, it's measured by how much progress you've made in thinking about problems or expanding your knowledge. Part of me is disappointed with the prevalence of wifi on flights now -- it was inevitable, but being put in a situation where I had no other choice but to read a book I've been meaning to read or to simply just sit and think for a few hours provided a really important ballast in maintaining sanity.
  • halfwit 14y ago
    Well, sometimes. Other times you've got shrieking babies, large groups of school children on a field trip, people having inane conversations (loudly, to be heard over the background noise)... basically all the noise you could potentially find in a train car and more. Then there's the security announcements, unavoidable ads for products and the in-flight TV service... plenty of potential for distraction. On a long flight, especially in the morning, it can be quite nice. But you also may be stuck next to the loudest baby you've ever heard, so loud that you cannot reasonably concentrate, for hours at a stretch.
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• mynameishere 14y ago
  I lived in the "quiet" floor in my dorm in college. No greater farce has ever been endured. I really wish noise-cancelling headphones existed then.
  • queensnake 14y ago
    Enh; I have the best, Bose QC-15s, and they don't do much.
• bpatrianakos 14y ago
  Oh, the quiet car. I ride the quiet car every weekday to and from work into and out of Chicago (except ours is Metra, not Amtrak). His description of it is completely accurate. The people on the quiet car tend to be thinkers, readers, writers, and I dare say just a bit more intelligent than the average rider. I've had the same experience before. For some reason people think the signs and the announcements don't apply to them and it just boggles my mind how much self awareness they lack! There's been a guy I've seen on the quiet car twice last week who for some reason had his iPhone at full volume and texted for the entire hour I was on the train. The problem wasn't the texting but that the iPhones clickers clackety keyboard sounds were on. Is that really necessary? And on the quiet car no less? A woman did the same thing a few weeks back. Of course no one said a word but we were all very annoyed. And then you get the oblivious guy who doesn't read signs or listen to the 3 announcements who talks on his cell the whole ride. And don't get me started on the teenagers who seem to be visiting the city for the first time and for some reason need to scream at each other despite being centimeters from each others face in a car full of completely silent people. The signs are obvious. The announcement are loud, clear, and numerous. So what the fuck, man?! That's life now. It seems we have a whole generation of people who are just completely lacking self-awareness and have a serious problem with entitlement. But it's not young people this is specific to. I'm only 26 and I'm good on the quiet car (though I have had my moments I'll admit). There are people of all ages,miracles, and genders who behave this way and though I think humans are like this by nature anyway I also think the Internet and cell phones have made it worse. It seems like a learned behavior. I just blamed Internet and cell phones for a portion of the world's ills. I'm going to go think about how old that makes me sound now...
  • mgkimsal 14y ago
    "I'm good on the quiet car (though I have had my moments I'll admit). There are people of all ages,miracles, and genders who behave this way..." You probably don't encounter the same people all the time. There's enough people out in the world such that each one can "have their moments" when they're around you, and nowhere else, and you wouldn't know the difference. I do sympathize with you though. I've got a sound sensitivity problem, and lots of noises bug me way way way out of the ordinary compared to most peoples' tolerance. I know this isn't specifically related to quiet cars on trains, but noises in general still bug me (even my own oftentimes). I'm sometimes shocked how I can be on an airplane, with gigantic engines blowing away at tremendous force just 20 feet from me, yet a person a row ahead of me chewing gum or chowing down on pretzels penetrates in to my brain.
• mark_l_watson 14y ago
  Quiet spaces are important to some of us, but my bbrother always has music or the TV on. He admits disliking quiet. The small town where I live has strong no noise laws. You can't generate sound that can be heard outside your yard unless it is gardening noise - during business hours. Noise is one reason I no longer want to live in a city.
  • dickbasedregex 14y ago
    Where do you live? I need to move there.
    • mark_l_watson 14y ago
      Sedona Arizona. Do a Google image search :-)
• ComputerGuru 14y ago
  Is the "Quiet Car" really as intellectual as Kreider makes it out to be? Is it really full of readers and intellectualists, people that take pride in knowledge and are aloof from the mundane? This is an interesting situation: put the people you're most likely to enjoy a good, thought-provoking, intellectual, factually-backed, philosophical conversation in a car together... where they take a vow of silence for the duration of the ride.
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  • Evbn 14y ago
    The trains have WiFi, right? Setup a local text chat room / irc channel
    • ianstallings 14y ago
      Amtrak wifi is a placebo. Not sure about others.
  • peteretep 14y ago
    > Is the "Quiet Car" really as intellectual as Kreider makes it out to be? Is it really full of readers and intellectualists, people that take pride in knowledge and are aloof from the mundane? No. > This is an interesting situation: put the people you're most likely to enjoy a good, thought-provoking, intellectual, factually-backed, philosophical conversation in a car together... where they take a vow of silence for the duration of the ride. Perhaps the worst place imaginable to find interesting conversation is in groups of self-selected "intelligentsia". People talking to each other who are getting a sense of validation from sounding clever leads to the kind of drivel that makes Ayn Rand fans over-excitable, and other people despair of the state of humanity. If you're looking for thought-provoking and intelligent conversation, cultivate a group of friends who you like listening to, but at NO POINT advertise it as some kind of salon. If you're in a big city, there are often large groups of people who work in finance with brains the size of planets, and absolutely no intellectual outlet. I have had great success with "dinner clubs" where the stated aim is to eat good food and drink nice wine... Alternatively I have been led to thoughts of homicide by people gathering to have "clever conversations".
• pg 14y ago
  My life has been a search for quiet for as long as I can remember. I think the fundamental problem with noisy people is not that they're inconsiderate, but that they don't have any train of thought to interrupt, and they thus don't realize the havoc they're wreaking. When I was living in Providence, working on On Lisp, I told my loud but well-meaning neighbors that I was writing a hard computer book, and that made them be quiet. Ordinary people can understand that you need quiet if you're working on some specific, hard task, like doing math homework. What they don't grasp is that someone would want their mind to work that way all the time, as a matter of course.
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  • thaumaturgy 14y ago
    I keep late hours in part because, once everyone else goes to bed -- not just housemates but my entire town -- everything becomes still and quiet, and in that stillness I'm finally able to think more deeply, more clearly, about anything. You've probably already had your fill of argument for the day, but I think that assuming that noisy people don't have a train of thought to interrupt is a little bit uncharitable. (I'm assuming the best interpretation of what you said, which is that they don't have a train of thought while they're being noisy.) I've met enough people who can think and consider things while maintaining a non-stop chatter that now I think it's just another of those quirks of personality: I require solitude to think about things, they do not.
    • furyofantares 14y ago
      This reminds me of an anecdote from Feynman about what sorts of mental things he could and could not do while counting seconds, and how it was different for different people. His counting was internally verbal and he could do anything that didn't require him to speak or anything else that was internally verbal. On the other hand, a mathematician he knew was able to do lots of mental things while counting that Feynman couldn't, and wasn't able to do other mental things while counting that Feynman could, because the other guy counted visually. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y#t=101s https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&...
• ANH 14y ago
  Oh lord, yes. My particular nemesis: leaf blowers. My office is in a residential neighborhood. The sound of a gas powered leaf blower is at just the right frequency to penetrate the double-pane windows, my noise-isolating earbuds, and it somehow overcomes all background noise. The whine and revving is audible. All. Day. Long. From every direction. I imagine to the operators it seems like a sensible choice -- What harm can I possibly be doing? I'm just one guy blowing some leaves around! But to me -- the guy four blocks over trying to write code for a living -- it hurts deep in my soul, and I wonder when exactly we became so fearful of physical activity. When did we forget how to USE A RAKE?!?! I know, I know. Cry me a river.
  • aklemm 14y ago
    Agreed. Those things are the worst. Hopefully the broom and rake have a renaissance.
    • moozoo 14y ago
      Doubt it. The person using a leaf blower isn't using one because they enjoy it. They have another 5000 places to manicure afterward—a rake no longer enters the equation since its coefficient of expedience is so low. This in turn, of course, impacts price. The employer of said manicurist passed the buck because they didn't have the time to rake it themselves. I'd imagine that for those irritated by things of the sort, when it comes to irritants, unkempt yards would also somehow find a way to break concentrations as widely as loud leaf blowers.
      • ANH 14y ago
        If it truly were an expedient, I would be able to understand a little better, but based on observations of my neighbors' leaf blowing routines, it is no faster than I am when I'm raking the yard. Even the professional landscapers that swarm the neighborhood take their sweet time. A good rake can push a huge amount of leaves across a yard in no time.
  • Evbn 14y ago
    Considering the headgear the blower operators wear, they must know it is horrible, but they don't care, because they need/want the money for the job. Or they have gone deaf.
• the_cat_kittles 14y ago
  In Japan, you get a level of public acoustic courtesy that is wonderful. Coming back here made me realize how outrageous it is that we tolerate things like people talking on a cellphone on an otherwise silent bus.
  • jrockway 14y ago
    I remember taking the Shinkansen when you could still smoke on the train. Coming back here made me realize how sane it it is that we don't tolerate things like smoking indoors.
    • the_cat_kittles 14y ago
      yes, I'm not saying Japan is strictly better...
  • rurounijones 14y ago
    Regarding being obviously loud and noisy they are very good. However at least 3 times a week I have to tap someone on the shoulder because they are playing music at about 300Decibels over their shitty cheap ear-buds (Uaually white ones.) Buy a decent set that isolates you from outside noise and you won't have to deafen yourself (and us) /rant
• jeremymims 14y ago
  I'm one of those people that enjoys a certain level of noise... usually music without lyrics. I can work without it but I find that I can more quickly get into "the zone" when I have a beat. I'm also not a huge fan of sitting in especially quiet libraries or buildings. In college, the buildings were old enough that you'd start to hear the buzzing of the lights, the tick of an old clock, the hum of an air conditioner, a heating pipe clanging in the distance. When I think of the "quiet car", I just assume all the little things would get annoying (as it seems in this article). I always found that more distracting than creating my own baseline. That being said, with all the flying I've done the past few years a $300 set of Bose noise canceling headphones has been a bargain investment. My music, my work, and a whole lot less of everything else.
  • rcthompson 14y ago
    It's a "quiet car", but it's still on a moving train. It's not going to be anything like the deafening silence of an old empty building that you describe. You're always going to have the noise of the train.
• namank 14y ago
  Why can't you control yourself instead of the outside circumstance?
• m0nd0nger0 14y ago
  As I once heard someone say in Spain - I prefer the noise of life to the silence of death
  • pjscott 14y ago
    Those aren't your only options.
    • theyare 14y ago
      Yes, they are.
  • geebee 14y ago
    Sometimes, the noise of life is silence. I really enjoy hiking in the redwoods after a rainy day, preferably mid-week when nobody is there. The silence is kind of amazing. That's nature, but there's also something kind of profound in the deep silence of old libraries, late at night. Don't get me wrong, I love the noise of life. I love the way you can walk along the street in the Faubourg Marigny near Frenchman's street and hear amazing trumpets. I like the bustle. But I also deliberately wakes up early to walk around the French quarter and experience these old buildings in silence. I prefer the noise and silence of life to the noise and silence of a life wasted. Sound is something something that you give to people, but silence is also something that you take away. And it can be taken from everyone from just one person. Usually, it is just inconsiderate, but from your comment, I'm almost starting to wonder if you feel that you have a moral justification in making sure that nobody ever enjoys a quiet library, forest, or sunrise. You really don't see that these things can be some of the most uplifting and serene parts of life?
• AngryParsley 14y ago
  A lot of the problem is caused by cell phones. People talking on phones are usually louder than in-person chatter. And while a conversation is distracting, half of one is worse. Also, cell phone conversations on public transit seem to be more common than talking in-person. Everyone has a phone, but not everyone takes the train with a conversation partner. Different cultures have different rules about mobile phones. While vacationing in Japan, I noticed that nobody talks on their phone on trains. It's wonderful. As soon as I came back to the states, I was crudely reminded how horrible American cell phone etiquette is. A few years ago, I bought a cell phone jammer. It has paid for itself many times over. If you find yourself distracted by obnoxious people on cell phones, buy one. You won't regret it.
  • jamesjyu 14y ago
    They've done studies showing that listening to half the conversation is the key to why it's annoying http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/05/cellphones-driving-annoying.html http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/05/cellph...
  • jacques_chester 14y ago
    Unlike old-fashioned landline phones, mobile phones do not feed your own voice back into the speaker. So people adjust their speaking volume to replace the missing noise.
• timf 14y ago
  On a related topic: if you are a developer and are forced to deeply concentrate in public places, after three years of doing that daily I arrived at a system that could keep me coding. 1. Figure out what earplugs work well. Working well means good sound suppression but also means earplugs that you can have in your ear comfortably for long stretches. I can sleep the entire night in the ones I settled on (I buy them bulk: http://www.amazon.com/Moldex-6800-Pura-Fit-Soft-Earplugs/dp/B00900WTHI/ http://www.amazon.com/Moldex-6800-Pura-Fit-Soft-Earplugs/dp/... ). 2. Get over-the-ear headphones, the kind that physically enclose your entire ear. Mine are noise-canceling as well but most of the benefit comes from the enclosure. 3. Play a white noise mp3 into the headphones. Turn the volume up to the point where you can just hear it through the earplugs you're also wearing. With that setup, I would not even notice people talking next to me. People would often have to wave their hand by my laptop screen to get my attention (to ask me to share the coffeeshop's power outlet or what not). I rent an office now and am happy that is not a daily situation for me, but that's how I made the best of it after much experimentation.
  • JimmyL 14y ago
    The headphones-over-earplugs strategy works great. I don't use it at work (I like the background din of my office), but when I'm trying to watch a movie on a long flight this is a lifesaver. The earplugs cover up all the background sounds of the engine/people talking, but the sound from the headphones comes right though it.
  • rorrr 14y ago
    I guess you've never had neighbors who blast music with heavy bass. No earplugs in the world can protect from that, you can feel the music with your whole body. I do earplugs + headphones thing, it really does help against regular noise.
  • fitandfunction 14y ago
    The best thing I've bought in the last few years has been a pair of etymotic earbuds with "custom fit" earbuds: http://www.etymotic.com/customfit/index.html http://www.etymotic.com/customfit/index.html ~$200 total, $100 for the basic earbuds and another $100 to get the earbuds "custom fit." When they're off, they offer almost as good noise suppression as earplugs. When they are on, I can listen to music with great fidelity. I mostly listen to classical and rock. Most importantly, they are extremely comfortable. I bought them when I was flying cross-country every week, and I wanted to have something that wouldn't hurt my ears after a few hours.
• MemorableZebra 14y ago
  I'm surprised no one found this condemnation of a society "constantly getting louder with this new internet generation" to be oddly similar to the idea that "each successive generation is getting more and more immoral" -- an idea that I would argue has not only been thoroughly debunked, but also rather impossible as well. Of course I'm not saying that overall our cities haven't increased in their background volume by virtue of more people and things such as air planes and leaf blowers, but to go another step further and call a entire generation of people inconsiderate and loud because they're used to being on a "solipsistic" internet smacks of a classic sense generational moral superiority. And I'm also just as surprised that to come here, with as good of a community as I feel HN has, after scanning through the comments section, not a single person mentioned this in the first comment in each comment-tree. Instead it was a mess of "well, yes, us quiet people are so superior...".
  • qu4z-2 14y ago
    It seems plausible that with the steadily increasing population density the overall loudness or chances of being near a source of loudness is actually increasing. Also, "more immoral" is a claim going back thousands of years, which is in large part what makes it unlikely. The claim that the internet generation is louder is only making a claim about a trend in the last 20 years or so.
• unohoo 14y ago
  I've had the exact same experience on Caltrain. Although Caltrain does not have a 'quiet car' per se, most of the every day commuters are aware of the unspoken conduct of silence. Although there are a few folks who just cant get off their phones and like to yap about non-stop. The worst part of it is that most often, I end up being the asshole telling them to keep it down. I dont know why some of the other folks dont speak up, even though they are equally annoyed as I am
• greenyoda 14y ago
  The article notes: "In his recent treatise on this subject (its title regrettably unprintable here), the philosopher Aaron James posits that people with this personality type are so infuriating — even when the inconvenience they cause us is negligible — because they refuse to recognize the moral reality of those around them." Out of curiosity, I searched for Aaron James and found the book whose title could not be mentioned: Assholes: A Theory.[1] From Amazon's review of the book: What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Try as we might to avoid them, assholes are found everywhere—at work, at home, on the road, and in the public sphere. Encountering one causes great difficulty and personal strain, especially because we often cannot understand why exactly someone should be acting like that. Asshole management begins with asshole understanding. Much as Machiavelli illuminated political strategy for princes, this book finally gives us the concepts to think or say why assholes disturb us so, and explains why such people seem part of the human social condition, especially in an age of raging narcissism and unbridled capitalism. These concepts are also practically useful, as understanding the asshole we are stuck with helps us think constructively about how to handle problems he (and they are mostly all men) presents. We get a better sense of when the asshole is best resisted, and when he is best ignored—a better sense of what is, and what is not, worth fighting for. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Assholes-A-Theory-Aaron-James/dp/0385535651 http://www.amazon.com/Assholes-A-Theory-Aaron-James/dp/03855...
• gnufied 14y ago
  I am surprised no one has brought the topic of working from Coffee shops. This is one of the things that I have tried but never worked for me. Worst yet, me & my friend were consulting for a startup, whose co founders worked from a coffee shop. One day some discussion was required around certain design elements and we had a Skype call scheduled. when the call started, there was unbelievable noise from their side. I asked them to call later. 3 times this happened and there was always tons of noise. Somehow it was perfectly fine for them, but we couldn't hear anything. I tried politely asking to give respect to hours we are spending for them. It is odd, how people ignore effect of noise.
• napoleond 14y ago
  Here’s to the quiet ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the quiet ones, we see genius. Because the people who are quiet enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
• doctoboggan 14y ago
  I am a 'Quiet One' and I used to search high and low for locations I could find peace. But recently I've stopped depending on my surroundings being quiet and started listening to white noise on my phone or laptop. I use simplynoise.com (they have an app) and I can find my quiet place even in a crowded coffee shop. I also use it often in the office when I need to get work done without distractions.
• accidc 14y ago
  It amuses me when people from western countries complain about noise(most comments contain clues to location). Having lived most of my life in India, noise has never been an issue for me, even while doing tasks that require intense concentration. It's like the brain implements a band pass filter for most ambient noise, you never notice it. I have also noticed that the more I concentrate on a task at hand, the less I notice anything else around me. On the other hand, I have been living outside India for the past few years and I notice noise a lot more. Make what you want of this but it has lead me to believe that our perception of noise is a function of our state of mind, the ambient noise level and our conditioning/habituation. The takeaway being that it is possible to learn to ignore noise, since in most situations one may not be able to control the source of the noise.
  • GlennS 14y ago
    I get that too, if I'm reading or writing then nothing short of shouting or a physical tap on the shoulder can bring me back to reality. But I'm not convinced everyone can learn it. I know people who are light sleepers and get jolted awake in the night because of noise. You'd think if their brains could adapt to filter out the ambient noise then they would have for the situation. Regularly interrupted sleep is probably pretty annoying.
• justlearning 14y ago
  I had an interesting thought experiment after replacing "quiet" with "privacy". While not everyone may not agree on the word replacement, I go through similar emotions (as the author describes) when someone posts a photo (that has me and others) on facebook without permission. I like to think that there are others out there like me. I am one of those "quiet" snobs.
• rcthompson 14y ago
  I can deal with just about any noise of any volume as long as that noise doesn't include any intelligible speech. Muffled voices are fine, the combined voices of an entire crowd are fine as long as I can't make out what any one voice is saying. But as soon as the part of my brain responsible for interpreting spoken words gets activated, I lose the ability to concentrate on anything.
• scott_s 14y ago
  I prefer the moderate din of places like coffee shops for this reason. There's usually enough background chatter, music and random noises going on that it's easy to not actually listen to any of it. It's only when there are but a few noises that it becomes a problem, I think.
• geoka9 14y ago
  Having grown up in Eastern Europe, I was always reminded by my parents not to talk loudly in public places. The habit is so ingrained that even now I'm uncomfortable speaking up when strangers are around. When I visited North America for the first time, I was of course surprised by loud voices everywhere, but I just shrugged it off and assumed that it was a cultural thing. And now this article surprised me again.
  • odiroot 14y ago
    I am from Central Europe and was brought up similar way. But this kind of upbringing is rare here. Even some older people (I guess they should know better) tend to be loud, obnoxious and really don't care about their fellow passengers. Also, nowadays it's completely normal for a parent to let their kid loose and don't mind at all that it is screaming or bothering other people. They're happy as long as said kid is not troubling them. I'm always surprised how calm and orderly are children of Asian descent (usually immigrants' or tourists').
• rumcajz 14y ago
  Are there societies that are notorious for being quiet? Finland, maybe?
• lars512 14y ago
  For people who can't get the quiet they need to do their work, try drowning it out. I highly recommend Rainy Mood http://www.rainymood.com/ http://www.rainymood.com/ which just plays the sound of rain continuously. In open plan offices, sometimes it's the best you can do.
• kogus 14y ago
  This reminds me of "The Pedestrian", by Bradbury. http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by-bradbury-1.pdf http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by-bradbury-1...
• queensnake 14y ago
  I look forward to the day when workplace noise is treated like second-hand smoke.
• stretchwithme 14y ago
  They say a single noise bothers people more in the country than the same noise does in the city. Perhaps the same is true on the train. It seems like stress I don't need.
• stretchwithme 14y ago
  One thing I have noticed, about myself and others, is that people are more oblivious to noise and how much they generate when they are in a group. It seems that a group doing most things makes many think its just fine.
• kitsune_ 14y ago
  That's funny, the sentence at the end, before the pictogram, has the following censored expletive in invisible text: #@$%&!
• LaGrange 14y ago
  "Respecting shared public space is becoming as quaintly archaic as tipping your hat to a lady, now that the concept of public space is as nearly extinct as hats, and ladies." ...and there you get it. It's really about someone pining for the golden age, and habits that weren't as innocuous as he presents it. Nowadays we have to live in the same space with millions of people, who all have different needs and habits. The kinds practicing rap on public transport are probably using one of the few spaces they feel safe to do so. It's annoying to you, but in your golden age half of them probably wouldn't grow into their current age, and the rest would be working in a factory. And just your hat-tipping-gentleman social position would mean that you can order them around. Unless you're unlucky enough to actually be one of them. Is this really something we want to present as more civilized? Because for me, the respect is obvious in that people can do a lot more than in your golden age (which was mostly more stinky and loud than in your icons). We get quiet cars. We are able to acoustically isolate areas in libraries to an extent impossible. And at least Swiss quiet cars are actually quiet cars, so your headphones and typing is annoying others, and you will be reproached for it, so please use a notebook. While settling down I talked a bit with my neighbors. And there's one thing I found out: I'm not the quiet one. We all were. Just at different times. When I shut down on the weekend, my upstairs neighbor likes to exercise. At time I like playing computer games, she does late work from home stuff. And your noisy teenagers may turn out to read books or code at home. No matter how impossible it seems to you that a woman with a cellphone might actually be a coder, or an artist. Ah, and more and more railways are carrying quiet cars. So maybe portraying them as last vestiges of your vow-of-silence lifestyle is somewhat misguided.
  • corporalagumbo 14y ago
    That was a very nice post. Thank you.
• dschiptsov 14y ago
  Hell is the "ordinary people".)
  • kahawe 14y ago
    Curiously enough, this Sartre quote (originally l'enfer, c'est les autres) is used in a very different sense from what it originally meant. Typically people like to quote it as an allegedly-educated way of saying all people are annoying - when originally it was nothing but the end of Sartre's novel "No Exit" in which one of the main characters is baffled by the fact that hell doesn't need torture devices but just a group of people you can't escape for eternity. The "can't escape for eternity" part is key.
    • dschiptsov 14y ago
      A little bit broader interpretation, it seems, also valid.) Actually it was a weak joke, paraphrasing pg's passage about ordinary people.
      • kahawe 14y ago
        I think it is just a wrong interpretation, really, because people present it as if "even" Sartre said all people are hell, whenever they are feeling reclusive or disappointed in humanity. None of that is in the original quote since it is way more specific and context-oriented.
• ranza 14y ago
  I find it crazy hard to tell people that they are noisy. Mainly because i feel like im very egocentric for wanting quiet times. We sit in a large room with a lot of people and i guess we have to make space for each and everyone if we want to get along. But since im the only one writing code and the rest are mostly making graphics, im the only one that requires some sort of quiet time around me. It can be really hard to tell people what you need when your the only one that really needs it. I mostly ends up sitting with my headphones on and listen to noise like rainymood.com to block other peoples noise out. Seems weird but it works for me.
• kahawe 14y ago
  There are two things I am always wondering about... one is what all these people are actually talking about for hours on end. I am a very quiet person but I see and hear pretty much everything going on around me even if it appears I am dis-connected. I just don't open my mouth unless I really actually have something to say. So I just have no idea what I might be missing in my life that I don't have all these things to talk about for hours and hours. And the second thing that baffles me even more: I basically have to apologize at work when I have my ear plugs in because my over-sensitive boss feels like "we are ignoring her" when actually we are just trying to get some work done and that takes focus and I need all the noise blocked out for that. But someone who has never done any software engineering work probably really cannot relate and understand why that matters.
• civild 14y ago
  I've worked next to someone that was extremely harsh on their keyboard - full blown hammering the keys, with the whole desk shaking - and even in a medium-noise office it was infuriating to work next to. After a few light-hearted suggestions that he be a bit lighter on the keys, I ended up having to point out how much it was putting me off my work. Thankfully he was good enough to change his habits while he remembered, but he would soon idly begin bashing again. On a similar note personal space invaders are even worse, but I'll contain my vitriol on that subject for now.
• vijayr 14y ago
  I'd like to add "photo" pollution also to this. It is near impossible to go to a party, or a tourist spot and actually enjoy the place/occasion. Photos/flashes everywhere, all the time - even the most useless/mundane things being photographed, all the time. If you are in new york city, you can't even walk peacefully on the road - you'll have to stop to be "considerate" to the people who are blocking the sidewalk taking pictures. I went to a speech - the room was quite dark, that still didn't stop people from taking pics. It seemed that most people there were interested in taking pics than the speech itself, which I find very disrespectful to the speaker. All of it is just annoying.
• MrMan 14y ago
  I fear for you lot when this article is revealed as satire.
• tehwalrus 14y ago
  London Underground is a wonderful mixture of opposites in this respect. During the very crowded morning rush, it is almost a capital offense to make a sound (except perhaps some noise escaping from headphones). You can forget about talking to another passenger, even a friend. Even looking happy while not obviously reading something that might be funny is met with embarrassed glances at feet at ceilings. In the evening though, after about 9 or 10, the tube is full of groups on their ways home from the pubs - then there are people singing, often whole carriages will silently giggle at someone being an extrovert centre of attention. Finally, there is the etiquette surrounding when one must offer a seat to someone else. the order of priority appears to be: * pregnant and (obviously) disabled people, plus new mothers. * old people (ladies first) * children (especially medium sized ones who look like they might actually sit down, and/or shut up if given a seat) * the rest of us, in a reserved, passive aggressive scrum. (also, obviously, talking to a complete stranger on the tube is a massive faux pas, no matter the time of day...) On quiet coaches specifically, I have to say that on British "mainline" trains there is a big problem, which is reservations. For example, on virgin trains there is always a quiet coach (both a standard and first class one), and a coach with no reserved seats. If you want a seat at a busy time of day, you must be one of the first to arrive at (on Virgin it's coach E) and take one (it is even possible to get the prized window-side-facing-forwards-at-a-table seats this way.) However, these coaches never coincide. Thus, if you want to be in the quiet coach you must book a seat in advance, which is cheaper but restricts you to a particular train - if you're late you must pay twice, and if you're early you have to wait. This is important when you're on the tube (which frequently has delays) and the trains from Euston to Manchester are every 20 minutes (and absolutely packed in the evenings, especially Fridays, in spite of this.) Given the convenience factor, I usually plump for coach E, and risk the screaming babies/mobile chatterers - as another commenter pointed out, this is why I paid £80 for a pair of headphones.
• mcdowall 14y ago
  I travel two hours each way to work to London, and likewise, I sit in the quiet carriage. I've been that person to stand up, walk over and have a quiet word, but all to often I'm met with hostility and shock that we should even dare to police our own quiet space. The regular commuters in the whole are respectful and as the writer alludes to, treat the carriage as their personal quiet time, but as Brits, confrontation such as this is a cultural misnomer, we just don't tend to do it and I can't think that I will ever feel happy about having to do so, much more I just wish people would be more respectful.
• Roelven 14y ago
  Ha this is a great article. I too look for quietness and find myself more and more turning off music just to allow myself to think properly. And yes- one of the virtues of staying late in the office is the actual quietness, which is a shame.
• FrojoS 14y ago
  Imagine a future, where you could simply switch your hearing ability on and off. When I first thought about this, I got so excited, that I started writing a science fiction story around the implications. Unfortunately, I'm a horrible writer. I am not talking about noise canceling headphones or ear plugs but something like a neurological switch. I assume the "easiest" way to do this, would be a surgery in which one cuts the nerves between the ears and the brain and installs an electronic switch. But I know nothing about this stuff.
  • conjecTech 14y ago
    I've actually envied people with cochlear implants for having this ability. The idea of being able to turn on and off senses at will is kind of an amazing thought. I personally have a hypersensitive sense of touch, and it is an almost constant distraction. I can't count the number of times I've wished I could toggle or perhaps just filter my senses. It's still undoubtedly far off in the wings. I'm not sure if anything has been done on the purely organic side, but I know that at least on the ECE side of things our ability to effectively interact with organic systems is still quite ineffective and brutish. The professor I had for digital signal processing last year does some work with cochlear implants. He spent a lecture talking about the current technologies, and the implantation and interfacing he described was very destructive. There would undoubtedly be severe ability loss if they were used on an otherwise capable person to try to enable this ability. It would be nice if we evolutionary developed some high-pass preprocessing. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that will take a good bit longer to develop than man-made alternatives. I'd be interested to read what you've written if you'd like another set of eyes on it.
• xradionut 14y ago
  My saving grace is that I live a mile away from a library that has study rooms and actual encourages quiet in the adult areas. I also wear earplugs and shooter muffs at home to block out the noise from my spouse and pets.
• marknutter 14y ago
  I wonder how "The Quiet Ones" would handle someone with a disability like Tourettes syndrome or with some sort of medical equipment that made an annoying noise. I'd give anything to watch the moral dilemma play out.
• archagon 14y ago
  I'm a bit surprised that so many people NEED a dead-silent environment to concentrate on their work. Maybe it's because I grew up with a snoring dad, but I can completely tune out a crowd of people without breaking a sweat, while all my coworkers would go crazy without their headphones. Honest question: is this truly such a difficult skill to cultivate? You'd think it would be a whole lot more beneficial in the long run than investing in an expensive set of noise-cancelling equipment. But I don't know, maybe I'm just going deaf!
• chrislong 14y ago
  i haven't read this entire thread, but i've read enough to say this: custom earplugs? noise cancelling headphones? white noise soundtracks? are you serious? the problems discussed here took place in a space specifically designated for quiet. why can't people make an effort to comply? if you want to make noise, go somewhere else. i literally cannot believe what i'm reading here. shaddap!!!! this brings to mind the BWCA in northern minnesota. pure, unspoiled wilderness. many want to change that, introducing cellphone towers, water slide theme parks, boats with motors ... to which i say: the vast majority of america has been "civilized" -- can't you leave one place alone for refuge? in this case it's the quiet car. everywhere else is noisy, which is great/fine, but cannot you respect the desires of people wanting refuge in one tiny place? sheeeeeesh.
  • jff 14y ago
    Dear Sir, I wish to protest the previous letter, which makes all people who type WORDS in CAPITALS seem INSANE. Many of my friends type like this, and only a few of them are RANTING LUNATICS. Yours sincerely, Major Charles Smith, Deceased (Mrs.)
    • chrislong 14y ago
      point (well) taken. edits have been made. thanks.
• Zaheer 14y ago
  Did anyone notice the last line?: "Our message to the barbarians who would barge in on our haven with their chatter and blatting gadgets like so many bulldozers is: #@$%&!" The symbols are in white font.
• ALee 14y ago
  I'm one of those loud Americans (ENTJ - for what that's worth). To those who know me, they'll say that I'm one of the most talkative people they know. I'm not always proud of my talkativeness, but let me try to explain why we act the way we do. For extroverts, social interaction energizes us. I'm almost like a vampire if I'm around introverted people. It may be the difference between tribal vs. modern relationships, but in many big families (generally with less income, but not always the case), you need to say something loudly and constantly to get what you want. We also tend to feel noise is comfortable. I've lived in urban areas, where if there isn't noise, it is discomforting if not dangerous. You may have felt the same way at a get-together when there isn't any background music or when you meet a stranger for the first time. For many people in this world, they have the TV on all the time or music blaring 24/7. I'm not saying it's more productive. God knows watching tv while doing anything beyond rote tasks is not a recipe for success, but it makes the task more bearable. As to why we're loud... sometimes it's opinion, sometimes it's emotional release, while other times it's just social pruning. It doesn't mean that we're not thinkers though, it just means we think out loud. It was a key difference between me and another friend I had an argument with, where I wanted to talk it out and she wanted to run away and breathe for a bit. For us, noise/discussion is just as important to the Quiet Ones as quiet. P.S. one caveat, I need quiet when I'm writing, working, reading, or even watching a movie, so I'm not the typical type.
• niels_olson 14y ago
  Has anyone noticed even the libraries are not immune to cellphones? Someone should start selling phone booths to libraries: people who need to take a call can use the booth. I have carried ear plugs with me for years (two fresh pairs in a small pill bottle, in my briefcase). In a moment of sleep-deprived delerium in an airport, I bought the Bose QC-15s. I love them. I am a huge fan of instrumental music. We have an offer in on a house one bedroom smaller than our current rental, which is perfect: I have an excuse to get a writer's shed. I would pay a membership fee to anyone who could build a Quiet Car Hacker Space within 5 miles of my house. QCHS: where are you? But seriously: phone booths in libraries: it's brilliant. Somebody: do it!
• philsnow 14y ago
  A "finger-pressed-to-lips" icon is shown at the very end of the article. As much as some HN denizens like to obsess over detail and polish (especially in iconography), how can everybody not have noticed that the hand is facing the "wrong" way? Nobody shushes by putting their own hand in front of their own mouth like that, they turn it 90 degrees. The only time the pictured arrangement happens is when you put your finger on another person's lips, a very intimate and unmistakable gesture.
• bazzargh 14y ago
  I gave up reserving seats in the quiet car after last time - a man sat next to me and handed his grandson (aged 3 or 4) a Bopit. Yes, one of these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH4XHwefPVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH4XHwefPVY There followed a short argument where I questioned why he would book the quiet car in advance and give the kid a toy where noise was the point of the game, and not, say, a colouring book. Anyway. It's just less stressful to be in part of the train where noise is expected, because I have /never/ been in a quiet car which didn't have people on mobile phones, clacking keyboards, and kids with headphoneless gameboys.
• darkarmani 14y ago
  Actually, the article has it wrong. The signs on the quiet car say this: "Please refrain from loud talking or using cell phones in this car." They don't say you need to whisper. I only remember because I saw people shushed that weren't loudly talking and glanced up at the sign to double check if you weren't allowed to talk at all and the sign only mentions "loud talking." Here's a link with a picture: http://roiword.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/conflict-and-the-quiet-car/ http://roiword.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/conflict-and-the-qui...
• nevster 14y ago
  In Sydney they've instituted the same idea - on the inter-urban trains the first and last carriages are now quiet cars. It's great!
• SkyMarshal 14y ago
  >“I’m not talking about cellphone conversations,” he said, “I’m talking about your typing, which really is very loud and disruptive.” I was at a loss. I learned to write on a typewriter, and apparently I still strike the keyboard of my laptop with obsolete force. “Well,” I said, trying to figure out which of us, if either, was the jerk here, “I don’t think I’m going to stop typing. I’m a writer; I sit in here so I can work.” Funny, keyboard 'strikers' bug me too, but thought I was alone in that. Unless your keyboard is dying and requires force to operate, a light touch does less wear and tear, conserves your own energy (marginally, fwiw), and is much quieter for those around you. There's no apparent reason for the way some people almost attack their keyboard, other than misdirected zeal, eagerness, or angst.
• joe24pack 14y ago
  The search for quiet and some peace, maybe that is why I like to go hiking in remote places during colder weather. Yes there is still sound, but for some reason I find the sound of water or a light wind far more peaceful than the sound of people and the machines and gadgets they bring along.