10 ms·
It's so true. I can do routine work with noise, but not the kind that requires insight. The sad thing is that noise is yet another example of the phenomenon o
by pg 13y ago
It's so true. I can do routine work with noise, but not the kind that requires insight.
The sad thing is that noise is yet another example of the phenomenon of "the tragedy of the commons." Which means things tend to get noisier and noisier. In fact, what has surprised me most about living in Palo Alto is how noisy it is. You'd think living in the suburbs would at least be quiet. It is on weekends. But the problem with this suburb is that people are too rich: they all have their gardens maintained by gardening services, who use among other things gas-powered leaf blowers and hedge trimmers.
The leaf blowers in particular are unbelievably loud. You can hear a gas-powered leaf blower 3 blocks away. Which means during the day you can almost always hear one. (The city of Palo Alto has outlawed gas powered leaf blowers, but the gardening services all pretend not to know.)
- jseliger 13y agoI can do routine work with noise, but not the kind that requires insight. I have the same problem, and it's part of the reason I often like to work during the night more than the day.
- briancaw2 13y agoIm in Mountain View and I can tell you that at least half of the problem is shoddy construction. East Coast houses are made to keep out weather and West Coast houses are made not to hurt when they fall on you. And this issue is going to make someone a billionaire in the future. Urbanization is well under way and people are only getting noisier and more crowded. Also, another area for huge improvements is in the legal system. Basically you're screwed if you have noise issues due to anything "normal" - e.g. music, talking, babies...etc.
- anigbrowl 13y agoWest Coast houses are made not to hurt when they fall on you True, they're junk. In most places it would be smarter ot make them out of brick, and the chances that they'll fall on the occupant are very low indeed. Some of the oldest (pre 1906) houses in SF are made of brick, ditto in Oakland.
- scarmig 13y agoAs it turns out, brick buildings are much more prone to complete collapse than wood houses during earthquakes, owing to the greater flexibility of wood. Or are you making the argument that that conventional professional wisdom is incorrect?
- gchpaco 13y agoUnreinforced brick will indeed fall down in even modest earthquakes. In new construction it is possible to sink rebar into the wall, at which point it is at least the equal of concrete (and certainly more attractive); however a lot of people don't want to bother with perceived time and expense and so we go back to concrete and stick framing. Much construction in California is penny wise and pound foolish. It is routine to omit insulation from the walls in new construction, never mind that it will pay for itself in savings on heating and cooling bills. Wooden houses can be destroyed in an earthquake if the quake shakes them off their foundations; fixing this is simple and easy during construction but, again, wasn't done for a long time. I believe the only reason it is done now is code requirements—it would not overly surprise me to learn that the builders can't be bothered even in new construction.
- wisty 13y agoIt's not really the flexibility. Masonry is strong in compression, but heavy, and relatively weak in tensions. It tends to crumble under its own weight. But yes - brick is good in a hurricane, but a death trap in a quake..
- pbz 13y agoIn Europe pretty much any old house is made out of brick. They've been through many earthquakes, built hundreds of years ago and still standing; and this is without reinforcement.
- jacquesm 13y agoMost earthquakes in Europe aren't all that strong. But when they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Vrancea_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Vrancea_earthquake
- digikata 13y agoI lived in a California Craftsman house for a few years, and plaster-on-lath construction on the inner walls was great. The higher density & mass of the material masked sound better than drywall, but also provided additional thermal mass so very little AC was required for most of the season. Just circulate outside air at night to cool the house, and close up the windows in the morning to stay cool for the day. Modern tech exists for good acoustics, it's simply a matter of cost - houses near areas that need noise-abatement routinely get fitted with it, but developers are cheap and will skip it if at all possible.
- zipppy 13y agoWait, are you saying that the legal system would be improved if people could sue each other over loud music, talking, or babies? I could be misunderstanding. If not, that sounds insufferable.
- briancaw2 13y agoIf your landlord shows you your apartment at 2pm while everyone is at work (or only shows a model unit) and you move in and can hear every footstep your neighbor takes and your neighbors coughing in bed at night, there should be easier ways than currently exist to solve that problem. In the future I think every apartment will come with a noise disclosure of some sort, detailing expected noise levels throughout the day. And I think people will probably be made to sign noise agreements to join buildings..etc.
- stephth 13y agoI would work for the rest of my life to pay for a device that turns my ears off temporarily. YC2020?
- jloughry 13y agoI would work for the rest of my life to pay for a device that turns my ears off temporarily. YC2020? I logged in just to upvote this idea.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- westicle 13y agoI will save you the rest of your life's labour. http://www.amazon.com/Howard-Leight-MAX-1-plugs-Uncorded/dp/B0033YLEGO/ref=zg_bs_3779871_6 http://www.amazon.com/Howard-Leight-MAX-1-plugs-Uncorded/dp/... You're welcome.
- abraham_s 13y agoI tried a similar product, but the silence became unnerving in 10-15 minutes.
- dredmorbius 13y agoI've become quite used to them, though if I can work in a non-distracting environment, I prefer that.
- gms 13y agoIs money able to solve this problem, through better sound insulation in one's house?
- Anechoic 13y agoBetter sound insulation can help reduce the noise level from external sources inside a home, but 1) does nothing for outdoor areas of your home (a patio or porch for example), and 2) becomes completely ineffectual if you open a window.
- jdale27 13y agoIndeed. For example, dual-paned windows are fantastic, but since air conditioning is relatively rare in dwellings in the Bay Area, you effectively can't use them for sound insulation for several months of the year.
- taroth 13y agoYou might hope that we would become habituated to reoccurring noises in our environment, but the opposite has been shown empirically. [1] The study showed that while regular office workers become habituated to office chatter after 20 minutes of exposure, their habituation resets to baseline after only 5 minutes of quiet (measured via memory tasks). The irregularity of the noise is what kills us. The only effective solution I've found against ambient ear-shocks is to overpower them via headphones and regular white noise.
- taroth 13y agohttp://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xap/3/3/181/ http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xap/3/3/181/
- syassami 13y agoWhen I truly want to concentrate and need silence, I wear noise-canceling ear plugs. The same type you use to protect from a chainsaw-sounding snoring roommate.
- tomasien 13y agoA mild level of ambient noise is proven to increase creative cognition aka make you a better CREATIVE thinker. Just saying http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048 http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048 from coffitvity.com
- tomasien 13y agoInteresting JSTOR sidenote - before we made Coffitivity, this research was behind a Paywall, and we convinced them to remove it. It was weird timing when it happened, it was kind of emotional to speak to JSTOR at the time, but it's cool we can just link to it now.
- marban 13y agoI usually do my best work with music, street noise and chatter from the TV at the same time. The more variety, the better.
- gabemart 13y agoI also like a mix of different types of noise. I actually built a little site to mix ambient noises together [1]. [1] http://asoftmurmur.com http://asoftmurmur.com
- tomasien 13y agoThat's what coffitivity suggests. The iPhone app even has a mixer to mix the ambient noise with your music.
- pasbesoin 13y agoAt this point, I'd gladly take the leaf blower. Car stereo sub-woofers and straight pipe Harleys: Two things that, in my opinion, should be outright outlawed. Live on a street where they are frequent, and your life will be difficult. Live next to someone who tinkers on them incessantly, and your life will be hell. Work is another problem. I wore out my health trying to cope with the "standard environment". (Which, of course, was spun as "collaboration". [Cough - "cost savings" - cough.]) No more. For my own sake, as well as to no longer support people who promote such environments.
- anigbrowl 13y agoI live near both those things and can put up with the intermittent noise. Leafblowers are an invention of Satan and must be destroyed, preferably along with their owners and operators. They are the epitome of laziness.
- babby 13y agoI wonder if the majority of the noise can be snuffed by using a battery powered electric motor, or if it's the fans that generate most of the sound... A Silent leafblower sounds like a potential invention.
- chrismealy 13y agoLeaf blowers are seriously fucked up. http://www.nonoise.org/quietnet/cqs/leafblow.htm http://www.nonoise.org/quietnet/cqs/leafblow.htm
- Groxx 13y ago"Leaf blower motors are inordinately large emitters of CO, NOx, HC, and PM according to a study conducted for the ARB (5). Two-stroke engine fuel is a gasoline-oil mixture, thus especially toxic. Particles from combustion are virtually all smaller than PM2.5. According to the Lung Association, a leaf blower causes as much smog as 17 cars." Yeah, it's things like that that make me wish we could just outright ban all two-stroke engines. See also those gas scooters that occasionally go by - it's incredible how much stink they produce (and conversely, how incredibly clean-burning cars are now). At least there aren't too many of them.
- elnate 13y agoModern two stroke engines are a lot cleaner than the old ones.
- Groxx 13y agoAnd still massively dirtier than a four-stroke or electric (when including pollution cost of creating the electricity, storage/transfer losses, etc). They've already been banned on many waterways due to excessive pollution. Why not elsewhere?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- aasarava 13y agoThe New Yorker ran a good article about the leaf blower issue in Orinda a couple years back. I can't stand leaf blowers either, but the article does a decent job of (among other things) pointing out that blowers are a necessary competitive technology for the gardening services. http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2010-10-25#folio=050 http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2010-10-25#folio=050
- nnq 13y agoLeaf blowers used by homeowners or the people paid to take care of their gardens are one of the most "typically American" and absurd and annoying things. You almost never hear/see these things around Europe, except some similar contraptions use to take care of very large city parks, for which they probably make sense, and even then they are used at reasonable hours. I mean, using a powered leaf blower to help clean up some fallen leaves off your front yard, sparing you 15 min of your life? Wtf...
- Groxx 13y agoWhen you're paid to clean leaves off multiple front yards? 15 * yards * days used per year = a whole lot of time. It's really not surprising that they pick what works quickest.
- nnq 13y agoSo the root of the problem is that people are paying other peoples to clean their yards... guess it's the same "hidden cost / side-effect of externalizing things". That's why I try to stick to the "keep as many things in-house as possible", both for my household and family and for my business :) EDIT+: I think the so called "american way of doing things" is so successful business-wise exactly because of the "externalize as much as you can" philosophy, but it kind of fails big when the hidden costs of externalization are non-financial and manifest themselves as "lower quality of life" or "worse health" and at the same time get offloaded to other people than the ones doing the externalizing (like to the neighbors of the people that pay companies that use powered leafblowers to clean up their yards).
- robomartin 13y agoI hate front lawns. With a passion. But, guess what, I had to fall in line and make mine "pretty", put in some sod and match the rest of the neighborhood. For now I have the greenest and neatest front lawn on the block. Why? We have a culture where you lose value if you adopt arid climate landscape when people expect grass and flowers and that's what everything around you looks like. We had a nice arid climate front yard with rocks and plants that required zero water and maintenance. We refinanced and the bank actually objected to the look of the house. They said it looked unkept. Unbelievable. The arid landscaping cost me thousands. It just didn't match the rest of the homes on our street. So the friggin sod had to come in. I find it beyond moronic that we are actually throwing water at the ground to grow grass. Then we come back a couple of times a month and use gasoline to cut, trim and blow it clean. The only thing worst is owning a swimming pool. I refuse to be a weekend lawn-mower monkey. I've never had any interest in that and never will. I'd rather be doing a million other things than pushing a mower on a pointless patch of grass. Yup, that means we now have a gardener with the dreaded gas powered leaf-blower, mower and trimmer. I am not proud of this at all. So, here's the plan: I planted fruit trees right smack in the middle of the lawn areas. Once they grow beyond a certain size they'll kill-off most of the grass. That's when I go back to practical landscaping. And, of course, I'll be producing some fruit as well which is neat. If I absolutely have to I am going with plastic grass in the front and will learn to love it. The back of the house is now 100% concrete, soon to be covered with solar panels for both shade and off-grid power. Great for entertaining and hanging out. Our local parks have plenty of grass if we feel the need. My gardener is a few months away from being out of a job. I wish more people would wake up and realize what they are doing.
- hvidgaard 13y agoA lot of people actually like it - they like to have a well kept lawn, and if they want to use their time or money to do that, why not? But I don't like that you're expected, if not directly asked to, to keep it as society wants it to be. However, I can understand that the bank is concerned about the value of the house if they're financing it. Personally I'm looking for a house well outside the city and any far from busy roads. Lots of land and I can have the wild nature I love and grew up with. I can't think of anything that'll calm me down and unwind like a walk in the nature does.
- sspiff 13y agoI think this is not inherently true for all humans though. Not all noise prevents me from doing "insightful" tasks. Passing cars, birds, heavy winds or unintelligible conversation don't seem to bother me. Conversations I can actually understand or singing - I've had a colleague who sung at his job - does seem to kill any reasonable thinking process in my case. In fact, I think absolute silence is detrimental to the thought process - I find it very hard to concentrate on hard problems without some degree of environmental noise.
- skriticos2 13y agoI agree, nature is not silent either. Total silence is eerie. Open plan offices on the other hand are a total killer of though process, as the constant chatter around distracts you beyond hope of any focused work ever.
- jacquesm 13y agoI have a little farm-house at the end of a dead end street. No traffic, nearest neighbor 100 meters and he's doesn't own a leafblower. Clear view of the fields in three directions for the next 5 miles or so, 20,000 sq ft lot. It's been up for sale for 2 years, if you're interested ;) http://www.funda.nl/koop/oudezijl/huis-4510315-oudezijl-1/fotos/ http://www.funda.nl/koop/oudezijl/huis-4510315-oudezijl-1/fo... Ideal spot for quiet hacking and that new YC EU headquarters!
- ohwp 13y agoI'm going to be your neighbor! Just have to convince my wife. But serious: I've got family living 1 km away from your place and they always notice cars passing by because it rarely happens.
- jacquesm 13y ago> Just have to convince my wife. You're getting dangerously close to figuring out why it is up for sale ;)
- hkmurakami 13y agoalso doesn't hurt that it only costs 1/10 the (ridiculous) price of a normal house in Palo Alto.
- Riesling 13y agoBeautiful. If this was located in the southwest of Germany, I would probably buy it.
- kayoone 13y agonice, whats the internet connection in a place like that like ? :)
- jacquesm 13y ago50 Mbit down, 5 Mbit up, 75 euros / month.
- ohwp 13y agoTonight I woke up at 4 because it was totally quiet in the city. It's strange that we feel discomfort when things are quiet. It shouldn't be that way and it's one of the big problems to be solved. Electric transportation can help. And maybe electric leaf blowers are the next thing Tesla should promote.
- ryangallen 13y agoI'm sitting here (Detroit suburbs) trying to read this article while the lawn service is outside cutting, trimming, and blowing. Recently I've been looking at houses closer to the city, but considering northern Canada at this point.
- protomyth 13y agoThere are actually some pretty good gas leaf blowers that are muffled. Husqvarna makes one. This is why I hate bans on particular items and want the language of the law to name what they are actually trying to prevent (high dBA device used in neighborhood).
- dllthomas 13y agoSo what we need is to internalize those costs somehow.