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Comment by mnw21cam | Hacker News Reader

The Met Office in the UK has a canteen, and at one point, they decided that it was too noisy. Their solution was to make a load of person-sized wool "clouds", and hang them from the ceiling. They look cool, and they absorb noise.

A couple of months ago, I went to a conference in San Diego, and went to a restaurant in the evening with colleagues. We could hardly hear the person next to us shouting. I left as soon as I had eaten.

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With regard to the restaurant, maybe that's the goal: encourage people to settle up and leave quicker so the restaurant can serve more customers?

Or maybe I'm just getting old and cynical...

If you read blogs like "not always right" you'll find that most food service employees are not on board with the customers sitting around and taking up tables. They take it as a personal attack on their income and are very rude about people who sit there.

Even if the management isn't against it, the employees are.

This is a direct consequence of how food service employees are paid in the U.S. They have an income of next to nothing and depend on tips. Tips do not play such a large part in (most? all?) of Europe and are smaller than in the U.S., so customers that stay longer mean less work without too much pay reduction. At least that is my pet theory. I only visit the U.S. every couple of years and this year I noticed that the "standard" tip crept up to 15%-20% instead of the 10%-15% that I remember. Seems that employers are paying food service workers even less of a wage than before.

That reminds me of the Royal Albert Hall in London - don't know if you've been, but they have things that look like giant mints hanging from the ceiling. (I assume it's to break up any echo from the bowl shaped ceiling)

The flying saucers hanging from the ceiling of the Royal Albert Hall are world famous, and are totally acoustic engineering.

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