Like I’d love for them to make my HVAC system quieter.
Or table fans. Or car air conditioners.
Just about every fan in my life would be better if Noctua redesigned it.
They’d be like Dolby, but for making LESS noise.
What bothers me is that we only regulate the loudest offenders (cars, motorcycles, construction), while the residual of everything else is just accepted as background. But that background adds up.
I wish we had stricter regulations not only for peak noise but also for the residual noise emitted by everyday objects. If reducing a few decibels here and there became a design goal across the board, the cumulative effect on quality of life in cities would be enormous.
Now I have a kid I often walk around. You're even more sensitive to city noises when you're desperately trying to keep your baby asleep!
The two big offenders where we live are a) drunk students partying outside; b) motorcycles (which are somehow allowed to be this noisy?). It's a pedestrian-focused city mostly car-free, but motorcycles and young drunkards more than compensate.
Another source of annoyance are the beeps and boops that every household appliance thinks they need to have. The microwave's song when it finishes, the water boiler's super loud beep, the washing machine's stupid jingle at start and end of a cycle, etc.
Coming back to NYC afterwards was wild. The fucking food stand generators. AC vents. The cars. The buses.
I eventually came to appreciate that the noise level (and god, trash odors) were tolerable as long as you either never went outside, or you limited your exposure to the few modestly quiet places or times in the city. Weekend noise level could be pleasant at times but holy Christ… do the sirens ever stop?!!!
By now HN should have a bot to automatically post the above quote in every new thread created, because someone will always make that comment.
There are very quiet places you can move to, so quiet that you can hear your own blood vessels.
"Just move" is never a good suggestion when someone has real grievances with how their society is working.
So I think in this case "just move" is appropriate advice. Or are you going to kick the asses of each and every person who lives in your city until you get your will through?
There seems to be zero consequence for ruining the environment currently.
If you're happy with that, you do you.
I'd rather if something was done about the "elective" noises that we have around, like ridiculously loud leaf blowers, pointlessly loud motorbikes and cars, etc.
I don't think it's fair to say, "just uproot your entire life and move somewhere else" because people are being dickheads.
I also use noise canceling mode on my airpods pro quite often.
The advantage is that it works even when I’m in an environment I can’t control, like an airport or waiting room.
I got the Pro 17s for music, and the total block and swimming ones. The latter two are sealed off.
I’ve relegated the Synology to the basement. I can still hear it grinding at night.
With such brackets the noise is usually reduced a lot. There are some computer cases that are advertised as silent cases and which include such brackets by default (e.g. from Fractal Design).
My other hack is WOL + auto-suspend for my NAS. Wakes up for backup jobs, goes back to sleep when done (and there are no SSH sessions left open). Very hacky but works flawlessly. (Usually.)