STFU
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One way I deal with people talking on speakerphone, is inviting myself into their conversation and making comments as if I were an active participant. That usually earns me a weird look, and then they go off speaker so I can't hear what's been said. Success.
Similar with folks watching reels on speaker, I fake a laugh or make comments about the content. It's awkward enough that they usually stop because they want a moment alone, not an interactive session with a stranger. Which ironically is the same thing I want too.
I used to have to deal with unhinged people on the regular and one of the techniques that keep the peace and stay safe is to present an edge that gives the vibe that you may be more unhinged.
My dad used to run housing projects, and my uncle was an assistant principal at one of the most violent schools in New York City. They were like Jedi masters of presence. They had stories that were absolutely insane.
Don't leave us hanging.
The workers were afraid of the guy, but he hadn’t really done anything except be weird and creepy. So he ended up going up with a few folks to check it out. The dude was capturing (many) wild animals and boiling their blood. So much so that it was condensating on the ceiling.
The dude opened the door and came at them with a bloody machete. He was babbling something about his mother, and I guess as it was told dad just softly said something along the lines of “Your mom sent us and she is not happy with what is happening here, and I think you know that.” I guess the guy stopped in his tracks, dropped the machete and started bawling.
He was a special guy and made a point to treat people fairly and with respect. They’d kick out drug dealers and people who’d terrorize neighbors with dogs and such. The local street dealers beat up some guy who tried to steal his car because being diligent in the buildings was keeping their families safe. He’d take me down as a kid in the summer to hang out and help out with kids programs. It was profoundly meaningful to me as I got to understand that we are all really the same.
That's why the advice to act submissively presented as "avoiding confrontation" is often the wrong advice.
You are not seeking confrontation, but you should signal that you are ready for confrontation. Stops aggressive behaviour very often.
It also fails to account for there being different sorts of aggressive people.
If you work with dogs it's very obvious with them as they are so empathic and attuned to humans. If you are afraid, they will try to take over. If you present as in control, they accept your control. If you are a threat, they respond as they see it. It happens between other animals too -- we're all seen reels of family pets chasing off bears or tiny chihuahuas chasing off German Shepards. People aren't dogs, but I think the comparison has some merit.
But was there a next time after that, or did they stop after getting their revenge once? If they did stop, and assuming you didn’t receive any permanent damage, you still won the interaction long term.
2. I'm an insufferable know-it-all.
You need to read the situation very carefully:
Antisocial behavior is often an attempt to gain status in the subjects in-group. Breaking rules in a way conveys power.
Violence against members of the out-group is an even more effective way to display dominance and hence gain status.
Unless you play a repeated game with the other person there is little to gain for you by initiating conflict.
Even if you assume you have something to gain, always consider the other person might have little to lose and ( my opinion) never display aggression you are not willing to back up.
Sources: 1. Rory Miller: ”Meditations on Violence”
2. Life experiences, that match 1’s observations
But life is always about fight-or-flight, so flight should remain an option, very often the best one.
By not signalling readiness to fight back, you increase probability of aggression by removing all costs to the potential perpetrator from their calculation.
“Are you looking at my girl?”
1. “Fuck off, if you want to live”.
2. Try to run.
Both options are valid but you miss the: “Just zoning out mate. Hard day at work, you know? Boss dogged my pay and I have to muster up the courage to tell the misses. She’s been talking about leaving and taking the kids …”
Violence can arise at many different levels of the classical hierarchy of needs.
Existencial: A crack head robber in a crisis, needing to feed their habit, is hard to deter by threat. For them it is life or death, for you it is just money.
Self actualisation : Many serial killers preferred easy victims. Looking ready to defend one self most likely would dissuade them.
Social: A member of a social group, trying to establish status by conflict with an outsider? Looking tough might achieve just the opposite of what one intends. But being a type of non-target, simply because one is outside of the established hierarchy can work really well.
My perspective is probably skewed: In my by now admittedly boring life, violence is usually social and best side stepped.
A well-known inhibitor for the unhinged.
I wish I had the social awareness to troll [the right] people [well] in the moment like this. I've misjudged the dangerous ones enough, find that has blocked my words.
All to say: "May the odds...", etc.
In NYC last year someone burnt someone else to death while they sat, relaxed and watched, and in a seperate incident a person died died and someone else had sex with them afterwards.
It could that be crime is lower or it could be that insane brutality has become normalized.
I don't even have to act like I'm bothered by it, or that I find their behavior offensive. They change their behavior because they are bothered by mine.
I think the high distractability is a trifecta of volume, non-naturallness of the sound (compression etc: feeling out of place in the space) and this point.
The sound from a phone speaker is annoying, more so, than a typical in person talking. To me the solution lies somewhere in fixing that to make it sound more natural.
Everyone else claiming that some how having “loud” conversation is rude, feels like they’ve fallen into some anti-social hole… we are literally the only animal to have developed complex spoken language… it’s part of our humanity.
There are exceptions to this -- of course nobody expects you to worry about your volume at a concert between sets, at a sporting event, etc. But people who speak very loudly everywhere are annoying to everyone around them.
The people being quiet in an normally-loud place create no problems. The people being loud in a normally-quiet place are causing problems for others by violating the quiet.
Loud people also tend to be oblivious to this and then get defensive when it’s pointed out. Not always - I’ve known some naturally-loud people who had figured out that being shushed meant they were in the wrong.
For everything else, the solution is to STFU. People blasting reels or having rambling non-essential phone calls in public transport is detrimental to everybody's stress level and by extension mental and physical health. I'd love to see it banned and the ban actually enforced.
Shout out to the GGT 101 bus driver that made the annoying passenger on some endless legal/business call actually shut up with a polite but firm "Sir, this is a bus, not a call center". Best trip across the Golden Gate Bridge I've ever had.
To the larger point about loud conversations -- any conversations above what is appropriate to the situation, even in person conversations, are annoying. Ever go to a restaurant and you're able to hear the loud table across the room because they're yelling while everyone else is speaking at a normal volume? Highly annoying. "Who ordered the mojito? Monique ordered the mojito!" I'm just trying to enjoy a cocktail and talk with my partner, not listen to your cacophony.
Doubly annoying if you have a speech processing disorder of any kind. I already have a hard time understanding people on one side of my head, I don't need to also be picking up someone's loud voices interrupting my attempts to listen.
Most patrons have a conversation at a normal volume where the words are clear to their conversation partner but not to people sitting further away.
Speaking loudly enough to be understood from a significant distance is rude because it prevents other people from having their own conversations, and it forces people who are not having a conversation to listen to you. Speaking at an appropriate volume is not anti-social, it is pro-social: other people can't be social themselves if you're too loud.
The unwritten rules loosen up at night, during events, or at other times when there's a boisterous crowd.
The person holding the speakerphone is to blame, of course, but they often seem to go into a state of pathological flow where they're almost as oblivious as their conversation partner.
The passenger will be far more aware of context and circumstances, including traffic or other hazards, and will generally adapt to those surroundings. The remote party simply has no access to those cues.
(And yes, some passengers may be oblivious, for various reasons, including but not limited to children. I'm discussing the general case.)
It causes a mic at the other end of the room to get cut into the DJ's live feed monitor with a semitone shift down and some reverb. This causes all sorts of inner-ear chaos and usually clears a DJ off the stage when they're over time within a few minutes at most -- usually under 30 seconds. One time they were trying to figure out why it wasn't working and discovered that the DJ had muted their monitor feed, which explained why they were not only peaking the meters but over time: They hadn't heard the FOUR warnings from the back of house that it was time to wrap up.
The goal wasn’t to offend or clear out 100% of the customers - just make a large enough portion decide that outside might be more comfortable/conducive than inside. The 20 or so customers who were fine with the cacophony were easy enough to wrangle manually, and also generally either people we knew well .
Most Japanese know it as "the closing song"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJT8vfraCmk
When this was first presented, I was watching this in a large dark hall with this on the projector and the sound level set to extremely loud. Like a fool, I sat through this to the end wondering whether it was going to ever end rather than recognising it as a glorious troll.
My other idea was to get the line from dumb and dumber "Do you want to hear the most annoying sound in the world..." And just loop the sound continuously.
I might just try this project though and see how it goes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shut-up-speech-jammer-among-201...
I pretend to be “Jason from reception” and that “other guests are complaining about the noise”. Works every time.
Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!!
Also why are people using speaker phones in public places at max volume. The speaker in your phone is designed to deliver the sound directly to your ear, probably at higher fidelity.
I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers.
Sorry if I sound cranky, I find loud noises challenging.
But I have a question:
> I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers.
Is this a non-sequitur, or a euphemism/figure of speech/etc. which I have never previously encountered?
> I find loud noises challenging.
They're basically comparing other people's speaker music to noise pollution. Two stroke engines can be heard from a long way off, and I've got box fans that are louder than my electric weedwhacker.
For cafe, sure!
(and nobody will notice during slow times that we donn't actually have that many customers)
It's almost as if nightclubs are set up to prevent human interaction.
For example, train stations tend to have high ceilings, so announcements are loud and full of echoes and reverbs. [0]
I think of sound a bit like WiFi: it’s better to have tons of low power speakers everywhere delivering a clear and non aggressive sound, than a handful of screaming speakers in a tight space: if you’re next to it it’s too loud, and far away it’s drown in reverb.
My guess is that architects and everyone else either don’t know or don’t care.
[0]: like the new Munich Main Station under construction, slide 2: https://entdecken.muenchen.de/en/station/26-4/
Maybe they don't know of or don't have access to bone conducting earphones. Whatever they're listening to, that way they'd also still hear their environment.
Maybe they don't know of or don't have any access to any sense of boundaries, as if they skipped the infant stage of development where they should have learned that "mom" is another person with her own coequal set of needs. And anybody with the urge to push back on this notion, please cover the case where it might apply to you to.
Not everyone owns headphones. Some people might have received the speaker as a gift or decided on the speaker instead of headphones. How people spend their time outdoors is not up to you or I to decide. If they want to listen to music from a bluetooth speaker, that's what they want to do. There's a lot more outdoors for you to use as well so rather that stewing, just find more outdoors. Especially on trails. Just keep going. Or wait until they have kept going. I've never seen a bluetooth speaker that's big enough for someone to be on a trail with that doesn't "go away" after a minute or so.
I have discussed the speaker on trails issue with friends, and we've noticed that the louder one's speaker is the shittier the music it is playing.
I am very open to the argument of "you do you", which is pretty much my philosophy also. But I do think there are /some/ limits to this, because some behaviors are inherently anti-social. My philosophy is more than "you do you" should apply to policy and regulation, meaning that we should not criminalize or directly punish anti-social behaviors that don't cause direct and immediate harm. But that definitely does not mean that we should not shame people for acting in completely inappropriate ways, or directly inform them that their behavior is unwelcome, or otherwise seek to ensure that we act to exist in spaces devoid of anti-social behavior.
I've had this same exact scenario happen, and I simply spoke to the person and told them to lower the volume, use headphones, or stop altogether because they were scaring away the wildlife that I was there to see and photograph. They apologized, lowered the volume, and we both went back to doing our own thing. Most people are reasonable, and act in anti-social ways due to lack of awareness not malice. We are both sharing the trail, and we are both there to experience nature, and that very well might include many different modalities (including accompanying music), but if someone is acting in a way that completely prevents me from enjoying nature I definitely have the right to say something, to complain about it, and to complain about it after the fact, and "you do you" is not a valid argument in response to that.
We all have rights to be in public parks/trails/etc. Cities have ordinances about nuisance things like loud anything. If you're on a trail and someone comes along with a speaker you don't like, just let them pass. They aren't hurting anyone/thing, you're just annoyed. If you've plopped down in the park or at the beach when someone else comes along, you can talk to them about, but they again have rights to do it.
You are free to talk to your local representatives to change ordinances if that's how you feel. Good luck with that if that's what you so choose.
Behavior, and the response to behavior, exist on a spectrum. The fact you responded to me pointing out that "you do you" has philosophical limits, but that those limits should not involve criminalizing behavior, by suggesting I should campaign to enact an ordinance seems extremely obtuse. There is no need to change the law to criminalize making noise in a natural area, but similarly it's perfectly appropriate to tell someone to stop doing it.
Many concerts, shooting ranges, and other loud activities occur in two of the three categories you mention above. All a lot louder than multiple hikers with Bluetooth speakers.
I won't even get into ATVs.
(Not disagreeing with your intent - merely pointing out to other readers of the various socially acceptable uses in these lands).
But on hiking trails (and in many parks), there isn't that sort of thing. While some will prohibit loud noise, many don't say anything about loud noise. In those cases, in the absence of guidance, we should do the thing that is courteous and considerate of others: not play loud music.
Sometimes. I’m pretty sure that very often it’s because they simply do not care that they are being rude/inconsiderate/whatever. But even the willfully rude will likely lower the volume if you ask them nicely because not caring about being rude is not the same as wanting confrontation.
Oh no, it absolutely is. Societies have laws, and even just social norms, that don't stop applying "outdoors". Unless you're in the ocean, I suppose.
Pack out what you pack in. Stay on the trail. No loudspeakers. Very simple.
I'd argue that unspoken rules apply even more strongly in actual outdoors setting, because a good number of those norms actually have serious consequences when violated. Anybody seriously hiking or offroading gets to save a non-zero number of behinds of people who ignored those rules, every single year.
And they also know they need to rely on those rules, because they might get them out of trouble too. The outdoors is not always friendly.
The "No speakers" thing is just the "let's try not be an ass to the same person who might need to pull me out of a ravine next" part of the rules.
Staying on the trail is mostly a suggestion for your safety (and to preserve the area) - definitely not a law.
Ditto for loudspeakers. People often go into nature and throw concerts.
[1] OK - trails in state parks and perhaps some national parks likely have more rules. But trails in general public lands (BLM, forest, etc)? Not many.
This “it’s not technically illegal so it’s not a problem” sentiment is unhealthy for civil societies. I for one would like basic social norms to be respected without law-enforcement being involved.
As for social norms, one only has to read the comments to understand that there clearly isn't consensus on this point. People go to nature for many reasons - not all related to enjoying the sounds of nature. What dylan604 is pointing out is to be mindful of that.
The issue that you seem to be (willfully?) ignoring is that in a shared space, there are actions that you can take that force others to "enjoy" the space in a way that's different than they'd like.
Someone wants to enjoy the space with music. Ok, they play music, so they're enjoying the space in the way they want. Great for them.
Someone else wants to enjoy the space more quietly, able to hear the sounds of nature around them. But the person above has decided for them that they are not permitted to enjoy the space that way.
This is the difference between "freedom to" and "freedom from". Unfortunately when you have the "freedom to" do whatever you want, you infringe on the "freedom from" of others. It's a balance, and I'm sad to see that it seems people are swinging that balance toward "freedom to" at the expense of others. When I was growing up, we used to call this "common courtesy", which seems to be much less common these days.
I have a lot of wired headphones I got off of Temu, I just give them a pair.
Any adverse experiences (e.g. punch in the face)?
What if it interferes with my desire to NOT listen to their music on their bluetooth speaker?
There are also many deep caves in which you can listen to music on speakers. Why aren't you going to these caves?
The societal contract is that your freedom stops where your neighbours freedom starts. This also applies to the noise you produce.
If they're blasting music in a normally quiet place, they are deciding for me. You're literally giving priority to whoever chooses to be less considerate of others.
Hiking trails and parks are public spaces, and we absolutely do get to decide how people spend their time there. I've seen parks and trails where the sign at the entrance/trailhead says no amplified music (among other restrictions). Selfish people of course ignore these signs and damage the experience for everyone around them.
Boy, that one really gets to me when I'm on the trail. Both hikers and mountain bikers are guilty of that. Also, the people with their AirPods in oblivious to anything going on around them...
1) earbuds are not the only headphone style
2) listening to speakers is not a necessity.
So fine if you don't want to use earbuds, but not necessarily fine to annoy those around you with music/talk shows or whatever sounds you want to introduce to the enviroment.
FWIW, it is dangerous to wear headphones in the city and listen to music, but you can always wear only one side. It is not comfortable, but that is how you remain safe without being an ass.
Let's say I'm out in the woods, being non social. And someone comes up the path, playing music loudly. Now I'm being annoyed by people again, which is what I was trying to avoid by being out in the woods. And they're usually on a motorized vehicle, even though motorized vehicles are prohibited on the path.
I'm not trying to tell people how to live their lives. If they want to apprechiate nature in silence, cool. If they want to listen to music, cool ... but it'd be nice if they used headphones and it would be acceptable if they had a speaker at reasonable volume, but when I can hear them before I can see them, it's really not cool.
If they want to walk with a friend and chat, that's ok too.
To keep with the example below, walking in the woods alone is "not social" but it's not at all "anti-social." Listening to music with headphones while walking through the woods is not anti-social. Blasting music on a portable speaker, not caring whether or not you're disturbing other people on that trail, is a pretty great example of anti-social behavior. As is having a speaker phone conversation on mass transit, or being visibly under the influence of drugs in public, or choosing to park illegally and block someone in because you'll "just be a minute" or any number of other things people do because it makes their lives 5% easier at the risk of making someone else's 10% harder.
Imagine if everyone decided they were entitled to play their music on speakers. The result would be a cacophony where nobody can hear their own music and life is worse for everyone. People who play music in public spaces are claiming a common resource for their own exclusive use.
Sincerely - someone who's lived with 7 other people in a 3-bedroom house.
Great news - there are a TON of alternatives! You're still an asshat if you play loud music without regard for your surroundings.
My personal pick? Get a bone conduction headset (ex: Shokz or cheaper alternative). Comfortable, lightweight, waterproof, you can still hear your surroundings.
I did try their bone-conduction headphones, but the quality was slightly worse and they didn't feel as nonexistent to wear.
Fun hack: when I travel I prefer my over-ear noise cancelling Ankers, but they're bulky. So, for traveling light, I use Shockz and then silicone ear plugs to block out external sound on e.g. the airplane. Creates a little bit of a "swimming pool" effect acoustically, but works well and is tiny to carry.
This. Even when you are seemingly quiet on a trail, 90% of wildlife are hiding from you. It’s amazing what happens when you stop and sit in complete silence for 5-10 minutes — a whole hidden world comes alive around you. 10/10, highly recommend.
> I have zero patience for such excuses from people who choose to impose their preferences on other people.
This as well. Somewhere along the way, civics teachings in America’s school left folks w/ the impression that the spirit of our liberty is, “It’s a free country, I can do what I want!”, rather of, “I have the liberty to pursue happiness, up until it infringes on the liberty for others to do so.”
I do agree with what they're saying though.
Regardless, earbuds are only one type of headphone. I'm sure someone with an earbud sensitivity can find another type that works well. And if not, again: tough shit; no music for you.
that's like harley riders with unmuffled motors "for safety".
On the other hand, I remember being in japan and watching some construction vehicles in tokyo. They were surprisingly quiet. After a while I realized what it was - in the united states all construction vehicles have these annoying "beep-beep-beep" sounds while they're working (for safety).
I wonder if one day they can play those only when someone walks nearby or play in some technologically quieter way.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BljL3XO0fyg&pp=0gcJCTIBo7VqN5t...
If it’s noise cancelling it sounds amazing.
Can you further expand?
Actual cri du lynx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtsdVQWGibQ
We don’t want people run over by reversing vehicles, but also, if I had to listen to that every day, I’d leap in front of them.
Should only be while they're backing up. It signals to anyone around that the vehicle is in reverse. At least the ones I'm familiar with.
I'm not going to watch the video linked in sibling comments right now, but "pulsing loud static" is a pretty common alternative to beeping around me; especially in the big citie. Kind of a big shush shush noise: sometimes it sounds a little like hydraulics working which is fine because if you hear those, something big is happening and you should pay attention.
Anyway, the real nice thing is it's loud and attention catching near the source, but it seems to disipate faster than beeps, so you don't really hear it when it's not relevant.
As an upside, your better get good at hill climbing as freewheeling or backpedaling up hill takes some practice.
(I have an ebike, so this is especially important. Mine is a legal one: 25 km/h max, 250 W, etc. If yours is faster, this is even more important.)
Mountain lions are avoidant at all times unless it's a mother with cubs and even then they'll let you know well in advance.
Otherwise, just normal conversation, your smell with even a light breeze, and the vibrations on-trail will alert all animals to your presence.
In other words, the "trail music" theory is bullshit. They just want to listen to their music.
In some parks, there use is required by-law.
Given that they've been in continuous use for centuries I question the conclusion that they're not effective, but I'm open to altering my opinion backed-up with data.
> Bear bells may be a popular item to put on your backpack, but they don’t effectively warn a bear you’re in the area. Bears won’t hear the bells until you’re too close. Yelling, clapping, and talking are more effective ways of alerting a bear to your presence.
https://www.backpacker.com/stories/ask-a-bear-do-bear-bells-...
> In the most advanced testing, bear biologist Tom Smith jingled bear bells in varying volumes in front of brown bears in Katmai National Park. Regardless of how vigorously he shook, 15 different sets of bruins ignored the bells. And yet they snapped at attention the second he broke a pencil in half.
It's not that the bells definitively have zero value, but their effectiveness has been questioned enough that there's been a shift in opinion about them over the last couple of decades.
Actually sometimes they stalk people but I guess that's neither here nor there because bear bells aren't going to help in that situation.
There was a recent death in our "backyard" though https://vt.co/news/us/details-emerge-solo-hiker-killed-by-mo... that was, clearly, the result of a planned attack by a teenage male so, perhaps, their behavior is changing.
Still, it's so rare, we don't have enough modern data.
now, imagine showing up to a hike and the person youre meeting whips one of these out and proceeds to blast rap music. its happened to me and it feels like Seinfeld but 2020s
so is this white guy culture, cop culture or what culture?
in my experience its nearly always college bros with fanny pack speakers. college bro who will grow up to be a white cop culture maybe
"Not everyone owns headphones" is such a dumb response because 1. This entertainment is purely optional (not needed for survival) and 2. There are $4 headphones on amazon making me believe in cheaper/poorer markets you could get them for about 1/2 that.
Someone playing music is annoying and does not physically harm you in any way.
These are not remotely the same thing. There is a clear bright line between them.
You don't have a right to freedom from annoyances, within reason.
It is not just harmless annoyance and not everyone is equal in that regard.
"<insert literally anything you feel like> affect stress level which has an impact in health [so do what I want]"
What _can't_ you use that argument for?
Tell that to someone wearing hearing aids or implants. I'm fairly sure, they feel differently.
Or the DJ school at 20th and Mission playing music outdoors every Friday
I've moved to all electric lawn equipment. Snow blower, lawn mower, weed wacker, leaf blower. They all work great, are quieter, and I don't have to deal with carburetors and oil ever again.
After I took the handle apart and undid some connections, I diagnosed it as a bad switch.
I fixed it by making a small hole in the switch body with a hand-held drill bit, shaking some water out of it, spraying in some Corrosion-X, and exercising it while watching its performance improve on my meter.
In terms of cost: It took about 40 minutes to get from "WTF?" to "Fixed!", along with maybe 3 cents of the magic spray stuff and some tools I already owned.
I'm really not sure where some of the other people replying to your comment are coming from. Forcing every human and animal you come across to listen to what you're listening to is selfish. Full stop. And not doing it costs $0, which preempts any question of resources.
But also, for all the reasons described, I just use transparency modes if I want that. That way nobody else has to hear my poor taste in music.
And on the few occasions where I've had no other option, it made so much more sense to set my phone to low volume and bring it close to my ear instead of holding it iut and maxing the volume.
And if I need to talk as well, many people don't know this, but there's a second smaller speaker on the opposite end of the phone, approximately one mouth-ear distance away from the microphone.
As others have said - not really a big deal. Either get ahead of them and maintain a significant distance, or stay behind and do so.
If a trail is crowded, you won't hear much of the sound of nature, whether someone is playing music or now.
It all depends on where you live, and what access you have. Nature is not far from me, so I have several options within an hour's drive.
There you go. Quite comfortable, don’t have to stick them inside your ears, and still allows you to perceive the sounds around you.
In the spirit of fairness, I’ll also share the cons from my experience: First is battery life isn’t as good as headphones. That’s somewhat obvious as they’re much smaller, but they will still last you the whole day so not really an issue for hiking. Second one is that because they don’t block outside sounds, they’re not appropriate for audiobooks/podcasts while walking in the city. Again, not an issue for hiking.
Additionally, “I can’t afford the alternative” is not a valid excuse to be an asshole to those around you.
And so are cheap headphones.
1. I didn't say I do this. It's not my problem.
2. You're exaggerating by saying "everyone else's problem". As is clear from the thread, only certain people view it as a problem.
I also don't like people taking selfies on trails. But I know how not to have my contentment be affected by minor problems.
Learn to share the trail and live with others different from you.
It's about enclosed spaces (airport) or open, quiet ones (hiking)
I wouldn't use that when hiking but it is true that I sometimes use a bluetooth speaker when riding my bicycle in the city.
I don't put it at full volume but a lot of pedestrians and their dog seem to be attracted by dedicated bicycle lanes when they are built on the same level as the sidewalk. It is a good way to warn people of my presence without using a bell. Using a bell sometimes sounds a bit rude because people associate it to the use of the car horn which has become a proxy for insults instead of the warning device it used to be.
[1] I used to think pedestrians were doing it to annoy cyclists on purpose but judging by their often suprised reaction. I think it is just an unconscious behavior. Apart from bicycle lanes which aren't well marked, it is probably because the bicycle lanes are usually a smoother surface and thus more agreeable to the feet than the sidewalk thus people tend to walk on them natually.
And the vehicle noise is expected and "necessary", in that it's a street, and of course there will be noisy cars and motorcycles on it. The noise is also easier to treat as a background buzz and tune out. Loud music is not any of those things.
Cities are a delicate balance when it comes to noise: if you live in a city, you have to acknowledge that you're living in a densely-populated place with lots of other people around, and make your peace with the fact that there will be noise. But at the same time, each individual should also do their best to avoid polluting the air with unnecessary noise. And blasting music from a giant bluetooth speaker in a backpack is 100% unnecessary, rude, and selfish.
I'm baffled by this too, but I think some people get accustomed to just having a soundtrack around them at all times, like they're living in a Hollywood movie. It gets to the point where they actually sleep with something always on (in the old days that would be a TV, not sure today. Probably a podcast)
Washington Department of Natural Resources recommended bluetooth speaker playlists for hiking:
https://unofficialnetworks.com/2022/08/20/washington-roasts-...
It was kind of surreal - sketchy looking person playing high-pitched voice female vocals (imagine k-pop).
Seattleites are a resourceful lot.
Also yes, hiking with a bluetooth speaker is particularly galling. you're in nature! For that reason I've been considering buying (or building) a portable bluetooth jammer. I wouldn't do all the time, no reason to punish someone using wireless earphones respectfully. It'd need to have a trigger for JIT intervention.
Finally, it's my time to shine. OK, so I do this. Granted, I hike spots where I rarely run into other people. I listen to music out in nature because:
- I enjoy it and it creates a mood.
- I don't wear headphones because I want to be comfortable but I also want to hear the environment (for safety and enjoyment reasons).
- It also lets bears and cougar know I am around.
Finally, nature isn't new to me. I've spent significant amounts of time in the remote woods alone -- even living in the woods for some time. Not that it's boring by any stretch, but it's also not a novel experience to me.
But yeah, it'd be rude to be doing it where other people are trying to enjoy nature.
Right, so you are a hiking music-player, but also a person who is sensitive to the experiences of others and not a douche. I think this thread is about the douchey people who do this in much more crowded spaces than you're used to. Maybe they have the same justifications as you have when you're alone, but they just don't hold water for me when there are other people around.
Like the other commenter posted, you can use open earbuds, which I use as well for the same reasons.
As far as wild cats go, they are already pretty good at knowing you are there already without a speaker. Where I live there are many mountain lions and bobcats but I have never seen one close up, same in the California Sierra. In terms of bears, if they aren't black bears then yeah although it depends on where you are hiking. If it's in the backcountry, please pause it when I come by.
I've not done this, and I don't think I would ever do this, but I can sympathize with having the idea that they don't want to be so isolated from nature so as to have headphones blocking out the sounds of the world around them dampened, but also feel like it would be super sweet if they could listen to Bowie right now.
It's also been shown that having music reduces the feeling of loneliness, having similar effects to having had a conversation recently, so if a person is hiking along perhaps it offers them companionship?
_If_ I ever did this (I wouldn't) I'd probably have it down to a whisper such that you would hardly be able to make it out unless you were right beside me.
In my case, listening to other people's music damages my mental health. If I encounter someone on a trail with music (this has not happened here in the northeast to me yet) they'll encounter a string of direct to-face insults from me.
The nice thing about the great outdoors is that there is plenty of space for you and me, even if I were to play music you can audibly detect from a meter away.
Look, I hope you find some other ways than insulting people to express your displeasure in the future. That'll damage both the mental health of the person your speaking to and your own!
Take care out there!
I used to hold this same opinion. Unfortunately, times have changed and now everyone is constantly in their phones, isolated in their own universes, typically with earbuds or headphones. At least the obnoxious speaker dude is present; in a shared physical reality with the world around him. A lesser evil.
Wife is concerned about bears
obviously there are numerous people blasting those in public places in waay too high volume.
sometimes when I ride bicycle in non-car road (cycle/hiking paths around luxembourg) i put not-too-loud music playing on phone speaker (about 70% volume) both for vibes and also for safety. -- as there are people walking which may be obstructed by the bushes or other oncoming cyclists.
for the vibes part, i am really hoping smart-glasses or similar equipment to be more common, as i got echo frames last year, i am quite happy about the vibe it adds when i play background music (just to myself) in different occasions. (even though quality is not great)
many people mentioned headphones & earbuds, but i do not see them as the solution for nature/hiking related situations;
- (partial) blocking of external sounds, even if there is no noise cancellation, it dims outside sounds like bike bells, engine sounds, other people yelling at you because you are in danger, ie. may cause accidents
- comfort & compatibility issues with other equipment. like hearing aid (maybe that's the reason some people blasting away such high volumes? -- maybe never hearing loss haven't diagnosed properly!). if you have a helmet, over-head headphones usually dont work, stuck with ear-buds. fit and comfort of these are quite difficult. even if you use over-head ones, cushions usually go bad quite fast due to mild sweating or contact with external air & humidity.
i really hope price of bluetooth-speaker or bone-speaker glasses will go down significantly in the future. this way, you don't obstruct external sounds, not add heavy or squishy things to your ear while adding your theme song on a moment.
---
obviously i mention these as a reasonable human being, who keeps their phone in silent 7/24, and all videos muted all the time (i also mute my laptop, as i hate hearing other people's zoom/chime calls constantly ringing throughout the day!)
I guarantee you that your 70% volume music while cycling is audible to people much farther from you than you think, and that many of those people are probably annoyed by it.
I find it mind-blowing that so many commenters in this thread forgot the 2nd half of the golden rule: Be conservative in your outputs and liberal with your inputs.
Every minute someone in the distance would be flooring whatever loud vehicle they were driving/riding - mostly motorcycles, but I've heard a few cars.
Their enjoyment is everything, screw everyone else.
"As with anything in life it depends on a huge number of variables such as location, number of allies the other person has, the threat potential you represent, the number of allies you have, your standing on the social ladder, if you're in a position of power, your ability to understand social clues, the exact method how you ask, yada yada"
Did you walk over? Did you say hi? Did you lower yourself to be around their height? Give them a second or two to get used to you? Tell them first that their noise is loud ? Ask them in a respectable tone if they would lower it, just a bit? Did you give the impression that you were asking, not demanding?
Of course I won't ask a drunk or aggressive looking person. But there is a wrong way to ask, and a better one.
The chances, regardless how nice you try to ask, that the person who elected to broadcast their tiktoks or calls to the whole wagon at full volume goes "oh, sorry, I'm so embarrassed, I'll turn this off", are very low.
Last time I tried to ask "can you use headphones?", the guy answered "I don't have headphones" and put the volume even louder.
A person who cared even a tiny bit would not have started to begin with. Asking is almost futile. These people simply seem to be used to get away with inflicting themselves to people around without consequences. The worse part is that if you do nothing, you participate in this.
What can you do.
I think it can only work if it becomes very socially unbearable, or if they got fined for this. Or, indeed, if it brought them nuisance. In that regard, this HN post's solution is interesting (not sure it's good though).
- loud person does not care in the first place, that's why they do the loud act
- usually they are more than 1 person, outnumbering me
- although some places have public disturbance prohibited laws, unless there is a law enforcement/security around, chances of me being ending up in a hospital is higher than chances of stumbling on a decent person
- it is easier to act or play stupid
---
on a similar note, last time when i asked someone to lower their volume while having headphones on me, they demanded my headphones because they claimed they were too poor to buy one. -- i am talking about 20$ type-c earbuds vs 16" macbook size marshall speaker. -- as a result, i did not give my headphones and they continued to play music.
I personally detest the kind of people who behave like this. It all just exudes deliberate fakeness; if anyone were to try this on me I'll only be irritated more than anything else.
I've learned in my time in cities that it can be very hard to judge who is likely to be aggressive and who isn't.
Seems like you're from western Europe, and maybe people are nicer there, but once you get to a place with strong racism, classism, wealth disparity, you suddenly find that being civil has little weight.
So then the question becomes how well you've sampled that catastrophic risk before you say what the real risk is. As an example, I've been mask off and partying since as soon as that became legal. Haven't gotten sick from COVID yet. Shows, house parties, sharing drinks with people who later had it. Tested often because I was this high risk. Zero positives.
I could say "actually, if you just do the things that I did you'll be fine". After all, I've been fine. Nothing happened. I just didn't get sick. I've got the winning formula.
Not the latest model, huh? That’s certainly a passive-aggressive way to suggest you upgrade…
If you are in a venue where politely asking someone to keep it down, results in them actually responding, you generally don't need to ask. You are among conscientious people to begin with.
For the most part, about 99% of the time, the whole point of drawing attention is waiting for someone to politely ask them to turn it down. And it isn't so they can respond in kind.
It's tolerating the intolerant (their intolerance to understanding social order). They need to be bludgeoned back (metaphorically).
> I don't think he cares about being polite.
If you're polite, debate civilly, say reasonable things and act like a normal person, you are a nobody on X. Nobody will see your tweet. Nobody will engage with it. You might as well have not said anything.
Conversely, if you are the kind of person able to come up to a stranger and ask them (politely and respectfully!) to change what they are doing, you likely the person with the social skill to do other things well too.
Now imagine the same situation but the person comes up to you and says “excuse me but would you mind turning your volume down a bit or using headphones? The sound from your phone is really bugging me and I would really appreciate it.” Which situation is more likely to piss you off?
And sure you might respond poorly to both but I see no universe in which you respond positively to the first while I think there is a good chance you respond well to the second.
On the other hand if the person approaches you and says “hey buddy turn that shit down”.. but the kind of person to use this 2 second delay thing in my experience would never have the confidence to do something like that so not even worth considering.
As opposed to building a tool to actively annoy them without politely asking them a question? This doesn't follow.
I doubt the tool was actually used.
Gotta start somewhere!
Public music should be celebrated. This is someone sharing a cultural touchstone and y'all just want to be antisocial robots.
I don’t drive, I take public transit daily, and am old enough to remember when you would never experience anything like this (even in the heyday of boom boxes in the 80s). So yeah I’m not convinced it’s a “me” problem.
And returning to the point, if you asked someone 30 years ago to turn their music down they would either comply or say something nasty - not physically assault you.
The music he was playing was ridiculously bad. Obviously subjective but this was such terrible low effort stuff that I am not sure it would even make it to SoundCloud. Think “your stoner friend’s demo tape you try to listen to but can’t get more than three minutes in”
We were in a long tunnel and he turned the volume up, which I don’t think anyone wanted. I yell over the speaker and say he should that shit off. He said people here want it, to which I say “no they actually don’t. See how everyone here has headphones on? If your music was any good you wouldn’t have to force people to listen to it as hostages. If you want to actually test this then go to Washington Square Park, not the fucking train”.
He called me an asshole, turned the music even louder, and kept it going until I left the train. I don’t think he agreed with my reasoning.
If someone has too much social anxiety or is too afraid to politely ask the other person to turn it down, using an actively annoying option like this isn't going to help. This is more likely to induce a confrontation.
Finally, one older woman gets up and walks over to him. My wife and I are like "Oh shit, she's gonna let him have it, here it comes." She taps him on the shoulder and says "Excuse me, can you turn that down? It's very loud." And you know what he did? He said "Oh, sorry," and turned it down.
She said thanks and went back to her seat, simple as that.
The isolation and atomization of modern individualized living has led people to be so controlled by their anti-social anxieties, fear, and loathing of other people, that they and OP won't even try.
That dude shouldn’t be turning it down; he should be turning it off.
My go-to line is: “Excuse me, do you have any earphones?”
If I am on a bus or something I have asked other people to turn their audio down, but most other places it's easy enough for me to just move somewhere else.
if you have the balls to do this next to someone, they will immediately recognize what you're doing right after they stop (if they stop).
that's gonna be 100x more awkward than asking them politely would have been.
The keyword is fantasy.
> so i built a tiny app that plays back the same audio it hears, delayed by ~2 seconds. asked claude, it spat out a working version in one prompt. surprisingly WORKS.
Note, they never said they actually played it and then person realized they were being disrespectful and stopped. That whole scenario is supposed to happen in a hypothetic fantasy world, and every reader here is supposed to take in the same way for themselves.
If you ask someone to turn it down, it can immediately come off as confrontational, even if you're being polite. With this solution, though, it's kind of hilarious because in one sense it's more confrontational, but the original music blaster would have to ask you to turn it down - but it's just their music.
I'm a pretty nonconfrontational person, but the one time I lost it was when this late middle aged woman kept chatting away on her cell phone in the quiet car of the LIRR despite other people previously telling her that she was in the quiet car (I believe my exact words were "Hey princess, what part of 'no cellphones' do you not understand" - there is a giant sign at the front of the car that says no cellphone use). But I don't think I'd ever do this in a public situation where the rules weren't so clearly spelled out.
At least it is for me. Especially when it's my moth... you know what? Never mind. If I keep going I'll spiral out.
Negative social skills on that Twitter thread
Many people are just massive assholes. Asking nicely does not work. Particularly big drunk dudes at an American football game. That was my first and last visit to a football stadium.
Also, basically every pro and semi-pro sports stadium nowadays has cell-phone-contactable security that you can summon to handle situations like these. The threat of being kicked out of his $250 seats is way more of a threat than that of being confronted by a "mega-nerd".
I wouldn't make a habit of contacting security over every little annoyance, but if they're obnoxiously blocking an old lady, that's the time to use it.
P.S.: your karma is currently 1337, sweet
Last time this happened was in a bar, there was a pianist playing, and a group sat right next to the piano and started being very noisy. I went and asked them to lower their voices. They apologized, and shut up entirely. Later, someone came to thank me for that.
On the other hand, I would never dare using that tool, it feels a bit childish and would make me feel like such an ass!
On the other hand if you can force people to behave through machine processes it's much more effective than human processes
1. This is a lighthearted joke that someone made after having a bad experience with others being noisy in public. (Most likely scenario.)
2. The author is going to actually use this tool in public, in which case they are either a power-tripping asshole who gets off on "outsmarting" people, or a limp-wristed coward without basic social skills.
People doing these kinds of things don’t give a F about anyone else. They’re terrible “humans” and should be treated as such.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speec...
It’s basically the “Chinese food” Seinfeld gag.
That’s what I seemed to remember also.
I think 2 seconds like in the OP link is too long delay to work as actual jamming.
I have a nonzero accept rate!
But you really have to be in the right frame of mind. If you approach someone in anger, they'll pick up on it and mirror you.
The best line I've found so far is, "I know Apple stopped giving out earbuds with their phones; would you like some?"
Person in a public space listening to reels at full volume? Get their attention, then loudly point out that their headphones got disconnected and everybody can hear the audio.
People leaving a train or bus and leaving behind trash? Loudly let them know that they forgot their water bottle or paper bag. If it's a single item, this works doubly well if you helpfully hand them the item, too.
I believe the concept of public decency is entirely cultural and has less to do with courage.
Where I live, if someone is being loud in public, you usually keep to yourself. So long as they are not being overtly offensive or profane.
In other countries, like the Netherlands for example, people will have no problem telling you to be quiet or verbalize any violation of cultural norms. I believe it's like that in Germany and Scanda as well, from what I hear.
I understand cultural differences but taking business meetings in the bathroom seems inappropriate under effectively all circumstances.
This would be escalated to upper management to find out why people are under so much time pressure that they need to take calls in the bathroom, and at the very least doing so would be made some kind of violation of new policy.
These are the kinds of reports the organization needs as ammunition in order to fix what sound like bigger problems with the organization and work culture. There's very little chance this hasn't been noticed and isn't a symptom of something more going on.
Or why there are people so idle that they can defecate without working.
Remember, HR protects the company, and complaints about heavy hitters because they work on porcelain aren't going to reflect well on the complainant.
You're correct that HR is there to protect the company. The original post did not specify "heavy hitters", nor did I ever say to make an accusatory report. HR doesn't have to specifically know who is taking their calls this way.
I'm sorry if you or others have had such bad experiences with the most basic of HR interactions, though if I assume you're taking your own advice I doubt you've ever tried.
There's the tactful way to do this, and then there's whining to HR. I would be very careful taking advice from whiners because they're the ones who keep propagating this bad faith myth about HR.
All I'm saying to do is notify them about ongoing behavior with an emphasis on how it probably makes the company look bad and that it's done by many. They don't care who is doing it and it's not personal. I'd honestly be very surprised if this behavior doesn't already fall under some existing policy.
I use HR to protect my company from people like you.
It's exactly as I suspected. The only people spreading the toxic advice about HR are the ones who benefit most from making the workplace suck for everyone else.
I can only hope you just think HR is there to insulate you this way and haven't had to test it, because it simply isn't. You really don't want to be on the losing end of a wrongful termination suit. It's only because people rarely bother that you may not have come across one of those. Then it then escalates to worse when all of HR spills their guts about the pressure they were under to protect higher ups.
There is no loyalty after all. It's just a job to everyone else.
Surveilling co-workers in the bathroom is more than sufficient grounds for dismissal - gross misconduct.
HR isn't that dumb and doesn't need to find another squealer.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/politics/toilet-flush-supreme...
I agree that flushing toilets could have been muted, but isn't it a Zoom/Google-Meets issue when they're supposed to remove the noise?
I won't lie, though, I secretly enjoyed timing flushes to match when he was talking.
Or porcelain-shattering dumps. Such a liberating experience by itself in a public bathroom, doing it to someone on the phone would give me a memory that would bring a smile to my lips for many years.
Amazing show.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/50ej3a/how_d...
I can emphathise with someone stuck in meetings all day in a predominantly listening role, that they consider perfunctory or mostly pointless, or maybe in a very active role that has them stressfully bouncing from meeting to meeting.
I can easily envision how this would lead to a kind of nihilistic resignation and a determination to just do normal life stuff with a headset on one's head.
I would never do either. But one is less weird than the other.
Humans pee, fart, and burp. That's perfectly normal. And yet, it's considered basic politeness not to do those things in a freaking business meeting if you can help it.
Asking because I was pretty much on-board with the comment and took it as being fully serious, up until the point of “jerking off in public shouldn’t be anybody else’s business, unless they stain something” being mentioned.
Now, I am not so sure. Either the entire comment was sarcastic or I am missing something major. But putting jerking off in public and talking on the phone in a public bathroom into the same bucket of activities (in terms of appropriateness) feels crazy to me.
This is like some 4chan post.
And surely anyone mentioned is a hundred times less harmful than a guy smoking on the street. That should be illegal. Yet people for some reason act as if it's ok, and it is broadly legal in most places (unlike jerking off in public).
I didn't take it that way, because "in public", to me, implies that other people are fully exposed to it. I don't consider "in a private stall" as public, just like I don't consider "taking your underwear off in a bathroom stall" (very normal) as "taking your underwear off in public".
Just like jerking off, defecation should be done in private. Meetings are not private. Very few people want to see/hear/smell you do that and that includes over zoom or phone conference. Most people really do want to mind their own business, and that means having no part in you doing those very private things.
If someone is in a meeting on their phone while in a bathroom stall it's also very rude to everyone else in the bathroom trying to do their own business as privately as they possibly can under the circumstances.
It’s the breaking of a norm that makes me be question your judgment, either way.
"Minding your own business" when it comes to antisocial behavior is enabling when the correct response in shaming and ostracizing. It's not going to work with LBJ but it will probably work with Kevin from accounting.
I strongly suspect these sorts of people don't ask the people on the other end of the line for their consent.
(TBH, I would probably give that consent if asked, though I'd never take a meeting from the toilet myself.)
An old business partner had meetings which felt like 24/7. He had zero issue taking a phone call in the bathroom. I doubt anyone on the other end ever knew.
I myself, me... Am descendant from a long line of arms that ascend from misty lakes depensing royalty on the form of moist scimitars.
These are not cultural differences. This behavior is across-all-cultures lack of decency.
I would say the answer is education, but like the law doesn't even prevent all speeding, maybe the answer is speed bumps (this app?)
Now, now ... if she is pretty ...
Of course, disable your camera and mute your mic while dropping or flushing.
And how to deal with it becomes vastly different when you've done it. It's just human. Just ignore it.
Not legal but there’s a technical solution that’s worked in the past: pocket cell jammer. Range isn’t very far but it’ll work to boot callers a stall away or a booth away at a diner, etc. Only need to run it a few seconds to drop a call.
Do want to stress these do see enforcement now (in the US at least) but a low power pocket one used occasionally is unlikely to attract attention. It will be noticed if it’s higher power or runs in a regular location. Fines are severe and risk jailtime but hey it’s your life.
However it's not super effective anymore as 802.11w (protected management frames) is a thing and mandatory for WPA3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11w-2009
This is probably an area where SDR's with send capability could in theory be prosecuted as a jamming device. Whether it's been interpreted that way or enforced ever is unknown to me. A purpose built device advertised as a jammer would absolutely be a problem.
Oh also, the 1934 communications act is supposed to prohibit US/state governments from using such devices as well, but they've ignored the law. Some companies in the 2000's challenged it for use in their buildings and afaik lost the cases. My experience dates from that same time range when they were sort of accepted as de jure illegal but there wasn't de facto enforcement.... also networks use more bands now so a jammer covering more frequency ranges would be needed. back then they could do 3 ranges (850mhz-ish, 1900mhz-ish, 2100mhz-ish), now there would be way more like 3.7ghz down to 600mhz. Ignoring mmwave, that's not going to be in your bathroom.
Wait, SDR devices are not legal in the US? That doesn't sound plausible.
My "computerized legal advisor" says:
> There’s no rule from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that forbids individuals or hobbyists from buying, importing, or owning SDR hardware in the United States. You can legally purchase and have them.
> Radios that transmit need FCC equipment authorization (such as certification or Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity) before they can be marketed in the U.S. if they are capable of operating in ways that could cause interference. That’s primarily a manufacturer obligation, not something that restricts private ownership.
> Owning a device is fine, but you must not transmit illegally. Sending signals on unauthorized frequencies or at unauthorized power levels can lead to fines, equipment seizure, and other penalties.
Owning lockpicks? Fine!
Owning lockpicks when you're caught burgling a house? You're extra screwed.
Owning an SDR? Fine!
Owning an SDR and getting caught using it to illegally disrupt communications? You're extra screwed.
Yes, you can absolutely own an SDR, and transmit with it on legal frequencies. If you're busted using it to break the law, then it's strong evidence that you went out of your way to deliberately, premeditatedly break it, and that makes for a bad day.
> Actually, just being in possession of such a device in the US isn't legal.
Their view was that it isn't legal to own, regardless of context or intent. That's what GP was arguing against.
> Sections 510 - allows for seizure of unlawful equipment (47 U.S.C. § 510).
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/510
> (a) Violation with willful and knowing intent Any electronic, electromagnetic, radio frequency, or similar device, or component thereof, used, sent, carried, manufactured, assembled, possessed, offered for sale, sold, or advertised with willful and knowing intent to violate section 301 or 302a of this title, or rules prescribed by the Commission under such sections, may be seized and forfeited to the United States.
Guess what? You don’t have to be a fucking lawyer to know how to read.
So yes, you can own an SDR, slop and/or reading comprehension notwithstanding.
I had consumed a large amount of spicy food the day prior, and it pulled the fire alarm right in the middle of a phone screen. I foolishly thought I could silently and secretly handle both tasks at once.
These were the days before background noise filters. The poor candidate obviously heard unpleasant things but neither of us acknowledged it directly.
He accepted the job though. But this still bothers me decades later. Never again!
I have hearing sensitivity and have repeatedly asked my parents to lower the volume on TVs, whatsapp videos, insta reels 100s of times. They always lower it for 5 minutes before raising it back. Likely because they are losing their hearing, but unable to admit that.
I tend to be very mindful of others (maybe because I grew up in America), but my parents are not even mindful of my requests. Maybe it's a cultural thing? I expect those who have grown-up (or spent their whole lives) in India would do the same.
Definitely need to test this out app out when I go home.
Flipper Zero
some people just cannot be reasoned and the amount of people like this is growing HARD.
Is it some kind of minor evangelism on their end? Like they think the music is so wonderful that obviously everyone should be listening to it?
I hardly imagine a situation where speaking up is less "couraging" than using such tool to mock annoying person.
EDIT: By performative contradiction I mean doing the thing the person is doing to demonstrate the contradiction.
I used to carry one with me everywhere (it was small enough to fit on a keychain). One night at a sports bar, I showed it to a friend. Before I could stop him, he pushed the button and every TV in the place went black, right in the middle of some PPV sports event. Anyway, he bought one on the spot.
Anyway you'd get a handful of old Rover, Peugeot, Renault, or Citroën (and a bunch of others) fobs from the scrapyard and fit this pre-programmed PIC microcontroller, and when you pressed the button it would cycle through a bunch of volume down, mute, and power off commands for most common brands of TV.
However the real genius one - and it was about 20 quid - was this. Remember Furbies? They would chatter away to each other, using infrared to communicate so they'd go in sync. Well, this one that transmitted the "GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW" command to any Furby in the room. Relatively expensive but worth it.
Not sure about that one either but its functionality has been cloned for the Flipper Zero [1]
https://www.rtfms.com/wp-content/rtfms-com/LED-pinout.png
Then, with some special app, or even just playing some audiofiles — I don't remember — he'd do the same thing as the device above.
I never in my life was confronted or even assaulted, even by noisy teenagers or grim looking men.
Not saying it’s impossible but I would guess it’s very unlikely. Ymmv
People that are perceived as no threat or a 100% chance of being a deadly threat if ignored typically have no problems here. It's the grey zone where conflict shows up. Think of a little 60 year old grandma asking nicely the vast majority of people will listen. Same if you're a 6'7" slab of rock with tear drops tattooed on your face. Meanwhile if you're a minority asking a racist to turn down the volume, this situation is going to cause conflict almost all of the time.
straight up honest - originally called this "make-it-stop" but then saw @TimDarcet also built similar and named it STFU. wayyyyy better name. so stole it. sorry not sorry.
```
Probably the reason that the code "worked" from a single prompt. Could potentially have downloaded the github repo first...
I took a look at the repo, and the whole thing is 12 lines of JS and some basic HTML and CSS. I'm not surprised at all it worked the first time from a single prompt. No need to copy someone else's project for something so simple.
At least the author clearly delinated that it is indeed sloppiest of slop.
Here people watch tik tok on full blast, people let their kids run amok in concrete cafes, constantly honk at each other, blast karaoke for all neighbors to hear, etc.
These people have some ability to sift through noise. For example being able to talk to someone on the phone with a loudspeaker in a loud environment while both seem to understand each other well.
But for some reason, the majority of people don't care, and so in some weird way, the concept of sound pollution don't exist.
When sound pollution don't exist as a concept, there is nothing to get annoyed about.
It's also a simple, genius idea. Congrats.
[Edit: I guess this wasn't submitted by the author/prompter. Still, you get the point.]
You can just ask people for things! And you will become a better person for it.
I would never try to use it though, as you can very realistically get killed in retaliation.
Something like that, with a directional microphone and one of those eerie directional speaker rigs I find in retail stores could be tons of fun for those irritating people who insist on using speaker phone in public.
Today I went to Munich on public transportation — with a mix of transfers on trams and regional trains. I think I read about 50 pages, all the while traveling. It may sound like an ad, but it's not; I really appreciate my Sony XM4 — would not have been possible to focus on reading without it — which I've been using for years now. I put it on with ANC, and play a non-distracting focus music. This helps quite a lot!
You're lucky to be able to read on public transport. I barely can anymore because of these people.
It's working. Op might consider adding to readme
https://sites.google.com/site/qurihara/top-english/speechjam...
(which won the Ig Nobel prize in 2012)
Even subconsciously, I seem to love this app.
Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) is the term you need to look into. Playing back what someone says to you back at them with a 200ms delay is literally a brain Denial of Service.
It's an incredibly rude world we live in - this behavior two decades ago would have led to a fight. Now everyone is scared to tell anyone anything, since punching or stabbing are risks. Also, I believe the new generation is hyper tolerant of such things compared to us olds.
However, it seems that the cultural norms differ a lot, I've heard of people who disapprove of almost everything and don't have much sympathy for them. Politeness goes both ways, and in my opinion using that app is impolite, too.
Humans are social animals, we tune out conversations easily. Half conversations are just one interrupting, attention-grabbing … jarring start … … after … … … … another. It’s a series of unpredictable spontaneous one-sided outbursts, behaviours that otherwise belong to disturbed individuals.
Listening to people in the phone is inherently more annoying, backed by decent research IIRC.
> idk i'm not a neuroscientist. all i know is it makes people shut up and that's good enough for me.
Is it happening for the right reasons?
What is going through the minds of those people in that moment, when they hear an audio recording of what just happened played back to them?
Are they thinking they're being recorded? Are they nervous? Do they feel threatened? Might they act out on this in an unexpected and perhaps escalating way?
These are why I would not use this app.
Operating systems become redundant; you open any digital device, and it's just a portal into the most advanced LLM on the planet.
Obviously just spitballing here.
I wonder how far AI will advance.
Applications, yea, 100%.
Aside from getting an LLM up and running on a device, what's stopping AI from creating an operating system? I admittedly don't know much about operating system development, but aren't most operating systems written primarily in C?
I guess what I meant by that is it would be interesting if the AI prompt itself were the OS, and all software would be generated via prompting the agent. No downloads, just a "What do you need?" prompt with the AI generating everything on the fly.
Perhaps becoming so fast that you wouldn't even notice it thinking. Just: "I need to edit a document that was sent to my email" The AI would then retrieve the email, download the document and generate its own text editor to display the document in. All within a few milliseconds.
Call it AIOS
Nothing really... Creating a working operating system and understanding all the hardware bugs it could run into is a different story.
Simply put when you look at the combined energy expenditure to create something like Windows or Linux and the numbers would likely stagger a person, like hundreds of gigawatts, hell probably terrawatts. This entropy expenditure is reduced by us sharing the code. This is the same reason we don't have that many top end AI models. The amount of energy you need to spend for one is massive.
Intelligence doesn't mean you should do everything yourself. Sharing and stealing are solutions used in the animal kingdom as alternate solutions to the limited fuel problem.
And yes, I understand code re-use and distribution are valuable, and that's a good point. Having an LLM generate everything on the fly is definitely energy-intensive, but that hasn't stopped the world from building massive data centers to support it, regardless.
I guess the theory of my past few posts would be similar to rolling updates, so using the text editor as an example, you'd prompt the AI agent in the hypothetical OS to open a document, and it would generate a word processor on the fly, referencing the dozens of open source repos for word processors and pushing its own contributions back out into the world for reference by other LLMs - computationally expensive, yes. It would then learn from your behaviors, utilizing the program, and the next time you'd prompt the OS for a word-processor-like feature (I'm imagining an MS-DOS-like prompt), it would iterate on that existing idea or program - less computationally expensive because ideally the bulk of the work is already learned. Perhaps adding new features or key-bindings as it sees fit. I understand that hard-disk space is cheap, and you'd probably want some space to store personal files, but the OS could theoretically load your program directly into RAM once it's compiled from AI-generated source code. Removing the need to save programs themselves to disk.
Since LLMs are globally distributed, they're learning from all human interactions and are actively developing cutting-edge word processors tailored specifically to the end-users' needs. More of a VIM-style user? The LLM can pick up on that, prefer something more like MS Word? The LLM is learning that too. AIOS slowly becomes geared directly to you, the end-user.
That really has nothing to do with intelligence; you're just teaching a computer how to compute, which is what AI is all about.
Just some ideas on what the future might hold.
I have personally been threatened on multiple occasions because I asked someone to turn down (or turn off) their volume while watching videos on their phone in public.
In one instance, I was in a doctor's office waiting room and a rather large, otherwise normal-looking man (likely in his late fifties) was watching videos at full volume while 4-5 of us were sitting quietly. We were all annoyed by him and exchanging looks, so I politely asked him to mute the video or watch it outside and he stood up and started threatening to fight me in a doctor's office waiting room!
In my anecdotal experience in various tier 2 USA cities (i.e., not NY, SF, LA, etc), Gen-Xers and Boomers seem to be the worst offenders and also surprisingly, the most belligerent when confronted.
If you're going to try either approach (this app, or asking), please do not be surprised if you find yourself in a rapidly escalating confrontation that may quickly result in physical violence.
Sometimes, this calculus is more than worth it, sometimes it's not, but just don't think it can't happen.
To be fair, the callousnes of the people blastimg any audio in public is just beyond me.
And I’ll most definitely use this for its intended use, great way to solve that problem. Nice job
made with spite and web audio api. do whatever you want with it.One option is to politely ask someone if they have headphones and/or to turn it down.
Cont’d from ^: you can often lubricate the situation by giving some “reason” that lets the other person save face. You can be genuine or creative or both. (You might say you just really had a rough day and would appreciate quiet.)
As a point of comparison, think about how many drivers forget to turn on their headlights even after the sun goes down. Some fraction of people screw up in spite of their self-interest.
If you are genuinely afraid of speaking to someone, listen to your gut. Just try to check this against reality… if this happens at 1000X the rate of crime in the area, you might be miscalibrated.
You might consider talking to Mr Blaring McLoud without mentioning your annoyance at first. This might help get you one step closer to asking nicely later.
Some people are genuinely unaware, so erring on the side of kindness is a smart step one. Even when asking nicely without snark or impugning someone’s pride, you might still face rude behavior. I like the phrase “don’t mistake kindness for weakness.” You can walk away and figure out what you want to do next, knowing that you gave the other person a chance.
Nice.
My wife is a speech pathologist and hooked me up to a DAF machine for some research, and the effect was totally shocking to me as a layperson. I think I did worse than average, but I was basically unable to speak with delayed sidetone.
We don't even get to see it in action! It's just the code, a gesture at what's possible if one could be bothered to pull the repo and run it themselves. "person asks LLM for an app that does audio recording and playback with a delay". fascinating, thank you
P.S. the so called "discussion" thread linked in the repo is wild. "Garbage will be there everywhere... Have zero hope in the political system regardless of party in power" what does this have to do with anything man, i'm just trying to look at cool dev articles
Fun light hearted github, that will passively agressively get someone killed.
for me, the worst offenders are men watching sports on public transportation or restaurants. I hate it, but I think different cultures have different norms.
Social pressure is a real thing and it affects both behaviour and outcomes, it’d be silly to ignore that.
I actually agree with this. And similarly, I'd argue that it's more socially acceptable to use this audio repeater than to "nicely" confront someone who is so brazenly violating social norms.
I also disagree with the entire premise that it’s about courage in the first place. You can have the courage but decide the other method simply has less downsides. No need to pretend otherwise.
By the way, I've noticed that the younger crowd in India leans much more toward egalitarianism and tends to reject bizarre social constructs like caste. The fact that a young guy also thought of this solution speaks to their ingenuity as well.
There is no singular solution that fits all situations. This entire discussion is pointless.
This is a fish shell function but you can probably get claude code to convert it to bash or zsh
function STFU
#alsa records incoming audio from the default input device for 2 seconds
arecord --duration 2 echo.wav
#alsa plays back the echo.wav of the recorded audio file
aplay echo.wav
#Ctrl+C when the target looks your way!!!
end
STFU
(Yes this is post is entirely sarcasm, except that I do use fish as my default shell.)
I don't think a rights-based framing is the best way to look at this. It's about courtesy and respect for social norms.
I don't see how society is becoming too intolerant, if anything I think we are more tolerant of anti-social behavior than ever before.
You are the one defending anti-social behavior here.
If you don't like noise, don't go outside where other humans are. If you use psychological manipulation because you think people are playing videos too loud, maybe take a deep look in the mirror before talking about courtesy and respect.
I'll also take into consideration whether or not you appear to be homeless if you stink (choosing not to shower and deciding not to shower are two different things). I'll take into consideration who it sounds like you're talking to when you're telling on the phone ("are you ok" vs interminable conversations on speakerphone in the break room/restaurant/other public places). If you're playing loud music in your car, before calling you out I'll consider whether the doors are open (you might not realize) or if you have the windows open (sharing your music choices with the world).
Consideration is the entire point. It doesn't mean letting people do whatever they like, it means judging (thinking about) then before doing anything. You have every like right to play your video, and I have every right to get annoyed at you for doing it without being considerate yourself.
Considerate: 1. Having or showing regard for the needs or feelings of others. synonym: thoughtful. Similar: thoughtful 2. Characterized by careful thought; deliberate. 3. Given to consideration or to sober reflection; regardful of consequences or circumstances; circumspect; careful; esp. careful of the rights, claims, and feelings of others.