Here's one I don't know how to solve: at work some folks take meetings in the bathroom. They're on their phone, they walk to a stall, do their... business while doing their business, all the while talking and listening, while toilets flush in the background.
I understand cultural differences but taking business meetings in the bathroom seems inappropriate under effectively all circumstances.
I regularly engage in meetings when taking a dump, but only when I'm working from home, and of course flushing only on mute. I don't have a problem with that, the other side has no idea where I am anyway.
Robert Caro, in the LBJ series, wrote about how LBJ would use the discomfort of being the bathroom as a negotiating technique and a show of dominance. He would drag senators into the bathroom and force them to listen to him talk as he used the urinal, or force his staffers to take dictation as he took a shit.
A previous CTO at my company would do this and it always weirded me out. Standing at the urinal, and suddenly hear him talking to a customer over in the stall. Very strange and uncomfortable.
I won't lie, though, I secretly enjoyed timing flushes to match when he was talking.
I understand the overwhelming opposition to this, and I wouldn't do it myself. However, I lead a life of very few meetings (I'd actually appreciate more--this stance puts me in a very small company, to be sure), so it's easy for me to say that one should be more judicious with one's timing.
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.
As a matter of fact, I do NOT understand the overwhelming opposition to this. What's your deal if a guy is good at multitasking and people on the other end of the wire don't mind it? It isn't like he is desecrating a temple, or intruding into your home and using your toilet, or jerking off in the public... Wait, actually I'd say even the latter shouldn't be your business, unless he stains something. Why cannot people mind their own business?
this is, and forgive me the lowering of quality discourse here, what ripping one’s loudest farts and triple flushing is for. if they are so important that they can live through the embarrassment that i would assume 99.9% of people would feel in that situation, then good on ‘em.
Have you thought it could be because of the pressure they're getting at work? Today you're forced to work when you're sick, to do your business while doing your business...
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?
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.
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.
How do you deal with the small possibility that the offending person is unhinged (since they’ve already chosen to throw out societal mores out the window) and could physically hurt you?
In the style of cheap tiktoks: "There are two types of people...". My wife loves listening to her phone on max volume, but it sounds so bad compared to half decent speakers.
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.
It's not unreasonable to expect certain behavior in a shared space.
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.
You touched a nerve for me — folks hiking with Bluetooth speakers. My god that grinds my gears. I can see an argument for playing music (at reasonable volume) while relaxing at a camp site, but on the trail it’s as aggravating as a dirt bike or snowmobile ripping along near by.
In potentially-dangerous-animal country (e.g. grizzly bears, mountain lions, etc), it could be a safety mechanism...I was told repeatedly you need to make some kind of distinctive noise regularly so they won't get startled by you rounding a bend.
those people, i've encountered them too, don't give a shit about anything let alone being safe around wildlife. If prey distress calls could be confused with music they'd be blaring that just as well.
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.
I'm one of those people - I find any "in-ear" headphone/earbud to be outrageously uncomfortable.
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 can't stand the way earbuds feel. That's why I wear over-the-ear headphones or bone-conducting headphones. There are so many options for personal audio. Even if you're truly allergic to all of them, that doesn't give you the right to inflict your noise on others.
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.
I'm with you. IMO sound pollution is no different than 2nd hand smoke. IMO It should not be anyone's right to impose upon others, especially when there are lower externality options. Wear headphones.
"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.
> I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers.
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.
Side benefit: Our electric push mower has enough LED lights on it for some reason that I can mow after sunset. I've mowed the grass at 9pm without disturbing anyone and its magic.
I only moved halfway. I had some electronic failure in one of my more expensive battery powered purchases, and the thing was just dead. There's no servicing it for any reasonable cost. For more important things, I'd rather have a two stroke engine I can work on myself. For everything else, battery operated is the way to go.
> Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker.
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...
> 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!!
Washington Department of Natural Resources recommended bluetooth speaker playlists for hiking:
I find it absurd that music in cafés and restaurants has become so loud that it’s hard to have conversations with the people on your table. Sound pollution is a real thing.
>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!!
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)
I am with you on speakers on a nature hike, but I think the line blurs a bit in a city context. As long as it's not extremely loud, I find it slightly more difficult to hate on the person playing some music and moderate volume while trucks and loud motorcycles go by. If we had less of a car culture, I might feel differently about it, but there's so much noise already that in that context I kind of shrug my shoulders at it.
I think the following line puts it into more context:
> 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.
> 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!!
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 access to...
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.
Yea, with you on that one. Headphones are great at the house where I have a controlled environment. When I'm out and listening to things I'll typically only use one at a time because it's easy to miss very important, possibly deadly things.
They're obviously not the most affordable things around, but if you have an iPhone and spending ~US$250 on a pair of wireless earbuds won't unduly stress your budget, the transparency mode on AirPods Pro is great for this.
Wearing headphones while hiking is uncomfortable, and wearing earbuds for any length of time is always uncomfortable - hiking or not. They also fall out.
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.
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.
It is a big deal. It means for a lot of people there's nowhere they can go to actually enjoy the sound of nature. The strategy of getting ahead or staying behind doesn't work when there are switchbacks or crowded trails. The strategy that does work is to get fit enough to go deep into the backcountry because the troglodytes that bring speakers to hikes lack the disciple to ever get that far.
Yes, you are a crank, but you are not alone. Either way, we should at least acknowledge the crankiness.
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.
> 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.
What if it interferes with my desire to NOT listen to their music on their bluetooth speaker?
Often when I encounter a person loudly listening to music or videos on their phone in a cafe, it's because they are completely unaware of how loud they are or they obviously have some challenging psychological issues ( I live in SF ).
I have a lot of wired headphones I got off of Temu, I just give them a pair.
Of the three you mention, only one is the law in every public land place I've hiked.[1]
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 is willful misreading. They specifically also said “social norms”.
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.
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.
> 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 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.
> Most people are reasonable, and act in anti-social ways due to lack of awareness not malice.
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.
I've been on both ends of this. One of the local parks allowed for permits to use amplified sound which we took advantage of about once a month weather permitting. Lots of complaints to the point I often interacted with police. We showed them the permit, we'd show dB readings from a meter, the police would leave, we'd keep going. It's a public place being used in a way allowed by those that be. There's no bluetooth speaker today that can compare to our use of amplified sound.
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.
A public park and a trail have very different meanings in my mind. When I say that I have encountered this on a trail, I'm specifically referring to trails in places which are designated wilderness areas, which are not subject to any ordinance. The US has a lot of national parks, national wilderness, and BLM land that is completely open to the public. That's a wonderful thing, but it also does not make sense to call for a park ranger to get involved in what is fundamentally a discontent at someone else's anti-social behavior, when I can simply have a conversation with them.
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.
I might be in a minority saying this - and particularly so here on HN - but I struggle to understand why you'd be willing to use a tool like this, as OP did, but not to politely ask someone to keep it down?
I have seen fights break out in the subway over people being loud. People playing loud music in public often seem to be the types to be looking for trouble, they want someone to tell them to turn it down, so they can say no and escalate. In a lot of cities this is a big risk.
To this point, there have been at least a few stories of elderly people being beaten on San Francisco public transit for politely asking people to turn their music down.
My wife and I were sitting in the coffee shop/dining area of our grocery store not long ago, eating breakfast before we bought our groceries. There's a gentleman who's usually there on the same weekend days that we are, and he watches videos on his phone very loudly. It was clearly annoying everyone around, but this being Minnesota, nobody was going to bother him about it (instead they just do little glances over their shoulder or the "OPE" eyes at each other lol).
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.
Because social anxiety, typically. “What if the person tells me to fuck off? What if they make a scene of it?” Especially if six years ago you are the person who was in your teenage years, chances are your social skills are not what they could be if you didn’t spend a year in lockdowns.
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.
I follow that, and it's something I've struggled with in the past, but doesn't this sort of solution make them more likely to tell you to fuck off or to make a scene, rather than less?
Imagine you are sitting in public watching TikTok videos and someone sitting two seats down from you just turns on this app. Are you more likely to say “hey sorry mate I didn’t realize it was bothering you.” or are you more likely to turn it up louder and/or tell them to fuck off?
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.
This feels like a case of imaginary revenge. I doubt the tool was actually used. Creating this tool was part of a revenge fantasy.
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.
"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"
I left my Mac on top of my car in San Francisco once and the next day when I came back it was still there. The thing with catastrophic events that occur at 1% is that even if everyone were to risk it ten times (that's a huge amount for this I think) 9 out of every 10 people would say "nah, nothing happens, I've done it ten times without anything happening" but then 1 out of 10 would die.
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.
in my experience, the more polite you are, the more likely you are to get punched in the face
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.
Yeah except being passive aggressive actually tends to escalate the situation. Because sometimes people will just respond to a polite question, but now you've just been the same asshole to them, so there is a higher chance that they're just going to get offended.
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 believe it's like that in Germany and Scanda as well, from what I hear.
In Sweden I have seen Swedes telling-off immigrants or people who don’t look Scandinavian for all sorts of ‘social infringements’ (parking wrongly, wearing shoes in the wrong place, pretty much any other minor infraction you can imagine).
But I can honestly say that in the past 25 years I have never, ever seen them saying anything remotely like this to another Swede.
> But I can honestly say that in the past 25 years I have never, ever seen them saying anything remotely like this to another Swede.
Let me guess, you live in Stockholm?
As a Swede, I have definitely seen Swedes telling-off other Swedes and I even do it, recent examples: driving/parking like an asshole, being obnoxious, walking in the bike lane, not looking where they are going. I don't care if they're a Swede or a martian, it makes no difference to me,
Years ago, I wanted to build this exact concept into a smartphone so I could just toggle it on whenever I needed to end an interminably long phone conversation.
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.
I imagine they keep their headphones on or play it off as the device doing it on it's own. The "work" of having to solve the problem hasn't gone away, but it has been translated from social into lying by omission and performative contradiction.
EDIT: By performative contradiction I mean doing the thing the person is doing to demonstrate the contradiction.
> app that plays back the same audio it hears, delayed by ~2 seconds.
> 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?
There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure if it's made anymore, but there's a DIY kit that appears to do the same thing: https://www.adafruit.com/product/73
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.
Wow, this is clever. Yeah, the headphone out can push out a signal like 1 volt at low current, but this is likely enough for the IR LED to "light up". I really like this idea.
There was a guy who sold a chip for that which you fitted to a car keyfob. In the olden days of the late 80s, Valeo used a pretty insecure not-rolling-code infrared thing for central locking systems.
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.
Okay, but... people with loud phones/voices in public places are absolutely fine with it because they don't care about anybody else's space or opinion of them. And they very likely are not afraid of instigating confrontation or assault either.
He's not completely wrong though. I was assaulted (pushed and fell to the ground) for asking someone to turn down their music at a pool. And I think I've asked less than 20 people in my life to turn down their music.
It 100% depends where you're at and the culture of that place, along with your perceived threat level.
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.
The idea that 12 lines of vibe coded JavaScript prompted because someone was too scared to talk to someone disturbing him (but not enough to take a creep shot and blast him on Twitter) could make it to the top post of this website is quite sad.
I love this… have been thinking about exactly this technology for years but combined with phased array directional loudspeaker and shotgun mic. Deploy during major political speech, instantly shut down brain of speaker, would appear to be an internal malfunction
People blasting awful music any time of the day or night, anywhere (neighbours, beachgoers, public park, transit) is enough of a problem in my country (Brazil) that arduino/Raspberry Pi/ESP32-based bluetooth jammers are somewhat common.
I would never try to use it though, as you can very realistically get killed in retaliation.
How could you get in trouble (aside of this probably being illegal, at least I know it is in my country)? How would people know that you are jamming the signal, and not someone else?
I saw a video a few years ago with people speaking into microphones connected to a digital delay attached to headphones they wore. With something like a 200 - 300ms delay most people could only speak a few words before becoming unable to speak intelligibly.
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.
Hilarious. When working on a virtual reality VOIP product, someone added a test mode that played back your own speech with a delay. It was like part of your brain shut off, was a surprisingly strong effect.
I'm old enough to remember when cell phones were primarily used for voice calls. Sometimes you'd hear yourself when you were trying to talk to someone, and it was infuriating. You'd have to hang up and call back, if the call was going to go on any length of time.
That reminds of seeing Mike Rowe do something like this that just broke my brain of doing exactly that for extended periods of time for voice over work.
There was an exhibit at the Exploratorium demonstrating a similar effect. You speak into a device and it plays your voice back to you delayed. If you're also listening for the other person this makes it impossible to speak. You can easily ignore it by just not paying attention to the audio back but it's surprising how, if you have to listen, this delay ruins everything. Someone saying a different thing, on the other hand, is easy to listen to while speaking.
I'm a musician, and any delay between the sound coming direct from my instrument and from my headphones completely bollixes my ability to play.This made online jam sessions with an acoustic instrument impossible.
this whole app is just theatrical programming. a vibe coded repo built so this guy could share a made-up anecdote about when he was passive-aggressive at the airport. By the author's own admission, even the name "STFU" was ripped from someone else's app that does the exact same thing
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
Yea it can basically short circuit your thinking when trying to talk, BUT oddly enough it helps with stuttering with a short enough interval. There's in-ear attachments people can use that do this exact thing and it helps reduce the amount of stuttering and the brain getting stuck on a sound. My brother uses one, its crazy how it works
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.
My personal take is that having phone conversations at normal speaker volume is fine because people also talk amongst each other in public and there is no substantial difference, but watching videos or even listening to music on loud speaker is not okay because it's a public nuisance.
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.
There is a substantial difference between people talking amongst themselves and one person on a phone.
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.
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.
I wonder if the future of AI is that we all just create our own programs out of thin air like this. Like if I need something, I just describe it to AI, and within seconds, it's generated and ready to use.
Operating systems become redundant; you open any digital device, and it's just a portal into the most advanced LLM on the planet.
So now there is two obnoxious people blaring sound? If you didn't have the courage to speak up, how are you going to have the courage to disrupt them and others?
The fact that this occurred in Bombay is important context. In India, the culture amongst older people is to have a clear sense of where you fit in the hierarchy. You might be verbally abusive to those who you consider below you, but you will remain silent and deferent to those who are considered economically/socially superior. This manifests as a certain class of people who have never been called out on any of their obnoxious behavior, because their economic/social status has shielded them from criticism for their entire lives. Meanwhile a majority of society is perfectly accustomed to being verbally abused, to the point where someone like me saying "please" and "thank you" makes it clear that I am of the Indian diaspora.
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.
You don't have to figure out what to say back to the person. It is hearing their own self that makes them want to STFU. Apparently hearing their voice is just as annoying to them as it is to us?
Think it through just a tiny bit more. It’s more socially acceptable to be angry back at someone who is confronting you directly than someone who may or may not be making an example of you but in a passive way. Therefore it’s less likely the other individual will confront you back, or perhaps more importantly it would make them look more unreasonable for doing so.
Social pressure is a real thing and it affects both behaviour and outcomes, it’d be silly to ignore that.
> It’s more socially acceptable to be angry back at someone who is confronting you directly than someone who may or may not be making an example of you but in a passive way.
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.
Does it really take "courage" to speak up in cases like this? If anything, it's just as insulting to point out to an adult that playing loud audio in a crowded public place is inappropriate, as if they didn't know that!
Yes, it does take courage, the person doing it is likely to react poorly and it could easily escalate into a physical altercation.
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.
It can create an awkward situation which a lot of people are averse to. For example, I wouldn't speak up on other forms of public transport, but in airports in particular I go on a warpath.
I think it's worse that you have to behave maliciously. They have a right to make sound in public places. I'm not one of those people who plays stuff on full volume in public places but sometimes I am a bit noisy. I think back to when I'm having fun and it often involves a bunch of noise. Society is becoming way too intolerant and conformist.
Why not use headphones, so you can enjoy noise without bothering people who don’t like noise? Some noise can be uncomfortable to people at an airport. Movies with gunfire or shouting for example.
If they have a right to play their sounds in a public place, then I also have the right to play the same sounds in the same public place at almost, but not exactly, the same time.
Airports aren't outside and they have a natural tendency to irritate people just by nature of existing. They aren't nice places and there's no need to make it worse by playing annoying TikToks
Here's one I don't know how to solve: at work some folks take meetings in the bathroom. They're on their phone, they walk to a stall, do their... business while doing their business, all the while talking and listening, while toilets flush in the background.
I understand cultural differences but taking business meetings in the bathroom seems inappropriate under effectively all circumstances.
I regularly engage in meetings when taking a dump, but only when I'm working from home, and of course flushing only on mute. I don't have a problem with that, the other side has no idea where I am anyway.
Robert Caro, in the LBJ series, wrote about how LBJ would use the discomfort of being the bathroom as a negotiating technique and a show of dominance. He would drag senators into the bathroom and force them to listen to him talk as he used the urinal, or force his staffers to take dictation as he took a shit.
I have seen more than one CEOs of big companies do this. The number VPs is probably a lot more.
A previous CTO at my company would do this and it always weirded me out. Standing at the urinal, and suddenly hear him talking to a customer over in the stall. Very strange and uncomfortable.
I won't lie, though, I secretly enjoyed timing flushes to match when he was talking.
I understand the overwhelming opposition to this, and I wouldn't do it myself. However, I lead a life of very few meetings (I'd actually appreciate more--this stance puts me in a very small company, to be sure), so it's easy for me to say that one should be more judicious with one's timing.
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.
As a matter of fact, I do NOT understand the overwhelming opposition to this. What's your deal if a guy is good at multitasking and people on the other end of the wire don't mind it? It isn't like he is desecrating a temple, or intruding into your home and using your toilet, or jerking off in the public... Wait, actually I'd say even the latter shouldn't be your business, unless he stains something. Why cannot people mind their own business?
I do not wish to hear anyone else's bathroom noises. Yes, we all use the bathroom. No, I still don't want to hear anyone else doing it.
There’s a difference between passively listening to a meeting and actively participating, while being in the bathroom.
I would never do either. But one is less weird than the other.
Just join in the conversation. People hate that for some reason.
this is, and forgive me the lowering of quality discourse here, what ripping one’s loudest farts and triple flushing is for. if they are so important that they can live through the embarrassment that i would assume 99.9% of people would feel in that situation, then good on ‘em.
Have you thought it could be because of the pressure they're getting at work? Today you're forced to work when you're sick, to do your business while doing your business...
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?
Go to the stall next door, play pooping and farting noises on your phone, very loudly.
I really don't need a phone to do that. That's what I'm in there for already.
Agree that this is very annoying and I can’t imagine taking calls much less having discussions while on the toilet.
Report it to HR
If the Supreme Court can do it then why not Jan in backend dev?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/politics/toilet-flush-supreme...
Under what punishable figure, pissing while working?
HR is not merely about punitive measures.
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.
This is a fun app.
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.
How do you deal with the small possibility that the offending person is unhinged (since they’ve already chosen to throw out societal mores out the window) and could physically hurt you?
In the style of cheap tiktoks: "There are two types of people...". My wife loves listening to her phone on max volume, but it sounds so bad compared to half decent speakers.
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.
It's not unreasonable to expect certain behavior in a shared space.
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.
You touched a nerve for me — folks hiking with Bluetooth speakers. My god that grinds my gears. I can see an argument for playing music (at reasonable volume) while relaxing at a camp site, but on the trail it’s as aggravating as a dirt bike or snowmobile ripping along near by.
I think it’s cultural to do this or something.
In potentially-dangerous-animal country (e.g. grizzly bears, mountain lions, etc), it could be a safety mechanism...I was told repeatedly you need to make some kind of distinctive noise regularly so they won't get startled by you rounding a bend.
those people, i've encountered them too, don't give a shit about anything let alone being safe around wildlife. If prey distress calls could be confused with music they'd be blaring that just as well.
I've heard many people say the cannot stand they way earbuds feel. Just like many people said they could not breath wearing a mask.
I can sympathize with this, but
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.
Why would earbuds be the defacto standard here? Get headphones. They're great, I promise. I'll even send a link https://www.bestbuy.com/product/sennheiser-momemtum-4-wirele...
I recommend Koss Porta Pros with Yaxi pads.
I'm one of those people - I find any "in-ear" headphone/earbud to be outrageously uncomfortable.
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 can't stand the way earbuds feel. That's why I wear over-the-ear headphones or bone-conducting headphones. There are so many options for personal audio. Even if you're truly allergic to all of them, that doesn't give you the right to inflict your noise on others.
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.
There are a lot of different types of headphones.
Just get the shower style ones.
I'm with you. IMO sound pollution is no different than 2nd hand smoke. IMO It should not be anyone's right to impose upon others, especially when there are lower externality options. Wear headphones.
"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.
Secondhand smoke is toxic and physically damages your body and enters your bloodstream.
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.
> I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers.
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.
Side benefit: Our electric push mower has enough LED lights on it for some reason that I can mow after sunset. I've mowed the grass at 9pm without disturbing anyone and its magic.
I only moved halfway. I had some electronic failure in one of my more expensive battery powered purchases, and the thing was just dead. There's no servicing it for any reasonable cost. For more important things, I'd rather have a two stroke engine I can work on myself. For everything else, battery operated is the way to go.
> Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker.
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...
So, people playing music around them is bad, and people playing music just to themselves is also bad?
> 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!!
Washington Department of Natural Resources recommended bluetooth speaker playlists for hiking:
https://unofficialnetworks.com/2022/08/20/washington-roasts-...
I find it absurd that music in cafés and restaurants has become so loud that it’s hard to have conversations with the people on your table. Sound pollution is a real thing.
I bet it's by design. If you actually make things pleasant you might accidentally create a third place and no one can profit from that!
hey, it's hard for the employees to enjoy their muzak over the din of all of your conversations!
>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!!
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)
I am with you on speakers on a nature hike, but I think the line blurs a bit in a city context. As long as it's not extremely loud, I find it slightly more difficult to hate on the person playing some music and moderate volume while trucks and loud motorcycles go by. If we had less of a car culture, I might feel differently about it, but there's so much noise already that in that context I kind of shrug my shoulders at it.
I don't think this is really the idea behind this post
It's about enclosed spaces (airport) or open, quiet ones (hiking)
I get you, I also prefer quiet.
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 think the following line puts it into more context:
> 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.
Just unsolicited sharing of their own personal preferences with the rest of the forum readers
I think he means that electric handheld lawn equipment should be much quieter than gas-fired lawn equipment which is an infamous nuisance
> 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!!
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 access to...
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.
Yea, with you on that one. Headphones are great at the house where I have a controlled environment. When I'm out and listening to things I'll typically only use one at a time because it's easy to miss very important, possibly deadly things.
They're obviously not the most affordable things around, but if you have an iPhone and spending ~US$250 on a pair of wireless earbuds won't unduly stress your budget, the transparency mode on AirPods Pro is great for this.
Wearing headphones while hiking is uncomfortable, and wearing earbuds for any length of time is always uncomfortable - hiking or not. They also fall out.
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.
https://shokz.com
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.
It is a big deal. It means for a lot of people there's nowhere they can go to actually enjoy the sound of nature. The strategy of getting ahead or staying behind doesn't work when there are switchbacks or crowded trails. The strategy that does work is to get fit enough to go deep into the backcountry because the troglodytes that bring speakers to hikes lack the disciple to ever get that far.
Yes, you are a crank, but you are not alone. Either way, we should at least acknowledge the crankiness.
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.
> 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.
What if it interferes with my desire to NOT listen to their music on their bluetooth speaker?
> There's a lot more outdoors for you to use as well so rather that stewing
There are also many deep caves in which you can listen to music on speakers. Why aren't 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.
Often when I encounter a person loudly listening to music or videos on their phone in a cafe, it's because they are completely unaware of how loud they are or they obviously have some challenging psychological issues ( I live in SF ).
I have a lot of wired headphones I got off of Temu, I just give them a pair.
> How people spend their time outdoors is not up to you or I to decide.
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.
Of the three you mention, only one is the law in every public land place I've hiked.[1]
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 is willful misreading. They specifically also said “social norms”.
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.
100%
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.
I can assure you some of them also very much apply in the ocean.
This is probably the most perfect illustration of toxic empathy I have ever read.
> 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 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.
> Most people are reasonable, and act in anti-social ways due to lack of awareness not malice.
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.
I've been on both ends of this. One of the local parks allowed for permits to use amplified sound which we took advantage of about once a month weather permitting. Lots of complaints to the point I often interacted with police. We showed them the permit, we'd show dB readings from a meter, the police would leave, we'd keep going. It's a public place being used in a way allowed by those that be. There's no bluetooth speaker today that can compare to our use of amplified sound.
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.
Local parks are quite different from hiking trails.
A public park and a trail have very different meanings in my mind. When I say that I have encountered this on a trail, I'm specifically referring to trails in places which are designated wilderness areas, which are not subject to any ordinance. The US has a lot of national parks, national wilderness, and BLM land that is completely open to the public. That's a wonderful thing, but it also does not make sense to call for a park ranger to get involved in what is fundamentally a discontent at someone else's anti-social behavior, when I can simply have a conversation with them.
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.
It's simple. You do you, but don't bother other people. That's all there is to it.
I might be in a minority saying this - and particularly so here on HN - but I struggle to understand why you'd be willing to use a tool like this, as OP did, but not to politely ask someone to keep it down?
I have seen fights break out in the subway over people being loud. People playing loud music in public often seem to be the types to be looking for trouble, they want someone to tell them to turn it down, so they can say no and escalate. In a lot of cities this is a big risk.
To this point, there have been at least a few stories of elderly people being beaten on San Francisco public transit for politely asking people to turn their music down.
This app is even more hostile.
The app is more hostile, I agree. Its a bad idea, and a good way to get beaten up.
My wife and I were sitting in the coffee shop/dining area of our grocery store not long ago, eating breakfast before we bought our groceries. There's a gentleman who's usually there on the same weekend days that we are, and he watches videos on his phone very loudly. It was clearly annoying everyone around, but this being Minnesota, nobody was going to bother him about it (instead they just do little glances over their shoulder or the "OPE" eyes at each other lol).
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.
Because social anxiety, typically. “What if the person tells me to fuck off? What if they make a scene of it?” Especially if six years ago you are the person who was in your teenage years, chances are your social skills are not what they could be if you didn’t spend a year in lockdowns.
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.
I follow that, and it's something I've struggled with in the past, but doesn't this sort of solution make them more likely to tell you to fuck off or to make a scene, rather than less?
Imagine you are sitting in public watching TikTok videos and someone sitting two seats down from you just turns on this app. Are you more likely to say “hey sorry mate I didn’t realize it was bothering you.” or are you more likely to turn it up louder and/or tell them to fuck off?
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.
It seems harder to justify telling someone to fuck off for doing literally the exact same thing you're currently doing.
What are they going to make a scene about? You playing audio loudly in a public space? They kind of ran out of legs to stand on a while ago.
> Because social anxiety, typically. “What if the person tells me to fuck off? What if they make a scene of it?”
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.
That’s my point. This tool is pointless because while it is designed to avoid confrontation it nearly guarantees it. A waste of bits, as it were.
It's not social anxiety. It's fear of being shot.
This feels like a case of imaginary revenge. I doubt the tool was actually used. Creating this tool was part of a revenge fantasy.
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.
Have you tried asking many people to "keep it down"? Generally that doesn't end with them politely keeping it down.
I've seen a fistfight on the muni that started from this.
As with anything in life, it depends on how you ask.
You mean
"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"
I left my Mac on top of my car in San Francisco once and the next day when I came back it was still there. The thing with catastrophic events that occur at 1% is that even if everyone were to risk it ten times (that's a huge amount for this I think) 9 out of every 10 people would say "nah, nothing happens, I've done it ten times without anything happening" but then 1 out of 10 would die.
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.
in my experience, the more polite you are, the more likely you are to get punched in the face
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 a way to avoid direct confrontation via passive aggression.
Yeah except being passive aggressive actually tends to escalate the situation. Because sometimes people will just respond to a polite question, but now you've just been the same asshole to them, so there is a higher chance that they're just going to get offended.
Agreed. Especially since something like this seems much more likely to get the other person to turn on you. It’s passive aggressive.
lol this is a very good point
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.
I mean, he took a picture of the guy posted it on his twitter calling him a 'fat uncle'. I don't think he cares about being polite.
Is "fat uncle" a slang I don't know about?
In some Asian cultures, "uncle" can be used to refer to any man older than yourself.
Is uncle just old unmarried guy?
i would hope you're not the minority. i'm in your camp.
Very funny!
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 believe it's like that in Germany and Scanda as well, from what I hear.
In Sweden I have seen Swedes telling-off immigrants or people who don’t look Scandinavian for all sorts of ‘social infringements’ (parking wrongly, wearing shoes in the wrong place, pretty much any other minor infraction you can imagine).
But I can honestly say that in the past 25 years I have never, ever seen them saying anything remotely like this to another Swede.
> But I can honestly say that in the past 25 years I have never, ever seen them saying anything remotely like this to another Swede.
Let me guess, you live in Stockholm?
As a Swede, I have definitely seen Swedes telling-off other Swedes and I even do it, recent examples: driving/parking like an asshole, being obnoxious, walking in the bike lane, not looking where they are going. I don't care if they're a Swede or a martian, it makes no difference to me,
What's old is new again!
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speec...
> In general, human speech is jammed by giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds
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.
Years ago, I wanted to build this exact concept into a smartphone so I could just toggle it on whenever I needed to end an interminably long phone conversation.
It’s basically the “Chinese food” Seinfeld gag.
See also:
https://improbable.com/2021/09/03/2012-japanese-ig-nobel-pri...
Indian-american here. Thank you for this!
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.
One of my favorite web apps for testing your microphone and camera has this echo feature built in, with 0s, 1s and 3s delay:
https://webcammictest.com/mic/
In the 80's we had a way to deal with that kind of thing [1]. Just gotta practice to get the technique right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GyHQiuneU
I had this exact scene in my mind and I am glad I am not alone, friend
Exactly! Also, that random ride across the bridge towards Marin is taking forever
> me being me, didn't have the courage to speak up
I hardly imagine a situation where speaking up is less "couraging" than using such tool to mock annoying person.
I think the word you're looking for is courageous.
I imagine they keep their headphones on or play it off as the device doing it on it's own. The "work" of having to solve the problem hasn't gone away, but it has been translated from social into lying by omission and performative contradiction.
EDIT: By performative contradiction I mean doing the thing the person is doing to demonstrate the contradiction.
> app that plays back the same audio it hears, delayed by ~2 seconds.
> 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.
At my old job I had a phone that had IR remote capability. I'd turn off or mute the blaring TVs in our break rooms. Good times.
There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure if it's made anymore, but there's a DIY kit that appears to do the same thing: https://www.adafruit.com/product/73
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.
When iPhones still had the headphone port, a friend of mine soldered a IR led on top of a minijack, something like this:
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.
Wow, this is clever. Yeah, the headphone out can push out a signal like 1 volt at low current, but this is likely enough for the IR LED to "light up". I really like this idea.
The original TV-B-Gone [0][1] was designed by the legendary Mitch Altman [2].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone
[1] https://www.tvbgone.com/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman
The Woz would be so proud
There was a guy who sold a chip for that which you fitted to a car keyfob. In the olden days of the late 80s, Valeo used a pretty insecure not-rolling-code infrared thing for central locking systems.
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.
> There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device.
Not sure about that one either but its functionality has been cloned for the Flipper Zero [1]
[1] https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/
https://idiallo.com/blog/teaching-my-neighbor-to-keep-the-vo...
Okay, but... people with loud phones/voices in public places are absolutely fine with it because they don't care about anybody else's space or opinion of them. And they very likely are not afraid of instigating confrontation or assault either.
In my experience 99% of people will turn down the volume or use headphones if you ask nicely.
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
He's not completely wrong though. I was assaulted (pushed and fell to the ground) for asking someone to turn down their music at a pool. And I think I've asked less than 20 people in my life to turn down their music.
It 100% depends where you're at and the culture of that place, along with your perceived threat level.
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.
The idea that 12 lines of vibe coded JavaScript prompted because someone was too scared to talk to someone disturbing him (but not enough to take a creep shot and blast him on Twitter) could make it to the top post of this website is quite sad.
Very similar in theory to Bob Widlar's legendary "hassler" circuit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Widlar#Personality
I love this… have been thinking about exactly this technology for years but combined with phased array directional loudspeaker and shotgun mic. Deploy during major political speech, instantly shut down brain of speaker, would appear to be an internal malfunction
People blasting awful music any time of the day or night, anywhere (neighbours, beachgoers, public park, transit) is enough of a problem in my country (Brazil) that arduino/Raspberry Pi/ESP32-based bluetooth jammers are somewhat common.
I would never try to use it though, as you can very realistically get killed in retaliation.
How could you get in trouble (aside of this probably being illegal, at least I know it is in my country)? How would people know that you are jamming the signal, and not someone else?
I saw a video a few years ago with people speaking into microphones connected to a digital delay attached to headphones they wore. With something like a 200 - 300ms delay most people could only speak a few words before becoming unable to speak intelligibly.
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.
Hilarious. When working on a virtual reality VOIP product, someone added a test mode that played back your own speech with a delay. It was like part of your brain shut off, was a surprisingly strong effect.
I'm old enough to remember when cell phones were primarily used for voice calls. Sometimes you'd hear yourself when you were trying to talk to someone, and it was infuriating. You'd have to hang up and call back, if the call was going to go on any length of time.
That reminds of seeing Mike Rowe do something like this that just broke my brain of doing exactly that for extended periods of time for voice over work.
https://youtu.be/J4LhdU3a1KM?t=111
There was an exhibit at the Exploratorium demonstrating a similar effect. You speak into a device and it plays your voice back to you delayed. If you're also listening for the other person this makes it impossible to speak. You can easily ignore it by just not paying attention to the audio back but it's surprising how, if you have to listen, this delay ruins everything. Someone saying a different thing, on the other hand, is easy to listen to while speaking.
On the one hand I love this. Otoh. Will the people who this is supposed to target actually care?
To be fair, the callousnes of the people blastimg any audio in public is just beyond me.
I wonder what fraction of people complaining about inconsiderate behavior in this thread, permanently use high beams when driving.
https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/Pankajtanw...
It's working. Op might consider adding to readme
I'm a musician, and any delay between the sound coming direct from my instrument and from my headphones completely bollixes my ability to play.This made online jam sessions with an acoustic instrument impossible.
this whole app is just theatrical programming. a vibe coded repo built so this guy could share a made-up anecdote about when he was passive-aggressive at the airport. By the author's own admission, even the name "STFU" was ripped from someone else's app that does the exact same thing
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
Audio jacks have to come back.
Isn’t delayed auditory feedback similar to echo?
Yea it can basically short circuit your thinking when trying to talk, BUT oddly enough it helps with stuttering with a short enough interval. There's in-ear attachments people can use that do this exact thing and it helps reduce the amount of stuttering and the brain getting stuck on a sound. My brother uses one, its crazy how it works
Yeah, this immediately made me think of DAF.
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.
It's like a single bounce. Echo effects usually have multiple bounces, each quieter than the one before it.
My personal take is that having phone conversations at normal speaker volume is fine because people also talk amongst each other in public and there is no substantial difference, but watching videos or even listening to music on loud speaker is not okay because it's a public nuisance.
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.
There is a substantial difference between people talking amongst themselves and one person on a phone.
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.
> made with spite
Prompted with spite
You need it to be 200ms not 2 seconds
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.
I wonder if the future of AI is that we all just create our own programs out of thin air like this. Like if I need something, I just describe it to AI, and within seconds, it's generated and ready to use.
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.
Operating systems, no. You still have to access what is going to be standardized hardware and make the analog bits behave digitally at low power.
Applications, yea, 100%.
So now there is two obnoxious people blaring sound? If you didn't have the courage to speak up, how are you going to have the courage to disrupt them and others?
The fact that this occurred in Bombay is important context. In India, the culture amongst older people is to have a clear sense of where you fit in the hierarchy. You might be verbally abusive to those who you consider below you, but you will remain silent and deferent to those who are considered economically/socially superior. This manifests as a certain class of people who have never been called out on any of their obnoxious behavior, because their economic/social status has shielded them from criticism for their entire lives. Meanwhile a majority of society is perfectly accustomed to being verbally abused, to the point where someone like me saying "please" and "thank you" makes it clear that I am of the Indian diaspora.
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.
You don't have to figure out what to say back to the person. It is hearing their own self that makes them want to STFU. Apparently hearing their voice is just as annoying to them as it is to us?
Think it through just a tiny bit more. It’s more socially acceptable to be angry back at someone who is confronting you directly than someone who may or may not be making an example of you but in a passive way. Therefore it’s less likely the other individual will confront you back, or perhaps more importantly it would make them look more unreasonable for doing so.
Social pressure is a real thing and it affects both behaviour and outcomes, it’d be silly to ignore that.
> It’s more socially acceptable to be angry back at someone who is confronting you directly than someone who may or may not be making an example of you but in a passive way.
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.
Does it really take "courage" to speak up in cases like this? If anything, it's just as insulting to point out to an adult that playing loud audio in a crowded public place is inappropriate, as if they didn't know that!
Yes, it does take courage, the person doing it is likely to react poorly and it could easily escalate into a physical altercation.
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.
It can create an awkward situation which a lot of people are averse to. For example, I wouldn't speak up on other forms of public transport, but in airports in particular I go on a warpath.
That person is already ignoring obvious social conventions. People don't want to know which other shitty behaviours they have in store.
solving problems with tech that are solvable with speaking to ppl is crazy social anxiety spares no one
And the award goes to “STFU” for best practical use of AI.
Is fighting antisocial behavior with more antisocial behavior really necessary?
There is no singular solution that fits all situations. This entire discussion is pointless.
I think it's worse that you have to behave maliciously. They have a right to make sound in public places. I'm not one of those people who plays stuff on full volume in public places but sometimes I am a bit noisy. I think back to when I'm having fun and it often involves a bunch of noise. Society is becoming way too intolerant and conformist.
Doesn't the right to make sound in public places extend to the hypothetical users of this app?
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.
Why not use headphones, so you can enjoy noise without bothering people who don’t like noise? Some noise can be uncomfortable to people at an airport. Movies with gunfire or shouting for example.
If they have a right to play their sounds in a public place, then I also have the right to play the same sounds in the same public place at almost, but not exactly, the same time.
No one is saying don't make noise. They are saying be considerate of those around you. It is not a radical idea.
Airports aren't outside and they have a natural tendency to irritate people just by nature of existing. They aren't nice places and there's no need to make it worse by playing annoying TikToks
Go fuck yourself.