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Europe Begins Noise Mapping Effort
Makarand writes "The European continent has begun its fight against noise pollution by initiating a
program
to map noise levels for cities in the European Union with more than 250,000 people.
As placing microphones on every building in London or Paris to measure noise
was not practical, data on the amount of traffic carried by roads and the noise levels was fed into computers to generate a model of noise levels across the city. The model's accuracy was verified by taking readings with microphones at 100 points in the city and was found to be accurate on average to within 1 decibel.
The noise maps will allow planning to insulate the public from noise by directing traffic away from residential areas and making funds available to sound-proof thin walled homes."
Sometimes I wish the U.S. government wasn't spending so much trying to build up the military and instead redirect those funds to building up the national infrastructure.
It especially pangs me when I read about things like this where the British government is spending lots of excess government funds on sound-proofing people's homes.
I have been pwned because my
As placing microphones on every building in London or Paris to measure noise was not practical, data on the amount of traffic carried by roads and the noise levels was fed into computers to generate a model of noise levels across the city. Who says noise comes only from traffic?
I can't even get my landlord to shovel the 3 feet of snow in front of my apartment building.
That article reads like a piece of prose... very nice, but not much good for a news article :)
Anyway... I just play my music so loud I can't hear all the urban noise all around me... (London)... But then I guess that makes me part of the problem
i heard the other day that london had the most hidden cameras in the world. is not being video taped good enough? i guess now they feel they need to get a 100.0 surround sound speaker system going too.
Lets hope they stay away from an empty (and therefor growling) CowboyNeal stomach, as that'll skew the results.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
About time noise pollution was taken seriously. But I'd question the solution...Instead of just diverting traffic, hopefully they look at reducing noisy types of transport and encouraging more quiet forms ---- e.g. light rail, bikes.
I don't think America worried about this as much, as there was always more land, more space, more suburban sprawl. In European areas where land has turned more of a scarcity, then we see this interesting phenonom as a solution. Perhaps the same principals will be applied to more congested American cities too. It seems a good, bottom-up approach: re-routing traffic light signals and road development based upon environmental feedback.
The Custom Mary
"Sometimes I wish the U.S. government wasn't spending so much trying to build up the military and instead redirect those funds to building up the national infrastructure"
The US government is already spending billions and billions on infrastructure. The problem is that so much of the money is wasted, such as on overpaid union "workers" through scams such as the Davis-Bacon Act, designed just to waste a lot more money on government projects.
Does this model take into account the guy two floors down in our apartment block who practices his drumming skills on Saturday and Sunday afternoons?
1 decibel what? A decibel is not a unit. It's a ratio. A power ratio to be exact. 1 dB SPL?
Why don't we outsource it, so instead of a dozen, we can have 36 Indian telecommuters holding SLOW/STOP signs in Bombay?
As placing microphones on every building in London or Paris to measure noise was not practical
The Bush administration today announced strong support for the reduction of noise pollution in America. Environmental organizations, keenly aware of the administration's poor record on pollution, expressed shock at this surprise move.
Making the announcement for the administration were Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and (retired) Admiral John Poindexter. Attorney General Ashcroft explained that the Justice Department would generously fund a pilot project to monitor noise pollution in major urban areas known to harbor dissidents and Democrats. Ashcroft proclaimed that "Everyone, and especially the less-loyal elements in America, have a right to be free of the noise pollution caused by anti-war and anti-World Bank protestors, non-Christians, and really, anyone else who questions authority."
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
For those living in Paris or wanting to move there, there is a noise map available here.
I live in the noisiest part! Time to move to the country.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
"Anyway, here in Toronto you get your picture taken almost everytime you take a cab..."
Hate to break it to you, but that is not a cab. All this time, you've been getting into one of those instant photo booths. This explains why it smells better than you would expect, why you always get a picture, and why when you get out you are always at the same place where you started.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Has been done already. The city of Rotterdam uses a team of human sniffers to measure smell and air polution.
I hope they take into account the noise levels from different seasons. For instance, around where I live, summer and fall are much louder, simply because of the massive amounts of non-stop construction. And I can personally attest that you can hear a jackhammer from farther away than you can hear a police siren.
SPEAK UP, WILL YOU???
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
The E.U. is fishing for ways to limit and regulate its citizens. Next up: freedom pollution.
The money is being spent by the European Union, not the British government. Quite a difference.
Also, this is a survey - and might not lead to pan-European legislation. Even if it does, it could be years before this affects UK govt policy, and the media is likely to rehash the standard arguments about bureaucrats in Brussels (who still haven't been forgiven for mandating the straight banana).
"The E.U. is fishing for ways to limit and regulate its citizens. Next up: freedom pollution"
The European governments already are solving the problem of "Wallet pollution", which is when citizens have filthy lucre in their possession. With ridiculously high taxation rates, the governments are seeing to it that wallets are not polluted with money.
Every family in the entire world could be given a 3 bedroom house on a 1/4 acre plot of land and that would not even begin to take up the entire state of Texas.
As placing microphones on every building in London or Paris to measure noise was not practical, data on the amount of traffic carried by roads and the noise levels was fed into computers to generate a model of noise levels across the city
And an introductory remote sensing/GIS class would tell you that unless you have a Big Laser In Space(tm) you just take sample in accessible places that reflect both the landscape in general and prominent landscape features after that it is all overlay functions, baby. I am kriging as we speak!
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Smell-data? That's a really, really good idea. Gathering data about noise is a good idea, I suppose, but it's really hard to actually DO sommething about it.
"Hey! It's really noisy here next to the freeway!"
Well, no duh, genius. And so what? Are you going to move the freeway?
But stench... I bet there are a lot of complicating factors, like wind direction and speed, air temperature, and the number of hogs per minute passing through the abbatoir down the block, that contribute to how bad it smells at a particlar place and time.
Now, THAT would be worth mapping, over time, because there might be simple things that could be done to alleviate bad smells for lots of people, which might not be apparent without a lot of data points.
Good idea!
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
Translation: Echelon did not co-operate so they had to get background noise from people's cell phones from their own telcos which incedently gave them great traffic data.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Yes, that wasn't humor, since there was no truth about it. Expecially the part about Ashcroft/etc bias against non-Christians (no evidence of that).
Yes, John Ashcroft, the anti-abortion extremist, they call him. Yet, it was on his watch that they caught abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolph.
It also forgets the fact that many of the protesters are very pro-authority. They do not question authority. In fact, they want the authorities to have more power, which is why they oppose free-and-fair-trade, in which individuals make trade decisions instead of governments.
of how complex these issues are, is the national airport in Brussels-Belgium : being such a densely populated country, there's no practical way to have airplanes land & take off without flying over housing areas. And with both traffic and houses increasing, the problem has now reached proportions where people are starting lawsuits against the govt for noise terrorism. Some have dozens of planes flying over at low altitude per night. That's a plane every 10 minutes. You try to sleep with that. Even tripple-isolated glass & roofs can't stop the sound of a cargo airplane. Especially old, russian planes (who have now been ruled illegal for flight)
Allthough, personally i would find the noise the least of my worries : my mother in law lives near another airport (Oostende) After those huge, bulky cargo planes took off, there's a very intense kerosene odor that hangs in the streets for 15-30 minutes, depending on the weather. Yikes !
I don't understand how peeps in Singapore survive this (well.. i gues they don't...)
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
I find it really funny that the American Slashdot users always pop up at the first mention of Europe and start posting "funny" comments like yours, yet the vast majority of you have never even left your home state, let alone gone to another country. Apparently ignorance is now something to be proud of these days, which is really very funny until you find yourself listed in the Darwin awards with a genuinely funny story about how you managed to kill yourself through an act of your your own stupidity.
If any of the words I used in this post were too big for you, just ask and I'll do my best not to answer any questions you might have.
I mean, not that I wouldn't be interested in such an investment myself, but should France get some air conditioning for their elderly first? Who sets the priorities for expenditures in the E.U. anyway?
- people keep their car's engines running while going grocery shopping
- every couple of minutes, some car alarm would signal that NO ONE was trying to pry the respective car open - for ETERNITY.
- every idiot with a remote for his car caused noise every time they opened/closed the damn thing. Nice to have audio feedback feature, but it SUCKS if you're a neighbor trying to sleep
None of the above is legal in Germany. The result is that I can sleep well despite LOTS of cars parking in front of my apartment.
"one where some remenants of socialism still remain. Why shouldn't our tax money be used to improve their standard of living?""
Because socialism is all about improving the standard of living for government elites.
"The "ill concieved government program" is helping improve the country's housing stock. Eventually all houses will be well sound proofed and you've improved everyone's standard of living. What's wrong with that?"
What is wrong with it is that the government meddling ends up pricing the houses higher and higher. You end up with reduced housing stock, and perhaps homelessness.
"Ayn Rand is just as bad a Karl Marx."
Rand is no where near as bad as Marx. Rand inspires people to be merely selfish. Marx inspires them to go out and kill tens of millions of people.
"person buying the sub-standard house might not be able to afford a better one? "
If there was lower taxation and less needless regulation, the person would be better able to afford a better house.
"Wow. We can certainly see that you've never taken the trouble to read Marx, at least"
I've read him. He does a poor job of describing the current situation in the world, and a very poor job of predicting and generalizing. However, it is a fact that he has inspired most of the worst genocidal monsters of the 20th century.
Marx's views have so little to do with the real world that it is not surprising that application of them to the real world has disastrous results.
"Marx inspires them to go out and kill tens of millions of people. "...is a fact. Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, and even Milosevic had Marx as their main inspiration.
Rand, at worst, inspires someone to sit at home and hoard.
Woe. We certainly can see that you have limited your study of Marxism to reading only his words, and have disdained any study of its practice.
Someone purchases a house ["PIG"] with walls that aren't very sound proof ["POKE"]. They presumably knew this at the time of purchase, it would be ridiculous to think otherwise.
Not it's not ridiculous to assume otherwise.
In case you haven't noticed, there are a lot of buyers out there that
- do not thoroughly investigate their purchases,
- are easily swayed by the superficial.
not to mention sellers that are financially motivated to- not disclose or to minimize hidden or long-term problems,
- to emphasize the superficial attractiveness.
Despite 2000+ year old advice and plenty of unscrupulous sellers, there are still plenty of unwary and stupid buyers.We could just say that stupid and unwary people get what they deserve. But I'd hate to live in a society where we encourage intelligent people to learn to profit by deceiving the less intelligent.
Since it's impossible to legislate people into being smarter, it's probably reasonable to legislate awkward regulations that require the home seller to check boxes disclosing substantive issues with homes or to get inspections that include decibel profiles during a week.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Why microphones? Why not a decibel meter? Surely that's the proper tool. Ubiquitous microphones sounds like the seed of yet another Orwellian nightmare.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
"Let me guess, you've never lived anywhere but the United States of America, you've likly never visited any other country, you've never taken a single PolSci course, you've never taken an Econ course, you've never read any actual factual books on any of the subjects you're talking about, you've basically no idea of what the poster whom you are responding too actually said."
Insults and false claims are a dime a dozen on Slashdot. Can you back of any of your claims? No, you cannot. Someone shows a thorough understanding of a subject, going beyond the surface, and all you can do is come up with "is not!"
According to the germany's "noise" map, my mozilla firebird's back button's average noise level is 71 decibels.
So I am a "rabid idiot" for questioning authority, and seeing right through the lie of "We're from the government. We're here to help you."?
Europeans should know better: the problems of beliving the lie "We're from the government. We're here to help you." were quite apparent in Russia for most of the 20th century, and in Germany and Italy mid-century. (two of those situations being caused by socialist governments).
Still no specifics?
"I can guess the things that I infer due to the fact that I do live in a socialist society"
Probably not. If you are in Europe, then you are in a country that is somewhat more socialist than the United States. However, even in Western Europe, most of the economy still remains in the hands of the people, not the state. This likely differs your country from the truly socialist societies that existed in Eastern Europe, in which the state, not the people, controlled the economy.
"The rest of it is hubris, but I'd reckon at least half of my guesses being correct."
Which ones? Specifically?
Europe the continent != the EU, in the same way North America != the USA.
The problem with traffic noise, I would maintain, is not its absolute level (up to a limit of course), but rather the relative difference between minima and maxima.
Example. I would rather live in a tower block looking onto the bvd Peripherique in Paris than in a street-facing apartment in the 5e. Why? Because the sound of traffic on the periph. is fairly constant, whereas if you live in what is generally a quiet street, the sound of some fsking teenager zooming past on a scooter with a tin-can for a silencer will wake you out of any sleep.
The last study done on this concluded that the noise of one scooter crossing Paris at night interrupts the sleep of 250,000 people.
Start by punishing the selfish gits who ride scooters or Harleys. That would eliminate 50% of all complaints about traffic noise.
"The Holy Bible inspired the crusades, the inquisition and the murder of thousands through sectarian violance"
Changing the subject? You won't find any argument of your claims from me. Seems like you are admitting the problems of Marxism.
"Oh sure, they all claimed to be Marxists. "
Hahaha. "They were bad so they were not REAL marxists!" Sorry, this type of marxist is the vast majority.
"The very fact that not one single person you actually list never enacted a true Marxist society "
Most Marxists tend to disagree.
Your argument is nothing more than "what they did was bad, so they were not Marxists." You are ignoring that these results are a tendency of applying Marx to the world.
"Does that make the Bible any less valid as a guide to how to live your life and a general learning tool?"
Probably. It does boil down to religion, doesn't it? Belief in Marx's ideas is a lot like that: based on faith and not fact, can inspire murderous zealots.
The USA is too far gone to break the addiction.
The resultant armsmongering and black market trading among enemies has produced a dangerous state of affairs. The situation is now self-recycling. The more danger in the world, the more military spending is necessary. The more military spending, the more danger in the world.
If USA were to switch today and start spending money on infrastructure, USA would instantly become a target of those USA has offended in the past.
England has the benefit of having been imperialist. USA only plays at half-ass imperialism so it doesn't look like a bad guy. But if USA would just outright conquer the nations it went to war with, and Japanize them, military spending could be cut afterwards.
The solution to the conflict in the world is balls-out American imperialism. Bush knows this (ref. PNAC); his cabinet knows it; his Democratic opposition know it.
Everyone needs to be subjugated and made into productive allies. Then moon and Mars missions, etc. , can really take off.
a large portion of 'traffic noise' is due to bad road surfaces.
e ntinhk/ noise/data/road_surface.html
So, rather than annoying drivers by making them go a longer way round (and therefore increasing congestion and pollution) mending the roads would be a better solution.
Here are some statistics from the Hong Kong govt who are already doing this:
http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environm
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
This is the Paris web-site, mentioned in the article:
b ruit/default.ASP
http://www.paris.fr/FR/Environnement/bruit/carto_
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Sounds like he touched a nerve.
Not really. I was just pointing it out; don't shoot the messenger. After all, I'll be the one laughing when I read the story about how he stuck his hand down the drain only to have the garbage disposal spring to life and snap his hand off.
Criminy. I look down the message tree and see people talking about how "socialism" only makes the problem worse. Okay, let's just let the private airlines decide when and where their planes fly, unhampered by any (socialist) regulation, and then we'll allow the market to decide whether houses under those routes are soundproofed, and how valuable those houses are.
All this does is encourage people to do the cheapest thing possible, then use some ill concieved government program to clean up the mess afterwards. We have some highway construction near my home right now. Part of the project involves some new noise barriers -- walls. Believe it or not, the civil engineers working on the project know about how the acoustics of those walls work, they've done some serious homework about how the local topography will affect bouncing sound, how cars might tend to accelerate and decelerate in certain areas, and so on. Where they're making a somewhat lower wall for a church, they've planted some evergreen trees in a pattern that will soak up as much sound as possible for residents right by the church. And -- gasp -- they let the residents come to city hall to talk about the changes and how they'll affect them.
Welcome to a mixed economy, in which the government has some influence over private industry in the interest of the common good. I kind of like living here; maybe you'll take to it. Or maybe you'd like to have the private airlines put in a new runway and start bringing 747s in low over your back yard, with no power to do squat about it.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
"Err, you do actually understand the difference between Communisit and Socialist, right? Depsite what McCarthy had to say on the subject there is a big difference."
Read Marx on the subject, and see his use of the terms. You equate Marx with McCarthy? How....odd.
I've also read/listened to speeches from leaders such as Fidel Castro, who also swaps the two words all the time. Fidel = McCarthy?
However, in general practice, the term "socialism" is used for different gradations of government control over private matters, and "communist" is used to describe a state that is completely socialist.
I'm curious about all the posts stating that the US should help sound insulate houses too. If you live in a house near any of the many major aiports in the US, it is likely that you are living in a home that has been sound insulated, with the bill being picked up by federal and state governments. I currently live in one (renting) and it's amazing the difference it makes.
Casual Games/Downloads
Nice example of perfectly selective quoting. Whatever; if that's your game you're welcome to it. There is only one last thing I want to point out (In case it wasn't glaringly obvious you yet)
A perfect example of the failure of socialist ideas, at least in the U.S. Neighborhoods were destroyed, and people were kicked out of their homes into tombstone-shaped government-controlled projects where all of the social problems of the slum were made worse. The HUD fatcats got rich though, and the bureacracy grew. The poor suffered in worse squalor while the government expanded its power.
Yeah; in the U.S Guess what though; I'm not in the U.S and I'm not talking about the U.S Here in the U.K, the Socialist reforms of the 50's and 60's improved housing, health and education across the board. Before the slum clearances you couldn't even imagine the sort of conditions people were living in. The clearances did have adverse affects, for example the destruction of previously close communities in the slums. Crime and poor living conditions are still poor on the council estates (The places the slum families moved too) but the conditions are nowhere near as poor as they were back in the slums. It has been an improvment. Not perfect, but an improvment.
"So far you've totally failed to actually show anyone any particular part of Marx's writting which advocates or supports totalitarian rule and the murder of millions of your own people"
That is because I am not a Marxist. I am not among that overwhelming majority of Marxist scholars who interprets Marx's writings to support dictatorships as per Soviet Russia and Cuba. I'm not sure how they do it. I don't know how it inspires, but I know that it does.
"The "end result" of Marxism is for there to be no ruling class at all,"
Yet, whenever it is applied (either by Leninist-Stalinists, or kindhearted Social Democrats in western Europe), it means making the ruling class stronger (from taking over health care or taking over much land down to outlawing non-government-approved religions). This seems to be a near-universsl trait among Marxists and socialists.
"so how can these societies being run by murdering bastards possibly be Marxist? Oh, right, they have centerally managed planned economies. Silly me, that must make them Marxist"
You have a minority-view of Marxism, so you don't understand this. The majority does.
"Silly me, that must make them Marxist. After all, they said they were!"
This is similar to the arguments I see that Catholics are not really Christians.
Incidently, the study will find that the level of noise pollution increased significantly when Cmdr Taco visited London and ate beans and toast. This visit also coincides with the highest level of the greenhouse gas, methane, over the city.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Why is it that the first thing I thought of was nation-wide audio surveilance network? Maybe that's because I was paging through a copy of Futureland... It starts small, but once you have a noise recording network, maybe you can record the audio amplitude spike of a gunshot, and dispatch police to the "crime" . Right now, it's only "10 to 15 computers ... are at work", but once the infrastructure is in place, who's to say they can't re-purpose the system in the future? Right now, its just average amplitude, but crank up the sampling rate, and its a NSA wet dream...
I just don't get it (while laughing at parent)... what's bildeburger? someone from Bildeburg-wherever-that-is or some kind of new meal at McD's? you meant "Bilderberger", right? and what the heck do they have to do with socialism??? :)
ps. you misspelled "Menace" for purpose, didn't you?
no need to find new things to spend money on.
Decibels are a logarithmic scale: an increase of 1 decibel actually corresponds to a 30% increase in noise levels.
Actually I'm surprised it's even that accurate. Traffic levels only get you so far -- the urban environment (architecture, trees) is also extremely important. Under my apartmenet block there's a raised arcade that basically serves as a resonator, making traffic sound louder.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
Why don't they just build roads and highways far away from cities to keep people from hearing them?
Oh wait... nevermind.
Yes. You are aware of the fact that the implementation and maintenance of Marxism requires strong action by the ruling class (government).
Every night I thank my school for giving me the ability to filter out a dozen police cars with sirens going by my dorm, and a damn train not much further away.
Vast majority have never left their home state, hmm?
I suppose that would depend on what state one is from. Texas, Alaska, and Hawaii are basically self-contained nations. If the rest of the contiguous had their way, California would be, too.
Then there are the postage stamps like Delaware and Rhode Island, where you can see across the damned things. Miss your right and you end up in Maryland.
That said, why would we travel to Europe? We left you guys for a reason, remember?
"So far you've totally failed to actually show anyone any particular part of Marx's writting which advocates or supports totalitarian rule "
Some brave AC helped resolve this. Marx speaks of the state withering when everything is owned collectively, right?
Well, the fact is that a strong State is needed to enforce such economic rules, and ownership by a forced collective = control by government. A great intrusion of the force of authority into matters that might otherwise be left to the people.
Many Marxists do not recognize this contradiction, and actually dare to use the term "anarchism" to describe advocacy of a much stronger State.
One example of this is Emma Goldman. She is described as an anarchist, yet most of her political and social effort was invovled with increasing the government's control over people's affairs.
(Sure, having the government mandate limited per-day hours for workers might be a good idea, but it is a step away from anarchism).
Personally, I get annoyed by the sound of a Honda Civic with an open-throat muffler and the constant hammering of Harley's. I'd love to see some enforcement of reasonable noise pollution violations... not just a random smathering of acoustic foam.
"could you provide a quotation from Marx' works that says something about killing people, eradicating people, anihilating people or getting rid of people, whatever?"
There are libraries full of books of Marxist theory about how Mao's and Lenin's actions are made necessary by Marx's words (some of it written by Lenin and Mao). I am not a Marxist myself, so I do not see these justifications explicitly (although Marx's preaching for totalitarian government is pretty obvious... perhaps it arises from the necessity of getting rid of those who stand in the way of developing the workers' utopia).
Also, your lying about the situation in Iraq does not help things. Sure, the WMD's have not been found. So they do not exist. Saddam has not been found, either. Guess he has never existed, right?
That said, why would we travel to Europe? We left you guys for a reason, remember?
First there were many reasons. And second most of those reasons apply now to the USA. So it is time to go back. But wait. The EU is converting itself in the same corrupt and militant state you already have. So moving back wont help either.
Actually, the city I live in is in the process of collecting information about smells. Why? The city's landfill boarders a sewage treatment plant as well as a landfill from another city, all within a five mile radius.
I used to live around this area some time ago, and I can say that, besides the rare occasion when the wind blew just the right way, smell was not a problem. Seems to me just another waste of money, but maybe there are others that are effected greater than I.
I've been to European cities a number of times. They don't need microphones and noise studies. Here's my comprehensive plan:
1. PUT SOME FRICKIN' MUFFLERS ON THEIR MOPEDS.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
Noise is not just a nuisance, it's a health issue. And victims are often least able to afford quieter surrounds.
A WHO report estimated that 40 percent of EU residents -- 150 million people -- are exposed to road traffic noise exceeding 55 decibels and that over 30 percent suffer noise levels at night that disturb sleep.
I understand that these people can't afford sound proofing, but are earplugs really that far out of reach for them? If my sleep was disturbed by cars outside, I would buy some.
-no broken link
So why not spend the billions developing quieter traffic? Put it into fuel cells and electric motors, for example.
From the article: "By year's end, one-quarter of Paris' 416 garbage trucks will run on natural gas, 50 percent quieter than current diesel models, City Hall says."
Money is being spent on quieter vehicles.
>That's a plane every 10 minutes. You try to sleep with that.
Have you ever seen the Blues Brothers? Then the solution should be obvious...campaign for more airplanes!
Jake:
How often does the train go by?
Elwood:
So often, you won't even notice.
it's in goverments(the peoples!) intrest
"A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.'"
Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I've been to Canada, but they don't really count as a separate country.
Easy to do in the UK, they could just use the microphones already placed in video surveilance cameras which are used to bug public spaces. Dont believe me? Google is your freind, the bastards in government here are not.
Really, how better to dedicate the resources of ones culture than the investigation of the cause/effect and remedy for general, shared problems? Why the hell not? I can think of no better things to investigate.
Because the resources that are being dedicated are being seized at gunpoint. Furthermore, while you may not be able to think of better things to investigate, there may be millions of people who want to exercise their freedom and hard-earned money on what they want exercise it on. What gives your opinions so much priority that they justify looting?
The masses are convinced -- almost without pause -- that spending money on single-serving yogurt-like snacks(ever *made* your own yogurt -- VERY VERY GOOD & EASY), RetiredBoxerBrand electric grills (whats wrong with your stove?), ZXY(TM) Brand $200 shoes, and blah blah blah is a good reward in exchange for my personal effort (the $ youve collected in exchange for work).. I say hogwash.
Sure, it's hogwash. For you. For someone else, it's very important. What makes your tastes better than yours? Are you going to trot out your subjective feelings which is exactly what those who buy $200 Indonesian-made shoes use to justify their tastes? While I think many people spend money on pure junk, I still find them more respectable than I find you because at least their desire to spend money doesn't include taking my money.
If Im going to sacrifice 40hrs of ever week, I damn well want something worth while in exchange for my Cached-Work($).
There is nothing preventing you from doing this in a captialist society. You work, you get paid, and you spend your hard-earned dollars on what you want to spend it on. But that's not what you're describing here, is it? I think what you mean to say is, "If I work in any capacity, then I want the government to seize other people's property and spend it on that which I have decided is Good and Right."
Being the sucker in some capitalist's get-rich scheme, at the expense of the planet (pollution/waste/garbage) is not all that attractive -- but insead of paying for research like this (in taxes) people are usually DrivenByMindControl to buying SomeDamnedGarbage.
And you can choose not to be involed in some capitalist's get-rich "scheme". Can I choose not to have my hard-earned tax dollars go to some leftist's idea of what is moral? No! Why is that not also a "scheme"?
Furthermore, pollution, waste, and garbate do not harm the planet. They harm people.
Where am i going with this? What is more useful? What is the greatest benefit of the product of our collective resources (the above mentioned consumer-garbage) **OR** some peace from the endless noise in a mechanized-industrial city....
And it rears it's ugly head: collective resources In other words, everyting that an individual works to earn actually belongs to busybodies in the state (who are, of course, trying to buy votes and maintain power). Is there any reason at all that this vaunted "noise control" could not be addressed privately?
Stop and think occasionally: "what benefit, at what cost is my decision having to bear on myself and my community?
Your religion has defined private property and free enterprise as "evil". It is from these premises that you weigh these alleged benefits and costs. For example, my buying a George Forman Grill would only be falling prey to an Evil Capitalist's Get Rich Scheme. Well, how many people does that evil capitalist employ? How much business does the evil capitalist give to UPS/FedEx to ship their products, and how many jobs does that take? What about the raw materials that go into making the George Forman grills? That takes jobs, too.
Yes, I believe in society very much, just not in the way that you do. I believe that society functions most morally when people are not forced to live their lives for someone else.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
The person buying the sub-standard house might not be able to afford a better one? Why shouldn't our tax money be used to improve their standard of living?
Well, why stop at standard of living? What if they only have a 27 inch TV. Don't they deserve a better one? Why shouldn't we use someone else's money ("our tax dollars") to give them a better TV? What, the poor person isn't eating rack of lamb and otoro sashimi every night? Don't they deserve to eat better than that? Why shouldn't we use someone else's money to improve their eating standards?
No, it doesn't. The "ill concieved government program" is helping improve the country's housing stock. Eventually all houses will be well sound proofed and you've improved everyone's standard of living. What's wrong with that?
It's wrong because it's paid for with looted money.
The problem with far right and the far left is that there are things wrong with both capitalism and socialism. Ayn Rand is just as bad a Karl Marx.
Ayn Rand didn't have it all right; she did think that men must necessarily dominate women sexually and that homosexuality was immoral. But you have failed to say anything that is reasonable or a rational refutation of anything that Ayn Rand has stated.
Individual property rights + free enterprise = captialism
This is why those of the Leftist religion hate both individual property rights and free enterprise.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Really, it depends on the vehicle you're driving, and whether you have your windows down.
I've found that most noise from subs seems to escape out of the trunk, speakers don't really escape the car even with my 180RMS/270Peak pumping out a lot of tunes. With the windows open in summer, of course, this is a different story.
If you like some boom in your stereo but don't want to be a nuisance, why not pad your trunk with a little soft absorbant foam? Not hard to do, and it will help deaden the noise escaping from your car.
Of course, with a decent car, your stereo still isn't go to travel as far (noise-wise) as the guy beside you with a souped-up 6cyl and a few quarter-sized holes in his muffler.
If you wanted to be real nice, or just abide by noise bylaws (10pm/11pm noise reduction bylaw around here), you could add a kill switch to your stereo. Assuming you use an amp (deck power in most cases won't put out enough to be a problem anyhow unless you like distortion), between the low-volt "wake" input on your amp and the deck. Flip the switch when it gets late or you're in quiet residentials, you can still listen to music on your deck speakers, but at least killing the subs helps detract from overall noise pollution
Drill baby drill - on Mars
"Those bastard Government officials, poking their noses in, clearing slums, building modern housing, motorways, redeveloping cities after a decade of bombing, creating univeral healthcare and an open and freely available education system. They should have left us alone to, uh, um..die in our slum housing from TB. Yeah, thats it!"
Exactly! They take the land from the people and keep it, becoming new, less-accountable landlords of marginally better slums. They take health care from the people and conrol it all, turning it into an inferior system that is so bad that if you want good health care now, you have to come to the United States (where most of the health care system is still popolarly controlled).
I agree that the parent post is not a shining example of humor, but maybe you shouldn't try to speak for anyone else.
yet the vast majority of you have never even left your home state, let alone gone to another country
I'm an American, and yet i've stayed for lengths of time (not just passing through) 17 different states, as well as parts of Canada. I can think of several people I know that have done the same or more, including long stays in Russia, Japan, England, Spain, etc.
Travel is not a rarity here, despite whatever your myopic, ethnocentric, and otherwise prejudiced views may have lead you to believe.
Apparently ignorance is now something to be proud of these days, which is really very funny until you find yourself listed in the Darwin awards with a genuinely funny story about how you managed to kill yourself through an act of your your own stupidity.
I have plenty of European friends I talk to on a regular basis, but geez...It's idiots like you that make my opinion on the rest of the continent continue a downward spiral.
For those EU members or American leftist readers, the UN and EU multinational bodies should shut up and realize that they are essentially a jobs program for non-producing bureacrats to spend absurd sums of money attending meetings.
How many millions around the world could be fed if the UN budget was spent to feed the hungry?
Never mind that much of the charm of European cities is that there aren't 'residential areas'; people just live and work in the city. Try to shunt traffic away from where folks live, and you end up not allowing cars in town. Which is, I suppose, the secret dream of every penny-ante fascist around.
"Lowering one person's taxes is the equivalent of raising everyone else's."
No, the obvious thing to do is to reduce the amount of money wasted by government. Raising someone else's taxes is not necessary.
What about the guy rolling through town with a cart shouting "Bring out your dead!" and the lady beating the cat against the wall! That's a lot of noise if you ask me!
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
We live a stones throw away from an ambulance dispatch center. If that isnt enough, the almost-adult-but-holding-on-to-my-beer-drinking-yo uth idiots next door have made it there goal to be as loud and retarded as possible. Loud is ok. But the being a tard is not. I swear to christ, the conversations I hear make me wanna hurt children. Loud would be ok if it had a little class or taste to it. Nope. Nothin. Just retarded rambling. Mabye if they turned down the -20db bass at 3:24am from the local hip hop station, they could find some time to kill themselves. Unless the ambulance got here before they lost all there blood. (sigh)
" problem that is experienced by a sufficiently large number of the population, then it is a problem that should be solved by the society as a whole"
Translation of government double-speak: "...be solved by the government". Government is not "society as a whole"
"believes that it is the individual's responsibility to cope with most problems even though they aren't neccesarily problems that are easily remedied by single persons. "
It does not take a committee or a council for a person to go out and buy a damn pair of earplugs.
I don't suppose these listening sensors combined can be used to do some invasive listening or snooping on the public at large can they?
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
I remember seeing an article about an experiment with a special low-noise asphalt which had been applied to a perticularly noisy road here (Copenhagen). It was about a year ago, I wonder whatever happened to that, and has anybody else heard about anything similar? Any ideas as to how such an asphalt would work?
I agree... too many political motives. Here's my $.02
People live in NYC (or any other big city) made a conscious decision to do so. Why should I pay to make their lives more quiet? I didn't contribute to the problem. Why should I pay for the solution?
You want to live there, fine, you pay for it. Put a toll on the roads, whatever, but don't ask me to pay for it. If enough people don't like it, they'll move, and the problem will be solved. If enough people choose to pay an increased toll, you can have your soundproofing.
National defense is another matter. We all need national defense, we all should pay for it.
To ask me to subsidize your decision to live in a noisy city is extremely arrogant. I'm NOT going to allow my tax money to be spent so you can live without consequence.
If you really want socialism, move to France or Sweden, and let us know how much happier you are after you're gone.
Thanks for sharing.
-- No sig for you!
Most people living in the cities aren't the one who cause the noise pollution. It's the people from the outside who drive into the cities for work or entertainment because they can't get that in their subdivision.
So yes, you are causing it.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
I guarantee I'm not causing any noise in NYC. I don't live there. I don't drive there. I don't commute there. Therefore, I don't want to pay for the problems there.
If you read my post, you'll see tolls mentioned. Proper tolls will solve the commuter problem. Taking money from national defense will not. If the free market requires people to travel, they'll find the money to pay the toll. If they don't have the money to pay the toll, they won't use those roads, and there won't be as much need for insulation. I am not the problem, and I don't want to pay for it. I choose my charities. I don't want anyone else choosing for me.
-- No sig for you!
um so north american media is too concerned with scare tactics and promoting fear than an actual issue... Have you ever lived in a big city or are you speaking as a rural canadian whoes biggest problem is cow farts.
I am a canadian too and I would love to be able to blast my music at all hours without anyone complaining. I dont think europe has a higher population density than toronto vancouver or montreal. Ive lived in all three and it can be noisey if you live next to a major street. especially in the dead heat of summer when you have to have the windows open. or in montreal after the bars close.
oh and the phrase "ranting and raving" was improperly used. why would anyone rave about noise polution? doesnt make sense now does it.
A better solution would be to have the homeowners association pay for the sound barriers.
When I first moved into my current residence, things were relatively calm. Not quiet, but calm - I could easily handle the road(tire) noise from the cars that passed by, because it had an ebb and flow similar to the noise that ocean waves might make. Over the last few years, the city has issued permit after permit, filling in every possible empty space, adding apartment complex after apartment complex, more businesses, etc. Then some brilliant city planner decided that they'd re-design the park across the street so that instead of acting as a good medium for sound absorption (a sloped surface covered with rock), they'd fill it in and turn it into a grassy area. A natural and forseeable consequence has been a tremendous increase in traffic noise that I hear. And the boomcars driven by panty-waist little boys starving for attention - another headache. Lately, I've been hearing heavy diesel trucks, whose drivers just DELIGHT in downshifting as they come up to a stoplight at a nearby intersection.
All of this, I'd argue, is a result of poor city planning and ineffective law enforcement. I'm not responsible for creating the problem, so why should I have to pay to fix it?
um i just pressed shift and 4 4 times and it did nothing. thanks for the great tip asshole.
I cheerfully vote to end all unrequested music in stores and sports venues. Often it's loud, poorly reproduced (to make the distortion intolerable) and selected by a sick 15 year old. It could be selected by ANYONE...I just hate having music or any other unwanted sound blasted into my brain.
My vote for worst offender: Circuit City.
Article said:
Paris already is taking action, covering more sections of the noisy ring road, directing traffic away from residential zones, building a tramway, and replacing City Hall vehicles with quieter models. By year's end, one-quarter of Paris' 416 garbage trucks will run on natural gas, 50 percent quieter than current diesel models, City Hall says.
Instead of rerouting ALL traffic away from noisy areas, how about giving quieter vehicles priviledged access, while rerouting only the old/noisy vehicles away? That would give the private sector more incentive to make the switch. Sort of like the diamond roads in the US.
There are skeptics. Peter Wakeham, director of Britain's Noise Abatement Society, said funds for mapping could be spent soundproofing thin-walled homes.
"Are they going to shut the nightclubs? No. Are they going to put in better traffic systems? No," he said. "Common sense tells you where the noisy places are."
I used to live right next to a bar last year, and it was surprisingly quiet. It might be because the bars can't serve alcohol after 1:00 a.m., or maybe the loudness of bars are over-rated. Proper walls are surprisingly adequate in keeping the noise level down.
Tompsett said that 10 to 15 computers, standard PCs with Pentium III or IV chips, are at work on London's map. Eight off-the-shelf PCs with expanded memories took nearly a year to do Paris' daytime maps.
Hmm.. a beowulf cluster, perhaps? But it took a year? wow.
"It works fine as long as the differences aren't too big, but as more and more money starts to gather in fewer and fewer hands, the worse it works, until finally the country is ruled by that money in few hands, not by the people."
You mean it turns into a socialist country? No, that is not how it works. The thing is, the money that the rich have is their own money they worked for and earned.
"since to me it appears that you are much more likely to get shot in the countries that are more on the right than those that are more socialist."
Actually, the really bad ones that are socialist do outnumber the really bad ones that are "right-wing".
"And suddenly you are in a situation where you have "nobility" that inherits their position by inheriting their parents money"
Except it does not work that way. There is enough meritocracy that this fades out in a couple of generations of idle rich. This is why the vast majority of millionaires got that by working for it not inheriting it.
"You give money to RIAA directly every time you buy a CD"
No, I do not. I trade money for the CD. Money in trade is not a gift.
"Oh, the poor car industry, thay have to make "substantial" cars to meet the tough requirements"
They should make cars to serve those who want to buy them, not government regulations that have nothing to do with anything. The poor car buyer, prevented by the government from getting the car they need.
"Nope, they're not. The true political elite is those who have enough money to stay on the top"
No, the rulers are those who rule. Even Bill Gates submits to them: he pays the actual rulers massive amounts in tax money.
"And they are owned by those who give them that money. I mean, just look at your president, for Christ's sake!"
Yes, I am. He is ruling in the public interest, For another year anyway.
"However, the process is only superficially democratic, because there's so little hope of getting elected without corporate money,"
Yet, they do not decide. The voters do. The corporations can present a Steve Forbes all they want, but if the people do not want him, he gets no-where.
"In essence you are limited to choosing which corporate interests have more representatives"
In the United States, you pick the representative that represents your interests.
Why should I pay to make their lives more quiet?
Nobody is asking *you* to pay. People in NYC and other large urban centers pay taxes too. If they want to spend their tax money to quiten the city let them. Nobody complains about the miles and miles of highways built for tiny towns in the country.
You should help the cause by shutting up; you're making too much noise.
Soundproofing in residential situations isn't always about making the inside of the house quiet as a tomb. It's also about preventing noises from inside that house from escaping to the outside environment. That's not going to get rid of the loud and crowded streets noises, and the jumbo jets around airports noises. Soundproofing will, however, stop my neighbor from banging on the wall every time I play my stereo, AND it will help me from waking up every Sunday night at 2am when my neighbor comes home drunk to fsck his wife!
"One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin." George Bernard Shaw
this reminds me of an interesting experiment carried out in vancouver some years ago.
the city of vancouver wanted to know how ambient noise levels in the city had changed over time in order to better manage the impact of negative sonic environments. after thinking about it, they settled on the "microphones + db meters throughout the city" solution, a fairly costly approach.
r. murray schafer, the great canadian contemporary music composer, was at simon fraser university at the time, and was working on the world soundscape project. he considered the city's methodology and concluded that sirens would likely be an accurate measure of the ambient noise level, as they are the only sound that absolutely has to be heard above all others.
he rented a db meter for an afternoon and went to the police museum to measure the loudness of various sirens there, and then determined how much louder the sirens had to be to be audible over everything else.
when the city study came out, his results were the identical, and it only cost him about $50. predictably, the city had becoming a much louder place over the years...
... is that in Big Brother G.B. no one has thought of asking what anyone is DOING with the actual content of these recordings.
Although I suppose it shouldn't surprise us since they are all consenting to having the speed of their cars monitored by GPS and police surveillance cameras on every corner.
+++ATH0
So, when there is a flash flood, or a tornado where ever it is you live I don't have to pay for it right?
Jeez, I have no problem helping you when you need it, I don't see why you wouldn't help me when I need it.
I knew it had to be done. Additionaly, I am surprised I was modded down to flamebait for this. I mean, I bet smells could provide interesting details on some things...
photoplankton
Tolls are a great idea like they do now in London.
Problem with this is that it only works if you can get in the city by other means (e.g. Mass Transit).
This is a catch-22: Unless you provide alternatives all you do is drive companies and people away and soon you're left with an empty and decaying city.
I am sometimes suprised just how far some people are willing to take their "individualism".
As the other guy mentioned, people who hold believes like you should do the first step and cut themselves loose from anything from which they benefit without paying in full. If you surive: Good for you, if not I guess we have one person less to whine about how unfair it is for other to take their money.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
"No, it turns to into a facist country. Oh, right, next you'll be claiming that facist == socialist"
No, if people keep what they earn, then there is little or no fascism (since economic power stays with the people and not the State). Socialism is not = fascism, but socialism is a subset of fascism. The great socialist leaders of the past and present, from Lenin to Castro, fit the definition of fascism as well as Hitler did.
"If things stay stable in the right way wealth will accumulate into very few corporate hands and similar situation will develop."
There is nothing wrong with that if the wealth is their own wealth they created and earned. Keep your greedy paws off it: it is none of your business.
"And again you hit the nail in the head! Car industry should make cars like that. However, they don't want to, they want to make big cars they can sell for a lot of money and make more profits"
No, you don't understand that the people tend to want nice big cars. Thanks to ludicrous things like CAFE, the government won't let them.
"So who's interestes the government is acting in when they make regulations that help car makers to make the kind of cars *they* want to make"
Exactly, the cars the government wants. Never mind what the public wants.
"As a bonus, the government gets to boast how they have made the roads safer and act in public interests"
Yet, the government did the opposite, or tried to anyway, by mandating little flimsy unsafe cars.
"No, he (GWB) is ruling in the corporate interests as much as he believes he can get away with and still have a good chance to be re-elected"
Actually, just about everything he has done has been in the public interest.
"On the other hand the corporate money doesn't have "absolute rule" since it competes with itself"
Yes. there is competition. Also, you forget the fact that the corporations are entirely subject to the will of the public.
"but at least in the presidental election you basically have 2 choices: democrats or republicians. If neither represents you, or even if both represent something you actively oppose, well, tough luck, no democracy for you."
No, there are many parties. The thing is, only two of them enjoy large popularity. If neither represents you, democracy has worked nonetheless.
However, it does help support the case for making government a lot smaller. This way, a government that you did not vote for has less of a chance of harming your interests.
"A two-party system simply doesn't allow enough choice. It also gives too few routes to political power.
Who has a two-party system? Not the US. Again, there are many parties which are free to present their views, and are also free to decide to appeal to only 1% of the public (such as the Green Party).
"so corporate money will easily rule both routes"
Corporate money has nothing to do with anything.
Hah! I did say "majority", did I not? I think you'll find that many surveys and studies support my claim. The majority of Americans do not leave their own state on a regualar basis and also do not own passports. Go figure.
I'm well aware that "majority" does not mean "everyone". My wife is one of those rare Americans who actually ventured outside the borders into "the rest of the world" She liked it so much she's stayed around for a while. Then it's my turn to live back in the U.S with her.
It's idiots like you that make my opinion on the rest of the continent continue a downward spiral.
Maybe now you understand the general attitude felt towards your felow countrymen on a more than regular basis. Hence my original post.
"Eh? You are blindly following the leader. That's not free thinking"
It is free thinking when you learn the facts, find out that the leader knows them too, and follows the leader as long as he is correct (as most Americans are doing in regards to President Bush)
"And consider Bushes proclaimation of anti-war people being "unamerican" or "not patrotic"
Many of them are, indeed. Also, they were not anti-war: they were pro-war, supporting Saddam and his ongoing execution of 10,000 - 20,000 Iraqis each year. And yes, if they say things that indicate that they hate the country and its people, of course they are anti-Patriotic.
"Bush is about as unAmerican as you can get, destroying almost everything that once made your country great"
No, he is improving everything.
"The Constitution, gone. Bill of Rights, gone. If I was American myself, I'd be mighty pissed about that. "
He is strengthening all of them. (specific examples: 2nd Amendment which Clinton attacked, and Equal Protection which Bush defends by opposing racist quotas). Americans realize this, which is why most support him.
You really do have no idea what America is like, or what is even going on outside of America.
"If you really want socialism, move to France or Sweden, and let us know how much happier you are after you're gone."
I lived in Europe for a couple of years and I was quite happy. After coming back to the U.S. I feel a lot less free. If it weren't for my family and love for the town that I grew up in, I would move back to Europe. I also now notice that a lot of Americans are under the impression that America is the only free country in the world and that the rest of the world is backwards and not as advanced.
"Why should I pay to make their lives more quiet? I didn't contribute to the problem. Why should I pay for the solution? You want to live there, fine, you pay for it. "
Taxes should provide solutions that better a society and that are not able to be accomplished by individuals. Did you go to a public school? I am sure there are a lot of rich people out there that don't want to pay for public education. After all they don't send their kids to public schools. Why should they pay for you're education?
1 decibel isn't a constant. Isn't it logarithmic? The difference between 1 decibel at the 10-11 range is different than 1 decibel at the 50-51 range.
Maybe now you understand the general attitude felt towards your felow countrymen on a more than regular basis. Hence my original post.
Hence your original post means nothing because it is a generalization which can be attributed to just about any "countrymen".
I bet you did not even know about how Kurdish Iraq was under UN sanctions, but prospered and had infant mortality plumet once they were desaddamized. However, I should not refer to actual events in Iraq, as they make you stick your fingers in your ears and go "nya nya nya".
Yes, the conservation is over. You came to this ball game without a glove. Badly unprepared. Come back some day when you have a clue
"(assuming that bigger cars are more secure, which for SUVs typically is untrue)"
SUV's are rypically safer. You only get problems if someone is drunk or reckless.
"So they buy bigger cars as well."
They are also buying them because you have better visibility and they hold more passengers and cargo.
"After one round of this, everybody has a big, heavy, over-engineered car, at great cost to our purses and the environment"
The cost to the environment is the same as with the small cars. And the more engineering, the better.
"but safety-wise, we have not gained anything."
You have gained some safety if everyone is out of cola-can econoboxes. Which they just about are anyway.
The point is if the federal government pays for it, everyone in the country, even if they're in the most rural area, pay a fraction that I or they should not have to pay.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
I may be remembering incorrectly, but I don't think the article ever mentioned using decibel meters. All it said was "microphones."
+++ATH0