Ask Slashdot: Hacking Urban Noise?

b1tbkt writes "I live at the corner of one of the busiest intersections in my city (pop. 350k). Although I've replaced all windows, insulated, and caulked every square inch of the place, the fire trucks and cars with obnoxious stereos still regularly intrude on my home office. Most of the noise comes in through the windows. I'm considering mounting an oblong parabolic reflector in the ceiling above the windows with a steady feed of white or brownian noise directed into it (e.g., via a small speaker placed within the reflector) to create a 'wall' of sound that would act as a buffer to the outside world. Active noise cancellation would be nice, too, but that's probably more than I want to take on. I don't see any products on the market for this sort of thing. Does anyone have any experiences to share with similar homebrew noise remediation efforts?"

Comments

Re:And the motorcycles ....

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A loud pipe isn't going to keep an idiot driver from cutting you off. I've been cut off by idiot drivers more than once, and generally speaking,

Why is this "5, Insightful": it is one man arguing from experience to absolutely discount another's experience!!! Here is mine: I know a guy down the road by about five miles, same city, who buys those quiet, high quality bikes (http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3153119&cid=41499767) and then puts very expensive pipes with certain sound characteristics, usually that he can tune, so that it makes people around him aware he is there: you just cannot see someone on a small vehicle like a scooter or motorcycle: I even have a scooter and despite being out of the home for years my father insists that if I ever use it regularly I am to come to him and he will buy a motorcycle for the power, and we'll work to make it loud, so people know I am there: he has had music up, or simply just been on the highway with wind blowing, and almost hit the quiet bikes, while the loud ones he is thankful for: he doesn't want to kill someone: there is such a thing as a BLIND SPOT you know.

leading to onerous restrictions about what can and cannot be installed on a bike, where bikes can go

Easy solution for that: "I meet your local statute judge, and raise you one interstate commerce clause: you pulled me over in the process of driving to another state, and I think the Feds want to have a word with you." Of course you don't say it that way, but you talk to your lawyer about it. You could make quite a stink about regulations imposed for reasons of others' comfort when it endangers the lives (and infringes their right to safe transport on the roads) of others. See above again, there may be people who make their bikes loud to be "cool", but I know plenty who do it for the right reasons.