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New Map Shows USA's Quietest Places

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-little-peace-and-quiet dept.

sciencehabit writes Based on 1.5 million hours of acoustical monitoring from places as remote as Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and as urban as New York City, scientists have created a map of noise levels across the country on an average summer day. After feeding acoustic data into a computer algorithm, the researchers modeled sound levels across the country including variables such as air and street traffic. Deep blue regions, such as Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, have background noise levels lower than 20 decibels — a silence likely as deep as before European colonization, researchers say. That's orders of magnitude quieter than most cities, where noise levels average 50-60 decibels. The National Park Service is using the map to identify places where human-made noise is affecting wildlife.

99 comments

  1. I never got this : by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    First post !!!! yeahhhh .. WTF anyways ... but i did it .. hahaha mark me -1

    1. Re:I never got this : by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First post !!!! yeahhhh .. WTF anyways ... but i did it .. hahaha mark me -1

      Yiiipppppeeeeeee for you! Congratulations! You got Frist Psot!

    2. Re:I never got this : by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First post !!!! yeahhhh .. WTF anyways ... but i did it .. hahaha mark me -1

      Make sure you say Yippppeeeee!!!!! when you first-post.

  2. Just the kind of places by invictusvoyd · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd like to spend my entire life in ... BTW does it have an internet connection?

    1. Re:Just the kind of places by antdude · · Score: 1

      Yes, dial-up or satellte services though. ;)

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    2. Re:Just the kind of places by digsbo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Don't be so sure. It seems great at first, but one of the things you might not anticipate is the revenge effect of a low noise noise floor. I moved from a horribly noisy situation to a much quieter one. It's great until you adjust. Then, little sounds that you'd never notice before start becoming a real problem. The thud of a closing car door a few hundred feet away, or the sounds of a second hand on an old fashioned clock, or any number of other things really can become distracting, even to the point of causing anxiety. Unless you're basically in the woods, in which case the sounds of your own house can become like a raging cacophony. White noise becomes a refuge. You wait for the rain.

    3. Re:Just the kind of places by Harlequin80 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well given I live in the woods I will tell you that they are not quiet!

      Come sundown the cicadas go mental and their noise can make talking to someone else hard. Then there are all the birds! Do you know how loud a cockatoo is!!! Let alone a kookaburra! Then at night you get the demonic noises of fighting possums, the sounds of male koalas and all the frogs. Damn you frogs!

      And then if you really really really want to hear a noise that will chill you to your bones - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - that is the sound of the Curlew. When you hear that for the first time in the middle of the night........

      It might be a different noise to cars, or sirens, or some morons crap music. But woods, quiet they are not!

    4. Re:Just the kind of places by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Don't be so sure.

      For me, I am absolutely positive I prefer quiet places over loud ones. I'll take a "thud" once in a few days over thuds and loud bass music every two minutes.
      I know about the noise floor problem, which is why I have a fan running for white noise.

      There's a resort I escape to once in awhile when I really want to be alone, I can hear blood flow in my ears (pulsatile tinnitus) if there's no white noise.

    5. Re:Just the kind of places by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      Don't be so sure. .. It's great until you adjust. Then, little sounds that you'd never notice before start becoming a real problem. The thud of a closing car door a few hundred feet away, or the sounds of a second hand on an old fashioned clock, or any number of other things really can become distracting

      I wouldn't agree. I live somewhere relatively quiet, by a secondary road 10 miles from the nearest town, and I much prefer the quiet to the city where I was before.

      Basically, how disturbing sounds are depends how far they can be interpreted as a "threat". On a plain road, like where I live now, the low sound of a passing car can sound soothing - as long as it passes. However, there is a rough bit of ground by the road about 50 yards from me and occasionally a car stops in it, probably to use their mobile. Hearing a car pull up makes me prick my ears up, and I find myself listening intently for what happens next. When I was in a city I was by a street junction so cars were slowing or pulling up all the time - and I never got used to it. It no doubt depends on your personality - some people are gregarious and maybe they revel in it. I am not a nervous person, but I am one who is very circumspect; I notice things, see things - I think I should have been a Red Indian tracker :-)

      There is a memorable moment in The Terminator [1]. Sarah Connor and Karl Reese are on the run from the Terminator and have shaken him off fttb. They stop overnight in a derelict barn 20 yards off a country road. Sitting there in the near dark they hear the sound of a motorbike approaching along the road - the Terminator rides one. They stop speaking and listen, moments of suspense; but the bike does not stop, it goes on past. They resume talking but nothing is said about the motorbike. Such an ordinary sound can be so creepy. Yet I have mentioned this moment to others who have seen the film and they never even noticed this incident, a small component of what made a great film.

    6. Re:Just the kind of places by jheath314 · · Score: 1

      We were fools, fools to desire such silence! Silence was never meant to be this clear, this pure, this... quiet. For a few short days, we marveled. Then the... whispers... began.

      Were they Aramaic? Hyperborean? Some even more ancient tongue, first spoken by elder races under the red light of dying suns far from here? We do not know, but somehow, slowly... we began to UNDERSTAND.

      No, no, please! I don't want to remember! YOU WILL NOT MAKE ME REMEMBER! I saw brave men claw their own eyes out... oh, god, the screaming... the mobs of feral children feasting on corpses, the shadows MOVING, the fires burning in the air! The CHANTING!

      DO NOT MOVE INTO THE FOREST!

      --
      Procrastination Man strikes again!
    7. Re:Just the kind of places by Cimexus · · Score: 1

      As an Australian who currently lives in the US, I can tell you that North American forests are way, way quieter than Australian ones. Birds particularly are very quiet here by comparison. I really miss magpies warbling and whipbirds and yes even the occasional cockatoo screech :)

      Not only that but in Australia forests are noisy year-round. Here we are in deepest winter half the year (down to -30 C or lower) and there's not much animal activity happening in those months.

    8. Re:Just the kind of places by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

      Fair enough. I have only been to the cities in the US so haven't experienced their forests first hand.

      I am lucky enough to have a pair of nesting black cockatoos in my property. They are about 100m from the house but if the windows are open in the morning they will wake me every time. I also have a creek that runs through as well so I get a huge number of frogs and cicadas. Yesterday at sundown my phone said 80db with its dodgy inaccurate sound meter.

  3. Wilderness State Park by JBMcB · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The quietest place I've ever been is Wilderness State Park in Michigan in the fall. No wildlife, an extremely quiet white noise coming from the lake - it was strange. Bryce Canyon was pretty quiet, too, but Wilderness is strikingly quiet. It's also a "dark sky park" so the stars at night are phenomenal.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:Wilderness State Park by irrational_design · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The quietest place I've ever been is back-country camping in Teton National Park. That is until one night when a large animal came sniffing around our tent. To this day I still don't know what it was, but it sounded large and suitably freaked us out ;-)

    2. Re:Wilderness State Park by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They should do it in late January or early February instead of summer. In some of the northern states all you hear is the wind (ND, SD, MT) and if there are some woods it can be dead quiet (MN, WI, MI)....The quietest, natural place I've ever been was the Boundary Waters canoe area in northern MN in Feb. We had a night that was calm, -10F, and about 3ft of snow on the ground.

    3. Re:Wilderness State Park by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Wilderness is of course quiet. If you're prey, you're quiet 'cause if you're noisy you get eaten. If you're predator, you're quiet because if your prey hears you you won't eat.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Wilderness State Park by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

      Not once but twice I've had a skunk face to face with me in my tent. You'd think I'd learn something from that, but no. ;)

    5. Re:Wilderness State Park by TapeCutter · · Score: 3, Informative

      In 1980 I moved from inner suburban Melbourne to a sawmill town which is now a ghost town in the middle of a huge national park that straddles the NSW/VIC border. The town had about a dozen houses, a sawmill and a dairy farm, there were no other humans for at least 50km in every direction. The first few nights I found it difficult to sleep, bellowing cows, a chorus of frogs, barking of wild dogs, squealing of feral pigs, owls hooting, etc, all combined to make a huge racket all night long. Midday was the quietest, the mill was silent due to lunch and the birds were quiet because of the midday heat. The sheer volume of the morning chorus of birds while walking to work is something I will never forget. Since the 80's I've spent a lot of time in the bush, camping with my kids, etc. Never have I come across another place with such prolific (and loud) wildlife. I feel privileged to have lived and worked in such a place and even though it meant losing my house and job at the time, I'm glad it is now a national park.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    6. Re:Wilderness State Park by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those fucking cockatoos!!!!

      Absolutely love, and hate, those bloody amazing birds.

      Incredibly smart and long lived. I know that many who keep them as pets treat them with the love and respect that they deserve, but having known them personally myself, their intelligence and curiosity marks them in my mind as animals that should roam wild and free forever and never know the bitter restraining hand of humankind.

    7. Re:Wilderness State Park by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your house was taken from you?

    8. Re:Wilderness State Park by Mryll · · Score: 1

      The Sand Dunes park is also one of the places least affected by light pollution, beautiful viewing. Unfortunately the presence of 24 hour lighting in nearby ranching operations is increasing.

    9. Re:Wilderness State Park by Harlequin80 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If an area is declared a national park you can have your house resumed by the government. In the same way as if they were building a road. A mate of mine owned a house on Phillip Island and had it resumed because his house was right in the middle of the reserve they created for the fairy penguins. It was sad at the time because it was one of the most amazing spots on earth but we understood. We never drove to the house after dark, we always walked the last 3 kms because the penguins were all over the road and there was nothing you could have done to avoid smooshing them.

      The saddest part was when they demolished it.

    10. Re:Wilderness State Park by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

      Try Binna Burra in the Gold Coast Hinterland. You can camp there, or stay in cabins and you get a mixture of temperate rainforest animals and temperate eucalyptus. The mix gives two sets of wildlife for your morning chorus. You also get in the morning the paddymelons out in force.

    11. Re:Wilderness State Park by pepty · · Score: 1

      Bingo! snow is amazing at absorbing sound.

    12. Re:Wilderness State Park by RabidReindeer · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not once but twice I've had a skunk face to face with me in my tent. You'd think I'd learn something from that, but no. ;)

      It isn't when the face is aimed at you that you need to worry.

    13. Re:Wilderness State Park by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      Wilderness is of course quiet. If you're prey, you're quiet 'cause if you're noisy you get eaten. If you're predator, you're quiet because if your prey hears you you won't eat.

      I live next to a undeveloped property and it's almost as noisy as the neighbors. Wind blows through the trees, limbs crack and fall off with a crash. All sorts of birds making a racket, frogs and gators - who can be one loud predator during mating season.

      A wilderness where there's no animals and no wind may be quiet, but nowhere near here.

    14. Re:Wilderness State Park by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm guessing you've never seen a spotted skunk do a hand stand before...

    15. Re:Wilderness State Park by Smerta · · Score: 1

      I swear on my life, I have the exact same story (Dave or John, is that you?!?!)

      Back country camping the Tetons (this was summer 1990 I think), we took care to hoist anything with smell 100ft away, up in the trees... all of a sudden in the middle of the night, we hear an animal, which sounded very large, moving around our camp. Snorfling, walking, breathing, exploring.... it was probably only 5 minutes, but I swear, it felt like an hour. I have never, ever been more motionless in my life. 2 of us think it was a bear, one thinks it was a moose. All 3 of us agree at the time it sounded like a bear, and we all were having visions of huge bear claws shredding our tent into ribbons.

      I've lost contact with my buddies (the aforementioned Dave & John), but I am 100% sure if I told this story, they would remember it instantly. Thank you for posting this, as I said, you described my/our experience to a T, so much so that I had to post a reply.

  4. I'm so blue... by pubwvj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Where we are is pretty deep blue on the map but I bet it is even bluer in reality as we are in a valley surrounded by mountains that lift the sound up over us providing an extra buffer. Loving it in the deep blue.

    Interesting to note the map also looks like the city lights maps.

    1. Re:I'm so blue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Interesting to note the map also looks like the city lights maps.

      No surprise at all there that the maps would look so similar.

    2. Re:I'm so blue... by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Duh. Where there is human, there is light, noise and I dare say a pollution map wouldn't be that much different.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:I'm so blue... by ckatko · · Score: 2

      Except that air pollution can travel with the wind, and can affect communities that aren't producing the problem at all.

    4. Re:I'm so blue... by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2

      nteresting to note the map also looks like the city lights maps.

      Interesting that they both show a sharp verticle divide right down the center of the country. When I first saw it on the light pollution maps it was so sharp that I wondered whether it was a time-of-photo artifact.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    5. Re:I'm so blue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting that they both show a sharp verticle divide right down the center of the country. When I first saw it on the light pollution maps it was so sharp that I wondered whether it was a time-of-photo artifact.

      Google up a map of rainfall and you'll see why there is such a clear line.

    6. Re:I'm so blue... by pubwvj · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      "Where there is human, there is light"

      Not really. You won't find any light from us. I am careful to not waste light. What goes up to the sky is a waste. It's not being useful. We are also minimally noisy and not polluting.

      Just because there are humans does not mean there will be light, noise or pollution.

      The problem is choices. Urban areas have too many people choosing not to conserve and letting their noise, light and pollutants out into the environment. One might argue the problem is simply too many people in those places such that they don't care. They have other priorities.

    7. Re:I'm so blue... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 4, Funny

      http://xkcd.com/1138/

    8. Re:I'm so blue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If it is supposed to be an average Summer day, then it wouldn't just be human noise, but the whole South and other parts in the east would light up from cicadas...

    9. Re:I'm so blue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      however farming and truck/train traffic that supports agriculture activities is why some places like outside of grand forks, north dakota, that are still shaded 'loud' on this map... it certainly isn't because there's an abundance of people, or loud wildlife, in rural portions of the red river valley.

    10. Re:I'm so blue... by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      Yeah, after thinking about it for a while I did exactly that. Came back to post about it, and found your post.

      One map showed the 100th meridian as the divide between who gets 20"/year and who doesn't.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    11. Re:I'm so blue... by vlueboy · · Score: 1

      If said light map wannabe *interactively* overlays iPhone to Android to Blackberry adoption in your own neighborhood, you can still learn a thing or two:
      https://www.mapbox.com/labs/tw...
      Correlating iPhone and blackberry adoptions to high vs low class income areas to your expectations / preconeptions of your "poor" neighborhood and seeing if the map matches them is neat.

      Looking at rent price differences graphically if you don't even live in Manhattan also provides some education and amusement http://www.housingmaps.com/
      I wish there were more projects like these.

    12. Re:I'm so blue... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Just because there are humans does not mean there will be light, noise or pollution.

      There is where I go camping... I carry a flashlight and a propane lantern. I also snore something awful.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    13. Re:I'm so blue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      This is exactly right. And ironically the same shitbag scum living in cities creating the disgusting mess, are the ones speaking as if ALL HUMANS are a plague when really they should only look in the mirror. There aren't too many humans, there are just too many humans like them.

    14. Re:I'm so blue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh huh. And how do your "lightless" computers work? What a joke. Where there is humans there is "light".

      And the computer you are using was created in a city, as was almost everything in your house. So suck it.

    15. Re:I'm so blue... by pubwvj · · Score: 1

      No, actually most of what is in my house was created by me and has never been to a city and mostly those things were created from materials right here on our own land. I have few possessions.

      It's a very different world than you are used to, clearly.

    16. Re:I'm so blue... by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      You won't find any light from us. I am careful to not waste light.

      So what do you do? Cover your house inside with mirrors?

  5. From an Audio Engineer by djbckr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm a part-time musician and audio engineer. Because of this, I have a more sensitive perception of noise than probably most people. I have lived in urban/suburban areas most of my adult life and I can hardly stand it. Even quiet recording studios don't really get it as quiet as I'd like. I try to get out to the wilderness whenever I can which is every couple of months - I mean way out there where you will find very few people nearby. It is difficult to find words to describe how nice and peaceful it is when it's so quiet - not to hear noise of any kind, except from nature. We are surrounded by air-conditioning and cars, and people and civilization - and it frankly takes a toll on my sanity (the sound is all I'm talking about). Much to my wife's chagrin, I regularly wear earplugs to restaurants, and always carry them with me. It's really amazing how loud things are.

    1. Re:From an Audio Engineer by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Get yourself a pair of Bose QC25.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    2. Re:From an Audio Engineer by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If recording studios aren't quieter than nature, then it seems like perhaps they haven't been built correctly. I've been in recording studios before at work, and the lack of any ambient sound in the booths is almost disturbing in their deep, dead silence. Granted, it sounds like you have more sensitive ears than most, though, so perhaps you can pick up on stuff I couldn't.

      Nature actually has quite a bit of low-level ambient noise from the wind blowing though plants and trees, flowing water or surf, not to mention insects, and various animals that sing, cry, chirp, and howl on occasion. There's a reason modern films often can't use sound directly captured from shoots on location. However, I can perhaps understand what you mean, in that these noises seem to be much more soothing than cityscapes or other man-made sounds. It always seems easier for my brain to filter these noises out than a loud ticking of a clock, the hum and rattling of an air conditioner, or vehicles driving on a nearby freeway.

      You should try to visit an anechoic chamber sometime. The near absolute silence drives some people nuts, but I'll bet you'd love it! I've heard that after a time, you can actually even your own heart and the sound of blood pumping through your body, since there's nothing else to cover up such faint sounds.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    3. Re:From an Audio Engineer by sribe · · Score: 1

      I mean way out there where you will find very few people nearby. It is difficult to find words to describe how nice and peaceful it is when it's so quiet - not to hear noise of any kind, except from nature.

      I know. I chose to live in such a place ;-)

    4. Re:From an Audio Engineer by Iniamyen · · Score: 2

      Noise cancelling headphones are highly frequency-dependent, and typically attenuate only 20 dB or so. Earplugs can attenuate 30 dB, and aren't as frequency-dependent. And they are dirt cheap. The only downside is that they don't play music.

    5. Re:From an Audio Engineer by djbckr · · Score: 1

      Fully agree - properly built studios are crazy quiet, but most I have been in are what I call "average quiet". Good enough for the task at hand, as most musical instruments are pretty loud. But for 99 percent of the stuff recorded these days, your bedroom is good enough unless you are near a noisy road or something. I've been in an anechoic chamber a couple of times and they practically suck the life out of you. I also agree that nature most certainly does have an ambient noise, but on a clear summer day with no wind and no water, it's nearly like an anechoic chamber.

    6. Re:From an Audio Engineer by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Anechoic chambers are interesting places. The engineering department at the university had one and just walking down the hall next to it was creepy. It was almost like a huge vacuum that sucked up the sounds in the hall if the door was open. I would have loved to spend a few min in there, but I get the feeling it would not have been a pleasant experience for me.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    7. Re:From an Audio Engineer by pavon · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and good earplugs like these have a nearly flat frequency response which make it easier to have a conversation in loud room, unlike foam earplugs or headphones that muffle the sound in addition to attenuating it.

    8. Re:From an Audio Engineer by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > anechoic chamber ... The near absolute silence drives some people nuts,

      Those things definitely are "weird" -- in a good way :-)

    9. Re:From an Audio Engineer by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I guess your experience in the anechoic chamber was similar to most people then. I'd like to try it myself someday, but based on my time in very quiet studios, I'm sure I'd find it as uncomfortable as anyone else.

      As far as the difference with outdoor environments, nature often tends to have a lot of diffuse and absorptive surfaces compared to our very unnatural flat and reflective indoor surfaces. Flat-sided, boxy rooms tend to create a lot of harsh and unnatural sounding echo and reverberation unless special precautions are taken like you see in high quality recording studios or music halls.

      You can immediately tell from the difference in ambient reflections when you step from an indoor to an outdoor environment - first, because half of the sound waves never come back (going skyward), and from those that do bounce back, they're all nicely diffused from a wide variety of irregular surfaces, unlike what we typically have indoors. I'd guess that may help to create the pleasant aural experience we have outside in nature, where even if it's not perfectly quiet, the background diffused pleasantly into patterns of easily ignorable pink or brown noise.

      I pay attention to stuff like this because I'm a videogame programmer that has previously specialized in audio programming. Part of the work I did was with DSP algorithms that would help differentiate between those two environments without necessarily baking those effects into the source material, generating artificial reverberation and echo effects on demand. The videogame industry has long had standardized hardware with some of these systems built in (EAX & I3DL2) , but the more recent trends are doing this all in software, which actually gives us some more flexibility in tweaking how they work. So, I spent a lot of time looking at the relationship between environmental structures and materials, and how that contributed to the overall aural scene using these DSP algorithms. It was pretty interesting and challenging work.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    10. Re:From an Audio Engineer by acoustix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Get yourself a pair of Bose QC25.

      Did you just tell an audio engineer to buy Bose products? Why don't you kick his dog and call his mother a whore while you're at it.

      --
      "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
    11. Re:From an Audio Engineer by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Oh for the modpoints :-)

    12. Re:From an Audio Engineer by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      My job will sort you out. Engineer at an industrial plant. They just fired up a 30MW air compressor and are using it to blow crud out of very large pipework. I'm sitting at my desk in an office with earmuffs on and the noise is still unbearable.

    13. Re:From an Audio Engineer by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      He was talking about getting some peace and quiet, not about getting the best audio you can buy.

      AFAIK, the best commercially available noise-canceling headphones are the QC25.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    14. Re:From an Audio Engineer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are not an audio engineer.

    15. Re:From an Audio Engineer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another good option are the Surefire EP3's or EP4's. They are good reusable earplugs that allow conversation as well. Howard Leight Impact Sports are the best over the ear hearing protection I've used though. They're electronic so you can adjust from blocking all possible sound (off) to even amplifying ambient sound (good for hunting). They also suppress sounds over 85dB so you can have them turned up to talk and hear but they'll still block sounds (very useful at the shooting range).

    16. Re:From an Audio Engineer by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

      But make sure you don't mix up the left and right earplugs, or else everything sounds backwards. $12 for a pair of earplugs? Might as well buy one of those $10k audio cables while you're at it.

    17. Re:From an Audio Engineer by pavon · · Score: 1

      $12 is cheap for something that lasts years (with occasional use) and prevents you from going deaf at rock concerts, while still allowing you to hear the music like it was supposed to sound, instead of sounding like you are underwater. These are not audiophile pseudoscience garbage, the frequency response of the earplugs is scientifically quantifiable, and the difference in sound quality is immediately obvious to anyone who tries them, not just idiots with "golden ears" who can hear differences that don't exist. Like the AC posted, these aren't the only brand, but AFAIK they all are pretty much in the same price range until you get into custom fit professional models, at which point you are paying for comfort more than quality.

    18. Re:From an Audio Engineer by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      My ears are so good that I can tell if the bits of a music file are coming from magnetic drive, optical disc or flash storage.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  6. To save all of you time... by djbckr · · Score: 4, Informative

    The summary is pretty much the entire contents of the linked article, except for a relatively low-resolution map of the US with colors indicating what's loud and quiet. You guessed it - cities are loud, wilderness is quiet.

    1. Re:To save all of you time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd like to see Alaska and Hawaii for comparison...

    2. Re:To save all of you time... by l810c · · Score: 1

      Exactly my thoughts.

      A better map might show noise vs population density.

  7. The Ex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The quietest part's, where she hasn't been..

  8. Any place without BLACKS... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    ... I would imagine. LOL.

  9. Obligatory XKCD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://xkcd.com/1138/

    Just another heat map of the population. Nothing to see here, folks.

    1. Re:Obligatory XKCD by dsginter · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, no - this isn't just another heat map of the population. Take the Midwest, for example: there's some pretty rural areas there but, because they are flat, two factors dominate: sound is free to travel and wind is a huge contributing factor. I'm from Michigan and spent my summers on a large farm. When the wind wasn't present, you could hear things from miles away. However, in a truly quiet area (a tranquil valley is the only place that I've ever encountered this), it becomes immediately apparent when wind and man-made noise vanishes. I've been fortunate enough to experience this and it is difficult to describe (scary, awesome, surreal, etc). That said, I'm noticing that this is a "macro" map. There are plenty of quiet places hidden in that mix. They need to add a zoom feature to that map. But, if they did, they'd need to update it in only a matter of weeks or months. Silence is truly magical.

      --
      More
  10. Some selection bias by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Great Sand Dunes is quiet in the summer because it's *HOT* there at that time of year.
    If this map was generated for late spring it would show a different result.

    Not that the obvious bias will prevent the Government idiots from basing all kinds of policies on it.

  11. Orders of Magnitude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    60db is only 1/3 of an order of magnitude above 20db. 200db is one order of magnitude above 20db and is like a canon going off and no city is that loud consistently. Two orders of magnitude above 20db would damage hearing at 2,000db.

    1. Re:Orders of Magnitude by jeaton · · Score: 3, Informative

      Decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale. 30 dB is an order of magnitude louder than 20 dB (10 times the power).

    2. Re:Orders of Magnitude by sribe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      60db is only 1/3 of an order of magnitude above 20db. 200db is one order of magnitude above 20db and is like a canon going off and no city is that loud consistently. Two orders of magnitude above 20db would damage hearing at 2,000db.

      You fail. db is a logarithmic scale. 10db is a factor of 10. 60db is 4 orders of magnitude from 20db.

    3. Re:Orders of Magnitude by bobbied · · Score: 1

      It's a log scale.. +3db is double the magnitude. So 20 to 60 is +40db which is about 13 doublings (40/3=39), or 8,192 times the original magnitude plus another 1/3 of a double which puts you almost exactly at 11,000 times the magnitude.

      Engineers use db so you don't have to do all the multiplication and division to compare the numbers, you can just add and subtract. It harkens back to the days of slide rules where taking the log of a number was *easy* and then you could just add or subtract to multiply and divide.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    4. Re:Orders of Magnitude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only did you fail to know what decibels meant in terms of being logarithmic like others above pointed out, but the numbers you have are way off too. Being really close to a cannon is going to be on the order of 160-180 dB, unless your head is somewhere in the path of the projectile. You're not going to find constant sound at 200 dB without a special atmosphere on the surface of the Earth, as that requires a pressure wave greater than an atmosphere in pressure. Heck, shock-waves around 190 dB damage cement and brick walls, and can damage the heart and lungs and almost at the point of removing limbs... well beyond hearing damage. Close to the hypocenter of an airburst hydrogen bomb would only be on the order of 210-230 dB, and ~400 dB in the center of the bomb when detonating. 2000 dB would involve pressures 60 orders of magnitude higher than in a neutron star, so probably creating black holes, and is only about 20 orders of magnitude short of Planck scale.

    5. Re:Orders of Magnitude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a log scale.. +3db is double the magnitude. So 20 to 60 is +40db which is about 13 doublings (40/3=39), or 8,192 times the original magnitude plus another 1/3 of a double which puts you almost exactly at 11,000 times the magnitude.

      Doubling is a tad over 3.01 db. Might not seem like much of a correction, but you some how managed to get "almost exactly 11,000" that should have been exactly 10,000...

    6. Re:Orders of Magnitude by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      You took a rather roundabout route to a somewhat inaccurate value of what 40dB meant.

      The definition is that +10dB is 10 times the power. So +40dB is by definition 10000 times the power. 3dB is only approximately a doubling.

      But that doesn't explain the figure you gave. A "third of a doubling" would mean multiplying by the cube root of 2 which would give an answer of about 10321, still somewhat off from the correct answer but substantially closer than the figure you gave.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    7. Re:Orders of Magnitude by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Yea.... My brain was messed up... After remembering that Decibels means 1/10th of a bel by definition, this means that +40DB is 10,000 (four zeros) by definition... This 3db is double thing is a short hand rule that is "close enough" for slide rule math and what I originally was taught to use when doing calculations like this.

      So... given the problem with the rule of thumb approximation I used, I'm not going to try and defend the math that got me the wrong answer..

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  12. Wild orgies... by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

    Yes, but there's often a hell of a racket shortly after predator spots prey. And then there's sex, when one frog is croaking for a mate a fox can easily home in on it, when tens of thousands are doing it all at the same time even the fox's huge ears cannot pinpoint an individual frog unless it's almost standing on it. Disorientating predators with omni-directional noise is a common tactic for a variety of small critters. In certain years large green cicadas here in Oz fill the trees for a few weeks in summer, the high pitched noise can be that loud that it hurts your ears. There are millions of them each about the size of a man's thumb, making a huge racket, but spotting one in a tree takes a surprising amount of searching and luck.

    Nature's noisy orgies are short and seasonal, for the rest of the year(s) between events the same location will be almost silent.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    1. Re:Wild orgies... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As one of my favorite wilderness experts put it, "They make a din, so they aren't dinner."

  13. re by JohnVanVliet · · Score: 1

    well what do you know ....
    that map looks exactly like a map of CITY LIGHTS

    --
    "I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
  14. 1970s TV movie of the week by BenJeremy · · Score: 2

    Sounds like a plot to a classic 70s TV movie or an episode of one of those anthology shows. Got to have the protagonist cupping his ears, with a look of severe distress as non-stop quick shots of things making innocuous noises flash, interjected by the camera wildly pan-zooming his face.

    Needs more cowbell.

  15. What about Alaska? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why isn't Alaska represented?

  16. minus 2, Tr07l) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    st4rted work on

  17. The map is a fraud by sir-gold · · Score: 1

    As other commenters have noticed, the map looks like a light map, a little TOO much like a light map.
    At first I thought they actually HAD used a light map, just for the sake of illustration, but it clearly shows a legend in decibels.

    Here is a light map from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/defa...

    You will notice a few small but very bright dots in North Dakota. These are not cities, they are oil fields. They aren't nearly as loud as a city of comparable light output, yet they still show up as bright spots on the audio map.

    I'm sure there are inconsistencies in other locations where the light and sound values should be different, but appear the same on both maps.

    1. Re:The map is a fraud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The part that stands out for me as being different is the Everglades, which has very little light pollution (you should see the telescopes lined up on roads during events of interest to amateur astronomers), but they are not a quiet place during the say between the wind+glass, the ability for sound to travel, and various insects there.

      Also the oil fields in Texas don't show up on the noise map like that area in ND. My only guess from having driven through that part of ND a couple times is that there is some mining and new construction of oil equipment up there (some areas it is impossible to get a hotel room, which sucks when you need to drive on for a couple more hours to find a place to stay), along with a lot of road traffic to support that.

  18. Yipppeee for silence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yippppeeeeee for silence!

  19. Mr. Obvious . . . by hduff · · Score: 1

    Your map is ready.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  20. Where there is light there are noisy humans. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The correlation with this map is telling.

    http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/55000/55167/earth_lights_lrg.jpg

  21. Obvious by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    It's only that silent, because there's nobody there to hear the falling trees and shitting bears.

  22. Lake Michigan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow. I never realized how loud it is all over Lake Michigan. I guess it's the noise from the water rippling, or noise from boats.

  23. Orange by SwampApe · · Score: 1

    I understand why the places marked in blue and yellow are as shown. Why does the entire midwest have an orange color?

    1. Re:Orange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I understand why the places marked in blue and yellow are as shown. Why does the entire midwest have an orange color?

      Where the ground is pretty flat and there are not a lot of really tall trees sound can travel for miles. There are also a lot of busy truck routes and interstate highways crisscrossing the entire region contributing to the noise level. I live a little over a mile from I-88 and during rush hour I hear a constant background hum when standing outside.

  24. Death Valley by XB-70 · · Score: 1
    In all my travels across six continents and 49 states, I have never been anywhere quieter than Death Valley.

    Death Valley has: no flaura*, no fauna*, one road*.

    *Yes, obviously, there are brine shrimp and microscopic organisms and the odd car. That being said, no trees, grasses are there to rustle in the rare winds 282 ft below sea level.

    --
    *** Don't be dull.***
    1. Re:Death Valley by slothman32 · · Score: 1

      You haven't been to Antarctica?
      "The Simpsons are going to Antarctica!"

      P.S. Of course it could be a different continent bu that is most likely.

      --
      Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
  25. Harley Davidson riding assholes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In the summer all I hear is a bunch of assholes riding Harley Davidson motor cycles. I'd like to blow them all up. Have have a relaxing summer afternoon because these asshole feel the need to drive through town ever 20 minutes or so.

  26. Another myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the article: "...animals such bats and owls, whose ears are up to 20 decibels more sensitive than human ears..."

    The human ear is at its best able to detect a sound pressure only just greater than that caused by the Brownian motion in the fluid of the inner ear. If it were any more sensitive than that it would suffer continuous white noise from this source. In the 1960s Rosen found that the Mabaan tribe of south-eastern Sudan had levels of hearing sensitivity that approached this limit. So bats and owls don't intrinsically have 20dB (10 times in terms of sound pressure) greater sensitivity than we do - if they did their hearing would be swamped by self noise (but they do hear in different frequency bands than us).
    The reality is twofold: firstly most of us have wrecked our hearing (both physical and perceptual) due to the noisy environments we inhabit; and secondly, wild animals are paying constant attention to what is going on round them in order to survive but we don't pay anything like the same attention. Consequently, our effective threshold of hearing is higher, but that's just because we no longer use our full potential.
    I've written about this extensively, e.g. http://wildsoundscape.co.uk/in...