STFU

https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu

by tanelpoder • 6 months ago

1043 594 6 months ago

github.com

SeanAnderson• 6 months ago

What's old is new again!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speec...

vunderba• 6 months ago

Years ago, I wanted to build this exact concept into a smartphone so I could just toggle it on whenever I needed to end an interminably long phone conversation.

It’s basically the “Chinese food” Seinfeld gag.

QuantumNomad_• 6 months ago

In general, human speech is jammed by giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds

That’s what I seemed to remember also.

I think 2 seconds like in the OP link is too long delay to work as actual jamming.

m4637• 6 months ago

version 2.0 - why not both? one for noise-cancelling, one for social-cancelling.

omoikane• 6 months ago

zahlman2• 6 months ago

Similar, but OP is about making people socially conscious of the noise they're producing (not through speech), while this "jamming" technique actually (at least theoretically) interferes with the cognitive process of choosing and forming words.

jimmiles• 6 months ago

At my old job I had a phone that had IR remote capability. I'd turn off or mute the blaring TVs in our break rooms. Good times.

cweagans• 6 months ago

There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure if it's made anymore, but there's a DIY kit that appears to do the same thing: https://www.adafruit.com/product/73

I used to carry one with me everywhere (it was small enough to fit on a keychain). One night at a sports bar, I showed it to a friend. Before I could stop him, he pushed the button and every TV in the place went black, right in the middle of some PPV sports event. Anyway, he bought one on the spot.

ErroneousBosh• 6 months ago

There was a guy who sold a chip for that which you fitted to a car keyfob. In the olden days of the late 80s, Valeo used a pretty insecure not-rolling-code infrared thing for central locking systems.

Anyway you'd get a handful of old Rover, Peugeot, Renault, or Citroën (and a bunch of others) fobs from the scrapyard and fit this pre-programmed PIC microcontroller, and when you pressed the button it would cycle through a bunch of volume down, mute, and power off commands for most common brands of TV.

However the real genius one - and it was about 20 quid - was this. Remember Furbies? They would chatter away to each other, using infrared to communicate so they'd go in sync. Well, this one that transmitted the "GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW" command to any Furby in the room. Relatively expensive but worth it.

mschuster91• 6 months ago

There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device.

Not sure about that one either but its functionality has been cloned for the Flipper Zero [1]

[1] https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/

dylan6046• 6 months ago

The Woz would be so proud

markvdb• 6 months ago

The original TV-B-Gone [0][1] was designed by the legendary Mitch Altman [2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone

[1] https://www.tvbgone.com/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman

achairapart• 6 months ago

When iPhones still had the headphone port, a friend of mine soldered a IR led on top of a minijack, something like this:

https://www.rtfms.com/wp-content/rtfms-com/LED-pinout.png

Then, with some special app, or even just playing some audiofiles — I don't remember — he'd do the same thing as the device above.

rahimnathwani2• 6 months ago

https://idiallo.com/blog/teaching-my-neighbor-to-keep-the-vo...

tombert3• 6 months ago

There’s a TV-BE-GONE app for Bruce on the CardPuter and I think one for the Flipper Zero as wells. It will cycle through dozens of codes to power off the TV. It’s been fun to turn off random TVs, though I don’t do it much because I don’t want to be too much of a douche.

magicmicah852• 6 months ago

So now there is two obnoxious people blaring sound? If you didn't have the courage to speak up, how are you going to have the courage to disrupt them and others?

pseudosavant3• 6 months ago

You don't have to figure out what to say back to the person. It is hearing their own self that makes them want to STFU. Apparently hearing their voice is just as annoying to them as it is to us?

tshaddox2• 6 months ago

Does it really take "courage" to speak up in cases like this? If anything, it's just as insulting to point out to an adult that playing loud audio in a crowded public place is inappropriate, as if they didn't know that!

socalgal23• 6 months ago

Yes, it does take courage, the person doing it is likely to react poorly and it could easily escalate into a physical altercation.

for me, the worst offenders are men watching sports on public transportation or restaurants. I hate it, but I think different cultures have different norms.

michaelsshaw2• 6 months ago

It can create an awkward situation which a lot of people are averse to. For example, I wouldn't speak up on other forms of public transport, but in airports in particular I go on a warpath.

nicbou• 6 months ago

That person is already ignoring obvious social conventions. People don't want to know which other shitty behaviours they have in store.

jama2113• 6 months ago

Think it through just a tiny bit more. It’s more socially acceptable to be angry back at someone who is confronting you directly than someone who may or may not be making an example of you but in a passive way. Therefore it’s less likely the other individual will confront you back, or perhaps more importantly it would make them look more unreasonable for doing so.

Social pressure is a real thing and it affects both behaviour and outcomes, it’d be silly to ignore that.

tshaddox2• 6 months ago

It’s more socially acceptable to be angry back at someone who is confronting you directly than someone who may or may not be making an example of you but in a passive way.

I actually agree with this. And similarly, I'd argue that it's more socially acceptable to use this audio repeater than to "nicely" confront someone who is so brazenly violating social norms.

magicmicah852• 6 months ago

The people who react angrily to someone asking them to keep their noise down are very likely the same people who react angrily to someone interrupting their call or entertainment with loud noises, especially noises that just repeat what they're saying or watching. I agree social pressure is a real thing, but if you don't have the courage to ask them to kindly keep the volume down, how would you have the courage to do this?

primitivesuave• 6 months ago

The fact that this occurred in Bombay is important context. In India, the culture amongst older people is to have a clear sense of where you fit in the hierarchy. You might be verbally abusive to those who you consider below you, but you will remain silent and deferent to those who are considered economically/socially superior. This manifests as a certain class of people who have never been called out on any of their obnoxious behavior, because their economic/social status has shielded them from criticism for their entire lives. Meanwhile a majority of society is perfectly accustomed to being verbally abused, to the point where someone like me saying "please" and "thank you" makes it clear that I am of the Indian diaspora.

By the way, I've noticed that the younger crowd in India leans much more toward egalitarianism and tends to reject bizarre social constructs like caste. The fact that a young guy also thought of this solution speaks to their ingenuity as well.

ahupp• 6 months ago

Hilarious. When working on a virtual reality VOIP product, someone added a test mode that played back your own speech with a delay. It was like part of your brain shut off, was a surprisingly strong effect.

imzadi• 6 months ago

I'm old enough to remember when cell phones were primarily used for voice calls. Sometimes you'd hear yourself when you were trying to talk to someone, and it was infuriating. You'd have to hang up and call back, if the call was going to go on any length of time.

einsteinx23• 6 months ago

I've had this happen on modern video calls at work a few times as well, same solution too.

kittikitti5• 6 months ago

I think it's worse that you have to behave maliciously. They have a right to make sound in public places. I'm not one of those people who plays stuff on full volume in public places but sometimes I am a bit noisy. I think back to when I'm having fun and it often involves a bunch of noise. Society is becoming way too intolerant and conformist.

michaelsshaw2• 6 months ago

Airports aren't outside and they have a natural tendency to irritate people just by nature of existing. They aren't nice places and there's no need to make it worse by playing annoying TikToks

phainopepla2• 6 months ago

Doesn't the right to make sound in public places extend to the hypothetical users of this app?

I don't think a rights-based framing is the best way to look at this. It's about courtesy and respect for social norms.

I don't see how society is becoming too intolerant, if anything I think we are more tolerant of anti-social behavior than ever before.

kittikitti5• 6 months ago

The hypothetical users of the app will use it to shut down noise in public places.

You are the one defending anti-social behavior here.

If you don't like noise, don't go outside where other humans are. If you use psychological manipulation because you think people are playing videos too loud, maybe take a deep look in the mirror before talking about courtesy and respect.

marssaxman• 6 months ago

If they have a right to play their sounds in a public place, then I also have the right to play the same sounds in the same public place at almost, but not exactly, the same time.

kittikitti5• 6 months ago

You should absolutely do that and play it as loud as you want. What if the other person doesn't want to be manipulated and just plays it louder?

jlund-molfese• 6 months ago

Why not use headphones, so you can enjoy noise without bothering people who don’t like noise? Some noise can be uncomfortable to people at an airport. Movies with gunfire or shouting for example.

kittikitti5• 6 months ago

It's absurd that people would all have to carry around and use headphones just because some people don't want noise in public. I would agree that loud gunfire isn't appropriate in an airport but that's not the case here and you're misconstruing the situation to make your case sound better.

Ritewut2• 6 months ago

No one is saying don't make noise. They are saying be considerate of those around you. It is not a radical idea.

kittikitti5• 6 months ago

So you would advocate for someone to do this in public against someone else playing a video on their phone? Do you think this is the most considerate option?

compiler-guy• 6 months ago

https://xkcd.com/1499/

drob518• 6 months ago

And the award goes to “STFU” for best practical use of AI.

potato-peeler• 6 months ago

Isn’t delayed auditory feedback similar to echo?

ndarray• 6 months ago

It's like a single bounce. Echo effects usually have multiple bounces, each quieter than the one before it.

mkipper• 6 months ago

Yeah, this immediately made me think of DAF.

My wife is a speech pathologist and hooked me up to a DAF machine for some research, and the effect was totally shocking to me as a layperson. I think I did worse than average, but I was basically unable to speak with delayed sidetone.

neonmagenta• 6 months ago

Yea it can basically short circuit your thinking when trying to talk, BUT oddly enough it helps with stuttering with a short enough interval. There's in-ear attachments people can use that do this exact thing and it helps reduce the amount of stuttering and the brain getting stuck on a sound. My brother uses one, its crazy how it works

ericwood2• 6 months ago

If speaking strictly in terms of audio effects this is a delay, with "echo" usually implying feedback so the delayed signal is attenuated and fed back into the delay line, getting quieter each iteration and fading naturally.

analog31• 6 months ago

I'm a musician, and any delay between the sound coming direct from my instrument and from my headphones completely bollixes my ability to play.This made online jam sessions with an acoustic instrument impossible.

quirino• 6 months ago

One of my favorite web apps for testing your microphone and camera has this echo feature built in, with 0s, 1s and 3s delay:

https://webcammictest.com/mic/

bityard• 6 months ago

Okay, but... people with loud phones/voices in public places are absolutely fine with it because they don't care about anybody else's space or opinion of them. And they very likely are not afraid of instigating confrontation or assault either.

pousada• 6 months ago

In my experience 99% of people will turn down the volume or use headphones if you ask nicely.

I never in my life was confronted or even assaulted, even by noisy teenagers or grim looking men.

Not saying it’s impossible but I would guess it’s very unlikely. Ymmv

konne88• 6 months ago

He's not completely wrong though. I was assaulted (pushed and fell to the ground) for asking someone to turn down their music at a pool. And I think I've asked less than 20 people in my life to turn down their music.

pixl976• 6 months ago

It 100% depends where you're at and the culture of that place, along with your perceived threat level.

People that are perceived as no threat or a 100% chance of being a deadly threat if ignored typically have no problems here. It's the grey zone where conflict shows up. Think of a little 60 year old grandma asking nicely the vast majority of people will listen. Same if you're a 6'7" slab of rock with tear drops tattooed on your face. Meanwhile if you're a minority asking a racist to turn down the volume, this situation is going to cause conflict almost all of the time.

nephihaha7• 6 months ago

99% is way too high. More like 30 or 40%.

tra3• 6 months ago

In the style of cheap tiktoks: "There are two types of people...". My wife loves listening to her phone on max volume, but it sounds so bad compared to half decent speakers.

Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!!

Also why are people using speaker phones in public places at max volume. The speaker in your phone is designed to deliver the sound directly to your ear, probably at higher fidelity.

I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers.

Sorry if I sound cranky, I find loud noises challenging.

ben_w• 6 months ago

I get you, I also prefer quiet.

But I have a question:

I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers.

Is this a non-sequitur, or a euphemism/figure of speech/etc. which I have never previously encountered?

scythe• 6 months ago

I think he means that electric handheld lawn equipment should be much quieter than gas-fired lawn equipment which is an infamous nuisance

dylan6046• 6 months ago

Just unsolicited sharing of their own personal preferences with the rest of the forum readers

zdragnar2• 6 months ago

I think the following line puts it into more context:

I find loud noises challenging.

They're basically comparing other people's speaker music to noise pollution. Two stroke engines can be heard from a long way off, and I've got box fans that are louder than my electric weedwhacker.

baxtr2• 6 months ago

I find it absurd that music in cafés and restaurants has become so loud that it’s hard to have conversations with the people on your table. Sound pollution is a real thing.

barbazoo2• 6 months ago

I bet it's by design. If you actually make things pleasant you might accidentally create a third place and no one can profit from that!

dylan6046• 6 months ago

hey, it's hard for the employees to enjoy their muzak over the din of all of your conversations!

m4637• 6 months ago

"with this music we are a happening trendy place!"

(and nobody will notice during slow times that we donn't actually have that many customers)

nephihaha7• 6 months ago

The night clubs I went to in the nineties had loud music and low lights so talking to anyone was a challenge.

SoftTalker3• 6 months ago

It's because they don't want you sitting there for any longer than it takes to eat your meal. They deliberately have tile floors and hard walls to amplify the noise.

jiehong2• 6 months ago

I find that sound design is famously awful in most public spaces!

For example, train stations tend to have high ceilings, so announcements are loud and full of echoes and reverbs. [0]

I think of sound a bit like WiFi: it’s better to have tons of low power speakers everywhere delivering a clear and non aggressive sound, than a handful of screaming speakers in a tight space: if you’re next to it it’s too loud, and far away it’s drown in reverb.

My guess is that architects and everyone else either don’t know or don’t care.

[0]: like the new Munich Main Station under construction, slide 2: https://entdecken.muenchen.de/en/station/26-4/

barbazoo2• 6 months ago

Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!!

Maybe they don't know of or don't have access to bone conducting earphones. Whatever they're listening to, that way they'd also still hear their environment.

pixl976• 6 months ago

Yea, with you on that one. Headphones are great at the house where I have a controlled environment. When I'm out and listening to things I'll typically only use one at a time because it's easy to miss very important, possibly deadly things.

fsckboy• 6 months ago

Maybe they don't know of or don't have access to...

Maybe they don't know of or don't have any access to any sense of boundaries, as if they skipped the infant stage of development where they should have learned that "mom" is another person with her own coequal set of needs. And anybody with the urge to push back on this notion, please cover the case where it might apply to you to.

kelnos14• 6 months ago

If you can't listen to your music without polluting the noise landscape around you, then you don't get to listen to your music. The excuse you present is a selfish one.

dylan6046• 6 months ago

Yes, you are a crank, but you are not alone. Either way, we should at least acknowledge the crankiness.

Not everyone owns headphones. Some people might have received the speaker as a gift or decided on the speaker instead of headphones. How people spend their time outdoors is not up to you or I to decide. If they want to listen to music from a bluetooth speaker, that's what they want to do. There's a lot more outdoors for you to use as well so rather that stewing, just find more outdoors. Especially on trails. Just keep going. Or wait until they have kept going. I've never seen a bluetooth speaker that's big enough for someone to be on a trail with that doesn't "go away" after a minute or so.

I have discussed the speaker on trails issue with friends, and we've noticed that the louder one's speaker is the shittier the music it is playing.

tristor2• 6 months ago

Not everyone owns headphones. Some people might have received the speaker as a gift or decided on the speaker instead of headphones. How people spend their time outdoors is not up to you or I to decide. If they want to listen to music from a bluetooth speaker, that's what they want to do. There's a lot more outdoors for you to use as well so rather that stewing, just find more outdoors. Especially on trails. Just keep going. Or wait until they have kept going. I've never seen a bluetooth speaker that's big enough for someone to be on a trail with that doesn't "go away" after a minute or so.

I am very open to the argument of "you do you", which is pretty much my philosophy also. But I do think there are /some/ limits to this, because some behaviors are inherently anti-social. My philosophy is more than "you do you" should apply to policy and regulation, meaning that we should not criminalize or directly punish anti-social behaviors that don't cause direct and immediate harm. But that definitely does not mean that we should not shame people for acting in completely inappropriate ways, or directly inform them that their behavior is unwelcome, or otherwise seek to ensure that we act to exist in spaces devoid of anti-social behavior.

I've had this same exact scenario happen, and I simply spoke to the person and told them to lower the volume, use headphones, or stop altogether because they were scaring away the wildlife that I was there to see and photograph. They apologized, lowered the volume, and we both went back to doing our own thing. Most people are reasonable, and act in anti-social ways due to lack of awareness not malice. We are both sharing the trail, and we are both there to experience nature, and that very well might include many different modalities (including accompanying music), but if someone is acting in a way that completely prevents me from enjoying nature I definitely have the right to say something, to complain about it, and to complain about it after the fact, and "you do you" is not a valid argument in response to that.

pkulak• 6 months ago

How people spend their time outdoors is not up to you or I to decide.

Oh no, it absolutely is. Societies have laws, and even just social norms, that don't stop applying "outdoors". Unless you're in the ocean, I suppose.

Pack out what you pack in. Stay on the trail. No loudspeakers. Very simple.

etc-hosts2• 6 months ago

Often when I encounter a person loudly listening to music or videos on their phone in a cafe, it's because they are completely unaware of how loud they are or they obviously have some challenging psychological issues ( I live in SF ).

I have a lot of wired headphones I got off of Temu, I just give them a pair.

mythical_392• 6 months ago

How people spend their time outdoors is not up to you or I to decide. If they want to listen to music from a bluetooth speaker, that's what they want to do.

What if it interferes with my desire to NOT listen to their music on their bluetooth speaker?

LunaSea• 6 months ago

There's a lot more outdoors for you to use as well so rather that stewing

There are also many deep caves in which you can listen to music on speakers. Why aren't you going to these caves?

The societal contract is that your freedom stops where your neighbours freedom starts. This also applies to the noise you produce.

DoneWithAllThat• 6 months ago

This is probably the most perfect illustration of toxic empathy I have ever read.

anigbrowl7• 6 months ago

How people spend their time outdoors is not up to you or I to decide.

If they're blasting music in a normally quiet place, they are deciding for me. You're literally giving priority to whoever chooses to be less considerate of others.

kelnos14• 6 months ago

How people spend their time outdoors is not up to you or I to decide.

Hiking trails and parks are public spaces, and we absolutely do get to decide how people spend their time there. I've seen parks and trails where the sign at the entrance/trailhead says no amplified music (among other restrictions). Selfish people of course ignore these signs and damage the experience for everyone around them.

vondur• 6 months ago

Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker.

Boy, that one really gets to me when I'm on the trail. Both hikers and mountain bikers are guilty of that. Also, the people with their AirPods in oblivious to anything going on around them...

sneak3• 6 months ago

So, people playing music around them is bad, and people playing music just to themselves is also bad?

eddyg• 6 months ago

At least AirPods have an excellent transparency mode

mrexroad3• 6 months ago

You touched a nerve for me — folks hiking with Bluetooth speakers. My god that grinds my gears. I can see an argument for playing music (at reasonable volume) while relaxing at a camp site, but on the trail it’s as aggravating as a dirt bike or snowmobile ripping along near by.

dylan6046• 6 months ago

I've heard many people say the cannot stand they way earbuds feel. Just like many people said they could not breath wearing a mask.

mlfreeman• 6 months ago

In potentially-dangerous-animal country (e.g. grizzly bears, mountain lions, etc), it could be a safety mechanism...I was told repeatedly you need to make some kind of distinctive noise regularly so they won't get startled by you rounding a bend.

robotburrito• 6 months ago

I think it’s cultural to do this or something.

maerF0x0• 6 months ago

I'm with you. IMO sound pollution is no different than 2nd hand smoke. IMO It should not be anyone's right to impose upon others, especially when there are lower externality options. Wear headphones.

"Not everyone owns headphones" is such a dumb response because 1. This entertainment is purely optional (not needed for survival) and 2. There are $4 headphones on amazon making me believe in cheaper/poorer markets you could get them for about 1/2 that.

sneak3• 6 months ago

Secondhand smoke is toxic and physically damages your body and enters your bloodstream.

Someone playing music is annoying and does not physically harm you in any way.

These are not remotely the same thing. There is a clear bright line between them.

socalgal23• 6 months ago

Go to SF. people carrying 24inch speakers on their back blaring music walking down market street

Or the DJ school at 20th and Mission playing music outdoors every Friday

ecshafer3• 6 months ago

I'm loving the fact that battery technology will eventually eliminate weed wackers.

I've moved to all electric lawn equipment. Snow blower, lawn mower, weed wacker, leaf blower. They all work great, are quieter, and I don't have to deal with carburetors and oil ever again.

zdragnar2• 6 months ago

I only moved halfway. I had some electronic failure in one of my more expensive battery powered purchases, and the thing was just dead. There's no servicing it for any reasonable cost. For more important things, I'd rather have a two stroke engine I can work on myself. For everything else, battery operated is the way to go.

officeplant• 6 months ago

Side benefit: Our electric push mower has enough LED lights on it for some reason that I can mow after sunset. I've mowed the grass at 9pm without disturbing anyone and its magic.

yesfitz• 6 months ago

It's not unreasonable to expect certain behavior in a shared space.

I'm really not sure where some of the other people replying to your comment are coming from. Forcing every human and animal you come across to listen to what you're listening to is selfish. Full stop. And not doing it costs $0, which preempts any question of resources.

dd8601fn• 6 months ago

Sometimes I would really rather not have the outside world isolated or noise cancelled while I'm listening to music... so I sorta get it?

But also, for all the reasons described, I just use transparency modes if I want that. That way nobody else has to hear my poor taste in music.

BeetleB8• 6 months ago

Wearing headphones while hiking is uncomfortable, and wearing earbuds for any length of time is always uncomfortable - hiking or not. They also fall out.

As others have said - not really a big deal. Either get ahead of them and maintain a significant distance, or stay behind and do so.

gensym• 6 months ago

It is a big deal. It means for a lot of people there's nowhere they can go to actually enjoy the sound of nature. The strategy of getting ahead or staying behind doesn't work when there are switchbacks or crowded trails. The strategy that does work is to get fit enough to go deep into the backcountry because the troglodytes that bring speakers to hikes lack the discipline to ever get that far.

latexr5• 6 months ago

https://shokz.com

There you go. Quite comfortable, don’t have to stick them inside your ears, and still allows you to perceive the sounds around you.

In the spirit of fairness, I’ll also share the cons from my experience: First is battery life isn’t as good as headphones. That’s somewhat obvious as they’re much smaller, but they will still last you the whole day so not really an issue for hiking. Second one is that because they don’t block outside sounds, they’re not appropriate for audiobooks/podcasts while walking in the city. Again, not an issue for hiking.

anigbrowl7• 6 months ago

No. This is YOUR problem. If you want to play your own music on a speaker, you're making your problem everyone else's problem. Grow up.

devin2• 6 months ago

I am with you on speakers on a nature hike, but I think the line blurs a bit in a city context. As long as it's not extremely loud, I find it slightly more difficult to hate on the person playing some music and moderate volume while trucks and loud motorcycles go by. If we had less of a car culture, I might feel differently about it, but there's so much noise already that in that context I kind of shrug my shoulders at it.

lacoolj3• 6 months ago

I don't think this is really the idea behind this post

It's about enclosed spaces (airport) or open, quiet ones (hiking)

prmoustache6• 6 months ago

TLDR it feels better to announce yourself with some (non aggressive) music than triggering a bell.

I wouldn't use that when hiking but it is true that I sometimes use a bluetooth speaker when riding my bicycle in the city.

I don't put it at full volume but a lot of pedestrians and their dog seem to be attracted by dedicated bicycle lanes when they are built on the same level as the sidewalk. It is a good way to warn people of my presence without using a bell. Using a bell sometimes sounds a bit rude because people associate it to the use of the car horn which has become a proxy for insults instead of the warning device it used to be.

[1] I used to think pedestrians were doing it to annoy cyclists on purpose but judging by their often suprised reaction. I think it is just an unconscious behavior. Apart from bicycle lanes which aren't well marked, it is probably because the bicycle lanes are usually a smoother surface and thus more agreeable to the feet than the sidewalk thus people tend to walk on them natually.

kelnos14• 6 months ago

In a city context it's still obnoxious. In my experience these people are playing their music loudly. Like you can hear it from 2-3 blocks away, even with vehicle noise.

And the vehicle noise is expected and "necessary", in that it's a street, and of course there will be noisy cars and motorcycles on it. The noise is also easier to treat as a background buzz and tune out. Loud music is not any of those things.

Cities are a delicate balance when it comes to noise: if you live in a city, you have to acknowledge that you're living in a densely-populated place with lots of other people around, and make your peace with the fact that there will be noise. But at the same time, each individual should also do their best to avoid polluting the air with unnecessary noise. And blasting music from a giant bluetooth speaker in a backpack is 100% unnecessary, rude, and selfish.

lbrito4• 6 months ago

Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!!

I'm baffled by this too, but I think some people get accustomed to just having a soundtrack around them at all times, like they're living in a Hollywood movie. It gets to the point where they actually sleep with something always on (in the old days that would be a TV, not sure today. Probably a podcast)

martinpw• 6 months ago

Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!!

Washington Department of Natural Resources recommended bluetooth speaker playlists for hiking:

https://unofficialnetworks.com/2022/08/20/washington-roasts-...

nebula8804• 6 months ago

Hopefully the rest of the world will eventually follow the Netherlands attempts to limit noise in cities by design

[1] https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=202

m4637• 6 months ago

I was in downtown seattle recently and these homeless people play music on giant bluetooth speakers.

It was kind of surreal - sketchy looking person playing high-pitched voice female vocals (imagine k-pop).

autoexec2• 6 months ago

Every person is just a few missed meals and showers away from being a "sketchy looking person" even k-pop lovers. The majority of Americans are precariously close to ending up homeless.

bradleyy• 6 months ago

I used to work in Pioneer Square, and there was a guy with a "portable" (think desktop PC in a milk crate, bungie corded to a foldable dolly) gaming pc playing on the regular. Granted this is back a bit.

Seattleites are a resourceful lot.

sefk• 6 months ago

I also sound cranky a lot lately when complaining about loud or unwelcome sounds in public spaces. So this project (and your comment) resonates with me.

Also yes, hiking with a bluetooth speaker is particularly galling. you're in nature! For that reason I've been considering buying (or building) a portable bluetooth jammer. I wouldn't do all the time, no reason to punish someone using wireless earphones respectfully. It'd need to have a trigger for JIT intervention.

dpc050505• 6 months ago

I've found myself wishing I had a bluetooth speaker crossing meadows in bear country. It gets old singing Yellow submarine's chorus for the 35th time. Bears will hide if they hear you, if you surprise them and they get scared you might have a bad time.

Pxtl2• 6 months ago

I've a smallish lawn so I've just been using wired yard tools my whole life. Have to be careful to mind the extension cord but it's dead simple and zero-maintenance. My lawnmower is just about old enough to run for President. Just make sure you get the right cable gauge for your mower, since you're dealing with long-enough runs that resistance loss in the cable is substantial and Home Depot just wants to sell you 100 foot 16 gauge thing that probably shouldn't be anywhere near a proper lawnmower.

runjake• 6 months ago

what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!!

Finally, it's my time to shine. OK, so I do this. Granted, I hike spots where I rarely run into other people. I listen to music out in nature because:

- I enjoy it and it creates a mood.

- I don't wear headphones because I want to be comfortable but I also want to hear the environment (for safety and enjoyment reasons).

- It also lets bears and cougar know I am around.

Finally, nature isn't new to me. I've spent significant amounts of time in the remote woods alone -- even living in the woods for some time. Not that it's boring by any stretch, but it's also not a novel experience to me.

But yeah, it'd be rude to be doing it where other people are trying to enjoy nature.

kelnos14• 6 months ago

But yeah, it'd be rude to be doing it where other people are trying to enjoy nature.

Right, so you are a hiking music-player, but also a person who is sensitive to the experiences of others and not a douche. I think this thread is about the douchey people who do this in much more crowded spaces than you're used to. Maybe they have the same justifications as you have when you're alone, but they just don't hold water for me when there are other people around.

Wurdan• 6 months ago

I've recently started trying open ear phones for other reasons and I've found the current state of the art pretty good in terms of sound quality. I use Nothing's open ears, but I'm sure there are many others that are equally good. They won't act as cougar alerters, but if you want to listen to both music and the environment where others are around, the tech is ready

dystopiandevel3• 6 months ago

I can appreciate the reasons you have for wanting it. The only problem is when it affects my hiking experience. It annoys the crap out of me to hear it coming loudly from down the path when I just want to listen to nature.

Like the other commenter posted, you can use open earbuds, which I use as well for the same reasons.

As far as wild cats go, they are already pretty good at knowing you are there already without a speaker. Where I live there are many mountain lions and bobcats but I have never seen one close up, same in the California Sierra. In terms of bears, if they aren't black bears then yeah although it depends on where you are hiking. If it's in the backcountry, please pause it when I come by.

jszymborski2• 6 months ago

Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!!

I've not done this, and I don't think I would ever do this, but I can sympathize with having the idea that they don't want to be so isolated from nature so as to have headphones blocking out the sounds of the world around them dampened, but also feel like it would be super sweet if they could listen to Bowie right now.

It's also been shown that having music reduces the feeling of loneliness, having similar effects to having had a conversation recently, so if a person is hiking along perhaps it offers them companionship?

_If_ I ever did this (I wouldn't) I'd probably have it down to a whisper such that you would hardly be able to make it out unless you were right beside me.

prmoustache6• 6 months ago

When you are hiking there is actually a ton of noise/songs to listen to. Especially birds.

mancerayder3• 6 months ago

What are you doing out in nature if you need to be around music and feel lonely? Stay in the city, leave the country to people who want to actually get a break from the city for their mental health.

In my case, listening to other people's music damages my mental health. If I encounter someone on a trail with music (this has not happened here in the northeast to me yet) they'll encounter a string of direct to-face insults from me.

shrx• 6 months ago

If I'm hiking or cycling alone through the woods with high bear populations, I will often play some music to alert them to prevent an unpleasant encounter.

ipv6ipv42• 6 months ago

Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!!

I used to hold this same opinion. Unfortunately, times have changed and now everyone is constantly in their phones, isolated in their own universes, typically with earbuds or headphones. At least the obnoxious speaker dude is present; in a shared physical reality with the world around him. A lesser evil.

MrGinkgo• 6 months ago

This is why god invented bone conducting headphones

Izikiel43• 6 months ago

Also what's up with the people hiking (by themselves) with a bluetooth speaker. You're by yourself, in nature. If you want to listen to music wear headphones!!

Wife is concerned about bears

pvtmert2• 6 months ago

there are many sibling/child comments here touching the bluetooth speaker topic.

obviously there are numerous people blasting those in public places in waay too high volume.

sometimes when I ride bicycle in non-car road (cycle/hiking paths around luxembourg) i put not-too-loud music playing on phone speaker (about 70% volume) both for vibes and also for safety. -- as there are people walking which may be obstructed by the bushes or other oncoming cyclists.

for the vibes part, i am really hoping smart-glasses or similar equipment to be more common, as i got echo frames last year, i am quite happy about the vibe it adds when i play background music (just to myself) in different occasions. (even though quality is not great)

many people mentioned headphones & earbuds, but i do not see them as the solution for nature/hiking related situations;

- (partial) blocking of external sounds, even if there is no noise cancellation, it dims outside sounds like bike bells, engine sounds, other people yelling at you because you are in danger, ie. may cause accidents

- comfort & compatibility issues with other equipment. like hearing aid (maybe that's the reason some people blasting away such high volumes? -- maybe never hearing loss haven't diagnosed properly!). if you have a helmet, over-head headphones usually dont work, stuck with ear-buds. fit and comfort of these are quite difficult. even if you use over-head ones, cushions usually go bad quite fast due to mild sweating or contact with external air & humidity.

i really hope price of bluetooth-speaker or bone-speaker glasses will go down significantly in the future. this way, you don't obstruct external sounds, not add heavy or squishy things to your ear while adding your theme song on a moment.

---

obviously i mention these as a reasonable human being, who keeps their phone in silent 7/24, and all videos muted all the time (i also mute my laptop, as i hate hearing other people's zoom/chime calls constantly ringing throughout the day!)

kelnos14• 6 months ago

The way I look at it when it comes to the comfort bits: if you aren't comfortable using headphones to listen to your music in a public place (for fit or safety or whatever reasons), then you don't get to listen to your music. It's just basic common courtesy. I find it mind-blowing that there are so many comments in this subthread supporting this sort of behavior.

I guarantee you that your 70% volume music while cycling is audible to people much farther from you than you think, and that many of those people are probably annoyed by it.

Tade0• 6 months ago

I spent a good part of the summer weekends in the mountains which are an hour's drive from my place.

Every minute someone in the distance would be flooring whatever loud vehicle they were driving/riding - mostly motorcycles, but I've heard a few cars.

Their enjoyment is everything, screw everyone else.

alturp• 6 months ago

Audio jacks have to come back.

connorgurney3• 6 months ago

I might be in a minority saying this - and particularly so here on HN - but I struggle to understand why you'd be willing to use a tool like this, as OP did, but not to politely ask someone to keep it down?

brk• 6 months ago

Have you tried asking many people to "keep it down"? Generally that doesn't end with them politely keeping it down.

connorgurney3• 6 months ago

As with anything in life, it depends on how you ask.

bpev• 6 months ago

I've seen a fistfight on the muni that started from this.

charles_f2• 6 months ago

In my experience, if you ask it politely and nicely, it works. I can't recall a time when it didn't.

user-• 6 months ago

I mean, he took a picture of the guy posted it on his twitter calling him a 'fat uncle'. I don't think he cares about being polite.

lbrito4• 6 months ago

Is "fat uncle" a slang I don't know about?

sergiomattei2• 6 months ago

Real courageous from that guy calling someone a "fat uncle" on a Twitter thread. Could've applied that same energy IRL and told him to tone it down.

throwaway150• 6 months ago

You have to understand though that this is X (rip twitter) we are talking about and from the verified account, the 14k follower count, it is evident that this person either is or is trying to be a tech "influencer". Posting controversial rage-baits is pretty much the pattern every influencer follows today to stir up discussion, increase their visibility, and get more followers.

I don't think he cares about being polite.

If you're polite, debate civilly, say reasonable things and act like a normal person, you are a nobody on X. Nobody will see your tweet. Nobody will engage with it. You might as well have not said anything.

varjag2• 6 months ago

It's a way to avoid direct confrontation via passive aggression.

olyjohn3• 6 months ago

Yeah except being passive aggressive actually tends to escalate the situation. Because sometimes people will just respond to a polite question, but now you've just been the same asshole to them, so there is a higher chance that they're just going to get offended.

IgorPartola4• 6 months ago

Because social anxiety, typically. “What if the person tells me to fuck off? What if they make a scene of it?” Especially if six years ago you are the person who was in your teenage years, chances are your social skills are not what they could be if you didn’t spend a year in lockdowns.

Conversely, if you are the kind of person able to come up to a stranger and ask them (politely and respectfully!) to change what they are doing, you likely the person with the social skill to do other things well too.

connorgurney3• 6 months ago

I follow that, and it's something I've struggled with in the past, but doesn't this sort of solution make them more likely to tell you to fuck off or to make a scene, rather than less?

Aurornis2• 6 months ago

Because social anxiety, typically. “What if the person tells me to fuck off? What if they make a scene of it?”

As opposed to building a tool to actively annoy them without politely asking them a question? This doesn't follow.

I doubt the tool was actually used.

fortran77• 6 months ago

It's not social anxiety. It's fear of being shot.

maximilianroos2• 6 months ago

What did you think "building social skills" meant? vibe coded apps?

Gotta start somewhere!

ecshafer3• 6 months ago

I have seen fights break out in the subway over people being loud. People playing loud music in public often seem to be the types to be looking for trouble, they want someone to tell them to turn it down, so they can say no and escalate. In a lot of cities this is a big risk.

tptacek• 6 months ago

This app is even more hostile.

boarsofcanada2• 6 months ago

To this point, there have been at least a few stories of elderly people being beaten on San Francisco public transit for politely asking people to turn their music down.

tombert3• 6 months ago

I remember one guy had a whole DJ setup on the subway once. Like he had a table, a laptop, several large speakers, a microphone, monitor headphones, the works. He would have been right at home DJing a kids birthday party.

The music he was playing was ridiculously bad. Obviously subjective but this was such terrible low effort stuff that I am not sure it would even make it to SoundCloud. Think “your stoner friend’s demo tape you try to listen to but can’t get more than three minutes in”

We were in a long tunnel and he turned the volume up, which I don’t think anyone wanted. I yell over the speaker and say he should that shit off. He said people here want it, to which I say “no they actually don’t. See how everyone here has headphones on? If your music was any good you wouldn’t have to force people to listen to it as hostages. If you want to actually test this then go to Washington Square Park, not the fucking train”.

He called me an asshole, turned the music even louder, and kept it going until I left the train. I don’t think he agreed with my reasoning.

itodd• 6 months ago

i would hope you're not the minority. i'm in your camp.

Aurornis2• 6 months ago

This feels like a case of imaginary revenge. I doubt the tool was actually used. Creating this tool was part of a revenge fantasy.

If someone has too much social anxiety or is too afraid to politely ask the other person to turn it down, using an actively annoying option like this isn't going to help. This is more likely to induce a confrontation.

nozzlegear• 6 months ago

My wife and I were sitting in the coffee shop/dining area of our grocery store not long ago, eating breakfast before we bought our groceries. There's a gentleman who's usually there on the same weekend days that we are, and he watches videos on his phone very loudly. It was clearly annoying everyone around, but this being Minnesota, nobody was going to bother him about it (instead they just do little glances over their shoulder or the "OPE" eyes at each other lol).

Finally, one older woman gets up and walks over to him. My wife and I are like "Oh shit, she's gonna let him have it, here it comes." She taps him on the shoulder and says "Excuse me, can you turn that down? It's very loud." And you know what he did? He said "Oh, sorry," and turned it down.

She said thanks and went back to her seat, simple as that.

tkel2• 6 months ago

Thanks for sharing your story about how simple normal requests lead to simple normal social outcomes.

The isolation and atomization of modern individualized living has led people to be so controlled by their anti-social anxieties, fear, and loathing of other people, that they and OP won't even try.

gsinclair• 6 months ago

That’s good, and I also have spoken to people in public about their noise several times, but…

That dude shouldn’t be turning it down; he should be turning it off.

My go-to line is: “Excuse me, do you have any earphones?”

jspash• 6 months ago

You've never met my neighbours! No seriously. Some people are just jerks.

lacoolj3• 6 months ago

lol this is a very good point

if you have the balls to do this next to someone, they will immediately recognize what you're doing right after they stop (if they stop).

that's gonna be 100x more awkward than asking them politely would have been.

latexr5• 6 months ago

Agreed. Especially since something like this seems much more likely to get the other person to turn on you. It’s passive aggressive.

cvoss• 6 months ago

It's a great example of (effective, apparently) passive aggression, and, I would guess, is motivated by all the same reasons as any other kind of passive aggression. E.g., fear of open confrontation, or a desire to create a situation that is just as or more undesirable for them so that the other person actively chooses the thing you want, of their own free will.

raffael_de• 6 months ago

It is very difficult to stay polite while getting very angry. Politeness is usually reserved for respectful people. If somebody acts in a way that is perceived as intentionally disrespectful (whether that's actually the case or not), there is a severe psychological dissonance to overcome. Also physiologically people will get nervous, voice shaking, facial tension and twitching, heart racing, mind getting foggy when severely agitated which makes trying to act polite even more difficult. It's easier and seemingly more sensible to just skip straight to snapping or ... bottling the rage up to eventually release it against somebody sufficiently harmless - humans are monkeys after all (which isn't even necessarily bad, we should just strive for civilizing the chimp and strengthening the bonobo within us.)

satvikpendem• 6 months ago

didn't have the courage to speak up.

rdtsc• 6 months ago

Think of it as catering to the fantasy of a geek's revenge.

The keyword is fantasy.

so i built a tiny app that plays back the same audio it hears, delayed by ~2 seconds. asked claude, it spat out a working version in one prompt. surprisingly WORKS.

Note, they never said they actually played it and then person realized they were being disrespectful and stopped. That whole scenario is supposed to happen in a hypothetic fantasy world, and every reader here is supposed to take in the same way for themselves.

hn_throwaway_99• 6 months ago

But still, I think the solution is brilliant and I can't wait to try it.

If you ask someone to turn it down, it can immediately come off as confrontational, even if you're being polite. With this solution, though, it's kind of hilarious because in one sense it's more confrontational, but the original music blaster would have to ask you to turn it down - but it's just their music.

I'm a pretty nonconfrontational person, but the one time I lost it was when this late middle aged woman kept chatting away on her cell phone in the quiet car of the LIRR despite other people previously telling her that she was in the quiet car (I believe my exact words were "Hey princess, what part of 'no cellphones' do you not understand" - there is a giant sign at the front of the car that says no cellphone use). But I don't think I'd ever do this in a public situation where the rules weren't so clearly spelled out.

moron4hire• 6 months ago

It's also incredibly passive aggressive and passive aggression is one of the most reliable ways to trigger defiance in someone.

At least it is for me. Especially when it's my moth... you know what? Never mind. If I keep going I'll spiral out.

__MatrixMan__• 6 months ago

Because then you don't end up with an idea for a coding project.

pseudosavant3• 6 months ago

My experience has been that people are usually (>50% of the time) offended and non-compliant, no matter how politely you ask. Who am I to ask them to be quieter? They only stop if something annoying is happening for them, like this app, or audibly responding to their call/video.

sergiomattei2• 6 months ago

Seriously, this is as easy as tapping the dude next door and telling him to tone that volume down.

Negative social skills on that Twitter thread

cheema33• 6 months ago

I was at a Bills game in Buffalo last year. 5 rows ahead of me was big tall dude, who stood up and would not sit down. This was blocking the view of everybody behind him. People grumbled, but nobody said or did anything for about 20 minutes. I was quite peeved. Then an old lady right behind him gently tapped him on his shoulder and reminded him that he was blocking the view of several people behind him. The dude shrugged his shoulder and said, "not my problem, you can stand up too if you want". I am a mega-nerd, but I lost my cool right there and then and started screaming at the guy. My girlfriend, who didn't want to see me get beat up, pulled me away from the scene.

Many people are just massive assholes. Asking nicely does not work. Particularly big drunk dudes at an American football game. That was my first and last visit to a football stadium.

valleyer• 6 months ago

That really sucks, but don't deprive yourself of something you think you might enjoy because of that one jackass. Chances are that next time you won't experience something like that.

Also, basically every pro and semi-pro sports stadium nowadays has cell-phone-contactable security that you can summon to handle situations like these. The threat of being kicked out of his $250 seats is way more of a threat than that of being confronted by a "mega-nerd".

I wouldn't make a habit of contacting security over every little annoyance, but if they're obnoxiously blocking an old lady, that's the time to use it.

P.S.: your karma is currently 1337, sweet

charles_f2• 6 months ago

Exactly! Every time I asked someone respectfully to lower their noise, it worked. Most times they apologized, I think sometimes people don't realize they're annoying others. It might be intimidating the first couple of times, but it's so much better to feel assertive and not be annoyed anymore.

Last time this happened was in a bar, there was a pianist playing, and a group sat right next to the piano and started being very noisy. I went and asked them to lower their voices. They apologized, and shut up entirely. Later, someone came to thank me for that.

On the other hand, I would never dare using that tool, it feels a bit childish and would make me feel like such an ass!

baby• 6 months ago

This. People are scared of human interactions more and more. It's all about being passive agressive or avoiding the good ol' conformism through connection.

On the other hand if you can force people to behave through machine processes it's much more effective than human processes

subjectsigma• 6 months ago

There's two options:

1. This is a lighthearted joke that someone made after having a bad experience with others being noisy in public. (Most likely scenario.)

2. The author is going to actually use this tool in public, in which case they are either a power-tripping asshole who gets off on "outsmarting" people, or a limp-wristed coward without basic social skills.

futhsyb• 6 months ago

I guess you’ve never experienced asking, and then having the person(s) act out from turning up the volume, aggression, following you on you hike or off the bus. All these things have happened around me or to me. I’ve stopped asking. It’s not worth the risk.

People doing these kinds of things don’t give a F about anyone else. They’re terrible “humans” and should be treated as such.

ivanjermakov• 6 months ago

me being me, didn't have the courage to speak up

I hardly imagine a situation where speaking up is less "couraging" than using such tool to mock annoying person.

bsimpson• 6 months ago

I think the word you're looking for is courageous.

ddtaylor• 6 months ago

I imagine they keep their headphones on or play it off as the device doing it on it's own. The "work" of having to solve the problem hasn't gone away, but it has been translated from social into lying by omission and performative contradiction.

EDIT: By performative contradiction I mean doing the thing the person is doing to demonstrate the contradiction.

dartharva4• 6 months ago

Speaking up would have a higher failure rate. Speaking up overtly stimulates the annoying person's defensiveness and propensity to challenge back. Subtle manipulation always works better.

dystopiandevel3• 6 months ago

Be assertive and transparent and then use the app. Otherwise you are just being passive aggressive.

rw_panic0_0• 6 months ago

solving problems with tech that are solvable with speaking to ppl is crazy social anxiety spares no one

EvanAnderson• 6 months ago

I saw a video a few years ago with people speaking into microphones connected to a digital delay attached to headphones they wore. With something like a 200 - 300ms delay most people could only speak a few words before becoming unable to speak intelligibly.

Something like that, with a directional microphone and one of those eerie directional speaker rigs I find in retail stores could be tons of fun for those irritating people who insist on using speaker phone in public.

arlattimore• 6 months ago

made with spite

_vqpz3• 6 months ago

Prompted with spite

thadt• 6 months ago

In the 80's we had a way to deal with that kind of thing [1]. Just gotta practice to get the technique right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GyHQiuneU

ta2112• 6 months ago

Exactly! Also, that random ride across the bridge towards Marin is taking forever

fusslo• 6 months ago

I had this exact scene in my mind and I am glad I am not alone, friend

lazarus01• 6 months ago

Very funny!

I believe the concept of public decency is entirely cultural and has less to do with courage.

Where I live, if someone is being loud in public, you usually keep to yourself. So long as they are not being overtly offensive or profane.

In other countries, like the Netherlands for example, people will have no problem telling you to be quiet or verbalize any violation of cultural norms. I believe it's like that in Germany and Scanda as well, from what I hear.

arjie• 6 months ago

There was an exhibit at the Exploratorium demonstrating a similar effect. You speak into a device and it plays your voice back to you delayed. If you're also listening for the other person this makes it impossible to speak. You can easily ignore it by just not paying attention to the audio back but it's surprising how, if you have to listen, this delay ruins everything. Someone saying a different thing, on the other hand, is easy to listen to while speaking.

bevelwork• 6 months ago

That reminds of seeing Mike Rowe do something like this that just broke my brain of doing exactly that for extended periods of time for voice over work.

https://youtu.be/J4LhdU3a1KM?t=111

test1072• 6 months ago

https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/Pankajtanw...

It's working. Op might consider adding to readme

sodafountan3• 6 months ago

I wonder if the future of AI is that we all just create our own programs out of thin air like this. Like if I need something, I just describe it to AI, and within seconds, it's generated and ready to use.

Operating systems become redundant; you open any digital device, and it's just a portal into the most advanced LLM on the planet.

Obviously just spitballing here.

I wonder how far AI will advance.

pixl976• 6 months ago

Operating systems, no. You still have to access what is going to be standardized hardware and make the analog bits behave digitally at low power.

Applications, yea, 100%.

sodafountan3• 6 months ago

I found it interesting that the OP defaulted to using an AI agent for his voice recording software rather than doing a Google search. Perhaps a sign of things to come? I would've chosen Google, but maybe I'll be falling behind in the future.

Aside from getting an LLM up and running on a device, what's stopping AI from creating an operating system? I admittedly don't know much about operating system development, but aren't most operating systems written primarily in C?

I guess what I meant by that is it would be interesting if the AI prompt itself were the OS, and all software would be generated via prompting the agent. No downloads, just a "What do you need?" prompt with the AI generating everything on the fly.

Perhaps becoming so fast that you wouldn't even notice it thinking. Just: "I need to edit a document that was sent to my email" The AI would then retrieve the email, download the document and generate its own text editor to display the document in. All within a few milliseconds.

Call it AIOS

lbrito4• 6 months ago

People blasting awful music any time of the day or night, anywhere (neighbours, beachgoers, public park, transit) is enough of a problem in my country (Brazil) that arduino/Raspberry Pi/ESP32-based bluetooth jammers are somewhat common.

I would never try to use it though, as you can very realistically get killed in retaliation.

mystifyingpoi3• 6 months ago

How could you get in trouble (aside of this probably being illegal, at least I know it is in my country)? How would people know that you are jamming the signal, and not someone else?

lbrito4• 6 months ago

Non-asshole-seeming people tend to be, unbeknownst to themselves, conspicuous in these scenarios

dekhn3• 6 months ago

Here's one I don't know how to solve: at work some folks take meetings in the bathroom. They're on their phone, they walk to a stall, do their... business while doing their business, all the while talking and listening, while toilets flush in the background.

I understand cultural differences but taking business meetings in the bathroom seems inappropriate under effectively all circumstances.

sublinear6• 6 months ago

Report it to HR

pelagicAustral• 6 months ago

Under what punishable figure, pissing while working?

chasd002• 6 months ago

If the Supreme Court can do it then why not Jan in backend dev?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/politics/toilet-flush-supreme...

keeganpoppen• 6 months ago

this is, and forgive me the lowering of quality discourse here, what ripping one’s loudest farts and triple flushing is for. if they are so important that they can live through the embarrassment that i would assume 99.9% of people would feel in that situation, then good on ‘em.

Henchman21• 6 months ago

Being unable to feel embarrassment is not a "good on 'em" situation. The inability to feel shame is a serious impairment of one's faculties. It is literal brain damage.

HendrikHensen• 6 months ago

Go to the stall next door, play pooping and farting noises on your phone, very loudly.

dekhn3• 6 months ago

I really don't need a phone to do that. That's what I'm in there for already.

RomanPushkin• 6 months ago

Have you thought it could be because of the pressure they're getting at work? Today you're forced to work when you're sick, to do your business while doing your business...

I agree that flushing toilets could have been muted, but isn't it a Zoom/Google-Meets issue when they're supposed to remove the noise?

Tempest19812• 6 months ago

Crushing it! And flushing it.

jlarocco• 6 months ago

A previous CTO at my company would do this and it always weirded me out. Standing at the urinal, and suddenly hear him talking to a customer over in the stall. Very strange and uncomfortable.

I won't lie, though, I secretly enjoyed timing flushes to match when he was talking.

rootusrootus4• 6 months ago

timing flushes

Or porcelain-shattering dumps. Such a liberating experience by itself in a public bathroom, doing it to someone on the phone would give me a memory that would bring a smile to my lips for many years.

mc32• 6 months ago

Agree that this is very annoying and I can’t imagine taking calls much less having discussions while on the toilet.

logicx24• 6 months ago

Robert Caro, in the LBJ series, wrote about how LBJ would use the discomfort of being the bathroom as a negotiating technique and a show of dominance. He would drag senators into the bathroom and force them to listen to him talk as he used the urinal, or force his staffers to take dictation as he took a shit.

darth_avocado• 6 months ago

I have seen more than one CEOs of big companies do this. The number VPs is probably a lot more.

jasonwatkinspdx• 6 months ago

Apparently he urinated on the shoes of a secret service agent just as a flex.

tyleo• 6 months ago

Crazily enough, I’ve also heard he pulled his Johnson out in meetings.

newsoftheday• 6 months ago

Also, LBJ allegedly unzipped his fly and exposed himself to reporters demanding to know why the U.S. was in Vietnam, declaring, "This is why!".

anal_reactor• 6 months ago

Try this on me. It won't work.

strangattractor2• 6 months ago

We now know why he served only one term:)

abalashov• 6 months ago

I understand the overwhelming opposition to this, and I wouldn't do it myself. However, I lead a life of very few meetings (I'd actually appreciate more--this stance puts me in a very small company, to be sure), so it's easy for me to say that one should be more judicious with one's timing.

I can emphathise with someone stuck in meetings all day in a predominantly listening role, that they consider perfunctory or mostly pointless, or maybe in a very active role that has them stressfully bouncing from meeting to meeting.

I can easily envision how this would lead to a kind of nihilistic resignation and a determination to just do normal life stuff with a headset on one's head.

gouggoug• 6 months ago

There’s a difference between passively listening to a meeting and actively participating, while being in the bathroom.

I would never do either. But one is less weird than the other.

krick3• 6 months ago

As a matter of fact, I do NOT understand the overwhelming opposition to this. What's your deal if a guy is good at multitasking and people on the other end of the wire don't mind it? It isn't like he is desecrating a temple, or intruding into your home and using your toilet, or jerking off in the public... Wait, actually I'd say even the latter shouldn't be your business, unless he stains something. Why cannot people mind their own business?

matwood2• 6 months ago

However, I lead a life of very few meetings

An old business partner had meetings which felt like 24/7. He had zero issue taking a phone call in the bathroom. I doubt anyone on the other end ever knew.

mmmlinux2• 6 months ago

Just join in the conversation. People hate that for some reason.

mystifyingpoi3• 6 months ago

I regularly engage in meetings when taking a dump, but only when I'm working from home, and of course flushing only on mute. I don't have a problem with that, the other side has no idea where I am anyway.

closewith5• 6 months ago

Everyone knows you're in a toilet due to the acoustics, but no-one is going to bring it up out of courtesy. Everyone also thinks less of you for it.

riversflow• 6 months ago

Yeah this whole thread is absolutely filled with prudes as far as I'm concerned. Everybody poops, get over it.

prmoustache6• 6 months ago

Why don't you just excuse yourself for a few minutes like any normal human being would?

NoSalt2• 6 months ago

This ... is disgusting and appalling.

m4637• 6 months ago

I understand cultural differences

These are not cultural differences. This behavior is across-all-cultures lack of decency.

I would say the answer is education, but like the law doesn't even prevent all speeding, maybe the answer is speed bumps (this app?)

throw310822• 6 months ago

Let me guess: Ireland?

Pxtl2• 6 months ago

In 1-on-1 it would be awkward to call it out but in a group meeting where I wouldn't be singling a person out it'd be pretty easy to just ask "could whoever's in the bathroom please mute?" without any kind of confrontation.

shevy-java2• 6 months ago

but taking business meetings in the bathroom seems inappropriate under effectively all circumstances.

Now, now ... if she is pretty ...

7bit2• 6 months ago

Once you took a meeting while taking a shit, you will see things differently. It just makes problems look insignificant, when you're pumping one out while you listen to someone explain how the issue is company critical.

Of course, disable your camera and mute your mic while dropping or flushing.

And how to deal with it becomes vastly different when you've done it. It's just human. Just ignore it.

joecool10294• 6 months ago

Here's one I don't know how to solve: at work some folks take meetings in the bathroom.

Not legal but there’s a technical solution that’s worked in the past: pocket cell jammer. Range isn’t very far but it’ll work to boot callers a stall away or a booth away at a diner, etc. Only need to run it a few seconds to drop a call.

Do want to stress these do see enforcement now (in the US at least) but a low power pocket one used occasionally is unlikely to attract attention. It will be noticed if it’s higher power or runs in a regular location. Fines are severe and risk jailtime but hey it’s your life.

matthewfcarlson2• 6 months ago

I wonder if there’s a jammer out there that also sends WiFi deauth packets

amelius3• 6 months ago

Question: if two people are caught having SDR units that could cause the jamming, how do they know who is guilty?

not_a_bot_4sho• 6 months ago

Tangentially, I did this once years ago.

I had consumed a large amount of spicy food the day prior, and it pulled the fire alarm right in the middle of a phone screen. I foolishly thought I could silently and secretly handle both tasks at once.

These were the days before background noise filters. The poor candidate obviously heard unpleasant things but neither of us acknowledged it directly.

He accepted the job though. But this still bothers me decades later. Never again!

linohh2• 6 months ago

Oh, I had that in my old office building, everyone but me was buying and selling fruit and they were dealing while shitting in the communal bathrooms. Really weird when you just want to defecate and suddenly someone yells into their phone YES I'LL BUY EVERYTHING.

alsetmusic• 6 months ago

My previous employer was a twenty-something person shop and the owner would do this while speaking with clients. Granted, it was a single-person bathroom, but it still drove me mad. There’s no way people couldn’t hear what was happening while he spoke and flushed the toilet. Maybe that’s part of why we weren’t getting new clients.

morkalork• 6 months ago

I worked in a building that shared the floor with a small law office, the number of lawyers that would cruise on in to take a piss while chatting away on their Bluetooth earphones was too high. They would be talking about their client's cases too, no respect for privacy at all.

tsoukase• 6 months ago

During toilet and all other breaks between my patients' visits I always call back the numbers had reached me. During the flush moment I increase my voice volume. I don't know how it's heard on the other side. There is no other way I return home on time.

sublinear6• 6 months ago

Is fighting antisocial behavior with more antisocial behavior really necessary?

There is no singular solution that fits all situations. This entire discussion is pointless.

Craighead• 6 months ago

You need it to be 200ms not 2 seconds

Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) is the term you need to look into. Playing back what someone says to you back at them with a 200ms delay is literally a brain Denial of Service.

ericwood2• 6 months ago

Very similar in theory to Bob Widlar's legendary "hassler" circuit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Widlar#Personality

jonathanstrange• 6 months ago

My personal take is that having phone conversations at normal speaker volume is fine because people also talk amongst each other in public and there is no substantial difference, but watching videos or even listening to music on loud speaker is not okay because it's a public nuisance.

However, it seems that the cultural norms differ a lot, I've heard of people who disapprove of almost everything and don't have much sympathy for them. Politeness goes both ways, and in my opinion using that app is impolite, too.

bonesss• 6 months ago

There is a substantial difference between people talking amongst themselves and one person on a phone.

Humans are social animals, we tune out conversations easily. Half conversations are just one interrupting, attention-grabbing … jarring start … … after … … … … another. It’s a series of unpredictable spontaneous one-sided outbursts, behaviours that otherwise belong to disturbed individuals.

Listening to people in the phone is inherently more annoying, backed by decent research IIRC.

nephihaha7• 6 months ago

Phone speakers are tinny and sharp and I find them a lot more annoying.

PeterStuer• 6 months ago

On the one hand I love this. Otoh. Will the people who this is supposed to target actually care?

To be fair, the callousnes of the people blastimg any audio in public is just beyond me.

idsafsdij• 6 months ago

this whole app is just theatrical programming. a vibe coded repo built so this guy could share a made-up anecdote about when he was passive-aggressive at the airport. By the author's own admission, even the name "STFU" was ripped from someone else's app that does the exact same thing

We don't even get to see it in action! It's just the code, a gesture at what's possible if one could be bothered to pull the repo and run it themselves. "person asks LLM for an app that does audio recording and playback with a delay". fascinating, thank you

P.S. the so called "discussion" thread linked in the repo is wild. "Garbage will be there everywhere... Have zero hope in the political system regardless of party in power" what does this have to do with anything man, i'm just trying to look at cool dev articles

overfeed• 6 months ago

I wonder what fraction of people complaining about inconsiderate behavior in this thread, permanently use high beams when driving.

athenot• 6 months ago

This is a fun app.

One way I deal with people talking on speakerphone, is inviting myself into their conversation and making comments as if I were an active participant. That usually earns me a weird look, and then they go off speaker so I can't hear what's been said. Success.

Similar with folks watching reels on speaker, I fake a laugh or make comments about the content. It's awkward enough that they usually stop because they want a moment alone, not an interactive session with a stranger. Which ironically is the same thing I want too.

xattt• 6 months ago

How do you deal with the small possibility that the offending person is unhinged (since they’ve already chosen to throw out societal mores out the window) and could physically hurt you?

Spooky234• 6 months ago

It’s a two-way street.

I used to have to deal with unhinged people on the regular and one of the techniques that keep the peace and stay safe is to present an edge that gives the vibe that you may be more unhinged.

My dad used to run housing projects, and my uncle was an assistant principal at one of the most violent schools in New York City. They were like Jedi masters of presence. They had stories that were absolutely insane.

charcircuit2• 6 months ago

It's illegal for them to hurt you.

iammrpayments• 6 months ago

Just lift weights, or say it’s just a prank I guess

reassess_blind• 6 months ago

Personally, it's not worth living in fear of that small chance. If you're alone and they're visibly on drugs or something then yeah, better to just move. Otherwise we just let people get away with bad behavior.

taneq• 6 months ago

Diet, exercise, and physical training, probably?

NoSalt2• 6 months ago

This is a good way to shanked on the D.C. Metro.

jcbe• 6 months ago

Kind of a funny day to post this (WMATA just released data showing crime rates at a 25-year low)

cool-RR• 6 months ago

It's my fantasy to do this. Congrats on having the courage.

hyperbolablabla• 6 months ago

My friend does this and I feel the same way. I could never bring myself to do this, I cant even smile at people

pseudosavant3• 6 months ago

I've recently become a convert to this kind of thinking. The person invited the public to join in when they decided to have a public speakerphone call. If they don't want my responses or laughter, they get annoyed and stop the behavior I was finding annoying in the first place.

I don't even have to act like I'm bothered by it, or that I find their behavior offensive. They change their behavior because they are bothered by mine.

onethought3• 6 months ago

How is that different than two people talking in person? Do you interrupt them as well?

indrora• 6 months ago

A friend of mine works AV at shows that have rotating DJs and one of the things she has on her mixer board is "The Suck Button."

It causes a mic at the other end of the room to get cut into the DJ's live feed monitor with a semitone shift down and some reverb. This causes all sorts of inner-ear chaos and usually clears a DJ off the stage when they're over time within a few minutes at most -- usually under 30 seconds. One time they were trying to figure out why it wasn't working and discovered that the DJ had muted their monitor feed, which explained why they were not only peaking the meters but over time: They hadn't heard the FOUR warnings from the back of house that it was time to wrap up.

inlined• 6 months ago

There was a coffee shop ages ago in SF that would every few hours play a cacophony (e.g. multiple songs at once). I assume it was to drive away people camping on their laptops to rotate tables. Understand but super annoying to people like me who had a timer to but food or drink no less than hourly to be a good citizen

mitthrowaway2• 6 months ago

That reminds me of the "speech jammer", which won an Ignobel Prize last decade. It's an acoustic gun that combines a directional microphone and speaker array with a delay, tripping up the speaker.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shut-up-speech-jammer-among-201...

anotherevan2• 6 months ago

Sidled up next to the guy and said loudly, “Mr Smith? Mr Smith? The mistress is ready for you now!”

latexr5• 6 months ago

Fun solution! But what do you do if the person is listening to loud music? There’s nothing to comment there.

jitbit• 6 months ago

Sometimes when college kids in a hotel room next to mine are being too loud, I go out, check their room number , go back to my room and give them a call (usually just dialing the room number works).

I pretend to be “Jason from reception” and that “other guests are complaining about the noise”. Works every time.

pjs_• 6 months ago

I love this… have been thinking about exactly this technology for years but combined with phased array directional loudspeaker and shotgun mic. Deploy during major political speech, instantly shut down brain of speaker, would appear to be an internal malfunction

SuboptimalEng• 6 months ago

Indian-American here. Thank you for this!

I have hearing sensitivity and have repeatedly asked my parents to lower the volume on TVs, whatsapp videos, insta reels 100s of times. They always lower it for 5 minutes before raising it back. Likely because they are losing their hearing, but unable to admit that.

I tend to be very mindful of others (maybe because I grew up in America), but my parents are not even mindful of my requests. Maybe it's a cultural thing? I expect those who have grown-up (or spent their whole lives) in India would do the same.

Definitely need to test this out app out when I go home.

dyauspitr2• 6 months ago

On the flip side, people with hearing sensitivity are the most god awful people to deal with. It’s like the entire world has to quiet down for them when they could just as easily put in ear plugs instead.

anotherevan2• 6 months ago

Hyperacusis is a real thing. One of my kidults has it, and yes, they use active noise cancelling ear plugs or over the ear headphones and sometimes the world is still too loud.

dystopiandevel3• 6 months ago

Two words

Flipper Zero

_vqpz3• 6 months ago

The idea that 12 lines of vibe coded JavaScript prompted because someone was too scared to talk to someone disturbing him (but not enough to take a creep shot and blast him on Twitter) could make it to the top post of this website is quite sad.

mmmlinux2• 6 months ago

Too much engagement arguing if you should be able to hike and listen to music.

Sabinus• 6 months ago

I'm pretty amused this is what the post has deveolved into. If this was a Trump thread it would have been [Flagged] by now.

fernandotakai• 6 months ago

i've seen people get beat up because they asked an anti-social c-words to turn the volume down.

some people just cannot be reasoned and the amount of people like this is growing HARD.

_vqpz3• 6 months ago

I don't know what makes you think passively aggressively playing the sound back at a person like that would illicit any better a response.

tombert3• 6 months ago

I’ve never really understood that. I’ve never been beat up over it but people have gotten extremely defensive over it.

Is it some kind of minor evangelism on their end? Like they think the music is so wonderful that obviously everyone should be listening to it?

dyauspitr2• 6 months ago

And twitter was just a static page you could post 140 character messages to.

dartharva4• 6 months ago

Did you forget what site you were on? This is Hacker News.

publicdebates• 6 months ago

app that plays back the same audio it hears, delayed by ~2 seconds.
idk i'm not a neuroscientist. all i know is it makes people shut up and that's good enough for me.

Is it happening for the right reasons?

What is going through the minds of those people in that moment, when they hear an audio recording of what just happened played back to them?

Are they thinking they're being recorded? Are they nervous? Do they feel threatened? Might they act out on this in an unexpected and perhaps escalating way?

These are why I would not use this app.

kogus• 6 months ago

I love the ingredients for this project:

    made with spite and web audio api. do whatever you want with it.

anymouse123456• 6 months ago

It is true that this app is more hostile than asking someone to keep it down, but people should beware of either approach, as it's not unusual for the same assholes who are comfortable blasting their audio in public spaces to also be comfortable getting into a fist fight.

I have personally been threatened on multiple occasions because I asked someone to turn down (or turn off) their volume while watching videos on their phone in public.

In one instance, I was in a doctor's office waiting room and a rather large, otherwise normal-looking man (likely in his late fifties) was watching videos at full volume while 4-5 of us were sitting quietly. We were all annoyed by him and exchanging looks, so I politely asked him to mute the video or watch it outside and he stood up and started threatening to fight me in a doctor's office waiting room!

In my anecdotal experience in various tier 2 USA cities (i.e., not NY, SF, LA, etc), Gen-Xers and Boomers seem to be the worst offenders and also surprisingly, the most belligerent when confronted.

If you're going to try either approach (this app, or asking), please do not be surprised if you find yourself in a rapidly escalating confrontation that may quickly result in physical violence.

Sometimes, this calculus is more than worth it, sometimes it's not, but just don't think it can't happen.

phlo• 6 months ago

My go-to for situations like these: Assume that the offender _clearly_ didn't mean to behave incorrectly, and help them overcome the mistake.

Person in a public space listening to reels at full volume? Get their attention, then loudly point out that their headphones got disconnected and everybody can hear the audio.

People leaving a train or bus and leaving behind trash? Loudly let them know that they forgot their water bottle or paper bag. If it's a single item, this works doubly well if you helpfully hand them the item, too.

omgJustTest2• 6 months ago

``` README.md

straight up honest - originally called this "make-it-stop" but then saw @TimDarcet also built similar and named it STFU. wayyyyy better name. so stole it. sorry not sorry.

```

Probably the reason that the code "worked" from a single prompt. Could potentially have downloaded the github repo first...

m4637• 6 months ago

adding levels of indirection/abstraction is a common engineering move, especially in software engineering.

einsteinx23• 6 months ago

Probably the reason that the code "worked" from a single prompt

I took a look at the repo, and the whole thing is 12 lines of JS and some basic HTML and CSS. I'm not surprised at all it worked the first time from a single prompt. No need to copy someone else's project for something so simple.

omgJustTest2• 6 months ago

Good that you did.

At least the author clearly delinated that it is indeed sloppiest of slop.

silexia• 6 months ago

I absolutely hate the people who walk around or bike around or skate and carry a big speaker and force everyone else to listen to their garbage music.

nephihaha7• 6 months ago

Always garbage music. I heard one of them playing Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" (or whatever it's called), so not all new garbage either.

maximilianroos2• 6 months ago

I'm all for building apps to solve problems, but I would really encourage folks to ask people politely to do what you want them to do, rather than having an app do it for you.

You can just ask people for things! And you will become a better person for it.

dartharva4• 6 months ago

Asking people publicly tends to challenge their ego and bring up defensiveness. It would fail a lot more than subtle manipulation like this, and instead bring additional confrontation.

ahmetomer• 6 months ago

It seems that most of the people who suffer from loud voices in public spaces tend not to confront those scoundrels, and instead eat it up and wonder endlessly how they can be so mindless and rude to others. I am sometimes like that as well, but I would rather "fix" it myself because I just don't know of any practical ways to bring about a proper public commute etiquette. That's not my job.

Today I went to Munich on public transportation — with a mix of transfers on trams and regional trains. I think I read about 50 pages, all the while traveling. It may sound like an ad, but it's not; I really appreciate my Sony XM4 — would not have been possible to focus on reading without it — which I've been using for years now. I put it on with ANC, and play a non-distracting focus music. This helps quite a lot!

nephihaha7• 6 months ago

Oh, some of us do confront them.

You're lucky to be able to read on public transport. I barely can anymore because of these people.

wagwang• 6 months ago

This is why going to the gym matters

m4637• 6 months ago

Do people talk on speakerphone in the gym too? so desensitization? :)

shevy-java2• 6 months ago

I have to admit: I found the two seconds delay quite entertaing there.

clueless• 6 months ago

The fact that we can't just spin up a Claude code on our iPhones and have it program and run the end result right there in iOS should be chargeable offense by apple (and Android). Looking forward to the day that this capability exists.

einsteinx23• 6 months ago

Since this is a web app, you kind of can do it today using web tools, but I know what you mean.

doktor2un• 6 months ago

Doesn’t work on my phone

zahlman2• 6 months ago

I love that you're honest about having one-shot something with Claude and that you describe the experience in your own words without asking Claude to hype up the result for you.

It's also a simple, genius idea. Congrats.

[Edit: I guess this wasn't submitted by the author/prompter. Still, you get the point.]

friedtofu• 6 months ago

Hey HN! Check out this vibe-coded shell script that Claude Opus one-shot that does the same thing(Pretty CrAzY!!!).

This is a fish shell function but you can probably get claude code to convert it to bash or zsh

  function STFU

         #alsa records incoming audio from the default input device for 2 seconds

         arecord --duration 2 echo.wav

         #alsa plays back the echo.wav of the recorded audio file

         aplay echo.wav

         #Ctrl+C when the target looks your way!!!
  end

  STFU

Guess I should create a git repo for this now and add an MIT license like OP, amirite?

(Yes this is post is entirely sarcasm, except that I do use fish as my default shell.)

jlebar• 6 months ago

I carry cheap earbuds I got off aliexpress in my backpack and offer them to people who are listening to music or tiktok without headphones.

I have a nonzero accept rate!

But you really have to be in the right frame of mind. If you approach someone in anger, they'll pick up on it and mirror you.

The best line I've found so far is, "I know Apple stopped giving out earbuds with their phones; would you like some?"

malfist• 6 months ago

I appreciate your empathy for the fellow human. Even if it's "undeserved" it still makes things better for everyone involved.

lifetimerubyist• 6 months ago

We are at the stage where we can engage in AI warfare with bespoke AI generated weapons.

Nice.

mrinterweb• 6 months ago

This is so passive aggressive. I kinda love it and hate it if that makes sense.

hamburglar• 6 months ago

I wonder how well this would work on a street preacher if connected to a megaphone.

blks• 6 months ago

Dislike for ai profile picture

indigodaddy• 6 months ago

Initially thought this was cloning and doing TTS, but then I looked at the html file. I'm dumb lol

hereme888• 6 months ago

Sorely needed app. Amazing how inconsiderate and shameless many people are these days: airport, bus, train, even the gym sauna just blasting random tiktok feeds.

disqard• 6 months ago

Reminds me of SpeechJammer:

https://sites.google.com/site/qurihara/top-english/speechjam...

(which won the Ig Nobel prize in 2012)

burnerRhodov2• 6 months ago

Im from LA... the type of people who play music or talk on speaker are not the kinda people you'd want to do this too.. This sounds like a perfect way to get stabbed.

Fun light hearted github, that will passively agressively get someone killed.

xpe• 6 months ago

I’ve read several dozen comments, but I haven’t come across the following stated quite this way:

One option is to politely ask someone if they have headphones and/or to turn it down.

Cont’d from ^: you can often lubricate the situation by giving some “reason” that lets the other person save face. You can be genuine or creative or both. (You might say you just really had a rough day and would appreciate quiet.)

As a point of comparison, think about how many drivers forget to turn on their headlights even after the sun goes down. Some fraction of people screw up in spite of their self-interest.

If you are genuinely afraid of speaking to someone, listen to your gut. Just try to check this against reality… if this happens at 1000X the rate of crime in the area, you might be miscalibrated.

You might consider talking to Mr Blaring McLoud without mentioning your annoyance at first. This might help get you one step closer to asking nicely later.

Some people are genuinely unaware, so erring on the side of kindness is a smart step one. Even when asking nicely without snark or impugning someone’s pride, you might still face rude behavior. I like the phrase “don’t mistake kindness for weakness.” You can walk away and figure out what you want to do next, knowing that you gave the other person a chance.

CapsAdmin• 6 months ago

I moved from a very quiet culture to a very noisy one.

Here people watch tik tok on full blast, people let their kids run amok in concrete cafes, constantly honk at each other, blast karaoke for all neighbors to hear, etc.

These people have some ability to sift through noise. For example being able to talk to someone on the phone with a loudspeaker in a loud environment while both seem to understand each other well.

But for some reason, the majority of people don't care, and so in some weird way, the concept of sound pollution don't exist.

When sound pollution don't exist as a concept, there is nothing to get annoyed about.

stephenhandley• 6 months ago

/)_-)

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=headphones

milleramp• 6 months ago

I wish there was an app for the other annoyances of the 'Bombay' airport. Like the get your ass in line app, or I don't need you to carry my luggage 5ft and demand a tip app.

evo_9• 6 months ago

My 3 and 5 year old love this, very entertaining for small children.

And I’ll most definitely use this for its intended use, great way to solve that problem. Nice job

pseingatl• 6 months ago

Is this an iOS app? Android?

falkensmaize• 6 months ago

This sounds like an “I want to get my ass kicked” application.

logicziller• 6 months ago

So, a tool that ends up annoying more people than the first person.

jamesholden• 6 months ago

This is a weird comment but, I read this before bed. In my dream, I was on a subway or at an airport or some travel place and I did this and the dude in my dream got mad and chased me. :D

Even subconsciously, I seem to love this app.

m151• 6 months ago

Next, we need an app like this for smoking in public.

the_wolo• 6 months ago

I like it but what this program needs is some DSP: an overdrive, reverb, delay, flanger, chorus and what not :D

mancerayder3• 6 months ago

Unfortunately this is the most dangerous when it is most needed - on the New York City subway, especially when the train has a cell signal, when jackasses listen to reels of IG and TikTok and scroll at high volume.

It's an incredibly rude world we live in - this behavior two decades ago would have led to a fight. Now everyone is scared to tell anyone anything, since punching or stabbing are risks. Also, I believe the new generation is hyper tolerant of such things compared to us olds.

TeamCommet1• 6 months ago

I'm curious how you're handling the feedback loop from the device's own speakers. If the phone plays back the audio, doesn't the mic pick it up again and create an infinite echo? Or does the 2-second delay just turn it into a slow-motion oscillation?

STFU

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