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Vox presents an article about restaurant noise levels and why they've risen over the years.
When the Line Hotel opened in Washington, DC, last December, the cocktail bars, gourmet coffee shops, and restaurants that fill its cavernous lobby drew a lot of buzz. Housed in a century-old church, the space was also reputedly beautiful.
My first visit in February confirmed that the Line was indeed as sleek as my friends and restaurant critics had suggested. There was just one problem: I wanted to leave almost as soon as I walked in. My ears were invaded by a deafening din.
[...] In reckoning with this underappreciated health threat, I’ve been wondering how we got here and why any well-meaning restaurateur would inflict this pain on his or her patrons and staff. I learned that there are a number of reasons — and they mostly have to do with restaurant design trends. In exposing them, I hope restaurateurs will take note: You may be deafening your staff and patrons.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by anubi on Friday April 20 2018, @07:14AM (8 children)
I got ran out of several Starbucks and Border's bookstores when they invited in live musicians.
Those venues simply weren't designed for that level of acoustical energy, and had it confined. It was like comparing a backrub to a beating.
Even my Church got so loud I had to leave.
Is it any surprise why late night TV ( aimed a lot at retired people like me ) is so full of ads for hearing aids? Even though I have not made my plight public on any places where my real name and mailing address are available, somehow I get a lot of mail from hearing doctors and their sales pitches.
And some of them are telling me to blame one of my previous employers, which I flat refuse to do, because they didn't do it. You can't tell me that the oil refinery I worked at was anywhere near as loud as that Starbucks or in that Church, with kilowatts of power amplifiers in an enclosed room.
I know the problem is with me, because I can hook my old analog HP651-B audio generator to a speaker, run its frequency up and down, and it sounds to me like the signal generator is malfunctioning and drops output at certain frequencies. However, my oscilloscope, looking at a microphone, does not verify what I think I hear. Its pretty damned obvious to me where my problem is.... I blew out a lot of my cochleas before I realized what was going on. And I should have left that church a lot earlier. But I had to learn the hard way. We humans seem to be awful gullible at times, and do things trying to meet someone else's expectations. Kinda like taking your car on faith to what you believed was a mechanic who understood stuff a lot more than you did, only to find out he's playing you for a fool and has your car phuched up beyond belief.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Grishnakh on Friday April 20 2018, @12:58PM (3 children)
And I should have left that church a lot earlier.
This line needs to be emphasized here. It's absolutely true, no matter which church you're talking about, if it's a church in America, and it's not just because of the noise level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @04:13PM (1 child)
Oh, yes, that's right. American churches. The European ones are SO much cooler.
You are such a pathetic tool.
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Friday April 20 2018, @04:38PM
> American churches. The European ones are SO much cooler.
Made of ancient stone, badly heated, and mostly empty outside of Christmas/Easter. They are literally a lot cooler.
Much much fewer are Evangelical, too.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 20 2018, @06:00PM
You are making assumptions. There are decent churches in the US, at least. I know of three. I don't go to any of them, being a heretical gnostic pagan of the Jungian faith, but they are still good churches. They do their best to promote ethics and self-awareness. And they fulfill a social need that for many people is much stronger than their religious needs.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by SomeGuy on Friday April 20 2018, @01:02PM (2 children)
Because everyone knows that ball gargling must be heard at a bazillion decibels to make people believe in child-molesting imaginary sky fairies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 26 2018, @08:03AM
It definitely seemed they favor quantity over quality. I came there to hear someone talk about God.
What I got was an hour of either loud music or browbeating over tithes.
I now found two TV preachers that filled my need... Les Feldnick out of Kinta, Oklahoma, and Arnold/Dennis Murray out of Gravette, Arkansas.
Its been my experience that most TV preachers are predatory beggars and have little to do with spirituality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 26 2018, @12:07PM
Are you 13 or something? This is something that edgy Reddit atheists with no actual arguments would post. Your Cognitive Dissonance is really showing.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @08:44PM
What? Speak up, sonny!