SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
It was a bright, frigid morning in Ann Arbor, Michigan, two weeks before the University of Michigan let out for winter break, and the college town's numerous coffee shops were abuzz with the gentle tapping of keyboards, the whooshing of espresso machines, the occasional chatter—and the tinny strains of 1980s and '90s pop hits.
It's that last element of the sonic landscape that drives Gina Choe and Libby Hunter crazy. Standing just inside a cavernous cafe where The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?" competed with a sizzling griddle, jostling coffee cups, and echoing voices, Choe said, "I came in here once, and [the music] was everywhere around me. Everyone was talking more loudly—I couldn't even hear my friend."
As Choe checked a decibel meter on her phone ("65, the level of loud conversation"), Hunter mentioned that the last time she was here, she had asked a counter worker if the music could be turned off. "The manager came over to my table, and she was really nice, but she said no, because of the 'atmosphere.' It's amazing how afraid they are to not have music."
Hunter, a retired middle-school music teacher, and Choe, a 2017 Michigan graduate who is working in a research lab while she prepares to apply to medical school, do not travel in the same circles, and might never have met at all had they not come together over a mutual love of quiet spaces—and a loathing for piped-in background music.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Uncle_Al on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:17PM (7 children)
FSCK music, when is the backlash coming for Goddamn TVs everywhere?
Noise I can tune out, TV in my peripheral vision I can't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:24PM
You could wear AR glasses to filter out all television screens.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:44PM (4 children)
But how are you going to know what to think if you don't always have Fox News blaring at you?
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:23PM
FTFY
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:58PM (2 children)
Fox was barely right of center at the best of times. It takes strong corporate leadership to do that when your employees are mostly journalists who live in New York City. The leadership has changed due to death. The new leaders are not putting in the effort required to keep Fox on the right, and so it is rapidly moving left.
Fox was even caught colluding with CNN to stage fake protests around London. Although usually not as horrible as CNN and NBC, Fox is still fake news.
Breitbart is very good. Infowars is OK, if you can tolerate rambling. If you can tolerate that and some nonsense too, you'll find that /r/TheDonald has the best breaking news.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @10:33PM (1 child)
Did the guy who runs the realDonaldTrump account here forget to log in?
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:14PM
I honestly want to get high with the dude behind the account and pick their brain. With a spoon of course, because I'll be doing bath salts. Or just plain weed. We'll see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:14PM
https://www.amazon.com/TV-B-Gone-Universal-TV-Control-Keychain/dp/B0006GD9CE [amazon.com]
Problem solved.
(Score: 1) by jshmlr on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:24PM (4 children)
An OK piece, the last paragraph was a bit annoying. "We’re so cyber-spatially-oriented now"... is a wordy way of saying we have our faces in our phones all the time.
Need nothing, then see what happens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:27PM (3 children)
Just wait until VR reaches its first billion users. That will be the beginning of true cyberspatial orientation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:36PM (1 child)
Hacking augmented reality vr headset zebra line recognition software would be awesome, bro.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:38PM
Black hat makes people walk into walls
*really* black hat makes people walk under buses.
Grey hat makes people walk into their store..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:15PM
>Just wait until VR reaches its first billion users. That will be the beginning of the Matrix.
FTFY.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:38PM (3 children)
65 db the level of "white" pumped into my office. People just yells over it. I wear earplugs like guys on stamping machines to protect my hearing. Yes I am older but still have great hearing. I can even hear people talking 50 ft away in my office through the noise with the earplugs. I wish these places learn methods to improve the environment like tapestry on the wall to absorbe the sounds and blocks in the overhead to stop the spread of sounds.
I had show my doctor's office how bad it was in the offices. I informed them the what the doctor was telling the person in the room across the way. Also the Personal information of other people that I could read off the screens and were asked over the counter. It bad to have good memory and god vision and hearing.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:47PM (2 children)
All that goodness, but bad spelling and grammar
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:18PM (1 child)
All that spelling and grammar is nonsense. Just look at Donald Trump. Very good with words. Uses few words and gets his point across. He is the president. How could he have bad grammar and get that job? He couldn't if he were dumb. He is a billionaire. Billionaires are smart people. Believe me, I know. I've read up on them. They don't get all the money being bad with words. He is good with words. That is why people like him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:59AM
Your comment is a good example of Trump's stream-of-consciousness(??) word salad.
Short sentences. No words longer than 3 syllables. Use the same words over and over.
Donald Trump Has The Vocabulary & Grammar Of A 4th Grader and He Hates Reading [alternet.org]
Former Wharton Professor William T. Kelley Says "Donald Trump Was The Dumbest Goddamn Student I Ever Had" [alternet.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by IndigoFreak on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:42PM (11 children)
Backlash? What backlash? 43% of people polled dislike it. It didn't say they are so fed up with it that they will do something about it.
The club has 2k people across the UK? That's nothing. And they want to get rid of all music except live. Personally, live is the worst. It's always way too loud. And I feel like she doesn't want the music off, as much as just turn it down a little bit. She pulls out a decibel meter. That isn't a binary argument anymore. It's the music is too loud, please turn it down. If the sound at any level annoyed you, it wouldn't matter that it was loud.
Have you ever walked into a party and it was just dead. Maybe a few voices here and there but else silence? It feels awkward. That is what businesses are trying to avoid. Also, a little background noise hides the many sounds that people make(not joking here, but farts, coughs, throat clearing, ect.) You do not actually want a big store or business with no other sounds but people shuffling around. There is a reason practically every business has music. Hell, my old college library piped in static.
This feels like a made up story.
Sorry, so many trains of thought going here....
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Revek on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:21PM (1 child)
You shut your mouth
how can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
just like everybody else does
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:34PM
"There is a club if you'd like to go,
You could meet somebody who really loves you,
So you go and you stand on your own,
and you leave on your own,
And you go home and you cry and you want to die."
People always forget the best verse of that song :) (and since it is after the first long break in the song most people miss it completly)
But to answer in context - same club, same enviornment, different experience.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:51PM (5 children)
It depends a lot on genre. Some live music isn't amplified at all, some is pounded through the sound system as loudly as possible. One reason for the loud live music is that the sound guys who spend their time in those kind of venues go deaf, and thus pump up the jams even louder to compensate.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Informative) by RS3 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:35PM (4 children)
As a part-time "sound guy" I'll tell you the reasons for loudness are almost infinite. Sometimes it's up to me, sometimes someone is telling me what to do, sometimes due to other factors explained below.
I've done shows where some dude tells me he's the "big boss" and I'm ordered to make it louder. Same show- another royal dude tells me it's his venue (outdoor municipal park) and I'm way too loud. Crowd was loving it; those who liked it stayed up front, those who didn't were farther back. I do use sound meters and I sure wish people would get together and decide on proper dB levels for a show.
With most major stars' shows, someone (musician/artist, producer, someone) decides on proper dB level for the show.
Often there are factors that I have no control over, and to get a good "mix" I have to push some things louder than I would like to.
I've done shows at 110 dB because that's how loud 1,500 screaming teenage girls are, packed into an auditorium, sound system off. (no joke).
I've done shows at 105-110 dB because that's how loud the drums/cymbals were, unamplified (not including bass drum), under a large tent, outdoor festival, and even then the cymbals were noticeably loud.
Same story for electric guitar- some EG amps are skin-peeling (and I'm an EG hack).
I've done classical/pops concerts where I had to push a singer because brass section is way too loud, overall volume in the 95 dB range, and the singer was still somewhat buried in the brass.
And naturally it depends on the music type / genre, crowd, venue, etc. Generally if I have full control of everything, I'm told I'm pretty good. But you can't please everyone- someone will always want it louder, and someone else wants quieter. Sigh.
For the record, I almost always have earplugs in my pocket, if not stuffed in my ears.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:10AM (3 children)
It sounds like you're doing higher-class gigs than the ones I had in mind: My experience has been more with bar gigs and such, where I've had to work with sound people who literally could not hear my instrument acoustically, at all.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:19AM (2 children)
Thanks! I'm in it for the music, so I'm cautious / choosy. I don't think I've ever done an actual bar gig. That said, I'd love doing bar gigs for a wide range of music genres, but not the typical rock bar bands. Some of them are pretty good, but life's too short, even if the pay was good. I like mixing a wide variety of music, much of which I don't otherwise listen to but live it's fun. My greatest passion, and maybe where I'm best, is gently augmenting classical music. Too many classical musicians get very VERY irritating, bratty, bordering on tantrum when they see a mic near their instrument. "I don't need this", "who put this here?", "why is this here?" My response: "we don't use it in the house- it's for the recording". "What recording? I didn't sign a release!" "We always record; it's in your contract." "I didn't sign a contract!" "Well, maybe next time you..." "Arrrgghhh!"
I might have to get tiny mics out of some cell phones, get some extremely small shielded wire, and hide tiny mics on music stands, chairs, somewhere. Or maybe some good shotgun mics from far. :)
What kind of instrument(s) do you play? What genre music? What city / area? I'm in SE PA. Maybe you can find a good sound person and insist he/she run your mixes.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:19AM (1 child)
Most small bands (ie, one or two singles, maybe an album, some radio play) can't afford a sound guy.
Most bars that have that sort of band insist on the house sound guy. Rarely is that guy (yes, always a guy) any good.
When a band gets big enough to be able to afford a dedicated sound guy, they also have roadies and can get their own sound guy at the mixing desk.. Where he finds the house guy spills his beer regularly, the majority of the sliders are jammed, only three of the channels have full eq control... and the only setting where everything works is "too loud"
So only very small bands or ones with their own sound equipment will ever sound "good" in an average suburban bar.
So: see them when they are small and see them when they play stadiums!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:38PM
MostCynical, you're upholding your username spectacularly! I respectfully disagree with many of your points, mostly on grounds of over-generalization.
Generalization. What does "can't afford" mean? How much $? If a band is good enough, and the drive distance / parking / venue / crowd nice / decent / free food, you'd be amazed at how cheaply I'll work. Like I already stated, I'm in it for the music; for the sake of music being as good as it can be, and that strongly includes doing everything I can to give the musicians a good experience: correct mics, mic placements, monitors, monitor mix, stage layout, etc. Many musicians are taken aback by my accomodating attitude toward them- they're used to very mean jerk "sound guys".
Also, think of the investment. 1 bad sound person will wreck your music. Only the tone-deaf, drunks, family, etc. will be your fans.
I've done gigs where the band had a "tech rider" that specified they might bring a sound engineer, and if they do, he/she runs sound, or they don't play.
I have my own mixers. No beer nor any other thing has been spilled. All controls work, no scratchies.
Yes, as sound systems get better, smaller, more portable, more efficient, I'm seeing more and more bands have their own. Sometimes run it themselves from the stage, and it ends up being better than many "sound guys'" mixes, but still out of balance. I've suggested to several that they could find someone local, like me, who can clean up their mix from out in the room (phone / tablet remote control).
I do know, and have met, and worked with several female audio engineers.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:17PM
If that were the primary rationale, why -- for the love of pete -- do so many men's bathrooms lack loud Muzak?? If there were ever a location that needed background sound to cover up unpleasant noise...
And as for why there's music everywhere, part is perhaps to prevent awkwardness (e.g. in restaurants), but in random stores you overlook the effect of music on purchasing habits. Although it's not always successful, keeping people happy and more relaxed is good for business and more purchases. Music tends to help subtly with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:25PM
The piped music is the reason we don't eat at Buffalo Wild Wings anymore. We couldn't even talk to each other, so we stopped going.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:33PM
Maybe you'd have been able to articulate them better without that cafe music blaring in your ears.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:51PM
I'll admit, I didn't, and probably never will, read the article. But one incident is a backlash. Oh My Goodness!
(Score: 4, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:08PM (18 children)
I'd rather we just dialed back on the Christmas music. All of the music people pipe in for Christmas is same-y, even more than the regular stuff- soft nostalgic solos about snow or love, fake hip-hop "christmas is cool" nonsense, joke songs played and replayed since the 80s or longer, etc etc. I heard a song the other day at the gas station that was just minor variations of "yeah its Christmas time bab-y, I luv you" over and over for like three minutes.
Couldn't they just play some instrumental music? Like elevator "musack"? Hearing the same words over and over for three minutes is aggravating.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:17PM
How about this one [youtube.com]? Certainly nobody would find it annoying after a few plays.
(Score: 4, Funny) by SomeGuy on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:37PM (15 children)
There is nothing quite as blood-boiling as being stuck in the middle of shopping at Publix just before Crassmas when they start playing some religious music. Some child-raping shit singing that everyone is supposed to worship their imaginary god. Even putting aside the fact that there is NO SUCH THING AS GOD, there are plenty of people in this world who don't believe exactly the same thing the same way.
"Publix: Where shopping is a pleasure for rich white people who believe in Teh One Tru Gerd derrrr"
Somewhere in an outsourced hovel in India someone strings together what music should be piped in: "Hey, I have an idea, let's play Frosty the Freaking Snowman again because it wasn't good enough the first 9000 trillions times we played it!" "Oh, and this Never Gonna Give You Up sounds like a good one to play next".
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:39PM
May God bless you
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:02PM (1 child)
I swapped the tape in the on hold music from Pat Boone to Twisted Sister.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:29PM
Why choose? You could have used this [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:03PM (2 children)
I doubt people worship frosty the snowman as a god. Are you a future archeologist overinterpreting trinkets?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:29PM (1 child)
Yes, I am from 2000 years in the future trying to unravel some mysteries. From the ancient sacred book of Walmart, it states that "Frosty" Olaf the snowman came to life to battle the evil anti-consumerism Jesus. But in the battle he killed Kenny and became a bastard. Who exactly was this Kenny? I probably need to go back another 20 years or so. The events where Olaf is sadly defeated by Jesus and Venkman crossing the streams and melting his face off should be happening any day now. When that is done I will step another 20 years in to the future and witness Princess Celestia and Optimums Prime bringing the Ultimate Peace to the Earth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:19AM
If you haven't yet experienced it, you'd get a charge out of a performance/demonstration by Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, [google.com] featured in What Would Jesus Buy? [wikipedia.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:04PM
We are so very sorry that we didn't post a trigger warning. It was nothing but neglect on Staff's part. Our data mining software indicates exactly how sensitive you are to Christmas music, but we failed to take proper notices. Please open your CD ROM tray, and find a handful of Prozac. Take them with our blessings. And, merry Christmas you miserable fuck.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:14PM (4 children)
You seem to be lumping all religion together. There is a difference though, with "child-raping shit" being legit in exactly one mainstream religion: the one founded by a guy who married a 6-year-old and then placed his penis between her thighs regularly until, at age 9, he managed to have sex with her.
I'm an atheist, but damn it, I acknowledge that Christianity is the bedrock of western civilization. Buddhism isn't half bad; there are functional cultures in eastern Asia that don't involve killing infidels and raping children. Without a mild religion dominating society, our society is vulnerable to acquiring a horrible religion. Most atheists, myself excluded, make no significant effort to oppose horrible religions. If anything, they enable such religions by putting most effort toward opposing popular mild religions like Christianity.
Basically, it's a matter of a power vacuum. If you get rid of religion, a new one will spread like wildfire. That is a foolish gamble to take when the current religion is mostly harmless.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:32PM
This AC's ideas need to be published in all the atheist's publications. Maybe we can get him some talking time at the universities as well.
That old saying, "nature abhors a vacuum" is bullshit, because there's a helluva lot of vacuum in this universe. But mankind certainly abhors a vacuum. Leaders are gonna lead, whether they are fit or not. And, followers are gonna follow, no matter how unfit the leaders are.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:50PM
What? As someone who would be considered athiest I honestly believe all organized religion has a purpose but that purpose has been corrupted time and time again by power hungry psychopaths. I prefer that we treat all religion as horrible and work towards getting civilization to abandon it. And that's only possible by improving quality of life for as many people as possible through advanced technological means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:40AM
The bedrock? They did a whole lot of nothing for thousands of years (even actively hindering progress and intellectuals) and then things started changing rapidly, and of course this is all because of Christianity and has nothing to do with other factors. I seriously don't understand people - especially atheists - who overstate the accomplishments of religion, to the point where religion is given credit for some advancement even though there is no evidence it was the cause.
Where's your evidence of this? What counts as "significant effort"? Do you think that where the atheist lives might influence what religion they might choose to oppose the most? Do you really expect atheists to try to fight horrible religions that mainly exist on other continents rather than focusing on problems in their own countries? I guarantee you that the average Christian does not make much of an effort to oppose horrible religions either.
Have you considered being a guest on Fox News?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:41AM
Christianity is the bedrock of western civilization
Actually, the foundation of all civilization is superstition nonsense.
The latest installment of The Jimmy Dore Show traces Christmas and Santa Claus from an ancient pagan holiday to the modern conglomeration of myths and commercial nonsense.
~35 percent of a 14 MB MP3 -- 05:45 - 19:00 [kpfk.org]
(A holiday timeslot substitution for Eric Mann's activist program.)
Available until late February.
If you don't grab the file by then, Jimmy's show is available elsewhere as a webcast.
Text versions:
How Did We Get From A Turkish Bishop To A Guy In A Red Suit & Flying Reindeer(Santa Claus) [penguinpetes.com]
The Anti-Catholic Evolution Of Saint Nicholas Into Santa Claus [alternet.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:33PM (2 children)
True story:
Many years ago, before my tenure, our facilities manager thought it would be a great idea to play christmas music over the loud speakers. So they hooked a radio tuner to the PA amp and mixed in the christmas music. Well, the only thing our senior engineer hateed more than the beatles is christmas music. After only half a day he looses it, grabbed a set of dykes, a ladder, and cut every fuckin speaker wire on the shop floor AND ripped the speaker out of his office ceiling. Since he was senior and cranked out work orders making big money, no one said one peep to him. They fixed the speakers and never put music on ever again preferring to pretend it never happened. I cheered him when he first told me that story at the first christmas party I attended. I still laugh about that every year when I first hear christmas music and bring that story up with him which he proudly owns and retells.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:55AM (1 child)
Did they have a license to do that?
ASCAP/BMI gets pissed if you don't pay them.
Years ago, after dance class, a group of us would go to a local coffee shop.
The place was a local hole in the wall startup.
They played recorded background music.
One week, we came in and the recorded music was off.
Instead, they had a live music act performing their own compositions
That pattern continued from then on.
Pretty sure that was because of licensing.
Fiddlers Crossing in Tehachapi, CA (a folkie music venue) is a place I know of which specifies that all acts must perform their own compositions or traditional tunes; nothing that is still under copyright by someone else is allowed.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:22AM
Yea, they used a local radio station as music on hold when I first got there. Got them to switch to Muzak for hold music and then they had a service make a custom recorded voice over talking about the company with prerecorded music. Looks like a little car stereo amp with a thumb drive plugged into it and a stereo set of rca jacks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Aiwendil on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:42PM
https://store.hplhs.org/collections/filk [hplhs.org] -- Their Solstice-albums, it is Cthulhu-themed rewrites of christmas songs, just memorize them and have their lyrics running in your head and it becomes bearable with christmas-songs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:09PM
Go home. Or open your own damn coffee shop and do what you want.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:12PM
There was a sandwich shop that opened near me a while back, I went there once, and the music was so deafening, I couldn't even hear the people at the counter. Resulted in some bad service too, but either way I have no intention of ever going there again.
Observing similar loud music at several other places, I am fairly convinced that the underlying purpose is to intentionally limit people eating in and keeping people going through their drive through instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:07PM (8 children)
I used to work in a cube farm that had Muzak piped in. Oh fucking shit, it was so annoying. Not only was it distracting, it wasn't my taste and it repeated every few hours.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:24PM (5 children)
And, you couldn't figure out how to destroy the speaker? All it takes is a thin, narrow blade. Or an ice pick. Just insert it through the face of the speaker, and fish around until all that paper-like material is turned into confetti. It makes no more sound. YAY!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:32PM (3 children)
I guess if he wanted to lose that job, there were easier ways to achieve that than destroying the employer's property. Especially if he wanted to get another job later.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:07PM (1 child)
I guess I can get away with stuff, because I'm expected to be anywhere at anytime. Our place doesn't pipe music, but we have PA speakers. The damned things blared like they were competing for decibels at a football stadium. I figured out how to turn most of them down, turn a couple off - and one I just cut the wires on. The volume control didn't work, there was no on/off switch, so I just cut the wires. If I hadn't been able to reach the wires easily, I would have knifed the speaker. The guy who fixes things can get away with a lot of crap, LOL. Maybe GP should have talked to the maintenance guy to start with?
Funny thing - a few months after I got the volume of those speakers under control, the company bought radios for us to use. The speaker system is still there, and if someone doesn't answer his radio, he can still be paged. But, I did tame the damned things, and they don't blow you away anymore! Oh - I forgot what is probably the most important part. The outside speakers. We got complaints now and then about people trying to sleep. Someone would turn the entire system down, then someone else would turn it all back up again, at the master control. I killed all of those outside speakers, on my own initiative. None of them makes the slightest sound when the PA is keyed up.
I believe that the master volume control is still set on 11 or 12 or whatever. When people talk into the microphone, I think they expect to hear themselves. Nevermind the feedback involved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:50AM
> The outside speakers. We got complaints now and then about people trying to sleep.
Senior residence next door to my parents used to have an outside PA speaker, in a doorway where the smokers congregated. Woke me up, I called the owner in the middle of the night and woke him up (he didn't have an unlisted number at that time). It stayed off for a few years, then someone turned it on again, woke me once or twice. Got pissed enough that I went over there, jumped up, grabbed the wires, pulled them out.
Since then they re-built the whole place and that entrance has been moved away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:02PM
Yeah, I was a contractor, and this was during the depression of the early 2000s. I ended getting fired anyway after refusing to leave (unpaid) after four hours of work to come back in the evening for another four hours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:07AM
Most places that have speakers in the ceiling also use that as a public address system.
...and if you did want to disable a speaker, most ceilings use removable tiles.
Lifting the tile and disconnecting the speaker|snipping the wire would be even more effective without costing anyone a cent in replacement materials.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:33PM
Likewise, for years. It wasn't too loud, but one day a tune began running through my head -- and that tune came up next on the Muzak. OK, coincidence...but not long after, it happened again. Over the next week or so, it became obvious that I was imprinted with the song rotation. Creepy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:52AM
Ramones, "I Want to be Sedated" was playing on the Muzak(?) when I walked into the grocery store this morning. Does that help to sell food?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:33AM (1 child)
Brew your own coffee at home or in the office, take it with you in a leak-proof travel mug. Then you don't need to go to the coffee shop and hear their music. If you must buy coffee there, take it in a paper cup and go sit in a place called, "outside." There are parks with benches for that purpose. If you absolutely must buy coffee in that shop and drink it on their premises, then buy ear plugs or noise-cancelling headphones you can play your own music on or white noise to drown out what they're playing.
I am not unsympathetic to unwanted music and TVs playing in public places. It can be obnoxious. We do however have options.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:17AM
What's the outside temperature in NYC right now?
Brew your own coffee
It seems so obvious.
The cost of 2 trips to the coffee shop should pay for a thermos.
...and the stuff should still be hot for your afternoon break.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]