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.

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

>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)

> 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.

> 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-...

> 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...

> 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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

> 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

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).

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.

> 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.

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.

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!)

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

> didn't have the courage to speak up.

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

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

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

[flagged]

> 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.

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.

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.

See also:

https://improbable.com/2021/09/03/2012-japanese-ig-nobel-pri...

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

[flagged]

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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?)

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

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Let me guess: Ireland?

This ... is disgusting and appalling.

Report it to HR

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

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

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.

Two words

Flipper Zero

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

> 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.

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

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.

[flagged]

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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%.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Prompted with spite

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.

Thanks throwaway account.

But have you fully read it? By replaying what was playing, it forces the original noise to stop and in return, the repeated noise.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

https://xkcd.com/1499/

[flagged]