Making Your Room Quiet

el_flynn writes "This may be a cure for those of you with loud computers, or perhaps those who spend lots of time in NOC rooms that generate lots of noise: NewScientist.com mentions about a "Silence Machine" that gets rid of unwanted noise. I want one to quiet down my neighbour's loud dogs. " These are also being tested in cars, to make the car quieter. I've got a pair of the headphones that the article alludes to - they make airplane travel much nicer, and having something like this to cancel machine noise would be excellent.

Really want to quiet the dogs?

[Beowulf_Boy]

I want one to quiet down my neighbour's loud dogs.
I suggest a .22 in place of the quiet machine

White noise

[sparcv9]

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I find it difficult to sleep at night without the whoosh of the fans from the handful of servers I keep in my room. What kind of geek likes quiet machines?

Cheap solution is near!

[itsnotme]

try breaking your eardrums, then you cant hear diddly.. and its cheaper than buying these 'quiet' solutions!

I can say myself, I've been deaf since I was born ( I was born deaf ) so I can say that its the easiest solution since I cant hear diddly so all of my computers are supposedly "quiet" for me! Soundproof padding for my room? Nah! dont need it! :-)

Re:Noise cancelling headphones

[Jucius Maximus]

...and having something like this to cancle machine noise would be excellent.

Wow, you're almost good enough to be a slashdot editor!

...Wait

Re:talk about old technology..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. I agree. And, if you go near the speed of light,
you can slow time and everything will look compressed.
Old technology. So, why don't we do it? Because it's not
easy.

Re:Another science fiction become science fact

[LadyLucky]

No doubt it also placed a hologram over the image of the alien that seemed to be very adept at mouthing the english words at the same time.

Why can't they just make like everyone else and put a fish in their ears?

Re:Really want to quiet the dogs?

[guiding_knight]

No, no no. That'll just create more noise, that of gunfire. We musn't add to the problem.

That said, used a silenced gun. No worries! :)

Dangerous : violates conservation of energy,

[0xB]

So, there is a noise source producing sound energy and I have a so-called noise cancelling machine producing out-of-phase sound energy.

The end result is no sound, therefore energy has been destroyed.

This violates all the fundamental rules of nature.

I urge you not to build this thing ... you will destroy us all in a terrible singularity of destruction.

Um...

[Wakko Warner]

I want one to quiet down my neighbour's loud dogs.

You know, they make a .45 caliber machine which performs this job adequately...been around for years.

- A.P.

Re:White noise

[antibryce]

hahahahah

I read that and immediately thought "Wow, sounds like my last roommate." Then I look at the userid and guess what...it *IS* my former roommate. :)

Re:Really want to quiet the dogs?

[BlueUnderwear]

No, no no. That'll just create more noise, that of gunfire.

Yes, but it'll create such noise only once... :-)

Re:bass

[utexaspunk]

perhaps, if it's powerful enough, it could be loud enough to even cancel out the bass vibrations in your neighbor's apartment! he'd have to knock on YOUR door and ask you to turn your noise cancellation device down! :)

Re:Noise cancelling headphones

[vandemar]

The other day I let a friend of mine use my noise cancelling headphones to listen to a CD he just bought. After fiddling with his CD Walkman for a bit, he still wasn't able to hear anything on the headphones. It turned out the CD he bought was N'Sync's greatest hits album, and the headphones were actively cancelling out all the noise from it leaving only the real music (ie silence).

There was a fictional story in which someone

[Anonymous Coward]

used something like this at a politician's speech

Low budget bass removal

[dattaway]

Eliminating bass can be much simpler than that with just an amplifier, speakers, and a... signal generator: position the speakers against the dorm wall where the source originates. Set the amplifier for test purposes at medium volume. Slowly calibrate the signal generator to achieve resonance of the walls. This is determined when picture frames rattle off the walls. Once this point is determined, maximize amplifier output. The resonant energy building within the walls will then be transparently delivered to the client in what can be described as a non-maskable interrupt.

What can be described after that is guaranteed to be silence. Except for breakage of items in the host's bookshelves, etc... Slight profanity may be also side effect. Use with caution and deny any knowledge when questioned.

Re:bass

[daeley]

I wonder if this will stop bass vibrations.

I didn't realize they made that much noise. They're only fish, after all. I suggest staying out of the water. ;-)

I need noise!

[Eil]

Does anyone ever consider that I might *want* noise? The dorms I live in are so damn loud that I'll do anything to bring the ambient noise above the human- and stereo-created noise threshold.

Right now I've got a non-functional AC unit and dual in-window fans going primarily for this purpose alone. The frige is right next to my bed and since I don't have any money for food, I sometimes leave the door propped open just so the compressor runs and lulls me to sleep. I'm also considering buying a monster box fan to put next to my bed so my frige doesn't have to work so hard. (Or if I actually want to put anything in it.)

And don't get me started on my computer. I think my neighbor can tell when I shut this thing off.

For the curious, I have tried those anti-noise machines and noise-cancelling headphones, but they don't take care of 99% of the problem for me: bass. Until I started working nights, I'd usually be up until the wee hours of the morning because some dipshit wants to have a Jurassic Park marathon with his dipshit buddies. Let me tell you how fun that is when I had to get up a 6AM for work every day.

And yes, I have also tried earplugs, but again, they don't block out the bass... the sound has such a low frequency that it travels through your skull rather than through your ear canal.

Re:I need noise!

[pangur]

For the curious, I have tried those anti-noise machines and noise-cancelling headphones, but they don't take care of 99% of the problem for me: bass

Yeah, the guy in the next cubicle has the "Billy the Big-Mouthed Bass". He has it on motion-detection, and nothing is more annoying that a fish that jumps out and sings when I go to the bathroom.

Typical

[sharkey]

Isn't that just like the typical Slashdotter, making things SOOOO much more complicated than needed? If the PCs and equipment in your room are unacceptably loud...
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wait for it
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TURN THEM OFF.