> It's also how I realized that wearing special earplugs in noisy places helps me understand what the people around me are saying, mitigating a mild auditory processing disorder that I had never thought much about.
TIL this exists. Does anyone know where to read more about these plugs? What do they do? I always feel like I've got a harder time understanding people than everyone else
These are plugs with "flat attenuation" - the Etymotics custom-molded Musicians Earplugs are the classic ones (you go to an audiologist to make a mold) - they actually have a variety of attenuators, including a 25dB one (for drummers). I used a 15dB set for years and they were responsible for saving a lot of my hearing over countless shows, etc. Custom molds will lose their fit (your ear shape changes over time?) and when I was looking to replace them, I tested a bunch of the new plugs around, I found Earasers to be fit and work as well as my customs, at a much lower price (about $40).
In loud environments, I've definitely found the same phenomena, where it was much easier to understand people talking w/ the dB cut. I never thought this was a disorder, but rather a natural result of lowering the sound floor that made voices easier to pick up/distinguish?
Back when I went to bars with way too loud music I would always plug my ear when someone was shouting in it. Made it much easier to hear what they were saying. I don't think I have any auditory disorders, but you never know.
+1 for Etymotics, though I cheaped out and got the non-custom molded ones. But excellent for gigs. Which reminds me - I need to dig mine out for the Iron Maiden gig tonight.
Try any earplugs. They will all have that effect to some extent. In earplugs I can hear lyrics of a song that bus driver listens to, while without them I could not even tell if that's music or just noise.
A minor warning: experiencing "silence" makes a lot of people uneasy - in my opinion it's just a matter of practice, but some find it so unpleasant that they would never use earplugs by choice.
If you want to spend more cash I find Senner brand my sweet spot (doesn't block that much, reasonable cost, reusable). Alpine for a bit cheaper option with wide range of "dB's", good for concerts or motorycle, single pair will last long time. Or Loops, a lot of hype for these ones (people claim it does precisely what you are looking for), but it's overpriced in my opinion, and blocks a bit too much sound for me (to use in office, home, but perfect for a bar, commute, cinema). Also doesn't work well in wind. All 3 of those brands give fairly natural music experience, especially Senner.
I write "silence", as it's never silent. You will hear many annoying things (hums, squeaks, high pitched noise, pulse, feet on the ground). This things sometimes get into your head and you can't stop thinking about them. That's also why googling people's experience with tinnitus (that usually has no physical reason - at all, or one that you can fix - and is constant) is the most depressing thing I did last couple of years - highly recommend not investigating that too far.
> experiencing "silence" makes a lot of people uneasy
I remember riding a motorcycle with earplugs. (Uncertain if it is legal)
they were the 3m 33 db ones, and were the exact opposite of uneasy. Although I could hear things around me, the muting made the world quietly slide by, and I felt like I was in the center of an island of calm. It was very peaceful.
I suspect this is akin to driving a high-end car with NVH dialed into "ultra luxury silence", or sitting in the good seats of a jet where the sounds of the engines are far behind you and can't quite catch up.
In this ever more hectic world, I think silence (and freedom from other distractions) will be more and more a luxury.
Concert-oriented earplugs work fairly well for this, and they're pretty easy to find. They aren't safety-oriented so they don't cut by the ~30db of "normal" plugs, more often around 15db.
Generally they (claim to) try to sound more neutral so it's "just" a reduction in volume without much tone bias - personally I can't tell and haven't bothered to check, the small volume cut is all I really care about and any tone bias would be small enough that it's tough to notice anyway.
You can of course go much more specialized for many specific goals, but start cheap and simple. $20 or less is easy to find, though you might want to hunt around for comfort purposes (e.g. personally I only find completely soft ones comfortable for long periods, and anything with a long hard stem that pokes out gets bumped and seems like a safety hazard to me).
I've also taken to wearing them while driving at highway speeds with the windows down (feels good man) after noticing how the wind noise was damaging my left ear especially.
I've tried plenty of ear plugs for sleep, loud environments, and concerts. I'd stay clear of anything that's clearing putting most of the money into marketing like loop and talk to a audiologist or someone in the music industry. I ended up getting mine from "1of1 custom"[1] based on some research and references. They're a bit pricey, but based on the amount of loud environments I'm in they're literally life savers. I pair it with a sound level app made by NIOSH to let me know when I should put them in at bars/concerts.
I also want to read more about this. I recently purchased AirPods, which have several different settings. I’ve noticed that in very noisy environments I can hear voices way better when I have Noise Cancellation turned on. Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising. I could hear people close to me very well and I could even hear people 15 feet away. Conversations I don’t think I’ve ever been able to ease drop on with nothing in my ears.
Since Active noise canceling technology works by emitting "opposite" frequency of what the mic just listened, its limited by the processing delay so it is only really efficient in filtering sounds that are constant in time.
Turns out most sounds you’d want to filter are meeting this criteria so that’s ok.
But for sounds that aren’t constant like voices it still works but less.
So it’s not a surprise that the technology helps you isolate voices.
There are lots out there, but a popular model you could check out is the Loop Engage. They suppress certain frequencies more than others to help distinguish speech from background noise.
Very interesting, I see Loop is a Belgian company so it's not some distant shipping (I live a stone's throw from the border) and, for a niche (or so I thought) hearing aid I didn't expect a price tag far below a hundred bucks! Looks like good value if this does what it claims (https://www.loopearplugs.com/products/engage)
I have the same thing, I can hear perfectly, but I can't understand speech over noise (I can't tell what people are saying). Flat response earplugs (musician earplugs, but not custom molded) negate this, and I can hear fine even in concerts, very comfortably.
It's not bad enough that I feel comfortable making use of the hearing tests that they afaik don't let you pay for (similar with vision tests), though I'd be curious to have it quantified indeed and so have considered it
Yeah this is interesting. It makes sense...you're filtering out low level background noise so all you really get is the higher volume stuff like speech. Just like adjusting squelch on a radio.
I had a "brain MRI with contrast" scan last year, I wasn't offered earplugs. It wasn't that loud, I certainly wasn't in any discomfort.
With hindsight I'm not convinced about the informed consent re: the gadolinium infusion, but when you're lying prone in your underwear and the nurse is about to stick a line in your arm you don't feel particularly empowered...
[Apologies for the anecdote but] one (with hindsight) comedy moment was that they asked me/reminded me multiple times that no metal was allowed to be present but somehow neither they nor I clocked I was still wearing my wedding band ...
So I was lying there in the scanner and suddently I could feel the changes in the magnetic field via the ring on the ring finger of my left hand. A second or two of sheer panic as I wondered if I was about to see my finger get amputated and then I realised it was fine.
I should have known better, gold is diamagnetic.
[Decades ago] I spent my PhD years running my samples in various high-field NMRs. Nearly lost a set of house keys by taking them too close to a magnet, felt it trying to snatch them from me and managed to step away at the last minute....
There was an accident in a small Swedish hospital a few years ago, the patient scheduled for the MRI arrived with a 13 kg / 28 lbs weighted vest that he for some reason persuaded the MRI nurse to put on (I believe they were friends at the gym). The nurse did, but during the MRI session he left the monitoring room and went in to talk to the patient – and got pulled in by the magnetic field. Almost got strangled to death.
Alarm went off, security guards came running – and were also pulled in… In the end it took hours to get everybody out, the nurse and one or two of the security guards were injured, and the MRI machine was damaged.
Every MRI machine has an emergency button labeled "Quench" that releases its liquid helium. After so doing, the MRI loses its superconductivity and anyone pinned to the machine should be released.
Everyone I know who's worked with MRIs has been tempted to press the button!
Wait so the people were pulled into the magnetic field? Were they wearing ferromagnetic metal items that were pulled in? And what does that have to do with the vest that the patient is wearing? If that is ferromagnetic, would that not just simply be stuck inside the MRI?
I had an MRI in February and specifically asked about my wedding ring, the tech said it wasn't an issue. We didn't discuss composition or any other details.
I've had multiple MRIs and I always ask about my two rings. They have always said they're fine. It feels like they know something I don't, and also feels sketchy.
I'm told that back on the day, a guy working at JEOL, on a small-bore research NMI, was wearing a metal-banded wristwatch. And when it started to heat up, he reflexively pulled his arm out of the bore very quickly.
"Every four seconds or so, you see something new that you would never have guessed from the previous pictures. Each time it's a different cascade of activations in your brain, evoking random memories, creating unexpected connections, and stimulating thoughts that would never have occurred to you...What I need is an app that does nothing but show you truly random pictures, with no curation and no memetic aspirations. If you know of one, please let me know."
I made a site quickly, that shows a random series of pictures from Unsplash, since I was curious to try this! https://random-photo-cascade.replit.app/
(Built with Replit's new agent feature, which is impressive for this kind of very constrained task)
This is cool! After watching for a few mins, seems to be heavily weighted towards nature, architecture, and generally artsy pictures. Wonder if there is a way to expand the scope/randomness even further
Old professor of mine used to put himself into his research MRI and perpetually scan his brain, claimed that the fields would help him think faster.
Blood is diamagnetic or paramagnetic depending on the oxygenation, and fields stronger than 2T have been shown to have effects on neural activity, so who knows maybe he was right.
Fascinating, and also a potentially new origin story for Magneto in the next X-Men reboot.
There was a period of time where I had to get several MRI scans done, and I found them strangely relaxing. I was chastised several times for falling asleep (like the author), but I couldn't help it. I wasn't looking at anything but the ceiling of the machine, though.
Happens to me every time, it’s very relaxing. I get them both-yearly and get a p. good rest.
For shorter flights (1-2 hours) I usually fall asleep shortly after takeoff and wake up at landing. The a 320 neo I took recently actually felt too quiet to be relaxing.
> What I need is an app that does nothing but show you truly random pictures, with no curation and no memetic aspirations. If you know of one, please let me know.
“WebCollage is a program that creates collages out of random images found on the Web. More images are being added to the collage about once a minute, so this page will reload itself periodically. Clicking on one of the images in the collage will take you to the page on which it was found.
It finds the images by feeding random words into various search engines, and pulling images (or sections of images) out of the pages returned.
WebCollage also works as a screen saver on MacOS and Unix: it is included with the XScreenSaver package.”
I just wanted to say that anyone who stays voluntarily inside of a working MRI machine for any extended amount of time should get a presidential model as Hero of Science (if this medal doesn't exist, will please the congress create it just for this guy?).
The guy did willingly, for science, what for most people would be an unspeakable nightmare.
> for most people would be an unspeakable nightmare.
Most don’t find it that bad, and many enjoy it. It’s a bit like meditation, no one interferes and the drone of the scanner sends them to sleep. It’s warm and comfortable.
A significant number of first time patients have been told of the horrors of MRI and come pre-loaded with all sorts of misconceptions that helpful friends and family have passed on.
I’m an MR tech - we scan about 40-50 body regions per day and have 2 time slots for sedation (should it be needed). On average we would use light sedation 1 or 2 patients a day.
I’ve been a volunteer for optimising a few sequences this month, and recommend it.
Idk, all of that also feels a bit like being in a coffin for some, especially if you're going reasonably far into the tube. I do get the sleepiness bit, though personally would prefer it cooler.
People are wired differently, many (most?) don’t have a difficult time with MRI machines. I tend to find them relaxing. The only annoyance is that you’re not allowed to move the body part being scanned.
i thought i didn't have any phobia until i had a single experience with an MRI machine with no sedation. i came out with mild claustrophobia that only time has been healing.
I have only done 15mins at a stretch, but I did foam earplugs with noise cancelling headphones on top and it wasn’t too bad. I just pretended I was in some kind of sci-fi medical healing tube.
I’m an Indian Classical Music student, and studied tabla for many years. I dislike all electronic music in general. I think I’m hearing something else.
Readit News
TIL this exists. Does anyone know where to read more about these plugs? What do they do? I always feel like I've got a harder time understanding people than everyone else
In loud environments, I've definitely found the same phenomena, where it was much easier to understand people talking w/ the dB cut. I never thought this was a disorder, but rather a natural result of lowering the sound floor that made voices easier to pick up/distinguish?
Deleted Comment
A minor warning: experiencing "silence" makes a lot of people uneasy - in my opinion it's just a matter of practice, but some find it so unpleasant that they would never use earplugs by choice.
If you want to spend more cash I find Senner brand my sweet spot (doesn't block that much, reasonable cost, reusable). Alpine for a bit cheaper option with wide range of "dB's", good for concerts or motorycle, single pair will last long time. Or Loops, a lot of hype for these ones (people claim it does precisely what you are looking for), but it's overpriced in my opinion, and blocks a bit too much sound for me (to use in office, home, but perfect for a bar, commute, cinema). Also doesn't work well in wind. All 3 of those brands give fairly natural music experience, especially Senner.
I write "silence", as it's never silent. You will hear many annoying things (hums, squeaks, high pitched noise, pulse, feet on the ground). This things sometimes get into your head and you can't stop thinking about them. That's also why googling people's experience with tinnitus (that usually has no physical reason - at all, or one that you can fix - and is constant) is the most depressing thing I did last couple of years - highly recommend not investigating that too far.
I remember riding a motorcycle with earplugs. (Uncertain if it is legal)
they were the 3m 33 db ones, and were the exact opposite of uneasy. Although I could hear things around me, the muting made the world quietly slide by, and I felt like I was in the center of an island of calm. It was very peaceful.
I suspect this is akin to driving a high-end car with NVH dialed into "ultra luxury silence", or sitting in the good seats of a jet where the sounds of the engines are far behind you and can't quite catch up.
In this ever more hectic world, I think silence (and freedom from other distractions) will be more and more a luxury.
Generally they (claim to) try to sound more neutral so it's "just" a reduction in volume without much tone bias - personally I can't tell and haven't bothered to check, the small volume cut is all I really care about and any tone bias would be small enough that it's tough to notice anyway.
You can of course go much more specialized for many specific goals, but start cheap and simple. $20 or less is easy to find, though you might want to hunt around for comfort purposes (e.g. personally I only find completely soft ones comfortable for long periods, and anything with a long hard stem that pokes out gets bumped and seems like a safety hazard to me).
I've also taken to wearing them while driving at highway speeds with the windows down (feels good man) after noticing how the wind noise was damaging my left ear especially.
[1] https://1of1custom.com/collections/custom-ear-plugs
Since Active noise canceling technology works by emitting "opposite" frequency of what the mic just listened, its limited by the processing delay so it is only really efficient in filtering sounds that are constant in time.
Turns out most sounds you’d want to filter are meeting this criteria so that’s ok.
But for sounds that aren’t constant like voices it still works but less.
So it’s not a surprise that the technology helps you isolate voices.
It's easy to fall asleep inside, especially when they show videos of panda's eating via a tilted mirror they put above your eyes.
With hindsight I'm not convinced about the informed consent re: the gadolinium infusion, but when you're lying prone in your underwear and the nurse is about to stick a line in your arm you don't feel particularly empowered...
[Apologies for the anecdote but] one (with hindsight) comedy moment was that they asked me/reminded me multiple times that no metal was allowed to be present but somehow neither they nor I clocked I was still wearing my wedding band ...
So I was lying there in the scanner and suddently I could feel the changes in the magnetic field via the ring on the ring finger of my left hand. A second or two of sheer panic as I wondered if I was about to see my finger get amputated and then I realised it was fine.
I should have known better, gold is diamagnetic.
[Decades ago] I spent my PhD years running my samples in various high-field NMRs. Nearly lost a set of house keys by taking them too close to a magnet, felt it trying to snatch them from me and managed to step away at the last minute....
Alarm went off, security guards came running – and were also pulled in… In the end it took hours to get everybody out, the nurse and one or two of the security guards were injured, and the MRI machine was damaged.
Everyone I know who's worked with MRIs has been tempted to press the button!
https://mrimaster.com/mri-quench/
A gold ring is commonly 14k or 58.5% gold. You're lucky none of the other metals were magnetic. Sometimes nickel is included.
That is a bad day at work.
Blood is diamagnetic or paramagnetic depending on the oxygenation, and fields stronger than 2T have been shown to have effects on neural activity, so who knows maybe he was right.
There was a period of time where I had to get several MRI scans done, and I found them strangely relaxing. I was chastised several times for falling asleep (like the author), but I couldn't help it. I wasn't looking at anything but the ceiling of the machine, though.
For shorter flights (1-2 hours) I usually fall asleep shortly after takeoff and wake up at landing. The a 320 neo I took recently actually felt too quiet to be relaxing.
This must exist, right?
“WebCollage is a program that creates collages out of random images found on the Web. More images are being added to the collage about once a minute, so this page will reload itself periodically. Clicking on one of the images in the collage will take you to the page on which it was found.
It finds the images by feeding random words into various search engines, and pulling images (or sections of images) out of the pages returned.
WebCollage also works as a screen saver on MacOS and Unix: it is included with the XScreenSaver package.”
Deleted Comment
The guy did willingly, for science, what for most people would be an unspeakable nightmare.
Thank you, Sir!
Most don’t find it that bad, and many enjoy it. It’s a bit like meditation, no one interferes and the drone of the scanner sends them to sleep. It’s warm and comfortable.
A significant number of first time patients have been told of the horrors of MRI and come pre-loaded with all sorts of misconceptions that helpful friends and family have passed on.
I’m an MR tech - we scan about 40-50 body regions per day and have 2 time slots for sedation (should it be needed). On average we would use light sedation 1 or 2 patients a day. I’ve been a volunteer for optimising a few sequences this month, and recommend it.
i thought i didn't have any phobia until i had a single experience with an MRI machine with no sedation. i came out with mild claustrophobia that only time has been healing.
The first one that I'm aware that was created was Daisy, as an homage to the IBM 704.
No, it is very much not beautiful. It's like being inside a pneumatic drill. Horrible experience.
IME, IMHO, etc.