The New York Times’ City Room Blog is putting together a presentation of New Yorkers’ favorite quiet oases, and they’re looking for suggestions. Public places submitted to the blog’s interactive map will be considered for the piece later this spring. Of course, your favorite quiet place may not stay that way once it’s discovered by eight million New Yorkers (and our 50 million annual tourists), so you may want to keep your favorite quiet place, well, quiet!
Don’t don’t honk
In what some might some might take as an admission of defeat (or at least a concession to reality), the New York City Department of Transportation has begun removing each and every “Don’t Honk” road sign from the city streets. According to the New York Times, “the move is part of an effort to declutter the streets of often ignored signs.” The signs also give the impression that unneeded honks were only a violation where the signage was installed; with or without a sign, unnecessary honking remains illegal throughout the city with fines starting at $350.
Enforcement is another matter; last year the NYPD issued only 206 summonses. Most New Yorkers could count that many car horns in a day, if they were paying attention to them—of course, for most New Yorkers, ignoring the din of constant honking is a quickly learned survival skill.
A new record
Putting a new spin on the long-playing vinyl record, an editor at Instructables has devised a new method for producing LP records using a rapid prototyping “3D printer”. Working directly from a digital audio file, Amanda Ghassaei uses the waveform profile to create a 3D computer model of the familiar LP groove, which is then built up in physical form by a UV-cured resin printer.
Despite the cutting-edge 16-micron resolution of the printer, the end result is rather crude, with a frequency response and audio quality as yet far beneath a typical analog vinyl record. The all-digital noise introduced by the discrete print (in time, aliasing, and in amplitude, quantization) is also harsh compared with the traditional “warm” analog distortion sought after by vinyl enthusiasts and audiophiles. Even so, one could foresee a niche market for one-off, just-in-time pressing of records to keep alive long out-of-print material (or new material that might be in limited demand). Even though this can be accomplished with .mp3 files or CD-R discs, sometimes there’s simply nothing like setting needle to vinyl!
[via Wired]
Safe and sound
We are glad to report that our office is reopen and fully functional, after the extended power outage caused by Hurricane Sandy on October 29. We would like to wish all of our clients, colleagues, and friends a speedy and safe recovery from the hurricane and its lingering effects.
Drop-less droplets
In a setup that’s equal parts science and Harry Potter, scientists at Argonne National Laboratory acoustically levitate liquids in midair to further critical pharmaceutical reasearch. Using a technology originally developed by NASA to simulate microgravity conditions, the pharmaceutical droplets are suspended in midair using standing waves of inaudible ultrasound generated by small speakers above and below.
By suspending a drug this way—free from any container or other physical contact—scientists can study its various forms and the ways it might be absorbed by the body. Not to mention putting on a pretty cool show in the process!
INTER-NOISE 2012 in NYC
This coming Sunday through Wednesday (August 19-22, 2012) brings INTER-NOISE 2012 to New York City, the 41st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. We are excited to be presenting two of our favorite projects during the conference: our Subcat Music Studios project in Syracuse, and our contributions to an ongoing study of wind turbine noise in western New York State.
The theme of this year’s conference (the largest ever held!) is Quieting the World’s Cities, an especially relevant topic for a conference held in the heart of Times Square. A free Community Noise Public Outreach workshop will be held on Wednesday 8/22 from 8:30 am – 1:45 pm at the Marriott Marquis, including presentations and discussion on the NYC Noise Control Code and noise in general as a community concern. A top-notch panel of experts and officials has been assembled for this free workshop, and anyone with an interest in community noise (which should include almost anyone living in New York City) will find it enlightening!