Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with quiet

I can't work in the same room as "the little drummer boy!"

Bergamot — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:00:09 -0800

Help! What are some quiet study spaces that are open to the public during the holidays? Public and University libraries around here are closed between Christmas and New Year's, aargh!
I'm in Southwestern Ontario to visit family for the holidays, but I have to get some work done before Jan. 1st, and trying to work here is driving me absolutely insane! Even if my family could be quiet, their house is dark and uncomfortable and entirely terrible to work in.
Libraries in the area are closed for the holidays, and most cafes are both very busy and wouldn't be thrilled with me sitting with a laptop for hours on end. Any ideas of student-friendly workspaces that aren't wrecked by holiday hours would save my sanity in a big way!

Quiet places to study in Edinburgh?

tyris33 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:29:54 -0800

Quiet pubs and cafes for a student to study in Edinburgh I'm currently on a year long exchange in Edinburgh, and I'm looking to find quiet places to study--they don't have to be dead silent just no loud music playing and loud conversations at the table next to me. I know noisy cafes are great for hanging out with friends, but I'd like a place where I can focus on what I'm reading. If you know of any pubs, cafes, parks, libraries, etc., that would be great. Bonus points for old places with lots of atmosphere (fireplaces, comfy chairs, etc).

Quiet restuarant in Houston on a Saturday night?

treepour — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:28:33 -0800

Is there a quiet, intimate, conversation-friendly (on a Saturday night!) restaurant in or near the Montrose area of Houston, TX? My significant other is going to be visiting his family in Houston tomorrow, and wants to take them out for dinner to a place that's as intimate and not-too-loud as possible. He prefers something in the Montrose, Museum District, River Oaks, the Heights, downtown, or nearby. Patio a plus, but intimate overrules patio -- he's visiting on a rather serious occasion. I realize this is next-to-impossible, but would really appreciate any suggestions.

Looking for quiet car-camping spot within two hours drive of NYC

funkiwan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:10:01 -0800

Do you have a recommendation for a quiet car-camping spot within two hours drive of NYC for this weekend? I'm looking to go car camping (i.e., no hiking in) with my girlfriend this weekend. We'll be traveling from NYC and will have a car. We'd like to keep our travel time to around two hours but will go beyond that for something spectacular. Features we're looking for:

- Private and quiet. This is our number one reason for wanting to go camping.
- Fire pit
- Foresty

Thanks!

Replace my aging network router

pbh — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:36:50 -0800

Help me replace my aging home OpenBSD desktop machine running mail, DNS, DHCP, apache and pf with something quieter and more power efficient. For about 10 years now I've run a pretty similar setup on my home networks.

I'll have some sort of not super-fast consumer broadband with static IPs (DSL, in my case).
I'll plug the broadband into the first network interface of a really old desktop machine with OpenBSD and two network interfaces which I'll call the router. (This is running qmail, djbdns, dhcpd, apache serving only static content, some very minor packet filtering, and network address translation.)
Then, I'll plug a generic switch into the second network interface of the router, and one of those unfortunate consumer wireless access points (WAP) into the switch. (Currently, this is a netgear wireless router that I restart all the time, previously, it was a series of Linksys wireless routers that didn't work at all.)

Right now an old Dell desktop (a 233 Mhz PII with 128M RAM and a 12G HDD) is acting as the router, and it's really loud and probably costing about $5-10/month to run in power. I'd like to replace it with one or more low power embedded type devices, but I have no idea which to consider.

On one hand, I've been looking at the Soekris 5501. It seems to have the same specifications as my current really old router, but I think it's passively cooled and takes virtually no power. However, I've never used one before, and I'm not sure whether I need to worry about constant writes to compact flash, and/or whether there are competitors I should be aware of. I would probably install OpenBSD on compact flash and have a similar setup to my current one.

On the other hand, I've been looking at the various consumer hack-able single purpose devices, like any of the wireless routers that run DD-WRT or Tomato. Likewise, people seem to hack random devices like the NSLU2 to have Linux on them, but I'm not sure whether this is actually usable in practice or more for fun. While these solutions seem like they wouldn't be as general, I wouldn't feel terrible outsourcing my DNS to the cloud (so long as I could do the same sorts of things, and possibly put up a SPF record), but I'd like to keep my e-mail (mostly forwarding and mailing lists) and apache in house, and I still need the network address translation and packet filtering.

So I guess this question boils down to: what sorts of embedded devices do you use at home to solve these problems, and do you use any third party services to complement your solution?

I'm a 35 yr old single male with no ties to anyone, totally alone and miserable. I need friends but I'm too untalkative and I can't change..

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:27:54 -0800

I'm a 35 yr old single male with no ties to anyone, totally alone and miserable. I need friends but I'm too untalkative and I can't change.. I'm in a real tough spot. I'll just give a rundown of the current situation. I'm 35.. I look a lot younger though. I make a good buddy.. like the steve buscemi character in big lebowski.

I known a few guys who were like the dude. Actually, more like john goodman's character. Older, big fat guys who still check out hot 21 year olds, who are perpetual losers, but lovable guys. I got a friend like that..not a loser though.. but you know, kinda a manly man kind of guy. Big, chunky balding, has a med. marijuana card, that kind of guy..

I'm like this short, youngish looking.. minority.. totally random. I usually make odd-couple friendships. Like those old cartoons.. the big dog, and the little dog hopping around him. I'm the little dog, only quiet. I usually pair up with the talkative big dog who talks a wee bit too much to repel everyone around him, so he turns to me and because I don't talk much, I pay attention.

So I wind up in that tough spot because I too become sort of annoyed, but then he's the only friend I got. I got no confidence to be friends with the people I think I really should be with.

I'm just not talkative, and I can't help it. That's how I am. I never thought early on.. hmm, I should talk more. No, I just do my thing.. I had friends before.. I'm fine how I am.

When I try to force myself to be more talkative in that way you need to be to make friends, it just doesn't go good. I become unfunny.. or just awkward. I relate more to guys like robert deniro who become really awkward when interacting with really normal social kind of people.. and sometimes you think they're better off as quiet..

It's hard. I don't got any friends anymore and finding new ones is.. not only difficult, but it's making me sink further into this isolation, depression, you name it.

What can I do??? What??

How does quiet nerd girl attract type of man she wants?

Dukat — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:36:43 -0800

22-year old relationship-newbie nerd girl seeks strong, silent men. Is it possible? In which context? Anything to do to better my chances? Hi AskMeFi.

My question is something along the lines of this poster, but with one crucial difference: while the poster was a girly-girl, I am way on the other side of the spectrum: a bit edgy and not overly feminine. I've been the perpetual "brain" my entire life, and throughout high school and college have struggled to reconcile being the "smart one" who was different from all the other decked-out girls and being a girl, capable of attracting males.

I'm 22 and have never been in a decent, real relationship. I've had the odd, awkward "serious-friends-hanging-out" platonic relationships with the philospher types of guys, to whom I was initially very attracted to intellectually. But these odd relationships never went anywhere for lots of reasons: they were all much more "thinkers" than "doers," spending lots of time talking about something and never doing anything, forcing me to decide our agendas time and time again, never taking any real intiative.

As a result of failed "not-relationships," I've decided that I really would prefer a more decisive man in my life. To be honest, I attended a geek high school and a geek liberal arts university, so have had little exposure to stronger, aggressive men. Would a stronger, aggressive man be attracted to a less feminine, brainaic girl? I am growing increasingly weary of seeing men flock to girls with too much eye makeup clutching gigantic Coach purses while gabbing about Gossip Girls.

So my questions, I think, are as follows. Please feel free to comment/remark upon any aspect of my situation that strikes you.

(1) Is there hope in love for girls like me? I'm quiet, but I dress decently (I always attempt to have a bit of style and look groomed and put together, but not to Bratz doll extent), am a good weight/figure. But apparently I am missing this chip which Bratz girls have, of going ga-ga over shoes, etc.
(2) Is there a "type" that would mesh well with me? How do I get guys of all stripes to be interested? I am comfortable talking to men, but only as people, and not as "potential date material." Also, on topics that bore me, I have a hard time finding things to say. Is there a "type" that is OK with the quiet type? Would the edgier, aggressive men be attracted to me? The only ones who have really persued me are the smart guys, but they are all so geeky and weak (see above: ask me out on a date, declare romantic intentions, and then ask where I want to go, and refuse to pick a place, and barely pick up the check). My father is assertive: it's how I expect men to behave. But it's like I'm a beehive which makes honey that atttacts specifically the geeks. (Strange metaphor, but it works, I think.)

(3) How to attract strong, assertive, protective type? Where do they hang out? To what do they respond, in particular?

I am not suggesting I morph my personality. I have tried the extroversion route, dressing up a little more, and it failed to attract better-quality men entirely. It's just not me. I'm entirely too practical a person, and quiet enough by nature that extroversion is simply exhausting. I am only asking, is there some aspect of my present personality which I can take more care to display, to attract the men I want?

Thank you in advance for your help. As I said, all comments and suggestions are welcome. You needn't specifically answer my questions.

Need a quiet, portable printer

mikeand1 — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:39:57 -0800

Need portable, very quiet, printer. I have a big trial coming up involving lots of documents, and I need a portable printer that I can use in the courtroom. That means it needs to be portable, and very quiet.

It needs to connect to my laptop via USB or firewire. It doesn't need to run on batteries, I will have AC power. Price is not a big issue.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks,
Mike

Which air compressor is quieter?

austinlee — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:47:25 -0800

Which air compressor is quieter? The HUSKY air scout. LINK Or this Craftsman 2 gallon one? LINK Any other suggestions will be appreciated! Thanks!

Shh puppy, shh.....

mjcon — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:18:28 -0800

After 4 months of living with me, my puppy's barking in the kennel issues haven't improved much. I am looking for suggestions for things I haven't tried that might make him quiet down. I have a 6 month old small dog who still barks in his kennel EVERY DAY when I leave him alone. I don't want him to do this. I have tried everything I can think of and am looking for some fresh suggestions. I apologize in advance for the long back story, but here goes.

I have had the dog since he was 8 weeks old, and he's never been super fond of being alone. When I leave him in his kennel, he barks/howls off and on for a while, often as much as a half hour. Then he seems to settle down and fall asleep for the rest of the time he is in there. From my extensive google-ing, it appears that his deal might be a mild form of separation anxiety or something similar. Other details:

1. The dog does typically follow me around throughout the house, but sometimes he will go and play in another room for a little while when I am home
2. He gets anxious and whiny when I leave the house even if other people are home. Sometimes my roommate has to grab him to keep him from darting out the door when it is obvious I am going to leave. He whines for a bit after I am gone, but not nearly as long as when he is alone in his kennel
3. He does not get anxious and whiny when my roommate (who the dog is very very fond of) leaves the house.
4. Before he was housebroken, he slept in his kennel in my bedroom and had no problem with it. He was pretty much completely quiet and would go in without a fight. So I don't think the issue is that he hates his kennel.
5. When he is in his kennel and barking, he will still eat any easy to access foods in there (he won't fight for an hour for something that is frozen, but he will spend a couple seconds gobbling something up) He never hurts himself or tries to get out or pees in there or anything. When I come back, he is totally quiet and sleeping. Its really just that first little while that he is upset.
6. He is a moderately barky character. He doesn't bark to huge excess, but he does seem to bark or whine when he is frustrated (toy trapped under the couch, bark. Water bowl empty, bark, cool person or dog out the window, bark)

Things I have tried to calm/quiet him down in the kennel

1. tons of awesome food items in a kong toy, frozen or unfrozen. He will eventually eat them, but seems to understand they aren't going anywhere....He isn't as food motivated as most other dogs
2. DAP spray and rescue remedy
3. playing music
4. Spraying him or spraying in the room he is in with a squirt bottle to distract him from barking (this actually has cut down the barking some....)
5. one of those ultrasonic noise things that makes an inaudible beep when he barks. This had some impact, but it wasn't good...made him bark less, but for way longer. And he was a neurotic mess when I took him out of the kennel. I returned the thing.
6. Exercising him tons before he went in the kennel so he was dead tired. He still seems to find the strength to bark for a while.

I know about the whole building up the time he is alone thing, and after the holidays I am going to work toward moving him out of the crate and gate him in the bathroom. We will work up the time he is in the bathroom from nothing and hope that he has a more positive association with the bathroom than the kennel. I think for his own safety, he's still too young to have free run of the house when I'm gone, but I hope that someday he will. What other things have you wise dog owners done to keep dogs quiet that I haven't tried? Has anyone used a citronella bark collar to any success? Did your dog eventually just grow out of this problem?

Please shut up the noise in my head

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:58:53 -0800

Strangestquestioneverfilter: There’s always music in my head. Make it stop. I constantly have music looping through my head. First thing in the morning, whenever I get home, when I’m brushing my teeth or sitting somewhere waiting for an appointment. Basically, whenever I’m alone and there’s not a television on or something, I have music playing in my head. It’s not like it’s voices or anything but it’s annoying. Before bed, I try to meditate a bit just to get things quieter in there and help me sleep, but as soon as I’m done meditating, the music comes back. If I happened to be playing a particular song in the car and it’s particularly catchy, the damn thing will not go away, (Note to Duffy: That ‘Mercy’ song? Yeah, cute … but ahhhhh!)
I’ve also tried visualizing myself turning off the I-pod or turning off the car radio and it really doesn’t help.
Please tell me I’m not nuts … and how to make it stop.

where can i study near 25th and 7th ave on sunday mornings?

nanhey — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:34:12 -0800

please get me out of starbucks: i need a place to study sunday mornings within a 5ish block radius of 25th Street and 7th Ave (new york city). HELP! I need a quiet-ish place to study between 10am and 1pm on sunday mornings. i'm pretty sure all the libraries close by are closed on sundays. anyone know a good place near 25th and 7th ave that would fit the bill? please don't make me go to starbucks again - it was beyond noisy

Drummer Living In An Apartment

defben — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:18:07 -0800

I use to play the drums, really miss it, and want to get back into it. What are my options for living in an apartment complex? I've tried some of the cheaper electronic kits in stores. They seemed pretty lousy to me; didn't "respond" close enough to the real thing. Are there any cheap electronic kits people can recommend? What are my other options? What are my options when I want to get together with people and play?

I need to find a quiet space to write in downtown London

electric_counterpoint — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:44:02 -0800

I need a quiet place to write in London. A library would be great, but... ...but I'm not attached to a British school. I thought the British Library would be my ticket, but they require a reader card too, and I don't live here permanently, so I don't have the "proof of address" they require.

My criteria:

- Quiet*
- Outlets to plug in a laptop
- Free wifi
- In or near Camden

*By "quiet," I don't mean totally silent, just no Muzak and nobody at the next table carrying on a conversation.

Where to go to relax for 3 weeks in Turkey in June - Kackar Mountains, Black Sea coast, or elsewhere?

ebellicosa — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:46:22 -0800

Where to go to relax for 3 weeks in Turkey in June - Kackar Mountains, Black Sea coast, or elsewhere? The two of us are travelling in Turkey. We've done the ancient ruins, the Greek islands, Istanbul, and all the zipping around. Now we have about 3 weeks left and it's time to go somewhere quiet and relax. I'm thinking the Kackar Mountains. My boyfriend is intrigued by the Black Sea coast.

Will either be nice this time of year? Can we find a place to stay for 3 weeks?

Things I'd like to avoid are the crowds, noise, fumes (cigarette and vehicle), discos, and mosquitoes. Things he likes to avoid is heat and globalization (i.e. no Starbucks).

What are other suggestions for small seaside or mountain towns far away from traffic and urbanization and crowds? I'd love to find something along the lines of a Greek island, but in Turkey. Perhaps somewhere the Turks go to relax so that there's a good supply of vacation villas to rent?

thanks!

Need a quiet place to write

Nattie — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:18:49 -0800

Deserted places to write near Arcadia, CA or Pasadena, CA? I recently moved to Arcadia, CA with my fiance for his work. I need a quiet, calm place I can go during the day to write. Anything in Arcadia, Pasadena, or the surrounding areas is convenient.

What I'm Looking For:
- As much quiet as possible.
- As few other people as possible.
- Places that have ways to block things from my peripheral vision is a plus, because this is very distracting to me. For example, I used to write at a library that had those cubby style desks facing a wall and that was great. Places where the desks/tables are not in a big open area, and are instead along the walls in secluded places, are great.
- A place to plug in a laptop is a big plus, but I can get by without it. I don't need internet access or even want it; it's too distracting.
- Somewhere pretty safe, or otherwise I'll feel paranoid the whole time. (Stupid, yes, but true.) I'm a relatively defenseless young female, and I've had a few close calls with being abducted so I can't help but prioritize this.

What I'm Not Looking For:
- Places that are crowded.
- Places that are noisy.
- Places that serve food or drinks; I don't want food, I don't want to smell food, I don't want to worry about paying for something to be able to stay, etc.
- I would rather not have to pay for anything.

Places I have already ruled out:
- The Arcadia Public Library is too noisy and crowded. Lots of people walking around and talking, so it felt more like a book store.
- The Hastings branch and La Pintoresca branch of the Pasadena Public Library aren't terrible, but they don't have secluded places to work. If I find nothing else I will have to settle, but I'd rather look at all my options first.
- Home. We are subletting a rather small apartment and my parrots are too loud and attention-hungry for me to focus. Home is generally too distracting anyway.

The hours of the place aren't crucial as long as they're mostly open during the day. I will be there from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, but I don't care if I have to move outside for a few hours in the beginning or end.

I've been focusing on libraries, but only because I'm used to writing in them and it's harder to Google general public areas that might work well. Thank you for any suggestions!

Hush Puppy

owtytrof — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:17:54 -0800

Why doesn't my puppy make a sound? We just got a new puppy (about a year old) and he seems to not be able to bark. When he whines it sounds like a whisper. When he's playing with his toys and "play growls" you can barely hear him. I know he was checked out by the shelter and updated on his shots and they said he was healthy. He seems fine other than not being about to really bark.

I know you're not a vet and that you're not my vet but I'm just looking to see if anyone has had any similar situations.

Noisefilter (possibly literally?)

synecdoche — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:10:33 -0800

Is there anything we can do to keep our apartment a bit quieter? My girlfriend and I just moved into a new apartment, which we like very much. However, there is one problem: noise. We're on the top floor, but we can hear quite a bit of what our neighbour directly below us is up to.

I don't think he is (often) being excessively loud. For instance, right now, he's talking on the phone below me at what seems to be a reasonable volume, but I can still hear him and even, occasionally, make out the odd word. When his computer makes noise (such as when he gets an instant message on MSN) I know about it too. Things are a bit more frustrating when he listens to music. While there have been a couple of times when he has turned up the volume, for the most part it is, I think, fairly reasonable; it just seems as though the floor between our apartment and his is very, very thin. (I am not sure how much of what we do he can hear.)

I'm not sure what we can do. The floor is well-padded carpet through most of the apartment, though it is an older building. Most of the time he isn't really doing anything wrong, and it isn't as though we can ask him to not talk on the phone or ever listen to music.

Any tips on dealing with this? We're both grad students who do work at home, and would love things to be a bit better than "just tolerable." We're in Southern Ontario, if it matters. Thanks.

Hi, Need to get away in June

jara1953 — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 07:30:19 -0800

Virginia Beach Hotels: best one for 50ish almost honeymooners? Googled to death.... We're both widowed and neither of us has been on a vacation in a looooong time. Looking for ocean view, balcony on the ocean, quiet time together. We're not the night life type, don't drink much. Want to RELAX, thanks.

Looking for a quiet laptop

ar0n — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:14:02 -0800

Suggestions for quiet, inexpensive (possibly used) laptops? I'd like a laptop for working on papers and assignments. I won't be doing any processor-intensive work on it; I might run Windows, but Linux is just fine.

The main requirement really is that of noise: I generally work late at night and prefer a relatively quiet work environment. So the less fan noise or harddisk squeal the laptop produces, the better.

It needn't have wireless, a massive harddisk or fancy graphic abilities; as long as I can type and store my documents on a USB-stick, I'm fine. A smallish form-factor would be much appreciated as well, but isn't particularly necessary.

Are there any laptops out there (eBay?) with these specifications, for less than $300?

Sysadmin Seeks Officemate, Must Speak Fast Ethernet, Take Orders.

Skorgu — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:26:01 -0800

Are there any managed Fast Ethernet switches that are quiet enough to share an office with? One of our two tiny, silent, solid-state Netgear workgroup switches has given up the ghost and I'd really like to be able to VLAN and port mirror, QoS/port priorities would be nice too. We'd rather not pay for Gigabit that we don't need and port count is pretty flexible, the dead switch has 16 ports but we were using about half that.

Why can't I get the movie "Quiet man" from Netflix?

fx3000 — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:49:07 -0800

Why can't I get the movie "Quiet man" from Netflix? For a while now it has shown availability "Unknown" and just shows up in the "Saved" section. A couple of months ago, it was in my queue but it always had "Very Long Wait".

Finding quiet rental properties

antipasta_explosion — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:53:27 -0800

What are some good tips for finding a quiet rental property or apartment? I am an author and work from home a lot, so my work quality of course depends on being able to concentrate at my place of residence. I don't mind normal neighborhood noise and weekend parties, but it gets to be a problem when there's 2 am outdoor drinking on Tuesdays, boom car owners, stereos left on all night, and that kind of thing. I live in Texas, so we're talking about suburban houses for rent and apartment complexes.

Obviously the thing to do is walk past a property at 7 pm on a weekday and visit again on the weekend, to scope things out. In regards to apartments, comments on apartmentratings.com seem to give some perspective, if all the "wonderful community and friendly staff" shilling can be reliably weeded out.

A lot of this is common sense, I'm sure, but I want to have my ducks in a row. Are there any tips or observations you have for picking out a pleasant surrounding to settle down in? Are there any warning flags I should be looking out for? Personal anecdotes and stories are welcomed.

Ah, blessed low-volume

ardgedee — Wed, 09 May 2007 08:00:32 -0800

How do I make my iPod quieter? I have a 5G Video iPod and a pair of Etymotic ER4i 'phones. The combo sounds great, but with a downside. The only comfortable volume setting is one or two ticks above mute, because the 'phones are efficient. On some music even that's verging on too loud. Dialing down the iPod any further usually means silence.

The Ety's sound good and I got them specifically because they block ambient noise effectively. Raising the volume to drown out distractions is not an option. A couple online merchants sell passive attenuators (usually a short run of cable with an inline resistor) but they can worsen the sound and finding a good one sounds like a crapshoot.

So my options seem to be a pair of less efficient 'phones that also double as >20dB earplugs, a reliably good passive attenuator, or an outboard amplifier with a lower volume threshold that plugs into the dock port. Recommendations are welcome. Economical, good-sounding recommendations moreso.

Looking for a quiet-click mouse.

NYScott — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:51:14 -0800

Is there such a thing as a "quiet (computer) mouse" - one that has silent clicks? Hi, all. I'm looking to buy a new PC mouse, and I want one that makes little-to-no noise when clicking. I ran a few searches here, on Google, and on Amazon, but couldn't find what I'm looking for. Ideally, I'd prefer a wireless trackball, but at this point, I'd take a plain ol' wired laser w. a scroll wheel.

Alternatively, if there's a way to quiet the clicking of a "regular" mouse, without damaging it, of course, I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Thanks!