Talk:2777: Noise Filter

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 05:56, 20 May 2023 by NiceGuy1 (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search


Took me a moment. It is very on-point for me. Randal proposes a sound level meter in such as Google reviews. Showing the real-time racket in a restaurant or other venue. Just this week I walked out of a new TOO-LOUD restaurant. I wish this feature existed! It is not total fantasy. Any Android cellphone "could" report location and sound-level to its masters.

I'm autistic. I would have liked this feature since I was first going places on my own. 162.158.2.167 02:31, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Hear hear! (Pun intended.) There are several restaurants my family won't go back to because they're too loud. One was PAINFULLY loud - well over 80 dBA. Hmm. Maybe I should take my sound level meter with me next time we eat out, and put the readings into a review. 172.70.110.214 12:24, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I interpreted the title as a pun on noise filters that block out ambient noise. Barmar (talk) 14:13, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

How long until another of Randall's xkcd "jokes" becomes real? 108.162.216.173 15:09, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I would like one for temperature, some places are just too damn cold. SDSpivey (talk) 18:40, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Should the explanation include recent news articles about how restaurants are louder than they were a few decades ago? Such as https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/how-restaurants-got-so-loud/576715/ and https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/restaurant-noise-levels-solutions/ 172.69.65.46 20:13, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I think it should. Good get.162.158.91.35 22:12, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

The thing that gets me is the different radio/checkbox/range selection techniques being used. Almost like the same UI designer didn't add each subsection into this bit of the interface.

  • Obvious "radio"-like choice for the opening Hours. You choose one or other presets ("Any"/no preference, "Now"/current status) or a probable pop-up dialogue ("Open at...") for date/time of more flexible choice or range.
  • Rating that's also "radio"-appearing, as a way of giving the single minimum acceptible value for Rating.
  • The slider which implies the single maximum acceptible value for noise level. Could have been set up similar to that with Rating (though clearly needs more than the six guide-labels as buttons, and "<=value" rather than "value+").
    • The version for Party Mode would have been like the minimum for Rating, both of which could either be "top-down selected" sliders or this bottom-up one but reverse-labeled. Or "number+" buttons.
  • Buttons of a multi-select/checkbox type for Price choice. Not visually different from 'radio buttons', except for that they have been multi-selected... perhaps the real thing in the appropriate interface-tk would show more rounded/square button profiles. Or give another clue as to whether selecting a second would add to/replace anything previously selected in that grouping. But it could have been a range-type choice for "up to", really.
    • Or a double-slider, to accomodate minimum and maximum, allowing mid-sub-range "$$+$$$", if not "$+$$$$" for only extremes. Or a slider and separate toggle between whether the slider is bottom-up and top-down.
    • But would you ever anticipate split-range choices? And also to what relative quantities do the given numbers of $s map onto, subjectively?

It shows that the design decisions involved weren't part of the same holistic design-time process. (This is not a comment against Randall's compositional choices, he's clearly parodying the actual "options"-type configuration screens that you get. Consciously or unconsciously replicating their design and implemention inconsistencies.)
But thought it wasn't really worth a main-page explanation about, just thought it worth an extended comment in here for possible passing interest of others. 172.70.86.153 23:45, 18 May 2023 (UTC) The slider should go down to 30dB. 172.70.114.89 02:48, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

I, and probably every other autistic person here, wishes this were a thing. For me at least, sound louder than about 70 dB physically hurts. Beanie talk 10:02, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

I ALWAYS carry hearing protection. I play bassoon in wind ensembles and orchestras and sometimes need to ‘stopper’ because of trumpets, etc. It comes in handy in other noisy situations and takes up almost no space in my pocket. Joem5636 (talk) 11:39, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

You should make sure you have pockets big enough for a bassoon, too. Be popular at parties. (At least at first.) 172.70.90.100 18:09, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

I find the current basic explanation awkward and clunky... Instead it should generalize/skip through the unimportant parts, like "The comic shows restaurant search filters, with normal settings of Hours, Rating, and Price, each set to defaults. These controls are greyed out, showing they're not the point. In full colour and circled in red is a setting for Current Noise Level.". Seems much more straightforward than what's there right now. Also, explaining "Any" as "limitless" sounds like that author missed the meaning, this simply means the user doesn't care, this is not a filter the user wishes to use at this time, it's to disable this filter. NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:53, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2777:_Noise_Filter&oldid=313502"