This thread really makes my head spin. The kid was walking on train tracks and it’s devolved into a headphone issue? Jesusfuck.
Welcome to the Straight Dope.
Fighting Ignorance Sin… holy fuck, a typo I need to correct (or nit that needs picking)!
Yeah, I know; some people are retarded. I was responding more to the people who were apparently unaware of the **other **kind of ear buds (ones like I have, which are intended to go in your ear canals), which actually **do **block a lot of ambient noise.
Why not just drop a couple bucks on a decent pair of in-canal earbuds? Seriously, though, nobody should ever use the iPod headphones. They’re pretty much pure shit. If you’re going to spend the money on the player, it makes sense to spend just a bit more on something that will let you actually listen to your music.
Mmmnn… Ignorance sin.
I listen to music sometimes, with headphones or ear buds. I don’t walk on train tracks for starters. When I cross streets, I cross at the light, and I look around. I don’t have it cranked up, I can still hear what’s going on.
You can’t protect everyone from their own stupidity. I can’t see giving up one of my simple pleasures just because there are stupid people out there. That’s the thing people (including attorneys and polticians) forget, no matter how many new laws and new rules get created…
You can’t fix Stupid. The Stupid happens anyway.
Actually, if he was hit by a train and not killed, it might make him a superhero.
One of those stories says that the school will observe a moment of silence to honor the kid. It’s sad that a kid died, but they’d be doing more good for the surviving students by observing a moment of LOUD FREAKING TRAIN NOISE and reminding kids to pay attention when they hear it.
some where around here there is a sign on a fence next to a crossing, it has a picture of a teenage boy and says “Andy lost his race with the train, don’t you make the same mistake”
the kid was on his way to school and tried to go under a slow moving freight train…his back pack got snagged and he was dragged under the wheels.
Please tell us his name is
Hancock 
Yeah, I heard that guy’s unbreakable.
If he was trying to go under a train, Andy didn’t understand the whole concept of ‘racing,’ then.
A kid got hit by a train here the other day
he had his earbuds in
'Tis a pity he had never heard
When you collide with a train, the train wins
I’m sure this could be worked in as an extra verse to Tom Lehrer’s “The Irish Ballad”.
Or not.
… Burma Shave?
This was my point. If you don’t think watching yourself kill someone else is a tragedy, then you are the very definition of a sociopath.
And it does seem that MOIDALIZE meant the Darwinian version. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to insult someone in the Pit. I find it difficult to think in that manner.
ETA:
Nice!
That’s why I’ll spend money to buy quality headphones - I have never, ever found a set of “earbuds” that didn’t cause me intense pain after, at most, a minute or two, if I could get them into my ears at all, from pressing against the tissues of my ear. Apparently, I have unusually small ears.
I should add also, SFG, that I did try a pair of in-canal phones and found their frequency response to be little better than the original earbuds. I also began to read and hear about them being prone to cause ear infections, so I just went with the headset that I used to use with my portable CD player. But thanks for the suggestion.