On a bus? 
Methinks you mean escalator.
lissener, holding conversations and playing music are not the same. On the trolley, all the different conversations blend into each other. All the different blaring headphones conflict with each other to create a giant, evil cacaphony that threatens to derail the trolley and our precarious illusion of social order.
I read, quietly. I don’t mind people talking to each other at all. Cell phone conversations are harder to tune out (because of the pauses that break up the rhythm of conversation), but if they’re not shouting and not sitting next to me, I can ignore them. No problem. Music leaks from headphones are usually okay but there’s a difference between “I can tell you’re listening to music” (fine), "I can tell you’re listening to something with lots of heavy percussion (annoying, but your growing deafness is a compensation), and “Hey, the third verse of Wanking with Wally by Noodle Sculpture!” — not cool at all.
D’Oh! :smack: You’re right, of course.
Miller, the escalator peeve is public transportation related, but clearly not bus-specific. On the buses, I’d settle for air conditioning!
Good idea, except that nobody on the bus/trolley has a tape deck anymore.
I hadn’t considered this. No, I haven’t. Thanks!
Talking and music are two different animals. I like English and I speak it and listen to it every day. Hell, I like Spanish too (there’s generally as much or more conversation in Spanish on San Diego’s public transit–Spanish speakers seem more talkative and friendly to strangers). Want to carry on a conversation with your buddies on the bus or on a cell phone? Fine, I’m cool with that. It’s not grating to my ears. But I don’t necessarily like your music. If you had three people in your car and you were blasting country music, and the two people in the back hated country music–well, you can say that it’s your right to play whatever music you want and you’d be right, but you’d be an asshole too. Ever been on an hour-long trip in someone else’s car where they played obnoxious music and you sat there in agony the whole time? It’s not about silence, it’s about the fact that different people have wildly diverging tastes in music and there’s no reason anybody else should subject me to theirs, as I’m considerate enough not to subject them to mine.
I don’t think so. I’d rather sit next to a cell-phone yakker than a Dixie blaster any day of the week.
Just so we’re clear, I’m talking about pourage, not leakage. The first example I gave, actually, was about someone who didn’t use headphones at all–he was just too cool. The other two weren’t just leaking a little bit of noise out of their headphones–I was at least two rows away from each one and could hear their music as clearly as though their headphones were on my head.
Exactly! That’s all I’m saying, here. I don’t care if there’s a subtle backbeat leaking out of your headphones, but your headphones aren’t speakers and shouldn’t be used like them.
FWIW, I’m on either a bus or trolley for 2-3 hours a day.
I don’t mind the music so much. But, on Sunday I was on the bus and there was this kid singing. Really really loudly. And really, really badly. And he wouldn’t stop. So I stabbed him and shoved the body under the seat. It was all good.
Porridge? From headphones? What kind of bus was this again?
Anyway. I listen to my headphones on the bus much of the time. And a lot of the stuff I listen to is fairly heavy with percussive elements. But I try not to listen too loud on the bus – just enough that I can hear it clear enough over the buzz of conversation, the cell phone yakkers and the group that always sits at the back and laughs raucously at each other’s misadventures with law enforcement. By any standards it is not blaring. I did have one woman who sat next to me, and then proceeed to complain that it was loud. So I turned it down – almost to the level where it was indistinguishable from the surrounding buzz, thus must have been a non-entity beyond my ears. But evidently not, as she complained again. So I turned it off, it being pointless listening to music at a level and in an environment where it’s almost as productive as strapping conch shells to my head.
Just this morning this same woman (who sadly gets on the same bus as me every morning) kept shooting sideways glares at some young woman who was seated near me (and three seats away from her on the other side of the bus) who was listening to her iPod over earbuds. The only reason I was even aware that it was dancehall reggae was because the only sounds that escaped from her buds with any level of clarity were those “80s laser blast” noises reggae artists are so fond of punctuating their tunes with. (Hard to explain, but I’m pretty sure anyone who listens to reggae will get it)
I think some people just make way too much out of this. Other than the fact that it’s moving and you’re probably going to be near them for a longer period of time, how is it any different on a bus than it is on, say, a park bench? Or walking down the street? Or at a fast food restaurant or something? It’s public transportation, public being the part that pretty much says flat out that at any given point in the day, any sort of human being will be riding it. The cell phone yakkers. The music listeners. The debaters, readers, ritalin kids, thugs, stoners, nuts, eaters, litterers, vandalizers and all other manner of people that make up the exact same society that lives on the outside of the bus you’re riding. Some of them are polite. Some of them are rude. Most of them you won’t think about one way or the other. No matter what though, and however you feel about it, if you take the bus, you’re going to be around them. Every. Single. Time. Get used to it or take a cab.
Where do you live where the average bus trip is only 15-20 minutes?
As far as headphone leakage goes, if it’s loud enough for people to get annoyed with, then it’s loud enough for them to complain about. And some of those earbuds are truly loud.
lissener, if no one ever complains to you about earphone use, then you’re probably at a good level. Rock on. But if you consistantly get complaints on multiple occasions, then no, you don’t have a right to “do your own thing.” It’s too loud.
How durable is an iPod anyway? Would being shoved up somebody’s ass damage one, for instance? What about just the headphones/earbuds? Would those function rectally? I mean, if the sound is still transmitted to the inner ear through skeletal conduction this is potentially the solution to the problem.
Three words:
Noise cancelling headphones.
Every time I expect to be around people on public transportation who have noise-containment issues (looks at entire population of 12-19 year-olds) I bring these bad boys along. Sometimes I play music, sometimes I just have the noise-cancelling feature enabled. Freakin’ awesome. It does not drown out all noise, but reduces it to a level that I can hear my iPod at the lowest settings, or just not hear specific pieces of conversation.
fetus, you’d have more success dealing with this problem yourself instead of trying to get every thoughtless SOB to comply to rules that are pretty hard to enforce.
I, too, have noticed people now & then whose earbuds/headphones are on, but the volume is cranked so high that they may as well have the music wired to the speaker system on the train (light-rail). It is definitely not acceptable behavior. It will also make those dumb bastards deaf before their time, and they’ll no longer be able to enjoy music unless it’s at illegal levels. Serves 'em right.
Seriously, I don’t think anyone here is advocating for making public transportation into a moving library (not that I’d mind), but the reason for the posted rules is that there are a great many of the great unwashed who haven’t the capacity to imagine or care about how anything affects anyone but themselves. If you have a problem understanding the rules, you are one of those people. Get a fuckin’ clue.
Oh, and get your filthy feet off the seat, asswipe.
I agree 100 percent. As I said above, loud is loud, I don’t care what the source is. Personally, I’ve never heard headphone leakage louder than conversation, but if that were actually the case I’d probably complain to. Or at least grumble; maybe start a pit thread about it. . . .
I’ve been complained at once. And her complaint was that she could “hear” :rolleyes: my music. That is not a valid standard. Plus she was old and smelled like pee. Now, who had more right to complain?
In that particular case, I’d say you were OK. One has to account for the occasional crank, after all.
Have you tried comparing the difference between noise cancellation on and noise cancellation off when the noise is coming from music or voices? It shouldn’t work worth a damn. The reduction should be almost entirely from the headphones being heavy duty sound-blocking (sound insulated padding). The cancellation effect only really works on repeating mechanical sound (the plane, the bus, the car). So if you want to block out teenagers you only need acoustic earmuffs.
Hee, this was a great clinic duty case on the TV show House, when a young guy walks awkwardly into the clinic room and won’t say what’s wrong:
House: Are we talking bigger than a breadbasket? 'Cause actually, it will come out on its own, which for small stuff is no problem: it’s wrapped up in a nice soft package and plop. Big stuff? You’re gonna rip something, which, speaking medically, is when the fun stops.
Young Man: How did you…?
House: We’ve been here for half an hour and you haven’t sat down; that tells me its location. You haven’t told me what it is; that tells me it’s humiliating. You have a little birdie carved under your arm; that tells me you have a high tolerance for humiliation, so I figure it’s not hemarrhoids. I’ve been a doctor twenty years, you’re not going to surprise me.
Young Man: It’s an MP3 player.
House: Is it… is it because of the size, the shape, or is it the pounding bass line?
Anyway, the conversations on public transit are always far more amusing then listening to someone’s crap music blaring. You get to hear things like 8-month-pregnant Krystal discussing naming her baby after a character on the O.C., and Dwayne and Britnee argueing about how much she spends on bleaching her hair per month, and the hoochie mamas snapping and "Oh-no-you-di’nt"ing and calling everyone and everything and everywhere a ho.
Fun!
Headphone leakage might be the same volume as, or less than, normal conversation, but it is orders of magnitude more irritating. Just imagine if you were forced to listen to a twenty minute conversation comprised entirely of two people saying “chk ch chk ch chk ch chk ch”.
It’s rude.
That shit is evil. Highschool girls get on my train sometimes and not only play it through the speakers of whatever device they’re using, but they FUCKING SING ALONG in this thin, out of time, out of key, badly faked American accent. Eugh.
THAT sure got a giggle. Actually, a guffaw. Thanks. I can use those all the time.
When I dare to wear my iPod into a store or public place, I typically observe the faces of people near me at that time to see if they’re noticing it. I’m kinda deaf, so I really don’t want to bug anybody with my Johnny Cash/Hall & Oates/Kool & the Gang/Michael Jackson.
I always turn it off when interacting with people, though. Not doing so could be contrived as rude.
On a bus, you have to sit in the same enclosed space with the same people until either you or them gets off. Again, I’m on a bus or trolley 2-3 hours a day during the week; if I go to the park I’m not forced to sit on or near the same bench as someone blasting speed metal loud enough for me to hear every word for an hour. Anyway, it sounds like you were being reasonable, if a little unassertive. Obviously a little bit of noise is going to leak out of the headphones. That’s just life. But there’s no reason someone needs to play their shit loud enough that I can hear it loud and clear–that’s why speakers aren’t allowed on buses and trolleys: because not everybody likes your music and they shouldn’t have to listen to it for the entirety of their trip.
I should look into them just for that. Some of the light rail cars here make a maddening noise if you sit by the LED that says “Green Line to Santee” or whatever.