more on ipods

Clive George wrote:
<snip>

Quoted message said:

sense. I think he's got a point - I perceive somebody wearing their
earphones as hiding themselves away from the world. Of course in a lot of
cases this is probably deliberate - eg it stops nutters like me talking to
you, but I actually rather like interaction with people Maybe it's because
I'm not in a city...

cheers,
clive

I tend to agree about wearing headphones on the bike.

One of the beauties of being on the bike is being right in the
environment, rather than being transported through it in a box. OK,
loud motorised traffic noise is not exactly my first choice as a
soundtrack, but I enjoy the feeling of being in the wind, noise and
weather. It wakes you up, and you've got to be aware of what you, and
those around you, are doing. You're forced to do focus your mind on
somthing that's not part of the everyday worries of life - it's
refreshing to be fully physically and mentally occupied for a while.
This is one of the things that makes cycling (even city commuting) so
relaxing and enjoyable.

Sad to say, and even a little shameful, I wear my earphones on the
train whether listening to anything or not. It's some defence against
the nutters (normally harmless, frequently amusing, occasionally
irritating, rarely agressive), and it slightly mutes the noise of other
people's music, conversations (on mobile phones or otherwise) and the
noise of the train itself.

I think it's less to do with not wanting to talk to people in general
(I'll talk to people on aeroplanes, long train journeys etc.), and more
to do with wanting a little peace and quiet and time to myself
before/just after the working day.

I want to be cycling, and enjoying the experience to the full, so no
headphones.
I don't want to be on the commuter train, so shields up Mr. Sulu.

Somewhat OT: anyone tried the noise cancelling earphones? Bose do a
fairly pricey set, but I see a few other brands knocking around the
place. I spend a lot of time on air journeys, and find the noise
tiring. Reomendations? Effective? Heavy? Comfortable?

Regards,

bookieb.

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:56:37 -0000, "Clive George"
<[email hidden]> said in
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

I perceive somebody wearing their
earphones as hiding themselves away from the world.

I wear headphones on the train. I do not do this to isolate myself
from anyone, I do it because that way I can learn music as I travel. I
invariably have a score open in front of me (currently the Beethoven
Missa Solemnis).

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Quoted message said:

Somewhat OT: anyone tried the noise cancelling earphones? Bose do a
fairly pricey set, but I see a few other brands knocking around the
place. I spend a lot of time on air journeys, and find the noise
tiring. Reomendations? Effective? Heavy? Comfortable?

Yep. Rubbish. Completely. Shop manager asked why I was taking them back
and I said "They're ****" and shop said "Yep, that's what I thought" and
cheerfully handed me my money back (it would save trouble if they'd have
told me that the first time).

They claimed to knock of 15 decibels. This isn't a lot, and they only did
that when you clamped your hands over them to get a better seal. Any
difference they made was outweighed by a slight boost in the volume of the
music when you turned the noise cancelling on. Ones that completely
enclosed your ears would have been better, even without the noise
cancelling circuitry.

Please try some, and if you find some that work pass on the details.
Ideally, I'm looking for ones that drown out people rather than mere
background noise. I'm now using foam earplugs - scrunch up into ball and
wedge into ears.

"Clive George" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I've been carefully ignoring the threads on this, but am vaguely surprised
nobody mentioned Matt Seaton's column from yesterday's Grauniad, since he
started on exactly the same note.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1709875,00.html

The first bit is the debate I've been ignoring - I shall carry on doing
so. However at the end he does mention another reason for not wearing the
things - that wearing one is isolating you from the world in a
philosophical sense. I think he's got a point - I perceive somebody
wearing their earphones as hiding themselves away from the world. Of
course in a lot of cases this is probably deliberate - eg it stops nutters
like me talking to you, but I actually rather like interaction with people
Maybe it's because I'm not in a city...

cheers,
clive

Hi Clive,

Firstly apologies for barging in her from the thread you've been ignoring
;-)

I was given Lynn Truss's 'Speak to the Hand' for Christmas. In it she puts
forward the theory that ipod use in public, together with using mobile
phones for private conversations in public places, is precisely an attempt
to blot out the outside world, and to pretend to be in private rather than
interact with strangers, She suggests that as the current generation has
been so indoctrinated not to talk to strangers, they carry their private
worlds of tunes and mates with them, and if others object to the more
antisocial aspects of their behaviour (the 'tinny disco' of headphone
leakage or the inane, bellowed, 'I'm on the train but let me loudly relate
the sordid details of my social life' phone conversations), then they will
consider the person objecting to be in the wrong because it's rude to talk
to strangers.

As long as you're a big burly bloke you can have a lot of fun singing along
to their ipods, or even joining in their phone conversations. After all, if
you're the nutter sitting next to them you might as well live up to their
expectations!

Cheers
Budstaff

"Clive George" <[email hidden]> wrote:
|
| I've been carefully ignoring the threads on this, but am vaguely surprised
| nobody mentioned Matt Seaton's column from yesterday's Grauniad, since he
| started on exactly the same note.
|
| http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1709875,00.html
|
| The first bit is the debate I've been ignoring - I shall carry on doing so.
| However at the end he does mention another reason for not wearing the
| things - that wearing one is isolating you from the world in a philosophical
| sense. I think he's got a point - I perceive somebody wearing their
| earphones as hiding themselves away from the world.

ITYM social not philosophical. Ar of dun a philosophically degree, once
upon a time, and being isolated from the world in a philosophical sense
can mean only being of a different type of substance from the
world-substance, a bit like i versus natural numbers, in which case it
would be logically impossible to be knocked down, and travelling from A
to B within the world would make no conceptual sense, and many other
weird after-closing-time phenomena which you really don't want to get
into and which even Apple's genius for human-computer-interface design
couldn't cope with.

--
Patrick Herring, http://www.anweald.co.uk/ph

Just zis Guy said:

I
invariably have a score open in front of me (currently the Beethoven
Missa Solemnis).

When and where are you performing that? Can I join you? Bass (first
or second according to need), and proficient sightreader.

.... on the list of works I've never sung but really want to.

/me just back from rehearsal of the Dream of Gerontius.

--
Nick Kew

Nick Kew <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

Just zis Guy said:

I
invariably have a score open in front of me (currently the Beethoven
Missa Solemnis).

Quoted message said:

When and where are you performing that? Can I join you? Bass (first
or second according to need), and proficient sightreader.

Quoted message said:

.... on the list of works I've never sung but really want to.

Quoted message said:

/me just back from rehearsal of the Dream of Gerontius.

Jammy lad!

I've given up choir cos I can't now cope with the journey without
spending £loads.

My erstwhile lot are performing Durufflé Requiem next.

There seem to be quite a few singers here...

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

Helen Deborah Vecht said:

Quoted message said:

/me just back from rehearsal of the Dream of Gerontius.

Jammy lad!

A u.r.c. choir, whatever next?

bookieb said:

Somewhat OT: anyone tried the noise cancelling earphones? Bose do a
fairly pricey set, but I see a few other brands knocking around the
place. I spend a lot of time on air journeys, and find the noise
tiring. Reomendations? Effective? Heavy? Comfortable?

Yes. I've had a pair of the Sony noise cancelling earphones (and
headphones) for about 8 years now. They do not remove all the noise but
they substantially reduce it to the point where you can hear more of the
music and less of the ambient train or plane noise. They come with the
nice feature of a mic and button which mutes the sound and an ducts the
ambient sound into the earphones - great for listening to announcements
or if someone asks you something.

Have just replaced them though with a pair of Ultimate Ears earphones.
Not as convenient as the Sonys but sublime sound and good sound
isolation http://www.ultimateears.com/

--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham

John Hearns said:

A u.r.c. choir, whatever next?

I think we already do a passable print performance of Stockhausen's
intuitive music

"Do not think, and when you have attained the state of non-thinking,
start typing" ;-)

--
Tony

‘I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and
diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier
shell than ordinary’
- Isaac Newton

On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 00:14:56 +0000, Nick Kew
<[email hidden]> said in
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

When and where are you performing that? Can I join you? Bass (first
or second according to need), and proficient sightreader.

April 1, Great Hall, Reading University.

Quoted message said:

... on the list of works I've never sung but really want to.

It's a beast! The reprise of the fugue section "et vitam venturi" is
ludicrously fast!

Reading Festival Chorus, we are.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 08:48:31 +0000, Tony Raven <[email hidden]>
said in <[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

I think we already do a passable print performance of Stockhausen's
intuitive music

Which unforgets me of why I like urc: how many other groups would
contain people who could make such a comment, let alone expect it to
be understood?

More of a baroque person, me, mind.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Response to Nick Kew:

Quoted message said:

/me just back from rehearsal of the Dream of Gerontius.

Where? SWMBO is rehearsing DofG at the moment: BMS (Buxton Musical
Society).

Quoted message said:

Date: Fri, Feb 17 2006 12:14 am

12.14 am - back from the pubbe? Certainly sounds like a BMS rehearsal.

;-)

--
Mark, UK
"The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests
and his own are the same."

Clive George said:

I think he's got a point - I perceive somebody
wearing their earphones as hiding themselves away from the world. Of
course in a lot of cases this is probably deliberate - eg it stops
nutters like me talking to you, but I actually rather like interaction
with people Maybe it's because I'm not in a city...

Generally speaking, earphones or otherwise, I don't get the opportunity
to talk to many people on my 30 minute cycle in to work, so I can't
really agree its socialability or otherwise.

I wear an iPod (single earpiece in the nearside, leaving the offside
open) because it's 30 minutes (plus the 5 minutes of locking it and
walking from bike to desk) of listening to podcasts or the news, putting
the down-time to an even better use than 'just' cycling.

And, for what it's worth, I frequently realise that the road has been
taking enough concentration that I have to spool backwards at the next
junction or traffic lights as I haven't been listening to the words in
my ear ...

Mark Thompson said:

Please try some, and if you find some that work pass on the details.
Ideally, I'm looking for ones that drown out people rather than mere
background noise. I'm now using foam earplugs - scrunch up into ball and
wedge into ears.

Shure - E2c or E3c - very good noise cancelling, but I've been let down
a little on the build quality. When they work, they work *really* well.
They come with a selection of fittings among which are some which are,
effectively, foam earplugs with a small hole in it.

I'm currently using Koss Plugs, much cheaper than Shure and while they
look it, they work as well. They really work on the tube (and in the
office 🙂 Happy to recommend them.

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

April 1, Great Hall, Reading University.

Sorry, won't have returned from eclipse-watching in foreign climes.

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 08:48:31 +0000, Tony Raven <[email hidden]>
said in <[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think we already do a passable print performance of Stockhausen's
intuitive music

Quoted message said:

Which unforgets me of why I like urc: how many other groups would
contain people who could make such a comment, let alone expect it to
be understood?

Quoted message said:

More of a baroque person, me, mind.

Quoted message said:

Guy

Uk.rec.sheds?

Could almost definitely muster a passable choir there.

Listened to Elgar's Choral Classics this very morning...

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

chris harrison said:

Shure - E2c or E3c - very good noise cancelling, but I've been let
down a little on the build quality. When they work, they work
*really* well. They come with a selection of fittings among which
are some which are, effectively, foam earplugs with a small hole in
it.

I use Etymotic ER4Ps. They're fantastic, probably the best
earphones/headphones I've ever heard. I bought them for use on public
transport but now I hardly ever use my Grados even in the office.

I don't normally ride wearing earphones but I tried it today in
traffic in Worcester and lo and behold I was run over and horribly
killed. I should have listened to the press, they know best after
all.

Chris
--
Chris Eilbeck

Chris Eilbeck said:

chris harrison <[email hidden]> writes:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

I don't normally ride wearing earphones but I tried it today in
traffic in Worcester and lo and behold I was run over and horribly
killed. I should have listened to the press, they know best after
all.

Chris
--
Chris Eilbeck

I'm sorry for you loss.
Can I have your earphones now you don't need them anymore?

bookieb.