Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

[erik]

You can modify your house. The neighborhood not so much.

So I put another vote for location location location.

[Iduno]

You also might want to consider the average age in your neighborhood. If it's a quiet neighborhood because everyone is in their 70's, you're about to see the average age drop rapidly.

[erik]

Unless it's Florida or Arizona, heh.

[Maj]

I'm a terrible one for advice on this...

We bought a totally meh-looking house in a neighborhood.

The house was exactly what we needed with no frills at all. It's not pretty. It doesn't have a particularly large yard. It has issues, but nothing major. It did need a kitchen remodel, but the cost was low enough that even with that, it was well within budget cost-wise. It was not my first choice. It wasn't even on the list until the day we were in the city to look at three other houses, and the one we really wanted went pending. I figured we shouldn't waste our time by only looking at two, so this one was tossed on at the last second.

I have learned to love my house. It doesn't look weird, but it ended up being super weird - it was built in stages that show its history (four, from what I can tell). It has plaster walls. It has hardwood floors. It has a gas stove that heats everything to the max. It has a living room that's got higher ceilings than the rest of the house so I get to have a taller than my shitty-ass apartment Christmas tree. Paint and paintings go a long way toward undoing the greige/mushroom drab that EVERY FUCKING THING was painted.

My neighborhood is a neighborhood, and my needs have changed since I moved here. Firstly, we have a car, so trips to the grocery and such do not need to be made with bus lines and walking in mind. Secondly, it's hooked up to city sewer - I was not letting go of this requirement. My neighbors are cordial, but we don't have block parties. My neighborhood is safe - which, as a mom, is a high priority for me. And my neighborhood is quiet and undisturbed - which is kind of disappointing for me because I like my loud stereo (and we've had the police called on us for noise since we moved here). But on the other hand, my son has grown enough to learn to ride a bike, and so I'd much rather him ride around on sleepy streets than high-traffic, high-activity ones. We also are close to the kickassest playground for 25 miles (my son voted for this house because of that).

So after all that... I have learned to appreciate my neighborhood, though I'd rather live in the historic district downtown. But I fucking love my weird little house, and I love coming up with things to do to it that make me love it even more.

[RobbyPants]

You can modify your house. The neighborhood not so much.

So I put another vote for location location location.

Agreed. As someone who's renovated two houses, I'd say go for the location.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I recommend a big yard and a finished basement. You don't want the neighbors overhearing stuff from your sex dungeon.

[Blade]

That really depends on the problems you have with the neighborhood. If it's something that you can change (and if you've got enough time and energy, it's surprising how much you can achieve in some cases) or something that will change in an acceptable timeframe, it could be a good move. If it's not, it's probably a bad idea.

[Prak]

To the best of my knowledge, it is commonly understood that The Soviet-American Cold War is over. But... also to the best of my knowledge, we've been in a protracted conflict with Russia, "pursued primarily through economic and political actions, propaganda, acts of espionage or proxy wars waged by surrogates" for my entire life (ie, from 1987 to present)

So... is the Soviet-American Cold War over just because the Soviet Union as a specific political entity no longer exists? Because it kinda seems like the US and Russia are in a state which could be referred to as A "cold war," and have been since the "end" of The Cold War.

[Kaelik]

To the best of my knowledge, it is commonly understood that The Soviet-American Cold War is over. But... also to the best of my knowledge, we've been in a protracted conflict with Russia, "pursued primarily through economic and political actions, propaganda, acts of espionage or proxy wars waged by surrogates" for my entire life (ie, from 1987 to present)

So... is the Soviet-American Cold War over just because the Soviet Union as a specific political entity no longer exists? Because it kinda seems like the US and Russia are in a state which could be referred to as A "cold war," and have been since the "end" of The Cold War.

We stopped being at cold war for a good decade there, where our capitalists taught their capitalists how to maximally exploit the workers, it was only after their capitalists finished seizing total power that the conflict of (some) capitalists against other capitalists roared up.

[Prak]

Ah, ok. Most of my social studies and history classes focused "shit that happened way before America existed," "The War Where America Stopped Being Such Fucking Limies," "The War Where America FOUGHT ITSELF," and "America has such big balls it won a war that it entered more than two years late, and we will examine those balls in detail because they're the only thing we care about" So when it comes to basically anything about fairly modern history, if it didn't involve America's guns, I know very little.

[OgreBattle]

There’s a lot of fan art of the new Eddie Brock getting fucked by Venom

[Thaluikhain]

There's no formal declaration of a Cold War, so whether or not we are in one is hard to say. I'd argue yes, but to a different extent to the days of big proxy wars in SE Asia.

[Iduno]

I can't remember where the "There hasn't been X in over 20 years" thing came from, or the exact wording. Not knowing the wording makes it slightly more difficult to search for.

So what was the wording and where is it from?

edit: Usually said by an old farmer, implying whomever was interacted with was a ghost.

[Eikre]

I seem to recall there was a particular scholar, predating the printing press, who had the propensity to include full copies, with his manuscripts, of works that he was citing or responding to, and there are some significant works that are only extant in the modern day because of his habit for replication.

I feel as though I've seen someone reference him on these very forums, does anyone remember who it was?

[MisterDee]

Does anyone here have experience with soundproofing?

The issue: Sound from my basement / eventual combination office/game room flows runs through the HVAC ducts and basically everywhere in the house. I can literally talk to my girlfriend in our room on the second floor by only raising my voice a little. Seriously, the clarity is downright surprising.

There's a duct opening right to the side of the game table, with the secondary duct itself running directly over the table to connect to the main duct right which runs parallel to the other side of the table.

The ceiling is just plywood. I haven't taken it down yet but I think there's very little space (if any between the plywood and the ducts.

I've looked at options, but none spring to mind as an obvious fix yet.

[Whipstitch]

For airborne noise getting insulation and drywall up on your ceiling should help a lot unless your duct situation is truly hideous. It doesn't necessarily have to involve packing a shit ton of fancy materials into your ceiling, either, since regular old fiber glass and an air gap between the plywood and the dry wall can help a lot.

If the ducts themselves continue to be a problem, that's a whole other ball of wax and shit like installing duct liners or switching over to fabric ducts is more money than you'll want to spend just to dampen voices. I'd recommend looking at the ceiling first, throwing down a cheap rug and maybe installing a heavy curtain that you can temporarily draw across the most offensive vent on game night. There's obviously more expensive and comprehensive solutions out there you could look into, but a lot of them are aimed at home theater or recording nerds and should hopefully be way overkill for your needs.

[MisterDee]

Yeah, going to have to go with "duct situation is truly hideous".

(Well, not really. I'm not really qualified to make that determination.)

Very unscientific testing says the problem is probably the main ducts more than the secondaries. I haven't opened up the ceiling yet, but I suspect they're in direct contact with the plywood. They run in a lowered section of the ceiling (not an original install & they're perpendicular to the beams, meaning they had to run below the beams.

Meaning I don't have an awful lot of room to work with to add insulation. :/ Oh well, I'll need to think about this more.

Thanks a lot.

[deaddmwalking]

If the plywood is directly contacting the vent, that's probably why it transmits sound so well. Creating a gap and/or adding insulation around it would probably work. If you can't lower your ceiling, your other option would be to add sound baffling material.

If you're not too worried about aesthetics, you can use a staple gun to attach acoustic foam to your ceiling. It will cushion the ceiling from the sound and should largely prevent it from transmitting.

If the plywood/vent contact is not the primary means of transmitting sound and it is more that sound just enters the vent and bounces through the ducts, you'll have to do something to block the vent. You might hang some kind of fabric strips - they can't be so heavy that the vent can't blow air through, but they should still help dampen sound entering the vent.

Either way, it would probably also help if you could create an air gap or put a thin foam between the plywood and duct - but if you don't want to get into the ceiling, going with the surface will still probably be enough.

[RobbyPants]

I'm not sure if wrapping the vent would help. I ran three vents through an attic space, and to keep them from dripping condensation on the insulation below, I had to wrap a thin (1/4" or so) adhesive foam to the outside of them.

I don't know if you can access the vents or not, but that might keep the metal from transmitting noise so well.

[Prak]

Is this a reasonably accurate and sensitive blurb for a "Know about a native tribe" background skill in a Gothic Western game?

There are a number of tribes of native americans across the US during the Gilded and Reconstruction Era, though their population had been greatly diminished due to Westward Expansion and criminal treatment by the American and Canadian governments. Due to colonial attitudes towards native peoples, these tribes were forced to become increasingly confrontational in their efforts to maintain their ways of life and historical homelands, and as such, hostility between colonizers and natives is a common trope in Western fiction, as is the idea of one or more characters having particular insight into a given tribe.

[tussock]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars

I may not be the right person to ask.

I mean, basically, it's how to commit genocide out of public view. You forcibly and unconstitutionally move massive numbers of people into giant open air starvation camps in the deserts, and then don't feed them. Don't even feed them on the forced marches. Should they succeed in farming it you settle on their best land and kill them when they complain. Should they fail and leave, seeking food, you employ an army to hunt them down and return them. If they hurt anyone you kill them all.

Then, you know, sign another "peace treaty" with the ones you couldn't find when you had the army together, taking more of their land away, promising food and stuff, and then just don't bother ever doing that, and when they go looking for food again, well, they broke the treaty don't you know, can't be trusted, only thing they know is the gun.

If you want it to read all presidential, Roosevelt was known to have agreed that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. Which is polite compared to most of the homesteaders. If you want it to read modern, well, pretend all the diseases were not associated with the militarily enforced regime of mass starvation, and all those treaties were totally fair and not just another round of writing land theft into law at gunpoint every time.

Mostly the Indians bluffed. Tried desperately to look imposing, make their numbers look bigger than they were. Hoped to scare the settlers off their land. Never really worked, army was always quick to respond, a lot of them it was their whole job, just chase Indians, for years. Drive them deeper into the deserts.

People who knew about Indians at the time, knew all that, there was just nothing they could do about any of it.

Huge numbers fled to Mexico and Canada, or raided Mexico from Texas, because that was of course allowed. Lots of people understood what was happening in the US, Hitler modelled his own camps on it, but in the US itself it was simply Manifest Destiny.

We're doing this, and therefore God meant for us to do it. They actually told themselves the water would follow the plough, once they cleared out the Indians, parcelled out the land, ploughed it, the rains must follow, as all ploughed land the world over has rain fall on it, God would provide as always.

When that failed, scientists of the time were not surprised. They'd been telling everyone how rain worked, and ... well, that congress needed to budget to provide food, and various other things, but yeah, God would provide for the faithful, and not for the sinners, was what kept winning the votes. The midwest is not all that different to this day.

--

Oh, right, probably just name them. There's only like 50, they were the names of countries with of millions of people that existed there before the British Empire and its post-Napoleonic remnants came to settle them. Americans talking about the Apaches in the late 19th is a bit like Germans talking about the Poles in the early 1940s, because they can either sort themselves out and become good loyal Germans, or maybe get sent off to the camps.

[Thaluikhain]

I mean, basically, it's how to commit genocide out of public view.

Genocide, yes, but I'm not sure how out of the public view it was. Scalp hunters got heroic treatment, for example.

People who knew about Indians at the time, knew all that, there was just nothing they could do about any of it.

Assuming they cared. Though, of course, there were groups that did, there's always plenty that don't, or at least don't care enough to want to do anything, especially when it's beneficial to be apathetic.

[MisterDee]

So, back to my acoustic horror story.

The good news is that there's some air gap between the vent and the plywood.

The additional bad news:

1-Forgot to mention there was a light fixture right above where I put my gaming table. Ergo, there's now a big round hole in the plywood there, just to ensure maximum failure at soundproofing. Also, there are recessed lights in the ceiling... which now that I think about are also holes and maybe fire hazards?

2-Blowing cellulose in the area would normally be a good way to help... but given how many small projects the previous owner subcontracted to untrained monkeys, I'm not risking it. For all I know there's a gasoline pipeline running next to exposed wires somewhere in that ceiling.

3-To add insult to injury, I've traced out my ducts. And both the ducts for the pushed air and the air intakes turn upward to go to the second floor right above my gaming table.

In other words, there are two wide metal ducts going directly upward from my gaming table directly towards the master bedroom.

In a way, that's actually good news - the reason the sound situation is so horrific is simply because it's literally set up the worst way imaginable for what I wanted, with effectively no sound insulation at all. So it cannot possibly be worse than now.

----

So the actual solution is "have actual competent people build a functional ceiling." But the basement is honestly a strip-and-redo project and that'll have to wait for year or two, so in the meantime, I'm planning on a minimum-budget, low-hassle project.

So I'll replace the flat registers with angled ones (facing away from the table), and also set up some curtains to help with that voice intake.

I'm also going to affix some Sonopan panels to my ceiling - at least to encase the whole ducting in it. Is that going to help?

[Maj]

Can you move the table?

[MisterDee]

There's room to move it, but it doesn't improve the situation noticeably. I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being part of the overall solution however.