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You all know how the song goes:
I'm a real guy, I like real guy things
Like boats, and guns, and onion rings,
But household chores need a power resolution.
I went to the store and I purchased a solution...
...I got a pressure washer.
I like it a lot
Cos it makes cleaning DESTRUCTIVE!
Well, last night I went to a shop, and bought... an infrared remote
thermometer, and an environment meter that measures light, sound and
heat. Now I can find out the temparature of EVERYTHING!! Muhuhuhu!!!
Actually, the light readings are gibberish, and the temparature readings
seem rather suspect. The sound readings seem reasonable though.
A number of people have complained about how loud of lab is. So I
thought I'd find out how loud it *really* is!
Obviously, the first problem is trying to define "loud". According to
the infallible Wikipedia, there are four standardised frequency responce
curves commonly used. Apparently the "A" curve was designed for quiet
sounds and is really rather invalid for loud sounds - and yet, almost
all legal constructs operate on A-weighted readings. Ho hum! Apparently
the "C" curve is a much better one to use.
In some unscientific experiments today, I've found that the readings
from the metal really don't change very much depending on what I
percieve the loudness to be. (OTOH, dB is a *logarithmic* scale...)
Depending on whether I select A-weighted or C-weighted filtering, I get
a figure between 60 dB and 85 dB. Various Google searches indicate that
long-term exposure to levels around 85 dB or higher result in hearing
damage. (But infuriatingly NONE of the articles say WHICH WEIGHTING
that's with, so it's kind of meaningless.)
At any rate, you can argue over different frequency response curves to
use and what is or isn't harmful. But it seems that you can probably
conclude that the noise levels in our lab are high enough to be of
concern, even if you can't conclusively say they are or aren't safe.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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