Aaron Reece

I would check the alternator. The hint is the dim headlights.

Oops, I just saw that Jack mentioned that already.

From the “You Don’t Say” department:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/20/uk-agriculture-farming-fertilisers-yields-biodiversity-study-park-grass-pollinators-bees-wildflowers-aoe

Turns out reducing meadow flowers in favor of monoculture grass crops cuts pollinator populations. The test strips with highest N application had only 10 percent of the bees in the strips left without chemical fertilizer. I know this will come as no surprise to folks here but I’m always gratified and encouraged when I see it bubbling up into popular media.

-Aaron

Regarding WIFI blocking, is your friend concerned about the effects of radio frequency transmission or is she just annoyed that their network is interfering with her own network? If the second, she may be able to configure her own WIFI router to use a different frequency than her neighbors. Some routers are supposed to do this automatically but they also allow manual frequency selection.

If the first, I can also speak from experience that a sheet of metal will block WIFI frequencies very effectively, especially in the newer 5GHz band. I have a family member who is a sheet metal engineer and has several walls in his house made of stainless steel and copper. They look great but you can forget about using the WIFI! I had not thought about using aluminum foil. It might be possible to get incorporate a faraday cage-like element into the wall for this purpose that would use less metal, but that is way beyond my knowledge.

-Aaron

Hi Benjamin, I am a musician and have tried everything for sound abatement. Based on my experience, the gold standard is mechanical isolation of the wall surfaces. Yes, more mass in the wall is good but isolation is even better. The problem is that you have a wooden medium on the inside connected to large, flat surfaces on the outside that collect and transmit sound vibrations very effectively. In fact this is exactly how a piano soundboard works. If you can isolate one or both of those wall surfaces from the wood studs inside the wall, that will stop nearly all of the transfer of vibrations from one surface to the other.

If time, space, and money are not issues you can just build two parallel wall systems - two sets of studs running parallel to each other with wallboard hung on the outside of each set of studs. But you can get nearly the same benefit without all of that work by using a product called resilient channel to hang the wallboard. This is a metal strip that is folded over so you can screw one side to the studs, then screw the wallboard to the resilient channel. This way the wallboard is isolated from the studs by a 12mm/0.5 inch gap. That is enough to stop nearly all of the transfer of vibration from stud to surface.

I just looked up resilient channel and found a bunch of pages from soundproofing companies claiming that resilient channel does not work. Well of course they would say that, they want you to buy their consulting services and proprietary toxic gick. I have built wall systems with resilient channel and it works great. In fact I believe it was invented specifically to provide sound isolation at low cost. I have been told it is used in hotels for this purpose.

Here is an example (no connection to the company, just the first search result):
https://www.buysuperstud.com/products/clips-and-accessories/resilient-channel
The stuff I used was similar to the RC1 or RC-SUPER from that site.
Home improvement stores do not carry it but it is a standard item at specialty drywall/plaster vendors.

Of course this is geared towards a conventional modern gypsum board wall, but if your friend wanted to try to get the same benefit using more natural materials she might try adapting the concept to creating a lath matrix that is similarly isolated from the studs and plastering the lath with the medium of her choice. I might worry slightly about the finished wall flexing and cracking though (the resilient channel gives just a tiny bit - not an issue with solid wallboard). Or wood paneling would also work although the screws would have to be dealt with visually (you cannot use nails with resilient channel). Maybe use tongue and groove boards.

Bear in mind that there may also be significant vibrations, especially in the low frequencies, coming through the floor if the two sides rest on the same joists or subfloor. Treating the wall will not help with that. Perhaps a covert operation to disconnect the neighbors subwoofer is the best strategy.

-Aaron

This is somewhat random, but someone mentioned pear wood. It is used by glassblowers to make forms for shaping molten glass. Apparently the smooth grain makes it ideal for this.

Another traditional use for pear wood (for the same reasons) is making harpsichord jacks. I used to build harpsichords in what seems like a former life. Jacks are little wooden pieces that travel up and down when you press a key. Each one contains a little plectrum that plucks the string. They are usually around 1/2" x 1" x 4", and a harpsichord uses anywhere from 50-200 depending on how many strings it contains. So I wouldn't suggest planting acres and acres of new trees just to meet this demand. Anyway the up-and-down travel has to be absolutely smooth, so pear it is.

When pear is unavailable for harpsichord jacks, apple is a suitable substitute. (That's right, "apple jacks." But I'm serious here. And maybe back on topic.)

"Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, / Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss" (Sonnet 128)

Sebastian's suggestion is a good one and will help preserve detail in the white wool in your hand as well. But also bear in mind that online video sites like YouTube will convert your video to one or more alternative formats, which will result in generation loss similar to that in your example.

The specific issue looks like macro blocking. https://www.avsforum.com/threads/macro-blocking.692624/ Essentially, the video has been over-compressed (either at the source, or by YouTube, or both). Try increasing the resolution and the quality settings (bitrate) on your camera to ensure that the original contains as much detail as possible. It may not make much difference, but you don't have a lot of control once it is uploaded to YouTube.

YouTube and other services also adjust the quality of the video based on the speed of your internet connection, to avoid buffering slowdowns and pauses. Your connection may be a little slow for the resolution you have selected. Try selecting a lower resolution using the gear icon in the lower right and see if that helps. Or try loading the video using a faster connection. Also, cellular providers are notorious for re-compressing high resolution video to conserve bandwidth on their networks. If you are using cellular data to watch video, this is likely to exacerbate the problem.

Aaron
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