Cough Radar

Cough Radar

Byrichard

This morning, for the first time in months I used Sleepcycle manually to mark the start and end of my sleep and I noticed that they added the Cough Radar. This is a quick and easy way of seeing whether there is a lot of coughin in the region where you live, or not.

I find this to be interesting. Governments are no longer tracking COVID and other diseases so we’re flying blind. With an app like SleepCycle current beta testing coughing nearby we have an interesting incite into how clean the air is, or how sick people are.

That’s because coughing could be provoked by air pollution. If there is a forest fire, or heavy smog then people will struggle to breath and air pollution will affect whether they’re coughing, or not.

If the air is clean then people could be coughing due to colds, the flu and other diseases. It’s a good way of establishing whether a region is healthy or not. It’s also interesting to see that the tracking of coughing has now been extrapolated and illustrated with heat maps. I won’t share the heatmap I see, for privacy reasons.

The makers of SleepCycle wrote about the feature here. By aggregating this data over weeks, months, and years policy makers can look at this data and decide whether to encourage mask wearing, air filtration and more. It could be used to track seasonal and regional changes.

There are four classifications. Normal, Elevated, High, and No Data. I am not clear whether this feature is available via Test Flight or the Premium version of Sleep Cycle for me. I used to be on the Testflight version.

And Finally

This is a sleep tracking app so it tracks coughing within peoples homes, not out in the street or in offices, unless someone is tracking their office siestas. It represents active users of the app rather than the situation more globally. It reflects the health of sleep cycle users.

The Noise Pollution of Caribana and Other Music Festivals

The Noise Pollution of Caribana and Other Music Festivals

Byrichard

Summary


In the 21st century technology exists that could make music festivals sound good for festival goers, whist not ruing the night of sleep for neighbours of the festival. I would like EPFL and other academic groups to work towards finding a way to make music festivals more considerate of neighbouring humans, and wildlife. Music festivals should apply Corporte Social Responsability by reducing noise pollution.


Noisy Summers


During the summer months people organise outdoor events, which is fantastic. What is less fantastic is that those outdoor events are organised to take place from mid to late afternoon, all the way to 2 to 3am. This means that if you live downwind from Music Festivals you will not be able to sleep for days at a time. 


Sleepless in Nyon – Due to Paléo and Caribana


Instead of going to bed by 2200 and sleeping by midnight you’re stuck trying to outdo the festival with noise. If you go to bed then you’ll have the noise pollution from the festival for hours. 


Staying Up Later


When I was a university student living in halls I would make sure to go to sleep by two or three am, every single night. I wanted to go to sleep after all the noisy people had gone to sleep, to avoid being bothered by noise pollution. It worked extremly well. 


The paradox is that I went to sleep after everyone else, but I also got up before a lot of people. I was easily living on four hours of sleep per night.  The problem is that I am now two decades older, or thereabouts. I actually need my sleep now. 


More Noise Pollution Due to Increasingly Powerful Speakers


The problem with music noise pollution from music festivals is that it is getting louder, with time, rather than quieter. For years I had the noise of the Paléo, during Paléo, but I could sleep through it. It was just barely loud enough to sometimes make out what was playing. 


With the Carbiana the music is so loud. three to five kilometres away, as the drone flies, that with an air conditioner and a fan going at full power in a small room, or an extractor fan in a living room/kitchen, the thump is still audible. The speaker stacks are set so loud that two or three villages away you hear the festival as if you were there. That’s with all the windows closed, and double glazed windows. 


The Sub Optimal Festival Sound Engineer


Caribana and other music festivals have people who are not that intellectually astute. I say this, because, in the 90s and the zeros there was an excuse for that flood of noise. Technological limitations. In 2023 that excuse is moot. The speakers are more powerful, more noisy.


With speakers becoming smaller, more efficient, and less visible it would make sense to distribute the speakers, within the crowd, and set them to a lower volume. It doesn’t make sense to pump out a wall of sound for a tiny festival venue. 


Increasing Nuissance


I’m writing this blog post because I think the problem is getting worse, as the technology makes noise pollution easier to create. I’m writing this because if we have people gluing themselves to roads, because of car pollution, then we should have people protesting music festivals, for failing to consider the environmental impact, and corporate social responsibility in regards to noise pollution. 


Fairness – Environmentalism


Festival goers are meant to be altermondialistes, in favour of a fairer, more environmentally friendly society, and yet for five days per year individual festivals make sleep difficult or impossible. Boiled down to one word festivals like Caribana are selfish. They don’t consider that people want to sleep at night, that they don’t want their personal sphere to be invaded by the noise pollution from a festival. 


Develop Accoustically Conscious Solutions


I want Paléo, Caribana and every other festival to consider the noise pollution that they create, and stop it. Paléo collaborates with EPFL, so EPFL and Paléo, should find a way to play music loud enough for festival goers to hear it, without earplugs, and for the neighbouring countryside to be silent. How Caribana and Paléo behave, in regards to noise pollution is immoral and unethical. I want it to change. 


Geneva’s Attitude to Noise


I know I am one solitary voice, but don’t forget, the fêtes de Genève had to stop making noise by midnight when they were allowed, and eventually I think they were banned, because locals complained. 


Remember, the Geneva motto, between neighbours is “The less we hear each other, the better we get along.” Festivals are loud and disruptive. Something should be done to resolve this issue. 


I expect to have another sleepless night tonight. Monday I will have my first night of sleep, since Tuesday. 


Oh, to have quiet summers, like we did during the part of the pandemic, when governments were not ignoring the spread of the virus. 

Sleeping in an Air Raid Shelter

Sleeping in an Air Raid Shelter

Byrichard

I volunteered in an event that I saw us sleeping in an Air Raid Shelter. Usually, when participating in this event we sleep in an empty summer camp as it has free rooms before the summer activities start. From the summer camp, we have nice views from the balcony and rooms for three or four people. In the air-raid shelters, there was space for 36 people to sleep per room.


The first night we slept in the shelter the front door was left open, as were all the metal concrete doors so the bunker was cold and noisy. The “windows” were nothing more than ventilation shafts that could act as emergency exits.


Initially, this looked like it would be a harsh and possibly unpleasant experience if things had been as they were on the first night. By the second night, the front door was closed, as was the concrete door to the room. I would have closed it on the first night but worried that it would make people claustrophobic. They asked to close it and I agreed.


By having so many people in such a small space two positive things happened. The first is that we couldn’t recharge all of our devices and cellular coverage was weak. Both of these factors resulted in all of us spending a lot of time together. It might be the most convivial atmosphere I have experienced between volunteers.


Beds


If you have slept in a mountain refuge then these beds are the same. They are thin mattresses just one person wide. They are set up as single unit bunkbeds with space for twelve people on three rows. This equates to 32 person in a single room. The bed frame itself moves as people move. If you sleep in the top bunks you will feel every movement people make. If you sleep on the bottom bunk you will feel less motion so if you get motion sickness stay on the lower bunk. Sleeping bags are essential.


When we were in the shelter we were advised to put one mattress, one on top of the other, to make it softer and more pleasant. The space between mattresses could then be used for bags and other possessions. With an external battery, you can charge your devices as you sleep.


Showers


I expected the showers to be cold but they were nice and warm and easier to adjust than many of the showers I have used in hotels. The floor is bare concrete and the showers had nowhere to hang dry clothes so I improvised with shoes as a shelf.


As this bunker can take over 200 people and several dozen people per room it is recommended to take a shower before going to sleep. In this way you can mitigate the consequences of so many people living in such a cramped space.


Temperature


When I checked a thermometer in one of the rooms it indicated that the room was at 20°c. It feels cold enough to need a sleeping bag and pyjamas. The temperature was relatively comfortable with the sleeping bag I had.


Noise


If 32 people were sleeping in a single room then the room would probably be uncomfortable due to snoring, sleep talkers and others. There are two sets of showers. One of them is between two rooms and could only be used when everyone was awake and the second set could be used at any time of day or night.


At least twice a day you hear the sound of the ventilation system come on to circulate air.


Power


There is only one plug per room so multipliers are important.


Final Thoughts


Sleeping well in a bunker is possible, especially when it is not filled to capacity. By sharing a bedroom with three or more people friendships form. As the rooms are so empty of luxuries it encourages people to spend time in the common room and socialise before going to sleep. Groups become close and I’d equate the experience to being more like university. On the first day, everyone is a stranger and by the last day, everyone knows everyone else.


The cost for shelters varies depending on the size and equipment. This bunker costs just 5 CHF per person to use. That’s affordable for almost all budgets, as long as you don’t mind being several meters underground in a room with a thick concrete door and mixed showers and toilets.


The experience was good and I’m going to miss having people to socialise with. During this event, I hardly touched social media, as I was so busy with people in the physical world. By accident, I had a social media detox.

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A book on Sleep and Sleep Tracking Apps

Byrichard

Why We Sleep

Sleep is something that we do almost every day and yet explore it only superficially. We either say “I should go to sleep” or “I wish I had slept longer”. Recently I read “Why We Sleep”. It’s an interesting book because it explores the topic in such depth. I learned that birds sleep on power lines and the birds on the right and the left of the group are sleeping with one eye open. Half of their brain is sleeping whilst the other half is awake. Half way through the sleep cycle they hop around and the other eye is opened and that half of the brain takes over. Sleep is a fascinating topic.

Sleep As Android

I have been playing with two apps for over a year now. One of these is Sleep As Android. When I first started using this app it required being placed in the bed to detect when I moved. Over time they developed technology so that it uses “sonar” to detect when we move during the night. Thanks to the “sonar” feature I can keep the phone up to a metre away from me.

I might have tracked up to 576 nights of sleep with this app. With this app I can see the duration, the irregularity, how much of my sleep cycle is deep, how efficient it is and how I rate it. It shows my how bad or good my sleep deficit is and what my chronotype is. According to the app I am a morning lark.

This app gives advice. This app believes that to maximise sleep I should go to sleep at 23:15 and that to maximise deep sleep I should sleep 8hrs 10.

Sleep Cycle

Another app I have played with extensively is Sleep Cycle. I used this app to track my sleep for several hundred nights of which six months was whilst working as an aircraft deicer. This is relevant because I was trying to go to sleep for 1800 and waking for 2am. Of course, I usually went to sleep around 2000 or so. I mention this because if any sleep specialists read this blog I am ready to share the data. Since then I have gone back to sleeping more pleasant hours.

This app provides you with a sleep graph per night, the time you went to bed and got up, sleep quality, time with noise, sleep notes, wake up mood, heart rate, step count and total nights tracked. I have tracked 303 nights of sleep with the app.

When you look at the trends tab you can see sleep quality and you can compare it with entire countries. You can track how regular your “went to bed” graph is, how much time you spent in bed, the time at which you woke up, what factors result in better sleep, decreased sleep, weather effect, air pressure, moon and location. You can also track your heart rate when you wake up. My average is currently 47 bpm, average in Switzerland is 67, Denmark, 65 and Turkey 73. The heart rate measurement comes from shining light through your finger and the phone detecting the change in colour per heartbeat.

Apparently, my best night of sleep is on a Tuesday and it gets progressively worse as the week wears on.

 

Noise and Liveable Flats

Byrichard

It’s only 130am therefore it’s not that late but I want to sleep and there is something that has been hindering this effort particularly strongly for the past three nights. Drunken people with no pitch or tone control when singing using their lungs and voice projection to full pelt.

It’s not that I’m against partying but I do believe in making noise during the day or away from habitations during the day. I would love to see the same thing happen in London as in Switzerland.

Laws that forbid noise after 10pm.

On a second note here are ways future halls and student accomodation may be improved to make a full night of sleep possible.

  1. Cupboards that don’t slam. When you’re living by a kitchen one of the most annoying sounds is hearing others close cupboards

  2. Solid doors that don’t bang. The main door to the complex is loud. Every time it closes you hear it. The doors to the flat make noise when you open them.

  3. Silent locks. The sound of a key pulling the latch is loud when background sounds are inexistent

  4. Soundproofed walls. being able to hear what’s going on next door is not always pleasant.

  5. Proper windows. When you’ve got idiots outside yelling at other idiots you’ll hear the entire conversation. That’s not what you want.

  6. A system of fines rather than bans. People get far more annoyed and take far more seriously a financial loss than a ban.  With a ban you may end up in a nice house or flat where you live in better conditions.

  7. Smart fire alarms. You’ve got security so if a fire is activated check the area with a heat camera. If there’s nothing out of the ordinary just go and clear the alarm after a visual check

  8. Free high quality headphones. Rather than have loud music blearing from every room why not provide students with nice headphones which they can use to hear their music in dolby digital surround sound…

  9. A noise fuse. The idea behind this device is simple. If you exceed a certain noise level all power is cut to the area where the noise levels are too high. In so doing disturbances would be far more limited.

10.  Quiet furniture. When you’ve got a concrete floor with no padding and chairs with no padding any shift of the furniture results in a lot of noise. Provide a quiet surface and life may be livable.

I’m tired of other people’s noise. I’d love for them to become reasonable and start being quiet. Once every two weeks is fine, but not every single day. Not all of us enjoy drinking at night and doing nothing during the day. Not all of us appreciate bad singing either.

Anyway worst case scenario I have another two weeks without sleep.

Best case scenario. New flat within a few days.

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An academic fox for university

Byrichard

When you’re s student normal clocks no longer have any relevance to the way you live your life. Sometimes you go to sleep three hours after the sun rose and other times you have a nap at three in the afternoon. Occasionally you sleep from ten at night till 6 am. That’s extra ordinarily rare.

When you’re in halls this is particularly true. You’ve got an entire ethnic group in university that takes the university to be the same as school. They come in at 8 am and leave on the dot at 1900 hrs. That’s because they’re still at home and they live according to their parent’s cooking schedule. They love to play during the day.

Most of the people I know are of the night disposition. They will party all night and pull all-nighters to get work done rather than get up early in the morning to do things the way non-students do. It’s a great way of life. You might not see the sun in winter but in Summer there’s a chance you’ll be sitting in the sun soaking in the rays whilst office workers are slaving away.

It doesn’t matter, in three to four years most students will experience the same so it’s only a question of time.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I was leaving the library after doing some work on my dissertation when I spotted an orange fox lurking around. it was looking for food and that’s not hard to find where students have been. I thought that I should scare it off by hissing and stamping my foot but it remained oblivious. I decided to walk up the stairs and turned around. It was heading towards the turnstiles to get into university. Did I meet one of the rare academic foxes in North West London? Let’s see whether I see it at my graduation.

How many of you have had such encounters with nocturnal creatures?