Cancel Out The Noise Quotes

Well. Um. The thing is…” I inhale, then continue with rapid-fire speed. “Imnotahockeyfan.” A wrinkle appears in his forehead. “What?” I repeat myself, slowly this time, with actual pauses between each word. “I’m not a hockey fan.” Then I hold my breath and await his reaction. He blinks. Blinks again. And again. His expression is a mixture of shock and horror. “You don’t like hockey?” I regretfully shake my head. “Not even a little bit?” Now I shrug. “I don’t mind it as background noise—” “Background noise?” “—but I won’t pay attention to it if it’s on.” I bite my lip. I’m already in this deep—might as well deliver the final blow. “I come from a football family.” “Football,” he says dully. “Yeah, my dad and I are huge Pats fans. And my grandfather was an offensive lineman for the Bears back in the day.” “Football.” He grabs his water and takes a deep swig, as if he needs to rehydrate after that bombshell. I smother a laugh. “I think it’s awesome that you’re so good at it, though. And congrats on the Frozen Four win.” Logan stares at me. “You couldn’t have told me this before I asked you out? What are we even doing here, Grace? I can never marry you now—it would be blasphemous.” His twitching lips make it clear that he’s joking, and the laughter I’ve been fighting spills over. “Hey, don’t go canceling the wedding just yet. The success rate for inter-sport marriages is a lot higher than you think. We could be a Pats-Bruins family.” I pause. “But no Celtics. I hate basketball.” “Well, at least we have that in common.” He shuffles closer and presses a kiss to my cheek. “It’s all right. We’ll work through this, gorgeous. Might need couples counseling at some point, but once I teach you to love hockey, it’ll be smooth sailing for us.” “You won’t succeed,” I warn him. “Ramona spent years trying to force me to like it. Didn’t work.” “She gave up too easily then. I, on the other hand, never give up

Months later, when I rarely saw the Angels, I still had the legacy of the big machine -- four hundred pounds of chrome and deep red noise to take out on the Coast Highway and cut loose at three in the morning, when all the cops were lurking over on 101. My first crash had wrecked the bike completely and it took several months to have it rebuilt. After that I decided to ride it differently: I would stop pushing my luck on curves, always wear a helmet and try to keep within range of the nearest speed limit ... my insurance had already been canceled and my driver's license was hanging by a thread. So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head ... but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz ... not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-night diner down around Rockaway Beach. There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.

But noisy systems do not make multiple judgments of the same case. They make noisy judgments of different cases. If one insurance policy is overpriced and another is underpriced, pricing may on average look right, but the insurance company has made two costly errors. If two felons who both should be sentenced to five years in prison receive sentences of three years and seven years, justice has not, on average, been done. In noisy systems, errors do not cancel out. They add up.

Third, Zwicker had shown that the auditory system canceled out noise following a loud click.

Fourth—and this is where it gets weird—Zwicker had shown that the auditory system also canceled out noise prior to a loud click.

Sean checked his watch, grimaced, and lengthened his stride down the hallway. He’d make it to the high school—but only if he skirted around town instead of cutting through. It was 12:40 p.m. and the downtown streets would be clogged with motorists battling for lunch hour parking. He was halfway down the granite steps when he spotted Dave and Evelyn standing beside his car in the lot reserved for official use. He raised an eyebrow at the twin smiles of angelic innocence on their faces. “What are you two doing, camped out here?” “That should be obvious,” his secretary replied. “You tipped your hand when you canceled your lunch with Ferrucci and the oh-so-friendly developers. So Dave and I decided we might as well share the ride. No point in taking separate cars when we can carpool.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “You want a lift to the deli for sandwiches? Fine, hop on in.” Evelyn made a clucking noise with her tongue. Her pink curls shook slightly. “Sean, we’re your friends. If we’re willing to admit to unholy curiosity, then you should, too.” Dave merely nodded in agreement, wisely holding his tongue. A good thing, too. These days, Sean’s temper had a real short fuse, wired to explode. He didn’t want to throttle his best friend in the town hall parking lot. Sean had thought it would be easier not to see Lily, but he’d been wrong. Just knowing she was near had him craving even a glimpse of her. It was a gnawing hunger that nothing could appease . . . except her.

This way.” Chuck gestured toward a door on the opposite end of the room. The two men were like teens who had just purchased a bag of fireworks. When they got to the door, Chuck handed Jack a set of very small ear plugs. “Put these in, they are electronic and they cancel out the noise from the weapon but let everything else through. We could hold a whispering conversation while firing the weapon fully automatic.” Jack felt like a kid on Christmas. The

Store photos of strategies and tools on your phone. You can make a folder with images of tools you find helpful, for example noise cancelling headphones, eye mask, weighted blanket, something to do with a special interest. When stressed, just scroll through the photos in the folder to give yourself ideas about what tools to use. It’s likely that as soon as you see the tool that will work for you, you will know it. You can make different folders for different activities, such as ‘Quick Calm Plan for Home’, ‘Quick Calm Plan for Work’ etc. If you scroll through the images before you go out, it will help you not to forget any tools you want to bring with you.

In noisy systems, errors do not cancel out. They add up.

My body is all that exists. It is the only thing I can depend on. Music or no music, there is a rhythm that cancels out all the other noise, all the nonsense that keeps screaming for attention, all the pain of the world outside. I point and leap and spin, and sweat whips off me, showering the duct-taped boards under my bare, calloused feet. I see myself in the fractured shards of mirror I glue-gunned to the wall. This is how I know myself--in this tattered leotard; in these ripped tights; in this broken, salvaged room. This is the only place I’m real. This is the place I come when I need to remember who I am. This is where I come when I need to forget everything else.

The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it.76 If you tried to listen to all the sounds of the universe at once it would be deafening. All the various meanings would cancel each other out. You would hear the chaos of white noise instead of the single, hidden truth of a rational universe. This is exactly parallel to what would happen if you tried to see all the colors in the world at once. It would look like something that has a meaning, you would be driven to find out what that ultimate meaning was, but you would be driven mad in the search. Because when it is universal it is deafening, it is a chaos; and although this chaos is itself the ultimate nature of the universe, you can only fathom it from one perspective at a time. That is why, on Melville’s account, Ahab’s fanaticism is ultimately mad. The multiple meanings of the universe simply don’t add up[…]” Excerpt From: Hubert Dreyfus. “All Things Shining.