British Pizza Chain To Install Cones of Silence 122
itwbennett writes "British pizza chain Pizza Express is installing iPod docks and soundproof domes in booths of their new iPizzeria stores. 'The idea is that you can plug in your iPod and play whatever music you like without disturbing other diners,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'But I'm sure it'd work for talking about government secrets and other spy stuff, too.'"
Apple specific? (Score:1, Interesting)
Will it work with other mp3 players too?
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So then why do they not just have a line-in jack?
Which every player and smartphone could support.
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Oh, please. They're already called "iPizzeria".
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A dock connector gets you line level output which needs less fiddling to get acceptable results from. I'll also bet there are far more people with a iPod dock connector on their iPod/iPhone then there are folks that walk around with a 3.5mm male-male cable.
However I think a 3.5mm line-in would be a good thing to have in addition to a dock connector.
Can you rent these boots during day? (Score:5, Funny)
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Yes, I suspect there would be a market for the home-delivery versions of this. Whether it's a grumpy spouse, noisy kids, a barking dog, or just everyone watching/listening to different things at once, many would appreciate relief.
- - -
There is no confirmation that the recent Obama meeting had anything at all to do with an Apple-built Cylon being built for president in 2016.
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The home version of this is a clear plastic bag...
Why? (Score:3, Funny)
If you really care about what music you listen too while you eat your pizza, why wouldn't you just take it back to your place and eat it there?
Re:Why would somebody eat pizza at a pizzaria? (Score:5, Insightful)
This may be hard for some Slashdotters to understand, but some people spend hours at a time outside of their basement. When they are away from home and haven't eaten, they might buy some pizza at a pizzeria and eat it there, even if they don't like the noise. They probably wouldn't even consider bringing it home. Unless they are intending to head home immediately anyway, it is quicker, more convenient, and saves gas to eat at the pizza place.
No offense, but I find it hilarious that anybody would ask why somebody would eat their pizza in a pizzeria.
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Unless they are intending to head home immediately anyway, it is quicker, more convenient, and saves gas to eat at the pizza place.
How does it save gas when you have to drive back home anyway?
By not starting the engine twice.
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How does it save gas when you have to drive back home anyway?
Not everyone drives, especially in cities.
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That wasn't the question, dumbass.
His question was about listening to music. If THAT's what's important to you, then why wouldn't you take home?
He isn't asking why people would eat at a pizzeria.
But you're stupid knee jerk reacting to try and make yourself seem funny and smart made you not actually understand the question. That makes you look stupid.
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I think the point was more to the selfishness of imposing your music on the others in the Pizzeria.
If you were so set on listening to your own music, why no simply buy the pizza and take it some place where you can eat it while listening to your own music without disturbing others. I can understand you not wanting to be cooped up in your basement/apartment with cheap rent, but does that desire override the establishment's desire to play it's own music to set a mood or some one else' desire not to listen to
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Maybe I don't want to hear the screaming baby two booths over?
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There are quite a few restaurants that have a policy of making people leave if that happens.
Heres a story about one of them.
http://www.wect.com/Global/story.asp?S=13107715 [wect.com]
It seems that it's happening in other countries too.
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pricewatch/2008/07/31/crying-babies-not-welcome/ [irishtimes.com]
However, I would note there there is a slight difference between a child crying and some jerk blasting their radio. This is like the early 80's and the boom boxes thing all over again.
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There's also a difference between a child crying and a child screaming.
"I've never seen a restaurant say, don't bring your screaming kids in here," said Ashley Heflin, who is a mom of two. "You can't help it if your kids scream."
A very young baby that screams does not belong in a restaurant and might actually need urgent medical treatment.
A toddler that screams needs to learn to shut up and not be a brat.
If parents can't stop their children from screaming then that's good reason for some places to not welcome screaming children.
They should go somewhere else which welcomes uncontrollably screaming children.
Or vote for a gov that'll tax/ban such "screaming child"
hate the name, but that aside (Score:1)
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Food gets colder (or warmer - if served cold) during the trip home. The ice in your drink melts (kinda associated there). Not to mention that though it's not much of a problem with pizza, with lots of take-out rather than having food more loosely distributed over the plat, it's tightly packed into some small container.
For the most part, I can't stand take-out. If I want to eat at home, I'll cook it myself.
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This way, some other bugger does the washing up.
Why a dock? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why limit the benefit to customer with iphones and ipods? Why not a 3.5mm and 2.5mm jack (much cheaper to install and replace) so that anyone with any MP3 player or cell phone media player can hook up?
Re:Why a dock? (Score:5, Funny)
Why a chickens?
Why a horses?
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I'm sorry I opted out of moderation, because I want to rate you up SO MUCH.
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I think he means a haddock. Issa fish.
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Whaddya take for a haddock?
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What's the Password? [youtube.com]
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Why limit the benefit to customer with iphones and ipods? Why not a 3.5mm and 2.5mm jack (much cheaper to install and replace) so that anyone with any MP3 player or cell phone media player can hook up?
Oh God! And allow the riff-raff to come in?!? They obviously don't want those kid of people in there.
If you can't afford an Apple product, you can't afford to eat there. Nor do they want the folks who like to pretend to be riff-raff with their MP3 players and other non-Apple products.
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Try teaching people to turn the amp down when you plug in the device. Pops and clicks can get pretty loud when you insert a TRS connector.
I wish you luck in your endeavors!
(PS: I think you're right, but there are some issues involved here that need some extra engineering.)
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Here's a novel idea. I haven't seen anyone do this and it's probably patentable - except by posting here I have prior art ;-)
I built a guitar fuzzbox. Plugging in a lead made all kinds of pops and crackles, so I modified the circuit so that when the plug was out it fed a small bias voltage to the amplifier stage. holding it muted. When you plug in a jack lead it disconnests the bias using the same contact you'd use to disconnect a loudspeaker on a headphone jack. The bias voltage slowly leaks away over
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You can hardly scrape useful data off of people's phones through an analog audio port.
Why would someone trust plugging their iPhone/Pad/Pod into someone else's port?
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i suspect this will show up in it place soon enough:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/PDMI [wikimedia.org]
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What? (Score:5, Funny)
What?
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I can't hear what you're saying, Chief.
Over-engineered? (Score:2)
Quoth TFA:
Along with listening to music, Pizza Express patrons can use their iPods to activate a light at the table that tells the restaurant staff if they need a bill, drink refill or anything else.
Damned if I know why you'd need an iPod to switch on a light. What's wrong with just pressing a button? Seems to work on planes. I hear they have this sort of thing in Japanese restaurants, just hit the button and summon the waiter instead of hoping you'll catch his eye.
And why did /. decide to destroy my post by interpreting the delete key as a browser 'back' button a few seconds ago?
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Pres a button... are you INSANE?
It's far more convenient to make your customer connect to the apple app store, find your light app, install it, and then figure out how to use it to turn on the light than pressing a freaking button!
Next you will tell me that making them use the iphone/ipod to flush the urinals is a bad idea....
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Next you will tell me that making them use the iphone/ipod to flush the urinals is a bad idea....
Well in Singapore you could use the picture as evidence to prove that you really did flush! (S$100 fine for not flushing!)
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The Chief... (Score:1)
Haven for terrerists! (Score:1)
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Two groups of hench Russians lined up on opposite sides of the pool, at the point where the water was shoulder depth. One person from each group walked to the centre of the pool.. A brief discussion took place. The two gentlemen withdrew to their own side of the pool. All persons then gradually departed, one at a time. Swimming resumed as normal.
I dont know what was discussed, but I am certain no weapons were car
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More than Music (Score:4, Insightful)
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...and let's not forget those cell phone users that need to scream how important they are and let us all know it.
If there only was ... (Score:3, Insightful)
A device that allowed you to listen to music without disturbing others. Some kind of very small speakers that you can put very close to your eardrums. Oh well, we'll have to do with freaking cones of silence.
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A device that allowed you to listen to music without disturbing others. Some kind of very small speakers that you can put very close to your eardrums. Oh well, we'll have to do with freaking cones of silence.
The old micro-sized-speakers-in-close-proximity-to-the-eardrums ploy. That's the third time I've fallen for that this month!
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You know, sometimes people like to eat and talk with *gasp* other people while they listen to music that doesn't happen to be whatever the restaurant is piping in. Not to say that this idea doesn't have holes; I agree with several people that say it should use 3.5mm connectors so that it's not limited to iDevices (I use an iPhone, but really, why limit yourself to such a small subset of people when it would be trivial to expand the idea). Your objection just doesn't make sense though. Of course if you'r
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talk
listen
sorry but most people stop at 2 things at once
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/04/16/does-the-multi-tasking-brain-max-out-at-two-tasks/
as for your sig.. i would change that to single-mode fiber..
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Person A: eat + listen to Person B (or music if Person B is boring)
Person B: talk + ignore/listen to music.
a la Sheldon (Score:2)
Knock knock knock.
Garçon!
Knock knock knock,
Garçon!
Knock knock knock .
Garçon!
Knock knock knock ,
Garçon!
They Need To Do Some Research (Score:2)
Clearly they have not seen the research that shows that louder restaurants result in more people buying alcohol.
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Clearly they have not seen the research that shows that louder restaurants result in more people buying alcohol.
I believe you have the cause and effect reversed in your statement. :-)
Would you believe.... (Score:2)
Extra Protection (Score:2)
You will also be free from hearing all the sarcastic comments being made about "The dork over there in the plastic dome."
You might want a fan in there too if you order garlic and anchovies.
ipod dock... yeah.... (Score:2)
How about simple headphone cords instead so that everyone can use it? the 30 pin connector on the ipod is not the smartest design idea out of apple....
They don't use the Cone of Silence anymore. (Score:1)
They use hover-cover.
(Now to see if I'm the only person in the universe who still gets that reference.)
------RM
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No, I got it. If I make it to that restaurant, I'm going to demand hover-cover.
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But, what if... (Score:1)
Good call on placement (Score:1)
wierd - i was in this place last monday (Score:2)
didn't know they were ipod speakers, nice pizza and cappu though.
Hey Smart! (Score:2)
Make mine a 99!
New Warcraft spell? (Score:2)
Based off of the headline, did anyone else think this was about a new Warcraft spell?
"Man, AoE silence, that's imba!"
Its about time (Score:1)
Pizza? These should be in Chinese restaurants (Score:2)
Seriously. Have you ever been to a (real) Chinese restaurant? It's louder than a rock concert. Diners practically shout at each other across large round tables that I am convinced were arranged in various approximate solutions to the circle-packing problem. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to eat har gow without the sensation that someone is screeching in my ear in Cantonese. Given recent research on the impact of ambient sound levels on the perceived intensity of food flavor, I imagine the exp
Orange Cup has these already (Score:1)
Domes been around, not for conversation (Score:1)
As long as you don't install any supercomputers (Score:1)
Would you believe... (Score:1)
WTF (Score:2)
Directional Speakers (Score:2)
These aren't so much 'sound proof' as they are just small speakers in parabolic dishes to provide tightly focused sound. A number of companies make them:
http://www.soundtube.com/cgi-bin/main.cgi?Speakers=start&series=6&speaker=23
http://www.browninnovations.com/sound_domes.html
That first one I had set up at our office to evaluate and of course, we couldn''t resit calling them cones of silence either, but I just thought I'd post the links just in case people here might be interested in what the articl
Ooooh (Score:1)
This sounds like a much better idea than that Cone of Tragedy that my local amusement park introduced.
Re:Oh please. (Score:4, Insightful)
"WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!"
The sound of the joke flying SO FAR OVER YOUR HEAD, The Space Station is in danger of being hit.
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More humorous is the fact that since this is the UK they install each cone with a omnidirectional mic and a colour camera to "prevent a breach of the peace." The neighbouring cone then gets paid a few shillings to monitor the undesirable, free-thinkers who are most likely to cause a disturbance.
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They don't make that noise either.
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Yeah! That'll learn you!
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HUH? WHAT DID YOU SAY?
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Yes. Yes, you are.
Meh... (Score:2)
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Because it's not delivery... it's DiGiorno!
Re:Wizard (Score:5, Insightful)
Cones of silence in pizza restaurants isn't news for nerds nor stuff that matters. WTF?
How is every word on that list not newsworthy stuff that matters????
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Slashdot, a true Sausage Fest (Score:1)
How is every word on that list not newsworthy stuff that matters????