LostFocus

A weblog by Dominik Schwind

I have nothing to say, really.

Fuck off.

Inception at the office

By Dominik Schwind

I might have mentioned it before – either here or over on the Twitter – that I am working at a rather noisy office. It’s just something that happens when you put four guys in a room. Someone is always eating something or mumbling or drumming on the table. Keyboards aren’t that silent, either and don’t get me started on scroll wheels. It just can’t be helped.

And then there are discussions. Usually about work-related stuff, but also all too often about why thing X sucks or why people who do thing Y must be stupid.

So, at some point, one either gets used to it, tries to mask the noises with music or tries to find some other way to cope with the constant audio distractions.

This afternoon, I decided to go and check what happens when I run the Inception App at work. And the results are pretty astonishing, really. Stuff that would usually annoy me – nuts getting taken out of an aluminum bag and chewed noisily, random sighs and curses – turn into weird, yet beautiful soundscapes, the distraction becomes audio art.

It’s still distracting as hell, though and I don’t really get any work done because I am too busy listening. I guess I’ll have to think of something else.

Sleep. (Or lack thereof.)

By Dominik Schwind

Whatever it is that woke me up this morning at 4:30: I curse it.

I already went to bed rather late, switching off the lights after reading about half an hour past midnight. And so I really don’t need being awake again a mere four hours later, thank you very much.

After unsuccesfully trying to sleep again for an hour now, I know for certain that the street outside my bedroom window is a noisy one. Birds, early (or late?) people, cars and trucks.

This is going to be a caffeine-heavy and moody Monday for sure. More so than it’s usual already, anyway.

Posted from WordPress for Android (What we used to call Moblogging back in the days.)

White Noise

By Dominik Schwind

I think I have mentioned it before that for me it is not that easy to get into that state that we like to call “the zone” and the ambient noise in a four-person office isn’t helping. Especially with chronic carrot-eaters, mumblers, sigh-ers, table-drummers, burpers and loud-music-with-crappy-in-ear-headphone-listeners as office mates.1


All the loud dubstep doesn’t help to cover up the carrot-eating noise. Maybe some carrots need to be delivered Mr. Smith-style.
April 29, 2011 3:38 pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite
@dominik
Dominik Schwind

So first I turned to music. Randomly playing my iTunes library was a complete disaster. Switching between bubblegum pop, heavy metal, elektro and 80s synth-stuff makes for an interesting listening experience, but does not help with concentrating on work. Quite the opposite, actually. Same, of course, with my last.fm mix station. For a while the dubstep-station on last.fm worked, but not really, either.


I now listen to rain and ocean sounds. NOT HELPING.
May 4, 2011 10:45 am via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite
@dominik
Dominik Schwind

Now I have a white noise software running that gives me ocean and rain sounds. That’s nice. It does not help. For one, it fuels my Wanderlust, which is acting up like mad lately anyway. Also, if I turn it loud enough to drown out the noises, I’ll go deaf.2 And especially the rain part makes me need to pee a lot.

Anyway, all of this complaining is not really the point I wanted to make. The sounds to cover up quite a bit of noise, they do fade into the background and I can concentrate a bit. At least until the next carrot.

The really interesting thing happens when I switch off the software though. My brain got so used to everything being muted down by rain and wave sounds, that when those are missing, everything else sound very very clear. I was surprised how hyper-aware of even small sounds you get after switching off a white noise generator. My steps even on the carpet, the sounds of the water when washing my hands, the droning of the aircon in the washroom, cars going by, the “I need lunch” sounds in my stomach, the phone ringing three doors down the hall, the breeze around the building’s edges. Everything gets REALLY intense.

Is that how taking drugs is like?

  1. I’m not really blaming them. I tap my foot, I type pretty hard, I use the scroll wheel on my mouse and I tend to hum along to the music I listen to. I am sure they’re just as annoyed by me as I am with them when it comes to office noises and that’s understandable and okay. [↩]
  2. And believe me, I did consider that as an alternative for a moment. [↩]

Noise is the Future

By Dominik Schwind

Ich habe tausende von Freunden!