Focus Soundscapes and The Impact of Interruptions
In which I block everything out sonically and let math prove why interruptions are disruptive.
Hey friends,
We come from the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun where the hot springs blooow 🎵
(It snowed this weekend)
Thinking Too Hard 🤔
I often work from crowded, noisy environments — one of the freedoms of remote work is that you can work from almost anywhere, so I try to do so often! This is great for my mood, but not always great for my focus. Especially in noisy environments like cafés. When I'm having trouble, I reach for Mynoise.net.
Mynoise.net is a labor of love from Dr Stéphane Pigeon, who has captured HUNDREDS of adjustable multi-tonal soundscapes. These range from natural soundscapes, like the Irish Coast, to generative music synthesisers like Twin Black Lodges.
If you find yourself needing to focus AND block out sound, here's what I recommend:
- Find a natural soundscape to suit your mood and provide a noise-blocking layer
- Animate the natural soundscape on soft normal (the default)
- Find a synth or music generator to suit your mood in a new tab.
- Animate the generator to Quad x4 (using the setting in the lower left column)
This provides a shifting sonic experience that cycles for hours without any fiddling (and without any ads, heyoooooooo!). So the next time you need to focus in a noisy place, try it out!
Interesting Web Bits 🍜
Web Stuff
- What actually makes you a senior developer? Matheus Lima says it's the ability to reduce ambiguity.
- How to write a good
CLAUDE.md - The math of the impact of interruptions, and why you can't focus. The math can be bleak! 😬
- Subgrid! It's been available for ... (checks caniuse.com) ... 2 years now! Josh does another helpful explainer post of how subgrid works and some practical examples of it.
- Need an animation of typing text? There's an app for that.
- Need some grid paper? Dave Rupert made an app for that.
- Want to syndicate through your own site's feed (a la POSSE)? Justin Searls has made a self-hosted app for that.
- Whoa, we have an
<output>tag?!
Other Stuff
- I love this new little collection of practical books, named Haudoo from Russell Davies.
- Joe Boudreau talks about the value of writing, even if no one reads it and HackerNews agrees (of which I recommend reading as all HackerNews comments, with a dash of salt).
- Peter Whiting has come up with glasses that detect glasses with cameras.
Weird, Watch, and Play
- 😜 BOING
- 😜 Volumetric displays are neat (watch the video in the README)
- 😜 RaycatWhoDat has catalogued 645 games based on vibes alone.
- 📺 Watching someone decorate cookies with royal icing is mesmerizing 😵💫
- 📺 I wish more folks talked about science like this when I was a kid: Organic chemistry is as simple as piano keys. 🧪
- 🎮 I have no idea what's going on in this fever dream, but I'm intrigued all the same: Ruin, Chapter O.