this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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I have started listening to random American city council meetings lately for white noise. Since they're all bureaucratic-flavored boredom anyway.

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[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

BTW - For anyone with F-Droid, I highly (highly) highly recommend Noice

It has:

  • White noise
  • Brown noise and pink noise
  • Various background noise like cafe chatter, waves, rain, or birds
  • Further improved my sleep ❤️

Back in University I used it to sleep right through a massive party my roommates threw when I had a midterm the next day. 10/10 app

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 14 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Brown noise

Ain’t that the one that makes you shit yaself?

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's a lower frequency noise, some people enjoy it more. As a bad analogy, it's a bit more like hearing a "waterfall" (brown noise) than "wind" (white noise)

[–] neidu2@feddit.nl 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I for one prefer brown noise. Could be a result of me working on a ship for a long while. I always found the deep engine hum with the sea against my porthole to be very soothing. Plus, the rocking motion didn't exactly hurt either.

[–] Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yes, it's one of the Alarm Clock options

[–] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 9 months ago

Not quite, that's the mythical 'brown note'.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

This app was fully offline previously. Now with premium thing they removed it and i cannot turn of my mobile data to sleep. So this ruined the whole experience for me.

[–] Cwilliams 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's the beauty of Foss. Fork it!

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 months ago

Or I might just have to find the older version 1.x and install it

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 3 points 9 months ago
[–] itsnicodegallo@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 months ago

On one hand, yea, on the other, #worth. They were great overall - Sometimes you gotta take some losses and some wins.

[–] richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 9 months ago
[–] maynarkh@feddit.nl 16 points 9 months ago

LiveATC streams. If you are not listening it's a constant stream of radio-garbled jargon. Just pick a busy airport.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That’s just noise. White noise is a specific kind of noise.

My weird way of using white noise is I have a set of scripts to precisely control my volume. I turn on a video of white noise on youtube, then I run my script to slowly, steadily raise the volume up to whatever level I want.

The entire point of the script is to avoid a clear moment when the noise starts or stops. To further hide the transition from consciousness, I have delay built in, and I recently added randomized delay between volume increments.

I run the script, and an hour later brown noise is blasting in my room, but I never have to be conscious of it.

[–] lemuria@lemmy.ml 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

So "background ambience" would be a better term to describe the city council meetings?

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago

I think literal noise is a good term for it.

Well, if you’re using it to isolate yourself, then I think noise is good for it. Like if you don’t want to hear the neighbors or roommates, noise is good because noise obstructs signals.

And more generally, noise refers to sounds that are not explicitly wanted or requested. Which is also what background is.

It’s a good question. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to instruct a chatbot to write a 20000 word essay on the question of what exactly the best term is, and then pipe that into the “say” command in mac os terminal and use my volume control scripts to make it sort of softly murmur in the background as I go to sleep tonight. I don’t think that would make me a crazy person. At least not right away.

Ambiance. I like that.

[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I would refer to this as background noise, yes.

[–] Pulptastic@midwest.social 2 points 9 months ago

Brown noise always makes me think of the brown note

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I watch my city council meetings attentively. Local politics has an enormous impact on your day-to-day life and it’s also an area where being informed and engaged is most easily able to actually effect the outcome you want. City councillors are more likely to have their view swayed by a modest letter-writing campaign than your Member of Parliament/Representative.

For white noise, I often use Age of Empires games. I’ve got Survivalist’s Twitch stream open as I type this, but I couldn’t even tell you if he’s winning or losing at the moment because it’s mostly there as background noise.

[–] lemuria@lemmy.ml 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, but the city council meeting I'm listening to is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean (Filipino here), so I couldn't do anything even if I wanted to. And given the geographical distance, the impact on my day-to-day life is.. zero.

But still, the stories I hear during the meetings are entertaining and they really do help me understand America just that little bit more. Curiosity for the win!

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Hahaha yeah fair enough!

If you’re interested in another country, my city of Brisbane, Australia streams all its council meetings on YouTube, and we certainly have some…interesting debates. (I would certainly not hold it up as a good example of well-functioning democracy…)

[–] AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

This and the other trek ones are great. Especially the TNG night shift bridge.

[–] ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social 10 points 9 months ago

My partner likes to listen to lofi music. Lately she's been obsessed with Baldur's Gate 3 so she plays a youtube video that's 10 hours of the "down by the river" song and a campfire sound from BG3. We've also done a 10 hour Star Trek TNG bridge noises video before for awhile lol

[–] Teon@kbin.social 7 points 9 months ago

If you have an actual Radio, find an AM station that is just static. This works quite well.

[–] Ludrol@szmer.info 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] Rangus97 2 points 9 months ago

I didn't want to enjoy this but it's somehow so relaxing

[–] Vilian@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

what is "white nolse"? and why listen to it?

[–] lemuria@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise#Work_environment

Just background noise to listen to, because sometimes you just don't like silence.

[–] AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 9 months ago

White noise sounds like radio static.

https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteNoiseGenerator.php

People listen to it for many reasons.

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 7 points 9 months ago

I have chronic tinnitus. My ears generate white noise for me without asking.

[–] Cagi@lemmy.ca 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Lately my external HDD making old school hard drive clicky groans as it downloads overnight. I had forgotten computers used to sound like this until I bought it; it's nostalgic and soothing.

[–] SecretPancake@feddit.de 6 points 9 months ago
[–] Trent@lemmy.ml 6 points 9 months ago

Either SoX running in Termux on my phone with:

play -n synth brownnoise synth pinknoise mix synth 0 0 0 10 10 40 trapezium amod 0.1 30

(originally yoinked from I can't remember who, in the early days of Mastodon)

or more recently, a 10-hour loop of the Sardukar chant from Dune. It's right about the right frequency to block a lot of the noise around here and it isn't anything intelligible for my brain to keep me awake thinking about.

If I just want some noise-blocking sound while I'm trying to code or something then myNoise has a vast array of sound generators. It was well worth kicking them $5 a while back.

[–] writeblankspace@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago

a recording of my classes when the teacher isn't talking

it helps because it's just random people talking... I just have to make sure I don't talk while recording

[–] LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)
  • Late Night with Seth Meyers
  • Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
  • The Daily Show

I usually watch monologue / opening segments and pass out during the boring guest interviews.

[–] schroedingerskoala@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago

B17 bomber engine drone, gets me into the zone in no time. (Youtube > dl, cut to 2hr MP3).
Mixed that with a 2 hr refrigerator drone and it is perfect.

[–] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

As a hobbyist musician and coder: Csound. Cubic spline curves make particularly interesting noise.

[–] hamburglar26@wilbo.tech 3 points 9 months ago

Modular synthesizer. Modulating the white noise generator with a slow LFO to create a nice ocean wave background kinda sound.

[–] Deez@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

Sometimes I go to sleep listening to Soft White Underbelly interviews. There’s something wrong with me.

[–] lars@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] lars@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 9 months ago

He’s still a superstar and the leader in his field, but it’s mostly background noise for the uncut versions I’m listening to for the fourth time

[–] peter@feddit.uk 2 points 9 months ago
[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

ADHD runs in parts of the family, and it's like a "mental rinsing agent" after paying the old ADHD tax.