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Cubicle Privacy 203

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-was-told-i-could-listen-to-my-radio-at-a-reasonable-volume dept.
DarthDilbert writes "The NYTimes has a story about a noise canceling box for nosy cubicle neighbors. " Still no protection from mind readers. They know stuff.
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Cubicle Privacy More

Cubicle Privacy

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  • Shame on you, editors (Score:5, Interesting)

    by flawedgeek ( 833708 ) <karldnorman&gmail,com> on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:53PM (#12678476)
    The article is more of a 2-page description of the company, with a one-paragraph sidenote about the product.

    On another note, can I get one that fits in my PC and shuts up the godawful fan noise?
    • try improvising a duct system to reduce the necessary number of fans but still keep a good airflow pattern. it worked for me

    • Fan noise (Score:3, Informative)

      by umofomia ( 639418 )
      On another note, can I get one that fits in my PC and shuts up the godawful fan noise?
      Indeed there is... another NYTimes article for you:
      http://tech2.nytimes.com/mem/technology/techreview .html?res=9506EFDA123EF934A15756C0A9629C8B63 [nytimes.com]
    • Yes, it's called a Mac mini - when you run the mini you don't even need to turn your old computer on. So no fan noise...
      • So the mini has no fans or just really quiet fans ?

        Noise has always been one of my largest problems with the x86 hardware arena.
        • No fans. It's all convective action (don't take it to space). The iMac G5 also relies heavily on convective current, but has a fan for those situations when 101fps just isn't enough.

        • Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:4, Informative)

          by Txiasaeia ( 581598 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @06:37PM (#12679082)
          Last week I bought the following components:

          -Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
          -2x512 Corsair PC3200 2.5 CAS DDR
          -Leadtek 6600GT Extreme
          -Seasonic SS-380 power supply
          -MSI RS480R2-IL mATX motherboard
          -Pioneer DVR-109 Dual Layer DVD Burner
          -Thermalright XP-90 w/Nexus 92mm fan (CPU)

          ...and kept my Western Digital Caviar 80GB IDE HD. Guess what? The hard drive is incredibly noisy, while the rest of the system is virtually silent. My point is that it's very easy to assemble an x86 system that's virtually quiet; all you need to do is a bit of research. My other point is not to go all out on a gaming system and cheap out on the hard drive, or you'll be kicking yourself for months.

          • Most of the x86_64 stuff is much much more cool and hence much more quiet than the normal x86 stuff.

            Though your point about the drive is notable I am not much of a gamer so I wont go all out on a pimped video card and LED loaded RAM etc etc. My next system will probably be a dual opteron or a dual g5. I have yet to actually price out both systems but the one that is cheaper with my prefered config gets my business. I will be running linux on it either way so the OSX v. windows angle is of no concern to

  • Cubicle arms race (Score:5, Funny)

    by cheesebikini ( 704119 ) * on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:54PM (#12678484)
    And here comes lip-reading tech to bypass the noise-canceling box: http://www.intel.com/research/mrl/research/avcsr.h tm [intel.com]

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:54PM (#12678485)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I have two noise cancelling boxes (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:55PM (#12678488)
    I call them right cross and uppercut

  • Slippery slopes are the most fun... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Crimson Dragon ( 809806 ) * on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:57PM (#12678503) Homepage
    Geeks in the workplace don't need this. They have something called slashdot to tune out coworkers!

    Seriously, this is an excellent idea, and an important step forward in this technology. Imagine one that works for an entire property,but in reverse.... and all the children who will use it when the guardians aren't home to have loud parties the neighbors can't hear! The neighbors can't hear you, and minors are getting drunk! Everyone wins....

    The moral ramifications of this technology in a more advanced form (being able to work in reverse of this device) should be most interesting.... this is just the first step.

  • Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)

    by kryogen1x ( 838672 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:59PM (#12678516)
    The NYTimes has a story about a noise canceling box for nosy cubilicle neighbors.

    I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, I told bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing then I should be able to listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven.

    This is the last straw, I'm going to burn down the building!

  • Did any one else have visions of Milton's radio on Office Space?
    • Yeah, but only because it was in the writeup:

      Posted by CmdrTaco on Tue May 31, 5:51
      from the i-was-told-i-could-listen-to-my-radio-at-a-reasona ble-volume dept.

  • this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 0WaitState ( 231806 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:02PM (#12678527)
    Cubicle farms suck. There's no avoiding it--they are soul and productivity killers.

    Attention corporate masters! What employees want are OFFICES with DOORS THAT CLOSE and WINDOWS THAT OPEN. Yes, on a nice spring/fall day I wouldn't mind being able to open the window.

    Full disclosure; I got an office when I threatened my employer with working from home four days a week due to the clueless fuckwits who think everyone in a 50 foot radius needs to hear their cell phone ring.
    • Attention corporate masters! What employees want are OFFICES with DOORS THAT CLOSE and WINDOWS THAT OPEN. Yes, on a nice spring/fall day I wouldn't mind being able to open the window.

      What???? And let you skinny down the tree that is outside of your office while your computer makes typing noises? I don't think so! ;-)

      My noise reducer is my megaphone. When I shout "STFU!" everyone listens.

      A bit of trivia you may not know:

      Offices do not have windows that open for two reasons:

      1. Sealed windows makes it
      • Regarding temp control and suicide rates:

        The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.

        Major heat waves started to coincide, with almost magical precision, with major failures of ... Breathe-o-Smart [building temperature control] systems. To begin with this merely caused simmering resentment and only a few deaths from asphyxiation.

    • Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ednopantz ( 467288 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:36PM (#12678699)
      and what landlords want are LARGE OPEN ROOMS with NO BUILDOUT expenses at all.

      So, any suggestions on how to reconcile the two? I'm opening an office in a couple of weeks and could use all the advice I can get. It is a big box with nice windows, but that's it.

      The best we can do on our startup budget is partitions and white noise. I'd like better, but one buildout quote I got was twice our annual rent. For the first year, that just isn't an option.
    • ...how whiny that sounds when you've worked in a bullpen.

      r "Same observation applies to MREs and K-rations" j

    • Definition of insanity (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rah1420 ( 234198 ) <rah1420@gmail.com> on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:53PM (#12678805)
      Musings I had this last Friday afternoon, stuck in Yet Another Traffic Jam:

      I have 95-99% of what I need to be productive with my Thinkpad and my PKI token.

      Yet I haul my ass out of bed every day, put on office togs and get in the car. I drive 60 miles (that's about 2.5 gallons of gasoline) and walk into a cubicle farm, sit down, and plug my laptop into a docking station.

      60 miles away, in my home office (which has a door and a view, mind you) sits another docking station which can do exactly the same thing.

      After 8 hours, I get up, pack up the laptop, and drive 60 miles back home.

      Now THAT's insanity.

    • A few things I hate about cubicle life. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Savage-Rabbit ( 308260 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @06:04PM (#12678885)
      1. When my cubicle neignbor (who gets lots of phonecalls) leaves his moblie phone on his desks and leaves for hours on end (especially when he sets the thing to vibrate and ring).
      2. When the people who just failed to reach my cubicle neighbor on his mobile call his desktop phone (which has a really annoying ring tone) and fail to conclude that he is not in after the phone has been ringing for more than 10 seconds.
      3. When those same people react to 2) by calling me to ask me if my cubicle neignbor is in or not.
      4. When those same people ask me to take messages for him (usually about something he is selling or buying on ebay) after being told in no uncertain terms than "No, he is not in his cubicle".
      5. When the guy in the next cubicle returns from his mysterious expedition, picks up his mobile to check his missed calls and starts to (really noisily) consume his food.
      6. The people who come to visit my cubicle neighbor and throw half full coffee cups or leftovers into my trash can as they leave.

      • Re:A few things I hate about cubicle life. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Awptimus Prime ( 695459 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @06:37PM (#12679081)
        1. When my cubicle neignbor (who gets lots of phonecalls) leaves his moblie phone on his desks and leaves for hours on end (especially when he sets the thing to vibrate and ring).
        2. When the people who just failed to reach my cubicle neighbor on his mobile call his desktop phone (which has a really annoying ring tone) and fail to conclude that he is not in after the phone has been ringing for more than 10 seconds.
        3. When those same people react to 2) by calling me to ask me if my cubicle neignbor is in or not.
        4. When those same people ask me to take messages for him (usually about something he is selling or buying on ebay) after being told in no uncertain terms than "No, he is not in his cubicle".
        5. When the guy in the next cubicle returns from his mysterious expedition, picks up his mobile to check his missed calls and starts to (really noisily) consume his food.
        6. The people who come to visit my cubicle neighbor and throw half full coffee cups or leftovers into my trash can as they leave.

        So you felt like advertising your terrible communication skills to the entire world instead of actually talking to the guy.

        This is what I hate more than anything about IT: The unusually high number of catty, angry, little men who never say what's bothering them. That is, until they come into the office having a breakdown someday because they weren't man enough to deal with their problems when they were minor annoyances.

        My advice: grow some balls and quit crying about such tiny little things in life.
      • This must be my long lost original /. account... cause I could have sworn I wrote this.
    • Attention corporate masters! What employees want are OFFICES with DOORS THAT CLOSE and WINDOWS THAT OPEN.

      And just in case you're not sure what we mean by that, we mean ones JUST LIKE YOURS, you bloody hypocrites.
    • ...the clueless fuckwits who think everyone in a 50 foot radius needs to hear their cell phone ring.

      Consider yourself lucky. We have several of the clueless fuckwits who think it's okay to dial their phone with the speaker phone.

      I don't think office courtesy is an educated skill, but by odd coincidence the people most likely to do that are not college grads. They're also the same ones who think it's okay to listen to their messages on speaker phone.

      • Pfff, please. We got speaker phone users who blast the volume to concert level. Then they talk-scream themselves, while farting and eating donuts loudly at the same time. Did I mention they bring their kids in the office who yell and fart just as much.

    • I worked at a company once that refused to get a "cube farm". They had a giant open room with large windows on two sides of the office and multiple desks without any partitions. People were placed together based on job/team/area within that particular office. White noise emitters were used, but not in abundance to drive you crazy but used only when noise was really "busy".

      Cube farms are productivity and soul killers. The only way is with an "open" office without huge CRT's but flatscreens and hidden comput

    • Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:5, Funny)

      by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @11:38PM (#12681052) Homepage

      Attention corporate masters! What employees want are OFFICES with DOORS THAT CLOSE and WINDOWS THAT OPEN. Yes, on a nice spring/fall day I wouldn't mind being able to open the window.

      Dear #896501-c,

      Thank you for your recent suggestion as to office environment and layout.

      Offices take up square footage in a manner that is not well suited to the tiling problem -- requiring more office space and cost. We also find that everyone else expects to have mahogany doors and desks once they have an office. In an attempt to be more accountable for our shareholders, we have decided to restrict mahogany and drinkable coffee to the executives as they are the heart and soul of the company.

      As to your suggestion that we have windows which can be opened, historical data suggests that employee suicide/mishap/high-jinks rates climbs to a level that our insurance company finds unacceptable. Also, the three faulty temperature sensors in the environmental controls would be further confused and we would have to call the maintenance guy once again to twiddle knowbs aimlessly.

      As to the cell phone issue, we would like to remind you that "every time a salesman's phone rings, an angel gets it's wings" as explained on p34 section A of your employee handbook. For they are the liver and colon of the company.

      Thanks you for your interest,

      Your HR Team.
    • You are working in the wrong country!

      I moved from the US to EU and now I have an office with a door and 4 windows which completely open (1x1.5 meters). I share it with one co-worker and our assistant.

  • They won't help at all. I've never really been able to tell much of a difference between the headphones being on and off. It just sounds like there's an extra humming sound when they're on.

  • For the older geeks... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by suitepotato ( 863945 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:07PM (#12678553)
    "Can you hear me Chief?"

    "What did you say?"

    "Chief, do you hear me?!"

    "What are you saying, Smart?!"

    There. I feel better gettin that out of my system.

    My cubicle is my own little world and I feel free to do whatever in it. If someone asks me to be a little less loud, I judge their request on how often they are similarly noisy. The more noisy and more often, the less attention I pay to their complaints. If I have to hear them screaming at technicians in the field, they have to hear me every so often getting a call on my cellphone.

  • People who peer over my shoulder bug me (Score:5, Funny)

    by arkham6 ( 24514 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:07PM (#12678556)
    A few weeks ago, some consultants come up and sit with the guy across the asle from me. One of the guys kept peering over at my screen, reading what I was typing. Not only is it rude, but its also a security violation.

    So i start up our internal IM client, and start chatting with a friend of mine. I start describing in great detail how this guy is peeing over my shoulder, how rude it is, and then I start going into how much this man weighs, how his beard looks like a birds nest, how ugly he is, whatnot.

    The guy starts giving me REALLY mean looks.

    To which I type out "Hi Mr Nosey, don't like what I am typing? Don't READ MY SCREEN!"

    He turned around in a huff, and would not say a civil word to me that day.

  • Upon reading the article (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:09PM (#12678567) Journal
    It appears this is nothing to do with blocking unwanted noise. It rather for those who did not RTFA has to do with distorting speech to foil ease-droppers(sp?). Personally working in a office filled with a large cube farm I think this is a terrible idea. There is already a dull roar of unintelligible conversation. The last thing we need is out and out noise pollution, in the form of this thing adding other sounds in to screw up interpretation.
    • distorting speech to foil ease-droppers(sp?).

      That would be "eaves-droppers." As in lurking around under the eaves of a house near a window so as to overhear a conversation surreptiously.

    • This is old tech. I remember people walkling into bathrooms and turning on the faucets in lots of shows and movies when they were telling secrets. That's why if I ever hear the sink running in a public restroom I wait a bit before enterring so as not to intrude.

  • mind readers (Score:3, Informative)

    by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:11PM (#12678580)
    Still no protection from mind readers. They know stuff.

    In Philip K. Dick's _Ubik_ there's a company that sells the talents- or rather antitalents- of people who can block telepaths. The idea is that if a telepath or precog has been hired to monitor you or interfere with you, you hire the company to bring in an "inertial" who will negate the psi, and so eventually that person leaves.

    A good introduction to Philip K. Dick in my opinion. It's well written and plotted (unlike a lot of his stuff) and a mind-fuck, but not the complete and total mindfuck of _The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch_- which is great, but starting with that one would be really starting at the deep end of the pool.

  • Cubicle doors for privacy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WalletBoy ( 555942 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:34PM (#12678691)
    I wad visiting a friend at his office once and I saw that his cube farm had actual sliding doors on their cubes, that can be closed to give people some privacy. The doors clamped onto the side of the walls and looked like the beveled, frosted glass you see on a shower door. You could still see the silhouette of someone in the cube, but it gave the occupant some sense of privacy. You could have the doors open when you don't mind people coming into your office to ask questions and slide it closed when you're busy and don't want to be disturbed. Ever since I saw that I've been looking around in google trying to find them so I can tell my boss that's what we need. So far I haven't been able to find them. All I've ever turned up in my searches are cheesy things like these [cubedoor.com] which aren't nearly as nice. Has anyone else seen those nice sliding doors for cubicles and know who makes them?
  • My next-cubicle neighbor at a previous job used a large fan under his desk to generate "white noise" to down out surrounding sounds. I referred to it as his Tesla coil, due to the amount of electromagnetic disruption it seemed to generate on our shared power circuit.

  • Not Noise Canceling! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Reverberant ( 303566 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:46PM (#12678756) Homepage

    The "Babble" technology that is discussed in this article is not noise canceling technology! Noise canceling technology uses soundwaves that are 180 degrees out of phase with the original waveform to cancel out the original soundwave.

    From the article description, Babble simply 'scrambles' sound waves so that speech is unintelligible, but it doesn't actually make anything quieter (in fact, based on the description it probably increases the ambient noise, just like masking systems [officebuzz.com]). This device is used for speech privacy (which can be useful for meeting HIPAA regs for example), not sound cancellation.

    If you want to make things quieter, you'll have to resort to earplugs, sound-canceling headphones, or floor-ceiling partitions (ie walls).

    • Sound cancelling headphones really don't make things much quieter. You don't hear anything (other than music), yet you can still feel pressure on your ears, which can be unpleasant.
      • yet you can still feel pressure on your ears, which can be unpleasant.

        You certainly shouldn't feel any additional pressure on your ears - soundwaves are pressure waves, so when you cancel out the soundwave, you're canceling out the pressure wave (well technically the pressure difference above/below ambient pressure).

        I've certainly never noticed this with the noise canceling headsets I've used (including the Bose professional and consumer headsets). What headset(s) did you try?

  • Silence or more noise? (Score:3, Informative)

    by ericandrade ( 686380 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:50PM (#12678788)
    Is it noise cancelling? It seems that it just adds sampled sound to mask conversations.

    "sound processor and several speakers that multiply and scramble voices that come within its range"

    Horrible article. No details on how the product works or what it does.

    And for the map thingy... It's been done some time ago (2002).
    Here's a movie (25 MB) from Sony research (Jun Rekimoto, SmartSkin: An Infrastructure for Freehand Manipulation on Interactive Surfaces):

    http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/movies/c hi02-2-mp2.mpg [sony.co.jp]

    Use VLC to view the movie.
    http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ [videolan.org]

    Movie taken from
    http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/smartski n/ [sony.co.jp]

    • Re:Silence or more noise? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nothings ( 597917 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @06:20PM (#12678974) Homepage
      Yeah, this is an incredibly poorly written summary--impressive since it's a one-liner.

      What most of us want is a noise-canceling box for noisy neighbors.
      What this is is a noise-creating box for nosy neighbors.

      You might manage to get your company to pay to put the former in your cubicle. Since the only point of the latter seems to be for allowing personal calls, somehow it seems more likely to get outright forbidden.

  • Mr. Ferren has been a leader in movie effects, working on such films as "Little Shop of Horrors" and "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier..."

    It would figure that he would pick a business partner that looks like Spock's brother [foederationsdatenbank.de]

  • Concalls... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HockeyPuck ( 141947 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @06:22PM (#12678987)
    Now if I could just find something that would keep the idiots within 50ft of me from using their cube phones as speakerphones. Just because they are to (*$(*# lazy to either pickup the handset or use a headset.

    I normally just send them an IM (if they even use the corporate IM) and ask them to pick up the phone. One woman once told me she uses speakerphone b/c

    a) Handsets are unsanitary (it's her F-ing germs on it).
    b) She often needs to type while on the phone.
    c) Headsets would mess up her hair.
    • You know,

      c) Headsets would mess up her hair.

      is a pretty common complaint in call centers, and its a reality that call center administrators have to deal with, especially call centers that hire a lot of middle-aged women. As a result, a lot of call centers make available several varieties of headset, one of which goes around your ear and has no "over the head" portion.

    • Re:Concalls... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 )
      Now if I could just find something that would keep the idiots within 50ft of me from using their cube phones as speakerphones

      Aarrrggg! I HATE this. A few times, I've had on person on one side, and the other a couple cubes away....call each other, on speakerphone.

      Both sides of the conversation, in stereo.

      Death by phonecord strangulation was seriously contemplated.

      • I get the people two cubes away call me... they can't IM or for the love of all that's good...

        Get off their FAT A$$ and walk the 20ft over to my cube.

    • Re:Concalls... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ratbert42 ( 452340 )
      Leave rude voicemails for them. Have a friend use a payphone to do it. Believe me, once the whole office hears her listen to a message from last night's one-night stand, she won't be afraid to mess up her hair.
  • What? What?

  • Smell blocking? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Equuleus42 ( 723 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @06:34PM (#12679056) Homepage
    What my cubicle needs is a smell blocking device to defend against nearby insidious cubicle dwellers...

  • cubicle? wish I had one of those.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aurelian ( 551052 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @06:44PM (#12679149)
    I work in an open-plan office, which means I get to hear the noise from my neighbour, all his visitors, and all the other people in the office. At times when it gets really bad and everyone is talking it's like working in a fucking bus station.

    Plus it means I have to put up with shitty overhead fluorescent lighting which makes my screen hard to see.

    I hate open-plan offices.

    • I have cubes, but we only have three walls and two of those are shaped so it's easy for people to hang over the wall and talk to you. Sheer hell. So I hung a whiteboard on one so you can't see or hang on it. I stacked stuff in the way so they can't walk up to the other wall. I arrange dead machines on the desk and floor to reduce standing and sitting space in my "cube" so when I get a vistor, he's not very comfortable.

      The worst is that I have a small table right outside my cube. The first time we had

  • Build cubicles with walls that go all the way up to the ceiling.

    Once upon a time I was told that there was some study that demonstrated that office workers were more productive in cubicles. I was also told that it was actually cheaper to build offices out of dry-wall but that thanks to all this research people were opting to spend more for cubicles.

    Since then I've seen the debate go back and forth, and about half that time I've been in an office, the other half in a cubicle. I;ve still yet to see any

    • Re:I have an idea: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by shdragon ( 1797 )
      Once upon a time I was told that there was some study that demonstrated that office workers were more productive in cubicles. I was also told that it was actually cheaper to build offices out of dry-wall but that thanks to all this research people were opting to spend more for cubicles.

      I was under the impression that cubicles became popular because they allowed businesses to cram more people into the same amount of space.


    • Authors of Peopleware [amazon.com] gathered excellent information about disruptive work environments. It is a good book to make circulate when workers begin to complain about bad office space. I believe the book was written in 1987.

      I don't think there is more to say in 2005, except the following question: Why is the debate not over? Are the crazy managers that powerful?

      Managers often become totally illogical when discussing the possibility that people work from home, because they try to hide their fear of losing
      • "Managers often become totally illogical when discussing the possibility that people work from home, because they try to hide their fear of losing control over their workers."

        Well, that IS the manager's job... to keep control over the team. They are responsible for the screw ups of the team. The biggest issue with the cutting everyone free is when you want to get a group of people together and really go over something in detail. Speaking as someone who has had to work with people across the country, it

    • Re:I have an idea: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BenjyD ( 316700 )
      Cubicles seem to be an American thing: I've never seen one in an office here (UK). You might have a small (like the height of a ring binder) divider to stop your papers spilling onto somebody else's desk, but that's about it. Senior managers get offices, every one else gets open-plan.

      To me, cubicles seem to be the worst of both worlds: the noise transmission of an open plan with the visual isolation of an office.

      As someone who works entirely from home - my only communication with co-workers is IRC, email
  • I hate loud typing when I'm trying to work. It irritates me so much. The sad thing is that's going to be the norm for someone in my field. I want one of these!
  • I think the death penalty is to good for them. This is something I might look into as long it works with the noise of nails being clipped.

    I fail to understand why people insist on clipping their nails at work.

    Of course the same guy hates it when I leave winamp on and the noise from my earbud headphones bothers him.

  • Subvocalization is the way the to go (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:08PM (#12679308) Homepage Journal
    Excepting speed readers, who learn to quell subvocalization as a portal to speed reading, we all subvocalize. NASA has looked into sensors that detect the neural activity concurrent with subvocalization and act as an interface [gamboni.org] for a computer. This would be great for dictating sensitive information, not to mention, silencing the cell users who, for reasons unknown, feel it's necessary to raise the decible of their voice to let the world in on their mundane conversation. Maybe hardware like this can be implanted.

  • In a similar vein (Score:3, Interesting)

    by suitepotato ( 863945 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:44PM (#12679559)
    and this can be considered prior art I guess, I was fiddling with some speech and audio processing stuff when a friend handed over an article about using laser reflections off of glass for spying. We got an idea and after about four hours, came up with a little gizmo that took the input from a microphone, created an opposing cancelling wave form, and mixed it with input from a stereo and we put it to a piezo which we cemented to a window. Presto, no further spying would work.

    That was years ago when experimenting with hardware more basic than a premade circuitboard was still cool and surface mount devices were still ultra high tech, I know, but I've often wished it could be done with other things. Such as make objects emit waves out of phase to those coming in to make it hard to hear anyone or anything precisely and clearly past a certain distance.

    Of course, enough Jack Daniels will do the same thing...
  • Geesh people, you dont get privacy in the work place unless you own the damned place.

    You work for them, period. Its their place, their rules.

    You want privacy? Go home.. ( well at least until the fucking government starts putting cameras and microphones in our homes to 'protect us'. )
  • Another technology already exists: walls, as in offices
  • I have to move into a cube aka "loser cruiser" in two days. I've got an old wooden barometer/thermometer I'm going to put on the wall, and I'm trying to think of other ideas of decorations that will make it seem less like a cramped noisy cube and more like a small office decorated to promote relaxation and concentration. Anyone got any ideas?
  • I don't say I'd never work in cubicles, since it could happen that all other positions in the world are filled, but other than that... no, thanks. I happened to go to a job interview a few years back, for a position which I think I would've liked pretty much. After the whole tests, management and professional interviews were over, also the money wouldn't have been that bad, they showed me the "offices"... something which I call a partitioned football field... I thanked them everything and phoned them the ne
  • I am a programmer at a LA, CA company that is Japanese owned and operated and we all sit at the picnic bench from hell. It's a long table with a W shaped partition that doesn't even bar your neighbor from taking even a casual stretch to see what you're doing and it has these goofy "biometric" incuts that require one to scoot up close to the 'puter and rest their elbows on the table and not the arms of our highly adjustable and otherwise very comfortable chairs. We also have no break room and really bad coff

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