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Take a short break in a quiet place

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31–40 of 78 posts

Re: Take a short break in a quiet place

#33

Nice idea... but I don't like how it implies that I'm wired on social media and notifications. Seems almost patronizing and condescending. Yes, I check my email and facebook often. Yes, I do have a smartphone that gives me push notifications for a lot of things. Yes, I check twitter. Check, check, check. Does this mean I never take a break from time to time to think? That I don't (or can't) enjoy quiet time? That I'm…

And it really doesn't work for someone who doesn't constantly check twitter/facebook, does not have push notifications enabled for email on my smartphone, etc, etc. I suppose the extra "no really, turn off your phone" is supposed to be clever, but it only makes it a bit more condescending.

I guess I'm not the target audience, though the idea of taking 30 seconds to reflect is valuable to anyone. I would have preferred an even quieter 30 seconds (maybe white or pink noise, or some ocean sounds or something?) The music was a bit loud through my headphones and not to my taste for relaxing. I also would have preferred a soothing grey background rather than blinding white. Oh yeah, and the F11 on a Mac thing...

I didn't stay for the countdown, because I didn't want to listen to the music anymore.

Re: Take a short break in a quiet place

#35
post #23

The quiet place isn't so quiet then OS X doesn't have a volume level low enough for your headphones :) Yes, I have to run iTunes at 50% volume, on the lowest rectangle for system volume.

Be sure to try shift-option-volume, assuming you haven't installed Lion. I'm wishing I hadn't. Sigh.

For what it's worth, you can still do it with Applescript:

    osascript -e "set volume 0.1"
I don't really know anything about Applescript, but presumably it wouldn't be hard to hook it into the Shift+Vol keys.

Re: Take a short break in a quiet place

#38
I stared at the "welcome to the quiet place" sentence for 2 minutes waiting for something to happen.

Lousy quiet place if I have to press space bar all the time, only to be rewarded with messages about how addicted i'm supposed to be to things.

Re: Take a short break in a quiet place

#39
Neat idea, but it would be easier to stop everything and sit and relax if one didn't have to press the spacebar continually. ;)

I have a playlist of soft jazz music, and sometimes when I need a break, I will load it up and adjust the volume in iTunes so that it sounds low and distant. Then I'll pull up rainymood.com in the browser, flip off the overhead office light, and go sit on the couch (my office has a couch) for a few minutes with my eyes closed.

With the combination of soft jazz + thunder storm + darkness, I find it hard to stay stressed about anything for too long. Of course, real rain is better, but this still works surprisingly well.

The only (slight) downside is that every time I'm finished with this little exercise, I'm left with the urge to write a 1950's detective story....

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