4 ms·

> Moore and his white noise team — yes, he has five employees and contractors I assume their duties are mostly mundane things, such as accounting, marketing, v

> Moore and his white noise team — yes, he has five employees and contractors I assume their duties are mostly mundane things, such as accounting, marketing, vendor relations, and app (store) maintenance. But what I really like to imagine is that those five employees are cryptographers, and that their duty is to painstakingly work on new secure white noise generation algorithms in order to push the envelope in the white noise industry.

saagarjha 4y ago
Well, I only listen to white noise that fills buffers that are allocated using new and lovingly filled with an artisanal memcpy.
- afandian 4y ago
  I hope you zero the memory first! Otherwise you can hear the ghosting on good headphones.
  - bigyikes 4y ago
    Ghosting problems are why I refuse to listen to anything on machines with RAM older than DDR4.
    - thematrixturtle 4y ago
      Surely you mean newer? The quantum tunneling artifacts on modern dense memory are simply ghastly, which why I stick to hand-wound magnetic core memory.
      - mrexroad 4y ago
        Only way to go is w/ either magnetic core memory or isolinear chips.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      Expert here (degree in engineering), Analog core wounded memory or gtfo.
      - afandian 4y ago
        I guess that comes at the significant penalty of lower bit rate. Still, it does sound warmer. (Seriously, I wonder what the rate would be?)
- mellavora 4y ago
  WTF? Doesn't anyone just reverse bias a transistor anymore? Who needs memory?
andrewallbright 4y ago
I like to imagine white noise listeners would be like wine connoisseurs in your scenario. "Mmmmmm, this one features a nice static base noise livivified by a hint of perlin noise."
- gebruikersnaam 4y ago
  It's only white noise if it's generated by the Sennheiser algorithm, otherwise it's just random static.
  - m0llusk 4y ago
    The Haters usually take a microphone connected to a distortion box and scrape it around the surface of a textured plastic suitcase. The result is clearly white noise and easily differentiated from the all too common pink noise one tends to hear nowadays.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  "Yes yes, of course that's a nice balance, but I do rather prefer mine to have just a hint of oak leaf crackle, like those that remain at the end of the Fall"
- hetspookjee 4y ago
  Well, honestly there's a world of difference between the noise generated by Pete Swanson versus Merzbow for example. I can't handle Merzbow at all, but Pete Swanson's A&Ox0 I truly enjoy. For example, my most listend song over 2021 (>60 times) is Limited Space by an alias of Pete Swanson; Yellow Swans. Than there's a track like Treetop Drive 3 from Deathprod that you truly notice when it starts, and when it ends. Other than that it is phenomal in drowning out everything on the other end. Windy & Carl also make some great tracks, one of my favorites being Antarctica. I've noticed while sharing these tracks that it is a very personnel thing, so odds being that you share my favorites are remarkebly small, though I do find it a very interesting genre to explore and wonder about - what makes this good versus the other? With less noise and a seeming one-off is Virginia Waveform from Pan-America, though quire more melodic already I have a curated playlist of noise tracks that I very frequently get back to. Here's my playlist for anyone that is interested: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0srqN53JGNoqEN3vzoviJU https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0srqN53JGNoqEN3vzoviJU
bob1029 4y ago
To be fair, there are a large variety of "noises" in this arena that people have certain preferences for over others. Developing an algorithm that generates something that sounds very good to humans requires a bit more than simple math and entropy. "White noise" is just the entrance to a very large rabbit hole.
- greatquux 4y ago
  I’m listening to Metal Machine Music right now , feedback may be another rabbit hole next door
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
>new secure white noise generation algorithms in order to push the envelope in the white noise industry. written in BrainFuck I assume https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31585371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31585371
gumby 4y ago
This does suggest a moderately interesting application: a sleep tracker could provide feedback to selectively alter the composition of the background noise to improve sleep quality. It could vary the background noise based on your sleep phase and other ambient noise (sirens, pets, etc). If you wear a tracker while awake, such as an apple watch, it could even figure out how to start based on your activity level just before going to bed.
ineedasername 4y ago
>But what I really like to imagine is that those five employees are cryptographers Or may NSA workers running the modern equivalent of number stations.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

saagarjha 4y ago

Well, I only listen to white noise that fills buffers that are allocated using new and lovingly filled with an artisanal memcpy.

afandian 4y ago
I hope you zero the memory first! Otherwise you can hear the ghosting on good headphones.
- bigyikes 4y ago
  Ghosting problems are why I refuse to listen to anything on machines with RAM older than DDR4.
  - thematrixturtle 4y ago
    Surely you mean newer? The quantum tunneling artifacts on modern dense memory are simply ghastly, which why I stick to hand-wound magnetic core memory.
    - mrexroad 4y ago
      Only way to go is w/ either magnetic core memory or isolinear chips.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    Expert here (degree in engineering), Analog core wounded memory or gtfo.
    - afandian 4y ago
      I guess that comes at the significant penalty of lower bit rate. Still, it does sound warmer. (Seriously, I wonder what the rate would be?)
mellavora 4y ago
WTF? Doesn't anyone just reverse bias a transistor anymore? Who needs memory?

andrewallbright 4y ago

I like to imagine white noise listeners would be like wine connoisseurs in your scenario. "Mmmmmm, this one features a nice static base noise livivified by a hint of perlin noise."

gebruikersnaam 4y ago
It's only white noise if it's generated by the Sennheiser algorithm, otherwise it's just random static.
- m0llusk 4y ago
  The Haters usually take a microphone connected to a distortion box and scrape it around the surface of a textured plastic suitcase. The result is clearly white noise and easily differentiated from the all too common pink noise one tends to hear nowadays.
ineedasername 4y ago
"Yes yes, of course that's a nice balance, but I do rather prefer mine to have just a hint of oak leaf crackle, like those that remain at the end of the Fall"
hetspookjee 4y ago
Well, honestly there's a world of difference between the noise generated by Pete Swanson versus Merzbow for example. I can't handle Merzbow at all, but Pete Swanson's A&Ox0 I truly enjoy. For example, my most listend song over 2021 (>60 times) is Limited Space by an alias of Pete Swanson; Yellow Swans. Than there's a track like Treetop Drive 3 from Deathprod that you truly notice when it starts, and when it ends. Other than that it is phenomal in drowning out everything on the other end. Windy & Carl also make some great tracks, one of my favorites being Antarctica. I've noticed while sharing these tracks that it is a very personnel thing, so odds being that you share my favorites are remarkebly small, though I do find it a very interesting genre to explore and wonder about - what makes this good versus the other? With less noise and a seeming one-off is Virginia Waveform from Pan-America, though quire more melodic already I have a curated playlist of noise tracks that I very frequently get back to. Here's my playlist for anyone that is interested: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0srqN53JGNoqEN3vzoviJU https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0srqN53JGNoqEN3vzoviJU

bob1029 4y ago

To be fair, there are a large variety of "noises" in this arena that people have certain preferences for over others. Developing an algorithm that generates something that sounds very good to humans requires a bit more than simple math and entropy. "White noise" is just the entrance to a very large rabbit hole.

greatquux 4y ago
I’m listening to Metal Machine Music right now , feedback may be another rabbit hole next door

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

>new secure white noise generation algorithms in order to push the envelope in the white noise industry. written in BrainFuck I assume https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31585371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31585371

gumby 4y ago

This does suggest a moderately interesting application: a sleep tracker could provide feedback to selectively alter the composition of the background noise to improve sleep quality. It could vary the background noise based on your sleep phase and other ambient noise (sirens, pets, etc). If you wear a tracker while awake, such as an apple watch, it could even figure out how to start based on your activity level just before going to bed.

ineedasername 4y ago

>But what I really like to imagine is that those five employees are cryptographers Or may NSA workers running the modern equivalent of number stations.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]