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Cubicle Privacy
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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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?
My other Sig is
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.
The Crimson Dragon
Thats why they have magical products like this http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/accessories/294 0/
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 which aren't nearly as nice. Has anyone else seen those nice sliding doors for cubicles and know who makes them?
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.
(http://www.3m.com/us/office/myworkspace/mon_filte rs_privacy.jhtml
They're kind of pricey, but unless someone is standing directly behind you, they can't make out what is on the screen.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Suggestion: reduce your costs by subdividing your space, but not into single offices.. Someone else posted that they prefer "large" offices shared by a team of 2-4 people working on the same project. Also start a culture of "cell-phone goes on vibrate when you enter the building--or you buy lunch for everyone in earshot". Another inexpensive thing is a type of floor-to-ceiling whiteboard wall covering--per square foot must cheaper than white-boards, and placed in some of the large open areas it encourages ad hoc design, serendipity, etc. But the people sitting immediately next to those areas in their veal fattening pens may suffer... In an ideal world use a line of internal offices to create noise barriers--why do offices have to steal all the natural light?
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Joel Spolsky has some insights on software development workspaces. Item 8 on the Joel Test: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
A seperate article here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
Remain calm! All is well!
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.
What my cubicle needs is a smell blocking device to defend against nearby insidious cubicle dwellers...
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
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.
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 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.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
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.
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
You could be anywhere in the world, including India.
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...
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
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 and a weekly trans-Atlantic phone conference - working from home is not all good. Being able to choose my hours, dress-code and working environment is great, and the commute time can't be beaten. But I think if I stay more than a few years the complete lack of human communication will get me down.
I've heard that newspaper editors call the results of working from home "freelancer syndrome", and dread getting stuck on the phone to lonely freelance journalists, desperate for conversation. I don't want to turn out like that.
I've always assumed that these devices, that are intended to be noice cancellation devices, are only designed to cancel out frequencies in the so-called audible range, but that they have the effect of magnifying sounds outside that range when trying to cancel out sounds within the range.
The reason I think this is that when turning on these headsets I feel part of that same uncomfortable feeling of pain that some of us get around ultrasonic pest controllers, and even more folks shirk from from the backs or undersides of CRTs.
I figure that eventually they'll cancel out sounds up to a much higher frequency, and then the problem will go away.