Your story sounds similar to mine, except that I switched back yet again. I've been running Linux since spring '94 and FreeBSD since '97 and decided to go the Mac route about a year and a half ago. I bought a PowerMac G4, took it home, used it for two weeks and took it back. I spent a few months after that looking for the perfect computer without much success. One day, I was walking by the Apple Store in Tyson's Corner, VA and decided to give the Mac another try. This time, I shelled out a bit more money for their "Fastest" model. Instead of the puny 15" LCD that I had with my first Mac, I bought a 21" Sony top-of-the-line CRT. I purchased a the optional GeForce 3 to make Quake 3 perform at par. This time around, things worked a lot better. 10.1 was released the week after I bought the Mac and OS X became much more usable.
As for reasons to switch from a free *nix to Mac OS X, here are mine:
1) Asthetics - from the look of the desktop, the beautiful anti-aliased fonts, the built-in PDF capabilty, and (of course) the beautiful hardware, it's hard to compete with a Mac when it comes to a slick user experience.
2) Support - Like *BSD and Linux, you have a great community that will provide informal support, but you also have AppleCare to rely upon.
3) Hardware - the hardware, as I'm sure you know, is top-notch. You pay an arm and a leg for it, no doubt, but compare a top-of-the-line Dell case to any Apple case and you'll see what I mean.
4) Microsoft Office - I know this sounds a little odd but Microsoft Office on OS X is just fantastic. I've never seen a better office suite, commercial or open source. If you use your computer for business and your job title is something other than "programmer", chances are that you will need MS Excel. MS may be the devil incarnate but they sure do make a good spreadsheet package.
So anyway, my advice to you is to give it another shot, preferably once Jaguar is released. Two weeks really isn't enough time to get familiar with the little niceties of OS X.
I was in fifth grade in 1984. The oil boom was still going here in Texas at the time and there were a lot of families in my neighborhood with ungodly amounts of money. Anyway, this kid down the street had a robot unlike anything I've ever seen. It was about 3 or 4' tall and had a b&w screen (looked similar to a TRS-80 Model ]I[, if you know what I'm talking about) for a face. Under the screen, it had several rows of buttons and stuff, and a little 12-button keypad, kind of like a phone. Below all this was, of all crazy things, an Atari 2600. Besides doing normal "robotty" things, this robot could play a few select 2600 games and would generally beat you. As I recall, this robot had an arm on the side that had little pincers that could pick up some things. It could also carry a little drink tray. It had some sensors that enabled it to move around objects and you could program it to move around the room at preset times. If I recall correctly, this kid had the robot set to wake him up every morning.
I've always been curious about this robot. Does anyone know the name of it?
When you were selecting the OS to run Google, why did you choose Linux? I'm partial to FreeBSD but I'm pretty sure that you evaluated it and found something a) that you didn't like or b) something about Linux that you liked better. If so, what?
Second part of this question: Do you continue to evaluate alternative operating systems?
1. A system for controlling delivery of unsolicited electronic mail, comprising:
a communications network;
a plurality of user terminals coupled to said communications network, each of said plurality of user terminals having a unique e-mail address, wherein each of said plurality of user terminals comprises a filtering application for receiving incoming electronic mail messages addressed to said unique e-mail address of said user terminal and filtering said incoming electronic mail messages based upon stored filtering data; and
a control center, comprising
a distributor for generating a probe address and transmitting said probe address to at least one site on said communications network, wherein said probe address is different from each of said unique email addresses of each of said plurality of user terminals,
a processor for receiving electronic mail messages addressed to said probe address, and for extracting source data from said received electronic mail messages, and
a database update signal generator coupled to said processor for generating and transmitting a database update signal incorporating said extracted source data;
wherein each of said plurality of user terminals receives said database update signal from said control center, updates said stored filtering data in response to said database update signal, and filters electronic mail messages received by said user terminal in accordance with said updated filtering data.
2. A system according to claim 1, wherein said user terminals filter electronic mail messages sent from other of said user terminals in accordance with said updated filtering data.
3. A system according to claim 1, wherein said probe address is transmitted to sites on said communications network that provide address information for senders of unsolicited electronic mail messages.
4. A system for controlling delivery of unsolicited electronic mail, comprising:
a communications network;
a plurality of user terminals, wherein each of said plurality of user terminals has a unique e-mail address;
a server coupled to said communications network and each of said plurality of user terminals, wherein said server comprises a filtering application for receiving incoming electronic mail messages addressed to said unique e-mail address of each of said plurality of user terminals and filtering said incoming electronic mail messages based upon stored filtering data; and
a control center, comprising
a distributor for generating a probe address and transmitting said probe address to at least one site on said communications network, wherein said probe address is different from each of said unique email addresses of each of said plurality of user terminals,
a processor for receiving electronic mail messages addressed to said probe address, and for extracting source data from said received electronic mail messages, and
a database update signal generator coupled to said processor for generating and transmitting a database update signal incorporating said extracted source data;
wherein said server receives said database update signal from said control center, updates said stored filtering data in response to said database update signal, and filters electronic mail messages addressed to each of said plurality of user terminals in accordance with said updated filtering data.
5. A system according to claim 4, wherein said filtering application updates said filtering data in response to said database update signal by adding said extracted source data to said filtering data stored in said server.
6. A system according to claim 4, wherein said server also filters electronic mail messages sent from each of said plurality of user terminals.
7. A system according to claim 4, wherein said probe address is transmitted to sites on said communications network that provide address information for senders of unsolicited electronic mail messages.
We should have bombed the shit out of Iraq years ago? I know I was only in high school in 1991, but I swear I recall that we bombed the living shit out of that place once already.
I'm still waiting for a window manager (besides FVWM and OLVWM) to include a FVWM-style virtual desktop switcher (or "Pager"). I have my desktop set up with a 3x3 virtual desktop switcher. I can use Ctrl+an_arrow_key to switch between desktops (two-dimensionally; I can go up, down, left, or right) without using the mouse. If I put xterms in the same spot in each desktop, I can switch between them very quickly, using only the keyboard. It sure would be nice to see this elsewhere.
Perhaps I'm thinking about this all wrong but it seems to me that computing clusters have no place on the Top 500 list. I realize that LINPACK supports MPI and that you can now make a cluster out of just about anything but it seems to me that there should be a distinction made on the Top 500 list between single multiprocessor computers and clusters. Perhaps they could have seperate lists?
Be careful of saying things like "the only way Kazaa could block it is...". There is always another way. In fact, I thought of one while reading your post:
Imagine that one of the pieces of spyware is designed to send out an "I'm alive!" message to a central server, to let it know that it has an activated client. This isn't too hard to imagine, I don't think. Suppose Kazaa blocked access to its network to any host that did not send an "I'm alive!" message. There you go, it's blocked.
Now, the Russian folks could combat this with two different techniques: modify the Kazaa client itself to send out the "I'm alive!" message, but this will likely cause CRC/integrity checks to fail.
The other possibility is to create a new process that sends the "I'm alive!" messages to the spyware servers. Problem with this is, it isn't much better than the spyware it replaced, in terms of system and network resources.
This may sound kind of strange but has anyone thought that the speed difference between the two platfoms is actually non-existant but that users perceive a speed difference because IE/Win32 makes a little "click" noise when a page loads? This has always struck me as a bit of psychological trickery on MS's part. What's the easiest way to make a page feel snappy? Play a little snapping noise while you render it, of course.:)
I'm in your boat; no speed problems with IE on my G4.
I think they were vhosting on the same box and the cluebie admin thought he could stop the slashdotting of perlbox.org by removing the VirtualHost entry for it.:)
I read about the embedding in Konqueror but couldn't get specifics because of the slashdotting. Here is an idea that I have for a potential use of kvim:
I use SquirrelMail, a web-based IMAP client, to read and send mail. It would be super cool to be able to use kvim in place of the usual browser-provided TEXTAREA editor when I send mail. This would also work well here on slashdot, for editing comments like I'm doing now.
Does anyone have any alternate sources for the equipment sold on X10.com? Several years ago, before they even started their pop-up campaign, I placed an order from these guys and called three weeks later to ask where my order was (and why they charged my credit card as soon as the order was placed weeks before). The sales rep I talked to was such a flaming asshole that I vowed never to do business with them again. So, does anyone else (reputable) sell this equipment?
I'm stoked about 1.0. I think the browser is solid as hell.
HOWEVER, the included Mail and Newsgroup app has a LONG way to go. There are many, many outstanding (and often show-stopping) bugs with the Mail reader.
I have been testing it recently with the hopes of deploying it throughout our company as the standard mail client. The Windows version is horribly broken. It often hangs upon startup and you cannot print many messages without first double-clicking them and opening them up in their own windows, and printing from these. For kicks, I tried the test with several different builds (including 0.99rel) on several different computers. Same results all around. Our mail server runs Courier IMAP and works great with every other mail client I've used (Pine, Mac OS X Mail.app, SquirrelMail, Mulberry, Eudora, Netscape 4.x, etc., etc.)
I disagree. A single 802.11b base station (no matter who makes it) is not going to be enough to power a "neighborhood" of Internet users. If you were lucky, you could get maybe ten or twenty households on the thing before they saturate the network. (Remember, it tops out at 11Mbit/s but in actuality, you'll probably only see 3Mbit/s on a moderately busy network).
The next problem is Internet access. Where does the neighborhood network geek hook into? He'll either need to purchase high speed access (business class, since he's sharing the bw) or he'll need to hook up to other networks around town. Somewhere, somebody will have to foot the bill to get these networks onto a backbone. This person will want to be paid but how? I suppose the homeowners' association could come up with the dough to pay for this but if you know anything about how homeowners' associations work, you know that this has a snowball's chance in hell.
I think, at best, you'll come up with something similar to what FidoNET had in the 80s. Geeks will band together with other geeks to chip in for upstream network access. And just like old Fight-o-NET, there will be tons of politics and bickering. And if you're not a hardcore geek (ie, you're part of the 99% of Internet users in the US), you'll never participate in the first place.
I thiiiiink I'm gonna have to sort of disagree with you on that one.
The day that Mr and Ms. Joe Internet User run over their RoadRunner quota and form an ad-hoc wireless network with their neighbor Frank, will be the day that Rush Limbaugh joins the Democratic Party.
It's way too improbable. Unless Linksys starts selling wireless routers with roof-mount antennas and BGP routing software (complete with easy-to-use "routing wizard"!!) for under $100 at CompUSA, it just won't happen. Maybe they'll prove me wrong. But I won't bet on it.
I've never been to Utah, but typically companies like to set up where there is an abundance of skilled workers and more than 1 school to choose from. Also, many skilled people prefer to live in/near major cities. That's why large companies don't go to Alaksa to set up camp.
Actually, Utah really does have an abundance of tech workers. Novell, American Express, and many others are based there. eBay has one of their major datacenters there. University of Utah and Brigham Young University both have well-reknown CS departments. Utah State in Logon isn't bad, either. It obviously has something of a tech community because both Lineo and Caldera are based there.
SLC is pretty damned "major" if you ask me. It's well over several million in population. It's a Delta hub, so you can pretty much fly to any decent sized city in the US without having to change plains. By Air, it's about 90min, IIRC, from SFO.
As I cited in a reply farther up the page, Rackspace has few local customers here in Cowtown, USA (aka San Antonio TX) but that hasn't stopped them from prospering.
Why the hell would this company dump $40K/month into SFBA offices? They are based in Lindon, UT--one of the prettiest places in the country. There are countless advantages that UT has over CA. Here are a few
Skilled Workforce
Utah: Plenty of skilled folks available at a great price. Notable schools: utah.edu (early adopter of Internet), byu.edu
SFBA: Maybe a few more workers available these days but still overpriced. Notable schools: standford.edu, berkeley.edu
Cost of Living
Utah: Cheap, cheap, cheap. You can actually rent a real house with a real yard here for less than $3000/month! For $1100/month, I lived here, no shit.
SFBA: I lived in a tiny room in an old lady's house in Livermore for like $650/month.
Lifestyle
Utah: Gorgeous mountains, beautiful deserts, great skiing (snow and water), hiking, Utah is actually quite cosmopolitan, "down home" friendly folk, and YES, there are plenty of places to get drunk. Park City has 5-star restaurants and is the home of the Sundance Film Festival.
SFBA: High crime rate. Smog. Traffic. Rude people. Drive 4+ hours to ski. Nice restaurants, though.
Geekiness
Utah: High speed access available most everywhere, even up in some of the mountain towns.
SFBA: When I left in 98, they still had no DSL. Things have changed since then, I'm sure.
Give Noise a try. It's free and it works pretty well for me.
A little tip: I think you'll find that pink noise works best if it's being generated from a source that sits between you and the noise you're trying to block out.
Another tip: pink noise are also good at keeping your noise masked. If you want to have a conversation with your girlfriend and don't want your roommate listening in, turn on some pink noise.
Slashdot Mirror
Your story sounds similar to mine, except that I switched back yet again. I've been running Linux since spring '94 and FreeBSD since '97 and decided to go the Mac route about a year and a half ago. I bought a PowerMac G4, took it home, used it for two weeks and took it back. I spent a few months after that looking for the perfect computer without much success. One day, I was walking by the Apple Store in Tyson's Corner, VA and decided to give the Mac another try. This time, I shelled out a bit more money for their "Fastest" model. Instead of the puny 15" LCD that I had with my first Mac, I bought a 21" Sony top-of-the-line CRT. I purchased a the optional GeForce 3 to make Quake 3 perform at par. This time around, things worked a lot better. 10.1 was released the week after I bought the Mac and OS X became much more usable.
As for reasons to switch from a free *nix to Mac OS X, here are mine:
1) Asthetics - from the look of the desktop, the beautiful anti-aliased fonts, the built-in PDF capabilty, and (of course) the beautiful hardware, it's hard to compete with a Mac when it comes to a slick user experience.
2) Support - Like *BSD and Linux, you have a great community that will provide informal support, but you also have AppleCare to rely upon.
3) Hardware - the hardware, as I'm sure you know, is top-notch. You pay an arm and a leg for it, no doubt, but compare a top-of-the-line Dell case to any Apple case and you'll see what I mean.
4) Microsoft Office - I know this sounds a little odd but Microsoft Office on OS X is just fantastic. I've never seen a better office suite, commercial or open source. If you use your computer for business and your job title is something other than "programmer", chances are that you will need MS Excel. MS may be the devil incarnate but they sure do make a good spreadsheet package.
So anyway, my advice to you is to give it another shot, preferably once Jaguar is released. Two weeks really isn't enough time to get familiar with the little niceties of OS X.
Good luck.
Chris
I was in fifth grade in 1984. The oil boom was still going here in Texas at the time and there were a lot of families in my neighborhood with ungodly amounts of money. Anyway, this kid down the street had a robot unlike anything I've ever seen. It was about 3 or 4' tall and had a b&w screen (looked similar to a TRS-80 Model ]I[, if you know what I'm talking about) for a face. Under the screen, it had several rows of buttons and stuff, and a little 12-button keypad, kind of like a phone. Below all this was, of all crazy things, an Atari 2600. Besides doing normal "robotty" things, this robot could play a few select 2600 games and would generally beat you. As I recall, this robot had an arm on the side that had little pincers that could pick up some things. It could also carry a little drink tray. It had some sensors that enabled it to move around objects and you could program it to move around the room at preset times. If I recall correctly, this kid had the robot set to wake him up every morning.
I've always been curious about this robot. Does anyone know the name of it?
No, just a Lego Don Ho.
When you were selecting the OS to run Google, why did you choose Linux? I'm partial to FreeBSD but I'm pretty sure that you evaluated it and found something a) that you didn't like or b) something about Linux that you liked better. If so, what?
Second part of this question: Do you continue to evaluate alternative operating systems?
Chris
That's a good question and not "redundant". Let me expand on his/her question:
Is Google actively hiring? If so, what kind of job titles are most important for Google to fill these days?
[I'm not a headhunter]
Chris
I'm fairly certain that the core technologies that this service uses were patented in 1997 by Bright Light Solutions, who later became BrightMail.
Here's a snippet from their patent:
1. A system for controlling delivery of unsolicited electronic mail, comprising:
a communications network;
a plurality of user terminals coupled to said communications network, each of said plurality of user terminals having a unique e-mail address, wherein each of said plurality of user terminals comprises a filtering application for receiving incoming electronic mail messages addressed to said unique e-mail address of said user terminal and filtering said incoming electronic mail messages based upon stored filtering data; and
a control center, comprising
a distributor for generating a probe address and transmitting said probe address to at least one site on said communications network, wherein said probe address is different from each of said unique email addresses of each of said plurality of user terminals,
a processor for receiving electronic mail messages addressed to said probe address, and for extracting source data from said received electronic mail messages, and
a database update signal generator coupled to said processor for generating and transmitting a database update signal incorporating said extracted source data;
wherein each of said plurality of user terminals receives said database update signal from said control center, updates said stored filtering data in response to said database update signal, and filters electronic mail messages received by said user terminal in accordance with said updated filtering data.
2. A system according to claim 1, wherein said user terminals filter electronic mail messages sent from other of said user terminals in accordance with said updated filtering data.
3. A system according to claim 1, wherein said probe address is transmitted to sites on said communications network that provide address information for senders of unsolicited electronic mail messages.
4. A system for controlling delivery of unsolicited electronic mail, comprising:
a communications network;
a plurality of user terminals, wherein each of said plurality of user terminals has a unique e-mail address;
a server coupled to said communications network and each of said plurality of user terminals, wherein said server comprises a filtering application for receiving incoming electronic mail messages addressed to said unique e-mail address of each of said plurality of user terminals and filtering said incoming electronic mail messages based upon stored filtering data; and
a control center, comprising
a distributor for generating a probe address and transmitting said probe address to at least one site on said communications network, wherein said probe address is different from each of said unique email addresses of each of said plurality of user terminals,
a processor for receiving electronic mail messages addressed to said probe address, and for extracting source data from said received electronic mail messages, and
a database update signal generator coupled to said processor for generating and transmitting a database update signal incorporating said extracted source data;
wherein said server receives said database update signal from said control center, updates said stored filtering data in response to said database update signal, and filters electronic mail messages addressed to each of said plurality of user terminals in accordance with said updated filtering data.
5. A system according to claim 4, wherein said filtering application updates said filtering data in response to said database update signal by adding said extracted source data to said filtering data stored in said server.
6. A system according to claim 4, wherein said server also filters electronic mail messages sent from each of said plurality of user terminals.
7. A system according to claim 4, wherein said probe address is transmitted to sites on said communications network that provide address information for senders of unsolicited electronic mail messages.
Or a brother named Hershel?
(I crack myself up)
We should have bombed the shit out of Iraq years ago? I know I was only in high school in 1991, but I swear I recall that we bombed the living shit out of that place once already.
I'm still waiting for a window manager (besides FVWM and OLVWM) to include a FVWM-style virtual desktop switcher (or "Pager"). I have my desktop set up with a 3x3 virtual desktop switcher. I can use Ctrl+an_arrow_key to switch between desktops (two-dimensionally; I can go up, down, left, or right) without using the mouse. If I put xterms in the same spot in each desktop, I can switch between them very quickly, using only the keyboard. It sure would be nice to see this elsewhere.
Chris
Perhaps I'm thinking about this all wrong but it seems to me that computing clusters have no place on the Top 500 list. I realize that LINPACK supports MPI and that you can now make a cluster out of just about anything but it seems to me that there should be a distinction made on the Top 500 list between single multiprocessor computers and clusters. Perhaps they could have seperate lists?
Be careful of saying things like "the only way Kazaa could block it is...". There is always another way. In fact, I thought of one while reading your post:
Imagine that one of the pieces of spyware is designed to send out an "I'm alive!" message to a central server, to let it know that it has an activated client. This isn't too hard to imagine, I don't think. Suppose Kazaa blocked access to its network to any host that did not send an "I'm alive!" message. There you go, it's blocked.
Now, the Russian folks could combat this with two different techniques: modify the Kazaa client itself to send out the "I'm alive!" message, but this will likely cause CRC/integrity checks to fail.
The other possibility is to create a new process that sends the "I'm alive!" messages to the spyware servers. Problem with this is, it isn't much better than the spyware it replaced, in terms of system and network resources.
This may sound kind of strange but has anyone thought that the speed difference between the two platfoms is actually non-existant but that users perceive a speed difference because IE/Win32 makes a little "click" noise when a page loads? This has always struck me as a bit of psychological trickery on MS's part. What's the easiest way to make a page feel snappy? Play a little snapping noise while you render it, of course. :)
I'm in your boat; no speed problems with IE on my G4.
I think you were alluding to the Stripper's Trilemma:
Dance harder -> make more tips -> buy more coke -> dance harder -> etc
:)
I think they were vhosting on the same box and the cluebie admin thought he could stop the slashdotting of perlbox.org by removing the VirtualHost entry for it. :)
Suppose we used African swallows?
I read about the embedding in Konqueror but couldn't get specifics because of the slashdotting. Here is an idea that I have for a potential use of kvim:
I use SquirrelMail, a web-based IMAP client, to read and send mail. It would be super cool to be able to use kvim in place of the usual browser-provided TEXTAREA editor when I send mail. This would also work well here on slashdot, for editing comments like I'm doing now.
Chris
Does anyone have any alternate sources for the equipment sold on X10.com? Several years ago, before they even started their pop-up campaign, I placed an order from these guys and called three weeks later to ask where my order was (and why they charged my credit card as soon as the order was placed weeks before). The sales rep I talked to was such a flaming asshole that I vowed never to do business with them again. So, does anyone else (reputable) sell this equipment?
chris
I'm stoked about 1.0. I think the browser is solid as hell.
HOWEVER, the included Mail and Newsgroup app has a LONG way to go. There are many, many outstanding (and often show-stopping) bugs with the Mail reader.
I have been testing it recently with the hopes of deploying it throughout our company as the standard mail client. The Windows version is horribly broken. It often hangs upon startup and you cannot print many messages without first double-clicking them and opening them up in their own windows, and printing from these. For kicks, I tried the test with several different builds (including 0.99rel) on several different computers. Same results all around. Our mail server runs Courier IMAP and works great with every other mail client I've used (Pine, Mac OS X Mail.app, SquirrelMail, Mulberry, Eudora, Netscape 4.x, etc., etc.)
I disagree. A single 802.11b base station (no matter who makes it) is not going to be enough to power a "neighborhood" of Internet users. If you were lucky, you could get maybe ten or twenty households on the thing before they saturate the network. (Remember, it tops out at 11Mbit/s but in actuality, you'll probably only see 3Mbit/s on a moderately busy network).
The next problem is Internet access. Where does the neighborhood network geek hook into? He'll either need to purchase high speed access (business class, since he's sharing the bw) or he'll need to hook up to other networks around town. Somewhere, somebody will have to foot the bill to get these networks onto a backbone. This person will want to be paid but how? I suppose the homeowners' association could come up with the dough to pay for this but if you know anything about how homeowners' associations work, you know that this has a snowball's chance in hell.
I think, at best, you'll come up with something similar to what FidoNET had in the 80s. Geeks will band together with other geeks to chip in for upstream network access. And just like old Fight-o-NET, there will be tons of politics and bickering. And if you're not a hardcore geek (ie, you're part of the 99% of Internet users in the US), you'll never participate in the first place.
I thiiiiink I'm gonna have to sort of disagree with you on that one.
The day that Mr and Ms. Joe Internet User run over their RoadRunner quota and form an ad-hoc wireless network with their neighbor Frank, will be the day that Rush Limbaugh joins the Democratic Party.
It's way too improbable. Unless Linksys starts selling wireless routers with roof-mount antennas and BGP routing software (complete with easy-to-use "routing wizard"!!) for under $100 at CompUSA, it just won't happen. Maybe they'll prove me wrong. But I won't bet on it.
I've never been to Utah, but typically companies like to set up where there is an abundance of skilled workers and more than 1 school to choose from. Also, many skilled people prefer to live in/near major cities. That's why large companies don't go to Alaksa to set up camp.
Actually, Utah really does have an abundance of tech workers. Novell, American Express, and many others are based there. eBay has one of their major datacenters there. University of Utah and Brigham Young University both have well-reknown CS departments. Utah State in Logon isn't bad, either. It obviously has something of a tech community because both Lineo and Caldera are based there.
SLC is pretty damned "major" if you ask me. It's well over several million in population. It's a Delta hub, so you can pretty much fly to any decent sized city in the US without having to change plains. By Air, it's about 90min, IIRC, from SFO.
As I cited in a reply farther up the page, Rackspace has few local customers here in Cowtown, USA (aka San Antonio TX) but that hasn't stopped them from prospering.
A solid company with a good product will have no problem making deals happen. Example: Rackspace is located here in San Antonio.
Skilled Workforce
Cost of Living
Lifestyle
Geekiness
Did I miss anything?
Give Noise a try. It's free and it works pretty well for me.
A little tip: I think you'll find that pink noise works best if it's being generated from a source that sits between you and the noise you're trying to block out.
Another tip: pink noise are also good at keeping your noise masked. If you want to have a conversation with your girlfriend and don't want your roommate listening in, turn on some pink noise.