I love this, I use it to keep myself in perspective from time to time when I alt-tab to Reddit fifty times in a minute without thinking. Also, use of the Lost soundtrack was awesome. Really underrated music IMO.
This! Totally ruined the whole thing for me. Made it feel utterly hypocritical and ruined the high-brow mood. Actually came out feeling sad about that...
...after a long, long series of annoying platitudes. I stopped at the "welcome to the quiet place" and thought for a while (half an hour). Then when I came back, it wanted to moralize at me! I gave up, didn't see the end.
Heh. The full screen white background floodlighting my eyes didn't really help the experience either. When I need a quiet place to relax I'll go somewhere without screens and keyboards.
Then again, the overall idea is good, it's never bad to remind people they need to take a break once in a while.
That's actually one of the hardest things I've tried to overcome (after realizing it) in the last few years: Music that's connected to some kind of memory/event/show/movie/etc. will constantly make me think about its associations rather than my work at hand.
I've noticed the same thing about myself lately. I even stop listening to some of my favorite songs because they arouse negative feelings or images of places I dislike.
I found it sometimes to be a positive effect. Many times when I felt bad I listened to my favorite touching/sad songs while working - they tend to suck the emotional entropy out of me and help me focus on task at hand, while my emotions get 'aligned' with the song.
ah, but I believe it's entirely appropriate. Not to turn this into a Lost discussion, but one of the main themes of the show was redemption. The island was a place where all of the everyday crap was gone and the characters could step back and say, "what the hell am I doing?" I believe that's the intention here as well.
Good idea. A quiet place (with lost music) and anti-social media (with sharing buttons at the end). Hopefully, the irony is intentional.
Makes me wonder if the desire to optimize UI/UX and the viral loop will keep shortening our attention spans. It's a prisoner's dilemma where we're better off in the short run but worse off in the long run because we can no longer process longer form thoughts.
I did not appreciate having to press spacebar for every sentence, so I exited early. For something that tells you to relax, it sure does make you do a lot of work.
Same here. I found this patronizing and nearly the opposite of relaxing - it reminded me of 10th grade English teachers bringing in mood music for a freewriting exercise.
http://www.workrave.org/ is a much better solution for this kind of "break excessive computer addiction," IMHO.
The tone and nature of this oddly reminds me of a point in the video game Earthbound, where part way through the game you take a coffee break with one of the NPCs. It serves no purpose other than to give you a break and reflect on the game.
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 glued to my digital life every second of the day? That I need some snarky web app to tell me how to "relax"?
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.
It worked very well on an iPhone. Taps moved it forwards, and I was surprised there was a dedicated mobile site.
One thing to nitpick: on the countdown, it ends with "1 seconds". Trivial to fix, and really makes it look like you spent time thinking through the details.
I thought that was awesome. Discovering this on info-fueled hacker news made it more special.
I'd make several changes:
#1 Fix the F-11 message. Is this an IE thing? Do a browser detect, and display the right message.
#2 Get rid of the share on Twitter links at the end. just tacky.
#3 Get rid of the countdown. 30s break is cool, but countdown display speeds time up. Make the countdown hidden. If the user presses spacebar before 30s is up, should say "try harder" and reset the countdown.
#4 get rid of the cursing wasn't that funny
Anyways, I really liked this, especially the music and the white space.
All the talk about "press space", when clicking the left mouse button (what I first did, instinctively) did the same thing, also made it feel confusing and not very polished.
#1 Fix the F-11 message. Is this an IE thing? Do a browser detect, and display the right message.
No, it's an IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera-thing. All browsers use F11 for fullscreen and i don't think there's an api for reading which button they use anyway. :P
Not on OS X. I'm sure I've seen a tiny js library on github that does browser sniffing and gives you the relevant keyboard shortcut. Can't find it now.
And what a hacker-news response that was! Like when my wife tells me her problems, and I try to fix them instead of just listening. Its an Engineer thing I guess.
I sat there for 20 seconds in silence, before realising my Flash blocker was stopping the music. If it were my site, I'd use Flash as the fallback to HTML5 audio, not as the default.
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....
77 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 119 ms ] threadAnd the page felt too busy too. Like if you were listening to a nice calming classical music that finished with three seconds of loud death metal.
Nevertheless, it's an important message.
.. wait 30 seconds...
Here's my twitter and Google+ Follow and Share!!
[spacebar] to continue CLACK
Then again, the overall idea is good, it's never bad to remind people they need to take a break once in a while.
(a video without something stupid at the end, followed by that same stupid thing in slow motion)
Makes me wonder if the desire to optimize UI/UX and the viral loop will keep shortening our attention spans. It's a prisoner's dilemma where we're better off in the short run but worse off in the long run because we can no longer process longer form thoughts.
http://www.workrave.org/ is a much better solution for this kind of "break excessive computer addiction," IMHO.
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 glued to my digital life every second of the day? That I need some snarky web app to tell me how to "relax"?
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.
One thing to nitpick: on the countdown, it ends with "1 seconds". Trivial to fix, and really makes it look like you spent time thinking through the details.
Yes, I have to run iTunes at 50% volume, on the lowest rectangle for system volume.
I'm wishing I hadn't. Sigh.
Well, Seasons 1 and 2 at least.
I'd make several changes:
#1 Fix the F-11 message. Is this an IE thing? Do a browser detect, and display the right message.
#2 Get rid of the share on Twitter links at the end. just tacky.
#3 Get rid of the countdown. 30s break is cool, but countdown display speeds time up. Make the countdown hidden. If the user presses spacebar before 30s is up, should say "try harder" and reset the countdown.
#4 get rid of the cursing wasn't that funny
Anyways, I really liked this, especially the music and the white space.
Where do you live? I found the 'cursing' to be totally natural.
No, it's an IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera-thing. All browsers use F11 for fullscreen and i don't think there's an api for reading which button they use anyway. :P
And you don't really need any library: http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/obj_navigator.asp
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.
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....