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alexpotato 1 hours ago [-]
At a past firm I managed a team of SREs.
This was very much a "fire drill all the time" kind of place (vs "slow and steady"). The team came to me and said:
"Alex, we keep getting bombarded by meeting requests and have no focus time."
My solution was to create a weekly "team meeting" from 8am to 11am every Friday and invite all of them to it.
They loved it!
I mentioned to them that making a meeting like this was something they could have done themselves but they responded:
"It carries more weight coming from you. Plus, if someone tries to schedule over it, they are more likely to think twice and/or I can say 'Hey, you have to talk to Alex.' "
mikemarsh 56 minutes ago [-]
This is brilliant, excellent example of the ideal of "management as shielding devs from higher-level corporate shenanigans" in action.
mlhpdx 32 minutes ago [-]
I have done the same. FWIW, a 2-3 hour block seems to be the sweet spot, as far as keeping it off the radar goes. Ironically, having multiple a week doesn’t seem to raise an eyebrow.
notesinthefield 33 minutes ago [-]
Our product security and engineering teams do the same thing to defend against the project managers - an 8am-2pm product sync every monday and friday. Its worked for years now.
frangonf 4 hours ago [-]
This has real demand, I ended up in the Gitlab secondary youtube channel one day, ordering by most views, and I found a video [0] of a seemingly normal uninteresting meeting with millions of views. Turns out people were using this as an excuse for looking like they were busy. They disabled comments now but I saved some of them because I thought it was hilarious:
I play this when I need my family to leave me alone - so helpful
4.5K
I play this when I pretend to be busy. This meeting is literally about anything you want it to be about lol
1.5K
I love that we all arrived at this video for the same reason
2.6K
Every now and then I'll pause it at a good point in between them talking to make my own voice heard contributing to the "meeting" lol. Gets the full effect in! And the beautiful thing is their conversation just flows with it like they heard me lol.
562
For people without adblocker the trick will be ruined at some point by something like loud enthusiastic ClickUp ad.
twoodfin 3 hours ago [-]
I was one of those people skeptical that ad-free YouTube was worth the high price, but now firmly a convert.
Get it! The best deal in streaming content. Unlocks such a better experience you’ll find a dozen whole new areas of valuable & enjoyable content to explore.
tyromaniac 3 hours ago [-]
Why not just block ads?
phoghed 1 hours ago [-]
1. YouTube is my primary entertainment so I don’t mind paying for it in lieu of Netflix or Hulu or whatever
2. I like that it directly benefits the creators of the videos I watch
3. It gets everyone in my family ad free viewing for 0 effort across all devices (I primarily watch it from Apple TV app)
4. Gives you higher quality bitrate option sometimes
5. It gives me the moral and logical high ground when arguing with nerds about YouTube online
6. Can download video on most (all?) devices, comes in handy sometimes, but I don’t use it frequently
7. In the past there have been preview features / experiments that were locked behind it, I think PIP was one of them, may be wrong on that. Nice to check them out or get them first
stackskipton 3 hours ago [-]
At some point, paying for something and knowing it will work is worth it. In particular, ad blocking YouTube on mobile is frustrating.
pimlottc 2 hours ago [-]
Not getting sucked into YouTube on mobile is a feature, not a bug
prmoustache 2 hours ago [-]
Had they done that from day 1 you woulf have a point but it sounds like extorsion to me given youtube got rid of most of its competition and established its casi monopolistic position being adfree.
nlarew 1 hours ago [-]
That is not what extortion means
bluGill 2 hours ago [-]
If you can. A lot of subscription TV channels have ads even though you have to pay to get them. Does paying for youtube block all ads, and if so will it continue to, or will they change as so many others have and just make your payment remove some ads? I'm not even counting sponsored content in a lot of videos as ads, but they are annoying too.
ericbarrett 2 hours ago [-]
If you are a YouTube Premium subscriber you actually do get a button that skips in-video sponsor ads.
busssard 2 hours ago [-]
NewPipe is the way to do that on android...
AdmiralAsshat 1 hours ago [-]
Smarttube on Android TV's works exceptionally well, too. I've seen people recommend Tizentube over it because it's nearly indistinguishable from the standard YouTube app, but with adblocking--but I actually prefer the more minimalist UI of Smarttube.
busssard 1 hours ago [-]
is there something for IOS?
JCattheATM 2 hours ago [-]
Yup. Astounding how many tech people just fork over money to an evil company instead though.
baud147258 1 hours ago [-]
I've been using YT on my FF mobile browser with an ad block and it's been working great.
globular-toast 2 hours ago [-]
They could raise the price or start having ads even if you pay. You're a renter. You have no rights.
stronglikedan 56 minutes ago [-]
Because there's so much more value to YT premium (including YT music) that goes beyond merely blocking ads. It's really a no-brainer if you watch YT often.
lolpython 5 minutes ago [-]
There is YouTube Premium Lite now which gets you ad-free long form videos. It’s decoupled from YouTube Music
RiverCrochet 2 hours ago [-]
I don't block ads because stealing ad revenue from companies is unethical. These companies have workers who have families that they need to feed. They provide a service for free, so it's the least I can do. I watch every ad in full.
My cousin, however, stopped blocking ads on YouTube when the YouTube warnings showed up. She is scared that at some point Google would ban Gmail accounts for doing it, and she's had hers for 10 years and really relies on it. She also says YouTube videos are really easy to download so anything she really wants from YouTube she tends to have a local copy of.
bee_rider 1 hours ago [-]
It isn’t unethical to block ads; the norm on the internet has always been that senders send any not-actively-malicious bits we want and the recipient renders them however they want (including not).
That said I’m also worried about getting banned for blocking too many YouTube ads (Google doesn’t have any obligation to send me emails after all) so I… just don’t go there.
ArvidSu 2 hours ago [-]
Corporate psy-op
tyromaniac 2 hours ago [-]
You're right, I didn't think about the thousands left destitute by them using UBlock Origin to play a fake meeting video
maxbond 2 hours ago [-]
The mafia is also made of hard working people with families to feed. Sometimes industries deserve to die. Even if the people working in them don't deserve to lose their jobs. That's life in a free market.
RiverCrochet 1 hours ago [-]
There's nothing more "free market" than ads. Ads literally cost you no money (free), and you don't even have to buy the product they're advertising (freedom from market if desired). If I know I'm not going to buy the product in question, I use the time to meditate, or take a moment to enjoy a cool, crisp sip of Kool-Aid. It's delicious when prepared according to the instructions. Oh Yeah!
maxbond 29 minutes ago [-]
There's nothing more free market than an ad blocker. Alice agreed to provide a service to Bob for and bundled in ads, Bob accepted the service and declined to run that JavaScript or render those images when Alice passed them along. If I drive past a billboard or accept a flyer on the street, no one would suggest I'm obligated to look at it.
jonathanstrange 50 minutes ago [-]
IMHO it's more ethical to block ads than not to block them because if you don't block them you're supporting unethical business models such as massive privacy invasions by collecting and selling user data, ad-based malware delivery, and scams.
sixothree 1 hours ago [-]
Because with google it's an unwinnable arms race.
tyromaniac 1 hours ago [-]
I have never run into issues
billypilgrim 1 hours ago [-]
Or, you know, you could just pay for a service that you enjoy. I watch a lot more YouTube and see a bigger need to keep it alive than Netflix, HBO and co for which I am paying good money already, why should YouTube be exempt from that?
Also if Netflix goes away tomorrow, you’ll find their content on torrents easily, but if YouTube goes away, we will lose decades of videos that no one has backups of. Expecting them to offer this service for free and without ads is crazy.
tyromaniac 1 hours ago [-]
The percent of people who know how to install an adblocker out of the global YouTube audience is so minuscule.
m4tthumphrey 52 minutes ago [-]
100% agree. I likely would have stuck with adblockers but watching on TV(s) is worth the monthly fee alone. Also you can "watch" (ie listen) in the background on the mobile app too.
I watch YouTube alot btw. :D
Barbing 1 hours ago [-]
One of the best products ever created, and they deserve the dough for serving me all the gigabytes. Fast, reliable, and one product not headed for KilledByGoogle. (Did I jinx it? “We’re transitioning to a vertical-video only platform to meet our billion users where they are…”)
Taurenking 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
splintersio 2 hours ago [-]
I’ll disable ads! Apologies :)
prmoustache 2 hours ago [-]
Are they monetizing it? If not they are missing out!
ruszki 3 hours ago [-]
Why don't you just decline calls with text messages, or just ignore them, or simply mute your phone?
flurdy 2 hours ago [-]
You try ignoring when the family helpdesk is called. You never hear the end of it.
bonoboTP 3 hours ago [-]
People take offense.
ubermonkey 3 hours ago [-]
So?
seb1204 3 hours ago [-]
You would not know as you declined?
cheonic4040 3 hours ago [-]
> People take offense.
Sounds like something people low on the corporate ladder say
bonoboTP 2 hours ago [-]
Yes. These tools are for them. If you're high on the ladder you can play Solitaire openly.
filcuk 3 hours ago [-]
The scripts are hilarious, yet not inaccurate. I can't stop chuckling.
'Are you happy with that?'
'Happy is a strong word'
'OK' moves on to the next topic
tacostakohashi 4 hours ago [-]
Reminds me of the "boss mode" / "boss key" in old games, like MS-DOS days, which would switch the screen to some spreadsheet mockup or suchlike, updated for the current century.
I think Sierra games like Leisure Suit Larry had that (F11) if I recall correctly. Priceless.
rzzzt 31 minutes ago [-]
Then you have to exit the game.
jnovek 3 hours ago [-]
This was tickling something in my brain and this was it! Thank you.
ninkendo 3 hours ago [-]
Audio seems broken now, maybe hugged to death. Console:
HTTP load failed with status 404. Load of media resource https://iminafleeting.com/media/people/standup-a.mp4 failed
jmuguy 2 hours ago [-]
There's a few that don't work, I was able to get the some of the "scoping" meetings to play the audio.
voidUpdate 3 hours ago [-]
Do people in offices typically just blast meetings out of their computer speakers? Everyone I work with uses headphones so we're not disturbing other people in the office...
stronglikedan 53 minutes ago [-]
Yes, because that's exactly what offices are for. I wouldn't do it if I had to sit out in the bullpen with the commoners though.
p_l 3 hours ago [-]
Unless you have good ANC headphones, or find something like pink noise that fits you, you're still dealing with all the talking to microphone of your colleagues.
Tajnymag 3 hours ago [-]
It's less noisy when you hear 5 people talk in 5 meetings than when you hear 50 people talk in those 5 remote meetings.
sixothree 1 hours ago [-]
It's hard to describe how difficult it is to hear someone talking and then a second later hear then in your headphones. It really breaks my concentration. And it's a solvable technology problem - just use the local network for people in the same subnet. But every meeting provider wants _everything_ routed through their servers. There's no escaping they prying eyes.
rzzzt 29 minutes ago [-]
Teams has "room audio" and "join without audio" options, if you are talking into a magic box placed on the center of the table the first one helps.
wccrawford 1 hours ago [-]
You know what's worse? Talking, and then hearing yourself half a second later.
I worked at a callcenter that had a problem that sometimes that would happen. The pet theory was that meant they were recording the call to audit it.
You end up stuttering because you think the caller is talking and you want to listen to them, but it's just your own voice back.
You do eventually learn to deal with it, but it was always terrible.
voidUpdate 3 hours ago [-]
I have reasonably good headphones and nice music
jurgenburgen 52 minutes ago [-]
Going to the office to have a remote meeting is pretty awful.
roryirvine 6 hours ago [-]
Truly uncanny!
Only the British audio works for me, though - if I try American or International, the relevant meetings are silent with a "Join Audio" button which doesn't appear to do anything. (Firefox on MacOS, if that's useful)
moritzwarhier 3 hours ago [-]
Same, console says something about missing or "unsuitable" audio resources.
Sad, I wanted the international broken Zoom call
Barbing 52 minutes ago [-]
Thanks, British scoping meeting worked on iOS. Probably would pass muster with family. Even a little laugh in there I heard after a joke.
flurdy 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah we need a dial to mix accents and dialects, and level of English fluency. I could want 50% English, maybe some Northern English, Welsh or Scottish, and mix in Indian accents, various American, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Scandinavian, the odd token Aussie. Etc.
That I could enable more South African, or Middle East accents in some meetings would be true to real life as well.
Not Finnish. The silence would not work :)
stronglikedan 50 minutes ago [-]
Same in Chrome and Firefox for me
fliglr 4 hours ago [-]
Same here - Brave browser. Only British works
wccrawford 1 hours ago [-]
I wondered why it didn't work. Chrome here, same experience. British is fine.
ryandrake 33 minutes ago [-]
Not sure I understand the site. Each option just shows a grid of names (like a Zoom call) but there's no audio or video. The "How It Works" section implies there's audio at least, but not working on Desktop Firefox / Linux.
indrora 7 minutes ago [-]
try the British voices.
awb 30 minutes ago [-]
No audio on Safari mobile either
edmn 29 minutes ago [-]
I've just spent 20 minutes listening to a conversation about John Carol. Did you know...
pirateirl 3 minutes ago [-]
Usefull!
TrackerFF 3 hours ago [-]
We need a fake teams / zoom UI with faces talking. You know, for those working in open plan.
arjonagelhout 3 hours ago [-]
Brilliant, this website is blocked at my work: "This content is blocked by your organization".
esikich 3 hours ago [-]
It's because it's a new domain. Very common in corporate IT.
arjonagelhout 2 hours ago [-]
I didn't know that was a thing, but that makes sense. Thanks!
whilenot-dev 4 hours ago [-]
What are all the names for the category of such software... "Self-defense Software", "Busy Simulation Software", "Faux Work Software", "Fake Meeting Software"[0], "Virtual Meeting Simulator"[1], "Prank Screens"[2], ...? Are there many others?
Computer-Aided Boundaries? Social Assistive Software?
whh 3 hours ago [-]
I'd say a quintessentially British, tactical-yet-polite social interaction deterrent
splintersio 2 hours ago [-]
Hah yes
ghusto 2 hours ago [-]
If you can't tell people you want to concentrate on your work, there's either something very wrong with where you work, or you.
elonfboy 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
jvanderbot 2 hours ago [-]
Where's the HR-faced "Can everyone turn on their cameras please?" one with 200 people in the call.
karim79 3 hours ago [-]
Fantastic product! Needs people talking over each other for greater authenticity, I reckon.
3 hours ago [-]
Loughla 2 hours ago [-]
This is not making me feel good about the real meetings I'm regularly in.
DharmaPolice 3 hours ago [-]
Trying to access this site on my corporate Windows laptop and it was blocked "by your IT admin" (in Windows itself, not the browser/proxy). So it's already on some kind of list.
whh 3 hours ago [-]
New domain registrations typically aren't on a list yet, which, in itself gets blocked.
tome 3 hours ago [-]
Maybe a silly question, but without video isn't this obviously fake? Or is it normal for all participants on a call to be audio only?
mcbuilder 2 hours ago [-]
Pretty normal. Camera's usually stay off unless it's a 1-1, presentation, or maybe a VP level call.
p_l 3 hours ago [-]
It's normal in many places for the only video to be shared screen
dirkc 3 hours ago [-]
If you find use for this tool, chances are good that you're in an place where all the participants would be audio only
ghusto 2 hours ago [-]
You get it.
seb1204 3 hours ago [-]
Depends on the company, the team, the agenda etc
astura 1 hours ago [-]
Totally normal. The only time I ever used my camera is conducting interviews.
splintersio 1 hours ago [-]
I’ve disabled adsense so you guys can enjoy it with UX in mind - tho I have allowed for adverts to sneak into the meetings cough
fyltr 1 hours ago [-]
Wait a second is that ad thing ironical? Not a big fan of covert advertising.
vermooten 3 hours ago [-]
I retired a few months ago. These calls have taken me back to the horror of working in tech. It must be what PTSD is like.
pentakkusu 59 minutes ago [-]
Genius. The people need an MS Teams UI option :O
jonwinstanley 4 hours ago [-]
This is fun. The audio isn’t particularly believable. Not that it matters for this project.
I’ve used a few tts providers and although a technical marvel they are all still easily identifiable as ai. Humans are very good at spotting fakes.
This project might work better with mostly canned audio clips of real humans.
xbar 2 hours ago [-]
I disagree. I think many of the audio elements are highly believable for lay people.
mystifyingpoi 2 hours ago [-]
Reminds me of the fake Windows Update page.
yabones 2 hours ago [-]
Takes me back. I remember there was a version of the fake Windows 8 update sequence that had it infinitely loop between "Working on updates..." and the frowny-face :( BSOD
soltanov 4 hours ago [-]
Simple solution for focus time. If it stops people from setting up an actual meeting for something that fits in an email, it is already doing critical infrastructure work.
spuz 4 hours ago [-]
I am missing something about how this could hypothetically be useful. If I played this in the background it would be far too distracting to get any actual work done.
aronhegedus 3 hours ago [-]
Minor but when I took myself off mute, my box didn't reflect that. Not sure if bug or a feature.
splintersio 55 minutes ago [-]
takes notes thank you for the UAT
geekgod382 12 minutes ago [-]
bro, that's cool. My friends disturb me a lot while working. This would definitely help
wkumfer 3 hours ago [-]
Please add other language versions! Should be easy to do, and would help us from non-English speaking countries.
splintersio 55 minutes ago [-]
I have that but I think translations and dialect will make it sound less convincing … I can always add it as a beta
niek_pas 3 hours ago [-]
I'm not getting any audio, bunch of 404s on loop.m4a... anyone else?
what a fucking stupid meetings with stupid accents and stupid people talking stupid corporate shit making it sound like they are engineering a rocket. ffs, you are the plumbers writing the cruds.
smart meetings have `pauses`, `thoughts` and `i don't knows`. this is so fucking stupid that i find it lame enough not to use it.
alienbaby 2 hours ago [-]
is this what other peoples meetings are like? huh.
martythemaniak 3 hours ago [-]
Nice, it's got real Interdimensional Cable vibes.
tamimio 1 hours ago [-]
This is hilarious, but I think people should be addressing the real issue instead of this, maybe that work environment isn’t for you and it’s time to look somewhere if you need to pretend. Just say you’re busy or fill your calendar with whatever you are working on without a meeting, in fact, a lot of meetings is a sign of a wasted time so if I see someone (especially technical) is doing a lot of meeting I know they are wasting time or slacking.
7174n6 6 hours ago [-]
Awesome, if I worked in the UK.
splintersio 56 minutes ago [-]
There’s American accents ! Come on, day one it’s fun, if it gets legs I’ll add as much preferences as I can muster up
sebastianconcpt 1 hours ago [-]
This is the new BS generator, but more useful
dizhn 3 hours ago [-]
I'm gonna ironically make a Claude theme and use that if I ever hand write a site again. :)
mchav 3 hours ago [-]
Can we just be honest?
kirugan 4 hours ago [-]
haha, now I can always use this website if I don't want to be interrupted lol
This was very much a "fire drill all the time" kind of place (vs "slow and steady"). The team came to me and said:
"Alex, we keep getting bombarded by meeting requests and have no focus time."
My solution was to create a weekly "team meeting" from 8am to 11am every Friday and invite all of them to it.
They loved it!
I mentioned to them that making a meeting like this was something they could have done themselves but they responded:
"It carries more weight coming from you. Plus, if someone tries to schedule over it, they are more likely to think twice and/or I can say 'Hey, you have to talk to Alex.' "
I play this when I need my family to leave me alone - so helpful 4.5K I play this when I pretend to be busy. This meeting is literally about anything you want it to be about lol 1.5K I love that we all arrived at this video for the same reason 2.6K Every now and then I'll pause it at a good point in between them talking to make my own voice heard contributing to the "meeting" lol. Gets the full effect in! And the beautiful thing is their conversation just flows with it like they heard me lol. 562
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBVtvOpU80Q
Get it! The best deal in streaming content. Unlocks such a better experience you’ll find a dozen whole new areas of valuable & enjoyable content to explore.
2. I like that it directly benefits the creators of the videos I watch
3. It gets everyone in my family ad free viewing for 0 effort across all devices (I primarily watch it from Apple TV app)
4. Gives you higher quality bitrate option sometimes
5. It gives me the moral and logical high ground when arguing with nerds about YouTube online
6. Can download video on most (all?) devices, comes in handy sometimes, but I don’t use it frequently
7. In the past there have been preview features / experiments that were locked behind it, I think PIP was one of them, may be wrong on that. Nice to check them out or get them first
My cousin, however, stopped blocking ads on YouTube when the YouTube warnings showed up. She is scared that at some point Google would ban Gmail accounts for doing it, and she's had hers for 10 years and really relies on it. She also says YouTube videos are really easy to download so anything she really wants from YouTube she tends to have a local copy of.
That said I’m also worried about getting banned for blocking too many YouTube ads (Google doesn’t have any obligation to send me emails after all) so I… just don’t go there.
I watch YouTube alot btw. :D
Sounds like something people low on the corporate ladder say
I worked at a callcenter that had a problem that sometimes that would happen. The pet theory was that meant they were recording the call to audit it.
You end up stuttering because you think the caller is talking and you want to listen to them, but it's just your own voice back.
You do eventually learn to deal with it, but it was always terrible.
Only the British audio works for me, though - if I try American or International, the relevant meetings are silent with a "Join Audio" button which doesn't appear to do anything. (Firefox on MacOS, if that's useful)
Sad, I wanted the international broken Zoom call
That I could enable more South African, or Middle East accents in some meetings would be true to real life as well.
Not Finnish. The silence would not work :)
[0]: https://fakemeeting.app/
[1]: https://z.tools/t/fake-meeting
[2]: https://www.whitescreen.online/
I’ve used a few tts providers and although a technical marvel they are all still easily identifiable as ai. Humans are very good at spotting fakes.
This project might work better with mostly canned audio clips of real humans.
EDIT: seems like British audio does work
smart meetings have `pauses`, `thoughts` and `i don't knows`. this is so fucking stupid that i find it lame enough not to use it.