After a year of working from home, many of us are tired of endless videoconferences. Now we have an excuse to leave these conference calls with a new tool called Zoom Escaper.
Digital artist Sam Lavigne made the web app incredibly simple, first reported in The Verge. All you have to do is install an audio plug-in called VB-Audio of product Web page, then make sure you have selected the correct audio devices and open Zoom normally. From there, you can play a collection of sound effects on Zoom designed to annoy or annoy your coworkers, apparently to the point where your colleagues ask you to leave the video call.
ssome of the sound effects are a little more direct than others. Clips of a crying baby and active construction seem the safest –pave the way out of a video call, while the Bad Connection sound realistically mimics the choppy audio that people can hear if you have a weak internet.
But other effects, like a man crying or the sound of urine, can raise more questions from your co-workers than a nice incentive to log offand, if used at an inopportune time, it can get you sent to HR. Fortunately, if none of the predefined Zoom Escaper clips have the desired effect, you can also manually load your own soundbites.. After all, the more you adapt sound effects to your specific situation, the more reliable your excuse is.
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And while the Zoom Escaper can certainly not be used to get out of each videoconferencing for the foreseeable future, can be one useful tool for those calls where you just can’t deal with starvation anymore.
But for me, the most impressive thing about Lavigne’s work is his dedication to reducing Zoom in the search for a better work-life balance. IIn addition to the Zoom Escaper, Lavigne also Slow Hot Computer and Zoom Deleter, the last of which routinely checks your computer to see if Zoom is installed, and will automatically nuke if zoom is detected.
Lavigne told The Verge that some of the fundamental principles of his art are “deliberate deceleration, reduced productivity and production and self-sabotage”. Iat a time when the boundaries between home and professional life were basically removed, those they are philosophies that almost everyone can appreciate.