Sometimes you want silence as you want to concentrate,
but when you're in an office environment, it's not always possible.
SoX (link) can be used as a white-noise generator.
It's a command-line tool, so in a nutshell:
- if somebody with high-pitch is speaking nearby and you're not interested
$ play -n synth 60:00 whitenoise # white-noise for 60 minutes!
- if somebody with low-pitch is speaking nearby and you're not interested:
$ play -n synth 60:00 brownnoise # brown-noise for 60 minutes!
- if somebody with middle-pitch is speaking nearby and you're not interested:
play -n synth 60:00 pinknoise # pink-noise for 60 minutes!