Scrolling through Mastodon this morning, I was happy to see MyNoise mentioned by Daryl White. If you don’t know about myNoise, you’re missing out: that’s an amazing service, comprising not only a website but companion mobile apps, used to generate relaxing background noise, ambient sounds and relaxing music. You can use it for free, or contribute with it — as I’ve been doing now for two years in a row — if you think it’s worth your money.

Personally, myNoise has helped me uncountable times so far: be it because I needed to focus or concentrate in a work activity, be it because I was in search of relaxation, either to think or sleep. I’ve even used its generated sounds to read (and to write) better. Thus, it’s no surprise that I catch myself hailing a big thanks to its creator, Stéphane Pigeon, who is a Belgian Brussels born signal processing engineer with a strong passion for sounds who takes care of the whole thing totally by himself.

Seeing that mention on Mastodon made me pitch in with the service again, what made me happy and is certainly good to help keeping up with myNoise, but also brought bad news: On myNoise blog, a post from January, 19th, 2023 has Stéphane stating that he’s not been feeling well for weeks, and has had trouble to walk and to do other simple taks. After seeking for medical assistance, he says he was diagnosed with an auto-immune desease, the mild version of a syndrom called Guillain-Barré, of which I had never heard, although it it helps nothing in making its name less scary.

On February 12th, still in the blog, Stéphane says that he’s decided to move to the hospital full time for the disease treatment; thus, myNoise should hibernate in its current state of development for a long time, with no new soundscapes expected to be recorded or produced in the upcoming weeks or even months. He also reassures people concerned with his state by saying that in Belgium, everything is being covered by his mandatory social insurance.

Still, it is known that Stéphane has no other income than the one from his myNoise project. For people both already contributing to the service and using it for free, supporting the author in this difficult time, even with no new content to be produced for a while, would be really great. This is how he’ll get to keep an income during his time away. So, be you someone who already knew about myNoise, or someone who still didn’t, pay the site a visit and, if you can, contribute by donating.