Editing 3100: Alert Sound

{{comic
| number    = 3100
| date      = June 9, 2025
| title     = Alert Sound
| image     = alert_sound_2x.png
| imagesize = 393x455px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = With a good battery, the device can easily last for 5 or 10 years, although the walls probably won't.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created recently by a BOT THAT GOES BOOP. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

"Living well is the best revenge" is a {{w|Proverb|proverb}} that has been part of English-language popular culture since 1640. Its message is that the best answer to an insult or injury is to prosper, materially and spiritually, in its despite - an indirect response. The joke is in Randall's claim that this is the ''second''-best revenge, inferior to a more direct response (a practical joke) using modern technology.

The prank takes the form of placing a [https://www.geekextreme.com/annoyatron-holy-grail-of-pranks/ small noisemaking device] in the wall of a room that a computer is typically used in. The device makes sounds that are associated with computers, such as that of a device being connected. If someone hears such a sound when they're not expecting to, it's cause for concern, especially if it happens often. It could indicate that someone else is connecting to a computer in the room, or a connected device keeps spontaneously disconnecting or shutting off, or some other uncommanded and unwanted computer activity is occurring. Room occupants hearing these sounds would be perplexed, then annoyed; being unable to identify the source of the sounds would drive them nuts.

The title text makes an estimate for the battery life of a device that only activates every 6 hours at the most, and then jokes about the lifespan of the wall in which such a device would be set. {{tvtropes|DontExplainTheJoke|The joke being, of course}}, that user plagued by this sound will eventually start tearing down walls once they begin to narrow down the source of the sound.

The [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/09/02/living-well/ "living well"] proverb first appeared in a collection of [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/848854/summary "Outlandish Proverbs", attributed] to {{w|George_Herbert|George Herbert}} and, presumably, assembled from his papers after his death in 1633. The collection of more than 1,000 such proverbs also includes the original forms, in English, of such chestnuts as "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones".

This is the second comic in a row that apparently advocates putting things in other people's walls, the first being [[3099: Neighbor-Source Heat Pump]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
[Cueball is sitting at his desk with a computer, surprised by a "Boop!" sound in the upper left part of the panel]

Cueball: AAAAA!

Cueball: I heard it again!

Cueball: '''''Where''''' is that '''''coming''''' from!?

[Caption below the panel:]

It turns out living well is only the '''''second'''''-best revenge. The '''''best''''' revenge is making a tiny hole in someone's wall and dropping in a battery-powered capsule that, every 6-12 hours, plays the alert sound of a USB device connecting.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]