3100: Alert Sound

Alert Sound

|< < Prev #3100 (June 9, 2025) Next > >|

Title text: With a good battery, the device can easily last for 5 or 10 years, although the walls probably won't.

|< < Prev Random Explanation Next > >|

Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: This page was created recently by a BOT THAT GOES BOOP. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

"Living well is the best revenge" is a quote attributed to George Herbert.

Most computers play sounds to notify users of various events, such as a device being connected.

Randall proposes placing a small noise making device in the wall of a room that a computer is typically used in. Because the noisemaker is programmed to periodically play a "device connected" sound, this would cause concern for the occupant of the room.

Transcript

This is one of 27 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[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

  Add comment        Create topic (use sparingly)       Refresh 

Discussion

https://www.amazon.com/Funny-Pranks-Annoying-Noise-Maker/dp/B08KG6XHN1

The reviews are hilarious. 47.248.235.170 21:35, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Pat

Damn, someone beat me to it. If it didn't exist I was gonna make one and call it the "Randall 3100" aka "Black Hat 3100." 70.115.234.146 23:14, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I think the original may be the Annoyatron, from Thinkgeek. I find references from 2007. Jordan Brown (talk) 23:35, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

Most smoke alarms are approximately 3100 Hz (the comic number). I wonder if this comic is a reference to the annoying low battery chirps from smoke alarms that can be difficult to locate. 2A09:BAC3:6227:1232:0:0:1D0:B9 00:49, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Smoke alarms are supposed to be a lifesaving device, so WHY the hell to they chirp at such a wide interval?! If it was once every 10 seconds at least you'd be able to tell where it was coming from. And it gets even worse if you're in a public or apartment building with over a dozen of them. 24.177.125.170 06:51, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

But chirping that regularly would deplete the remaining battery much more quickly, potentially leaving the device dead before anyone was around to hear it.82.13.184.33 08:21, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

Devices like this but employing high frequency chirps have been around for at decades, notably from the specialty police and military supplier Shomer-Tec 71.36.121.121 03:44, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Could a somewhat ‘living’ well dug on the ground the second best revenge in the joke? 物灵 (talk) 10:19, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Ni shi zhongguoren ma? Wo shi meiguoren, but I think I misread "living well" the same way as you did. "well" as in "好", not "井". I was imagining some kind of horrifying well made out of meat. 205.185.98.6 18:05, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Is this a reference to a previous XKCD? This feels to me strongly like I've seen something similar before, but I can't recall where. 2A02:5080:185D:FD9E:0:0:931:5001 11:19, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Maybe you’re thinking of 1241: Annoying Ringtone Champion? Intara (talk) 12:17, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Shades of the TellTale Heart. 192.183.232.193

A few years ago, I found that my laptop computer appeared to be beeping for about a minute every midnight. Somebody suggested to me it could be a smoke detector, but I eliminated that. Finally, I discovered that my weather station base station, which was positioned behind the laptop, had an alarm that had got switched on, default time midnight.--2A00:23C7:6700:9001:48C1:DEA:EA61:D57 09:40, 11 June 2025 (UTC)
        Add comment