If anything, what we need is more musical cues indicating system health. From the forboding opening strains of Orff's "O Fortuna" when the system first starts to overheat, through to Debussy's "Clare de Lune" while the CPU goes through a tearful montage of the many documents and applications that it's helped during its short life, before whispering its last goodbyes to an ocean-like plane of blue screen, the system could increase the user's empathy with a musical journey through its struggles.
With innovations like this, I might even shed a tear when the host lays itself down to die, rather than hammering the keyboard in futile rage.
I remember running a small Windows app that would sit in the background and pipe sound of various frequencies through your speakers depending on system state. I think I had mine set up to rumble at 30 or 40Hz at 50% CPU and slowly increase the volume as it got past that point.
One night after I turned the volume up for a particularly quiet movie I fell asleep and let folding@home go. I woke up a couple minutes later with my subwoofer rattling the entire room and my roommates knocking on my door to make sure the place wasn't falling apart.
Similar experience here. My old roommate's name is Khanh and he found a clip of William Shatner yelling "Khan" from a Star Trek movie that he put on his voice mail and as start up sound for his PC. Every so often he would leave his speakers turned up and in the middle of the night his computer would restart due to a windows update. I'd just hear William Shatner yell KKKKHHHHHAAAANNNN randomly in the middle of the night.
This is a great idea. And when you sell/toss out your computer there should be a "shut down, for the very last time" button you can press that would play something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbN0g8-zbdY
Although after the first minute you might be tempted to just yank the power cord out.
Comments
If anything, what we need is more musical cues indicating system health. From the forboding opening strains of Orff's "O Fortuna" when the system first starts to overheat, through to Debussy's "Clare de Lune" while the CPU goes through a tearful montage of the many documents and applications that it's helped during its short life, before whispering its last goodbyes to an ocean-like plane of blue screen, the system could increase the user's empathy with a musical journey through its struggles.
With innovations like this, I might even shed a tear when the host lays itself down to die, rather than hammering the keyboard in futile rage.
I remember running a small Windows app that would sit in the background and pipe sound of various frequencies through your speakers depending on system state. I think I had mine set up to rumble at 30 or 40Hz at 50% CPU and slowly increase the volume as it got past that point.
One night after I turned the volume up for a particularly quiet movie I fell asleep and let folding@home go. I woke up a couple minutes later with my subwoofer rattling the entire room and my roommates knocking on my door to make sure the place wasn't falling apart.
Similar experience here. My old roommate's name is Khanh and he found a clip of William Shatner yelling "Khan" from a Star Trek movie that he put on his voice mail and as start up sound for his PC. Every so often he would leave his speakers turned up and in the middle of the night his computer would restart due to a windows update. I'd just hear William Shatner yell KKKKHHHHHAAAANNNN randomly in the middle of the night.
The program I remember fondly along those lines is Nullsoft Beep:
http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nbeep/
It essentially makes your computer sound like something from Forbidden Planet, hence instantly bringing you into the future of the past.
That's the one! Now someone needs to port it to Linux...
I think a simple rendition of "Daisy, daisy... " might be more appropriate.
Just as a note, I think the song is named "bicycle built for two"
But it woud be very funny.
Of course after it has been fixed it should play Also Sprach Zarathustra: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/71/Richard_Straus...
And when the speaker fails it should play Imperial March on the HDD
And for a RAM failure, it should play A Bicycle Built for Two.
This is a great idea. And when you sell/toss out your computer there should be a "shut down, for the very last time" button you can press that would play something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbN0g8-zbdY
Although after the first minute you might be tempted to just yank the power cord out.
Just think how much better it would be to hear "Rhapsody in Blue" along with a BSOD. Or perhaps just Joni Mitchell's "Blue". :)