Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Quackophobia
I remembered a long time ago in a computer class that the computers we were provided quacked when you tried to mouse something that you shouldn't. It was the error message sound. I told the instructor that he had a duck instead of a mouse. He said he was going to get rid of that quack.
I remembered it and wanted to try the quack out to see what it must have been like. So on both my home and work computers, I changed the default sound for several types of events on the computer to a file quack.wav, which I found with the aid of Google. The file quacks when activated.
Soon after I did this, two people said they did not like the quack. It bothered them. So what's it about quacks that bother people? These same people would readily go to a duck pond in a park to feed the ducks, even though lots of quacking is going on there. Why is it so menacing on a computer screen? Huhh? And in this very same work place, there are other disturbances going on, like people gabbing about the temperature and other topics, people singing songs and telling jokes, and even bringing in boxes that play songs when hit or wound, and to top it off, a lot of mostly pro-Republican and pro-Bush political arguing. So all this does not bother people, but quacks do? People are afraid of ducks. I guess that must be the case. Just like when I jiggle keys and my cats run off, these people run off or more likely complain when they hear the barest sound of a quack. All I can say is, we are a duckophobic species, and when you are working around with others, it's best if your computer doesn't quack. Sad, but true. Quack. (Excuse me.)
I remembered it and wanted to try the quack out to see what it must have been like. So on both my home and work computers, I changed the default sound for several types of events on the computer to a file quack.wav, which I found with the aid of Google. The file quacks when activated.
Soon after I did this, two people said they did not like the quack. It bothered them. So what's it about quacks that bother people? These same people would readily go to a duck pond in a park to feed the ducks, even though lots of quacking is going on there. Why is it so menacing on a computer screen? Huhh? And in this very same work place, there are other disturbances going on, like people gabbing about the temperature and other topics, people singing songs and telling jokes, and even bringing in boxes that play songs when hit or wound, and to top it off, a lot of mostly pro-Republican and pro-Bush political arguing. So all this does not bother people, but quacks do? People are afraid of ducks. I guess that must be the case. Just like when I jiggle keys and my cats run off, these people run off or more likely complain when they hear the barest sound of a quack. All I can say is, we are a duckophobic species, and when you are working around with others, it's best if your computer doesn't quack. Sad, but true. Quack. (Excuse me.)
