3100: Alert Sound

Alert Sound

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

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Explanation

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"Living well is the best revenge" is a proverb that has been part of English-language popular culture since 1640. The message is spending your energy and attention on seeking revenge on others tends to be self-defeating. To ignore people who have mistreated you and focus instead on improving your own life is generally to your own benefit, and that may, ironically, upset those who wish you ill more than if you attacked them directly. The joke is in Randall's claim that this particular practical joke is so effective that it's the only form of revenge better than living well.

The prank takes the form of placing a small noisemaking device in the wall of a room that a computer is typically used in. When USB devices are plugged into a computer, there's typically a brief, audible signal to let the user know that the computer has recognized and connected with the device. Hearing this signal when you haven't plugged in a device can cause anxiety, because it could be meaningless, or it could be a sign of a problem: 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. Such a sound occurring with no obvious source will tend to perplex, and then annoy, anyone present. The truly pernicious part of the plan is that it happens repeatedly, but at long intervals (presumably random intervals between 6 and 12 hours). That makes it virtually impossible to identify the source of the sound, or to predict when it's coming again, but it would keep happening, day after day, week after week, month after month. The implication is that it would eventually drive the person into fits of anxiety, but the only solution would be something drastic (like abandoning or demolishing the room).

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. The joke being, of course, that users plagued by this sound will eventually start tearing down walls once they begin to narrow down the source of the sound, or will start damaging the walls out of frustration, e.g. punching holes or hitting their heads against the walls.

The "living well" proverb first appeared in a collection of "Outlandish Proverbs", attributed to 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

[A loud sound appears out of nowhere in the upper left part of the panel, around the word are many small lines going away from it and before the word there is a warning emoji. In the lower right corner Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk in front of his computer. He is holding his hands to his head and begins by shouting and then talking.]

⚠ Boop!

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.

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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)

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)
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