I put my ticket the the brand new machine, with scintilating blue LED display, in Cambridge's main city car park and it said, loudly: "Your ticket is unreadable!" in an American accent; a poor match of meaning and sentiment. Darlek would have been better: "Your.. ticket.. is.. unreadable... your... ticket.. is.. unreadable... "
Personally, if this was my project, I would have used Marvin's voice: "I'm ten thousand times less intelligent than you but I suppose you want me to read the other side of your card rather than tell you to turn it over? No, don't bother to answer that, I've already done it, life's do depressing."
Every time this happens to me, I pour glue into the slot. Elmers makes a nice little bottle that fits into your pocket. The glue is soluble and doesn't cause permanent damage, but it makes them maintain the machine. Now if everybody did that.....
Perhaps it isn't what type of voice they _should_ use, rather then what voice they _shouldn't_ use.
I'll first set the scene so my story makes sense: a recent episode of the Simpsons that aired here invovled Lisa's password-protected diary that yelled "Invalid password: Access denied!" and gave an electic shock every time they got it wrong, had me in perpetial stitches.
Fast forward about a week, I turned up early to a seminiar where the building was pretty much locked down to public access when I arrived (only to be opened to the public later on). Not knowing _exactly_ where the lifts were, I made my way though the auto-guarded gates with proximity sensors that were normally open. (it wasn't immediately clear they were proximity gates)
Halfway through the security entrance, the gates in front of me quickly closed (remember, I'm now cornered at the end of a narrow passway), and through speakers located right there at the gate end, a really loud voice _remarkably_ similar to Lisa's diary voice, said (a little too loudly for my comfort) "INVALID PASS: ACCESS DENIED!".
I must have jumped backwards several feet with one bound to avoid that area, expecting a shock that never arrived...
At the very least, from a security perspective, the gates worked.
In the UK you can still get microwave ovens with mechanical timers that just go "DING", but you have to look for them because they seem to be hidden under the counter or tucked away in the corner of a display.
Thank heavens for that!
--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk
I see I'm not the only one. I actually thought about opening the damn microwave and placing a bit of tape over the speaker, that silences those small piezo thingies very effectively. I guess they designed this for nearly-deaf old people. Extremely annoying.
--
Siol
------------------------------------------------
Rather than a heartless beep
Or a rude error message,
See these simple words: "File not found."
On 25 May 2005 06:06:04 -0700, "Robin" put finger to keyboard and composed:
When I'm zapping my breakfast in the microwave, I'm in the habit of interrupting the cooking cycle just prior to the end because I can't tolerate the very loud BEEEEP BEEEEP BEEEEP. It's as if the microwave is announcing a culinary catastrophe. Are there any microwave ovens with more user friendly interfaces? What about something simple and soothing like the melodic ding-ding-ding-DING at airport terminals? Or how about a choice of preset or user designed ringtones, or a user programmable voice message such as "Hey Franc, I've just nuked your breakfast, come and get it"? Or what about a combination of both, eg ding-ding-ding-DING "Paging Franc Zabkar, please come to the microwave".
It seems that everyone is personalising their computer, or mobile phone, or car, but few, if any, are interested in adding some soul to their boring domestic appliances. :-)
BTW, I've heard of intelligent Internet ready appliances, and talking refrigerators, but I haven't seen any.
- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one \'s\' from my address when replying by email.
I have a slightly different nit with my microwave. When you push the buttons, there's a beep. I think all microwaves have that these days. The thing with mine is, the beep is too long. It doesn't just go, "bip", It goes "beeep" for every button. "Beeep, beeep, beeep" for 1:00. It's not that big a deal, but it's still annoying.
One system I worked with in the early 1980's had an embedded 80186(!), and used some sound generator chips that had 8 (or maybe 16) selectable output levels. It was used to go "beep, beep" when it detected a healthy QRS wave. (heart monitor, like those ones on TV.) I wrote a little driver for the sound chip, for fault conditions - just decrease the amplitude over time, and it goes, "Ding, ding, ding!" We opted not to use it because the discrete steps made it sound a little raggedy.
I blame it all on misogynistic Asian design engineers. It's a cultural thing.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
--
"it\'s the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
I recall an getting an answerphone where the recording of the pesron apologised for the performance of the 'Japanese Orchestra' that played before the tape had wound forward for your message.
We were working on an old house in North Scituate, in my wife's family, in preparation to sell it. The temperature averaged 47F and it rained all week, a rare May noreaster. You need a permit to haul trash or to sit on the beach. The fire department comes twice, to show you where to put smoke detectors, then again to see if you put them up right. The septic tank has to be analyzed and certified, probably replaced for about $50K, before you can sell a house.
But the food was surprisingly good. I had a chicken/broccoli stirfry grinder, a clam roll, lobster stew, stuffed shrimp, and fried scallops that were superb. Boston Cream Pie is a spiritual experience, and even the Boston Cream Dunkin Donuts are great.
Thats the first time I have ever tried to spell it out as it is commonly pronounced - most of the English language reduced to a couple of very nasal vowel sounds. Try hailing a cab on S. Wells street (and living long enough to tell about it).
--
Luhan Monat: luhanis(at)yahoo(dot)com
http://members.cox.net/berniekm
"Any sufficiently advanced magick is
indistinguishable from technology."
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