Virginia Knight wrote:

>Recently for no particular reason we were thinking about the sounds you
>can set many computers to make when (for example) mail arrives, a program
>crashes or the machine simply wants to attract your attention.  I have been
>boring and set my machine to emit some of the noises supplied with it, such
>as the Microsoft Sound (isn't that a stretch of water near Seattle?) But I
>wondered whether people have used their imagination to get their computer
>to play particular fragments of classical music in various situations,
>or thought about what might be appropriate.

Perhaps it is my odd sense of humor or lack there of...

I have a supervisor who has a substantial fear of computers...not to
mention life.  Several years ago when I was asked to help her set up her
computer I replaced her "beep" with a recording of my voice saying, "DON'T
TOUCH THAT." Trust me, after working with this person as long as I have,
you would have done the same...I am not by nature one who does practical
jokes.  After witnessing her first few encounters with it, I was asked to
replace it with something else.  I chose a few very dissonant measures of
Le Sacre.  For the public workstations I recorded a lovely "Amen" from some
early Mass.  Once the novelty wore off, I was asked to turn off the sound.

Karl