Alert Sound
With a good battery, the device can easily last for 5 or 10 years, although the walls probably won't.
With a good battery, the device can easily last for 5 or 10 years, although the walls probably won't.
"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 "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 include the original forms, in English, of such chestnuts as "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones".
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.
This is the second comic in a row that advocates putting things in other people's walls, the first being 3099: Neighbor-Source Heat Pump.