While pair programming the other day, I noticed that I was getting distracted and jumpy. It took a few minutes to notice why.
My teamate's PC has an old disk drive in it. When the drive seeks, which it did only periodically since we were doing most of our work ssh'd into another box, the drive makes a particular "chu-chunk" sound that is nearly identical to the "someone within earshot has just acquired a big-assed weapon and it's time to run like hell unless you want to die" sound from Quake II. I haven't played Quake in several years, but apparently some of the game's sounds still trigger a twitch reaction.
It's hard to concentrate on code when you're about to get fragged.
Chu-chunk.
Re:quake
dws on 2004-04-23T23:01:30
Not really. A place I worked several years back had Friday afternoon Quake-fests for a few months. Short, but intense, doses were enough to embed some of those sounds into reptilian memory. I haven't touched a first-person shooter in at least 3 years.
The place I used to work had just installed motion-activated sensors to unlock the doors from the inside.
When you walked down the hall past the exits, you'd hear multiple click-click noises reminiscent of sound made when a sniper rifle was readied in Quake I (the One True Quake).
We would, from time to time, enjoy a little bit of "tension relief" (i.e., fragging our brains out) in the evening after work. I clearly recall walking down the hall to get a sode with another gamer after a particularly exciting evening, hearing that noise, and DIVING HEADLONG for cover.
The other fellow was quite amused, and told everyone about it for days afterward. Needless to say, he was on my "list" the next frag-fest...
John
