pmb

Ringtones

Mar 05, 2009 10:57

What is a ringtone for? Answer: it is for you to be able to hear your cellular telephone ringing ( Read more... )

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Comments 33

steuard March 5 2009, 19:36:50 UTC
You know, this reminds me of the time in college when some friends used my computer to record themselves whispering, "Hey Peter!" and some similar (more specific) clips. Their plan, as I recall, was to recompile the MP3 player on your computer to play the clips at random, widely-spaced intervals.

Did they ever pull it off?

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pmb March 5 2009, 20:05:10 UTC
This is the first I have ever heard of it... oh my...

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steuard March 6 2009, 04:57:53 UTC
Unfortunately, I no longer have the clips (Teresa struck just the right tone for the job); I think the drive they were stored on died. It was a fun idea, even if they never actually made it work.

All this is also reminding me of the easter egg that my friends encountered in the game "Black & White". As I recall, if you did the online product registration, unbeknownst to you the game would try to download an audio clip of your first name being faintly whispered: "Naaaaa-thaaaaan". It would only play the sound if you were playing the game really late at night.

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bookerz March 5 2009, 19:50:55 UTC
I speculate that over time unique ringtones begin to sound an awful lot like names do to the owner of the ringtone or name. Just like I often hear my name when someone answers in the affirmative, I hear a phantom ringtone in the sounds of unrelated electronics.

My own suggestion: pick a sound that makes you happy. triath's suggestion sounds pretty good for that.

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jes5199 March 5 2009, 20:20:49 UTC
There's a converse effect: when you have a ringtone, that soundbite gains recognizability for you over time -- it becomes a mental proxy for someone calling your name anyway.
I remember that I had a scenario once where this was useful to train up a particular noise's importance, but I can't remember right now

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qousqous March 5 2009, 21:59:02 UTC
A couple of my ringtones are based off of music in my collection, and it freaks me out when I actually hear it playing.

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boojum March 6 2009, 02:29:17 UTC
I find the same in reverse with LJ icons. There are a couple of movies that kind of blink/focus for me at particular points now, due to other people's icons. It does bad things to the movie.

(Is my iconlessness the LJ equivalent of setting the phone to silent? Or the equivalent of not having a cell phone?)

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harobed March 5 2009, 20:33:03 UTC
My phone is mostly set to vibrate, which means I miss a fair percentage of calls. If I have the ringer loud enough to hear it in public places, it terrifies me when I'm home alone, and I figured that not yelping right before saying "hi" to people was a good move.

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porfinn March 5 2009, 21:56:36 UTC
Oh! To never have to hear Mambo No. 5 ever again! That would be so wonderful.

I just would appreciate it if more manners were applied to cell phones, but that is a huge, whole other cauldron of issues, not just ring tones.

I have the most basic and unexciting cell phone you can get, but I did cough up a buck so I could have a ring tone that no one else would have so I never had to worry about not recognizing my phone ringing. I got the unexpected bonus that my ring tone always appears to cause people to laugh, as they smile, shake their heads and say some variation on, "That has got to be Cj's phone." Who doesn't love the Muppet Show theme? (but, primarily I wanted to have something so distinct that I would know instantly it was mine!)

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