The threat of eyestrain – which has got the burghers of Suffolk County on Long Island, New York, so steamed up that they have enacted limitations on the hours they can be used so Draconian that businesses are upping sticks and moving across the county line to avoid them – is as nothing compared with the noise pollution generated by computers, and we’re seeking support for a campaign on behalf of Silent Software: high on the list of programs we’d ban is Borland International’s Paradox, which squeaks impertinently every time it copies a line successfully and while we’re about it, there should also be a ban on those horrid IBM Personal Computer keyboards with their high-pitched clicking – when will the ergonomists learn that getting the pitch of a sound right is far more important than minimising the level, so that a thundering low-pitched daisywheel printer can be much less irritating than a near-silent matrix printer that sounds like someone else’s leaking personal stereo?
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