A notification center for progress bars that sounds like birdsong (Interconnected)
— Read on interconnected.org/home/2023/02/10/progress

This came up at a conference I attended at Xerox Parc last century, where a sysadmin had sonified all the background processes running on his network. When everything was running as it should, it all descended into a subconscious multiphonic hum, but as soon as something changed the related sound changed proportionally, surfaced to his consciousness and thereby got his attention. This instead of a roomful of competing blinky lights that were endlessly distracting.

The other aspect of this I remember is that you could layer an infinite number of independent processes, vs the limited real estate of a screen. The hum occupied the room, not a specific device.

No notification sounds required. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.