ASYLUM

* Traffic

Mark and myself both read this paper a while back on 'calm technology'. It's not revolutionary, but it is interesting; it's just about unobtrusive feedback.

As it happens, one of the directors at work has a bubble lamp he doesn't use. This particular one responds to sounds.

And it has a line-in. Connect anything you like to it, and play sounds to trigger bubbles. You can turn the volume on the lamp (it has a built-in speaker) down so that you're not bothered by the sounds themselves, and just treat it as, well, a bubble output device.

So. One short python script later, we have a new ethernet traffic monitor. More traffic = louder noises played into the lamp = more bubbles. Mark's going to wire up an extension cable so we can place it somewhere pleasingly central and have it monitor our CVS server.

Yes, we know that's geeky. We don't care. Geek = good.