From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_MUA_MOZILLA autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,76c51ded8d7775ad,start X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.68.73.229 with SMTP id o5mr2197983pbv.7.1323446461896; Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:01:01 -0800 (PST) Path: lh20ni3257pbb.0!nntp.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!feeder.erje.net!fdn.fr!feeder1-2.proxad.net!proxad.net!feeder2-2.proxad.net!newsfeed.arcor.de!newsspool4.arcor-online.net!news.arcor.de.POSTED!not-for-mail Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:52:05 +0100 From: Georg Bauhaus User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:8.0) Gecko/20111105 Thunderbird/8.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Ada and office automation Message-ID: <4ee22ea5$0$6626$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net> Organization: Arcor NNTP-Posting-Date: 09 Dec 2011 16:52:05 CET NNTP-Posting-Host: b332f3b9.newsspool2.arcor-online.net X-Trace: DXC=3mJ7^SCSSXCX36K@\WTHGJA9EHlD;3YcB4Fo<]lROoRA8kFJLh>_cHTX3jMJj^7mIkZC[O X-Complaints-To: usenet-abuse@arcor.de Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: 2011-12-09T16:52:05+01:00 List-Id: A project idea has been tossed around in the office. The scene: at dusk, as it is getting darker, the monitors glowing, someone needs to operate the light switch, if so desired. That's not cool. Imagine instead a USB driven rocket launcher that will shoot some artifact in the direction of an instrument that turns the lights on and off. Such as a button pressed by something that hits it with a suitable momentum. Color and material will be chosen to match local preferences. Of course, the ammunition would have to be "smart", too, so as to not litter the office. Such as a light barrier that fires when balls made of tinsel pass the beam. (For style and historical reference, keep aluminium foil next time someone eats chocolate, or collect tinsel next Christmas).