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Getting Your Boss To Buy Lava Lamps
jarich writes "Mike Clark's blog provides directions and code on how to wire up lava lamps to your build system. When a compile or test fails, the red lava lamp gets switched on... The delay in the lamp heating up gives you a few minutes to fix things before it becomes obvious to co-workers that you broke the build. His example uses CruiseControl but you could easily modify it. Very cool stuff and inexpensive to setup."
I remember seeing that, and thinking, hey, not all ideas that emerge from a cloud of dope smoke are bad.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
...you could just use the time you'd spend setting this crap up to discuss the code with your coworkers and get ideas on how to fix problems. But that's just me. I'm sure most people would rather watch a lava lamp than code.
A better one is here where Lava lamps are used to generate true random bits.
Too bad the website for it appears to be off line. SGI used to be cool, too...
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
That might not be a bad idea for a casemod on some of the latest P4s. Run a heat pipe from the CPU over to a lava lamp.
However, IIRC a lava lamp works with just a 40W bulb. With some of the latest CPUs throwing off >200W of heat, you might need a whole row of lava lamps on top of the machine. Maybe the entire side of the case could be filled with gloop and made into a wall of lava.
as a build mananger I just implemented Cruisecontrol on the job this week. it's awesome, no more going to do the build and getting a ton or errors, now if there's an error emails get sent to me, the project manager, and the dev responsible. it's a very nice tool. adding lights to the mix sounds trivial, but hey, if it makes work more fun, why not.
CB
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Well, the article seems to be /.'d, but I wouldn't be surprised if a visual sign that the build is broken might encourage guys to fix it more than, say, me yelling out that the build is broken (mainly how it happens now). Most guys don't know that they've broken the build (forgetting to add a file to the repo that's on their box is common). An automated checkout and build every half hour or so, along with this glowing red light when something is wrong is much better than me building when I have a spare 10 minutes to test if everything is ok.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
We had the problem of concurrent users locking up a tape drive.
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We used a really cheesy Mardi Gras necklace. Who ever had the necklace in their possession was allowed to access the tape drive. We never had a problem after that.
This also works great when trying to manage a discussion in a group of 10 to 20 people. If things start get out of hand and people cut each other off just take a random token (perhaps a small ball) and throw it to someone who wants to speak. After speaking the person passes/throws it to someone else.
Nobody will need an explanation and you can be pretty sure people who don't have the token keep their mouth shut. As a bonus you take out the tension of a heated discussion by putting in some fun. Helps to keep objective and forces people to keep their thoughts for some time, possibly reflecting again about what to say.
from the to-stupid-for-words dept.
Than people complaining about getting modded down in a system that intentionally gives mod points to (pseudo-)random people? But I guess it's obvious that if someone feels their post deserves a certain response and it doesn't get that response, the mod system must be broken as all hell.
if you're fast enough and the timing is right you fix the build just as it is beginning to get liquid, then it cools with tendrills reaching to the surface.
if you fix it too fast if looks the same as if it took a long time to fix it.
I've been using CruiseControl for about half a year now, and the Ant Sound task works well. Just crank up the speakers and collect a directory of Success and Failure sounds. It's hard to ignore the audio track from the Psycho shower scene when a build fails, or a snip of the Indiana Jones theme music when it passes.
Our build machine recently switched to a rack mount in the server room, so I wrote a little Ant Task that loops and parses the CruiseControl RSS feed (mentioned in Pragmatic Automation) and sets build status baised on that, playing a set of sounds on a workstation locally. We get punk covers of show tunes (from Me First And the Gimmie Gimmie's "Are A drag") and Office Space quotes when the build fails. The sounds are different from our usual workstation collection, and nothing says you missed a file checkin or config change like Bill Lumberg saying "Uh... we have sort of a Problem here.." at max volume:)
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
"When a compile or test fails, the red lava lamp gets switched on... The delay in the lamp heating up gives you a few minutes to fix things before it becomes obvious to co-workers that you broke the build."
I mean, if you're looking for that sort of subterfuge to mask your screwup, why buy one to begin with again? Do you absolutely need a delayed action screw-up beacon. I mean, the moment the damn thing turns on, people are going to know you fucked up anyway even without an undulating blob since the entire lamp GLOWS WITH LIGHT, warm or cold.
I nominate this for the "Weakest Excuse for Lava Lamp Placement in a Workcenter" Award. Thank you.
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