[humorix] Linux Ported To Kitchen Sinks

[James Baughn <jbaughn@xxxxxxx>]

Linux Ported To Kitchen Sinks
June 2, 2004

Arguing that "kitchen sinks and Emacs were meant for each
other," one Linux hacker has released a Linux distribution
specifically designed for household plumbing.  Named
Pipemacs, the new system provides a complete Linux
environment (including Emacs) for pipes, sinks, toilets,
septic tanks, hot water heaters, and even ice makers.

"We've all joked that Emacs includes everything except the
kitchen sink," said Eric Fretime, the brainchild behind
Pipemacs.  "But despite all of the talk, nobody has
actually tried to put the two together... Until now."

Unfortunately, Pipemacs has fairly stringent system
requirements and will not work on all plumbing hardware.
"I had to upgrade the thermostat in my hot water heater to
include an embedded microprocessor which can act as the
central server for my plumbing network. Each node in the
system communicates through the pipe hardware using the
IP-over-PVC protocol.  The ice machine in my refrigerator
acts as the router, connecting the plumbing network to the
larger Internet."

While at first glance the Pipemacs platform seems rather
useless, Fretime has developed several practical
applications:

* Security system.  When the system detects a break-in, a
  garden hose activates and sprays the intruder with a
  high-pressure jet of water, knocking him down until the
  police arrive.

* Septic system monitor.  The 'methaned' daemon, running
  on the toilet, constantly monitors the level of methane
  in the system and can automatically contact a plumber if
  the septic tank backs up.

* Personalized showers.  A voice-activated shower head
  allows the user to set the desired water temperature and
  pressure. "This feature has really helped me conserve
  water," Fretime said.  "Not only can I take faster
  showers without fumbling with the knobs to get the right
  temperature, but I can write a program in Lisp to
  automatically shut the hot water off after five minutes
  when my teenager takes a shower, preventing him from
  wasting water."

In the future, Fretime hopes to release Pipemacs 2.0,
which will include support for Mozilla and Perl.  "This
Linux distro isn't going to be finished until I can run
the world's most bloated browser and programming language
on the world's most bloated plumbing system.  I want to be
able to surf the Web using my outdoor sprinkler system and
run regexes on my washing machine..."


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