The Bathroom Server

"Be Privy to the Privy!"

 

During the 2004-5 school year, my future roommates Adam, Noah, and Andrew created a silly little project known as the Bathroom Server.  It consisted of a light detector in their bathroom connected by a long cable to Noah's iBook (on his desk).  The iBook served up a small Java applet that told you if the bathroom was occupied or not, making the assumption that the light was only on when someone was actually using the bathroom.  It was the sort of completely pointless but very silly project that engineering students do in their free time (if not quite as spectacular as MIT's well-known pranks).  So, for a few months, anyone in the world could find out the occupancy status of their bathroom.

The following year the Bathroom Server was set up again in our new dorm room, although it was frequently offline due to Noah needing his iBook for other tasks.  To my knowledge it hasn't been setup since spring 2006.  Unfortunately it never occurred to me to take a screenshot of the webpage.