tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678855.post3331199979525325611..comments2023-10-04T23:45:44.880-07:00Comments on A New Beginning: Lava Lamp with CruiseControlShanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18237393455554069484noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678855.post-36454722731236110572009-03-16T12:12:00.000-07:002009-03-16T12:12:00.000-07:00I thought your readers would enjoy some lava lamp ...I thought your readers would enjoy some lava lamp info<BR/><BR/>History of the <A HREF="http://www.webgiftshopping.com/product/1296_m/54_/Orange-Juice-Motion-Lamp-341721296M.html" REL="nofollow">Lava Lamp</A> Singapore-born Englishman Edward Craven Walker invented the lava lamp in the 1960s. His U.S. Patent 3,570,156 for "Display Device" was filed in 1965 and issued in 1968. Walker's company was named Crestworth and was based in Poole, Dorset in the United Kingdom. Walker named the lamp Astro and had variations such as the Astro Mini, the Astro Coach lantern and presented it at a Brussels trade show in 1965, where the entrepreneur Adolph Wertheimer noticed it. Wertheimer and his business partner William Rubinstein bought the American rights and produced it as the Lava Lite via Lava Corporation or Lava Manufacturing Corporation, the origin of the word "lava" for this lamp. Wertheimer sold his shares to Hy Spector. Rubinstein and Spector went on to manufacture and market the Lava Lite in his Chicago factory at 1650 W. Irving Park Rd in the mid-60s. The lamps were a success throughout the 60s and early 70s. Lava Corporation's name changed to Lava-Simplex in the early 1970s.<BR/><BR/>Hazards of the <A HREF="http://www.webgiftshopping.com/product/1296_m/54_/Orange-Juice-Motion-Lamp-341721296M.html" REL="nofollow">Lava Lamp</A> An episode of the American TV show MythBusters demonstrated that heating a lava lamp on a stove could make it explode, and that injuries from an explosion could be fatal. The inspiration for that experiment came from a story concerning a man who in 2004 died after a lamp he was heating on a stove to avoid waiting for the wax to warm up exploded, sending glass into his chest.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678855.post-30690934630449856702009-03-02T13:06:00.000-08:002009-03-02T13:06:00.000-08:00Hi Jim,Very good question! And I would say it lik...Hi Jim,<BR/><BR/>Very good question! And I would say it like a consultant<BR/><BR/>"depends..."<BR/><BR/>In this case, I think Lava Lamp is effective because:<BR/><BR/>* We have only three developers, and the lava lamp is sitting between the other two developers. Yes it sucks for me to turn around all the time but I am setting up my computer to monitor it separately (firefox plugin, screen saver, etc.)<BR/>* As I have mentioned, I am doing something differently from our common practice, which is to fix the tests before pushing the code to stable branch. Since we share the development room with several other teams, I don't want the noise to have negative effect on the practices that I want to push<BR/><BR/>I had similar situation before except majority of the people want to sound, and so we did it (see "One week in China (http://agileworks.blogspot.com/2005/10/one-week-in-china.html)". This time, I will still wait until I can do it by majority votes.<BR/><BR/>Hope this explains it.Shanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18237393455554069484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678855.post-40762481301842565172009-03-02T10:49:00.000-08:002009-03-02T10:49:00.000-08:00But is it *effective*? I have used a lava lamp be...But is it *effective*? I have used a lava lamp before, and found it way too passive. In bright rooms, it's hard to tell if it's even on; it relies on everyone having direct line-of-sight; it relies on someone actually noticing its state has changed. I have found the most effective notification is a loud noise. It's also cheaper, uses less energy, and you can mix it up by changing the sounds regularly (CCTray used to ship with Homer Simpson quotes, but no more alas).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com