Philosophical flatulence

If a man passes wind in his office chair and Twitter is there to hear it – would you listen?

One of the things I was taught at uni was that a lot of technological innovation is driven by the adult entertainment industry. Video cassettes, the Internet, and glossy magazine printing technology have all benefited from hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of dollars of investment from the industry. I thought that was interesting.

I also think it’s interesting that in the “open source” era so many applications of new technology are being driven by toilet humour. Particularly a fascination with flatulence. One of the most downloaded iPhone applications (and I don’t have it) is iFart – it’s basically a portable whoopie cushion with the full natural gas sound spectrum available at the push of a button. Enlightening. Really. It says so much about the human condition.

I’m delighted today to have discovered an all new low in the use of technology for the purposes of toilet humour… Here’s a description:

The Twittering office chair “tweets” (posts a Twitter update) upon the detection of natural gas such as that produced by human flatulence. This is part of my commitment to accurately document and share my life as it happens.

Here’s the detailed instructions for how to build your own… and here’s the OfficeChair’s Twitter account so you can follow the farts in real time. Hooray.