I’ve been interested in ambient data displays for a while. They’re pretty common in modern life: arrival/departure boards for transit or flights, traffic condition signs (“X minutes to Y” on a highway), the current floor display for an elevator, open/closed signs for businesses. Clocks are probably the oldest kind, going back to early timekeeping with sundials. My house is near-enough to an airport that I can see and hear airplanes during the day (especially while working from home). Earlier in the year I bought a software-defined radio receiver and set it up to receive ADS-B data. But I didn’t want to have to have a browser open all day to look at the map; I wanted an easier way to identify what airplane I heard.

This post is part of the Lobste.rs blog carnival. A while ago I read this blog post “An app can be a home-cooked meal”. It really resonated with me. Later, I realized it’s because I’ve been doing this for a while, just without a name. While I don’t have a ton of home-cooked apps, I have written a few over the years for some different specific reasons.