Tweeting toilet proves that you don't have to be human to be a geek

Apparently it was a joke by this gentleman which got him hooked to Twitter. And his toilet too. Seth Hardy, a researcher for an anti-virus company, wasn't too fond of Twitter and decided to point out what he terms "very mundane stuff" on the site by hooking up his toilet (Twitter handle - @hacklab.toilet) with help from some microcontrollers, wires and Arduino boards to answer Twitter's "What are you doing?" question. But Twitter's subsequent explosion got him 580 followers and he says he is now hooked into doing something useful with his DIY experiment - to test out the Arduino boards.

And the trend has caught on pretty fast. Many home appliances are apparently substituting for humans on Twitter - @mytoaster has about 200 twitter followers, with only two alternating messages “Toasting” and “Toast is done.” If you find that a tad boring, there is also the popular Tweet-a-watt open source hardware kit from Adafruit Industries which let users post the daily energy consumption of their refrigerator or TV set to a Twitter account. There's more - @Pimpy3wash and @mattsoffice are a washing machine, and an array of home light and temperature sensors. More in this interesting read from Wired on how non-humans are invading this much-loved, much-hated social networking site.

And you thought only we humans feel the need to be noticed.