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The eminent British scientist James Lovelock, back in the 1970s, formulated his theory of Gaia, which held that the Earth was a kind of super organism. It had a self-regulating quality that would keep everything within that narrow band that made life possible. If things got too warm or too cold-if sunlight varied, or volcanoes caused a fall in temperatures, and so forth-Gaia would eventually compensate. This was a comforting notion. It was also wrong, as Lovelock himself later concluded. "I have to tell you, as members of the Earth's family and an intimate part of it, that you and especially civilization are in grave danger," he wrote in the Independent in 2006.

Louisville's hackerspace LVL1 is working on a home automation setup for the space, and they call it MOTHER. Using open-source home automation software called HOLOS, the capabilities include: * Monitoring of LVL1 Space Occupancy & Zone Occupancy * Measuring of "Hacktivity Levels" of each Zone * Monitoring of individual member occupancy * INSTANT WOMP MODE! (dubstep everywhere at the press of a button) * Notifications of "Abnormal" hacktivity levels * Monitoring of various websites and notifications of LVL1 mentions * Various "Nagging" (Take out the trash, It's cold please shut the door, I haven't seen you in 3 days, please come visit your mother, etc…) * "Member Scenes" - Auto setting of audio, lights, etc.. based on specific members present * Logging and Graphing of ALL data * Voice recognition and communication * Control of Lighting and appliances * Security System monitoring and notification of alerts * Phone calls and emails based notifications * Google Talk communication with AIML chat integration

The Cryoscope shows the user exactly what to expect outside by haptically exhibiting exactly how cold or warm it is to be outside. The user simply touches an aluminum cube that has been heated or cooled to the appropriate temperature. The unit fetches weather data from the internet, and translates it to the cube physically, pumping heat in or out of the cube.