I love how easy it is to build cool things on Linux

I have a couple of Raspberry Pi machines running motion: One for a security camera at the front of the house and one at the back.

I whipped up a little GUI in Tcl/Tk to monitor the webcams; took all of a couple of hours. The GUI fetches an image every 8 seconds. But if motion is detected, then a message on a special IRC channel makes the GUI fetch images as quickly as possible so I can see the motion in real-time. Once motion is over, it goes back to once every 8 seconds.

I just love that we have an environment that lets me whip up stuff like this so effortlessly.