Smile. You're on "candid laptop"

TUAW reader Dylan O'Donnell has set up his Macbook Pro to snap a picture using the built-in iSight whenever its lid opens. He put together a simple command line capture utility and triggered it with Bernard Bahr's SleepWatcher. Then he added automatic uploads via FTP and displayed the results with the open source BolGallery.

"I initially did this as an anti-theft measure as the script will upload the photos to any FTP site for you, and the PHP gallery will autothumb and display the photos. Apart from the nauseating effect of seeing my ugly mug repeating, the result is good and I hope to maybe do a time lapse in quicktime sometime down the track!"

It's a cute idea, completely open source, and an excellent example of ingenuity in action. It's also a good example of the completely self-conscious reasons that I do not personally own a webcam. Me, in the morning, before I've woken up and had my caffeine? Not a pretty picture.