There's something about certian very visually information dense console apps that makes certian bits of my neural network that have been quietly developing for years very happy. rtorrent is the best example of this ever (excluding the unix shell as a whole). It starts out a utter incomprehensible mess, and I can just feel my brain reconfiguring over several hours so it can understand it at a glance.

                 Chunks seen: [C/A/D 39/10/2.98]   X downloaded  X missing  X qu
Peer list          0 7465767364 6546566456 7576655464 3676833757 5654376467
                  50 5565765774 4785647665 4565464565 5777557464 4865465737
Info             100 4435567665 4547636475 6756567736 5665345373 6356566756
                 150 5454855548 6766756846 4476585655 5566676764 5665754652
File list        200 3674466375 7474666747 8766756866 5646667647 6677676353
                 250 5557754755 6755756775 4476686458 6544656687 5777557555
Tracker list     300 5567666653 7675564686 6263555577 6467766443 8635577643
                 350 7586655656 7765373543 4454677664 6654665666 4344666556
Chunks seen      400 6565665554 7656544673 7636765776 3567556727 6466735257
                 450 6344246566 7364539664 5366744446 6577564574 3563656833
Transfer list    500 5765366475 6685663564 7466756575 5567636754 4425467555

This is the same part of my brain that is happy out in the woods following along faint game trails. It's a pity that we've been taught to think of this kind of UI as "hard" and thus "bad".

                 12.xxx.75.xx    0.3    0.0    10.2   l/ci/ci  0/0    21Azureus
                 67.xxx.58.xxx   0.0    0.0    0.0    l/cn/ci  0/0   100uTorrent
               * 67.xxx.222.xxx  0.0    0.1    214.2  r/Ui/ci  0/2    88   617Az
                 24.xxx.89.xx    0.2    0.1    26.5   R/Ui/ui  0/2    30   695uT
                 65.xx.113.xxx   0.0    0.0    0.0    l/cn/ci  0/0   100Azureus
                 24.xxx.38.xxx   0.0    0.0    0.0    L/cn/ci  0/0   100Azureus

Does this make your neural networks light up and say "more plz"?

                 Transfer list: [Size 13]
Peer list        620 [P: 2 F: 0]AAAAaAAAAbbBBBbbbbaC...DdCc.....
                  59 [P: 2 F: 0]EEEEEeeFff......................
Info             141 [P: 2 F: 0]GGGGGGGGgGGg.GG.................
                 618 [P: 2 F: 0]HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhh.......
File list        696 [P: 2 F: 0]IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIJJIIIIIijjI
                  26 [P: 2 F: 0]VVii............................
Tracker list      56 [P: 2 F: 0]WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWIWwIwIw
                  93 [P: 2 F: 0]NNNNNLLLLNNNLNNNNUNNNtXXPPtUUYYP
Chunks seen      313 [P: 2 F: 0]zzww............................
                  96 [P: 2 F: 0]NzZZUNNXXNNNRRPPZZZZPxXNNnZZXzXP
Transfer list    633 [P: 2 F: 0]ZZZz..Zz........................
                 694 [P: 2 F: 0]YYYYYyyy........................
                 109 [P: 2 F: 0]pzzppxxpznnnppuuRRuuxzzrrnn.....

discussion