I just built oblique-strategies, a package for Atom that displays a random aphorism if you stop typing for some time.
Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt published a deck of cards in 1975 called Oblique Strategies. When you need inspiration, draw a card at random to read a strategy for thinking about a problem.
Earlier this month, I read Kevin Lawler’s Oblique Strategies: Prompts for Programmers and decided to create this package that would do this for programmers.
If you’re OK with the (configurable) interruption, think of it as a way to promote lateral thinking and break creative blocks.