The idea of changing behaviour, conditioning living creatures, to obey rules enforced my machines feels very disturbing to me. Even though I understand that in this case it is for sure a pretty harmless feedback mechanism (stopping the computer game), I don't like the idea at all.
Furthermore, on the technical side, it's not too easy to calculate some number corresponding to the perceived loudness level, especially not as some answers suggested to parse the RMS-signal number output by the command-line tools "aplay"/"arecord". You'd need atleast to take the (non-linear in amplitude, dependent on frequency) weighting curves shown on the wikipedia-page for "Loudness" into account:
Then, you'd have to take into account how annoying a sound is, which is obviously highly dependant on the circumstances: A colleague might drive you mad with only very quiet squeeking of his chair, but a lound regularly humming machine you might be able to completely mask out mentally so that you don't even remember if it was turned on or off at some day.
Putting these technical things back to the (morally questionable) problem at hand: If you don't "punish", "educate" or "feedback" your children according to a quantity that they can actually perceive and whose magnitude they can judge, they will experience this apparatus to be highly unfair.
And, additionally, if I would put such a machinery to use, my children would with absolute certainty become masters in creating the most appallingly unpleasant and annoying sounds one can imagine that just don't reach the threshold of the machine. And they would be completely right doing so ;-).
Traffic lights do not condition humans. Traffic accidents, driving instructors, parents and policemen do.
I find myself sharing the grandparent's discomfort. I'm an avid gamer, yet sometimes, when I lie awake at night and mull over the events of the day, I find myself wondering if I've truly mastered the game or if the game has only taught me what succession of button presses and mouse movements give me the highest levels of dopamine.
If that is so worrying to you ... maybe it is time to put down the controller and pick up a tennis racket, or golf clubs and go outside. Either you are getting better and can master the game and win tournaments, or you can't.
"The idea of changing behaviour, conditioning living creatures, to obey rules enforced my machines feels very disturbing to me."
I've made use of this technique on myself; I've got a concentration app that, when turned on, will make an abhorrent piercing noise if I go on Facebook/Twitter/Hackernews/ read RSS feeds / etc. It's helped me train myself to focus when I'm working.
I will grant that using this on someone else without their knowledge is more questionable, but I wanted to say that it's sometimes legitimate.
I will grant that using this on someone else without their knowledge is more questionable
If you set that alarm, you know why and what for you are conditioning yourself, and that is even true if you know how and why someone else set it; but when it's just a faceless event that you learn to adapt to, possibly while even having a narrative about it that has nothing to do with reality, that's not just slightly different or worse, for me that's worlds apart.
Furthermore, on the technical side, it's not too easy to calculate some number corresponding to the perceived loudness level, especially not as some answers suggested to parse the RMS-signal number output by the command-line tools "aplay"/"arecord". You'd need at least to take the (non-linear in amplitude, dependent on frequency) weighting curves shown on the wikipedia-page for "Loudness" into account:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness
Then, you'd have to take into account how annoying a sound is, which is obviously highly dependant on the circumstances: A colleague might drive you mad with only very quiet squeeking of his chair, but a lound regularly humming machine you might be able to completely mask out mentally so that you don't even remember if it was turned on or off at some day.
Putting these technical things back to the (morally questionable) problem at hand: If you don't "punish", "educate" or "feedback" your children according to a quantity that they can actually perceive and whose magnitude they can judge, they will experience this apparatus to be highly unfair.
And, additionally, if I would put such a machinery to use, my children would with absolute certainty become masters in creating the most appallingly unpleasant and annoying sounds one can imagine that just don't reach the threshold of the machine. And they would be completely right doing so ;-).
Edit: Typos, "tools aplay/arecord".