joshuakgoldberg/stoptalking

Stoptalking is a speaker clock, a visual timer designed to sit on screen while someone gives a talk or presentation. Instead of showing numbers counting down, it uses color. The screen starts green when you have plenty of time and gradually fades to red as your time runs out. The idea is to give speakers a calm, unobtrusive cue to wrap up, rather than a stressful countdown. The tool runs as a small app built with TypeScript. To get it going, you clone the repository, install dependencies with a package manager called Yarn, and run a start command. The README doesn't go into much detail beyond those setup steps, so there isn't much to say about the inner workings or configuration options. The core concept, a color-fading timer, is the main thing on offer. This would appeal to anyone organizing events, meetups, conferences, or even classroom sessions where speakers need gentle time cues. For example, a meetup organizer could display it on a monitor facing the speaker so they can glance over and see they're drifting into the red zone. It's meant to feel "zen," meaning low-pressure and visually quiet compared to a traditional timer. The README is sparse, so there's limited information about tradeoffs, customization, or advanced features. What's notable is the simplicity of the concept itself: replacing a numeric countdown with a color gradient is a thoughtful design choice for reducing speaker anxiety. The project is open source under the MIT license, so anyone is free to use or adapt it.