The Japanese have vending machines dispensing treats when an emergency strikes and the British, not to be outdone, now have one that dispenses snacks when the BBC reports something bad about the economy.

The machine hack is actually an art project designed and created by Ellie Harrison as part of her residency at the Plymouth College of Art. The little monitor you see at the right is actually tracking the BBC's RSS feed, and whenever the aforementioned doom and gloom comes over the wire, someone's getting something sugary.

The innards were programmed by Ben Dembroski using PureData and Python, while project2891 was implemented alongside i-DAT to activate messaging on the GreenScreen. In other words, free candy! And, this thing must get refilled, a lot. [Ellie Harrison via Make via noquedanblogs- Thanks, Sabino]

Send an email to Jack Loftus, the author of this post, at jloftus@gizmodo.com.