My office is housed in the Davidson Math and Science Building at UNR. The building is relatively new, and has some design quirks, some of which are a bit annoying. For instance, next to the doorway of each office, there is a window that goes from the floor to the height of the door. This means that, without some kind of barricade, students are wont to stare into my office and pester me, even when the door is closed, clearly signifying that I wish to be left alone.
Man of the faculty and graduate students here have dealt with this by putting various objects in the window. A colleague from Colorado has a giant state flag in her window, while one of the statistics faculty has a very nice stained glass pattern taped to the window. There are even a couple of faculty who have put large filing cabinets in the window, which also solves the problem of the poorly functioning motion controlled light switches (if the sensor can’t see you, it can’t turn on the lights when you don’t want it to!).
In the interest of maintaining my own privacy in an aesthetically pleasing way, I had MMM 057 printed out on archival paper. The result is the image that you see at the top of this post.
Overall, I am hugely pleased by office window. Not only does it keep the peace, but it is also far more attractive than I expected it to be. For instance, in the late afternoon, when the sun comes straight into my office, it is lit from behind and positively glows. It also has the advantage of being (tangentially) related to my current research, which is nifty.