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I think that since it was an OPEN SOURCE CODE from the CHAOS COMPUTER CLUBs BLINKENLIGHTS PROJECT, that SOMEONE should give the majority of credit to THEM! http://blinkenlights.net/

I will admit that the social manipulation and putting together custom hardware could be considered the hack by MIT, but let's give props where props are found.

Blinkenlights did it first, and at higher resolution, and once they'd finished doing it in black and white, they went to Paris and did it again, in colour. Both systems had Tetris that was playable by phone, and would also display messages sent via SMS to the display. Oh, and both those projects were also open-source. The only interesting part of this is the wireless connectivity in the MIT system.

Blinkenlights did it first, and at higher resolution, and once they'd finished doing it in black and white, they went to Paris and did it again, in colour. Both systems had Tetris that was playable by phone, and would also display messages sent via SMS to the display. Oh, and both those projects were also open-source. The only interesting part of this is the wireless connectivity in the MIT system.

There were also Blinkenlights in Berlin (2001) and more to the point, ARCADE in Paris (2002). Both were made by Chaos Computer Club.
Anyway, whatever the prior art was, it is always a very thrilling development.

In my humble opinion is to replace "tech" and "geek" in your idea of a wedding with "love" and "heart". That's what I believe a wedding should be about.

So maybe you like to code... How about some minimalism? Why not leave the bloat out of your weddding. Forget about thematics, and just don't include the nightmare library so you don't actually have to worry about which way you are going to fold your napkins.

So you like electronics... Maybe you could make your own version of a blinkenlights wall or print some miscellaneous objects with your 3d printer so you can give each guest an object and then match dance partners togheter by calling your phone's random function to match objects? But whatever project you chose, just don't let it take too much time and focus out of the important stuff: having fun spending some time with your lover.

So maybe you like to design UIs and open source and freedom... Why not leave the glitters and the cornflower blue obssessions out of your weddding... Just find a pleasant palette to work from and don't go nuts about it. Forcing bride maid's to dye their italian leather shoes and guests to wear very specific and/or particularly hard to find garments is about anything but freedom. Let your guests decide what to wear, what gift to bring, in short let them be themselves, let them bring their own little color to the canvas of your event.

So maybe you like the environnement and the planet... Know that most orchids people use in their weddings are imported. Why not keep your carbon credits for an actual wedding trip instead of spending them on flowers. Spend an afternoon in the big blue room with your soon-to-be wife and gather some wild flowers together. If you do things simply, you will not need to worry about not having time to do this.

Just my 2 cents. Maybe you won't get instant success from following this guide, but at the end of the day you might very well end up saying "this was the best day of my life" without having to force a wry smile on your face... :)

http://blinkenlights.net/

Angry that such engineering talent went into solving a problem that didn't need to be solved

And how do you feel when you read about people who build browsers for the Commodore 64? Or build a RAID'ed floppy setup? Turn buildings into low res displays?

Each of those things are completely ridiculous, gain us nothing of value (outside of entertainment) and waste time and energy that could be drected at "the very real problems that do need to be solved".

Whatever happened to "because we can" as a mantra for why we build things that are completely unneeded? I'm not talking about making a catapult that launches criminals into a strong piano wire mesh, cutting them into tiny pieces that will then rain down into the crocodile cage at the local zoo. Building the Veyron didn't hurt you. Didn't hurt anyone (well, I did hear that one of the mechanics dropped a wheel onto his bad toe). Why so angry?

Why so serious?

Also done by Chaos Computer Club in Berlin in 2001, called Blinkenlicht. http://www.blinkenlights.net/