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Christmas is Coming

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-egg-nog dept.

Couple of Christmas bits to get ya in the spirit: We have a link to Planet Christmas as well as the tech details and even some danger. This thing features 96,790 miniature Christmas lights, 7.2 miles of wire to connect everything, 110 strobe lights, the 8' inflatable snowmen, handled by 425 computer controlled circuits. A slightly less ambitious project was submitted by apago. This project lets winamp control christmas lights, complete with schematics for the serial interface and source code for the plugin.

4 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. For the morbid.. by Xzzy · · Score: 3, Informative
    This link appears to be the "internet source" of the guy who fried himself on the power line. Criteria being, most pages I found relating to this event pointed to this link.

    I seem to recall seeing other pictures from this event at some point in the past, but they're turning up really hard to find.

    Turns out the guy that did this ended up surviving.. crazy stuff. Wish there was more info on it cuz these sorts of things always facinate me. ;)

  2. Re:Stop spending. by doc_traig · · Score: 2, Informative

    Steve,

    I totally agree with you, but consider a couple of things:

    1) It's very hard for the average person to quantify "what's enough." People have a hard enough time deciding how much to spend on who. Imagine the stress involved when those same people feel like they have to do good deeds and the like to fulfill obligations.

    Of course, you could argue that those obligations are figments spawned by an overall need to "return the favor", a spinning wheel happily propelled by the retail establishment and the advertising of all the parties involved.

    2) Many retail businesses live and die by Christmas. If there were an overall attitude adjustment in our culture shifting away from purchasing gifts (turning 12/25 into a holiday more like, say, Thanksgiving or July 4), a whole lot of those businesses would have to close their doors... which leads me to wonder just how many stores and mail order outlets get year-long revenue of levels sufficient to maintain operations.

    - Traig

    --
    So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
  3. Can Santa be seen from space? by kclick · · Score: 2, Informative

    Speaking of the Station check out this story from CNN SCI-TECH. Apparently the astronauts will be teaming up with NASA and NORAD to track Santa's progress on Christmas and display it on their web site.

  4. Re:Stop spending. by eander315 · · Score: 3, Informative
    I imagine there are A LOT of people who read /. who won't be spending money on gifts this year: the unemployed.

    All I want for Christmas is a freakin' JOB!