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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.

3 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Stop spending. by nuxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even though this is the US, likely the most overtly Christian nation in the world, December 25th (Christmas) is no longer about celebrating the birth of Christ (which didn't even happen on December 25th). Christmas is now about buying kids (people in general) things that they want, spending money because you feel obligated, and generally being a good little consumer. Even though it is a very hard (nearly impossible) thing to do, everyone should think about not buying gifts for people next year. Instead, make something or do something nice for them. (I'm rebuilding my mom's PC for her for Christmas, parts excluded.) It'll save everyone money, stop the agony over what to buy, give you more free time, and allow you to generally make each other happier.

    Stop spending, start sharing. Christmas shouldn't be about gifts and money, it should be about family and helping each other and being nice to each other.

    -Steve

  2. Correction (PCP guy, volts and amps) by ciurana · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From the "danger" article:

    At that instant 16,600 volts shot through his body.

    There is no way for 16,600 volts of electricity to shooth through anything, even copper wire. We are talking about amps at this point, i.e. the flow of electricity (coulombs/second) depending on the guy's resistance when he touched the other wire. Volts are a measure of "potential energy" not of current, which is what shot through this guy's body.

    I wonder if PCP made him more conductive than the average person. After all, you can really say this guy was pretty wired...

    Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

    E

    --
    http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
  3. Two points: by Galvatron · · Score: 5, Insightful
    1) I like giving presents.


    2) I like getting presents.


    So fuck off.

    --
    "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD