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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.

12 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Has everyone forgotten the Dec 25 Birthday? by Dimensio · · Score: 5, Funny

    All this talk of finding new ways of being flashy and new during the holidays and so little talk of the important birthday celebrated on December 25. Really, would it kill you to pay some respect to the very important individual whose birth is celebrated yearly on that one day of the year?

    I mean honestly, you all give each other gifts but I, the birthday boy, don't get so much as a card from you!

    --
    STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
    1. Re:Has everyone forgotten the Dec 25 Birthday? by SuperDuG · · Score: 5, Funny
      That's right ... And by golly people ... we need to go back to our churches, and our religious leaders, because we've forgotten what christmas is really all about!!!

      The birth of baby santa claus

      --
      Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
  2. Wow by daeley · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine a Rudolph cluster of those!

    --
    I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  3. Fixed version by Otto · · Score: 5, Funny

    /. doesn't like > signs.. ;)

    better !pout !cry
    better watchout
    lpr why
    santa claus <north pole >town

    cat /etc/passwd >list
    ncheck list
    ncheck list
    cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
    cat list | grep nice >giftlist
    santa claus <north pole >town

    who | grep sleeping
    who | grep awake
    who | egrep 'bad|good'
    for (goodness sake) {
    be good
    }

    --
    - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  4. 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

    1. Re:Stop spending. by Levine · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What exactly is wrong with buying gifts for the people you care about? I'm not trying to argue that Christmas hasn't been commercialized to a point of abstraction, because it has, but is there something fundamentally wrong with contributing to the economy?

      It seems that some people spend so much time complaining about the commercial nature of the holidays that they too, like the people they complain about, miss out on the good parts of the season.

      And certainly now, more than ever before, it would do the country some good to have some money put into it, yes?

      Regards,
      levine

  5. Well, my setup isn't THAT impressive... by Restil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But you can turn my Xmas lights on/off via the internet. Check out the interactive webcams at http://206.54.177.105

    The Xmas lights are in the living room. Now I've got motivation to do something more impressive for next year. :)

    -Restil

    --
    Play with my webcams and lights here
  6. This is nothing....follow link for a real display. by cdrudge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Go here to see what a real light display can look like. I visited this one year a while back. Rumor had it that his neighbors put complained enough about him putting up 1 million lights on his property that he bought the houses on each side of him and put 1 million lights on each of those properties. After the supreme court wouldn't hear his case, he was forced to shut down his display. Disney ended up getting in contact with him and now he does the Specticle of Lights down at MGM Studios (I think).

  7. X10 by cnkeller · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now we know whose been clicking on all those X10 pop-ups....

    --

    there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots

  8. 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
  9. Merry Christmas by Jebediah21 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nice to see PlanetChristmas gets the wonderful gift of a /.ing this year.

    --

    Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
  10. bah by ghostshadow-tec.net · · Score: 5, Funny

    Only kick I get out of xmass is making the kids behave by saying "Now Behave Otherwise Santa Will Eat One Of His Reindeer." Well it works till the 25th