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Build Your Own Cityscape
Hoagy writes "Many friends think I've moved when I show them this picture. I've constructed a lit model of midtown Manhattan to fill an otherwise unspectactular view out of our kitchen window. The website details the construction process and how to design and build your own. The city lights also automatically turn on/off via an X10 cronjob on my home Linux server." Nice hack job.
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What exactly do I mean by this? It's easy to see. Any time there is a story about Microsoft, there are 300 posts crying for the government to step in and break MS into two companies, force them to open their code, etc. Excuse me folks, but having the government interfere with the economy is not capitalism. It's communism. I don't want this great nation to end up like Russia, ok?
Another thing that pisses me off: anytime there is a circle-jerk discussion about Mozilla, people whine and bitch about how Internet Explorer doesn't conform to W3C standards, and how unfair it is. Well guess what? We don't need the W3C (government-wannabe of the Internet) forcing companies to do things. The market has decided - Internet Explorer is the standard. That's how the "Invisible Hand of John Smith" works. If you want to gain market share, follow IE's lead. Otherwise, go back to Cuba or China you commie bastards.
BTW, if this gets modded down, you can bet the Liberals are out in force modding down all non-group-think. Fuck You!
Visit the new Troll site!
News agencies have been doing this for years. People aren't really interviewed in front of the best view in the city.
P.S. The cityscapes in the background on Connan and Leno and Letterman aren't real either.
I just read some sad news on the BBC -- Ramones founder Dee Dee Ramone was found dead in his Hollywood apartment today. Even if you don't enjoy his music, there's no denying his contributions to the development of punk as a musical style. Truly a British icon.
When the new towers are erected, will you update the cityscape?
I have been pwned because my
I live in a city
You fuck-knob.
Late night TV Like David Letterman, Jay Leno, and
Conan O'Brian. Not an original idea, but
nice to see it in practice.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
i thought it was kinda neat until i saw the size of the thing. my god, what a colossal waste of time.
It would last about 5 minutes. Little kids find a little city just perfect for sight-seeing. The problem is that they like the godzillia view...
Nice work, impressive and well-thought out. Kudos for showing us the steps you took.
One thing, you need some better color. For a second I thought it was real, then I noticed how black and white it was, and how all the windows were exactly the same size.
Anybody know what other colors the lights should be? More yellow-ish?
Would there be any way for /. to have an indicator on the story heading to indicate that the site being linked in the story is currently slashdotted?
And maybe keep track of the slashdot effect in terms of intensity and duration...
I bet this would really help the poor souls out there whose sites are brought down by the barbaric hordes...
"Piter, too, is dead."
1. What ugly view did it cover up?
and
2. What did the neighbors build to keep from having to look at the back of the project?
The city lights also automatically turn on/off via an X10 cronjob on my home Linux server. /. effect's been unleashed on that poor server.
Methinks they'll be off for awhile under once the
...I guess model planes can get hijacked as well.
...gets my vote for the "Too Much Time On His Hands Award of the Week."
Bonus points for bringing a Slashdotting upon himself.
~Philly
Not like it's going to do anything, but it's the thought that counts ;-)
Also have a setup where it would look like cars were in front of my house, put shadows in my windows, and have cron job play music on Friday and Saturday nights to make it look like I have a life. Now THAT would have to look convincing.
I gotz mad skillz and doze mofo PAY da billz. Blow me and eat da shiznit, CLIT.
I've lived in small towns and my mother owns vast tracts of land.
It sucks.
Stick with the city. It's where human life is. I know I am.
Hurry before it's too late!
My window is covered by a big black peice of fabric to block out light....
What's so great about the outside...
What day of the week is it?
Weatherbug says it's really nice outside...
Hmm... lemme check weather.com to see if it's gotten cloudy again so I can get my mail without getting sunburned....
Whhoppie. He figured out to get the lights blink on and off with a computer. What next, a miniature choo-choo train?
/.ers) to run around in his city mugging each other and such I aint impressed.
Unless he clones little people (or little fat people if they're cloned
How to blow 5 months of your life.
What is it?
Approximately 7 feet past the window is a large (Your mother's been talking about me again has she?) single plane of wood with windows cut into it. The 7 x 11 foot plane of wood is actually two layers of wood with a ~1" air gap where xmas lights are mounted to light up the inside. The front plane is thin (1/8") and has the 1540 windows cut into it while the back plane of wood is 1/2" sheets of plywood. The xmas lights (about 700 lights) are mounted behind the front plane so that the light bounces off of the plywood (back plane) to scatter the light so that pinpoints of light are not visible. The models of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings consist of multiple layers in order to simulate the effect of having lights shining on their own roofs.
Most of the display is painted in light grey latex paint for both weather-proofing and tinting of the light coming from the inside. However the front is painted dark grey to make it blend into the night sky above.
How Did You Build It? - Background
Last summer (summer of 2001) I thought of this idea to make the view out of our kitchen window more interesting. Previously the view only consisted of the backs of some tall bushes but did allow lots of sunlight to enter in the mornings. The bushes were approximately 10 feet away which provided ample room to be creative. Very near that time we saw a video for the song "This Isn't Maybe" by Waldeck on Mtv2 which had a model of a city outside a balcony. The buildings were swaying to the music... this provided an example of what such a thing might look like.
Then America had a really bad Tuesday morning in September and all of my fond memories of New York City were resurrected. The cityscape project became much more interesting and conveniently the graphics startup I was working for was soon going to lay me off which meant lots of free time.
I started looking into photos of NYC in detail.. noticing the perspective effects on windows and rooftops of skyscrapers. Part of me wanted to do a realistic model, but at the same time a surrealistic (idealistic?) (stylized?) approach was attractive. Then I found "the one" (see photo right).. a photo online of the view that I had in mind. I wanted a view of midtown Manhattan at the 40-60th floor level. Distant bridges and the street level would be even more difficult to simulate, so this photo conveniently and naturally occluded these troublesome features of the real NYC.
From here on, I had a much more concrete idea of what I wanted to create.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
1. Find A Photo
Start by collecting photos of the city that you're interested in. Building details as well as overall city layout are important. The internet is a vast resource for this and I found lots of good pics at www.corbis.com . Find a photo that is at least close to the view you are looking for (see pic right). This is where you start your design.
Then, using this picture or set of pictures as your basis, you'll want to tailor it to your needs. Some things that you'll want to look at are scale, size, perspective, and complicated details.
Scale is important because you want to simulate the proper distance to the skyline. For example, if the model is too small, it will appear as if your house/apartment is too far away or too high up.
When considering size, realize that as you approach your window, your field of view widens. So you actually need to make the city larger than the window if there is going to be any distance between the city and the window. Distance between the city and the window increases realism in two ways. When walking past the window, you want the city to shift in relation to the window frame just like it would with a real city view. This is a natural effect called parallax that your brain uses every day to judge distance. The other reason for placing the city out several feet, is to minimize your ability to use stereo vision to see the distance to an object. Human stereo vision is only effective to 12-18 feet.
Perspective is the feature that will really sell your city as a realistic view. Notice top to bottom perspective as well as depth perspective. Top to bottom is pretty easy.. mount the city so that the average person's eye height is going to be level with the floors of windows that do not slope up or down. Mine is slightly off center top-to-bottom in order to fit more skyscrapers in, but it isn't obvious to most people. You'll need to make a judgement call on how much depth perspective to use. Was the original photo taken with a really wide angle lens?
You will also want to choose a photo without complicated details or edit them out. If you're an expert model maker, then by all means build a Brooklyn Bridge. It would look fantastic! But the rest of us will probably want to tone down the complication. This project is going to be laborious enough as it is. Avoid street-level views because the streets of a city are usually very animated and a static street scene will look odd.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
2. Edit Photo
Use your favorite image editor (GIMP, Paintshop Pro, etc) and adapt your chosen photo to your needs. For example, I needed to make the sky black and experiment with placement of the Chrysler building. For a while, I was experimenting with placement of the Twin Towers closer to the foreground. And ultimately I inserted a building very close to our viewpoint for an added depth effect.
I suggest that you do *all* of your experimentation on the computer. It takes way more time to re-carve out all those windows if you screw up on wood.
With modern editing programs you can assign buildings to layers and easily move them around to get the arrangement just right. Make some features more obvious.. such as windows in the photo that aren't very clear. You'll need to use your eye and imagination to create any detail that may be missing from the photo. Notice that I added more floors below those featured in the original photograph.
By creating a crude cardboard cutout of the city outline, I determined that I needed to model the lower floors for when my guests would approach the kitchen sink and look down.
Finally, place a grid over your final design. I imported the image into AutoCAD, scaled it to be actual size, and then placed a grid of 2" x 2" lines over it. You'll use this grid to transition the design to wood.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
3. Design Your Skyscrapers
I learned the hard way that I could not create a good (detailed) model of a skyscraper without a very detailed design. The Empire State and Chrysler buildings have features lit up by flood lights on their exterior. You can't simulate that effect with windows. I started out making a prototype of the Empire and it turned out awful (see pic right).
So I created a detailed design in Autocad and then printed out the design on 11x17 paper at full-scale. I could then cut out the various pieces of the Empire State from the paper and use them as stencils on the wood. Use 1/32" tolerances on everything for a much better fit. 1/16" turns out sloppy.
Because of limited room in my skyscapers, I cut holes in the back support and inserted the xmas lights deep into these holes. I used particle board because I could cut holes for xmas lights much closer together in particle board whereas plywood would just splinter apart.
Each skyscraper probably won't need a whole 50 or 100 lights, so if you take lights out of the strand, you'll need to insert a resistor so that the remaining lights don't burn brighter and burn out quickly. I've found that a string of 50 lights usually consumes about 10 Watts, so since I only needed 23 lights on the Empire State building, I removed the unneeded lights and inserted a 5 Watt 127 Ohm resistor.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
4. Build A Small Prototype
With this prototype, you will be testing paint colors, window sizes, some perspective, light placement, practice cutting the materials, and skyscraper details. I made my prototype to be approx 1 foot square and used some of the window sizes that I knew I would be using. In addition, it had the beginnings of an Empire State building on the top.
Some of the things I learned from this: 1) Natural wood color would look very warm and artistic, but also looked a lot like a jack-o-lantern. 2) I could not build an Empire State building that looked good simply by free-hand drawing the pieces. Calculated CAD work was called for instead. 3) The smallest windows would need to be punched out because no jigsaw blade is small enough to cut out a 1/8" window.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
5. Build Skyscrapers
Your skyscrapers are going to bring a lot of detail to your model. So spend the time to make them look good. Your prototype gave you the opportunity to screw up all you wanted without it being the real deal. Notice the big difference on the photo to the left between when I was at the prototype stage and when it came time to make the Chrysler Building.
My Chrysler and Empire State buildings needed to consist of several layers in order to simulate the effect of spotlights shining up on a building's rooftop. AutoCAD helped me immensely in deciding how the various layers were going to fit together. Then the best part was that with AutoCAD I could plot out my design in real world (1" = 1") scale and use it as a stencil.
I didn't have room to fit the lights on the inside of the model, so I just cut holes in the support board and inserted the lights perpendicularly. But here, too, I needed to insert a resistor in the string of lights because I was only using half of the strand.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
6. Build The Support Framework
The framework is pretty easy.. If you're not expecting much wind, it only has to be a couple feet deep. You can use 2x4s and wood screws. Be sure to run the back supports up a significant portion of the back of the display. If your skyline has dips in it, you'll want to keep the framework from showing through. Once the city is built, just run 2" wood screws into the supporting 1/2" plywood back.
The Cityscape Project
7. Build The City
7a. Draw Out The Design
This step takes a surprisingly long time to complete. On a large flat surface, take your 1/8" hardboard 8' x 4' sheet and with pencil draw out the grid that you placed over your city design and label the rows/columns. Then begin drawing the window grids. You'll want to draw out an entire building's window grid using straight edges and then X out the windows that are going to be cut out. This keeps all your windows straight and even. Also draw out the skyline that will be exposed on the top. Mark everything clearly so that there are no mistakes with the jigsaw!
7b. Cut Out Windows
Another tedious task; place your hardboard sheet on sawhorses and begin by cutting out the unneeded skyline area. On small windows, you'll have to just drill one 1/4" hole in them and use the jigsaw blade to cut out the corners. On larger windows, drill two holes per window in opposite corners, then use the jigsaw to cut inside the lines. I went through 3 jigsaw blades very easily on the 1540 windows I had to cut out.
7c. Draw And Cut Support Backing
Place your 1/2" x 8'x4' plywood sheet on the sawhorses and then lay your cut out hardboard sheet on top. Trace the outline of the skyline onto the plywood and cut it out.
7d. Glue On Trim And Spacers
Now you need to measure, cut, and paste the trim pieces. The trim creates a gap between the hardboard layer and plywood layer where the lights can do their magic. Do all of the measuring and cutting before you begin gluing. Leave the bottom open for any water to drain out. Also place a trim piece (remember to cut notches out of it for later wiring) horizontally halfway up the display for support.
You will also want to put 2"x2" spacers scattered through the design. These spacers will be the attachment points for the plywood support panel. With mine I used 1/4" x 1+3/8" trim and conveniently 3 2"x2" cuts of plywood stacked created the perfect 1+3/8" spacer. Glue everything well and use weights to make the various pieces of trim make good contact with the hardboard. This step isn't too time consuming compared to everything else. Don't use Elmer's Wood Glue, it will melt in the rain!
7e. Paint Everything
This takes forever. Paint the plywood backing and hardboard / trim pieces completely. You want to seal the wood from the elements outside. This means you need to paint the edges around each and every window. Ugh.. painful. A large (4") paintbrush works for most of the plywood, but the edges of the plywood and window panel needs a tiny brush and a 2" brush. I've found that it works best to paint a small area of the back side first, then move to the front to paint and clean the paint out of the corners of the windows and then move back to the back to touch up any runs back there.
After the whole panel is painted, you may want a different color on the front of the display. An easy way to do this is to use a paint roller that has only a light amount of paint on it.
7f. Mount Lights
Place your hardboard/trim panel (frontside - down) on a flat surface and glue the lights to the back. Hot glue seems to work the best and is cheap but don't glue the actual bulbs down; you'll want to be able to replace the bulbs as they burn out. Try to keep the lighting even, although you might apply more for close buildings and less for far away buildings. Keep in mind any angle that the viewer will be at and hide the lights / wires from sight.
Construction Tips
I used 1/8" hardboard for the front panel, 1/4" x 1 3/8" door trim strips as spacers, and 1/2" plywood for the back support. The frame that holds this large thing upright and at the proper distance off of the ground is made of 2x4s. 1" countersunk screws connect the back support to spacers glued to the front hardboard panel.
Laying out the design onto the hardboard is as tedious as cutting out the windows. Don't draw the windows free-hand. At least in my experience, the best looking windows are produced with measurement and proper angles. Remember that the windows on a building are usually very aligned and your eye picks up on this alignment very easily. The few windows that I tried to eye-ball or free-draw turned out much less acceptable. So usually you must draw out a grid of windows for each building and then "X" out the ones that are going to have lights on inside.
Glue: don't use Elmer's Wood Glue since it melts in the rain. I've been using Franklin International's Titebond II weatherproof wood glue but haven't had a rainstorm to test its durability.
Jigsaws: The Bosch 1587AVSP is a fantastic jigsaw. It's very balanced for a smooth cut and design features like the quick change blades are very handy as well. I used this saw for most of the project and while cutting out the windows I went through three 1/4" blades that cut on the up and down stroke.
Some of the windows on far away buildings are too small to use a jigsaw. I ended up using a 1/8" screwdriver (like the ones used to repair eyeglasses) and a hammer to chisel out these windows.
Collect your xmas lights during the xmas season. It's very difficult to find inexpensive xmas light strings off-season.
If you have trouble with seeing the pinpoints of xmas light out of the windows of your skyscrapers, try covering the inside of your windows with wax paper. It will diffuse the light a bit.
When designing the city, use a large piece of cardboard as a rough approximation for what you're thinking. Mount it to a light-weight frame and see if it looks like you imagined.
TOTAL: $394.31
Special Thanks To:
These people helped the project out either with loaned/donated equipment, patience/understanding, or just plain cash.
Dave and Mary
Uncle Scott
Mom and Dad
Both Grandmas
Dan, Stacey, and Rich
Direct Access Index
Intro
What Is It?
How Did You Build It? - Background
How To Design Your Own.
1. Find A Photo
2. Edit The Photo
3. Design Skyscrapers
4. Build A Small Prototype
5. Build Skyscrapers
6. Build The Framework
7. Build The City
7a. Draw Out The Design
7b. Cut Out Windows
7c. Draw And Cut Support Backing
7d. Glue On Trim And Spacers
7e. Paint Everything
7f. Mount Lights
Construction Tips
Equipment List / Cost
© 2002 Ryan Hoagland
I wonder who's going to come up with the idea of making a cover for a 40 in plasma screen that simulates a window and have a stationary webcam hooked up to it... That way, the office lights on the 17th floor turn on to follow the janitors.
And no need to break out the jigsaw when another buiding goes up.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Do you charge $11.95 for tiny grilled chese sandwichs in your kitchen now?s
Buy your fav baseball player's steroid-merchandise!
Pretty cool looking, I think it's a shame that the 'cityscape' isn't visible from the 'bay window beside the dining table' (hypothetical, I haven't been in this man's house. :) :)
The view is a little less impressive coming from the inside of a homely looking kitchen window. (No disrespect!, I'm currently living at home with my mother after losing my job in the i-net/.com debacle, So I guess I don't have room to talk about living in a classy place
Ansi's and stupid tricks!
Cronjob. That sounds so dirty.
you added Godzilla rampaging through...
I'm glad folks take the time to document these projects so nicely...
I always imagine nothing will come out right and no one would want to look at anything i do....
well the /. effect is going to pull a "King Kong" on your webserver.
four-oh-four
during the day it must look pretty strange out there .. i think i would rather build a small patio or deck .. or move to the city ..
Well you should light that ESB up red white and blue like they do here for real. In honor of our fallen 9/11 heroes. If you're REALLY into it you can turn it off at 11:59 pm every night like they do as well.
BTW 10 karma points to anyone who could give me an exact location as to where that view would be from!
--------------
David O.
Seems wasteful, expensive, hazardous to do all of this with 700 Xmas lights. Why not use LEDs?
mA on the dollar.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Remember in BTTF 2, the "Scene Screen" or whatever that was in the McFly's living room of 2015 that was tuned to the Scenery Channel? I might buy one of those, and it would look a lot better from the outside. Let's see this guy take some business initiative and crank something good out!
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/. Slashdot?
The requested URL (articles/02/06/06/1847216.shtml?tid=133) was not found.
If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to pater@slashdot.org.
....
Did we just
GOD DAMNIT , MODERATE ME!
What is outside your kitchen window without the model? Reality? Get some exercise, fatty fat mcfat.
t was 'the ultimate LSD trip'......simple white blotter hit, nothing fancy. Me and an old friend picked up a hit each, we both knew they were real hits and we got them for free, so we popped them right away. Got in the car drove home dropped of the car and started walking. Where? Only the acid knew. About an hour after we popped we here a car coming from behind......it's a friend and he offers a ride.......we don't say anything about the acid until he cranks up the radio and turns on neon lights inside the car. The bass from the stereo was so live ans the blue neon was like heavan.....that alive feeling ran through the body. We made him drive for a little while.....then decuded it was time to expand our 'trip'. We had him drop us off at a friends house. As we walked up to the door she was coming out......with her friend. They had no idea about the acid......it was our little secret. They were going to get a bite to eat and told us to come along. We hop in the back seat and they start driving......we listen to the radio and just start making our own words for every song. They find our words amusing.....and they keep laughing......finally they ask if we are ok. I said sure we are fine we are tripping out. They were a little upset we didn't invite them on our 'trip' but, they decided to keep us so we can make them laugh. They went to the McDonalds drive thru. And while we were on line she pulled out a Mcdonald's character...Grimace.....but Grimace had a ghost costume over him. It bugged us out because she had Grimace before she ordered......she tried so hard to explain that she was there earlier in the day and got it then. At the time we just couldn't grasp the concept. Anyway I held Grimice in my hand and watched him melt. every time I opened and closed my hand Grimice was glowing green.....I popped off his ghogt costume, and all I could say is "Grimace has no penis".....well the lady at the window almost pissed herself when I told her that. We wanted another character, anoher Grimace would have been nice cause me and my friend just kept fighting over it. But it was mine I had it first....I felt like a 5 year old. But the lady gave a tape in which all the McDonalds characters sing, well again we made our own words, which was even more funny this time. Next stop Blockbuster video......driving there was scary, every turn we made we just saw headlights and thought we were gonna crash.....we finally get into Blockbuster and we were there for like 5 minutes and i lost my friend. I looked all through the store can't find him.....shit was I scared. So i walk outside to the car and he is sitting on the curb drinking a soda. I thought he was having a bad trip, but he was just chillin.....I wanted that soda so bad.....he just gave me a little sip because I wouldn't let him hold Grimace. We went back to my friends house, we were pretty quite for a while just a little laughing and bugging each other out. We finally went in the back yard to jump on the trampoline(highly recommended). It was so great....we would bounce as high as we could....always looking up....looking down kinda sucked. When we looked up we never knew when we were gonna fall it was great. After a while we laid on the trampoline looking at the clouds(highly recommended)......we saw it all from "the dead bears to Satan".....it was great....inside of my body felt so fresh.......like so much life was present....there was this warm feeling that was cool inside my throat flowing down to my stomach(which re-occurs in flashbacks). My friend wasn't into the clouds as much as me......which still pisses me off to this day. So he sat up took his keys out of his pocket and he kept hitting the button for his car alarm.......just watching the little LED light(we now call it the LSD light). After about a minute he starts prettending it's a gun....and he is trying to shoot me.......I searched for something to shoot him back with. All I could find was a cordless phone. Which I did use. I had to keep turning it on and off so I could get the same effect as the car alarm. During this 'activity' about 10 people showed up at the house, they came outside and were watching us....we had no idea. Finally a friend said hi...scared the shit out of me....I tried to explain what was going on but he had no interest. We eventually stopped and I got my hands on Grimace again. I tried explaing to a friend(who wasn't tripping) how Grimace can melt in my hand......and I would close my hand...open it and at the same time say "come into my world"......and i would ask if he saw Grimaces glow....but of course he didn't....I kept trying and trying but he gave no reaction.......my tripping buddy was taking out the battery for his car alarm....because he swore it didn't work......so like an idiot I put it in my mouth....(WARNING:car alarm transmitter batteries 12 volts...23 amps)"DAMN...that was something" I screamed everyone turned around....All i felt was electricity "waves" running through my face...it was so crazy......I did it again...at least once maybe twice(recommended if you can handle it....try it before you decide to trip...). My friend tried it too....didn't find it as amusing. We spent most the night there, we walked home.....about a 15 minute walk...normally....don't really remember the walk except for a dog which was following us which we swore ws going to bite us. When I got home I just remember laying on my back playing with my Timex Indiglo watch.....wich has a blue green glow......well this night it made the ceiling red...that was weird.......I must have did that for a long time, i still try it when I am not tripping. The last thing about the trip that I remember is finding the remote control, turning on the TV, flipped through the channels and i found God.....he was talking to me...I heard him but, struggled so hard to grasp what he was saying...i just couldn't understand him....and I couldn't even turn it off cause I was so scared of him..that's all I remember.
Well, my city scape would be the free beer truck pulling up to my driveway, the girls gone wild partying in my front yard, and the cops hauling off the asshole neighbor I have who always wants to tell me about his work for the 'cia' investigating Intel amd their link to the former USSR(This ain't no lie, his day job is locksmith).
<p>
Oh yeah, and before I forget 50 foot Penguin scaring the shit outta all the Windows users I have to support on a daily basis. Life would then be good.
<p>
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
C'mon guys, he did something artistic to his place that's kinda cool. I'm seriously disappointed with the negativity that I have read so far.
"Oh it's unoriginal because it's done on the news" -- Amusing logic considering that a news station can hire a crew of professionals to build something like that.
"Waste of time!" -- Yah, like there aren't people out there who think posting stupid comments like that on Slashdot isn't a waste of time. Never mind that he did it during a period of unemployment. I'll tell you something, I know a few people who got laid off in the last year or two, and they turned into total bums during that period. Frankly, I think it's cool that somebody used his artistic skill to improve his living conditions instead of sitting around, playing Quake, and behaving as if the world shit on him/her.
Before you make your negative post about what this guy did, ask yourself: What independent project have YOU taken on? Did you do anything remotely as ambitious? Did you release information about how you did it?
Consider this: When you say "this isn't original because something like that's been done before...", how much did you oversimplify your idea before you came to that conclusion? There was a post earlier that said "Nothing new, they do this on the news all the time." To make a comment like that, they had to filter out conditions like 'News stations pay extra money for stuff like that to appear local.' and "It's an uncommon thing for home-owners to do something like that." That's a lot of information to throw out, and what is the benefit? "Oh, I'm unimpressed. That makes me sound like I've seen more than most people."
When somebody works to create something like that, it really hurts to have people not like it because they're unwilling to put more than a moment's thought into it.
"Derp de derp."
The city lights also automatically turn on/off via an X10 cronjob on my home Linux server
1) Include some reference to linux that adds little to the actual content of the story.
In this particular story, a standard lamp timer (like those used for outdoor christmas lights) would have sufficed. Would probably have made things cheaper (those X10 switches aint cheap) and simpler (no setting up the cronjob).
This story is -1, Overrated.
This made it on /. and my submition about a stone map, obviously made by machine, dated at 120 million years old didn't??? I guess I have a skewed view of what is interesting.
He put up a wallpaper mural in his living room. Seems like a lot less work, and it still looks pretty cool.
Just watch out for the alligators.
The city lights also automatically turn on/off via an X10 cronjob on my home Linux server
:)
You know what? Tell your X10 cronjob to take a break. I think we're gonna turn off your lights for you tonight... no no, don't thank us. It's our pleasure.
.... in fact, you don't really have much of a choice now, do you
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Well it's a sure fire way to test a server. I can see it now:
Guy1: Hey can you help me. I need to load test the server.
Guy2: Sorry I don't have the time. ( Jokingly ) Heh, why don't you submit your city line model to Slashdot, it's a pretty cool hack.
Guy1: Hey thanks, (Thinking to himself) That's not a bad idea...
The next morning...
Guy2: (To Guy1) HEY IDIOT I DIDN'T THINK YOU WERE GOING TO TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!!!
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
It's the ceilingline...
David Letterman had better watch out, we're going to replace him with another clown sitting in front of another city backdrop, and we'll throw in Hanson to replace Paul Schaffer.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
funny funny shit... wish I had some karma to give.
-- The_Messenger
Well, if that site is also hosted on his "home linux server" then it wont be running any cron jobs for a little while.
:wq
Another good reason for news agencies (or anyone) to use a fake backdrop is so they don't get views like this.
[news for me, stuff that doesn't matter]
Secondly, to the people who say it's a waste of time, there are those who would say that posting on slashdot is a waste of time, yet you clearly enjoy it. Leisure is incredibly important, yet far too many people do anything other than sit on their couches, and watch TV. This, to me, is a really interesting artistic project, not only improving the view, but also improving the soul.
Thanks for sharing your project with the world!
he was 49, the article's wrong.
same age as Joey, only Joey died of cancer, not drugs.
respect for Dee Dee and Joey.
stuff that matters
Right out of Resident Evil (the movie), as soon as I saw the pic, I thought; How many stories below ground do they live? =)
.:[MiE-g0nk]:.
Good thing I saw the site before it was posted. Maybe adding a superhero swinging between the building would be a nice touch. :)
What he needs now is something like a small model airplane or a ufo to go across every once in a while. or maybe a monorail or other futurama type decoration.
Or cutouts from magazines of small people to put into the windows of the sky scrapers. all kinds of little details that make it come alive.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Pretty damn neat. ;)
But I'm wondering what exactly the cron job does... is it just a highly complex substitute for a light timer, or does it do things like turn off lights in sequence or something?
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
Some serious lamers replying to this. This is really awesome, much respect to Hoagy for doing this. Its beautiful and creative.
I don't see anyone calling CmdrTaco names or telling him he has too much time on his hands for building an arcade cabinet (link)
exactly how does the cron job make the lights turn on and off? i didn't see it in the tutorial.
otherwise, cool.
lf.o
Aluminum foil works better. When I was working the night shift, I covered all 5 of the windows in my room with aluminum foil. It worked fantastically. With the AC cranked, in the middle of a summer day, my room stayed pitch black and about 60 degrees.
I have to admit, the basic ideas of doing it, reguardless of what you want to look at, is quite innovative for home use. I'm sitting here in my basement pondering to myself, 'Hey, is this something I could do in the little window wells I have down here?'
While I might not choose a cityscape to gaze up at in my tiny window down here, I'm sure about anything is better than looking up at my neighbors house!
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
this is just one of the coolest hacks I've seen in a long long time. Besides the fact that he designed it in a cad program, you actually (well, I do at least) get the feeling that I'm looking out of an apartment window many many stories up. What an unbelievable feeling! Kudos to this guy for "thinking outside the box" and doing something really new and cool!
I posted to
Photo can be found HERE
I can see why he would not walk to look at that all day.
Why the fuck am I just seeing sunjuects instead of fucking comments? Registering is over-motherfucking-rated.
Would it be in bad tase for the kid next door to fly his model airplanes into this?
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
I for one think this is very cool, and its amazing how much work this guy put into this. Great job man! Howevery, I have one tiny suggestion. Get rid of the blinds on the window. Since you've blocked off outside light, no need for blinds. And its such nice work, let the whole window be filled up with it instead of having the blinds at the top. (Not trying to be negative at all, this is totally sweet work this guy did! Great job!)
Does this thing still work after it rains ?! Looks like a few bad storms could break it real good and proper.
I thought I saw a music video on unplugged or amp where they guy did this and they girl he had over to show it off to tipped a building over or something.
Regardless of its origins, its a hell of alot cooler than the nasty grass and 8-month-dead marigold I have in the flowerbox outside my kitchen window.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
Having this view is proof that you are hardcore bridge and tunnel. The only people who have this view are from brooklyn,queens or new jersey. The view to have in manhattan is of central park and you won't have it for under 10 million.
It doesn't necessarily float MY boat, but this guy seems to have put together a pretty cool little project that he's clearly proud of. I congratulate him, and thank him for his contribution. But I think the word "hack" (used by the editor) is extremely overused on this site, and at the risk of sounding like a pedant and inviting the hoards of /.ers to pick every nit in my post, this seemed like a downright incorrect usage to me. "Nice hack job"... I'd rather have insightful commentary than me-too jargon slinging and elitism. "Cool hack" would have been more appropriate, but even then the term "hack" (in this sense) grows so tiresome.
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
He picked a crappy view if you ask me. I mean, if you can pick anything you want, wouldn't you build a view from the top?
Heck, mine would be a view out of the window of the ISS. Hm. That might get a bit expensive, though...
My
Limekiller
gaag
If you read the page, it says that's where he got the idea
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I have a room with a view of a garage, I was going to install a light box with a transparency of some thing interesting. I haven't decided what yet. But this is really a cool idea I wish I had clearance behind the window for some thing like it.. It would also be cool if some how the lights changed, like some turning on and off at random to simulate people.
Over all, very cool!
...you got yourself one fucking ugly view of cardboard cut-outs!!! Way to go.
:)
I agree. Hats off to the guy, he did an awsome job.
You have no right posting here if you don't hate America. After all, just ask a filthy subhuman Muslim what their fucking problem is and they'll always blame someone else. Al Qaeda blames the America, Palestinians blame Israel, Pakistan blames India. The 'sons of allah' *spit* would NEVER even deign to think that maybe they're at fault.
Right now, Taco is running a reverse DNS lookup on your pasty white American-sympathising ass and will be sending the ragheads round to destroy you. Are you proud?
WTF is wrong with you guys?!? Huh?
/fun/ and /cool/ and /kitchy/, a project which deserves a helluva lot more kudos than it's getting here, and all I've read so far are negative comments ("Oh that's so unoriginal", "The lights should be more yellow"), or at best, indifference.
:) I wish I had more stuff like that that I could show off to my friends.
Here we have something totally
Stop being such a pack freaking sour nerds, and get a bit of bloody spark into yourselves!
I've had a pretty dreary day so far, and reading this is the first thing that has put a smile on my face so far
Isn't that a bit overkill tech-wise for a task that could probably be performed by a cheap programmable timer (such as this one, for 9 bucks)? Especially since low tech programmable timers tend not to be vulnerable to slashdotting.
--
He lied to us through song. I hate when people do that!
TrailerScape
Oh yeah, right there on the third page. Maybe I shouldn't post after midnight...
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
I'm impressed of this guy. I wish I had the space to do something simular at home. From my window all I can see is the bottom of a cliff about 30 feet away. So this would be perfect at my place. But I'll guess I would prefer something with blue sky and the sun shining. This way I would be the only guy in Norway waking up to sunshine every morning.
If it's wet, Drink it!
Katie Sierra, 15, plans to travel and is considering moving out of state. She will not be in Charleston when her case is scheduled to go to trial this summer in Kanawha County Circuit Court, Erik Engle, the school board's lawyer, said Wednesday.
Sierra's lawyer, Roger Forman, said he could not comment on her whereabouts.
Engle said board members are glad that Forman filed a petition to dismiss the lawsuit. However, Engle said board members are disappointed they will not be able to present their side to a jury.
Sierra was suspended in October for trying to start the anarchy club and for wearing T-shirts with messages opposing U.S. military action in Afghanistan .
Sierra's mother, Amy Sierra, withdrew her daughter from school last fall after the girl reported being shoved and elbowed in the back. Sierra has been studying at home through a computer-learning program paid for by the county school system.
The director of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union , which championed Sierra's cause, praised Sierra's efforts.
"We continue to believe that the school violated Katie's First Amendment rights," ACLU Executive Director Andrew Schneider said Wednesday. "But we understand and respect the Sierra family's wishes in this very personal decision."
Forman's petition asks Kanawha County Circuit Judge James Stucky to dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice, which would allow the case to be reopened. The school board has asked that the case be dismissed with prejudice, which would bar further action.
Stucky is set to hear arguments on the petition June 21.
"This issue is one that can and will recur. This isn't a problem that is by any means resolved," Forman said. "We are talking about some very fundamental constitutional issues of free speech here."
Engle said the board does not want the case revived.
"After what they've gone through to bring this case along, it doesn't seem fair that it would be dismissed just so they could just bring it back when it was more convenient," Engle said. "This needs to be put to rest."
eat poo plz
niggerz dikes gayz homoz
Suck it, you wannabe-hackers!
-- The_Messenger
But the windows aren't lighting up to say "Crash and Burn"!
:)
...and telling him to get a (mechanical)timer...you just don't get it do you? :)
And chances are, you never will. Not even by UPS
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Bugs Bunny did this years ago by nailing a picture of an island up to the side of a ship luring the entire crew to jump overboard to try to get to it :).
box cutter (already had)
Hmm, terrorist in training?
No reason why you cant have it: just watch out for all those warring minatures
Hitchcock had a detailed model of the New York skyline (with lights) constructed for his movie Rope which was entirely studio based, and shot in 'real-time'. The lights came on along with a fake sunset.
His cameo (he did one in most of his films) took the form of a Neon sign in the shape of his face!!
Put some lights below so it looks like streetlights are emanating from the street level.
It took me a little while to figure out why that was odd.
ISLAM is the real problem in the world. It's very name means 'submission'. All World religions should band together in order to eradicate this memetic cancer from the planet.
How can you help? Donate some of your money to a Hindu charity. Our brave Hindi brothers shall soon be fighting on the front line against the spineless subhuman islamic creed.
And spare a thought for the beseiged Israelis, who need to destroy known terrorist Arafat before his minions render the entire region uninhabitable through perpetual suicide bombing.
Where there is destruction, islam is surely close by.
Where there is poverty, islam is holding the purse strings.
And when the cold hard light of responsibility and accountability is shone down, islam is the first to blame the rest of the world. America, Israel, India. NEVER their fault.
Which is why they must be cut out so that the human race can thrive. Natural selection.
The crew quarters had astronomical and such pictures on the walls. I'd *love* to ship out on the Enterprise, but I expect I'd have nature scenes on my walls. If I wanted to see astronomy, I'd look out a window/porthole or viewscreen.
I suspect everyone wants a view of what they can't easily have.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Actually his cameo in Rope is at the very beginning at the credits. He is a large man walkiing his dog on the street in the background before the camera ever enters the apartment.
put a screen in front of your window
;)
point the projector at the front or back (depending on your space and angle availability)
put in one and/or series of slides
viola
Now if I only had a window to call my own
dgd
is to make the lights be a big VU meter just like the MIT's hack in Boston.
...I hope this guy doesn't have neighbors from Saudi Arabia working on their own model airplanes.
If you'd like to keep score on whom is saving the asses of whom, I need only point out that you're posting your message using the English language, rather than the language that certainly would have been your mother tongue, German, twice over. (Or Russian, possibly... You don't think it was fear of England that kept the Bear at bay for 50 years, do you?)
Neither is this the first time the U.S. has been subject to a terrorist act. The attack on the WTC was the second attack on that location alone.
Sure, European nations have been living with terrorism a lot longer than we have, but can it produce a single terrorist event that ended more lives, or caused more property damage, than what happened in New York, and Virginia, last year?
Not even close.
That said, we don't need your sympathy. We'll manage just fine without it. And then next time Europe finds itself at war, maybe we'll have the wisdom to let that dead continent finally extinguish itself the way it should have during the last century.
Is someone to change his cronjob so the city scape flashes "CRASH N BURN" across a few adjacent buildings ;)
(Obreference)
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Man, we sure got a bunch of turds posting today. This is an excellent, well thought out piece of work. I'd appreciate more detail on the cron stuff on the site tho' ...
I can see why he used a jigsaw to cut the edge of the skyline, but to cut out all those windows he would have been better served with a Roto-zip tool. Cutting out 1,540 windows with a jigsaw would take forever!
Cool!
What if there's no one around to hear them? Do they still make a sound?
"I've constructed a lit model of midtown Manhattan to fill an otherwise unspectactular view out of our kitchen window."
Um, it still looks rather unspectacular. In fact, it looks like one of those early Star Trek models fitted with Christmas tree bulbs. And what's this? "Nice hack job"!? As in poorly done? Hack? Somehow I think if somebody surrounded a gopher hole with barbed wire, micheal would consider it some sort of hack. "Tee hee! I found a website for underwater BB stacking! Nice hack!"
Maybe if he used fiberoptices. An actual skyline you could see. Changing backgrounds. Something beyond cardboard and Christmas lights. Everybody has their hobby sure, and I respect that. But why am I seeing it here? News for Nerds, stuff that matters, anyone?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
The depth projection is a nice effect.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I have a view of uptown manhattan from my window... only cost me $1350 a month. I guess your way is cheaper. And I can't see the Empire State or Chrysler Building.
;)
I can see the Frederick Douglas Houses tho..
in the movie Total Recall, an entire wall was devoted to a landscape scenic view (using 3 panels) that turned into a television (using 1 panel).
i think that this portrayal is a very real indication of what we will have in the near future.
I wonder why he does it with a cron job - any simple timer would do it too (and it'd be less likely to crash).
Does he do anything freaky with it, like, for example, have the computer automatically switch it off and on according to calculated sunrise and sunset times?
where's all that Karma?