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ARCADE: Blinkenlights with Tetris
BorrisYeltsin writes "The guys from blinkenlights are doing it again, but this time in France on a 26x20 display, for 11 nights at the "Bibliotheque nationale de France" in Paris. This time instead of pong you get to play tetris on this 520 pixel display. Again they need your animations for the project."
Next stop: Doom III!
nicht fur gefingerpoken....
heh...
--j
I wanna know why no one has done anything like this in the u.s?
who's up for it, anyone in L.A.?
Imagine pong on the Capitol Records building... or maybe you could somehow play tempest?!
moo.
Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen
der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht
fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands
in das pockets. Relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!!!
Asking slashdot for animations? The only people doing blocky art around here are the trolls. Do we really want to see the goatse man animation on a 20 story building?
Damn it people... /. a site at 2:15am... People go to bed!
Tournament Management Online &
-- 2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2
Nein! Nein! Das blinkenlights es kaput!
Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these!
page for Tetris on buildings: http://bastilleweb.techhouse.org/
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Get over it Seth.
Come here yew.
BAAAAAA! BAAA! BAAAAAAAAA!
And the Viking strikes yet again.
Dude, Mike, you're famous now. By the way, congratulations.
...can still be found by telnetting to towel.blinkenlights.nl. It's not the same as being on the side of a mega-skyscraper, but it was cool the first time I saw it, and is still cool now. I wish that they would update, though.
n/m
How about pong with elevators and hallway lights?
Have they already done Invaders, night driver (scroll down) would be also possible - the classic Snake could be fun too. Well, actually, I quess any classic is rather easily portable :)
Check out its 11 minutes documentary on http://blinkenlights.de/video.en.html... It was very cool to watch. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
... I wonder if this could be done on global or continental scale. Imagine sitting in your space shuttle and playing Tetris with the lights of America or Europe. Siberia would be a problem though ;) If this is too big, maybe JUST Tokyo-Yokohama scale for example? Just some co-operation, and it could be doable :)
I concur wholeheartedly. However, acronyms are commonly pluralized in that way, e.g., "I just bought a gross of ASIC's and a half dozen EPROM's. Somebody get the vaseline and feathers."
To me, grep -e "'s" is like Batman scanning Gotham's skyline for the Bat Signal.
This story was originally titled: "The first night I knew I would win the EFF 2001 Pioneer Award", but the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Sure classic video games are cool and all, but as soon as the United States catches on to this phenomena we can expect to see Blinkenspam appearing on a building near you. Increase your penis size today, naturally ! . | | 0|0
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
This is true! NO JOKE!
Listen to the news.
where can I get those neat tetris keychains? A geek cant live with out one! but it has to keep score!
I checked thinkgeek.com and googled for it, even checked ebay.com any ideas?
keanmarine.com
Let's do it
Workin' all week 9 to 5 for my money
So when the weekend comes I go get live with the honey
Rollin' down the street I saw this girl and she was pumpin'
I winked my eye she got into the ride went to a club was jumpin'
Introduce myself as Loc she said "You're a liar"
I said "I got it goin' on baby doll and I'm on fire"
Took her to the hotel she said "You're the king"
I said "Be my queen if you know what I mean and let us do the wild thing
Wild thing
Wild thing
Shoppin' at the mall looking for some gear to buy
I saw this girl she cool rocked my world and I had to adjust my fly
She looked at me and smiled and said "You have plans for the night"
I said "Hopefully if things go well I'll be with you tonight"
So we journeyed to her house one thing led to an other
I keyed the door we cold hit the floor looked up and it was her mother
I didn't know what to say I was hanging by a string
She said "Hey you two I was once like you and I liked to do the wild thing"
Wild thing
She loved to do the wild thing
Wild thing
Please baby baby please
Posse in effect hangin' out is always hype
And when me and the crew leave the shindig I want a girl who's just my type
Saw this luscious little frame I ain't lyin' fellas she was fine
The sweet young miss go gave me a kiss and I knew that she was mine
Took her to the limousine still parked outside
I tipped the chauffeur when it was over and I gave her my own ride
Couldn't get her off my jack she was like static cling
But that's what happens when body start slappin' from doin' the wild thing
Wild thing
She wanna do the wild thing
Please baby baby please
Wild thing
Doin' a little show at the local discotheque
This fine young chick was on my jack so I say what the heck
She want to come on stage and do her little dance
So I said chill for now but maybe later you'll get your chance
So when the show was finished I took her around the way
And what do you know she was good to go without a word to say
We was all alone and she said "Tone let me tell you one thing
I need 50$ to make you holler I get paid to do the wild thing"
Say what
Yo love you must be kidding
You're walkin' babe
Just break out of here
Hasta la vista baby
Wild thing
Shortly after his liaison with the taco stand lady, JOE makes a horrible discovery...
Why does it hurt when I pee?
Why does it hurt when I pee?
I don't want no doctor
To stick no needle in me
Why does it hurt when I pee?
I got it from the toilet seat
I got it from the toilet seat
It jumped right up
'N' grabbed my meat
Got it from the toilet seat
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
Oh God I probably got the
Gon-o-ka-ka-khackus!
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
Ai-ee-ai-ee-ahhhh!
Why does it
Why does it
Why does it
Why does it hurt...when I
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?
Color Correction in Refractors
by Roland Christen
Color correction is a very complex thing, and there are many ways a
designer can skew the design of a refractor to make color more or
less perceptible.
Of course, there will always be a bit of color error due to
sphero-chromatism, etc. in apo refractors. The very fact that the
colors in an Apo come so very close to focus (and are not spread out
into a thin imperceptible haze), allows you to see them as slight
fringes on the out of focus patterns. It is ironic then, that when a
lens has very poor color correction, you may not see or notice a lot
more of this when defocusing the image. For instance, if the blue end
of the spectrum goes out of focus ever so slowly with decreasing
wavelength, there is a lot of energy in the slightly out of focus
waves. If, on the other hand, the blue end goes out of focus very
rapidly, the decreasing wavelengths are so far out of focus, that the
energy is spread out very far away from the disc, and contributes
very little to the fringing effect. Thus, an inexperienced tester
could easily conclude that a lens with very poor color correction in
the blue does not seem to have very much color error. The color error
is indeed there, but being so far spread out, it seems to disappear
into "thin air".
In lenses, the key is the color of the in-focus disc. The whiter it
appears at focus, the better is the correction. In a lens with lesser
color correction, the in-focus disc will appear more and more
yellowish (at reasonably high powers of course). The resolution is
not necessarily any different, but the main effect is that with
better color correction, there is more light concentrated in the
image, and fainter stars can be seen. Globulars, for instance, should
look more crisp and the individual stars in the globular should have
more of that sugar sparkle look.
One can indeed make a fast achromat that would appear to have "very
little color", simply by bringing the red end of the spectrum closer
to the yellow and green waves. This sacrifices the blue end. In other
words, if you cut the red error in half in a normal achromat, the
blue error will double. This is called Cde correction (red yel green)
as opposed to the normal CeF (red green blue) correction. The old
time achromat designers tried to include as much of the visible waves
as possible with the CeF correction, and relying on long focal
lengths to increase the depth of focus and reduce the perceived color
error. If a 6" F8 were made that way, it would look colorful, indeed.
By skewing the color curve toward the red, and sacrificing the blue
end, the perceived fringe does not look any bigger (far out of focus
blue and violet waves have very little energy per unit area). Since
the red end is close to focus, you will not see the typical "purple
fringe", which is not really violet light, but the combination of red
and blue.
At low power, these lenses do have an almost Apo look to them,
especially on the Moon. With an object that bright, two things
happen. Your eye's color perception shifts over to the red end of the
spectrum, and because of the brightness entering your eye, your pupil
contracts. In effect, your eye stops down the aperture. So, instead
of seeing the Moon with a 6"f8, you may be stopping it down to 3 or 4
inches due to pupil contraction. If you move your eye around the
eyepiece, you may catch glimpses of the light originating from the
outer part of the lens' aperture, and will see various amounts of
violet and blue flaring in and out. On deep sky, the eye has no color
response, and everything looks white, no matter how well or poor the
color correction is. I would expect a 6" F8 achromat with Cde
correction to show bright globular star clusters buried in a thin
nebulous haze (the out of focus blue and violet light). The
brightness of the haze would be less, the worse the color is, and
would depend, of course, on the magnitude of the cluster. If this
background haze is below the detection limit of the eye, you might
not see any. It would be interesting to compare this nebular
background in CCD images taken with this kind of lens vs a mirror
scope, or high end Apo.
To clarify the situation on color correction a bit more for those
who'se eyelids have not already closed and are nodding away from all
this technical mumbo-jumbo, I will attempt to explain where achros,
EDs, fluorites etc fit into the scheme of things by comparing the
ability of each design to produce a reasonably focused image spot
diameter over its wavelength range. Reasonably focused being
somewhere around 25 microns.
Fast 6"F8 Cde achromat: 550 - 650 nm
Long 6"F15 CeF achomat: 480 - 650 nm
Fast 6"F9 ED doublet: 450 - 650 nm
Fast 6" fluorite doublet: 420 - 1000 nm
Fast 6" FPL52/53 triplet: 380 - 1000 nm
Fast 6" fluorite triplet: 360 - 1000nm
It would be interesting then to divide the cost of each lens by its
useful wavelength range. For instance, a 6"F8 Cde achromat selling
for around $800 today would come in at $10 per nanometer. (our 6"
EDFS at $4900 comes in at $7.90 per nanometer). Interestingly, an 8"
SCT selling for around $900 comes in at $3.81 per nanometer. No fair
asking how a Newtonian would fare!
Seriously, why would you need correction well into the blue-violet
past 480nm? With black and white emulsions, this was necessary
because they have considerable sensitivity down to 380nm. Today's new
blue sensitive CCD cameras also need good correction in the violet.
Also, CCD cameras pick up lots of IR light below 650nm, so correction
to 1000nm is a distinct advantage. For pure visual use, it would be
quite sufficient if the useable range extended only from 440 to 650
nm. So, check the above table for your particular needs and make your
choice.
Crystalline Flourite, and to a lesser extent ED glass, is sensitive to thermal shock, but only under certain circumstances. You could take a 6" disc of Fluorite (or ED) and drop it into boiling water, and it would be quite happy. Take it out of boiling water, and drop it into cold water, and it will shatter into a million pieces.
A warm blank of Fluorite heated evenly throughout will crack instantly if a small amount of water is dropped on it. It does not have to be very warm. The amount of heat that water can absorb is quite large, and the sudden contraction of the material surface will cause the surface to erupt and crack. Once a crack has developed, it is only a matter of time before the glass splits into two pieces. This is also true of ED glasses, although they require more cooling shock. It is doubtful that simply exposing warm fluorite to cold air would result in any damage - in fact there is a 10" Fluorite refractor on top of Kitt Peak that has survived several winters without damage, but I think the Fluorite is in the back, protected by a cover element. What can cause the Fluorite to split is to take a warm element into a bitterly cold night and expose the surface to a high freezing wind. I would be very cautious to not let that happen. I have experienced a 4" fluorite blank splitting in half under just such conditions. Fortunately, most fluorite lenses are somewhat protected deep within their cells, and even the dewcap offers a lot of protection against sudden temperature shocks.
As far as using canned air to blow off dust - I would be very careful. I once accidentally caused the surface of an ED element to erupt and crack open when the canned air accidentally spit out a stream of frozen material. The ED was rescued by immediately grinding 3 mm off the surface before the crack had a chance to propagate.
ED glass can withstand high temperatures, but crystalline Fluorite will delaminate above a certain point. I found that out the hard way too. I don't know where that point is, but suspect it begins to happen above 250 degrees F. If the material partially delaminates, it will be very susceptible to moisture attack, and can cloud up eventually. Besides, it destroys the figure. I would not leave a Flourite refractor on the back seat of a black leather interior car on a hot sunny day. Perhaps once or twice is fine, but I would not do it repeatedly. In fact, I would not subject any scope to that treatment.
Finally, a word about coatings. No!, Fluoride coatings are not the same as Fluorite optics. Magnesium Fluoride (Mag Fluoride) has nothing to do with color correction, and is in any event not used to coat Calcium Fluoride or Fluorite optical materials. The type of coatings normally applied to Fluorite are oxide multilayers, which can be applied without using extremely high temperatures, and they are tough and scratch resistent. They won't fall off if you blow compressed air at them.
I hope this clears up some misconceptions about these materials.
Roland Christen
My lights are blinken! No joke! HPEL!!HLEP!!!!HPEL1!!! SOMEONE CALL 911!
What a stupid name. LOLROFLMAO..!!?!?... Blinkenlights, d00d. I'll shove a beer bottle up each one of their mother's asses.
Goodbye,
The WIPO Troll.
Several (5? 6?) years ago, by some students at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Photo's can be found here. This ain't frontpage news :)
Brown University built a thing just like this and created the world's largest Tetris game. Steve Wozniak, a confessed Tetris addict, even went to play on it.
I think it was only a 10 * 12 matrix though.. so perhaps Blinkenlights' attempt will beat their record.. depends on the height of the tower rather than the resolution I guess.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Actually it wasn't MIT but Brown University. The did it on the side of the library building, by putting chrismas light behinf the windows. It was put by these guys, Techhouse Here is the official site.
Back when it was running I was a URI student, so I lived in the neigborhood. They were very nice guys and even let me play for a little while.
I wonder what the "resolution" of the twin towers .would have been..according to this it had 110 levels but what would the resolution have been if both towers would have acted as one big screen? X x 110...any ideas?
I remmember reading about Blinkenlights, and when I noticed that you could send an sms message to it, all that came to my head was either someone using it as
a) A giant spam-board
or b) a way to increase the web-counter for goatse.cx (no more... PLEASE!)
So now that it will have a higher res, all I find myself thinking is
Please! no more messaging!
On a sidenote, what happens if x (insert large number) all call and try to play at the same time? Or, what happens to a system that has 78000 watts (26*20*150Watts) running through it and gets slashdotted?
.noitacidem deen uoy siht daer nac uoy fI
MIT did it before that, in 1993, on the Green Building. (That's building 54 for you fellow beavers.)
They also did a sound meter for the Boston Pops on the Esplanade. At other times they've put up text and an image of the Oscar when Good Will Hunting snagged a couple.
http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_location/54.html
All in a day's hacking!
(And the last time I sneaked into the 6th floor digital electronics lab of Building 38, there was a poster on the wall about the people who did Tetris on the Green Building with leds as their 6.111 project. Not sure there's a connection there, but...)
Eric W. Schwartz (famous computer artist and animator) did a humorous animation years back depicting the game of Shuttle Cock as played by using giant bats manipulated by the deployment arm on each playing Space Shuttle.
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"