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Build Your Own LCD Bus Schedule
MikeLRoy writes "An engineering student in Winnipeg, tired of missing his bus to school (and waiting in the cold) created an LCD bus stop. It displays the next bus times for several stops and routes, all from the heated comfort of his kitchen. And yes, there are pics and code on the site."
why, back in my day, we didnt have all these new fangled computer bus scheduler thingies. we had to work out the algorithm in our heads in the snow uphill going both ways....kids these days......
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
I hope he doesn't have class tonight, or else his clock is going to be running a bit slow, thanks to the Slashdotting... :)
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
What I'd like to know is why an engineering student is still worried about missing a bus to school..
I'm sure he needs more time to look at pr0n, so that's why he actually built the LCD.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
What happened to either 1) looking the routes online, or 2) grabbing the routes from the library? Was this guy just going out to bus stops at random, hoping he got there at the right time? What was so hard about viewing the paper schedule?
And how is he gonna use this thing he made when he's AWAY from home? Come home?
And to think I would have just written down the schedule on a piece of paper (total cost < 1 cent)
[Singing loudly]
:)
EVERY MORNING I WOULD SEE HER WAITING AT THE STOP!
Sometimes she'd shop and she would show me what she bought!
[/Singing loudly]
AHEM. Sorry... got carried away there.
Transfer. Or better yet, just hang out nearby.
"my perl coding abalilities are far from perfect, so..."
Just yur purl coeding abalilities?
Sorry but i'd rather stay on my own software testing track and have enough $ to buy my own car.
Sure i work for MSFT but at least i can afford to drive a car, take girls out to eat, and go to the casinoes.
Don't mean to be discrimenatorie but it's just how i feel. I'd rather spend time working towards a nice professional job that my kid will look up to than being a grad student (TA) my hole life.
Uh-huh. I can see it now...
"Geeez dad, please don't wear that Microsoft shirt when you pick me up from school. And I think I'll find somebody literate to help with my spelling...."
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
Slick.
"In central London all the bus stops contain LED displays showihng how long you'll have to wait for each bus"
No; in central london all the bus stops have a number next to each destination/bus, but they aren't minutes - they are just numbers which slowly count down, and disappear as the bus turns up. IE "camden town 6mins" doesn't mean the bus to Camden Town will be 6 mins, it just means that between now and the bus turning up, you`ll see:
camden town 6 mins
camden town 5 mins
camden town 4 mins
camden town 3 mins
camden town 2 mins
camden town 1 min
By my reckoning, each minute is actually 1 min 40 seconds.
So was this LCD display for a serial bus, or parellel?
A lot of bus companies nowadays have their schedule avaliable in this newfangled fomat called a paper brochure. Not only does it work anywhere, but you don't even need electricity. Additionally, these marvelous contraptions have a more verbose version of the scedule then the LCD bus schedule display.
Maybe things are different in the USA. I've lived in three Canadian cities so far, and I find that busses are usually very good at being almost exactly on schedule at the route's "timed" points. If the stop you are interested in is between two timed points, then you always make sure to be there by the earlier timed stop's time, but don't expect to leave any sooner than the next timed stop's time. Timed stops aren't too far apart, so you almost never end up waiting too long unless there was some sort of abnormal condition. I've never seen a bus leave a timed stop early, and the sure fire way to get a late bus to come is to light up a cigarette.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I was traveling south a few months ago, and in Luton I saw this.
:)
Had to take a picture
Image quality is rubbish, cheap camera.
Because he wants to have more attention to his handheld/wearable?
Luke-Jr
... this device could actually make the buses stick to the schedule! =P
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
...to tape the bus schedule to the refrigerator door?
I'd be more impressed if he built a robot that poked him with a sharp stick 5 minutes before the bus got there.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
To-Do:
[next release] show when the next bus leaves for "way the fuck out of Winnipeg"
These guys also have a GPS project: Stalkers now using global positioning satellite devices to track victims (Might make a good Slashdot submission, but I'm just not inspired at the moment.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Your signature reads:
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Don't make fun of edlin. It's probably the last program that they released that did not present a huge security risk.
Buses are like women; you wait ages for one, miss it and then use a screen which can represent them instead.
If you're good with chemical engineering and microelectronic fabrication, don't get those prebuilt LCD displays, they cost a LOT more. The raw minerals shouldn't be much more than $0.25.