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Building Your Own Glowing Cyber-Balls?

krezel asks: "So I've been drooling over the Ambient Orb, a cool little gadget 'glowing ball' that you changes colors based the 'health' of things you specify. It can do stuff like fade from red to yellow to green as your stock portfolio improves. However, being a poor college student I can't afford its $200 price tag. I've found lots of sources for super bright multi-color LED's. Cast a couple of them in some translucent resin, hook them up to a power source, and you've got yourself a cheap glowing ball. But I've yet to find any good information on how to build hardware that will let me control relays for devices like this through my serial or parallel port. Basically I'm looking for a cheap way to build a board that will let me control 4-8 relays (for each color) over my serial port, and some info on how to write the software for it. This could be a very cool project, and I plan on making the plans available, and the code Open Source, when I'm done with it. Any ideas?"

6 of 453 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm... by TWX_the_Linux_Zealot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Usually I try to avoid being afflicted by glowing cyber balls, myself.

    You know you need to get laid if "Hey baby, wanna cyber?" gets your balls glowing...

    --

    IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
    And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
  2. Nice headline... by Gogl · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks like we have a new candidate for this old poll.

  3. Better Investment by limekiller4 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Karma be damned, this is easily one of the dumbest things I have ever seen. It's a ball. That glows. The glow shifts, for example, on the rise or fall of the stock market.

    Cliff, give me $200 dollars. You can call me whenever you want. Sometimes I'll hum. Sometimes I'll hum louder.

    --
    My .02,
    Limekiller
  4. I need one... by wikkiewikkie · · Score: 5, Funny

    So I can easily keep track of the ever-changing terrorism threat level.

  5. Re:Mr T. by l810c · · Score: 5, Funny

    I pity the fool touches my cyberballs!

  6. Re:...Glowing balls? by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Funny

    I read the topic, and after reading the beginning "krezel says: So I've been drooling..." I didn't know if I should continue. :-O

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!