Slashdot Mirror
Christmas Lighting in Abundance
gral writes "My boss really gets into setting up Christmas lights. He has been interviewed by a couple TV stations, because of his displays. He usually has them setup at his house. This year he has moved to a Church Yard for more space. For 2003, his display sports over 200,000 lights, each string is controlled by computer to light to the tune of a Radio Station playing christmas music. Check out his website at Planet Christmas. Some pictures of this year's display can be seen as well. Have fun and Happy Holidays."
Further proof that Management is useless.
Sorry, forgot this in the writeup, but there are some Gentoo packages out for lighting for your Christmas trees and houses.
Check out Gentoo.org for more details.
You may need a 3D card to view demos though.
I highly doubt that you will get anymore money out of him. Your Xmas bonus is going to more lights and your co-workers are going to start calling you Rudolph the Brown-nosed reindeer.
I had a friend who did something like this. He hooked 8000 (yes, eight thousand) lights up and made one continuous string across the entire yard, then set it up as a chaser. It looked REALLY good.
As soon as he finds out that it was you that slashdotted him...
Here is the house about 5 minutes from mine which is by far the most decorated house in the area. It is actually some Elvis impersonator, so his display always has an Elvis theme and usually has Elvis music playing. The display requires the police for traffic control, and it's been said that the gentleman has worked out a special agreement with O&R (or maybe PSEG), the local energy company. I haven't been to the house in about 5 years. They say he adds more lights every year, so I have no idea if it still looks like the pictures.
I guess, he watched too many episodes of "Home Improvement".
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Planet Christmas knocked out of orbit by asteroid Slashdot122103
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
the /. effect hits again
Do we really want to encourage this sort of behavior? It may be cool and pretty, but not cool and pretty enough for the resources it consumes (both in electricity and also manufacturing, etc). Not to mention less explicit costs like the impact on traffic, wildlife, neighbors, and stargazers.
And time.
Anyone pick up some of those LED strands? Ugh. The flickering. They don't convert the power from AC to DC, so naturally the LEDs being one-way things flicker at 60hz (maybe its 30 at that point? I dunno).
Anyone know of someone that sells a solution to this? I'm thinking a few capacitors and a few diodes would do it?
They've just raised the national terror alert level to ORANGE. YES, ORANGE! Orange means high, by the way, or 4 out of 5 on the chart.
This is due to two factors:
1, they suspect that terrorists are collecting funds by standing in front of Walmarts with a red kettle, and ringing bells.
2, They discovered 12 Saudis that were taking leasons on how to fly sleighs and getting instruction on basic deer husbandry.
The Dept. of Homeland Defense requests that anyone spotting any flying sleighs that are being led by deer like animals assume it is a Saudi terrorist. Initial indications are they plan to attack on the eve of birth of Christ, as a religious statement against the "infidels". If they try to land on your roof, you should take necessary defensive action. Deadly force is authorized.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled nonsense, already in progress...
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I can't imagine wrestling with that many strings of lights trying to find the loose bulbs and replacing the dead ones until they light. I only put up a handful of strings each year but by the end of the the exersise i'm ready to hunt down and kill the bastards that figured it was a good idea to wire christmas lights in series.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
I mean such a cruelty, slashdot his "christmas" web site just a few day before christmas...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
He didn't happen to test those out on August 14th this year, hmm?
Uhoh, Sorry to reply to my own post but during my posting procedure the page has slowly begun to load a few pictures. 10 minutes has passed. This is intolerable. You people get to work. CODE ORANGE back in effect until this problem is corrected.
Something between the lines jumps out and bites your arm off. Soltan Gris / London
to get a bigger christmas gratification out of your boss
As a source of mass employment, we have moved from agriculture, to manufacturing, and now into aesthetics. It is not that agriculture has disappeared from the US, but it is down to about 3% of the economy.
"For 2003, his display sports over 200,000 lights, each string is controlled by computer to light to the tune of a Radio Station playing christmas music..."
So what happens when you stop feeding in traditional Christmas stuff and pipe something like Bob Rivers 'Twisted Christmas' into it?
I wonder if it would act anything like a Teddy Ruxpin with a 'Metallica' tape (appropriately encoded on the animation data track, of course) installed?
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
200,000 Xmas lights: $1000 500 KW of electricity: $4500 Slashdotting your bosses webserver because he gave you a shitty Xmas bonus: Priceless Mastercard: Hey! At least we're not AMEX! Right? Right?
In Soviet russia, only old Koreans profit from pictures of Natalie Portman stored on Beowulf Clusters.
They light to to songs playing on a radio station? Do they light to the commercials too?
So that's why they need to build that fusion reactor.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
In related news... 1/3 of San Francisco without power
Holidays are meant to be enjoyed and celebrated and normal use of lighting etc. is part of the process.
But 200,000 lights ?? Well, If they are LED's it's okay. I didn't STFS (see the freaking site)because it is slashdotted already but if they are not LED's it is a little waste of power.
The precious energy that humankind dearly needs sometimes goes waste. Wars have been fought over it and thousands of people wait in lines for fuel/gas etc. So while some might be just burning away that energy in 200,000 lights, others are starved of that energy!
Pl excuse the typos, grmmer etc, typed it in haste, gotta go shoppin'
Anyone know how many GFLOPS Christmas lights can perform and are there libraries than can utilize them for general propose processing.
God bless you merry gentleman.
'Tis Merry Christmas and not this homogenized, politically correct pap.
Of course most of the Slashdot crowd are no longer Christians because they've embraced Wicca.
I bring you tidings of comfort and joy.
Personally, I don't decorate for Christmas or other holidays - it seems too commercial for me. But I enjoy driving around with my family to see what others do.
However, being somewhat of a geek and in lawschool, I had to search to see if any people like the good boss here were ever sued for being a Public Nusiance. I came up with the following:
Osborne v. Power (Ark, 1994) - guy ordered to reduce his amount of lights so as to not attract the large numbers of sightseers coming to the neighborhood.
Rodrigue v. Copeland (La., 1985) - from the case: "Defendant is enjoined from erecting and operating a Christmas exhibition which is calculated to and does attract an unusually large number of visitors to the neighborhood." The court also spent some time arguing that this limitation did not infringe his rights of free speech.
Klein v. Copeland (La., 1986) - followup suit from the previous - the guy apparently didn't comply.
... the boss aint gonna be too happy that his light's control machine just got slashdotted.
I have to admit that posting your boss' website on the slashdot homepage is an easy revenge for whatever he did to you...You must be LOL, seeing his webserver melting down :)
____
nico
Nico-Live
nothing personal?
the lights are beginning to shine where they rarely/never have before?
He was recently on the Japanese equivalent of Good Morning America.
He also sells the hardware and software used to control the lights. His website is Light-O-Rama. The major competition is Animated Lighting. The (currently slashdotted) chat rooms at Planet Christmas are your best bet for deciding which solution is your best bet.
Blarrrrghhhpf, splash!
Is it fascism yet?
ok how about a string of lights where each was individually controllable - each socket contained a simple switch that would look on a serial data bus for its individual code and switch its light on or off accordingly. To set it up you would drape the lights around randomly and then point a camera at the tree/house/bush etc. A computer would use the camera to calibrate by switching each light one by one and noting the position on the camera until it built up a rough pattern of light positions (this would take anything from seconds to minutes depending). Then you could use the lights as a crude dot-matrix display. The light detection routine wouldn't be that hard to do, and you could even have the lights pulse at a certain frequency to make detection easier for the computer. A step further would be to place the camera more than once to build up a 3D model of light positions. I think there are already mass produced components that can respond when they detect their code on a serial interface, imagine the possibilities given enough lights and cheap production?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
You Slashdotted your boss' website!
PLEASE, stop this. When your boss is using all this power, don't forget that he's using from the resources that's probably non-renewable. Even nuclear power is considered non-renewable!
We all (EVERYBODY) own the resources at our planet, so even my thoughts should be considered highly when I set my foot down and scream this out to you "YOU F**KIN' LOOSERS USING THE POWER ON SUCH A LAME THING!"
I can't belive that you consider this to be cool when we live in a world where global warming is a clear and present danger and conservation of energy and resources is essential.
This is just a display of total disrespect of the ecology and environment. Only in America.
When in doubt, act determined. Business 101
each string is controlled by computer to light to the tune of a Radio Station playing christmas music
Does it come with a tip of the day, too?
<tip>Christ was born on Christmas day. That's why we have Christmas; not because Wal-Mart wants to sell you something.</tip>
Merry Christmas to all. If you don't celebrate Christmas, then "happy holidays" to you. But let's not water down the real reason for Christmas with our Ho Ho Ho's and lack of mention of Christ our Saviour.
Sexy Christmas
Fun Christmas
White Christmas
Lovely Christmas
Social Christmas
Entertaining Christmas
Happy Holidays!
From the Organisation Against Wannabe Dictators On Internet.
I can imagine all 200,000 lights burning out simultaneously as his server strains under the sudden slashdot load!
http://imageshack.us/files/DSCF0123.jpg
Each year Longwood Gardens has a kick-ass light display. They have pictures here and here. There main gig is flowers and such, and it is well worth the trip to Eastern Pennsylvania from anywhere. While you're in the area, stop by the Brandywine River Museum.
I have seen them when they were at their height. Over 3 million lights: www.jenningsosbornefamily.com
Ah, the last peanut -- overflowing with the oil and salt of its departed brothers. -Homer
They are a presumptuous affectation of those who style themselves too sophisticated to make a strong primal statement using color. Children, who's tastes are uncorrupted, prefer colored Christmas lights.
Religion is a red herring. The Christmas star was said to be a single star in the sky, not a thousand stars in the shrubbery. The Christmas tree is a pagan custom from Germany, and there are no evergreens in the mid-East!
The problem of white Christmas Lights originated when the producers of movies and television discovered that colored lights are difficult and expensive to photograph. (Lights are the brightest thing in the picture and tend to be overexposed. When colored lights are overexposed they turn into a washed out white. When white lights are overexposed they just look white.) This caused white lights to be used in movies and television because of expense considerations.
Then the "people" especially the people who wanted to style themselves sophisticated, began to decorate their houses with white lights! They were slavishly following what they saw in movies and television unknowing that those media were motivated by expense considerations!
Well, sophisticates, I have this to tell you: Your white lights are ugly and you are a bunch of low taste idiots!
They discovered 12 Saudis that were taking leasons on how to fly sleighs and getting instruction on basic deer husbandry
The flight lessons I can imagine, but come on! Since when do Arabs need lessons on fucking deer?
OK so the Power companies in California and other states don't want you to waste power. This was reinforced so much I recall seeing messages about it for seti@home a few years ago. Now it's Christmas and lights can be had for about .95 cents a metric ton!!!
everyone has them and inflatable Santa's and such. Now I like the spirit of Christmas just as much as the next guy but give me a break!
... ridiculous. How did it get insightful?
What kind of establishment is Slashdot, anyway? They seem to have a persistent track record of linking to stories on sites that are down.
They just don't get it, do they?
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It's called lowercase, jilldonkey.
Anyone want to make a small fortune over Christmas?
Set up a store selling cable managment products near this guy's house...
Than this giant waste of money on equipment and power?
whine.
Maybe you should take your bitching to the city council so they'll consider outlawing having a bit of fun during the holidays.
It's 1984: Do you know where your rights are? They've been confiscated by bitching nerds and will be returned to you as soon as they deem it convienent for themselves.
Where's the -1 Pathetic button?
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I'm glad that Christianity is slowly moving back to its roots. Maybe one day, they'll call the god of Heaven and Earth Jupiter, Zeus or Odin again, instead of Jahweh.
Old gods never die, they just fade away...
And an excellent example of why our rights can so easily be eroded.
"Sorry sir but this bitching bitter nerd doesn't see the point in this so you'll have to take it down."
"Do people really like looking at the house Christmas threw up on?"
You're an idiot. Obviously people want to see it. Otherwise it wouldn't be news. It's a holiday tradition for many people to drive around and see the decorations on people's houses.
You'd know this is if didn't live in the basement completely cut off from society.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Anytime some nerd spends countless hours and thousands of dollars on some useless feat of technology Slashdot goes "oooh" and "ahhhh"
Some guy spends equally as much time and money on decorating his house in a way that masses of people want to see, you whine about how much time and money it cost.
Sorry nerd boy, the world doesn't care about the fact you wasted a pile of time and money on getting your C64 on the internet.
5 people give a shit about your uesless little Linux running toy. Thousands of people enjoy this guy's house.
Too bad. It's his money, he can spend it how he wants.
Why don't you take your money and time you've wasted on worthless tech toys and put it towards charity.
Then, once you've ceased to be hypocritical, we'll consider criticizing this guy's ambitions.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Lots of people are complaining about the presumed impact of this display on the environment. While I couldn't reach the site, someone quotes the FAQ as saying that the total energy cost for the display is $156. In California, that's less than the cost of running two headless PC's for a year. So maybe you could run 4 PC's for that in Tennessee. Does that put it in perspective yet?
I think some people had a negative reaction to the display, and tried to rationalize it with a fimsy argument about environmental impact.
I was hoping for interesting discussion of cheap ways to control a lot of I/O points, logistics of storing and setting up such a display, etc.
good to see ya getting in the spirit of the season
Someone recently sent me this holiday season quote from "Bridget Jones Diary":
Sympathize with Jesus in sense of embarrassment he must, and perhaps should, feel over imposition of his own birthday on large areas of globe."
--Helen Fielding
...is more impressed with the massive rat's nest of cables coming in through the window then lights themselves.
My only complaint is there were not enough high voltage signs. I really don't think the 10 or 12 signs he has up now get the message across.
telnet://zombiemud.org:3000
Ugh. That's one of those hideous looking warehouse-churches!
I have a website. It's about Macs.
It has to do with the rods and cones on your retinas. The periphery of your vision is made up with a greater proportion of rods to cones than the middle. Rods have a faster response time to changes in luminance than do cones. Whereas cones can better define colour than rods.
So that's why you can see screen flicker better from the side of your field of view. There are more rods there.
Remember: umount it before you fsck it.
Nice idea - slashdot your boss.
-green is the color of the rainbow
Mirror up here for those of you who just can't wait.
In some twisted way this allways comes as a suprise to me, but you actually don't have a clue what's on stake here do you?
The enviro-hippies have gotten to you.
No, i just had a brush with reality. Maybe you should take a look at it instead of Bush's "enviomental" policy.
Jeez, who cares. It's his money to spend. If he wants to put 200kW of heating elements in his yard so people admire the pretty red glow, that's his perogative; he's the one paying for the power.
Is this a joke, or are you so narrow-minded that you only se $$$ in all this? There is a bigger picture you know, end when the shit hits the fan you actually can't just hand over some cash and restet the environment. Some day we have face the consequences of our actions.
I'm so tired of all this "reduce reuse recycle" propoganda crap.
I could not care less if you don't want to listen to the truth or not, as long as you act responsibly. There a many levels between stoneage and this waste, and one of them is NEED. You don't NEED to artificially flambe your house to live in relative comfort! There is no need to take to the extrems in either direction.
be my guest but stop dictating what others can and cannot do
No, I will not since this affects me and my children etc. Just use common sense... if you have any. They do have some form of education where you live right?
When in doubt, act determined. Business 101
What a waste of money and electrical resources.
I've actually been to Chuck's house when I lived in Nashville, TN. There were cars lines up for blocks in either direction, waiting to get a look.
Now, my question is, does this increase or decrease property values for his neighbors? If someone were enterprising, they should've been selling hot chocolate car to car (and then come by 30 minutes later and offer the use of their bathroom at $5 per person per visit).
Need a simple, easy to use data tier generator? http://www.gryphinsoftware.com/
Just look at all those wires going through that window.
Have any pictures from after the fire?
The precious energy that humankind dearly needs sometimes goes waste. Wars have been fought over it and thousands of people wait in lines for fuel/gas etc. So while some might be just burning away that energy in 200,000 lights, others are starved of that energy!
Yah, because if I don't run my Christmas lights tonight, the energy situation on the other side of the globe is going to improve. Right.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
My first instinct when I saw the website was that it would be wonderful if even half of all that electricity could be used instead to provide light, heat, and cooking to a family whose power has been turned off due to inability to pay. Every year in the city where I live, we have at least one terrible fire caused by a family using candles or an antiquated, non-working kerosene heater. Sadly, it seems that babies or young children are the ones who die in these fires.
Whether we observe a religion or have a more secular mindset, the season is about light. We may be celebrating the birth of one who brought light, or observing the light of freedom from oppression, or noting the lengthening of days. It's certainly appropriate to decorate our homes or personal spaces. But I think it would make a more joyful and appropriate celebration to see the literal bringing of light to darkened homes and lives.
Anne
DUCT TAPE: The Election Supervisors' Secret Weapon
Try pulling a bulb and see if it still works (small lights not big ones)
I have several strings of small lights strung all over my house, and I know of a handful of bulbs that don't work, yet everything else is fine. I've even intentionally bought the cheapest light sets for the past 3-4 years, and not a single one has been wired in series. However, my parents did have a couple strings several years ago (~8yrs) that were wired as you say. The cheapo lights I got this year were something like $8 for a box of 450. At this price, you might wanna try some out.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
rogre waters, amused to death .. and the alien anthropologisst admitted they were quite perplexed
it seemed they had just amused themselves to death.
fuck christmas.
are you buying enough for Jesus yet?
Some nice background on how holiday lighting came about and ways to reduce the kilowatts with LED's on analogzone.
This guy lives near me! I'm so going to check this dude out. Thanks slashdot for the skinny on some good christmas lights.
-KVN
echo
Need I say more?
Every windows user is a sadomasochist.
would be insanely jealous.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
No, the guy still didn't comply.
The Copeland mentioned above is Al Copeland. Has anyone ever eaten at a Popeye's Fried Chicken. Al Copeland started Popeye's. http://www.popeyes.com/popeyesstory.html
He then bought Church's Chicken, and wound up loosing them both. He still owns the company the supplies the spice for Popeye's.
He also owns the more upscale Copeland's Restaurant, which is actually quite good. http://www.copelands.net/
And yes, this is the same Al Copeland that had Anne Rice sending out the Vampire Lestat out to talk to him about the color of his neon light. http://www.kicon.com/law/cases_e/annrice.html and http://www.nola.com/haunted/?vampires/021297straya .html
and http://www.nola.com/haunted/?vampires/092797straya .html
So if you want to see some Real Christmas Lights, go the the end of Transcontinental drive by the lake in Metairie, La, just outside of New Orleans. He has around over a million lights. Yes, he has his own transformer. He used to hire college engineering students to help put them up. It is really something to see. http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/remodeling/article/0,1797 ,HGTV_3659_1581560,00.html
and http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3660533&p 1=0
At least his electric company loves him. ...and folks said there'd be no market for home fusion reactors....
That's gonna be painful when the Fire Marshall pulls out the AssRipper2000 and lets fly.
It's remotely organized, but the electrical work can't be up to code. That many outlets in that small a space... -- Catonic
How come everyone who claim's they are a troll get's modded up as insightful?
I have christmas lights in multiple rooms in my house. All year round. They are turned on daily. I don't like white lights. I like blacklight, colored lights, christmas lights, and (the best) CRT-light.
I'd REALLY like them to go to music. And not the lame way, but by-color. That is, use FFTs to isolate bass, mid-range, treble, and affect a different color. I invision red being bass, but it really wouldn't matter.
Now I know this is possible. The cheap way is to just take scissors, cut the plug off your christmas lights, and put that in the back of your stereo. This works, but does not separate the separate frequencies per color. They all just go on. And if they are 90 watt lights and you have a 100 watt stereo..... Turning it all the way up makes them explode. Neat. (Don't try this at home.)
But c'mon... There's GOTTA be an easy way to do this....... I would be sooooo happy...
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
If you have a Boss just like that, you can tell your story here...
http://www.thepeterprinciple.co.uk/