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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."
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.
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!
He didn't happen to test those out on August 14th this year, hmm?
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.
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?
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?
60Hz (50Hz in Europe and some other places). But the nature of LEDs would mean they flicker would not be as bad as it would seem (they dim down slower than they ignite). Traditional fluorescent lights flicker at 60Hz too (not new starterless ones, the ballasts operate at 25kHz to 110kHz).
I have used LEDs to turn a pot plant into a Xmas tree (it was the 80s, what can I say) and simply used a wall wart style transformer(12vdc). You don't need capacitors to turn AC into DC, although it will be smoother electricity (less ripple). Not needed for just lighting LEDs, since they simply consume and burn the electricity.
All you need is 4 diodes to turn AC into DC. Go google "bridge rectifier" and I am sure you can find plans. It is very very easy to make. The typical basic rectifier has 4 diodes and 2 capacitors (optional). But its still easier to buy a universal transformer/rectifier for small loads. For medium to large loads (3 to 30 amps) you may try a car battery instead. Another option is a regulated power supply, basically a poor man's Variac. Those are under $50 for up to 8 amps or more.
There are some other methods as well, such as using a power inverter that works at a higher frequency (LEDs don't care what Hz you use, just the direction of the current flow). Any Hz over 85 is going to appear flicker free. You might have trouble finding an inverter that works at these higher Hz.
Another possible but ludicrous option is to get a surplus military generator. Most of these have dual taps, 60Hz for basic power, and 400Hz for aircraft recharging. The 400Hz side will work nicely for powering LEDs. These can be purchased at auction for a couple grand or less. They run on anything remotely "fuel oil", even corn oil.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
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'
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.
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
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.
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.
Just like the power wasted by your computer surfing the internet ;)
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!
You want 4 diodes and a small capacitor. Otherwise the LEDs will still flicker, at 120 Hz. I'm not sure why they don't just put these parts into the strand, because they can't cost more than 35-40 cents in quantity.
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?
Wow, you have either really old light sets or really cheap ones. Every string I've bought in the last 5 years or so was in parallel. You may want to consider an upgrade. It's only about $5 a string...
I sing the doggie electric!
You're thinking of a half-wave rectifier - just one diode in series. A full-wave rectifier will output 0=__/\/\/\.
;) I had thought a standard bridge rectifier was only half wave, but I see your point. I am not sure how the trough is inverted (my ignorance and need to google). Thanks. Assuming you are correct (a safe assumption) then now we are left with a 120Hz wave, so we address the grandparents consern of a 120hz flicker in the LEDs:
;)
Given a 60hz input, there will be 120 peaks per second at the output. In other words, the output has a DC offset, a strong 120hz wave, and some harmonics.
I am more adept at 220vac choke and high frequency plasma systems (100kHz+ neon and fluorescent), my strengths are not DC
If there is a 120Hz flicker, you won't know it, since you can't really detect anything that fast.
On another note, I did work on a successful project to continuously ignite 2400 watts of fluorescent lamps using less than 120v/15a and developing it into a commercial product. Ask me about the natural resonance of mercury (253.7nm) and its relationship to high frequency vs. high energy and I might be more in my element
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Mirror up here for those of you who just can't wait.
LED's are diodes. That means that the voltage drop across them is fixed. If you have enough capacitance to keep the minimum voltage above that voltage (usually about 2V for red LEDs, 3.5 for blue with green in between) then the LED will remain on. An LED that is getting brighter and dimmer at 60 (or 120)Hz is going to be a lot less noticable than an LED that is switching off and on.
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
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