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Send A Message To An LED Sign
An anonymous reader submits "I just got a Pro Lite LED sign today. After a few minutes splicing and wiring up a DB9 to RJ11 connection, and a little fun with python, I've got a script that lets me take input from the web and display it on the sign. Eventually it will have other, more useful, purposes, but I figured I'd let you guys play with it as it is. There's also a log of past messages."
Why on earth would you submit your own website when you know it will go down in a matter of seconds? Authors should have to start proving some sort of minimal bandwidth requirement before submitting their own site. I'm tired of people hosting web pages on their home DSL lines.
The Technonaut
No, it wouldn't have saved him, you insensitive clod. RTFA!
Please note that you cannot submit a whole site to FreeCache as in http://freecache.org/http://www.rocklobsters.com/ This will not work as only index.html will be cached. You have to prefix every item that you want to have cached seperately.
Also it wouldn't have done much good for a CGI script, now would it?
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
It's called TOS, or terms of service. This guy is going to get an angry call from his cable provider come 9AM, and they'll probably take the wire down right off his house lol
As for the
Hell, I post an occational image on Fark and you should see the logfiles go apeshit
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I'd second the idea about putting up a LED sign in a pub, except for two issues: one, you can't really filter profanity. The assholes will use spaces, letters and whatnot to mask it and it will still get through. Second, the LED display humor will be limited to the moderator's sense of humor.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
This may get modded down, but the guy who posted the article is an utter moron.
He's already posted this link on two message boards (Ars Technica and Something Awful), to be informed that his copy of IIS Personal Web Server, included with Windows, which allows a maximum of 5 connections, couldn't stand up to the onslaught.
Evidently, he decided posting it on Slashdot was a logical next step.
Slashdot needs to post an article, on above all things - article posting ethics. This current article demonstrates a trend that's happening recently, whereby people are seeing someone's cool homepage (or submitting their own), and forwarding it to hundreds of thousands of internet users via a Slashdot article.
I mean please, linking a CGI page on a windows server hosted on your cable modem connection, with a throughput of 9.6K... that's not gonna hold up 5 seconds after slashdot posts the article.
This is hopelessly offtopic, but it's something that people need to start thinking about before they submit an article.
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
This guy is not insane, he's just an idiot probably. Thinking of posting this on slashdot...
The guy who is REALLY insane is the editor who allowed this to be on slashdot front page.
4Z5TX
The page currently reads at the top:
Good morning Slashdot users. Someone thought it'd be cute to link to me, which isn't a good idea with the 10 user version of IIS. Sorry for the 403.9's. For more information about my setup, go to ArsTechnica or SomethingAwful.Notice how the submitter was anonymous... I don't think it was the same guy as the sign owner himself.
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
Besides the fact that there is no such critter as a DB-9 connector.
r e x is either P or S depending on whether the contacts are pins or sockets. As an aside, there are now connectors with fifteen 22guage contacts in an "E" size shell, 26 in an "A" etc. These "high density" connectors are HDE-15x, HDA-26x, etc. The VGA connector is a variant of the HDE-15.
Back in the day when the "D" shell connectors were created (at ITT-Cannon?) there were four sizes all with 20 guage contacts. The 15 contact connector was in an "A" size shell, 25 contacts in a "B", 37 contacts in a "C", and 50 contacts in a "D" size. Later, a 9 contact connector was developed in a smaller shell. Guess what, the next letter available was "E". So it's correct to have:
DE-9x
DA-15x
DB-25x
DC-37x
DD-50x
whe
When RS-232 was standardized as an interface, they chose two connectors - the DB-25 and a 26 contact Centronics. The DB-25 became the ubiquitous connector in the PC industry. But almost no one was the full RS-232 standard. At best they might use the CTS and RTS lines in addition to the transmit and recieve. So, to save money, the PC industry went to the DE-9 to eliminate the extraneous hardware costs. But guess what, a lot of inDUHviduals couldnt' get their minds around the fact that the connector is smaller so they couldn't change what they call the connector. Thus the incorrect nomenclature "DB-9". Get it right, it is a DE-9.
Also note, since the PC makers have eliminated all the hand shaking, most of the flow control, and used a different connector than what's in the specification, the serial port on your PC is not strictly RS-232.
This was an AC post calling for control of a piece of hardware. How do we know the AC is even the real owner of the sign? Even if it is real, the sign probably crashed under the load just from /. subscribers (all 3 of them :-) ) before it was posted for the public.
Over the years I have had quite a few submissions rejected and then the editors publish something like this. eeedeeeeots!
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
One problem: The people who drive 10 under the limit in the far left lane are the same people who don't use their rear view mirrors. So they'd never see your sign.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig