Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Extreme Christmas Lights In Orlando

Posted by timothy on from the what-generators-are-for-when-the-blackouts-come dept.

tripmine writes "The Orlando Sentinel has a story about a geek who can't get enough Christmas light. 'This Christmas, tech-savvy people such as Hansen are increasingly building the biggest, most elaborate holiday lights in neighborhoods across Central Florida and throughout the country. They typically work in fields such as computer programming, Web development, engineering or audio and visual services and are armed with a technical knowledge that the average person lacks. They trade tips and stories on message boards and set up Web sites with step-by-step descriptions of how they installed their lights as well as pictures and videos of the finished product.'" Many cities have neighborhoods where the spectacle takes up blocks at a time, not just individual houses, too, as anyone who's strolled down Austin's 37th Street can attest. Links invited (in comments) to the best / worst light-spectacles you know of.

4 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Jesus is the "reason for the season"? by humankind · · Score: 0, Troll

    I couldn't help but notice the huge, annoying, "Jesus is the reason for the season" in those Xmas lights. Maybe if the architect did as much research into history as he did lighting, he might realize that Christmas was appropriated from earlier pagan traditions and has very little, if virtually nothing to do with "Jesus". Historians also generally agree (among those that actually think there was a historial Jesus figure) that Jesus was not born on December 25th in the first place. He was more likely born in the Spring or Summer. It's one thing to believe something that's erroneous. It's another to cast it in a hundred thousand lights and broadcast your ignorance to the entire neighborhood. Happy Saturnalia!

    1. Re:Jesus is the "reason for the season"? by Darby · · Score: -1, Troll

      Most people would not celebrate Christmas if not for our attachment of it to Jesus, and it certainly would not be a national holiday.

      Well, only if you ignore the simple fact that the planet has been tilted on its axis for far *far* longer than your religion has existed.


      Jesus is, indeed, the reason why people care about Christmas at all. Funny how people like you complain about revisionism, and then try to ignore facts like this.

      Ah, yes, the gospel of Pudge, where the only relevant facts are the ones you make up to support your position. No matter how much of history, climate, or the basic physics of our orbital mechanics prove you to be wrong.

      Oh wait, you don't actually understand the difference between "settled", as in, "A large percentage of the people who settled the land we now call America were Christians (often radial extremists who were tossed out of their native lands for their murderous ways)" and "founded" as in "The vast majority of the founders of the nation we now refer to as America were Deists, if they had any religion at all,and had seen the evil inherent in religious rule as exemplified by such Christian things as the Salem witch trials, and so explicitly excluded such hateful delusions from the government of a free society".

      No, you'll just claim that the celebration of the solstice, which far predates the invention of your religion or even your god's promotion from wind god of the Hebrew pantheon, would disappear if everybody grew up and forgot anybody ever believed such nonsense.

      Keep in mind, Pudgie, that the Earth has been tilted on its axis for *billions* of years. Your religion was invented two *thousand* years ago.
      The farther you get from the equator, the more apparent that simple fact is. So if you seriously, believe that just because your late to the plate rebirth cult is magically right because it says the same things that were said for longer before your religion was invented than your religion has existed, you're really dumb.

      If you attempt to claim, instead, that, regardless of millennia of history, all that matters is which cult is predominant in the here and now, then you're saying that if your cult were to magically die away tomorrow, then nobody would ever long for the end of winter again?

      Seriously, your head has a long trip to get out of your butt if you're so simple that you think your Mediterranean death cult has much relevance to a climactic event that predates its entire lifespan by orders of magnitude.

  2. Re:Good Thing It's Not in Boston by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I'm sick and tired of people repeating this stupid joke. You forget that there already was a bbomb threat in Bostno that day.

    Popele were just acting rashionally when they saw a st4range device on important imfrasturcture. If the devices were just put on sighns, no one would have cared, but they were placed on bridges and other places where they looked dangerous.

    And as for the MIT student, you MIT agreed with the actions of the piolce and that the student wazs acting dangerously. MIT is a pretty well known for its smart people and if they agree than it's not surprising that the police acted the way they did.

    So stop with the silly joke already, the actions is bOston were justifyd.

  3. It's Easier Than That by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    All you have to do is put out a Lite-Brite on your front lawn of an alien flipping the traffic off going by and you'll have Homeland Security on your doorstep in no time.