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Extreme Christmas Lights In Orlando
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.
Or the police would've locked down the city already.
What's the point to banning some incandescent light bulbs if this bullshit is allowed?
These type of flashy animated displays are like flashing HTML text and all the other tacky crap from 90's web design.
It can be done a lot more tastefully.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
FTFA:
Hansen's 25,000-light display is synchronized to five songs, which he broadcasts over an FM-radio frequency so passers-by can pick it up in their cars.
Radio broadcasts a/k/a "public performance" of likely-unlicensed music? So who's gonna get him first? The RIAA? The ASCAP? The FCC?
Takin' all bets!
Rochester Michigan has a really nice light display setup on all of the stores on Main St. Here's a link to a slideshow from the company that put them up. Not surprisingly, the lights cause gridlock for about a mile in each direction, but it's worth it.
Who has money for the energy bill from Christmas lights? Our household is very financially secure, but I'm not looking to spend thousands over the season to run the lights. My neighbor, who isn't really decked out as much as some, said his bill will be over $600 more this months for his lighting scheme. OUCH.
I'm sure the environmentalists will cry foul, and I understand that philosophy, but for me, the lights are putting more demand on electricity, which means I'll pay a higher bill myself.
The wife and I do like to see the more extravagant lighting setups out there, but we have noticed that some homes aren't running them 7 days a week. Wonder if its an electrical bill concern.
Back when I was in high school, my family lived in southern Florida. Miami, specifically. This kind of crap is extremely prevalent around there, and I'm not sure exactly why. At any rate, one year our neighbor, as usual, had up several thousands of lights, along with the usual array of motorized reindeer, inflatable Santa Claus, and of course a big plastic glowing Jesus (what Jesus has to do with a pagan/capitalist holiday I'm not sure).
Anyways, a huge ugly array of crap that probably took a lot of work to put up--a perfect target for neighborhood hooligans looking to spoil peoples' hard work, right? Not so. The neighbor's display remained untouched. Meanwhile over at our house, we had simply arranged some lights in the shape of a peace sign over our garage door. Within two days all the lights had been torn down and stomped on. Ah, America...
Of course, it's all fun and games until the bus of epileptic kids drives by.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Computer controlled, fully programmable.
Lite-o-rama
If you're insane and anal enough to do it right. Some of the displays are pretty impressive, though. In an over the top, freaky, kind of way.
Once I was with my family driving around looking at lights when we saw one house that had a huge nativity scene set up in their front yard. It had Mary, Joesph, the wise men, the whole nine yards. But it also had a huge fucking grim reaper behind the manager leaning over it all. I guess they were too lazy to take down the Halloween decorations all the way before setting up for Christmas, or they were just ape shit insane. Probably a little of each
Thats not creative at all. its just plain old boring.
Now, THIS is original and creative. Id love to see the neighbors faces when this thing fires up on the front lawn! If some pinheads flashing lights annoy you, just pay them back with the wonderfully tuned sound of static discharge! Enjoy!
No, you misheard: you triggered the seizures!
I bet this guy drives a Prius and talks about reducing his carbon footprint all the time, too. ;-)
I don't think the human race will survive the coming global warming and after watching that video, I don't think we deserve to either.
The display gets full points for not having any taste though..
... on Eucalyptus Avenue in San Carlos the whole neighborhood gets involved with spectacular lighting displays. While not technically elaborate or geeky as the linked video, it is still quite a sight. Kids, young and old, certainly enjoy it walking up and down the street enjoying the hospitality of the home owners.
Of course, it's a sight that would make Al Gore cry, but he's an old Hum Bugger anyway.
If enough houses got together, they could make a great set of fake runway lights for aircraft.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The Chaos Computer Club's Blinkenlights project lets you hook up games like Pong to hotel lighting systems. With the better resolution and greater refresh rate offered by christmas lights, it should be possible to get Doom or Quake to play quite nicely over the side of a mountain or something.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Canada.
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
We usually take our daughter to see it every year.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Incidentally, is that message on the door, "Jesus, the reason for the season", common? Not only is it a painful pun, it's wrong too.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.