Tech History Behind New York's New Year's Eve Ball

Toe, The writes "A perennial icon of New Year's Eve is the geodesic ball which first dropped in Times Square in 1907. Over the past century, there have been seven iterations of this ball. The first one, made out of iron and wood, weighed 400 pounds and sported one hundred 25-watt bulbs. The current ball weighs almost six tons and uses 32,256 Philips Luxeon Rebel LEDs. The designers expect there to be more tech improvements to the ball soon. What do you think of the ball and the bizarre status it holds in our culture? How would you change it for years to come?"

Comments

32256 LEDs?

[Kazymyr]

So what happened to the other 512?

Are they on a private network?

Re:32256 LEDs?

[VanGarrett]

Those addresses were lost to subnetting.

Zerglings.

[Octopuscabbage]

It should drop and explode and 500 zerglings should pop out. It would be cool, because I live far away, and im sure our marines would have teched by then.

Ships set your chronometers

[twrake]

Watching a dropped ball was a historical way of setting a marine chronometer up and until the advent of radio signals. Pre 1920 watching a dropping ball was essential tech.

from :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer

It was common for ships at the time to observe a time ball, such as the one at Greenwich, to check their chronometers before departing on a long voyage. Every day, ships would anchor briefly in the River Thames at Greenwich, waiting for the ball at the observatory to drop at precisely 1pm.

Re:Just the east coast?

[Frosty Piss]

"dropping of the big spud"

In Eugene Oregon where I grew up, we had the "lighting of the big joint", but a few years back they updated the technology to the "torching of the big bowl" with a giant 10 foot tall water bong. It's an Oregon thing...

Re:Just the east coast?

[oldspewey]

Also, why is it dropping? What's that symbolic of?

The US dollar?

Re:Say, whaaaa?

[dgatwood]

No, I'm pretty sure the TSA is not involved in any way.