Slashdot Log In
Big Berlin Blinkenlichten
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Dec 10, 2001 08:35 AM
from the looking-pretty dept.
from the looking-pretty dept.
karm13 writes "The Chaos Computer Club has made a huge display using the 8 top floors of a house in Berlin with 18 windows each as a present to themselves and Berlin for their 20th birthday.
You can submit animations on the Blinkenlights project page, and even play pong with a mobile phone!"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Way cool... (Score:1, Funny)
Thatīs a damn large CRT! (Score:4, Funny)
Already slashdotted... (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
But anyway, that's not news at all, it's been around for at least three weeks...
Cool, but ...been there, done that (Score:2, Informative)
Nice to see the spirit lives on.
Hack of the year winner? (Score:2, Funny)
Blinkenpaint (Score:5, Interesting)
This is in the very heart of Berlin, ubercool! (Score:3, Interesting)
You just gotta love the CCC.
Blinkenlights (Score:2, Funny)
Achtung!
ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS
Das computenmachine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Is easy schnappen der springwerk, blownfusen, und poppenoorken mit spittzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen.
Das rubbernecken signtseeren keepen hands in das pockets--relaxen und watch das blinkenlights.
yeah, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Mmm. Low res activism. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh turn me on Helga. Turn me on.
Now all the trolls scramble together... (Score:1)
The best part... (Score:2, Interesting)
Is that they ported pong [blinkenlights.de] to it.
Damn these guys are cool (in an ultra-geeky way).
It should have won the Turner Prize. (Score:5, Funny)
Read about it here... [bbc.co.uk]
Shame us Nerds never enter these competitions, my exhibit "Servers in Various States of Disrepair" is surly a strong contender.
Similar projects (Score:5, Informative)
La Bastille: A Tech House Art Installation [techhouse.org]
That installation was up only a few days, though.
Re:Similar projects (Score:4, Funny)
Another cool thing is that they also distributed some programs to help you visualize the movies here. [blinkenlights.de]
And to think that I thought putting my xmas lights up and controllng them with X10 modules was pretty nifty. Oh well, time to start thinking bigger for next year!
been done (Score:1)
Colour version in Brussels for the millenium. (Score:3, Interesting)
More info on the colour version in Brussels... (Score:5, Interesting)
much web crawling later, you should check out Marnix 2001 [marnix2001.bbl.be] for the high budget alternative...
The hard part... (Score:3, Insightful)
You want to WHAT?? WHY????
MIT Hack (Score:3, Redundant)
link: http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1993/green_bld
and quite a while ago too
Color Blinkenlights (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't like to... (Score:1, Interesting)
And I wonder how much it costs to play pong?
This could be largest arcade machine in the world!
TU-Delft (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, I coundn't find pictures and the text is in dutch
http://etv.its.tudelft.nl/commissies/lustrum/st
Better than what I did. (Score:5, Interesting)
Prompted by tales of this having happened in the past, I created a poster consisting of a picture of a desk lamp, a date and time, and the words "watch and copy", one of which I placed in the foyer of each building.
At the allotted time, I turned off my main room light, and began flashing my desklamp on and off. Within 5 minutes all three towers were shimmering, including, I'm told, the faces not visible from my window.
It was a neat, if not original, social hack, and a lot of fun... This thing in Berlin is much cooler technically of course.
Canary Wharf (Score:1, Interesting)
Reminiscent of the Green Building (Score:2, Interesting)
This reminds me of the various hacks done on the Green Building [mit.edu] at MIT, my favourite being the VU metre [mit.edu].
Cool Project, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know if there are X-10 modules available in Germany though. Seems like an awful lot of work to run all that power around the building when you could just plug the lamp into a control modules and run it all with a firecracker X-10 serial controller.
Brian
quite recently - 14x16 display (Score:1, Interesting)
how it is done... (Score:5, Informative)
8 stories with 18 windows each
each windows is illuminated by a pretty standard contruction lamp with 150W
each lamp is connected to a relais (sp?)
the "Blinkenlights Chaos Control Center" is located in the top story
each relais is connected to the control machine with a simple amplifying circuit
5000m of cable were used (about 5500yards)
3 networked machines are used for central switching control, playing console and remote control
to ensure even illumination all windows have been covered with white paint
The entire setup took less than 4 weeks from idea to realization
Entirely Relevant (Score:2, Interesting)
blinking lights! (Score:3, Funny)
"Linda, Will you mar"
Unfortunately, I had forgotten it was only 18 x 8 pixels. Darn. Then there was a powercut.
Done before and better. (Score:1)
Live cam of the setup here. (Score:1, Informative)
Also see the site dedicated to the event here. [blinkenlights.de]
20736 lights! (according to the article) (Score:1)
This has been asked before, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
How are they really able to do this?
I don't mean the technical part (that part is relatively easy, from a hardware standpoint). I mean the legal/economic part?
Perhaps they got a grant for artistic reasons - but I tend to doubt that because they did it in four weeks.
The building seems to be pretty large - how did they:
a) Obtain an entire building for use for several months, and
b) Were allowed to paint 144 windows, and
c) Get the money to pay for bandwidth and electricity (somebody is paying it!), and
d) Do all of this inside of four weeks
???
The building can't be vacant - though it kinda looks that way from the pictures. Still, somebody owns it, and has to pay electricity and other costs, and would thus have to pass that along to the CCC (unless they have a "rich" member of the CCC who owns the building, which is quite possible), right?
Furthermore, wouldn't there be permits and such for such large public displays that would have to be procurred from the city government? Maybe things are radically different over there, and such legal stuff is easy to obtain in a very short amount of time, or not needed at all.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what CCC is? What function do they perform (I don't think they are a hacker group, right? Wasn't that something called the Kaos Komputer Klub?). I am just curious how they managed to pull off such a large display without running into financial or legal issues.
Lasers in Davos (Score:4, Interesting)
Featured in a video of the Toten Hosen (Score:2, Informative)
I have a picture!! (Score:3, Interesting)
In any case, it was pretty cool and I was watching it for a while, but that really doesn't look like a house, it's an office building in downtown Berlin... well "downtown" Berlin...
"wireless" Client/Server method? (Score:1)
Is anything available similar to this Serial Power Controller (RPC100S) [microenergeticscorp.com] at at least 1/10th the cost?
Re:bah (Score:1)
Also, your blinkenlightenflooden was unlikely to irritate me, it was the other poster who hated that word - I'm more annoyed by 'FUD'.
Finally, if you are going to reply to this (e.g. to write the word 'FUD' a lot) then for God's sake, log in! If it's important enough to reply to, then it's worth burning karma on. Karma really isn't that big a deal.
Unless you were posting as AC so as not to clog up the thread with a +1 post, of course.