Blinkenlights Reloaded - The Matrix Returns 115
An anonymous reader writes "On the occasion of this year's Chaos Communication Congress some hackers of the German CCC have set up another Blinkenlights installation in Berlin (they use the glass facade of a house as a giant computer screen). It is on the same house as from September 2001 till February 2002 but with similar capabilities to the installation in Paris in September/October 2002. Heise has a story about this (German, here's the Google translation), but actually there's better information on the project website itself."
Your mouth is reloaded (Score:-1, Flamebait)
Cool? (Score:-1, Offtopic)
FP (Score:-1, Troll)
Slashdotted! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:1)
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:1)
Gotta be blinking so fast the individual blinks are not actually visible anymore.
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:1)
/.'d (Score:-1, Redundant)
Glass Facade (Score:0)
Warum sind diese Leitartikel Aktuell? (Score:-1, Offtopic)
Re:Warum sind diese Leitartikel Aktuell? (Score:0)
Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
Re:Warum sind diese Leitartikel Aktuell? (Score:0)
Blinkenlights on the blink (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Blinkenlights on the blink (Score:0)
When will the US get one?! (Score:1)
Re:When will the US get one?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:When will the US get one?! (Score:0)
Re:When will the US get one?! (Score:4, Informative)
Several similar projects preceded the Berlin Blinkenlights.
La Bastille: A Tech House Installation, Providence, Rhode Island, USAm l [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org]
10 x 10 matrix of white lights
Links:
http://bastilleweb.techhouse.org/ [techhouse.org] [techhouse.org]
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/04/16/2148245.sht
Marnix 2001, Brussels, Belgium
52 x 7 matrix of RGB lights
Links:
http://marnix2001.bbl.be/ [marnix2001.bbl.be] [marnix2001.bbl.be]
MIT's Green Building Sound (VU) Meter, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USAg _vu_meter/green_bldg_vu_meter.html [mit.edu] [mit.edu]
9 x 1 matrix of red lights
Links:
http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1993/green_bld
Clickscape 98, Linz, Austria
13 x 8 matrix of white lights
Links:
http://www.servus.at/clickscape98/ [servus.at] [servus.at]
Poli-uni students dorm, Warsaw, Poland
14 x 16 matrix of white lights
Links:
http://www.astercity.net/~kvas/riviera.jpg [astercity.net] [astercity.net]
Re:When will the US get one?! (Score:1, Interesting)
He actually got Slashdotted last year
Re:When will the US get one?! (Score:0)
Re:When will the US get one?! (Score:0)
Re:When will the US get one?! (Score:0)
Atlanta Will have Blinkinlights Feb/March 2004 (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Atlanta Will have Blinkinlights Feb/March 2004 (Score:1)
(Take this mental image away - it burns!)
Re:When will the US get one?! (Score:0)
no seriuosly, you will receive tremendous media coverage and it will look cool on your resume.
THIS gets a story... (Score:-1, Offtopic)
Come on guys.
The man approved the US's pathetic "anti-spam" law, the one that killed stronger State provisions. Now he hires out spammers to annoy the entire nation, trolling for money for his reelection bid.
And the Slashdot editors want to hush it all up because he's a Democrat.
In my mind, Blinkenlights is a *tad* less important than our getting betrayed by our elected officials.
And thus begins the Mod coverup... (Score:-1, Offtopic)
Re:THIS gets a story... (Score:4, Funny)
For SHAME!! This is AMURICA!! Don't you realize that flashy blinky things are of far more importance than our own government? I mean, really, pointing out government hippocracies and caring about what happens? You must be some kind of commie TERRORIST!!! Go back to Canada, Ivan.
Now if you'll excuse me, FOX News is on and I wouldn't want to miss any Fair and Balanced (tm) News (tm)
*Turns on Das Blinkentelevision*
*Drool*
Re:THIS gets a story... (Score:1)
already down, down, down (Score:2, Funny)
Re:already down, down, down (Score:1)
Very cool concept (Score:-1, Troll)
In a related story... (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:In a related story... (Score:-1, Redundant)
*in Neo voice:* I know Script-Fu!
Expert Advice (Score:-1, Offtopic)
Achtung! (Score:5, Funny)
Ja, un der blinkenlichtkonzept ist ubercool, duden! Ich vil ein blinkenlicht fur meinen desktaupkomputer fur Kerstmis.
Oh jeez, I can't keep the accent up. Anyone got a mirror?
OT: Re:Achtung! (Score:0)
That reminded me of this translator [rinkworks.com]. My personal favorite dialect is Swedish Chef. Bork! Bork! Bork!
Re:OT: Re:Achtung! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:OT: Re:Achtung! (Score:0)
[apologies to any nederlands and deutsch out there]
Comment removed (Score:2)
Re:Achtung! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Achtung! (Score:2, Informative)
Just something to think about: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just something to think about: (Score:1)
Play the Matrix on the matrix?
Their servers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Their servers (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Their servers (Score:0)
Re:Their servers (Score:2)
Too bad you post at 0, that's pretty funny
In case of slashdotting... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In case of slashdotting... (Score:1, Funny)
droppenpacket der routers und overloaden der backbone mit der trollen
und der karma-whoren. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das
mausklicken sichtseeren keepen das bandwit-spewin hans in das pockets
muss; relaxen und watchen das cursorblinken.
Re:In case of slashdotting... (Score:0)
Re:In case of slashdotting... (Score:3, Informative)
--
Re:In case of slashdotting... (Score:2)
Ascii Matrix (Score:5, Informative)
$ telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl 24
Terminal window should be 200x59, with black text on white background for best results.
Some people have way to much time.
Re:Ascii Matrix (Score:4, Funny)
You've managed to slashdot a * TELNET * server.
What's next, slashdotting a bunch of pigeons? jeebus.
Turkey guts [slashdot.org], by the way.
Re:Ascii Matrix (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Ascii Matrix (Score:0)
Methinks you are smoking teh crack
Re:Ascii Matrix (Score:1)
Way ahead of ya, buddy [slashdot.org]
Re:Ascii Matrix (Score:2, Interesting)
Hummm what a good idea.
Article Text (Score:5, Informative)
The Matrix returns!
From December 22th, 2003 to January 4th, 2004 there will be a short revival of our Berlin installation: Blinkenlights Reloaded. The building Haus des Lehrers - currently under reconstruction - will be operated as we did it before. A new version of BlinkenPaint lets you create movies and you can play the interactive game Pong and activate your personal loveletters with your mobile phone.
Pong and your loveletters await you when you dial 0190-987654. A call is EUR 1,24 per minute (with every second counted). The income goes to the CCC to cover operational costs so that we can keep Blinkenlights free from ads now and in the future.
Blinkenlights Reloaded uses the technology we have developed for Arcade in Paris last year. That means greyscales. Version 3 of BlinkenPaint supports this as well as our new movie file format BML.
We invite you to send us your animations which we will bring to life on the big screen. And it works like this: [1] create your movies with BlinkenPaint, [2] save them in a text file (BML) and [3] attach it to an e-mail to movies@blinkenlights.de
If the movie is a personal Blinkenlights Loveletter and you want to get a code to activate your movie yourself at any time, send it to loveletters@blinkenlights.de instead.
We are happy to be able to bring Blinkenlights back to life and hope it won't be the last time. For us the first installation was big fun and this time it should no less. If you don't know the first incarnation, check out our documentation video.
We also hope that we won't get flooded by movies. We are going to be quite busy during as there is the Chaos Communication Congress taking place at the same time just next to the building. So things can get lost. But we are willing to have a look at everything we get, but we are just not going to make promises that your movie will run.
Re:Article Text (Score:2)
You have a Blinkenlights INSTAkiss!
To view your Blinkenlights INSTAkiss, please visit blinkenlights.de and enter your AOL username and password. Somebody loves you, find out who right now! Click here [blinkenlights.de] NOW!!!
MOD THIS WHORE DOWN! (Score:0)
Nothing beats the Burroughs B-205 (Score:1, Interesting)
(the old 1960's Batman TV series...all the batcomputers are B205 consoles)
They are the ultimate in Blinkenlights.
Pics!? :) (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.adognamedfish.com/gallery/blinkenlight
Video (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Video (Score:0)
Quite nice indeed!
House? (Score:-1, Troll)
Might as well muse on the nature of Slashdotting.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Might as well muse on the nature of Slashdottin (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Might as well muse on the nature of Slashdottin (Score:0)
(and no, I'm not the original poster, I just don't want to take a karma hit if the moderator decides to take a lame crack at me too.)
Re:Might as well muse on the nature of Slashdottin (Score:1, Interesting)
On the top of all Fark comment pages, they tell how many times the link has been followed. It is usually only around 4-5,000 click throughs. I've heard Slashdot generates considerably more than that on most stories.
Re:Might as well muse on the nature of Slashdottin (Score:3, Insightful)
Aww... (Score:3, Funny)
Rus
Paris Movies (Score:5, Interesting)
http://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/media/Blinkenlights/ [acc.umu.se]
Damn cool.
So it'll look pretty similar, I imagine.
Re:Paris Movies (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Paris Movies (Score:0)
I'm sure that would knock their socks off!
Re:Paris Movies (Score:2)
ATTENTION (Score:2, Funny)
Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is
allowed for die experts only! So all the "lefthanders" stay away
and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working
intelligencies. Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked
anderswhere! Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished
the blinkenlights.
Tetris on MIT's Green Building (Score:1, Interesting)
Fluro's are not dead (Score:1)
Page Text (Score:4, Informative)
Celebrating its 20th anniversary [www.ccc.de] the Chaos Computer Club [www.ccc.de] has made a special present to itself and the city of Berlin. From September 12th, 2001 to February 23rd, 2002, the famous "Haus des Lehrers" (house of the teacher) office building at Berlin Alexanderplatz has been enhanced to become world's biggest interactive computer display: Blinkenlights (a term defined by the Jargon File [jargonfile.com]).
The upper eight floors of the building were transformed in to a huge display by arranging 144 front windows. A computer controlled each of the lamps independently to produce a monochrome matrix of 18 times 8 pixels.
During the night, a constantly growing number of animations could be seen. But there was an interactive component as well: you were able to play the old arcade classic Pong [slashdot.org] on the building using your mobile phone and you could place your own loveletters [slashdot.org] on the screen as well.
Blinkenlights was up and running at until February 23rd, 2002 [slashdot.org], running 23 weeks and 5 days in total. During that period, we constantly improved its feature set. Even now, work on Blinkenlights is not completed. The software has been released [slashdot.org] as Free Software under GPL. Our documentation video [slashdot.org] shows all aspects of the project in 11 minutes.
For the friends of Blinkenlights we have prepared a little trailer movie [QuickTime 5 Format, 3,2 MB [slashdot.org]] [MPEG-1 Format, 3 MB [slashdot.org]]. If you want the soundtrack of the trailer have a look here [uni-bonn.de].
Overview
[slashdot.org] Using your mobile phone you could play Pong [slashdot.org] with Blinkenlights or your friend. The program Blinkenpaint [slashdot.org] enables you to create your own animations allowing you to take part in our contest [slashdot.org].
For the nerds there is a description of the Blinkenlights Movie format [slashdot.org] and a couple of nice tools [slashdot.org] to display and convert your animations. A look behind the scenes [slashdot.org] reveals some technical details of our system.
A list of press reports [slashdot.org] about Blinkenlights und a couple of interesting links to other projects [slashdot.org] complete the overview. Get a regular update on what is going on with the project on our News [slashdot.org] page.
WebCam
Those who wanted to have a remote view on the building were able to have a look at the pictures of our webcam. The WebCam is no longer in operation. We are going to publish the WebCam picture archive here soon.
The BerlinOnline WebCam [berlin.de] looked at Blinkenlights as well, although it was a bit more distant than our cam. Maybe you find some nice pictures in their archive as well.
Contact
Although the installation itself is now dismantled, the Blinkenlights project group is still active. Your contact for inquiries of all kinds is Tim Pritlove contact@blinkenlights.de [mailto].
If you are interested getting information on our future activities, please send a mail to blinkenlights-update-subscribe@lists.ccc.de [mailto].
Re:Page Text (Score:4, Interesting)
It really amazes me just how much longevity the CCC has displayed, despite having gotten mixed up in scrambles that would have totally taken apart anyone less hardy. From concerns that one of their members might have been bumped [landfield.com] off [wired.com], working for the KGB [itsecurity.com], breaking into NASA [phrack.com]... and somehow still finding time to run the Blinkenlights and the congress every year.
I know I would have cashed my chips and left a group like that a long time ago. Hats off guys, how do you do it?
YLFISimular Holiday Inn Hartford CT. (Score:2)
I recall there being a Holiday Inn off the 91 freeway in hartford CT. During Christmas they woudl place lights in the windows to form christmas trees and other simple graphics. I even remember once when the Patriots were to move to hartford I drove by and it spelled out NFL. i'm sure ofcourse it's all l manually done but cool none the less.
One Christmas in London... (Score:4, Interesting)
But as I was going home by bus, I was far enough away (and the traffic jam gave me plenty of time to look) to notice the lights were using the objects as a billboard to scroll messages.
It was wonderfully impressive to witness, even on that small scale.
"GOD JUL" on Kista Science Tower (Score:0)
Oh my god .. (Score:1)
Never mind matrix.... (Score:0)
Re:Never mind matrix.... (Score:1)
Re:Never mind matrix.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Never mind matrix.... (Score:1)
Text from the website (Score:1, Redundant)
Blinkenlights Reloaded
Die Matrix kehrt zuruck!
Vom 22.12. bis zum 04.01.2003 wird es ein kurzes Revival unserer Installation aus Berlin geben: Blinkenlights Reloaded. Uber die Weihnachtsfeiertage bespielen wir das noch in Sanierung befindliche Haus des Lehrers erneut und nach bekanntem Rezept. Eine neue Version vonBlinkenPaint erlaubt das Erstellen von Animationen und die Pong und die Loveletters konnen wieder uber das Telefon abgerufen werden.
Die Telefondienste stehen wieder unter der Rufnummer 0190-987654 bereit. Ein Anruf kostet EUR 1,24 pro Minute (sekundengenaue Abrechnung). Die Einnahmen fliessen als Spende an den CCC zur Deckung der Betriebskosten, damit Blinkenlights auch in Zukunft werbefrei bleibt.
Blinkenlights Reloaded setzt die Technologie ein, die wir fur die InstallationArcade im letzten Jahr in Paris entwickelt haben. Damit konnen wir auch mit Graustufen umgehen. Die neue Version 3 von BlinkenPaint unterstutzt dies genauso wie das von uns bevorzugte Format BML.
Wir laden Euch erneut dazu ein, das ihr uns Animationen schickt, die wir dann auf dem Haus zum Spielen bringen. Das geht so: [1] Erstellt die Filme mit BlinkenPaint, [2] speichert sie als Textdatei ab (BML) und [3] hangt dann diese Datei an eine Mail an und schickt Sie an
movies@blinkenlights.de
Wenn der Film ein Blinkenlights Loveletter ist und Ihr einen Freischaltcode fur das Telefon erhalten wollt, um den Film jederzeit selbst aufrufen zu konnen, schickt den Film stattdessen an loveletters@blinkenlights.de.
Wir freuen uns, wieder die Gelegenheit zu haben, Blinkenlights zum Laufen zu bringen und hoffen, dass es auch (noch) nicht das letzte Mal war. Fur uns war die erste Installation ein grosser Spass und das soll er nun wieder werden (wer die Originalinstallation nicht kennt, kann sich ja nochmal einen Eindruck durch unser Video machen).
Ausserdem hoffen wir, dass uns die Einsendungen nicht uberfluten. Da wir alle wahrend der Leuchtzeit auch noch kraftig mit dem Chaos Communication Congress beschaftigt sind, kann auch mal was verloren gehen. Wir bitten um Nachsicht, werden uns aber bemuhen alle Anfragen zu bearbeiten.
You all speak german, so there is no need for me to translate it, right?
colourBlinken? (Score:0, Funny)
uninspired and tired lights? (Score:0)
They have done this in Hungary as well, (Score:1)
Controllable Christmas Lights ala Blinkenlights (Score:4, Insightful)
This got Slashdotted [slashdot.org] last year, but the what's New for 2003 [komar.org] says a "beefed up web server and faster ISP connectivity" - if nothing else, maybe the neighbors need need to see the Blinkenlights courtesy of Slashdot again?!?
shashdotted?? (Score:0)
Rough translation by me! (Score:2, Informative)
I am a native German speaker and therefore i am subject to mistakes. Right now, I am having problems concentrating, so don't blame me for any mistakes. By continuing reading, you confirm that you have read and agreed to the above disclaimer. Here you go:
Blinkenlights reloaded
This year there will be another Blinkenlights installation, this time, after a detour to paris, once again in Berlin. From 22th December until 4th January the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) will again be playing them on Haus des Lehrers [The Teacher's House; translator's note] with a light installation. A new version of BlinkenPaint makes the creation of animations possible. The "ping pong"-game and provided "love movies" can once again be requested by phone by calling [from outside of Germany, pre-dial: "+49 190", from inside: "0190"; translator's note] 987654. Each call is EUR 1,24 per minute [from Germany! It will be more, if you call from anywhere else; translator's note]. The money will go to the CCC to pay the amount due to operate BlinkenLights, so it can be maintained without advertising in the future, said the CCC.
For Blinkenlights Reloaded, the name of this year's event, the same technology will be used, which has been developed for Arcade in Paris. So grey scale will be possible, which is supported by the new version 3 of BlinkenPaint. Everybody interested can send animations as email attachments to movies@blinkenlights.de. They will be played on the house. The movies need to be created with BlinkenPaint previously and saved as a text-file in the BML-file-format.
Blinkenlights/BlinkenArea at Chaos Congress (Score:2, Informative)
See BlinkenArea [wiki.ccc.de] for more information.
We would be very pleased if you can come to visit us. But we're also planing to run a telnet-based real-time BlinkenStream and a Webcam for those who can not come.
Fight club? (Score:1)