Interesting Uses For a USB LED Screen? 403
Hogwash McFly writes "My boss gave me one of those USB-powered red LED scrolling displays as a Christmas gift, and while cycling the usual 'I read your emails' and 'ID10T Error' messages will be entertaining for a day or two, I was wondering if it could be put to more constructive uses. The configuration file is plaintext and supports different scroll speeds, flashing, bitmaps, and WAV sounds. The font is defined as 5x5 pixels per character, also stored in plaintext as 5 hex values, one for each vertical line of pixels. A dynamically generated message could prove useful in my day-to-day work on the helpdesk, but are there any interesting uses beyond network notifications and news feeds?"
Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
Depending the the tolerance level at your job for some of these; mix and match as many as you like, just give 'em ID headers:
Re:Matrix (Score:4, Funny)
I can haz Mac, plze?
There. Fixed it for you.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
toilet paper sensors..warning which stalls are nearly out.
notification of who didn't wash their hands after using the restroom
notification of when the coffee pot is nearly empty.
dupe'd slashdot articles
latest site brought to a screeching halt due to the /. effect
tracking the U.S. deficit in real-time
Re:Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
tracking the U.S. deficit in real-time
ERROR: Buffer overflow. Integer out of range.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, all your base haz Mac dancing, RLY.
Re:Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
Fill it with internet memes.
With a row of 5x5 pixel characters, Goatse is going to be limited to '=3OE='
Re:Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
=0=
ping times to websites where uptimes matter (Score:5, Interesting)
or look at anything done with the pertelian
http://www.pertelian.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=48 [pertelian.com]
Notification for everything (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I've always wanted to do that. Seems like it would be fun to have something I can use to give people nasty or confusing messages with.
>:)
Re:Notification for everything (Score:5, Funny)
>:)
I see... an Asteroids-esque space ship during reentry.
Re:Notification for everything (Score:5, Funny)
looks more like zoidberg with a paper hat, which is of course ridiculous, because he would have eaten it.
Re:Notification for everything (Score:5, Funny)
Unless you plan to put it in your car to give the finger to people honking at you in queue
Why give 'em the finger? You could generate messages instead:
"If you are close enough to read this, watch out for brake checks."
"This car protected by Smith & Wesson"
"If I passed you on the right you are in the wrong fucking lane"
"My kid beat up your honor student"
"Bad cop. No donut."
The possibilities are endless ;)
Re:Notification for everything (Score:5, Interesting)
"If I passed you on the right you are in the wrong fucking lane"
This is the one I would use the most. Apparently Ohioans don't understand the term "passing lane".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I go fast...I try to stay in the right lane as much as I can...only getting to the left to pass people, and then back to the right lane.
If someone wants to go faster than me (not that often)...more power to them, they'll hit the speed traps ahead of me....
Re: (Score:2)
Part of it is the annoying tendency of ODOT to put "THROUGH TRAFFIC KEEP LEFT" signs in cities. Good job, ODOT, now you've made everyone into a left lane hog.
(I keep as far right as possible, myself.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess his reasoning, misguided as it may be, was that the rightmost lanes would normally have more people driving at mismatched speeds, merging onto traffic, or crossing over in order to make it out through an exit ramp. Therefore, the left lane would have less opportunity of collisions.
-dZ.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That isn't half as annoying as those people who zip up and ride on my bumper when I'm already in the left lane trying to pass someone -- so fast I didn't see them coming -- and then they try to swerve over and get around me on the right side the moment I'm a car length ahead and about to pull to the right myself (and probably signaling my intentions to do so).
Yes, I know I'm supposed to be on the right when not passing -- SO GIVE ME THE @#%#%^@! time and space to get over there safely when I'm done, prefera
Re:Notification for everything (Score:4, Insightful)
In the immortal words of George Carlin... have you ever noticed that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a MANIAC!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Safe"? If someone else can zip around you, you had plenty of space to safely move to the right. (Even if what they did was unsafe, you had a full car length more than they did.)
The key thing is: If you're moving faster than the car to your right (and you'd better be, if you're trying to pass it) and there's no reason for you to slow down or stop in the near future (easily determined by looking ahead), there's absolutely no reason why about two car lengths isn't enough space to hit your blinker and start mo
Re:Notification for everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Please stop talking about things you obviously haven't thought through and don't understand.
If I pass then move over after just two car lengths, I've pretty much demonstrated the classic definition of cutting someone off. The only result is that they are then caused to either tailgate me or unexpectedly slow down, potentially causing a problem for the person behind them. Just because the guy flying up my butt is anxious is no reason for me to be a dick. His tailgating means we have two cars in an unsafe relationship and if we have a wreck we can at least have a hope of confining it to one lane. But if I try to get out of Mr. Speedracer's way by cutting off the guy in the lane next to me, we now have two unsafe maneuvers happening at the same time instead of one and I've involved another car and another lane in our potential accident. Bad news. Just because the guy behind me is stupid doesn't mean I want to join him in endangering my fellow motorists.
When I pass, I wait until I can see both headlights of the car I passed in my rearview mirror. Then I signal and move over. Anyone who thinks I wait too long to move over or who, worse, tries to shoot through the gap between us is an incompetent menace.
Re:Notification for everything (Score:5, Funny)
Just because the guy flying up my butt is anxious is no reason for me to be a dick.
You're doing it wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anyone considered the old rule (that almost everyone ignores, but the cops tend to remember) of 1 car-length per 10 miles per hour? So if you're going 65 and you have 2 car-lengths until the next car, YOU'RE TOO CLOSE.
Re:Notification for everything (Score:5, Insightful)
This rule will not allow sufficient traffic to move at posted speeds with the number of lanes available in most US highway configurations. So while the rule is a great guide for safety purposes, it is effectively useless in or near a city, because no one wants to spend extra hours on the road on the one hand, and the government won't allow high enough speeds to make those spacings practical for the vehicle density that is a modern fact of life.
And this, by the way, is one of the reasons I live and work in rural Montana.
Most US highway designs are so bad - insufficient to the task of safe and timely travel - that the only hope we really have is over-the-horizon technological. Car to car radar and status; automated response to same; deep infrared (heat) sensors; vastly improved light rail; isolation of travel corridors from debris, wildlife and pedestrians; the vague and unlikely hope that inexpensive flying capability will decongest the ground paths (and recover immense amounts of real estate.)
I've always thought that a truly advanced society would at least master how to contain and conserve light gases and go for personal airship transport, with elevated setups such as monorails for mass and heavy transit. Roads are such a waste of land, such a risk to wildlife, such resource- and maintainance-hogs...
But then again, we're still using and wasting power with streetlights long after they became obsolete. That whole advanced society thing... not us.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The one you hear in the UK is the "two-second rule" - leave two seconds' gap between you and the car in front. As the guy in front passes something - lamp-post, pothole, cats-eye, whatever, say out loud, "Only a fool breaks the two-second rule." It takes about two seconds. If you're still saying that when you get to the object, you're too close. Double it for wet conditions.
The nice thing about that is, it scales with the speed.
Re:Notification for everything (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope our far-left overlords are more benevolent than the far-right ones were.
If you think that the incoming President is far-left and the old President was far-right, then you need a refresher course in both politics and civics.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
George Bush is NOT on the far right, at least not what the far right used to be. He's invented a whole new category, and moved a bunch of people from the right into that.
I can't speak to the claim about Obama, I don't know the subtle nuances of the factions on the left. I can say he's against gay marriage, and his health care plan is only about 10% of what a real universal health care plan would be.
Re:Notification for everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither one of them are going to do anything to enhance my freedom, or let me keep more of my earnings. Where does that put them, authoritarian?
I recall reading in history books about when "liberals" were people that didn't trust or like government. Who usurped our word?
Re:Notification for everything (Score:5, Insightful)
What planet have you been on for the last 8 years?
I know it is sometimes an easy mistake to make, but far-stupid != far-right.
Re:Notification for everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
"Hey baby, you're hot"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How about something like:
"It's raining and I can barely see you. Turn your lights on."
"You are obviously drunk. Please pull over and take a nap before you kill someone."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're driving around where I live, people will actually mostly respect your turn signal. Unless you're a dumbass and have it blinking inanely when you could have successfully completed the action ten seconds ago, but I trust you're not one of those people.
As a result, when I complain about idiots driving slowly in the left lane, it isn't because they couldn't get over. It's because they could have and they were too stupid to do so. If they really can't get over, I can wait until they can, but they sure
Car notifications (Score:5, Interesting)
A message board in your car wouldn't necessarily have to give the finger or otherwise be witty/rude.
There are times when a rear-pointing message board could be extremely useful. Such as:
Your high-beams are on.
Your headlights are off.
Careful, the driver next to me is drunk.
And so on.
However, such signs very well may be illegal in some jurisdictions.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My favourite would be: Ever wondered why they're called fog lights, not it's-a-bit-cold-today lights?
A bit long, sadly.
pong (Score:5, Funny)
Re:pong or tetris (Score:3, Interesting)
Tetris has been played on just about everything [geekologie.com], I don't see why you can't port a crappy version to this screen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Tetris can't be crappy.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
neither can pong.
Obvious use (Score:3, Funny)
Put it in your window at home and use it to hollah for girls that pass by.
Here you go (Score:5, Funny)
porn video => avi to ascii converter => red hot LED action
Chatty Co-Worker Evasion (Score:2, Insightful)
Combine it with a motion sensor near your door, and have it warn you to duck under your desk.
ascii penis! (Score:2, Funny)
8=====D
Do you really need to ask? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Never underestimate a technology's capacity to be used for porn.
Rumor has it that man learned to walk upright to free his hands for "other" uses ;)
Re: (Score:2)
( ))===|D >+o ?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
does it have buttons on it? (Score:2)
Music (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting it to display audio level meters for your music would be kinda fun.
For maximum freakout potential (Score:5, Interesting)
For maximum freakout potential you'll need two things:
1) A microphone
2) Speech recognition software
Set the microphone up in a hidden place where it will pick up speech from folks hanging around your desk, and connect it to your computer. Set up the speech recognition software so it will spit out text to the LED display's interface.
Viola! Instant "Have we entered the twilight zone?" machine!
Re:For maximum freakout potential (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:For maximum freakout potential (Score:5, Interesting)
Ding ding. I think we have a winner! There's a Chatbot::Eliza perl module so this could be do-able. Now I want to get me one of those LED screens, so I can try this!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: Speech! (Score:2)
How big are those Wav files it supports? To TTS generated speech and play them back. That's way better info density than the led screen.
One word. (Score:2)
Pong
Oh I know! First thing to do is... (Score:3, Funny)
For kids (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been thinking it would be cool to get a sign like that and post it in a visible place at home, then use it to post announcements about my kids' accomplishments. I'd set it up so my wife could change it as well. We'd post things like "John did the dishes every day this week", "Mary aced her math test", etc.
The intent would be to show them we care and to give them positive reinforcement.
Re:For kids (Score:5, Funny)
I've been thinking it would be cool to get a sign like that and post it in a visible place at home, then use it to post announcements about my kids' accomplishments. I'd set it up so my wife could change it as well. We'd post things like "John did the dishes every day this week", "Mary aced her math test", etc.
The intent would be to show them we care and to give them positive reinforcement.
The result would be that not only will your kids know you're dorks, everyone else will too.
Re:For kids (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't you just TELL them?
I dread to think what you got them for Christmahannukwanzaa this year.
Re: (Score:2)
Only useful for the pointy-haired (Score:4, Funny)
The other helpdesk people are going to be focused on their tasks, not glancing around the room for the possibility of some LED screen update. If there's an actual issue they need to know about, you should already have something in place for that.
What managers love to see are things like average call time, # calls in the queue, and # dropped calls. If you can extract that out of your call tree application and put that up there, you're one step closer to pointy hair yourself.
Re:Only useful for the pointy-haired (Score:5, Insightful)
What about (Score:4, Funny)
Game of Life?
You could set up a countdown... (Score:2, Funny)
Keep safe (Score:5, Funny)
Use it as a ticker to scroll the real-time DoHS advisory status:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what the 'threat level' is today and I feel pretty safe.
Stock ticker (Score:3, Funny)
That shows stocks rising and falling at the will of its owner! Make people sell their Google stock so you can buy it slightly cheaper.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Code for configuration file:
\
\
\
Don't just say it, do it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't just say you read his emails. Actually put them up there! Continuous scroll of everything in your boss's inbox.
If you're slightly less daring, feed your log of all URLs (site name only, perhaps) as they're being viewed by anyone in the office. Your boss did make you keep a log, didn't he?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is by far the best suggestion I've seen thus far. Hours of entertainment!
Ebay! (Score:4, Funny)
Stick it on ebay and with the money you receive go and enjoy the fast food meal of your choice!
Caller ID (Score:4, Interesting)
Use it to display caller ID for incoming phone calls.
Statitical Reporting. (Score:4, Interesting)
Say create a program that manages your logs and you get a statistically significant increase of errors report the server giving the errors. You may want to fudge the statistics a bit to give more priority to Errors and less for warnings.
Or warn when you servers drive is near filled or something that would require manual action is near.
Back car window.. (Score:2)
Hey Einstein, riding my ass won't make me go any faster!
Tailgaters SUCK!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So you say it plays wav files? (Score:5, Funny)
OK! Useful. Here's what you do...
The day before you leave on your next vacation, set it up so that it loops the message "I love you!" and then set up the .wav file of Barney the dinosaur singing his "I love you, you love me" theme song. Remove the socket covers from your cube wall and attach the electrical leads that power the device directly to the power lines, covering them with two-inch thick conduit. Then epoxy encapsulate that power connection really well (if the connection happens to be through a wall wart, be sure to conduit and encapsulate those connections as well). Disable any power switch the device might have and leave. When you get back from your vacation, your co-workers will have all either quit or committed suicide and your path to the next level up the corporate chain will be cleared. Repeat as necessary until you are CEO. Take golden parachute and leave. You win!
Hello IT (Score:4, Funny)
Have you tried turning it off and on ?
Display Tweets (Score:3, Interesting)
Display tweets from twitter as the come in.
Use it to monitor a Linux box (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a cue from this post [slashdot.org] and write a script that uses vmstat and top to alter the scrolling speed and scroll something useful that shows the health of your box. You can cut one of the numbers pumped out by vmstat to set the scroll speed, and maybe grep, head, etc. something useful out of top to show on the screen. I'd write a little suggested script for you right here, but I have no idea what format your device wants its config file.
Put it back into work (Score:3, Interesting)
Here are some ideas for dynamically generated messages for use at work. (Assuming that you use a ticketing system at work.) Most of them use database backends that you can connect to using your favorite protocol. Find a useful way to display pertinent information on the display.
For example, do you have an overdue or high-priority ticket? Program it scroll a reminder. Do you queue tickets and handle them serially? Set it up to display the number of tickets in your queue and the header for the next ticket. Smaller helpdesk where you're responsible for managing systems? Display network metrics from your monitoring system. Managing helpdesk employees? Have it display metrics about your technicians.
Other fun stuff...if you have a swanky gaming rig at home - you could use it to monitor temperatures (ambient/case/CPU/GPU/Disk, etc). You could also pull CPU, disk, and network stats and display it as a histogram or bar.
some ideas (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, look at the kinds of things that people do with lcdproc [lcdproc.org]. One of those might inspire you. It sounds like you're talking about slightly different hardware, but I'd expect it to have similar applications.
Second: if you are a bad sysadmin (like me) and don't check your logs or statuses very often, and once found that you had run on a degraded software-RAID for several months, then write something that occasionally looks at /proc/mdstat and then says on your display "RAID OK" or "RAID degraded." That's one of the things I use my VFD for.
"XX seconds without thinking about sex." (Score:5, Funny)
Kind of like those safety signs at industrial sites that brag about the number of days without an accident.
Program the display so that the number of seconds continuously counts up, and then resets to zero after a random interval -- say thirty or forty seconds.
X-Files (Score:5, Funny)
There was an episode of the X-Files where people started seeing messages in digital displays--microwave ovens, watches, radios, etc. I forget the story of that episode, but the messages always urged violence, and something about them made people snap and go berserk.
If I had one of those displays, I'd have it displaying something mundane and useful like news, but periodically it would flash KILL HIM and YES YOU and KILL THEM ALL and KILL THEM BEFORE THEY KILL YOU.
But then, I am a sicko.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Synopsis and quotes [redwolf.com.au], including all LED messages.
Two words... (Score:3, Interesting)
packet sniffer
Use the good parts (Score:3, Interesting)
I would rip it open and use the LED matrices directly with a microcontroller. Vertical scrolling 5x7 text would look so much better, and non-text graphics would be cool too.
12:00 (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I like cocoa.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Better yet, coca of the month subscription?
Three words for you (Score:5, Funny)
PC LOAD LETTER
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Whoosh! [letmegoogl...foryou.com]